Comments to the Neighborhoods USA Conference

Ellen Lazar
Executive Director, Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation

May 22, 2003

Thank you, Mayor Corker, for that wonderful introduction.

I am very pleased and proud to be here today with so many enthusiastic community activists who are committed to building and maintaining strong neighborhoods in every pocket of this great nation. I want to thank Mr. William for inviting me to join you today.

It is a tremendous honor to talk with you. As leaders of neighborhood associations,
you are the catalysts of sustainable change. You spend your precious free time volunteering in a very honorable cause--helping to make your communities stronger.
Thank you for all that you do.
[lead applause]

I also am delighted to be back in the lovely city of Chattanooga. I had a chance yesterday, thanks to Gerry Konohia of the Chattanooga Neighborhood Enterprise, to tour some of the neighborhoods. I saw firsthand the tremendous results of all the hard work that has gone into developing strong communities throughout this city. You, Mayor Corker, and the people of Chattanooga deserve a big round of applause for your achievements.

I also want to commend Gerry and the staff of Chattanooga Neighborhood Enterprise, for all the wonderful work they are doing. I remember the days back in the late 1980s when CNE was a fledgling organization, struggling to get its first projects underway.

I was then general counsel of the Enterprise Foundation and was part of the support team that helped new community development organizations grow wings and fly. What a distance CNE has traveled since then! I am proud to say that today Chattanooga Neighborhood Enterprise is a leading--and very productive--member of the NeighborWorks network, the nationwide network of 225 community development organizations that is supported by Neighborhood Reinvestment.

Nonprofit organizations, like those who are part of the NeighborWorks network, work tirelessly to provide a myriad of much needed services to low- and moderate-income families throughout the United States. Affordable housing opportunities, financial counseling, and economic development programs are chief among the services they offer.

As neighborhood leaders, many of you are concerned about the housing conditions and financial well-being of your neighbors. You want to know if the resources are available to meet their needs. That is what I am going to talk about today--the state of the community development field.

The story of Chattanooga Neighborhood Enterprise -- and, indeed that of the NeighborWorks system -- is reflective of the story of the whole community development and community building movement. And that story is anchored in the theme for this conference, "Building on a Vision of Healthy, Sustainable Neighborhoods."

It all began back in the 1960s with individuals and small groups of community activists, like yourselves, who shared a dream of bringing decaying neighborhoods back to life.

The roots of the NeighborWorks system reach back to a resident-led, 1968 campaign for better housing in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Dorothy Mae Richardson, a homemaker and community activist, persuaded city bankers and government officials to join her block club in a battle against slumlords and rats. Eventually, 16 financial institutions committed to make conventional loans in the neighborhood and a local foundation capitalized a revolving loan fund. To manage the initiative, Mrs. Richardson's block club rented a trailer to use as an office, hired staff and dubbed their public-private partnership Neighborhood Housing Services.

Word of the achievements in Pittsburgh ultimately reached the White House. People there quickly realized that the success in Pittsburgh could serve as a model for the rest of the country. The Nixon Administration then set about funding the growth of community-based organizations throughout the United States. That was the beginning of the NeighborWorks system.

This is how the community development movement was born. It grew out of the recognition by a few determined souls -- just like yourselves -- that efforts at the grassroots level were all that could -- and would-- save dying communities all across the United States, in urban areas and rural acres, in large cities and small towns, in industrial neighborhoods and agricultural communities. The individuals and the organizations persevered and ultimately began achieving success at turning around communities, improving daily life for thousands of people, one block at a time.

And as they struggled, the organizations and their leaders gained knowledge and skills, growing in sophistication. Now most nonprofits, like Chattanooga Neighborhood Enterprise, function as small, nonprofit businesses. Everyday, these organizations:

• put together complicated financial deals with public and private sector partners that leverage scarce resources,
  
  
• plan and construct building projects with multiple components,
  
  
• foster groundbreaking economic development programs, and
  
  
• manage training and education programs that help struggling families gain the skills and knowledge they need to add to the quality of their lives.

I am personally very proud to see how far the community development field has come--and how sophisticated it has grown-- over the 15 years that I have been part of it.

I am also very proud to now be leading an organization that has played an instrumental role in the growth and maturation of the field. This year Neighborhood Reinvestment celebrates the 25th anniversary of the NeighborWorks system. It's a perfect time to reflect on the history of the community development movement, the role of neighborhood associations, the lessons we have learned along the way and how these lessons apply to the future.

Many of the challenges confronted by those early leaders of the community development movement are still with us today.

Resources are still scarce. All of us struggle daily to find the dollars necessary to meet the host of needs. Yes, we have learned to leverage the financing provided by governments at all levels and the generous contributions of our committed private sector partners.

That has helped tremendously to stretch slim budgets and add to our capacity.
But a slow economy and tight governmental budgets have increased this challenge.
I don't see that changing anytime soon. All of us are going to have to continue honing our skills at leveraging so that we achieve the maximum from every investment.

We are also going to have to continue finding new sources of revenue. As the community development field has matured, we have found partners beyond our local, state and federal governments. We have developed strong relationships with many leading companies in the housing, banking, financial services and insurance sectors. We now need to reach beyond these established partners. We need to look for other private sector partners and educate them as to why they have a stake in building healthy, sustainable neighborhoods.

The needs of the communities we are serving are as daunting today as they were when this movement was born back in the 1960s. Despite the tremendous achievements of the field, the problems we confront daily are still numerous and intractable. As leaders of neighborhood associations, you know these challenges as well as I do:

• Too many people still live in substandard housing.
  
  
• Too few and families of modest means and minorities are able to achieve the dream of homeownership.
  
  
• Economic doors of opportunity are still closed for too many people.

The social problems that go hand-in- hand with entrenched poverty still present enormous hurdles.

And there are new challenges. Today, we serve a more diverse population;
many of whom are immigrants struggling with English as a second language. Many of the people and the communities we serve are growing older; aging people and
communities have very special needs. And, more community development organizations are working in rural communities than ever before. The needs of rural communities are as challenging as those of the inner cities where this movement was born a generation ago.

To continue meeting all of these challenges we must continue to grow in sophistication.
We have made tremendous strides in the past few decades. Our "do-gooder" mentality has been enhanced with a cunning sagacity for business.

We have learned to operate as successful small businesses. We must get even better at this in the future. One goal of every community development organization--
and the intermediaries who support them-- must be to nurture strong boards of directors.

We must maintain healthy financial operations, managing to budgets, cultivating new sources of funding and leveraging investments to the absolute maximum. We must embrace strategic planning, moving forward with defined objectives and well thought-out plans of action. And we must grow a new generation of leaders. We need to ensure that there is a strong pipeline of talent ready and eager to lead the community development field in future years.

While we do all of this, we can never lose sight of our mission. That's right; I said mission. Because that's what the community development movement is all about.
We are about people helping people, neighbors lending helping hands to neighbors.
Those are our roots and we must never lose sight of them.

We fail in our ability to serve our communities when we lose touch with their needs. Our projects, our plans, all must reflect the needs and interests in the communities we work in if they are to be successful. We must never lose touch with the social and economic dynamics of our diverse neighborhoods. Nor can we ever stop listening to the informed and active residents who are our partners in achieving lasting change. The people who live in a neighborhood are the ones who know best what their community needs.

You, as leaders of neighborhood associations, can help us greatly in fulfilling
this commitment. You can be a tremendous source of information and support to community development organizations working to help build healthy, sustainable neighborhoods in your towns and cities. We need your help.

As we all know, the character of communities can change swiftly, seemingly overnight.

If we do not keep our fingers on the pulse of our communities, we fail in our mission. Neighborhood Reinvestment requires our nonprofit affiliates to involve neighbors and residents in the leadership and development of all our projects and services.
That way, our efforts are driven by the wisdom of residents, not by outsiders.

None of this is easy stuff. It wasn't easy when the community development movement was born 40 years ago; it's not easy now, and it's not going to be easy in the future. That's what makes it so much fun!

Seriously, however, that's what keeps us on our toes. That's what keeps us looking for new solutions, new ways to meet constant challenges. It takes committed, caring, creative people to do this-- just like all of you. So what are we doing to grow the community development field?

As you may know, Neighborhood Reinvestment was established by Congress
25 years ago. The goal was to support grassroots organizations struggling to:
build decent housing, restore devastated communities, and enhance economic opportunities. We started in the 1970s with 34 pilot groups operating in about a dozen states. Today, the NeighborWorks network encompasses 225 community development organizations serving more than 2,000 urban, suburban and rural communities.

Over these past 25 years, the NeighborWorks system has been in the vanguard of the community development field.

• We have pioneered advances in developing multifamily housing units.
  
  
• We have experimented with various models for creating successful mixed-used communities.
  
  
• We have created cutting-edge training programs. These efforts help grassroots leaders gain the skills and knowledge they must have to grow and manage their organizations.
  
  
• We broke new ground 10 years ago in opening homeownership opportunities to minorities and families of modest means with our Campaign for Home Ownership. Recently, we initiated the use of Section 8 housing vouchers as a means of helping families finance a mortgage. The program has proved tremendously successful.

In short, the NeighborWorks system has served as a laboratory. We have created and tested many innovative models to meet the often daunting challenges confronting our communities. Through it all-- at the heart of all of our programs and projects-- are resident leaders. We have not lost touch--or sight-- of the fact that it is the active involvement of the people, like yourselves, who are living in the communities we serve and actively engaged in preserving them, who know best the needs of their neighborhoods. Our Resident Leadership Initiative is responsible for keeping community leaders directly involved in our ongoing programs and in creating new programs to meet evolving and emerging needs.

As the NeighborWorks system moves into the future, we intend to continue serving as a laboratory, to lead the way in introducing new and successful techniques for transforming neighborhoods, to making it possible for families of modest means to have decent, affordable housing in safe, stable communities.

We are eagerly embracing the future.

• The new phase of our Campaign for Home Ownership already is on track to exceed its goals. This initiative will help another 50,000 low- and moderate-income families become first-time homebuyers.
  
  
• Our Training Institute is launching new courses that will help community development leaders master complex management systems and technology.
  
  
• Our rural initiatives team is rapidly developing tools and techniques to help meet their unique needs.
  
  
• Our Resident Leadership Initiative is stepping up its community resident leadership training program to help develop the neighborhood activists of the future.
  
  
• And, finally, we are hard at work to raise the profile of the community development field. By drawing greater attention to our work and our achievements, we will help attract the additional resources that we need.

Yes, the future is challenging. But it is also exciting. There is nothing more rewarding than helping people and communities build a better quality of life. Everyday, we meet new demands, confront new issues. And everyday, we get better at meeting them.

I hope that all of us will leave this conference even more energized, even more enthusiastic about our mission and our work that is "Building on a Vision of Healthy, Sustainable Neighborhoods." I know I will be.

Thank you.