Research

Assessing the Social Impact of Intentional Neighboring

In rushing to establish the longer-term outcomes of intentional neighboring, conventional approaches to evaluation often tend to overlook some of its most important features. The intentional neighboring framework was designed to enable people, through neighboring, to mitigate the effects of personal and social challenges on their day-to-day lives that threaten their well-being and the social …

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Funding aligns with the mission

Funding aligns with the mission

There are some well-established ways to create affordable housing and coordinated services, but conventional funding strategies can sometimes conflict with the goals of a GHC. Formal community development as practiced today gives priority to economic issues (job creation, housing affordability, etc.). To be sure, a community needs investment in order to develop. But to obtain …

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Evolving policies, practices and programs

Evolving policies, practices and programs

Intentional neighboring must be planned-for, but it can never be fully designed. It must be allowed to adapt over time, filling in details while remaining true to the program mission, as residents and staff gain experience with one another. Times change When Hope Meadows started there was no community center or neighborhood weekly newsletter. There …

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Transformational leadership

Transformational leadership

George King, one of the earliest residents of Hope Meadows, helped shepherd a community process to revise neighborhood engagement policy in 2002. Photo credit: Judy Griesdieck 5A transformational leader empowers all residents of a GHC to become active partners in working to accomplish the neighborhood’s mission. Shifting the primary initiative for care and support Generations …

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Physical design facilitates relationships

Physical design facilitates relationships

Community building and central quad area of a proposed GHC. Rendering by Stephanie Bower. Design by Mithun Architects and JSR Associates. 4In a GHC, special attention must be paid to the scale and physical design of the neighborhood so that relationships are easy to form and maintain. These relationships, across and within generations, and among …

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