Maybe we should create volunteer Garden Corps or Yard Corps efforts to help overwhelmed people care for their yards

A house with an unruly front yard on 200 South in Salt Lake City.

Salt Lake has so many homeowners who go out of their way to do attractive plantings.  

I don't know what their backyards look like, but some front yards are just stunning.  While others are just "merely" very nice.

I do know it's a ton of work.  At our DC house, for DC the backyard was big, not quite 50 feet wide and 90 feet long, with a garage.

It was pretty big for us.  When we bought, the defining element were two huge trees with such a great canopy that between them was a "living room" that was so thick that while not quite impervious to rain, provided a lot of protection.

OTOH, there was so much shade, we couldn't grow vegetables in the back, so we did in our front yard, which being smaller, was easier to maintain.  

We took up the Square Foot Gardening method, where you build your own growing medium, 1/3 peat, 1/3 vermiculite/perlite, 1/3 five different types of compost.

The first year we bought all the different kinds locally.  And it was expensive. 

Another year we found mushroom compost being sold at a farmers market in Richmond which was pretty cool.  We would call Veteran Compost for a load, but they never called back.  

Did you know that from yard waste, Montgomery County, technically the Maryland Environmental Service, makes a compost called LeafGro, like how Milwaukee's sewer socialists created Milorganite?

We liked to travel to places in Pennsylvania like Lancaster and rented a car to do so.  

I realized if we stopped at a farm store out there and bought our year's worth of compost, the savings would pay for most of trip!  

There are farm stores in the DC region, but I always liked the ones in Lancaster County.

The first year I pulled all kinds of "weeds" from the beds.  At a tour of the Winterthur House and Gardens, as we were being shuttled up to the house, the driver said "And you might think that the lawn is full of weeds.  No, those are native plants, flowering."

I realized what I had been doing was pulling up natives.  

Fortunately, the plant seeds were hardy and they came back.  The beds looked a bit unruly, but were beautiful.

Over the years we added more native plants, based on the US Fish and Wildlife publication Native Plants for Wildlife Habitat and Conservation Landscaping in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed.  

My biggest lesson was to sit back, observe and learn from the yard, from what previous owners had done.  I still had the problem of buying stuff that I wouldn't get around to planting, like dahlias, but we planted a bunch of stuff.

Another lesson.  Apparently the realtor in prepping the house for sale before we bought, planted 3 azaleas on each side of the entry to the front door.  On one side, two kept dying off.  I replanted them twice.  They died.  I finally figured out I should plant something else...

Blue mistflower.

We'd go to area plant sales to shop for them.  Not just to sales elsewhere as the local Ace Hardware stores in Old Town Takoma Park and Petworth were also a good source.

We added a bird bath to the back yard (we bought an older home appropriate style from the catalog at a store in Alexandria; I can't remember the name.  We found it by going to a nearby French restaurant, which closed many years ago).

I learned that more than birds needed water.  I failed to get the photo, but once there was an inchworm walking around the rim, bees drinking water, and if I remember correctly, a grasshopper or butterfly.

It made a huge difference for birds.

Sadly, the two trees, one a Willow Oak, the other a Maple, reached the end of their useful lives and died. But I let a bunch of Willow Oak seedlings grow.  Because of a variety of circumstances it's been 7 years since I've been back and I want to see their progression.  Even by the time we moved out west a number of saplings were taller than me.

Back when the Willow Oak was still alive, but the Maple had died.  An easter egg hunt.

We used to hold a brunch-y thing and an Easter egg hunt for the neighbor kids and friends we met through them.  It was always a good time.

Another thing we discovered the second year is wild blackberries along the back fence.  We got some yield, but after awhile, the birds and squirrels won out. 

I realized it was our responsibility to  recognize that fauna have a right to the food too.

We planted some blueberries but they never really took, and birds got most.  We did have mint growing pretty profusely.  Rosemary was off and on.  The bay leaf tree was so so.  We grew lemongrass one year, garlic another--it's planted in the fall, but I thought the work required was greater than the cost of buying, although if you planted exotic varieties it'd be different.  We learned the best way to grow basil was in a container on the front porch, so it got some shade and didn't bolt early.

In parts of Ward 4, DC has planted serviceberry bushes in the planting strips on some streets.  With the little girls next door we would pick them and make pie.

It took a year or so of my talking about it, but the impetus was Suzanne and we finally built a compost bin, of pallets that we scavenged from the industrial road behind the Metropolitan Branch Trail in Takoma.  (Now used pallets cost a lot.)  We used plans from Montgomery County.  DC didn't offer an equivalent resource.

Before we composted formally, I collected leaves with a leaf machine (electric, like our mower).  We had so many, even though the recommendations today are to leave them be.  The leaf sucker makes them into little bits.  I just piled them against the bad soil by our garage and they made beautiful leaf mold and improved the soil.

(For the bin, I also learned to stock up on leaves in the fall, to be able to use them the rest of the year.  We didn't "clean up" grass clippings, just left them. And sometimes I would snag a neighbor's bag of grass clippings to speed up the heat in the compost bin--but only later I realized they might use fertilizer, put junk in the bags too, etc.)

Our bins after I pulled out some reserved leaves.

As the wood degraded over the years, we replaced it with plastic bins.  

Regardless of address, the County sanitation and recycling booth at the Montgomery County Agriculture Fair gives them out for free, and that's where we got them.  Going to the Ag Fair is fun regardless--sometimes we'd take the neighbor kids who loved the circus rides.  

Arlington has one too, but it's fun in a different way.  We never managed to go to the Maryland State Fair.

Separately, we had a pile for twigs and such.  We had tons but I never wanted to pay to compost them at the place in Montgomery County that will take them.  We just let them degrade, and they did.

I always meant to get a chipper but we wanted an electric one and at the time they weren't robust enough.  One of my recommendations years ago on the DC Sustainability Plan was for the creation of a community chipper (and log splitting) program.  But they'd degrade.

Our house has a walkout basement, which is a super cool feature.  While this is big for DC, as you go west, those houses and yards are even bigger.  But I do know of a house within easy walking distance of Takoma Metrorail Station that is one acre!

We had butternut squash grow out of the compost pile one year (I wasn't too religious about turning) and tomatoes another.  

When we lost our front tree due to waterlogged roots and it came down, after weeks of heavy rain, I took out all the compost and put it in there.  More than 30 tomato and cilantro plants took root.

I still regret not getting off my ass and planting asparagus.  Once it takes it grows for decades.

The worst thing of all was dealing with plants that were out of control.  We never could get out all the ivy that had been planted years ago, and Virginia creeper.  We had a Rose of Sharon tree that probably grew from seed, and Suzanne realized it was enveloped by vines, and I had to go in and delicately take them all out.

We also solved an interesting mystery.  One bluestone paver at the bottom of the stairs to the back from the front.  And another by the rear patio entry.  She figured out that the other stones must have been buried by subsequent growth.  They were.  I had a terrible backache that day, but we started digging out and raising the stones, some of which were quite heavy.  And later I realized my back pain was gone, from the work of digging and stretching.

Oops, the Takoma Park House Tour was last weekend.  They are fun to go on, also to volunteer, and then you get to go see the houses for free.

I called our yard rustic.  

But the amazing thing was how important that rusticity was to attracting fauna.  We had birds of various types, insects including butterflies and fireflies.  And yes, raccoons from time to time.  

Once a champagne colored (beige) skunk walked through the back yard.  Other neighbors experienced deer which fortunately never happened to us.  (Over the years I rescued raccoons from our garage and a neighbor's waste bin.)

My final lesson was rustic versus manicured made a huge difference.  

When we would go on the Takoma Historic House Tour the super manicured yards were always barren of birds and insects (fauna).  I'd take rustic over manicured any day.

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Sharon Schueler (left), Leif Dormsjo and Al Foxx clear weeds, dirt and grass in a courtyard at Calverton Middle School in Baltimore. (Baltime Sun photo by Kim Hairston).  This photo is from 2005.  Ironically, a decade later, Mr. Dormsjo served as the director of the DC Department of Transportation.

Volunteerism. So how does all this relate to the Garden Corps idea?  Also see with out of date links, "National Volunteer Week: April 16th-22nd," from 2023.

I saw that yard while taking photos yesterday, and it made me realize that like programs that help seniors and others with housing maintenance and repair ("A case in Gloucester, Massachusetts as an illustration of the need for systematic neighborhood monitoring and stabilization initiatives: Part 4 (the Curcuru Family)"), sometimes people just need help with their yards.

Photo from AthensNow, "My Neighbor’s Yard Is Overgrown/Unkempt/Has Junk Piled Up. What Can I Do?."

There are some programs where people will let others garden in their yards.  Or glean fruit from trees.  There is the Master Gardener training program sponsored by the Agricultural Extension Service in every state.  Some counties have urban oriented MG programs.   

Montgomery County's program often has people tabling at libraries and other places for advice and workshops. Some places offer a Master Composter training program.  Arlington County, Virginia has EcoAmbassadors focused on climate change issues.

Many parks agencies sponsor weed pulling of invasives and planting natives in their place. 

Technically illegal, I would do guerilla tree branch trimming on the route to and from the bus stop closest to our house.  

What about extending these kinds of program to yard help?

The Brookland neighborhood has the Greater Brookland Garden Club, and has for many years.  Members have monthly "parties" at houses and often are called upon to give advice.  

The group sponsors a Welcome to Brookland gateway sign with a planting bed.  

Decades ago, Savannah had a small block grants program that people could use for neighborhood projects like greenspace ("Enabling Productive Neighborhoods: The Role of a New Kind of Leader").

Asset-Based Community Development Manuals:

-- Leading by Stepping Back: A Guide for City Officials on Building Neighborhood Capacity, 
-- City-Sponsored Community Building: Savannah’s Grants for Blocks Story, 

H&R Block sponsors a similar program available nationwide.

San Francisco has created a variation of a neighborhood service district--they have those too, but unlike a business improvement district, it includes residential property as payers into the district--called a Green Benefits District (something that I will write a separate entry about).  

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But it's an idea.  I don't have the capacity or physicality to create it myself.  However, it could be a program of a revitalized Garden Center at Sugar House Park.

National Community Planning Month | Civic Involvement continued, Orange County Register's Be the Change

A special section in the paper pays attention to various volunteer efforts in the county.  

One, the LibroMobile, I've actually been to one of the earlier iterations and talked with its nonprofit leader, Sarah Rafael Garcia (on another visit I talked with her husband who was filling in at the store; he wrote his masters thesis about Barrio Logan and the National Landmark Chicano Park in San Diego)

• "Volunteering for Habitat for Humanity taught me more than how to swing a hammer"
• "Volunteers at this Inland Empire food bank are helping their community fight against hunger"
• "This Santa Ana resident created LibroMobile not just to sell books but to bring people together"
• "When addiction recovery means leaving a pet behind, this Palm Springs nonprofit steps in"
• "This Palm Springs retiree traded his golden years to help Cambodians recover from a war’s awful legacy"
• "Can small museums make our world bigger? This LA author thinks so"

• "LA’s Corita Art Center honors the legacy of a pop artist who wanted to build a kinder world"
• "Force Blue: Veterans become eco-warriors in the battle for ocean conservation"
• "An avid volunteer shares the how and why of getting involved in your community"
• "Volunteers at San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance get the chance to help Mother Nature"
• "How running for local office can help you connect with – and help – your community"
• "Shelley Hoss has learned a few things as California’s longest tenured community foundation leader"

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Interesting CNN article, "A White Evangelical Christian man tried to save my soul. It didn’t go as planned – for either of us," about evangelicalism and its turn towards Christian National.  At the end of it, he discusses church as "third place," and the decline of third places or other types of places where people come together as a group and have a common experience.

Volunteering is a form of third place.

National Community Planning Month | Civic Involvement

Public meeting in Denver.  "Ten Steps for a Great Community Meeting"

Community Involvement.  Can take so many forms.  

From DIY self-help, to Friends of the Library, Friends of the Parks organizations, grassroots councils like DC's Advisory Neighborhood Commissions or LA's Neighborhood Councils--both elect members to represent small sub-districts of the council, or to sit on various city committees, Planning and Zoning Commissions ("Few people vote in LA neighborhood council elections. And this year, turnout hit a historic low," LAist) and the like.

Outsiders tend to criticize such boards as anti-change, and against appropriate development (nimbys).

One of my criticisms of DC's ANCs is that the city doesn't invest much in the professional development of the representatives.  Theoretically there is technical assistance available, but a training infrastructure is not ("Setting up DC's Advisory Neighborhood Commissions for success").

Theoretically, a training infrastructure could help representatives be more objective and capable.

Unlike Seattle ("Building civic engagement systematically: Seattle's Department of Neighborhoods"), Los Angeles, or Calgary ("Community association planning committees a hidden gem?," Calgary Herald).  Even so, the LA Neighborhood Council system has issues ("L.A.’s Neighborhood Council members decry lack of City Hall support at annual Congress," LA Daily News).  

Like DC, LA's councils don't get much money ("Budget Reductions Proposed for Neighborhood Councils," Larchmont Buzz).  LA's don't get enough voter turnout because unlike DC, the elections aren't held during the normal election cycle, but specially.  That being said, DC's ANCs don't get tons of votes either.

New York City has Community Boards, but people are appointed by council members and Borough Presidents.  That has to effect their ability to be independent.   

WRT DC, and Friends of Libraries and Friends of Parks groups, I argue we should focus on the power of the network, and build out from it.  

WRT Library and Parks groups, I think there should be one formal organization with affinity groups/subcommittees devoted to each unit, rather than incorporating separate ones for each, with the parent group providing back office support, 501(c)3 status etc.

One thing about single commissioners is that they should be required to hold at least one public meeting per quarter (usually the overarching Commission meets monthly).  I argue that one of the meetings could be a community service event of some type, such as picking up litter.

Wendy Kheel from the NoHo Neighborhood Council volunteers at the Clean California community cleanup on Oct. 11 in North Hollywood at Lankershim and Sherman Way. (Photo courtesy of Clean California)

The LA Daily News article, "Thirty volunteers picked up two truckloads of litter and trash in North Hollywood," about a community cleanup mentions in passing that one of the participants is a member of the North Hollywood Neighborhood Council. 

Which gave me the idea that ANCs/Neighborhood Councils should also do at least one community service event, followed by a barbecue or block party each year as well.

Separately, the Mayor of Los Angeles has created a monthly cleanup day event ("Mayor Bass kicks off Shine LA clean up initiative with event in Hollywood," CBS-TV).

-- "Want to get connected in Denver? Joining your registered neighborhood association might be the move," Denverite
-- "Is a Better Community Meeting Possible?," Century Foundation

Washington Trust for Historic Preservation publishes a quarterly magazine.

Historic Preservation Groups.  States, cities, counties and/or neighborhoods may have historic preservation or local history associations, focused on presenting community history and maintaining historic buildings and neighborhoods.  

Often advocacy is organized on rehabilitation or new projects, as a neighborhood or city-wide committee is charged with reviewing and commenting on them.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation has an annual conference.  So do many state level groups.  They can be great opportunities to learn a lot very quickly.

Main Street Commercial District Revitalization Program.  Was originally created out of a desire by residents "to save local neighborhood business district historic buildings," but the National Trust for Historic Preservation soon recognized the issue was fixing broken micro-economies, because the reasons buildings were empty was because the local downtown economy wasn't working.  

Now the organization is separate from the National Trust, called Main Street America.

-- Washington Trust for Historic Preservation Main Street resources

The program is organized into committees focused on business development, organization, business promotion, and design (technically the committees may have different names).  

The groups bring together residents, business owners, property owners, the city government and other stakeholders to work together on improvements.

I think the way Main Street groups are organized is a good model for other types of organizations.  I know some museums use the model.  I'd like to try to use it as a guide to restructuring the Sugar House Park organization.

The Main Street program has an extensive technical assistance program and some publications (sadly mostly out of print) that are very good.

Biking and walking/Sustainable Mobility.  Many communities have bicycle and/or walking advocacy groups.  Active Transportation Alliance in Chicago and Transportation Alternatives in NYC focus on biking, walking, and transit.  Many communities and/or states have bicycle groups, but few communities have walking advocacy groups.

A variant is Safe Routes to School ("Why isn't walking/biking to school programming an option in Suburban Omaha? | Inadequacies in school transportation planning") which is a way to improve a community's infrastructure for kids getting to school in ways that also support broader community improvements.

Some schools organize group walk to school programs or "bike buses" ("Make Way for the Bike Bus," New York Times).

Neighborhood Planning Guidance.  I argue that neighborhoods, especially those with "recognized community organizations" like Philadelphia or Salt Lake, and sanctioned commissions ought to have at least a thumbnail plan of what they want to be, what to focus their energies on, what consensus priorities are, etc.

-- Neighborhood Planning website

It doesn't have to be a full blown master plan requiring hundreds of thousands of dollars, it can be based on some community meetings with a facilitator, ideally with some training about best practice, and the production of a framework or action plan for the community.

While my Silver Spring series on "Creating a Silver Spring "Sustainable Mobility District"

- Part 1: Setting the stage (2017)
- Part 2: Program items 1- 9 (2017)
- Part 3: Program items 10-18  (2017)
- Part 4: Conclusion (2017)
- Map for the Silver Spring Sustainable Mobility District (2017)
- (Big Hairy) Projects Action Plan(s) as an element of Comprehensive/Master Plans
- Creating the Silver Spring/Montgomery County Arena and Recreation Center (2017)

or New Carrollton ("Making over New Carrollton as a transit-centric urban center and Prince George's County's "New Downtown") "plans" were developed out of my thinking and field visits, you could argue they do provide some models.  

In "real life", the University District neighborhood of Buffalo created its own infrastructure plan, leveraging its transit connections ("Better on Bailey: Infrastructure Plan").  

So did the University District Neighborhood Council in Seattle, creating the University District Station Area Mobility Plan.

The summary is two pages.  It's a great model for what I think of as "thumbnail" plans, simpler than the plans engaging consultants costing many tens of thousands

I worked with residents to create a neighborhood priorities plan in Foggy Bottom, DC 18!!!! years ago etc.  Although it was more than two pages.

The PPS workshop "How to Turn a Place Around" and related Place Game planning tool are models of how to do a more simple kind of neighborhood planning.  

I also think the workshop serves as a potential training mechanism for interested residents, community associations, and city/county staff.  The idea is to move the workshop around a city or county, annually meeting in a different place.

I participated in an "informal" one more than 20 years ago, a training for Scenic America staff in 2004, and even though I was from the area and most of the participants were not, I found the insights and ideas developed by being on the site, but also infused by the reactions of others with a fresh approach (because they didn't live there), were powerful ("Eastern Market Metro Plaza").

In the blog entry "Outline for a proposed Ward-focused (DC) Councilmember campaign platform and agenda," I suggested that Councilmembers do this for their ward, obviously with citizen involvement, with recommendations about data collection and presentation (like where traffic accidents occur) and involvement structures.  But that can be ported down to the scale of neighborhood commissions.

Urban Design neighborhood plans.  Something else I've come to recommend, which does require a formal planning process, is the creation of urban design and placemaking plans for neighborhoods concerning streets, civic assets, and public space.  Instead of focusing on "a mode" I suggest "walkability" (which was just discussed in the previous entry, "October is National Community Planning Month | Thirteen characteristics of walkable neighborhoods | Characteristics of great places").

Besides my Silver Spring writings, I did a piece on the Dupont Circle neighborhood and 17th Street NW.  (They're iterative.)

-- "Planning urban design improvements at the neighborhood scale: Dupont Circle, DC," 2018
-- "More about making 17th Street between P and R a pedestrian space on weekends," 2019
-- "Planning for place/urban design/neighborhoods versus planning for transportation modes: new 17th Street NW bike lanes | Walkable community planning versus "pedestrian" planning," 2021

I also did a thumbnail plan, don't know where it is, for the greater area of L'Enfant Plaza and the now no longer new Wharf District ("The Wharf in D.C. Makes a Splash," Urban Land, "The Wharf, D.C.'s massive waterfront development, is now open," Architect's Newspaper).  

This 1990 photo shows the area.  L'Enfant Plaza is on top, next to it is I-695, the Southeast-Southwest Freeway.  On the bottom is the old "Waterfront District" dating to the urban renewal period.  It was redeveloped in the 2000s as "The Wharf".

The connections between the two can be much better, and taken to a quantum level with capping I-695.

The Bloomingdale neighborhood association in DC created a similar plan because the city's Office of Planning punted ("Bloomingdale Village Square Initiative will be holding its third Community Forum on the proposed North Capitol Deck-over Park").

Signage in Springfield, Missouri

Adopt-a-Street - Adopt-a-highway - Adopt-a-bus stop - Adopt-a-stream/creek - Adopt-a-storm- drain type programs.  Go for it. "Keep it Clean."

-- Adopt a Stream in Grand Rapids, Michigan
-- Adopt a storm drain, Salt Lake
-- Adopt a bus stop, Utah Transit Authority
-- Adopt a roadway, Murray, Utah

Transit stations as entrypoints to neighborhoods.  This is something that I've written a lot about.  For various reasons, stations aren't usually planned while considering their gateway, civic asset, and transportation infrastructure effects on neighborhoods ("Transit, stations, and placemaking: stations as entrypoints into neighborhoods," 2013).

Upholstered cushions affixed to a wall bench by a bus stop on wall by a bus stop on Hackney Road (Bethnal Green/Shoreditch, London) upholstered by the trainees in the Shoreditch Design Rooms upholstery program.

Bus stops and shelters too ought to be addressed in systematic ways to engage local residents and community associations ("Bus shelters as social spaces," 2020).

It'd be hard, because the stations can be quite noisy, but what about meeting rooms, office space for community groups, etc.

In the 1970s, there was an exhibit of artworks by employees of the NYC transit system, at the 57th Street Station.  

NYC Subway has big problems filling up retail spaces as the nature of ridership travel and work for home has changed how riders use the system.  They are offering some spaces to community groups, or for art exhibits ("MTA struggles to fix dead mall under New York City," Crain's New York Business).

I've also argued that transit stations should have some historical interpretation signage about the history of transit in that particular area.

Depending too on the nature of the station, there can be visitor information functions incorporated into stations.

Volunteers helping with plant maintenance at Red Butte Gardens in Salt Lake City.

Formal volunteer programs.  So many.  Museums.  Parks.  Libraries.  Visitor Centers. Public Gardens. Etc.

A case in Gloucester, Massachusetts as an illustration of the need for systematic neighborhood monitoring and stabilization initiatives: Part 4 (the Curcuru Family)

-- "The need for a "national" neighborhood stabilization program comparable to the Main Street program for commercial districts: Part I (Overall)"
-- "To be successful, local neighborhood stabilization programs need a packaged set of robust remedies: Part 2"
-- "Creating 'community safety partnership neighborhood management programs as a management and mitigation strategy for public nuisance programs: Part 3 (like homeless shelters)"
-- "A case in Gloucester, Massachusetts as an illustration of the need for systematic neighborhood monitoring and stabilization initiatives: Part 4 (the Curcuru Family)"
-- "Local neighborhood stabilization programs: Part 5 | Adding energy conservation programs, with the PUSH Buffalo Green Development Zone as a model," 2021 

Part 1 of this series discusses the need for focused neighborhood stabilization and improvement programs, particularly in weak market neighborhoods. With a proposed model being a reworking of the Main Street commercial district revitalization approach, but for neighborhoods, which the State of Pennsylvania has already done, calling it "Elm Street."

-- Elm Street program, Pennsylvania Downtown Center
-- Elm Street Managers Handbook
-- Chambersburg Elm Street Neighborhood Plan

Part 2 discusses packaging a set of remedies, so the programs can act expeditiously. 

To do that programs need to collect data and information and create maps showing the condition and state of properties, and identify potential solutions, including organizing community volunteer and self help/DIY initiatives such as the "Paint Ypsilanti" initiative that helped residents in the Depot Town neighborhood, when their houses were in need of a new paint job.

Rebuilding Together.  The piece mentioned the Rebuilding Together organization, which has local chapters that assist people without the means to do so to make necessary repairs on their houses.

 I attended their national conference in 2013 ("One element typically ignored in housing policy: helping low income families stay in their homes via repair assistance").

The organization terms April as "National Rebuilding Month" (the organization used to be called "Christmas in April"), and encourages affiliates to focus their service efforts then, culminating in "National Rebuilding Day," held on the last Saturday in April.

A project underway by Rebuilding Together Manchester in Connecticut.  Photo: Bob Kiefer.

Local affiliates may or may not have full time staff, but the bulk of the work is done by volunteers, both amateur and professional.

Funds tend to be a mix of government grants and locally raised donations, depending on the group.
Affiliates with paid staff tend to undertake more projects and do projects throughout the year, rather than just in April.

One focus is the installation of ramps for the disabled, which chapters tend to do all year, not just in April.

Manchester, Connecticut.  

More recently, rather than focusing on one-off projects, some RT chapters have started focusing each year's activity on particular neighborhoods, repairing dozens of houses at the same time, having a multiplicative impact on neighborhoods, going beyond that of a focus on individual houses.

Each year, collectively the chapters repair over 10,000 houses with the involvement of as many as 100,000 volunteers, with an equivalent value of around $100 million.

Neighborhood Housing Services.  In some respects you can argue that RT is a "self-help/DIY" version of the public program Neighborhood Housing Services, a program created by Congress in the 1960s, that many cities adopted to do similar kinds of work.

Through hundreds of programs across the nation, public and/or nonprofit agencies provide grants and other repair and housing rehabilitation services to people in need, mostly using public funds from HUD community block grants.

-- Maryland NHS webpage
-- "Neighborhood Housing Services: A Program with Promise," Vanderbilt Law Review, 1976
-- "Redlining Practices, Racial Resegregation, and Urban Decay: Neighborhood Housing Services as A Viable Alternative," The Urban Lawyer, 1975
-- "Building a Better Neighborhood Housing Partnership," Housing and Society, 2007

The programs may target households in terms of income eligibility as well as specific neighborhoods.  Some programs have energy-related initiatives and/or offer technical assistance workshops on topics such as foreclosure or home buying.

Also, many cities and counties, often in conjunction with senior aging programs, have created focused programs to provide such services to older-aged households.

The note that the Curcuru family received July 20 telling them their house is an “eyesore.” (Photo here and below: Michelle Baran)

The difference between Neighborhood Housing Services and initiatives like Elm Street and Rebuilding Together.  To make clear, while NHS type programs are important, what this series recommends is the support of initiatives that are more directly intertwined with civil society supportive elements.

The difference between the Main Street model and the community development corporation model is that non-professional citizens/residents are incorporated into the organization as members, volunteers, and leaders.

Gloucester, Massachusetts and the Curcuru family.  The Washington Post has an article, "A couple was shamed for their aging house. Hundreds of people stepped in to help spruce it up," about the Curcuru Family in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and how the health and income challenged family hasn't been able to keep up their house in good condition.

The house, long in need of painting, was called out as an eyesore in an anonymous missive.  Once this was disclosed in a Facebook post, the family received many offers of help and the house will be repainted.

Obviously, the house needs to be painted. Anyone can see that's the case.

But the state of disrepair should have been seen as an indicator of the need for help, rather than as an opportunity for anonymous shaming.

A long time ago, a colleague made the comment that the reason that there are so many lawyers is because people are unwilling or not very good at engaging with other people to deal with problems and differences, so they need third party intermediaries.

Another way to think of organized stabilization initiatives is as a friendly third party intermediary.

By collecting data, making assessments, and organizing a system of help, it's possible to deal with this kind of issue as a conversation rather than as through anonymous accusations and shaming.

Note that Gloucester has a housing rehab support program, but it's got a long waiting list.  And judging by the Post article, it's probably not particularly proactive in identifying houses of particular need.

The advantage of creating initiatives like an Elm Street neighborhood stabilization program or Rebuilding Together is that they draw on a wider variety of resources, including volunteers, than is typically possible through a staff-driven city agency.

Columbus Ohio and the Old Towne East neighborhood.  In Part 1, I mentioned the 2003 documentary "Flag Wars," about the demographic change--"gentrification"--of a neighborhood close to the Downtown of Columbus, Ohio.

The footage was mostly shot in the late 1990s.

-- Discussion Guide

The neighborhood is marked by huge houses, and had a preponderance of older black families, mostly low income.

Like the state of the Curcuru house in Gloucester, many of the houses were in disrepair, which of course is why some people were motivated to buy there--houses were cheap, big, and well located, and sweat equity could generate a great financial return.

Vacant houses in Olde Town East.  Wikipedia photo by Zhao 737.

So many of the houses are so large, that keeping them up would be a challenge for all but higher income households (e.g., in the last year, repairs and appliance replacement at our small bungalow in DC have already totaled over $4,000, and I wish we'd put some more money into landscaping).

Instead of looking to creating "mutual assistance programs" to help economically challenged households, many new residents profiled in "Flag Wars" called on the city's Code Enforcement inspectors to ticket and fine the homeowners.

Needless to say, this created animus ("‘Flag Wars’ Helped Me See Systems Of Racism In Housing And Its Effects On My Own Family," Columbus Navigator).

While it's taken a couple decades, apparently, these days, the neighborhood has "arrived," at least pre-pandemic, judging by last summer's historic house tour ("Olde Towne East home tour to feature the old, new, grand and sleek," Columbus Dispatch).

The Olde Towne East historic home tour features condominiums currently under construction at 1369 Fair Avenue. Pictured are owner Misty Linn (L) and her partner Katie Kikta (R). Tour organizers say the event illustrates the variety and health of the area's housing. Photographed on Tuesday, July 2, 2019. [Barbara J. Perenic/Dispatch]

Manor Park DC and the Albright Memorial Methodist Church.  An ongoing theme in writing about cities is the decline of churches as older church-going residents move to the suburbs.

As church congregations shrink, the ability to maintain buildings diminishes, especially as buildings age, and that is the case with the Albright Methodist Church on Rittenhouse Street NW in the Manor Park neighborhood (between Takoma and Brightwood).

Comparable to the letter received by the Curcurus, a resident living across the street from the church complained about their failure to maintain the roof, that tarps continued to cover part of the roof for many years, that it is an eyesore etc.

It's not that the church didn't know about the problem, but they spent many years raising the necessary funds to fix it.

He could have talked to them, and he could have even volunteered some of his time and energy to helping them facilitate and speed up the repair.  I guess the saving grace was that he didn't do it anonymously.  But in any case, most of the discussion on the list was more about defending the church.

That was a few years ago, and I seem to recall that the roof has finally been fixed.

While churches typically aren't eligible for government funds for repair (see the First Amendment), some historic preservation organizations do provide assistance to churches in these situations, sometimes with the support of the national organization Partners for Sacred Places.

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Columbus, Ohio community identity billboard

DC Civic Fest tomorrow

-- Civic Fest 

The organizers of the event are DC Tutoring and Mentoring Initiative and Washington Parks and People.

August 3rd
12 p.m – 8 p.m
Malcolm X/Meridian Hill Park
16th and W Streets NW

Rain Day: August 10th 12 p.m – 8 p.m

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Hill Center does a Volunteer fair in April for Capitol Hill area organizations and residents.

I think something like this needs to be offered at the city-wide (county-wide) and political district/neighborhood scales.

One thing I like about good street festivals is when they feature nonprofit and neighborhood organizations, but most such festivals aren't particularly systematic about doing this.

Picking up and later reading the "Restore the Core" report by the Sierra Club at their booth in Adams-Morgan in 2000 probably was one of the things that triggered my getting involved directly in local civic affairs, starting with my then languishing neighborhood of H Street NE.

April as Earth Month: Rock Creek Conservancy Hosts Tenth Annual Rock Creek Extreme Cleanup, Saturday April 14th

One of the problems of "Earth Day" is that many groups focus their energy on organizing activities to be held on that specific day, so that there are multiple events, but the average person can only get to one, maybe two events.

Celebrating "Earth Month," and spreading out actions across the month allows for more involvement and participation.

-- Earth Day, Sunday April 22nd, Earth Day Network
-- Earth Month2018

I am a fan of "community expos" as capacity building activities. In the DC area, both Howard and Montgomery Counties in Maryland have signature events for Earth Month:

-- Howard County GreenFest, Saturday April 21st
-- Montgomery County GreenFest, Saturday May 5th

The Silver Spring Time Bank will be sponsoring a "repair café" at the MoCo event. There's one at the HoCo event too.

I found out that there is a "Repair Café" network.

(I'd like to find a "sewing café" division, to get all my various clothes mending requirements taken care of...)

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From the Rock Creek Conservancy:

Thousands to Celebrate Earth Month by Cleaning Up Rock Creek

Spring has officially sprung, and Rock Creek Conservancy is inviting D.C. denizens and Marylanders alike to get outside this April and celebrate Earth Month by cleaning up Rock Creek.

The Conservancy is hosting the Tenth Annual Extreme Cleanup on April 14th. As the Conservancy's largest volunteer event of the year, the Extreme Cleanup mobilizes thousands of people to clean up 60 critical sites throughout both Washington, D.C. and Montgomery County, Maryland. These volunteer sites will include some of the area’s most iconic parks thanks to the Conservancy’s partnerships with Rock Creek Park, part of the National Park Service, and Montgomery Parks, part of the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission.

Volunteers make a difference. In the last nine years, volunteers have carted more than 17,000 garbage bags full of litter, 80 tons of junk, and 40,000 plastic bags out of Rock Creek's parks.

"What people don't realize is that occasional littering in a metropolitan area eventually builds up. A straw here, a plastic bag there...it all finds its way to Rock Creek," stated John Maleri, the program manager for volunteers, outreach, and restoration at Rock Creek Conservancy. He continued, "Without the help of our dedicated volunteers, all of that trash would still be collecting in Rock Creek and its parks, polluting our favorite lands and waters."

And it gets worse. A plastic bag or bottle left uncollected in Rock Creek will continue to “go with the flow.” That piece of trash can make its way into the Potomac River, float to the Chesapeake Bay, and ultimately end up in the Atlantic Ocean, where it would join the 5.2 trillion pieces of plastic trash that currently pollute the Earth's largest bodies of water.

"If you think about the scale of this problem, this cleanup truly becomes a celebration of Earth Month," Maleri affirmed. "The work we do here goes beyond Rock Creek. It has implications for the ecological health of the world at large."

The Conservancy is working closely with their partner, Alice Ferguson Foundation to align the Extreme Cleanup with the more expansive Annual Potomac River Watershed Cleanup, which spans cleanup sites in Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, and DC. Together, these two environmental organizations will bring together hundreds of communities throughout the Potomac River watershed.

“We encourage our volunteers to take what they learn during the Extreme Cleanup and apply it all year long,” continued Maleri. “We can all become stewards of our environment. Together we can make a difference.”

The Conservancy asks everyone to learn more and register. Those who would like to host a cleanup at their own site should email volunteer@rockcreekconservancy.org.

The Conservancy is hosting several other events in April to celebrate Earth Month, including the "Wild and Scenic Film Festival" and several happy hours to give back to the Rock Creek community. You can find more information about these events online.

ROCK CREEK CONSERVANCY - Rock Creek Conservancy exists to restore Rock Creek and its parklands as a natural oasis for all people to appreciate and protect. As the only organization dedicated solely to Rock Creek and its parks, the Conservancy is uniquely positioned to foster outreach, education, and efforts to overcome threats to Rock Creek. For more information, visit www.rockcreekconservancy.org.

ROCK CREEK PARK - Rock Creek Park, a unit of the National Park Service, comprises nearly 3,000 acres in the heart of Washington, D.C. The park offers visitors the opportunity to escape the bustle of the city for a peaceful refuge, recreation, fresh air, majestic trees, wild animals, and thousands of years of human history. Approximately 4.5 million visitors come to the park for recreation opportunities--including hiking, bicycling, picnicking, fishing, bird-watching--and to explore historical topics--including Civil War history, milling, Colonial life, landscape architecture--and much, much more!

MARYLAND-NATIONAL CAPITAL PARK AND PLANNING COMMISSION MONTGOMERY PARKS - Montgomery Parks manages more than 36,000 acres of parkland, consisting of 419 parks. Montgomery Parks is a department of the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC), a bi-county agency established in 1927 to steward public land. The M-NCPPC has been nationally recognized for its high-quality parks and recreation services and is regarded as a national model by other park systems. www.MontgomeryParks.org

April 6 Park Day event by the Civil War Trust

While I think there should be a "general" Park Day event, like National Public Lands Day which this year is September 28th and is a good way to leverage attention on trails, the Civil War Trust has sponsored Park Day, an event where people come out and do volunteer projects at Civil War battlefields (often now parks) and other historic sites, since 1996.

-- Park Day Facebook Page

20th Annual Jubilee Work Day: Saturday, October 13, 2012

Jubilee Housing is an affordable housing nonprofit in DC that develops and manages multiunit buildings, including the provision of supportive services, in the Adams-Morgan neighborhood of Washington, DC.

Each year they have a "Work Day," which is more internally focused, but I think is a good model of how organizations and stakeholders in the affordable housing field can do outreach-reach out to people outside of the affordable housing community who want to find out more information, learn more about housing policy, volunteer etc.

20th Annual Jubilee Work Day
Saturday, October 13, 2012, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.
The Festival Center, 1640 Columbia Road, NW, Washington, DC 20009

From email:

More than 175 corporate executives and volunteers will roll-up their sleeves to paint, landscape, repair and improve the apartments that make up Jubilee Housing. 

Right: Euclid Apartments, a Jubilee Housing property.

The Work Day gives an autumn facelift to all eight apartment buildings in the Jubilee Housing community, accomplishing in one day repairs that otherwise would take months to complete, and has been organized by Jubilee Support Alliance (JSA), a group of area professionals and organizations including Tom Gnecco, James G. Davis Construction Corp., Ken Thompson, Ruppert Landscape, and David Bowers, Vice-President, DC Market, Enterprise Community Partners.

Please sign up today for our 2012 Work Day by filling out the volunteer form. Please return the form by email to jsaadmin@erols.com, fax (202.328.7483)

Saturday September 29th is National Public Lands Day

-- National Public Lands Day website

-- The National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management have all declared National Public Lands Day on September 29, 2012 as a fee-free day. The Army Corps of Engineers has waived day-use fees at their parks.
-- list of fee-free days for national public lands

From the webpage:

More than 170,000 volunteers are expected at more than 2,100 sites across the country on Saturday, September 29 to take part in the largest single-day volunteer effort for public lands in the United States, National Public Lands Day (NPLD).

Volunteers in every state will visit parks, public and community gardens, beaches, wildlife preserves or forests and chip in to help these treasured places that belong to all Americans. They will improve and restore the lands and facilities the public uses for recreation, education, exercise and connecting with nature. ...

 

Events in every state, the District of Columbia and many U.S. territories can be found online now, searchable by state or zip code. Eight federal agencies will participate—along with more than 250 state, county and city partners, and a host of nonprofit organizations around the nation.
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Not part of National Public Lands Day, there will be a cleanup of the Triangle Park in Takoma, at 4th Street and Blair Road NW on Saturday, from 10am to 12 noon.

The park is somewhat contentious because it is used most heavily by a group of public drinkers, most aren't homeless, who don't make the park very hospitable for use by others. 

I argue that part of the problem is that the park is designed to shield users from "eyes in the street," cloaking negative behaviors.  Others make the point that it's in such a bad location, at the triangular corner of a traffic sewer, that it's not really very conducive to being used anyway.