November 2007 Greetings

Well it’s getting to be fall, and I am sure everyone’s enjoying having leaves fall and raking them into nice little piles. If your yard is like mine, your Maples will be full until well into November and I’ll be writing the December Greetings from a leafy snowpile. Let’s get what we’ve been working on this last month out of the way first. Our major event was the hosting of the Camden Alliance of Neighborhoods (CAN!). We had on attendance of over 40 residents of the Camden Community, along with Directors of the Minneapolis School Board and Superintendent. We were brought up to speed as to what is happening with the North Side Initiative and where they were in getting community input in on their closed buildings. A school building community input meeting is planned for North Minneapolis on Saturday, November 10th, 10-Noon at Plymouth Christian Youth Center, 2210 Oliver Ave. N or Thursday Nov. 15 6:30-8:30 pm at Creekview Park.
For more details go to www.mpls.k12.mn.us/CADP_Meetings

When I’m biking or at meetings meeting new neighbors, I often hear the question, “What is the Shingle Creek Neighborhood Association and what does it do?” SCNA is a 501c3 nonprofit organization, made up of neighborhood volunteers, working on bettering the neighborhood and community at the grassroots level. Here
are just some of our accomplishments:

♦Over the past fifteen years, we have provided over 250 residents and leveraged over 1 million dollars of home improvements with low interest loans for home
repairs, which have increased the value of all of our properties. We also contributed with other neighborhoods toward the Shingle Creek Commons building.
♦ We have provided funds to Olson Jr High to repair their gym floor, supported various Minneapolis Park Board activities and programs atSummer, Summer Stars, Skateboard Park, Lighted Sign, Haunted House and various other efforts.
♦ SCNA provides open community meetings for all residents to freely participate in discussions and learn about local governmental process and procedures and
provide a supportive learning environment for greater and varied citizen participation through SCNA’s activities, projects, events, and programs.
♦ In the past, SCNA has participated in the planning efforts of the Humboldt Greenway. It has led community-wide planning, visioning, greening and beautification discussions about improving the footprint of the Humboldt Industrial Park area which has led to many improvement such as the Minneapolis usiness Complex at 49th and Osseo Rd, truck traffic reduction, and burming and beautification by various businesses.
♦ SCNA Committee advocated for keeping the Shingle Creek Elementary School open which kept the community asset open for another three years
♦ Most recently, we’ve partnered with most of the Camden neighborhoods to fund the Youth Engagement Project to create an asset map of youth-identified safe
places for youth to hang and provided leadership training.
♦ This newsletter is delivered monthly to inform residents and be a resource of what is going on in the neighborhood and how residents can effect change when seeing something wrong in the neighborhood. We also are able to put on projects and events like the Shingle Creek Clean Up, Tour de Camden, hold a School Supply drive, or help our neighbors put on Holiday on 44th and Heritage Days.

Or another question is: “Why is the City of Minneapolis Neighborhood Revitalization Program (NRP) so unique?”
As I found out from the Des Moines Neighborhood Summit, the current NRP program SCNA participates in as a 501c3 organization, is designed to operate independently to encourage all residents to participate in creating a better community and city from the grassroots “street” level by developing and implementing a neighborhood action plan. It differs from other programs because its not politically driven and a top-down city departmental program. It is
designed and has been fiscally accountable.

There has been more participation of residents as a result of NRP than at any time in the past 40 years. More than 1,000 people are on the Boards of neighborhood organizations city-wide and countless others are volunteers participate.

NRP has also encouraged investment in neighborhoodsMore than $1 billion has been leveraged as a result of the investments of neighborhoods citywide. In a 2005 Harvard Study of NRP, researchers found “Citizens who rated the City favorably are more likely to be familiar with the NRP than those who rate the City unfavorably. The same held true for the rating of one’s neighborhood.” All these factors are just some of the results of NRP.

What makes this program so successful and nationally unique?”
Along with it’s grassroots approach to citizen participation, is the State and City along with other multijurisdictional partners such as the Minneapolis Parks, Hennepin County, Schools, and Libraries all partner and help fund NRP through the City’s Common Project budget. (Not the General Budget that funds police and fire departments.) All of these amazing results take less than 7/10’s of 1% of the whole cities 1.6 billion dollar budget. Many neighborhoods
would have to hold 30 or more fundraising events annually to fund their current organizational programs and projects.

Why am I telling you this you might be asking? Because this November and December the City Council and the Mayor will be determining the critical future of NRP. The 2009 sunset date is being shaped in these next two months. As we have for the past 15 years, SCNA will keep residents informed of any progresses made on this important topic. For more information and updates on this topic go to www.neighbors4nrp.com.

Thank you for the many great questions and comments we received in the last few months. I look forward to hearing more of them and hope to see you November 13th, 6:30pm at Creekview.