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THE NEIGHBORHOOD OPPORTUNITY NETWORK
Read our 2009 Campaign report and our pilot report from spring 2009.
More stories and videos are available at our Network blog.
In November 2008, the Director of the Montgomery County Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Uma Ahluwalia, acknowledged at a large community gathering her fears in meeting emergency needs. She revealed a new idea for targeting services to key neighborhoods in need and impressed upon the group that she could not achieve this vision without the active involvement of the community. IMPACT approached Ms. Ahluwalia about partnering to make her vision a reality.
Together, our organizations designed the Neighborhood Opportunity Network, an innovative collaboration among diverse residents, nonprofits, and local government to reengineer emergency service delivery to lower-income residents, helping them embark on a clear path of long-term economic recovery and civic empowerment. Our goals are to:
- Create a new systemic approach to delivering emergency services in isolated neighborhoods, to ensure that available emergency services are reaching those who most need them
- Leverage community resources to sustain long-term recovery for those in crisis
- Create a new sustainable network of mutual support in isolated neighborhoods
- Increase the number of people embarking or staying on a path toward secure employment and greater economic empowerment
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The Network brings emergency services into three high-need neighborhoods, Long Branch, Wheaton, and Gaithersburg, mobilizing residents to help one another access services and reweave the safety net among neighbors.
The Neighborhood Opportunity Network involves:
- New Neighborhood Service Centers, making government services more accessible to residents, and staffed jointly by Community Connectors and HHS field workers
- Community Connectors, diverse residents (including many IMPACT network members and program graduates) who live in the neighborhoods, to staff the new Centers and serve as culturally-competent and friendly doors into the difficult maze of services – stewarding a dignified application process
- Neighbor Corps, a 3-month leadership and action program, at least half composed of diverse residents, and the rest including Community Connectors, HHS field workers, nonprofit providers, and other community partners – to serve as a coordinating force and community-building arm in each of the target neighborhoods
- Door-Knockers, residents who build the skills to establish trust with their neighbors through a meaningful conversation, linking them to the Service Centers and other resources
- Neighbors Exchange sessions, participatory workshops where residents meet their neighbors and learn information to access non-emergency services (especially housing, health care, personal finances, and jobs) offered by agencies from all sectors
- Neighbor Circles, connecting neighbors to one another over a series of dinners in someone’s home, building mutual support to weather hard times together (Read about how a peer organization, Lawrence CommunityWorks, is using their innovative Neighbor Circle design.)
- Economic Empowerment programs to fully leverage the moment of providing emergency services by getting families connected and committed to a clear and long-term path of empowerment
In the spring of 2009, two new Service Centers were opened in Wheaton and Gaithersburg, and more than 50 door-knockers reached out to 2,000 households. A third Center was added in Long Branch in November 2009.
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