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March 2001 | |||
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Members of the partnership. CB Sheila Ashley is second from right. |
Planning for Neighborhood Revitalization The Dominican Center is a faith based initiative launched in 1999 by the Order of Dominican Nuns to respond to neighborhood deterioration and affordable housing problems by addressing homeownership and public safety needs for residents living in the neighborhoods near the Dominican Center in Milwaukee. This center is located in a neighborhood that is high in crime, unemployment and female heads of household, which had no active block clubs. The Center identified a 9 block area as its initial area of focus. Wisconsin CBs Sheila Ashley and David Balcer joined a long list of partners to help the Dominican Center achieve its goals. Sheila convened a meeting between ranking police officials, Safe and Sound (a public/private venture formed to fight crime and teenage truancy), area ministers and the Dominican Center to respond to a drug problem that seemed to persist in the initial target area. This collaboration resulted in the designation of neighborhood churches as safe havens and a strategy that enabled police to arrest a drug dealer, seize money, property and drugs and restore order to a block in which people were afraid to live. The initiative has two homeownership-related goals for the neighborhood: to have 60% of the total housing stock be owner occupied and to influence at least 80% of the property sales so that they result in owner occupancy or neighborhood ownership. The CBs initially worked with the Dominican Center to partner with a collaboration of Catholic churches called Allied Churches Teaching Self Empowerment (ACTS), and brought together home sellers with people who live in the community and wish to buy homes there. As of February 2001, five homes in the area have been sold and five more are ready for purchase by pre-approved homebuyers. Two potential homebuyers have begun putting in ‘sweat equity' hours as part of the rehabilitation effort. Furthermore, a nonprofit organization has found an anonymous donor who wants to underwrite the cost of rehabilitating five homes in the target area.
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