Location: New Orleans, LA
Website: nola.gov/city/welcome-table
The Welcome Table New Orleans is an initiative of the Mayor’s Office focused on race, reconciliation and community.The Welcome Table will bring diverse groups of New Orleanians together to share experiences, share stories, build relationships, listen & learn from each other and finally create and execute projects that will build a better, stronger city.
Welcome Table Groups (diverse groups of no more than 25 people) will come together to work through a facilitated process of discussion, relationship building and action. By meeting in safe, civil, secure, structured and facilitated spaces, Welcome Table Groups will be able to work through each phase to build greater understanding of each other and critical issues facing our city. Groups will meet in various locations throughout four parts of the city: Central City, St. Roch, Algiers and Little Woods. However, any resident of New Orleans will be eligible to participate. Projects that develop from each Welcome Table Group will not be required to take place in the neighborhood in which they are conceived.
All residents of the city of New Orleans are invited to sign up for a potential spot in a Welcome Table Group.
Since his time as Lt. Governor, Mayor Landrieu has had a keen interest in racial reconciliation and community building. In 2004, Mayor Landrieu learned of the work of the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation (based at the University of Mississippi). At the time, The Winter Institute had been working exclusively on reconciliation efforts in Mississippi. With Louisiana and Mississippi sharing similar histories with race related conflicts, then Lt. Governor Landrieu began conversations with the Winter Institute to share their proven model with Louisiana. Those conversations slowed when Hurricane Katrina hit, but when Mayor Landrieu assumed office in 2010 the opportunity to engage in racial reconciliation efforts rose to the forefront again.
The Winter Institute
was chosen as the City’s partner because of their proven model of success in Mississippi and the shared alignment of values with the Landrieu Administration, that is, bringing diverse groups of people together who seek common ground.
After a process of focus groups, test retreats and meetings, the City of New Orleans received a $1.2 million grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to implement a multi-year process to support a racial reconciliation initiative in the city. The Winter Institute, which uses its own funding to do its work, will provide training and technical support. The Urban League of Greater New Orleans, also a partner in this work, will also provide technical assistance and serve as the initiative’s fiscal agent.
Sunday, December 20, 2015
Thursday, November 12, 2015
Land and Water Conservation Fund
Location: Nationwide
Website: lcwfcoalition
Created by Congress in 1965, the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) was a bipartisan commitment to safeguard natural areas, water resources and our cultural heritage, and to provide recreation opportunities to all Americans. National parks like Rocky Mountain, the Grand Canyon, and the Great Smoky Mountains, as well as national wildlife refuges, national forests, rivers and lakes, community parks, trails, and ball fields in every one of our 50 states were set aside for Americans to enjoy thanks to federal funds from the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF).
It was a simple idea: use revenues from the depletion of one natural resource - offshore oil and gas - to support the conservation of another precious resource - our land and water. Every year, $900 million in royalties paid by energy companies drilling for oil and gas on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) are put into this fund. The money is intended to create and protect national parks, areas around rivers and lakes, national forests, and national wildlife refuges from development, and to provide matching grants for state and local parks and recreation projects. Yet, nearly every year, Congress breaks its own promise to the American people and diverts much of this funding to uses other than conserving our most important lands and waters.
As a result, there is a substantial backlog of federal land acquisition needs estimated at more than $30 billion—including places vulnerable to development such as the Florida Everglades, Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona, Civil War battlefields in Virginia and other precious places around the country. State governments also report needing $27 billion in LWCF funds for eligible local parks and recreation projects.
The LWCF program has permanently protected nearly five million acres of public lands including some of America’s most treasured assets such as Grand Canyon National Park, the Appalachian National Scenic Trail, the White Mountain National Forest, and Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge, the nation’s first federal refuge.
Over the duration of the program, funding for LWCF has varied yearly, falling drastically in the last few years to total less than $100 million in 2007. Today, the four federal land management agencies (National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Forest Service, and Bureau of Land Management) estimate the accumulated backlog of deferred federal acquisition needs to be around $30 billion. Opportunities to protect fish and wildlife habitat, provide public access for recreation, preserve our nation’s most notable historic and cultural sites, and protect scenic vistas are being lost every day to development.
The LWCF state assistance program provides matching grants to help states and local communities protect parks and recreation resources. Running the gamut from wilderness to trails and neighborhood playgrounds, LWCF funding has benefited nearly every county in America, supporting over 41,000 projects. This 50:50 matching program is the primary federal investment tool to ensure that families have easy access to parks and open space, hiking and riding trails, and neighborhood recreation facilities. Over the life of the program, more than $3 billion in LWCF grants to states has leveraged more than $7 billion in nonfederal matching funds. But funding levels have been unpredictable and the average annual appropriation since fiscal year 1987 is a mere $40 million—despite the need for millions more. Today, the National Park Service reports that the unmet need for outdoor recreation facilities and parkland acquisition at the state level is $27 billion. While the LWCF alone cannot address all state park needs, it is a critical federal partnership with our nation’s state and local parks and communities.
Website: lcwfcoalition
Created by Congress in 1965, the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) was a bipartisan commitment to safeguard natural areas, water resources and our cultural heritage, and to provide recreation opportunities to all Americans. National parks like Rocky Mountain, the Grand Canyon, and the Great Smoky Mountains, as well as national wildlife refuges, national forests, rivers and lakes, community parks, trails, and ball fields in every one of our 50 states were set aside for Americans to enjoy thanks to federal funds from the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF).
It was a simple idea: use revenues from the depletion of one natural resource - offshore oil and gas - to support the conservation of another precious resource - our land and water. Every year, $900 million in royalties paid by energy companies drilling for oil and gas on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) are put into this fund. The money is intended to create and protect national parks, areas around rivers and lakes, national forests, and national wildlife refuges from development, and to provide matching grants for state and local parks and recreation projects. Yet, nearly every year, Congress breaks its own promise to the American people and diverts much of this funding to uses other than conserving our most important lands and waters.
As a result, there is a substantial backlog of federal land acquisition needs estimated at more than $30 billion—including places vulnerable to development such as the Florida Everglades, Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona, Civil War battlefields in Virginia and other precious places around the country. State governments also report needing $27 billion in LWCF funds for eligible local parks and recreation projects.
The LWCF program has permanently protected nearly five million acres of public lands including some of America’s most treasured assets such as Grand Canyon National Park, the Appalachian National Scenic Trail, the White Mountain National Forest, and Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge, the nation’s first federal refuge.
Over the duration of the program, funding for LWCF has varied yearly, falling drastically in the last few years to total less than $100 million in 2007. Today, the four federal land management agencies (National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Forest Service, and Bureau of Land Management) estimate the accumulated backlog of deferred federal acquisition needs to be around $30 billion. Opportunities to protect fish and wildlife habitat, provide public access for recreation, preserve our nation’s most notable historic and cultural sites, and protect scenic vistas are being lost every day to development.
The LWCF state assistance program provides matching grants to help states and local communities protect parks and recreation resources. Running the gamut from wilderness to trails and neighborhood playgrounds, LWCF funding has benefited nearly every county in America, supporting over 41,000 projects. This 50:50 matching program is the primary federal investment tool to ensure that families have easy access to parks and open space, hiking and riding trails, and neighborhood recreation facilities. Over the life of the program, more than $3 billion in LWCF grants to states has leveraged more than $7 billion in nonfederal matching funds. But funding levels have been unpredictable and the average annual appropriation since fiscal year 1987 is a mere $40 million—despite the need for millions more. Today, the National Park Service reports that the unmet need for outdoor recreation facilities and parkland acquisition at the state level is $27 billion. While the LWCF alone cannot address all state park needs, it is a critical federal partnership with our nation’s state and local parks and communities.
Wednesday, November 11, 2015
Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development
Location: New York, NY
Website: anhd.org
The Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development (ANHD) works to build the strength of the community development movement in New York City. ANHD was founded in 1974 with the mission to help low-income communities thrive and to ensure that all New Yorkers can live in decent, affordable housing and neighborhoods.
Today ANHD leads a membership of 99 of the City’s leading community development and neighborhood-based not-for-profit affordable housing organizations. Our member groups use grassroots advocacy strength, bricks-and-mortar development skills, and focused neighborhood-level services to work for more decent, just and equitable communities. ANHD supports our member groups with a mix of training, capacity-building resources, strategic research, and high-impact public policy advocacy campaigns.
ANHD members groups have built over 100,000 affordable units in NYC in the past 25 years. ANHD’s policy activism has directly leveraged over $1.3 billion in new resources for affordable housing in the past 10 years alone, and our policy victories have resulted in the preservation of thousands of affordable units.
ANHD’s ACHIEVEMENTS
Over the past decade alone, ANHD’s training, policy research, advocacy, strategic communications, and leadership development for 100 grassroots groups and residents has resulted in leveraging over $1.3 billion for affordable housing, rescuing over 30,000 apartments and 160 buildings for low-income residents, and creating break-through policies for community development:
2012 – City Council passes Responsible Banking Act, developed with ANHD members.
Following ANHD’s reports on dramatic decreases in banks’ local reinvestments in the 2009 and 2011 “The State of Bank Reinvestment in NYC”, New York City Council passed the nation’s strongest RBA bill in May 2012, providing communities with lending data and a voice to ensure local reinvestments as requested by ANHD members.
Community Development Fellowship Program, matching Masters’ Degree students with community non-profits.
2009-present: 90% success in training and placing unemployed adults: ANHD’s Center for Neighborhood Leadership training and internships for unemployed adults has resulted in 90% of trainees graduating into full-time jobs and / or college.
2008-present – 1000s of units rescued from rent increases: ANHD’s activism achieved an important state regulatory reform, reducing a key rent increase pass-along by 1/3 for thousands of tenants.
2007-present – $750 million to save housing from the crisis of over-leveraging: ANHD won a commitment of $750 million in city funds to incentivize banks to sell to affordable housing developers rather than predatory speculators.
2007-present – 3,100 units for 60-year affordability, $145 million annual tax credits: a result of ANHD research and advocacy, NYC Council Speaker Quinn agreed to doubling affordability from 30 to 60 years on 3,100 housing units per year, leveraging $15 million in annual benefits from the tax credits.
2003-present – 6,900 new units via Inclusionary Zoning: ANHD’s member-group led advocacy established New York’s first inclusionary zoning, gaining 6,900 affordable units.
2002-present – $32 million savings on building costs: ANHD’s Affordable Housing Institute trains residents, developers and building managers in affordable housing maintenance, financing and green retro-fitting for a combined economic savings of over $32 million
1992 to present – Affordable Housing Institute helps housing developments save $32 million: the Affordable Housing Institutes on-going trainings – including green building management training – to affordable housing developers, managers, maintenance workers and low-income residents saves $32 million per year in operational costs.
2010 – Gains in permanently affordable housing: ANHD publishes, “A Permanent Problem Requires a Permanent Solution” to promote permanently affordable housing. In response, the city required permanent affordability in many key 2010 land-use decisions.
2007 – $7,250,000 Housing Preservation Initiative: ANHD secured $1.5 million in annual support for critical housing preservation advocacy in the city’s most disadvantaged areas of which $7.25 million has been realized to date.
2006-2008 – 9,736 fewer harassment cases: ANHD gained breakthrough legislation – the Tenant Protection Act – giving harassed tenants strong new legal rights, reducing the quantifiable instances of harassment in Housing Court by 9,736 documented cases.
2004-2007 – 1,100 Section 8 units rescued: ANHD outreach rescued eleven buildings containing over 1,100 units of housing from leaving the Section 8 affordability program.
2004-2005 – $530 million: ANHD held the City to a promise unfulfilled for 30 years to forge a new Battery Park City agreement that leveraged $130 millionfor 4,500 affordable units, and again in 2010, an additional $400 million for affordable housing.
2003-2005 – 7,200 apartments repaired per year: ANHD led the City to adopt the Targeted Cyclical Enforcement Program to enforce repairs.
Website: anhd.org
The Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development (ANHD) works to build the strength of the community development movement in New York City. ANHD was founded in 1974 with the mission to help low-income communities thrive and to ensure that all New Yorkers can live in decent, affordable housing and neighborhoods.
Today ANHD leads a membership of 99 of the City’s leading community development and neighborhood-based not-for-profit affordable housing organizations. Our member groups use grassroots advocacy strength, bricks-and-mortar development skills, and focused neighborhood-level services to work for more decent, just and equitable communities. ANHD supports our member groups with a mix of training, capacity-building resources, strategic research, and high-impact public policy advocacy campaigns.
ANHD members groups have built over 100,000 affordable units in NYC in the past 25 years. ANHD’s policy activism has directly leveraged over $1.3 billion in new resources for affordable housing in the past 10 years alone, and our policy victories have resulted in the preservation of thousands of affordable units.
ANHD’s ACHIEVEMENTS
Over the past decade alone, ANHD’s training, policy research, advocacy, strategic communications, and leadership development for 100 grassroots groups and residents has resulted in leveraging over $1.3 billion for affordable housing, rescuing over 30,000 apartments and 160 buildings for low-income residents, and creating break-through policies for community development:
2012 – City Council passes Responsible Banking Act, developed with ANHD members.
Following ANHD’s reports on dramatic decreases in banks’ local reinvestments in the 2009 and 2011 “The State of Bank Reinvestment in NYC”, New York City Council passed the nation’s strongest RBA bill in May 2012, providing communities with lending data and a voice to ensure local reinvestments as requested by ANHD members.
Community Development Fellowship Program, matching Masters’ Degree students with community non-profits.
2009-present: 90% success in training and placing unemployed adults: ANHD’s Center for Neighborhood Leadership training and internships for unemployed adults has resulted in 90% of trainees graduating into full-time jobs and / or college.
2008-present – 1000s of units rescued from rent increases: ANHD’s activism achieved an important state regulatory reform, reducing a key rent increase pass-along by 1/3 for thousands of tenants.
2007-present – $750 million to save housing from the crisis of over-leveraging: ANHD won a commitment of $750 million in city funds to incentivize banks to sell to affordable housing developers rather than predatory speculators.
2007-present – 3,100 units for 60-year affordability, $145 million annual tax credits: a result of ANHD research and advocacy, NYC Council Speaker Quinn agreed to doubling affordability from 30 to 60 years on 3,100 housing units per year, leveraging $15 million in annual benefits from the tax credits.
2003-present – 6,900 new units via Inclusionary Zoning: ANHD’s member-group led advocacy established New York’s first inclusionary zoning, gaining 6,900 affordable units.
2002-present – $32 million savings on building costs: ANHD’s Affordable Housing Institute trains residents, developers and building managers in affordable housing maintenance, financing and green retro-fitting for a combined economic savings of over $32 million
1992 to present – Affordable Housing Institute helps housing developments save $32 million: the Affordable Housing Institutes on-going trainings – including green building management training – to affordable housing developers, managers, maintenance workers and low-income residents saves $32 million per year in operational costs.
2010 – Gains in permanently affordable housing: ANHD publishes, “A Permanent Problem Requires a Permanent Solution” to promote permanently affordable housing. In response, the city required permanent affordability in many key 2010 land-use decisions.
2007 – $7,250,000 Housing Preservation Initiative: ANHD secured $1.5 million in annual support for critical housing preservation advocacy in the city’s most disadvantaged areas of which $7.25 million has been realized to date.
2006-2008 – 9,736 fewer harassment cases: ANHD gained breakthrough legislation – the Tenant Protection Act – giving harassed tenants strong new legal rights, reducing the quantifiable instances of harassment in Housing Court by 9,736 documented cases.
2004-2007 – 1,100 Section 8 units rescued: ANHD outreach rescued eleven buildings containing over 1,100 units of housing from leaving the Section 8 affordability program.
2004-2005 – $530 million: ANHD held the City to a promise unfulfilled for 30 years to forge a new Battery Park City agreement that leveraged $130 millionfor 4,500 affordable units, and again in 2010, an additional $400 million for affordable housing.
2003-2005 – 7,200 apartments repaired per year: ANHD led the City to adopt the Targeted Cyclical Enforcement Program to enforce repairs.
Saturday, October 24, 2015
Denver Homeless Out Loud
Location: Denver, CO
Website: denverhomelessoutloud.org
Denver Homeless Out Loud (DHOL) works with and for people who experience homelessness, to solve the issues that arise from the experience of homelessness.
We work to help protect and advocate for dignity, rights and choices for people experiencing homelessness.
To these ends, we commit our efforts toward goals affirmed and raised by homeless people, within our organization and without.
We strive to add our strengths together to create ways of living in which everyone has a place they can call home.
We welcome you to join us in this work.
Our office hours are Monday-Friday 2:00pm – 5:00pm.
Our main meetings are Wednesdays, 4:45pm – 7:00pm at Denver Homeless Out Loud office space shared with Centro Humanitario at 2260 California St Denver CO, 80205! (The cool purple building on Park Avenue and California).
Website: denverhomelessoutloud.org
Denver Homeless Out Loud (DHOL) works with and for people who experience homelessness, to solve the issues that arise from the experience of homelessness.
We work to help protect and advocate for dignity, rights and choices for people experiencing homelessness.
To these ends, we commit our efforts toward goals affirmed and raised by homeless people, within our organization and without.
We strive to add our strengths together to create ways of living in which everyone has a place they can call home.
We welcome you to join us in this work.
Our office hours are Monday-Friday 2:00pm – 5:00pm.
Our main meetings are Wednesdays, 4:45pm – 7:00pm at Denver Homeless Out Loud office space shared with Centro Humanitario at 2260 California St Denver CO, 80205! (The cool purple building on Park Avenue and California).
Friday, October 23, 2015
The Nature of Cities
Location: International
Website: thenatureofcities.org
The mission of The Nature of Cities is to promote worldwide dialog and action to create green cities that are sustainable, resilient, livable, and just. The TNOC community comprises a broad diversity of people, from architects and designers to scientists, from practitioners to entrepreneurs and artists—pursuing transformational dialog that leads to the creation of better cities for all.
TNOC is a virtual magazine and discussion site on cities as ecosystems. It is a global collective of contributors, an essay, long-form, media, and discussion site devoted to cities as social-ecological spaces, ecosystems of people, buildings, open spaces, and nature. We believe that cities are human habitat, and that design with nature and public open space at the metaphorical center is key to urban resilience, sustainability, livability and justice.
TNOC was founded and is curated by Dr. David Maddox. Cities are fundamentally ecological spaces. They are ecosystems packed with trees and vegetation that comprise an urban forest. They house birds, insects, small mammals, diverse ecological habitats, and more. They are connected to suburban and rural areas along ecological gradients. Human well being, social justice and effective urban design is intimately connected to the health of urban ecosystems. Cities are habitat for people, and urban design with nature at the center is essential to resilience, sustainability, and livability.
We believe that the nature of cities—by which we mean cities as ecosystems of people, green and blue nature, biodiversity, and built infrastructure…habitat for people-needs more voices, more perspectives and expanded conversation about its critical importance for people and how it can be promoted, conserved, managed, and in some cases designed for the good of all.
The Nature of Cities is a platform—a virtual magazine and media site for a variety of content and conversations on these themes, including blogs and virtual roundtables. In the near future we will introduce other styles of conversation. We are a collaborative of 275+ writers from many disciplines and from many places around the world. New columns are published twice weekly and rotate among our roster. Virtual Roundtables, in which a dozen or so writers respond to and discuss a specific question, appear every month. Podcasts and book reviews appear more or less monthly.
We are, by design, a diverse group and our ideas about the nature of cities emerge from wide-ranging perspectives. Our contributors include activists, designers, biologists, ecologists, sociologists, economists, artists, architects, artists, landscape architects, nature writers, leaders of community organizations, public space managers, lawyers, and leaders in international organizations.
We live and work in 25 countries and six continents. We are men and women. The study, understanding, and management of urban nature is fundamentally multidisciplinary and many-voiced (or should be), and the diversity in our collective attempts to honor this fact.
Yet we remain a work in progress, always striving to make sure we write from many perspectives.
Our readers have visited over 400,000 times, from over 3,500 cities and 140 countries.
Our intended audience is everyone interested in creating better cities that are resilient, sustainable, livable, and just—cities that effectively function as ecosystems and are better habitat for people.
We crave dialogue and comments from our community of readers. So please keep in touch.
Each of the opinions expressed in publications on our site are the author’s own and emerge from the vantage point of his or her discipline, but the core themes of our writing are human habitat nature, ecosystems and biodiversity in urban settings, especially as they relate to sustainability, resilience, livability, and human well-being.
Rights to each essay and its images are held jointly by the authors and designers/photographers of the particular piece and The Nature of Cities. Rights to the site as a whole are held by The Nature of Cities.
Website: thenatureofcities.org
The mission of The Nature of Cities is to promote worldwide dialog and action to create green cities that are sustainable, resilient, livable, and just. The TNOC community comprises a broad diversity of people, from architects and designers to scientists, from practitioners to entrepreneurs and artists—pursuing transformational dialog that leads to the creation of better cities for all.
TNOC is a virtual magazine and discussion site on cities as ecosystems. It is a global collective of contributors, an essay, long-form, media, and discussion site devoted to cities as social-ecological spaces, ecosystems of people, buildings, open spaces, and nature. We believe that cities are human habitat, and that design with nature and public open space at the metaphorical center is key to urban resilience, sustainability, livability and justice.
TNOC was founded and is curated by Dr. David Maddox. Cities are fundamentally ecological spaces. They are ecosystems packed with trees and vegetation that comprise an urban forest. They house birds, insects, small mammals, diverse ecological habitats, and more. They are connected to suburban and rural areas along ecological gradients. Human well being, social justice and effective urban design is intimately connected to the health of urban ecosystems. Cities are habitat for people, and urban design with nature at the center is essential to resilience, sustainability, and livability.
We believe that the nature of cities—by which we mean cities as ecosystems of people, green and blue nature, biodiversity, and built infrastructure…habitat for people-needs more voices, more perspectives and expanded conversation about its critical importance for people and how it can be promoted, conserved, managed, and in some cases designed for the good of all.
The Nature of Cities is a platform—a virtual magazine and media site for a variety of content and conversations on these themes, including blogs and virtual roundtables. In the near future we will introduce other styles of conversation. We are a collaborative of 275+ writers from many disciplines and from many places around the world. New columns are published twice weekly and rotate among our roster. Virtual Roundtables, in which a dozen or so writers respond to and discuss a specific question, appear every month. Podcasts and book reviews appear more or less monthly.
We are, by design, a diverse group and our ideas about the nature of cities emerge from wide-ranging perspectives. Our contributors include activists, designers, biologists, ecologists, sociologists, economists, artists, architects, artists, landscape architects, nature writers, leaders of community organizations, public space managers, lawyers, and leaders in international organizations.
We live and work in 25 countries and six continents. We are men and women. The study, understanding, and management of urban nature is fundamentally multidisciplinary and many-voiced (or should be), and the diversity in our collective attempts to honor this fact.
Yet we remain a work in progress, always striving to make sure we write from many perspectives.
Our readers have visited over 400,000 times, from over 3,500 cities and 140 countries.
Our intended audience is everyone interested in creating better cities that are resilient, sustainable, livable, and just—cities that effectively function as ecosystems and are better habitat for people.
We crave dialogue and comments from our community of readers. So please keep in touch.
Each of the opinions expressed in publications on our site are the author’s own and emerge from the vantage point of his or her discipline, but the core themes of our writing are human habitat nature, ecosystems and biodiversity in urban settings, especially as they relate to sustainability, resilience, livability, and human well-being.
Rights to each essay and its images are held jointly by the authors and designers/photographers of the particular piece and The Nature of Cities. Rights to the site as a whole are held by The Nature of Cities.
Thursday, October 15, 2015
Brooklyn Arts Council
Location: Brooklyn, NY
Website: brooklynartscoucil.org
Who We Are:
We are the arts council for the borough of Brooklyn. We bring leadership and energy to every part of Brooklyn’s arts scene, supporting and connecting it all. It doesn’t matter where you fit into the arts—artist, audience member, participant, venue, educator or supporter—we want you to create and experience the arts in every neighborhood of Brooklyn.
What drives us? Our impassioned belief in the intrinsic value of the arts and artists, as well as what they can do. Art has a unique ability to bridge cultures, inspiring positive transformation in individual lives and entire communities.
What We Do:
BAC gives grants, presents free and affordable arts events, trains artists and arts professionals, teaches students, incubates new projects and promotes artists and cultural groups across our borough. As Brooklyn’s cultural anchor since 1966, BAC has also been the catalyst helping the arts community grow. We continually evaluate and evolve what we do to meet the changing times, and keep our commitment to community engagement, diversity and inclusion when it comes to the arts in our borough.
Website: brooklynartscoucil.org
Who We Are:
We are the arts council for the borough of Brooklyn. We bring leadership and energy to every part of Brooklyn’s arts scene, supporting and connecting it all. It doesn’t matter where you fit into the arts—artist, audience member, participant, venue, educator or supporter—we want you to create and experience the arts in every neighborhood of Brooklyn.
What drives us? Our impassioned belief in the intrinsic value of the arts and artists, as well as what they can do. Art has a unique ability to bridge cultures, inspiring positive transformation in individual lives and entire communities.
What We Do:
BAC gives grants, presents free and affordable arts events, trains artists and arts professionals, teaches students, incubates new projects and promotes artists and cultural groups across our borough. As Brooklyn’s cultural anchor since 1966, BAC has also been the catalyst helping the arts community grow. We continually evaluate and evolve what we do to meet the changing times, and keep our commitment to community engagement, diversity and inclusion when it comes to the arts in our borough.
Monday, October 12, 2015
Blights out
Location: New Orleans, LA
Website: blightsout.org
Blights Out is a collaborative and creative initiative to unite residents, artists, architects, and organizers in the design of a new, inclusive model for development. Our experiential method of “performing architecture” guides us through the purchase, design, and restoration of a blighted structure into a cultural resource center that will seed creative action around issues of blight, disinvestment, and housing. Blights Out will partner with a local Community Land Trust as the cultural organizing arm of the permanently affordable housing movement to share the tools and inspiration for New Orleans residents to build the destinies of their own neighborhoods.
Our objectives are:
- To purchase and restore a blighted property in the Lower Mid-City/ Tremé neighborhood transforming it into functional “social sculpture”: a multipurpose community cultural resource center and socio- economic asset, which will serve at the “mothership” hub of Blights Out’s creative output.
- To align New Orleans’ traditional modes of cultural organizing with today’s most pressing concerns. We believe that the Social Aid nd Pleasure Club is a strong model that can be employed in new terrain. As such, we are using art tofacilitate civic engagement with blight, disinvestment, and housing through programming that draws on New Orleans’traditions of performance, storytelling, and community organizing.
- To partner with a local Community Land Trust (CLT)to organize educational materials and programming on alternative development models, including the CLT.
- To record, visualize, and amplify the history of the neighborhood.
- To document our process and present it as a replicable model for action through the publication of a toolkit that will consolidate scattered resources on housing, lending, and blight remediation in New Orleans, thus serving an unmet need identified at the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center 2015 Annual Fit for King Conference.
Blights Out produces public art inspired by neighborhood stories, architecture, and history, culled from the multi-disciplinary research and critical interactive strategies that we employ.
Blights Out is a collaborative process, involving residents, artists, architects, and organizers, at all stages of conception and implementation.
Our institutional partners include: the National Organization of Minority Architects; Press Street; Newcomb Art Museum at Tulane University; Junebug Productions; New Orleans Master Crafts Guild; Prospect New Orleans; Loyola Law School Human Rights Clinic; Creative Capital; Justice and Beyond Coalition and The St. Roch Community Church. Economic models and development schemes have been perfected by maximizing profit at the expense of people.” “The American Dream is an individual vision incompatible with collective needs.” “Artists will always hasten gentrification.” We intend to deconstruct these truisms and prove them false through the design of an actionable model for community-powered neighborhood development.
Website: blightsout.org
Blights Out is a collaborative and creative initiative to unite residents, artists, architects, and organizers in the design of a new, inclusive model for development. Our experiential method of “performing architecture” guides us through the purchase, design, and restoration of a blighted structure into a cultural resource center that will seed creative action around issues of blight, disinvestment, and housing. Blights Out will partner with a local Community Land Trust as the cultural organizing arm of the permanently affordable housing movement to share the tools and inspiration for New Orleans residents to build the destinies of their own neighborhoods.
Our objectives are:
- To purchase and restore a blighted property in the Lower Mid-City/ Tremé neighborhood transforming it into functional “social sculpture”: a multipurpose community cultural resource center and socio- economic asset, which will serve at the “mothership” hub of Blights Out’s creative output.
- To align New Orleans’ traditional modes of cultural organizing with today’s most pressing concerns. We believe that the Social Aid nd Pleasure Club is a strong model that can be employed in new terrain. As such, we are using art tofacilitate civic engagement with blight, disinvestment, and housing through programming that draws on New Orleans’traditions of performance, storytelling, and community organizing.
- To partner with a local Community Land Trust (CLT)to organize educational materials and programming on alternative development models, including the CLT.
- To record, visualize, and amplify the history of the neighborhood.
- To document our process and present it as a replicable model for action through the publication of a toolkit that will consolidate scattered resources on housing, lending, and blight remediation in New Orleans, thus serving an unmet need identified at the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center 2015 Annual Fit for King Conference.
Blights Out produces public art inspired by neighborhood stories, architecture, and history, culled from the multi-disciplinary research and critical interactive strategies that we employ.
Blights Out is a collaborative process, involving residents, artists, architects, and organizers, at all stages of conception and implementation.
Our institutional partners include: the National Organization of Minority Architects; Press Street; Newcomb Art Museum at Tulane University; Junebug Productions; New Orleans Master Crafts Guild; Prospect New Orleans; Loyola Law School Human Rights Clinic; Creative Capital; Justice and Beyond Coalition and The St. Roch Community Church. Economic models and development schemes have been perfected by maximizing profit at the expense of people.” “The American Dream is an individual vision incompatible with collective needs.” “Artists will always hasten gentrification.” We intend to deconstruct these truisms and prove them false through the design of an actionable model for community-powered neighborhood development.
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