Introduction
In order to develop a sustainable neighborhood, consensus organizers do not only need to be role models for residents but also active participants and evaluators of available resources; with the help of external and internal support, Pine Creek, a community in Madisonville, LA, can become a safer and well-developed community.
Madisonville, LA, is located near the Tchefuncte River and the Lake Pontchartrain Estuary (Steinmuller, Graham, White, McKee, & Mendelssohn, 2016). The community of Pine Creek is relatively new (4 years old) and is currently being built. More than one hundred residents live in the community, but as its development is in progress, more families are expected to move in. The majority of residents are families that consist of 30-40 years old individuals and their children.
Purpose and Goals
The purpose of the community analysis is to identify issues that residents need to address, locate resources (both internal and external) that can be used to resolve these issues, and evaluate whether a sustainable neighborhood can be developed out of Pine Creek. The goal of the analysis is to outline a plan for action and understand how issues identified in the community can be addressed by its residents.
Methodology
To collect data, the researcher used information published online, census data, and interviews with community residents. Twenty-four persons were interviewed or surveyed for the data collection. Different websites such as Pew Research Center, Sperling’s Best Places, and Town of Madisonville were used to gather information related to demographics. As the community is new, no historical records about Pine Creek exist yet. Community residents also could not provide historical data to the researcher.
Description and Overall Observations
Analysis of Internal Community Resources
Analysis of External Community Resources
Summary
Analysis of Mutual Interests
Mutual concerns among external and internal resources are residents’ safety, health, education, and the community’s well-being, as well as the lack of crime here. The school systems at Madisonville can provide training for teachers in Pine Creek. A potential collaboration between Madisonville schools and the elementary school in Pine Creek can be beneficial to them, making an exchange of ideas and employees possible. Universities can provide distance learning or training courses for future students.
Madisonville government can contribute to the development of Pine Creek by addressing the issue of lacking street lamps at one of its meetings. As there is no police department in Pine Creek, the community members can collaborate to create a neighborhood watch to keep it crime-free.
Potential Red Flags
As the external resources are mostly located in surrounding cities, it can be assumed that there is a certain lack of interest from them to the developing community. The small number of residents and the continuing construction of it can result in weak enthusiasm from external resources’ that might prefer to wait until the community is fully occupied and settled. However, the enthusiasm and readiness to act expressed by community members can decrease the influence of the identified red flags on the community.
Consensus Organizing Strategies
Ohmer and DeMasi (2009) point out that to develop strategies, residents need to create an “issues list” to identify the community’s priorities. The community’s strengths include residents’ enthusiasm, the presence of a neighborhood committee with a president and a secretary, the friendliness and readiness of residents to take action. The majority of residents expressed concerns regarding the lack of street lamps in the neighborhood, the safety of Pine Creek, and the clean state of the community pool. To address these issues, it is suggested to
- Create a neighborhood watch that will include all members of the community who are willing to participate in it to address potential crime issues such as theft, mugging, and other types of disorder
- Build relationships with Madisonville Government to keep the neighborhood crime-free in case if the watch will not be able to address some of the crime-related issues
- Connect with the homeowner association to discuss the problem of adequate lighting during night hours
The identified areas of need are important to the community as they are related to each other; without adequate lighting, the crime in the neighborhood might increase, affecting both children and adults and decreasing the community’s value and safety. Community pool, if not supervised correctly, can become a dangerous place for younger children, especially if the navigation in the streets is limited due to the lack of street lamps. The lack of a police department requires mobilization from residents to address other crime-related issues.
Next Steps/Work Plan
The first step is to establish the time for meetings with the neighborhood’s president and secretary. The second step is to assign roles to participants. The community members will be divided into three groups: Neighborhood Watch, Government Relationships, and Adult and Children Safety. Each of those groups will work on different issues described above. After their creation, the organizer plans to create a series of discussions to identify what relationships these groups might need to achieve their goals. The organizer also plans to supervise the groups and track their progress, becoming a mediator between them and the neighborhood’s president.
However, the community residents (the youth) are also highly active and can have leadership roles in the work plan as well. The third step is to address external resources, for example, the Madisonville government and philanthropic organizations, to share ideas with and learn from them about community changes that have already been implemented. The fourth step is to collect information about progress, results, and outcomes and compare them to the outlined goals.
Dissemination Plan
As the community is relatively small (approx. 100 individuals), it is suggested to use community newsletters. Community newsletters are used differently, for example, as means to address neighborhood crime and educate residents (Gill, Weisburd, Telep, Vitter, & Bennett, 2014). In our case, community newsletters will be used to disseminate the results of the consensus directly to residents. First, it will increase their sense of commitment. Second, it is more convenient due to the lack of newspapers or radio in the community. Third, it decreases the chance that some of the residents will miss out on the information (as it could be with a press conference, for example).
Fourth, community newsletters can target different stakeholders and contain information valuable for them (for example, each group will be interested in information about different outcomes, depending on their major goal, e.g., neighborhood watch or pool cleanness and safety). Additionally, it is possible to create a detailed report about the community’s progress to becoming a sustainable neighborhood to disseminate it to larger external stakeholders such as hospitals, major employers, and universities. If people see that the real change is happening, it is likely that even more individuals will be involved (Ohmer & DeMasi, 2009).
The report can also be used by the organizer and other community leaders to compare the community’s progress annually, noticing whether all areas of need are addressed adequately. Main points from the report can be included in annual newsletters to community residents to show them what progress has been made.
References
Gill, C., Weisburd, D., Telep, C. W., Vitter, Z., & Bennett, T. (2014). Community-oriented policing to reduce crime, disorder and fear and increase satisfaction and legitimacy among citizens: A systematic review. Journal of Experimental Criminology, 10(4), 399-428.
Louisiana State Legislature. (2017). Representatives. Web.
Ohmer, M. L., & DeMasi, K. (2009). Consensus organizing: A community development workbook: A comprehensive guide to designing, implementing, and evaluating community change initiatives. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Pew Research Center. (2017). Datasets. Web.
Sperling’s Best Places. (2017). Madisonville, Louisiana. Web.
Steinmuller, H. E., Graham, S. A., White, J. R., McKee, M., & Mendelssohn, I. A. (2016). A decadal-scale nutrient loading study in a coastal wetland: Impacts on soil microbial processes. Ecological Engineering, 97(2), 58-63.
Town of Madisonville. (2017). Departments. Web.