Collaborating for Change:

PARTNERSH IPS TO TRANSFORM LOCAL COMMUN IT IES

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development

Office of Policy Development and Research
Preface

T here is a relatively small office here at the U.S. Department of Housing and 

Urban Development (HUD) that has made a very large impact on communities 

nationwide. Its name—the Office of University Partnerships (OUP)—tells you 

everything you need to know about its work.

For the past 16 years, OUP has managed a variety of grant programs that offer financial support 

and technical assistance to help colleges and universities carry out community development 

activities in their neighborhoods. Over the years, OUP grantees have been extraordinarily 

successful in achieving great outcomes with relatively small staffs and modest funding. How 

do they accomplish this? Without exception, every good thing that these institutions of higher 

education (IHEs) accomplish in their communities is achieved through partnerships. 

As its name indicates, the Office of University Partnerships encourages and supports these 

collaborations. Partnerships are at the core of OUP’s mission and a hallmark of every project 

to which OUP provides financial and technical support. 

OUP grants provide colleges and universities with a unique opportunity to work closely with 

their neighbors, which include community-based organizations, local government agencies, 

public schools, houses of worship, civic associations, housing developers, Tribal councils, 

health professionals, cultural organizations, banks, local merchants, foundations, environmental 

groups, social service providers, individual residents, and many other stakeholders. IHEs 

contribute a host of financial and in-kind resources; extensive knowledge about relevant 

community-development issues; research capabilities; and the energy and enthusiasm of 

faculty, staff, and students. Their partners bring an intimate knowledge of community issues 

and residents as well as a proven ability to get things done at the local level.

The community-based relationships that develop during an OUP grant period endure long 

after grant funds have been spent. These relationships are a powerful force behind the kind 
COLLABORATING FOR CHANGE: PARTNERSHIPS TO TRANSFORM LOCAL COMMUNITIES 

of permanent, transformative change that allows communities to help their residents build 

brighter futures for themselves and their families. 

With this first volume of Collaborating for Change: Partnerships to Transform Local 

Communities, HUD and OUP celebrate the campus-community collaborations that are changing 

the economic and social landscape of large and small, urban and rural communities nationwide. 

This first volume focuses on the Hispanic-Serving Institutions Assisting Communities Program, 

the Tribal Colleges and Universities Program, and the Doctoral Dissertation Research Grants 

Program. The second volume will examine the work of the Historically Black Colleges and 

Universities and the Alaska Native/Native Hawaiian Institutions Assisting Communities. We 

congratulate our grantees on a job well done, and we extend our heartfelt thanks to their 

community partners, who have added so much to OUP-supported efforts to revitalize local 

communities.
v 

Contents

Introduction....................................................................................... 1

Section 1 : Hispanic -Serving Institutions 

Assisting Communities............................................................. 7

Profile: Midland College........................................................................................9

HSIAC Snapshots.....................................................................................31

Section 2 : Tribal Colleges and Universities........... 57

Profile: Salish Kootenai College.....................................................................59

 TCUP Snapshots......................................................................................69

Section 3 : Research Grants................................................ 77

Profile: Tatjana Meschede, University of 

 Massachusetts Boston................................................................................79

 Research Grant Snapshots .....................................................................97 

Appendix............................................................................................ 107

 HSIAC Grantees, 1999–2009 ................................................................. A-1

 TCUP Grantees, 1999–2009 .................................................................. B-1

 Research Grantees, 1994–2009............................................................. C-1

 
1 

Introduction

By Armand W. Carriere

T he importance of colleges and universities to the continued growth and wellbeing of our nation has long been acknowledged. As Americans, we celebrate the quality and accessibility of our institutions of higher education (IHEs), even 

as we work to make curricula more relevant and access easier and more affordable. 

We believe, and rightly so, that by training our future leaders and by adding to our 

research-based knowledge, higher education plays a critical role in preparing our 

country for future challenges. Those challenges will have an impact on the quality of 

life of many Americans, including those experiencing poverty and economic insecurity, 

those struggling to manage chronic health issues, and those living in communities that 

could benefit from economic development and neighborhood revitalization efforts.

As colleges and universities seek to make an impact in these and other areas, their work 

inevitably extends beyond the formal classroom to encompass their states, cities, and local 

neighborhoods. Recognizing that they can accomplish more if they do not act alone, these IHEs 

often collaborate with community leaders, organizations, and residents to design projects and 

programs that address and assist in solving community problems. In the end, these collaborations 

make the community-based work of IHEs richer, more relevant, and far more effective because of 

the unique experiences, skills, and perspectives of those involved in the efforts. 

A Brief History of Community Engagement

Historians describe a variety of influences that helped create an approach to higher education 

that fosters community engagement. Those influences include the religious-based service 

Armand W. Carriere is a former Associate Deputy Assistant Secretary for University Partnerships at the U.S. 

Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Before his retirement in 2005, he worked at HUD for 

approximately 16 years. Mr. Carriere is now a Visiting Fellow with the New England Resource Center for Higher 

Education.
COLLABORATING FOR CHANGE: PARTNERSHIPS TO TRANSFORM LOCAL COMMUNITIES 

2 

orientation of Colonial-era colleges and universities (later to be known as Ivy League 

institutions); the Morrill Act of the mid-19th century, which expanded education and services 

to a growing agrarian economy; and the Settlement House movement of the late 19th century, 

which saw institutions like the University of Chicago collaborate with Hull House to provide 

education and services to a predominantly immigrant urban population. 

The belief that colleges and universities should no longer be ivory towers that are cut off from 

the outside world began to evolve even further during the 20th century, when the social turmoil 

of the 1960s and the end of the Cold War caused IHEs to revisit their research agendas, their 

curricula, and their relationships with their host communities.

More recently, the concept of campus-community engagement has been championed by 

organizations such as Campus Compact, Campus Community Partnerships for Health, and, 

most significantly, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). HUD 

created the Office of University Partnerships (OUP) in 1994 as a vehicle to provide colleges and 

universities the financial and technical support they needed to assist in the revitalization of their 

local communities in partnership with their neighbors in those communities. For the past 16 

years, OUP has supported more than 300 IHEs in their efforts to step outside the boundaries of 

their campuses and to join local residents in powerful initiatives that address such communityidentified needs as affordable and decent housing, job creation and training, health promotion, 

small business development, and access to technology for residents of every age and income 

level. Those initiatives—and those partnerships—continue to this day.

How have colleges and universities been able to take on such diverse and difficult challenges? 

The answer is simple. They did not do it alone. As the very name of OUP indicates, they did it 

through partnerships.

Characteristics of Successful Partnerships

There is no single definition of partnership as it relates to campus-community engagement. 

A partnership may be a well-established and ongoing relationship between the campus 

and a single community-based organization or multiple community partners. Or it could be 

a single, discrete collaboration with a defined beginning and ending. A partnership might 

involve a single faculty or staff member who serves in a consulting role to a community-based 

organization or local government agency. Or it could involve an entire academic department or 

campus-wide center that enables teams of faculty, staff, and students to work with community 

partners on pressing community issues. If the college or university has received a grant from 

HUD or another funding agency, the partnership will have a fiduciary aspect. But partnerships 
Introduction

3 

can just as easily spur colleges and universities to contribute their time and talent, rather than 

their money, to community-driven initiatives. 

Clearly, there are as many different forms of partnership as there are colleges and universities; 

and the best partnerships will certainly reflect the unique aspects of the educational institution, 

its community, and its partners. However, every partnership will also share several basic, key 

elements.

• Shared Vision/Common Ground. No partnership can be successful unless all parties agree 

on what the ultimate goals of the partnership will be. Do the partners have the same view of 

the problem that they have come together to address? Do they agree on the strategies that 

will be implemented to address the problem? Do the partners define success in the same 

way? Does each partner have a clear understanding of what the other partners expect the 

partnership to achieve?

• Clearly Defined Roles. In some partnerships, the college or university delegates the dayto-day operations of a project to a partnering organization like a community development 

corporation. In this case, the roles of each partner will be clear. In other cases, however, 

the IHE and its partners share responsibility for a project’s operational activities and 

administrative functions. In this case, it is vital that all parties have a clear understanding of 

their specific responsibilities.

• Equality of Partnership. Regardless of how specific roles are defined, the partnership must 

be approached as a collaborative effort among equals. It can be easy for an IHE to assume a 

dominant or leadership role in these partnerships, especially if the educational partner has 

abundant resources. This dominance, whether conscious or unconscious, can be damaging 

to the partnership. In order to be good partners, colleges and universities must understand 

the importance of the community voice and must listen carefully to this voice as they 

develop their partnership projects to ensure that all partners are active participants. 

• Historical Awareness. An IHE contemplating a partnership with a community organization 

should first do some research to uncover any previous history that may exist between the 

college and the community. It is not uncommon for a college and a community to have a 

history of conflict over such issues as real estate development and subsequent community 

displacement, crime, and student behaviors, to name a few. Conversely, it will be important 

to know about previous partnership efforts that produced mutually beneficial results. The 

prospects of success for a new partnership will increase if that partnership can build on the 

successes of past collaborations.
COLLABORATING FOR CHANGE: PARTNERSHIPS TO TRANSFORM LOCAL COMMUNITIES 

4 

• Understanding Limitations. It is important for every partner to understand and make clear 

to others its limitations vis-à-vis the partnership. Such limitations are inevitable. Institutional 

and community priorities change, changes in campus and community leadership take place, 

grants expire. The college or university, despite its good intentions, cannot be all things to 

all people. Likewise, the community cannot be seen as a laboratory that is available for any 

and all college-sponsored research and program efforts.

• Communication. Good communication is common to all successful partnerships. If an IHE 

is serious about extending itself into the community, it must create an environment in which 

all parties feel comfortable and welcome to share their concerns. Above all, the college or 

university must be willing to listen. Equally important, the plans and programs adopted by 

the partners must reflect that listening process. 

• Assessment. Efforts to assess the effectiveness of a partnership, including benefits that the 

collaboration offers to all partnering organizations, should be ongoing. The assessment 

process should include representatives from all participating organizations. Most important, 

the results of the assessment must be shared with all the partners. Partnerships can be 

strengthened when open, honest assessment takes place. Often, the IHEs can provide the 

technical skills necessary to develop evaluation tools. Some colleges have also trained 

community members in basic research skills as a way to secure better assessment data 

while providing community members with new skills.

Next Steps

There is much to celebrate about the success of the programs highlighted in this volume and 

the many more OUP-supported partnerships that have worked diligently to revitalize their 

communities over the past 16 years. Their efforts have produced marked improvements in the 

lives of thousands of low- and moderate-income citizens throughout America, including some 

of our most vulnerable populations. The successes achieved by these programs are the result of 

the tireless and dedicated efforts of campus and community leaders alike.

Despite our success, however, one major question faces everyone involved in the work of 

community engagement. Can that engagement be sustained? Will HUD grants continue? Will 

state and local governments continue their support? Will the philanthropic community maintain 

local development initiatives, particularly in marginalized communities, as a priority?

Because we live in uncertain times, the answers to these questions will not always be a 

resounding yes. Funding sources could very well dry up, even in communities that are most 

in need of that financial support. Unfortunately, the needs of those communities are likely to 

grow. To meet these mounting needs, it may be incumbent on colleges and universities and 
Introduction

5 

their community partners to examine new, creative ways to support community revitalization 

initiatives. 

For example, it may be time to examine the totality of resources—both financial and in-kind— 

that are available on the campus and then assess what additional assets can be tapped on 

behalf of the community. Can faculty develop curricula that will engage their students in efforts 

that respond to community-identified needs? Can institutional policies encourage the purchase 

of goods and services from local merchants? Is the college or university in a position to direct 

capital improvement contracts to local minority- or women-owned businesses? Do personnel 

policies favor local hires?

In addition, it may also be advisable to carefully document the success of campus-community 

partnerships. At a time when financial support for community engagement may be more 

difficult to secure, IHEs and their partners must be prepared to show potential funders and 

policymakers at the local, state, and federal levels that their collaborative projects are making a 

difference and having an impact on local communities. The best way to illustrate that success is 

to collect, organize, and disseminate hard data that shows concrete and positive outcomes. 

About This Publication

Collaborating for Change: Partnerships to Transform Local Communities is the first of a twovolume publication designed to examine the great work that OUP grantees and their partners 

are carrying out nationwide. This volume highlights the success stories that are being written 

each day by grantees and partners in three OUP programs: the Hispanic-Serving Institutions 

Assisting Communities Program, the Tribal Colleges and Universities Program, and the 

Doctoral Dissertation Research Grant Program. The next volume in this series, to be published 

in 2011, will focus on the partnerships being developed by grantees in the Historically Black 

Colleges and Universities Program and the Alaska Native/Native Hawaiian Institutions Assisting 

Communities Program.

Each section of this publication offers an in-depth case study of one grantee whose experience 

with partnerships reflects the experiences of OUP grantees. These case studies describe the 

partnerships themselves, how they were developed, and how they are nurtured over time. The 

case studies also provide important insights into what makes these partnerships work and what 

occasionally makes them challenging. Grantees speak openly about those challenges and offer 

advice, based on their own experiences, about how those challenges can be overcome. 

These in-depth profiles are followed by a series of partnership snapshots—short profiles of 

successful partnerships that individual grantees submitted for inclusion in this publication. 

I know you will be impressed by these shorter profiles, which illustrate the breadth of 
COLLABORATING FOR CHANGE: PARTNERSHIPS TO TRANSFORM LOCAL COMMUNITIES 

6 

community development initiatives being undertaken by OUP grantees and the wide variety 

of community partners that are involved in OUP-supported projects. 

Conclusion

Colleges and universities are making an important and valuable contribution to their 

communities with the help of HUD grants and other leveraged funds, the support of OUP staff, 

and the cooperation of community partners. It is important that this work be recognized and 

that its further growth is encouraged. I am confident that this publication, by shining a light on 

OUP’s dedicated grantees and their impressive partners, will allow that to happen.
SECTION 1

Hispanic-Serving Institutions 

Assisting Communities
9 

SECT ION 1

Bringing a Community Together to Help 

Residents Build Wealth

M id land Co l lege

M i d l a n d , Te x a s 

2 0 0 3 , 2 0 0 7

F or decades, Midland College thought it was doing a pretty good job of engaging 

with the west Texas city of more than 100,000 residents from which it gets its 

name. That feeling changed about 10 years ago when the college held a series of 

focus groups to see how Midland residents viewed the campus. The responses were 

surprising, to put it mildly. 

Focus group facilitators asked residents from 

various city neighborhoods whether they 

would ever consider attending or sending 

their children to Midland College. The answer 

from residents of one neighborhood on the 

south side of town was a resounding “no.” 

Significantly, the majority of residents in that 

neighborhood are low- and moderate-income 

Hispanic families who make up the city’s 

fastest growing population group. 

“It was like being hit by an 18-wheeler,” 

recalls Eileen Piwetz, the college’s vice 

president for institutional advancement.

“We learned that there were people in our 

community who did not feel comfortable 

coming to our campus,” says Piwetz about the 

focus group findings. “Basically, they felt that 

our campus was for rich, white people. It just 

never occurred to us that we were perceived 

in that manner by anybody. We didn’t think 

we were doing a bad job. But now we realized 

that we had a problem.”

Up until then, says Piwetz, the college had 

tried to be welcoming to all prospective 

students. It had worked hard to keep 

classes small and tuition low. Faculty and 

staff viewed themselves as friendly and 

accommodating. The college had invested 

substantial resources to make its physical 

campus beautiful and inviting. It had also 

partnered with several local foundations to 

offer full scholarships to graduates of Midland 

high schools who maintained a 2.5 grade 

point average and agreed to do volunteer 

work in the community. Most significantly, 

the college had been careful to make sure, 

year after year, that the percentage of 

Hispanic students attending Midland College 

matched the percentage of Hispanics living in 

Midland.
COLLABORATING FOR CHANGE: PARTNERSHIPS TO TRANSFORM LOCAL COMMUNITIES 

10 

Now it was obvious that the college had to 

do more. And over the next few years, that’s 

exactly what it did.

Viewing the focus groups as a wake-up call, 

Midland College renewed its commitment 

to hire faculty of color. It began what has 

become an ongoing campaign to attract 

first-generation college students to its 

classes, and sought grants—from HUD’s 

Hispanic-Serving Institutions Assisting 

Communities (HSIAC) program and the U.S. 

Department of Education—that would help 

it accomplish that goal. The college also 

took a closer look at how it could improve 

its outreach to residents of south Midland. 

That outreach wasn’t limited to college-age 

students. For example, the college began 

offering scholarships for its annual summer 

camps to children living in south Midland. 

It also made a deliberate effort to welcome 

residents of that community to a series 

of free performing arts programs that the 

college provides annually as a service to all 

Midland residents. After the college hosted 

a performance by the Mexican dance 

troupe Ballet Folklorico a few years ago, the 

performing arts series became very popular 

within Midland’s Hispanic community. 

Spanish speakers of all ages now attend the 

series, says Piwetz, whether it features the 

Chinese Golden Dragon Acrobats or song 

writer Marvin Hamlisch. “We learned that 

music transcends language barriers,” 

she says.

At the same time, the college decided 

to establish the Cogdell Learning Center 

at 201 West Florida Avenue in the heart 

of Midland’s Hispanic community. The 

building, originally donated to the city 

of Midland by local businessman Bill 

Pace Cogdell, was acquired by Midland 

College in 1992. It now provides a satellite 

location for the Midland College Adult 

Basic Education Department, which 

sponsors General Educational Development 

(GED), English as a Second Language 

(ESL), and citizenship classes. The center 

also administers the Bill Pace Cogdell 

Scholarship Trust, which offers financial 

support to Midland College students who 

begin their education at the learning center, 

and it offers various higher education 

outreach services such as helping 

community members complete the Free 

Application for Federal Student Aid. 

The south-side learning center also serves 

as a kind of community center where 

local residents vote in elections, access 

Eileen Piwetz, Midland College’s vice president 

for institutional advancement. 
SECTION 1: Midland College

11 

the Internet in a public computer lab, get 

assistance with tax preparation from the 

Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) 

program, and receive help in starting a 

small business from the college’s Business 

and Economic Development Center (BEDC). 

“If you want to help out the community, 

you have to show them that you care,” says 

Alfredo Chaparro, director of community 

services at the college, who oversees 

activities at the center. “I’m a strong 

believer that if Midland College wants to 

push higher education, it needs to do a lot 

more than just push higher education.”

Do ing More Than 

Promot ing H igher 

Educat ion

Alfredo Chaparro came to Midland 

College in October 2001 as director of the 

Cogdell Learning Center. Since then, his 

responsibilities at Midland College have 

expanded, but he’s still promoting a lot 

more than higher education in the south 

Midland community. In fact, Chaparro has 

gained a reputation over the past 9 years 

as someone who is willing to investigate 

any good idea that might help improve the 

economic security of low- and moderateincome families. One of those good ideas 

was the Individual Development Account 

(IDA) program that Midland College has 

administered since 2007 with help from a 

HSIAC grant. 

IDAs are special savings accounts that lowand moderate-income individuals can use 

to save for a particular asset purchase, like 

a downpayment on a home or a piece of 

equipment for a small business. The unique 

feature of an IDA—and what sets it apart 

from regular savings accounts—is that the 

organization sponsoring the IDA matches 

each dollar that IDA participants deposit 

in their savings accounts. In order to 

encourage participants to get into the habit 

of saving, IDA programs always feature 

some form of financial education.

Chaparro is the first to admit that bringing 

an IDA program to Midland, and having 

Midland College sponsor that program 

with HSIAC funds, was not actually his 

idea. Instead, that idea came from David 

Diaz, director of the Midland Community 

Development Corporation (MCDC) and a 

long-time Midland College partner. Diaz 

says he stumbled upon the IDA concept at a 

housing conference in 2002 and just could 

not let go of the idea.

“Everybody was telling me, you have to get 

an IDA program started,” said Diaz, whose 

organization has built and sold about 65 

affordable homes in Midland during the 

past 6 years. “Everywhere I went, I would 

hear how an IDA would help the families 

we serve afford their downpayment. 

But at the time my whole focus was on 

getting our houses built. That in itself was 

monumental. There was no way I could start 

an IDA program and make a success of it. 

Fortunately, that was about the time I met 

Alfredo.”

Chaparro was intrigued by the IDA concept 

from the start. But after more investigation 
COLLABORATING FOR CHANGE: PARTNERSHIPS TO TRANSFORM LOCAL COMMUNITIES 

about IDAs, he decided it was too big a 

project to take on right away. Instead, 

Midland College collaborated with MCDC 

on a 2003 HSIAC grant that established 

a construction trades training program 

at the college. The project, which was 

administered by the BEDC and the college’s 

Building Trades Science program, was 

designed to improve the availability of 

affordable housing in Midland by training 

community members for entry-level 

construction industry jobs.

The IDA idea may have been put on the 

back burner, but it never went away. After 

the 2003 HSIAC grant was completed, Diaz 

continued to push Chaparro to apply for 

another HSIAC grant that would support 

such a savings program. Diaz introduced 

Chaparro to John West, president of the 

local Community National Bank. He also 

connected both Chaparro and West with a 

consultant who could advise them on how 

to set up an IDA program. Then, Chaparro 

and Betsy Seanard, BEDC associate 

director, traveled around Texas to learn 

as much as they could from current IDA 

sponsors and from organizations that 

offer technical assistance and support to 

nonprofits interested in establishing IDAs. 

“We had heard all kinds of wonderful things 

about IDAs and the more we researched, 

the more we thought we could do it,” 

says Seanard, who administers Midland 

College’s IDA program. “But it’s a huge 

program that is not traditionally in the 

realm of higher education. For a college to 

be cutting checks for people to buy homes 

is really unusual. We decided to wait a year 

so we could really do our homework. We 

saw the impact that an IDA program could 

have on the community. And we wanted to 

do something really awesome. A smaller 

program just wasn’t something that we 

could get as excited about.”

Savings for Independence 

Program

In fall 2007, Midland College’s BEDC 

received a HSIAC grant that allowed it to 

establish the IDA program that Chaparro 

and Seanard had envisioned. The Savings 

for Independence Program would disburse 

a $300,000 pool of funds over 3 years to 

help 60 families purchase homes and 15 

individuals establish their own businesses. 

Participants in the program would have to 

agree to save at least $10 a month in an 

IDA account and complete all 10 sessions 

of Money Smart, the financial education/

training program developed by the Federal 

Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). In 

addition, participants saving for a home 

agreed to attend a homebuyer training 

program, while participants interested 

in starting a business agreed to write 

a business plan and take advantage of 

entrepreneurship counseling provided by 

the BEDC.

In return, the BEDC matched every dollar 

that participants saved, up to $1,000, with 

$3 from its HSIAC-supported fund. By 

spring 2010, with 6 months left in the HSIAC 

grant, the program had committed $298,400 

12 
SECTION 1: Midland College

of its $300,000 to IDA savers. Forty-two 

families had purchased their homes and 

17 businesses had purchased assets that 

included computers and software, lawn 

care equipment, food service trailers, and 

cameras for a photography business. An 

additional 19 individuals had earned their 

match but had not yet made their purchase. 

Because HSIAC grants last only 3 years—

and most IDA programs run for at least 5 

years—Chaparro says he felt an acute sense 

of urgency to start the program on time. 

“We couldn’t wait for 3 or 6 months to set 

up the program,” he says. “So on day 1 of 

the grant, we had hired a director and we 

had developed the 20 forms that we would 

need to determine a participant’s eligibility 

and get them set up with an IDA. We knew 

what every step in the process was going to 

be and we were ready to go.”

Establishing all the steps in the process 

took months of thought and extensive 

discussions with all of the project’s 

partners, which include MCDC, Midland 

Habitat for Humanity, Community National 

Bank, the city of Midland Community 

Development Office, and Casa de Amigos, a 

community-based service provider located 

in south Midland. Together, the partners 

created an IDA program with the following 

elements:

• The match rate: The BEDC has been 

somewhat flexible in setting the match 

rate that it offers IDA participants. For 

most of the grant period, the program 

offered homebuyers a $3 match for 

every dollar they saved, up to $1,000. 

That meant that homebuyers could 

conceivably bring an extra $3,000 to a 

house closing, if they had been able to 

deposit $1,000 of their own money in 

the IDA account. During the first year 

of the program, IDA participants saving 

for a business earned a $4 match for 

every dollar they saved. This higher rate 

was designed to bolster the popularity 

of the business IDA and was dropped 

to a $3 match in the second year of the 

program. Similarly, toward the end of 

the IDA program, the BEDC adjusted 

the match rate again in order to stretch 

grant dollars and assist as many people 

as possible before grant funds ran 

out. A year before the grant ended, 

for example, the BEDC began offering 

matches of $2 for every dollar new IDA 

participants saved. By spring 2010, the 

match rate had fallen to $1 for every 

dollar that new participants saved. 

13 

Renee Rivera, bank officer, with an IDA applicant. 
COLLABORATING FOR CHANGE: PARTNERSHIPS TO TRANSFORM LOCAL COMMUNITIES 

• Match limitations: IDA participants 

are encouraged to deposit as much 

money in their IDA accounts as they 

can manage to save. However, no more 

than $1,000 is eligible for a match. 

BEDC places matching funds on deposit 

with Community National Bank as 

soon as participants earn them. The 

bank holds those matching funds on 

deposit in an interest-bearing custodial 

account owned by Midland College and 

pays out matches when participants 

are ready to make a purchase. Match 

payments are made by bank check 

directly to the title company, in the case 

of a home purchase, or to a vendor, in 

the case of a business-related purchase. 

Participants who leave the program 

or are terminated do not receive their 

match.

• Eligibility: Eligible IDA participants 

must document that they are receiving 

earned income and that their income 

puts them in the low- to moderateincome range, as defined by HUD’s 

annual income limits. 

• Eligible Purchases: Participants can 

use their IDA proceeds to make a firsttime home purchase as long as the 

cost of the home does not exceed 120 

percent of the average area purchase 

price. Owners of small businesses can 

use their funds to buy tangible assets 

for a new or existing entrepreneurial 

activity, but not to pay operating costs 

or salaries.

• Bank Accounts: IDA participants open 

their savings accounts at Community 

National Bank; they pay no service 

charges and aren’t required to maintain 

a minimum balance. The bank sends 

monthly statements to all IDA account 

holders and to the BEDC staff. In turn, 

the BEDC formulates an IDA statement 

for each participant that shows the 

participant’s savings and the anticipated 

match. IDA participants are required 

to save for 6 consecutive months, or 9 

out of 12 months, before they can claim 

their match. 

• Emergency Withdrawals: Participants 

can only make withdrawals from 

their IDA accounts in the event of an 

emergency, and those withdrawals 

must be approved by the BEDC. 

Qualifying emergencies include the 

need to forestall an impending eviction 

or to pay for critical healthcare or living 

expenses. Participants must repay 

these emergency withdrawals within 

12 months in order to remain in the 

program. While emergency withdrawals 

are not common, those that do occur 

actually help keep the participant on 

track to save for a home, says Seanard. 

“We had one client whose car caught 

on fire,” she says. “She needed money 

to buy another car before the insurance 

check came in or she would have lost 

her job. So she withdrew $700 from her 

IDA account. When the insurance check 

came in, she put the money back in her 

account. A month later, she was able 

14 
SECTION 1: Midland College

to buy her house. Because she had her 

IDA account, she didn’t have to go to a 

predatory lender to get the money she 

needed. If she didn’t have the IDA, that 

emergency would have delayed her 

home purchase.”

Financial Education

While the IDA program has certainly helped 

Midland residents afford to make important 

purchases, the program’s educational 

components—including the Money Smart 

classes, homeownership training, business 

assistance, and credit counseling—could 

very well turn out to be more important 

aspect of the IDA for the city’s low- and 

moderate-income families.

“We can’t just qualify (low-income 

homebuyers) and get them a home,” says 

Sylvester Cantu, Midland’s Community 

Development Administrator. “If that’s all 

we do, then they are going to lose their 

home because they don’t have the tools 

to be homebuyers, and they don’t have 

the budget to do all the things that come 

with homeownership. Credit counseling, in 

particular, is a good way to prepare a person 

to buy a home and then also to keep it.”

Credit counseling is especially critical 

for those IDA participants who are not 

mortgage-ready when they apply for the 

program. Some families can take a year 

or more to resolve their credit issues, 

meeting with BEDC staff up to 15 times to 

receive guidance and encouragement, says 

Seanard. But all that effort pays off, she 

says. 

“We have had people who improved their 

credit score by over 100 points,” she says. 

“That’s huge. It’s just amazing to see what a 

difference this makes in a person’s life. For 

the first time in years, they can answer the 

phone at home with confidence knowing 

that it’s not a creditor on the line. They are 

not paying high fees for insurance, deposits 

on utilities, or high interest rates when 

they have to borrow money. And they are 

saving money so they don’t have to go 

to a predatory lender to get money in an 

emergency.”

When clients with credit issues sit down 

with Seanard or the other credit counselors 

at the BEDC, they receive advice on 

prioritizing their outstanding bills, as well 

as tips on how to come up with a little 

extra money each month to pay those 

bills. Seanard often suggests that clients 

15 

Financial education class.
COLLABORATING FOR CHANGE: PARTNERSHIPS TO TRANSFORM LOCAL COMMUNITIES 

go on a crash budget as they prepare for 

homeownership, just as they would go on a 

crash diet to prepare for a special occasion.

“You have to decide that you are not going 

to get your nails done for a while,” says 

Seanard. “You might get a 12-pack of 

soda at Wal-Mart instead of picking up a 

fountain drink at the fast food restaurant. 

I sometimes suggest that families see if 

they can go without cable television for a 

year. They may not need a cell phone. They 

can go to the library for their videos. It is 

amazing how much unnecessary spending 

people can squeeze out of their budgets.” 

MCDC has documented the impact that this 

type of counseling and education has had 

on its clients.

“I’m really proud to say that out of the 65 

families that have made a home purchase 

through MCDC, we have only lost one 

family to foreclosure,” says Diaz. “That in 

itself is a testament to the education that 

they have received. A lot of families would 

not have gotten themselves mortgageready if it had not been for all the handholding taking place.”

Need for the Program

Midland, Texas, was established in 1881 as 

the midway point between Fort Worth and 

El Paso on the Texas and Pacific Railroad. 

The railroad played a primary role in the 

local economy until 1923 when oil was 

discovered in the nearby Permian Basin. 

Soon afterwards, Midland was transformed 

forever into a west Texas oil town with an 

economy that is now closely linked to that 

industry’s boom-and-bust cycles. During 

boom times—including the post-World War II 

years and the 1970s—the city’s population 

soared and its housing became scarce and 

expensive. During bust periods, that same 

housing was abandoned and vacant lots 

proliferated.

“In the 1960s, we overbuilt and then we had 

a bust,” says Diaz. “We had an unbelievable 

number of vacant houses, and they just 

sat there. There were about 1,000 houses 

that were bulldozed simply because it was 

cheaper than paying property taxes on 

them.” 

Another oil boom, which occurred in 

2007 and 2008, brought with it many new 

residents who bought up most of the city’s 

depleted housing inventory, says Diaz. The 

result was a housing shortage for those on 

the lower end of the economic scale. The 

price of rental homes and apartments in the 

area began to escalate at unprecedented 

rates—by 20 percent in one year alone. At 

one point in 2007, says Diaz, there were 

fewer than 10 homes on the market that 

were selling for less than $100,000.

“We saw a lot of families doubling up in 

housing,” he says. “We saw a lot of young 

couples living with their parents because 

housing was nonexistent. If you found a 

house on the market for less than $30,000 

it meant you were buying a shell. It was 

definitely a seller’s market. Our buying 

families had very little to pick from.”

16 
SECTION 1: Midland College

South Midland was a thriving community 

neighborhood during the post-World 

War II oil boom. But in recent years it has 

experienced more than its share of decline, 

even as other parts of the city enjoyed new 

development and investment. As a result, 

the IDA’s target area became one of the 

poorest sections of Midland. It is now home 

to predominantly low-skilled, blue-collar 

workers, 62 percent of whom are Hispanic. 

More than two-thirds of the families in the 

target area have low-to-moderate incomes 

and 27 percent are living below the poverty 

line, according to the 2006 Federal Financial 

Institutions Examination Council Census 

Report.

These economic challenges have placed 

south Midland on several high-needs lists 

maintained by a variety of government 

agencies. For example, the Texas 

Department of Housing and Community 

Affairs has determined that several areas 

of the neighborhood have a high need for 

affordable housing. The Internal Revenue 

Service has targeted the area for specialized 

income tax assistance services, including 

the VITA program. The city of Midland has 

designated the area an “impact area” for 

Community Development Block Grant 

(CDBG) funds because, when compared 

to other city neighborhoods, it has the 

greatest need for housing development, 

housing rehabilitation, and demolition of 

dilapidated structures.

These and other economic needs have had 

a dramatic impact on the personal wealth of 

neighborhood residents. When preparing 

its HSIAC application, Midland College’s 

grant development committee found that 

the working poor in Midland live from 

paycheck to paycheck with little opportunity 

to save or accumulate assets. More than 

half (62.4 percent) of VITA participants told 

the committee that they planned to use 

their tax refunds to pay bills. Only 23.4 

percent said they would save a portion of 

that refund. The majority of respondents 

stated that they had spent their refund 

before they had even filed their taxes.

Local Solutions

Midland’s housing shortage has brought 

renewed attention to the large number of 

vacant lots that dot the periphery of the 

city’s downtown. These lots, cleared of 

abandoned homes after one of the city’s 

many oil busts, remained vacant as new 

development was taking place in the north 

and northwest parts of the city. For housing 

17 

Midland College students in front of the Scharbauer Student Center.
COLLABORATING FOR CHANGE: PARTNERSHIPS TO TRANSFORM LOCAL COMMUNITIES 

developers like MCDC and Midland Habitat 

for Humanity, the vacant lots represented a 

“gold mine,” says Diaz. All of the necessary 

infrastructure—from sewers to sidewalks—

was already in place, which would reduce 

development costs immensely. Since 2004, 

the city of Midland has used a significant 

portion of its CDBG funds to purchase 

these vacant lots located within several 

of Midland’s selected target areas (STA). 

The city then donates the land to nonprofit 

housing developers for the express purpose 

of building affordable housing. 

Under Sylvester Cantu’s direction, the 

city’s Community Development Office gave 

MCDC 12 vacant lots around the perimeter 

of the downtown district. Using funds from 

local foundations, the CDC then purchased 

an additional 20 vacant lots in the same 

neighborhood and began building an 

affordable housing development called 

Old Pueblo Park. After a second donation 

of 12 lots from the city, MCDC followed the 

same strategy. It raised money to purchase 

additional lots and created a second, 30-

home development called South Pueblo 

Park. According to Cantu, that second 

donation of lots was part of a larger 

initiative through which the city provided 

a total of 17 lots to MCDC and 11 lots to 

Habitat for Humanity for a revitalization 

project that included the creation of a 

neighborhood park in a STA called Bradford 

Park. The city of Midland continues to 

provide land for about 50 percent of the 

homes MCDC builds each year. It also 

provides the lion’s share of lots on which 

Habitat for Humanity builds its homes. 

In addition, says Cantu, the city provides 

reduced development fees, including 

permits and water and sewer hookups, for 

housing developed by MCDC and Habitat 

for Humanity.

“For-profit builders would never go to 

neighborhoods where Habitat for Humanity 

and MCDC go,” says Alynda Best, executive 

director of Midland Habitat for Humanity. 

“But all of a sudden (our presence) changes 

everything in those neighborhoods. You 

begin to see neighbors fixing their fences 

or making other improvements. You can 

literally see the neighborhood begin to 

change. That lot sat empty, collecting 

nothing but beer bottles and weeds for 

years. Then, suddenly, it begins to generate 

this stream of income back to the city in the 

form of taxes. And then you see property 

values go up, which has happened here.”

Having found a reliable source of affordable 

land in Midland, thanks to the city and to 

18 

Jackson—A Habitat for Humanity Neighborhood.
SECTION 1: Midland College

CDBG funds, nonprofit housing developers 

faced two additional challenges. They 

needed to find prospective homebuyers 

who could meet the income requirements 

of their programs while, at the same time, 

qualifying for a mortgage. They also needed 

to tap into enough subsidies to make their 

homes as affordable as possible. The IDA 

appeared to be a strategy that could help 

address both of those challenges. But it 

would take a number of partners to make 

it work. 

MCDC and Midland Habitat 

for Humanity

MCDC and Midland Habitat for Humanity 

have become the primary referral 

sources for Midland College’s Savings for 

Independence Program. In fact, all MCDC 

and Habitat for Humanity clients over the 

past 3 years have taken advantage of the 

IDA. The $3,000 in IDA match funds that 

these clients bring to a closing is only one 

part of a package of layered subsidies that, 

taken together, help to lower the price of 

the homes and the homeowner’s mortgage. 

Most prospective homeowners also receive 

help with their downpayment from the 

Federal Home Loan Bank and from the 

city of Midland through its CDGB and/or 

state HOME funds. These subsidies, taken 

together, can often reduce the price of a 

3-bedroom MCDC home from $109,000 to 

$75,000, says Diaz. 

“When you’re trying to get the purchase 

price down by $35,000, the IDA makes all 

the difference in the world for a family,” 

he says. “Without this kind of layered 

financing, one of three things has to 

happen: the mortgage goes up, the quality 

of the housing is cut back, or the housing 

developer has to work for less money. A 

combination of all the layers of assistance 

makes the whole program work.” 

Even with these subsidies, some 

prospective homeowners won’t qualify 

to purchase a MCDC home because their 

incomes are too low. MCDC typically 

serves families whose incomes fall 

between 60 and 80 percent of the area 

median income. For families with lower 

incomes, there is one other alternative: 

Habitat for Humanity, which serves families 

with incomes that fall between 25 and 

60 percent of the area median income. 

Because the need for affordable housing 

in Midland is so great, the competition for 

a Habitat for Humanity house can be stiff, 

however. During its once-yearly selection 

process, the organization receives about 

150 applications for the 6 to 10 homes 

it plans to build that year, says Best. 

Successful applicants must have lived in 

Midland County for a year, currently live 

in substandard or overcrowded housing, 

and agree to work 350 sweat-equity hours 

to build either their own or someone else’s 

home.

Unlike MCDC clients, families that purchase 

a home through Habitat for Humanity do 

not need to approach commercial lenders 

for their mortgages. Habitat for Humanity 

sells its home for the cost of construction 

19 
COLLABORATING FOR CHANGE: PARTNERSHIPS TO TRANSFORM LOCAL COMMUNITIES 

and provides 25-year mortgages directly to 

its clients at zero-percent interest. 

Habitat for Humanity sells its 3-bedroom 

2-bath homes for $52,000, according to 

Best. However, Cantu estimates that these 

homes would probably be appraised at 

more $85,000 in the Midland market. 

A typical Habitat for Humanity client will 

have a monthly house payment that is 

somewhere between $350 and $450, which 

includes principle, insurance, and taxes. 

Each month, Habitat for Humanity also 

collects a $25 fee, which it places into a 

savings account that the new owner can 

tap to pay for future home repairs. 

By spring 2010, 12 Habitat for Humanity 

clients had already purchased their homes 

with help from the IDA program, and 

Habitat for Humanity was building homes 

for 6 additional IDA participants. Best 

hoped she could get at least two more of 

her clients through the IDA program before 

it ended. IDA funds reduce the average 

client’s monthly house payment by $10–15 

a month, she says. 

“That doesn’t sound like a whole lot but 

when you are at the income levels of our 

families, it is significant,” she says. “That’s 

6 percent of the cost of our homes. That 

is pretty big. It’s too good a deal for our 

clients to walk away from.”

The IDA program dovetailed beautifully 

with Habitat for Humanity’s program, says 

Best. Like IDA participants, all Habitat 

for Humanity clients are required to take 

financial literacy and homebuyer education 

classes. IDA participants working 

with Habitat for Humanity fulfill those 

requirements by attending Habitat for 

Humanity-sponsored programs. And, like 

IDA participants, Habitat for Humanity 

clients have always been required to save 

money. Ideally, says Best, those clients 

should have enough money, by closing, to 

cover their first year’s home insurance and 

tax bills.

“Instead of bringing their checks to us, they 

bring them over to Community National 

Bank,” says Best about IDA participants. 

“This was the first time that some of our 

clients had ever walked into a bank. This 

program has helped them overcome their 

fear of banks. It has also gotten them into a 

pattern of saving and that has really helped. 

It is a beautiful concept.” 

Community National Bank

Bringing the IDA from a “beautiful concept” 

to a program that would run smoothly on 

a day-to-day basis rested on the shoulders 

of Betsy Seanard at BEDC and the staff 

at Community National Bank (CNB). The 

26-year-old CNB, an independent, locally 

owned commercial bank, hosts the IDA 

program at its Florida Street branch, which 

is located at the center of the south Midland 

neighborhood, just a few blocks from the 

college’s Cogdell Learning Center. Even 

before the IDA, the bank was engaged 

in the neighborhood. It has presented a 

popular financial literacy program at Casa 

de Amigos since 2004. 

20 
SECTION 1: Midland College

The financial literacy program was the 

brainchild of CNB President John West, 

who came to Midland in 2002 just after a 

major acquisition doubled the bank’s size. 

Coincidentally, one of West’s first initiatives 

was to find out how residents of south 

Midland perceived the bank. Just like 

Midland College, the bank hired facilitators 

to run focus groups in the neighborhood. 

And, just like Midland College, the bank 

received information it didn’t necessarily 

want to hear.

“We were at the time the only bank that had 

a presence in south Midland,” recalls West. 

“We discovered fairly early in the focus 

group process that we were not very well 

received at all. The little branch did well, 

but it was not perceived by the Hispanic 

community as serving the community. So 

we set out to improve our presence there. 

We knew that we would forfeit our position 

there if we didn’t do something to be 

proactive in that market.”

As part of what has become known at the 

“Hispanic Initiative,” CNB hired bilingual 

employees in every one of its 11 branches, 

and it appointed a senior staff member to 

coordinate outreach to the local community. 

In addition, a senior executive of the bank 

joined the board of Casa de Amigos in 

2003. 

“He joined the board with the intent of 

finding out what we could do to help Casa 

and, at the same time, help ourselves,” says 

West. “We were hoping that by working 

with the Hispanic community we could 

try to lift the economic measurements in 

that community, get the real estate values 

up, and increase the employment rate. We 

needed to make that market healthier from 

an economic standpoint.”

Initially, the bank used financial literacy as 

a way to meet those goals. In 2004, bank 

employees began volunteering their time to 

teach the FDIC’s Money Smart curriculum 

to clients of Casa de Amigos. The program 

proved both popular and needed among 

participants, who were not familiar or 

comfortable with banks. 

“There is a high level of resistance to 

having a bank account and a much higher 

comfort level with payday lending,” says 

West about south Midland. “Payday lenders 

have proliferated in that area. They are on 

every corner. They are renting office space, 

they are advertising, and they have got 

big signs up everywhere. They obviously 

are making a lot of money by exploiting 

low-income people. There is a very very 

pressing need to educate this population 

21 

John West, President/COO of Community National Bank.
COLLABORATING FOR CHANGE: PARTNERSHIPS TO TRANSFORM LOCAL COMMUNITIES 

so they understand better what this kind of 

lending is costing them.”

The financial literacy program also caught 

the attention of Alfredo Chaparro, who 

knew that the IDA program Midland College 

was planning to establish would need a 

financial literacy component. West says 

that Chaparro’s phone call about the IDA 

program came at a critical point in the 

bank’s outreach initiative.

“I had been searching for ways that the 

bank might expand its outreach to the 

unbanked market,” says West. “I had been 

studying IDA programs even before I met 

Alfredo. They were intriguing to me because 

they require financial literacy training, they 

require a bank account, and their objective 

is to help people buy a house or buy or 

start their own business. I saw all of that as 

a win-win for the bank.”

In late 2006, the BEDC and CNB began 

talking about a partnership that would 

eventually lead to the establishment of the 

IDA program in CNB’s Florida Street branch. 

That’s where participants open their IDA 

accounts, deposit their savings, and receive 

their match. In addition to handling the 

IDA, CNB has also worked with MCDC to 

provide seed money for new construction 

and it has funded several mortgages for 

IDA participants. While West could take 

credit for helping to increase the availability 

of affordable housing in Midland through 

these initiatives, he is quick to point out that 

his motives are not entirely altruistic.

“If these families can reach the point where 

they can buy a new house, then they are 

going to be responsible citizens of that 

community,” says West. “They will probably 

also be good customers of ours.”

Casa de Amigos

The Money Smart program offered to local 

residents by CNB is held at Casa de Amigos, 

a nonprofit community center that has 

been operating in south Midland for half 

a century. Prior to the IDA, Money Smart 

classes were held over a series of evenings 

a few times a year. To accommodate 

increased enrollment by IDA participants, 

the curriculum is now offered in single, allday class that is held on Saturdays about 

once a month. Casa handles registration for 

the classes, provides childcare, and serves 

lunch to participants. 

Casa de Amigos Executive Director Lael 

Cordes-Pitts says that her organization is a 

good IDA partner because of its long-term 

commitment to and knowledge of the south 

Midland neighborhood and its experience 

working with community partners. Rather 

than provide direct services to the 8,000 

to 10,000 low-income clients who visit 

its center each year, Casa de Amigos 

prides itself on working with community 

partners to bring needed services to its 

clients. Typically, those clients are Hispanic 

females who are single parents, heads of 

household, earn $15,000 or less each year, 

and “are living paycheck to paycheck,” says 

Cordes-Pitts.

22 
SECTION 1: Midland College

“We don’t want to be an agency that gives 

handouts,” she says about Casa’s guiding 

philosophy. “We want to do programs 

that really create self-sufficiency. We want 

individuals to stand on their own. That was 

an appealing part of the IDA.”

Meeting emergency needs may help a 

family over the short term, says CordesPitts. But in the long run, that approach 

makes people less, not more, independent.

“The more we can show them that 

education is a means of improvement and 

the more we can help them understand 

budgeting and financial literacy, the more 

likely a family will be to move forward and 

have a better quality of life for the long 

term,” she says.

Clients visit Casa de Amigos’ center to 

attend English language classes, to prepare 

for their GED test, and to receive case 

management services. The center also 

sponsors the VITA program, which has 

helped low-income individuals complete 

their income tax returns since it made its 

national debut at Casa de Amigos in 1968. 

That longevity in south Midland has made 

Casa de Amigos a knowledgeable member 

of the IDA planning team and a trusted 

referral agency for the program.

“We’ve been here, we’ve built trust, we 

keep our eyes on the needs of our clients 

and local residents,” says Cordes-Pitts. 

“We are getting the word out to people 

that if they use their tax refund to purchase 

a home or start a business they can get 

a match of $3 for every $1 they save. It 

becomes an easy draw with the clients that 

we have. It helps them realize they want a 

home instead of renting, or that they want 

to establish their own business. It gives 

them the motivation to work for the longterm, to work on independence.”

A Sum that is Greater 

Than the Parts

Every partner in Midland College’s Saving 

for Independence program agrees that 

no one organization could have pulled 

off the IDA program by itself. And each 

partner seems to have made at least one 

contribution to the partnership that no 

other partner could have delivered. The 

nonprofit housing developers brought 

clients to the program and provided the 

required homebuyer training. Casa de 

Amigos also referred clients to the program 

and hosted the expanded Money Smart 

program. CNB provided teachers for 

23 

Casa de Amigos Money Smart class teachers.
COLLABORATING FOR CHANGE: PARTNERSHIPS TO TRANSFORM LOCAL COMMUNITIES 

that critical financial literacy component 

while also taking care of all IDA-related 

banking services. Through the HSIAC grant, 

Midland College’s Business and Education 

Development Center provided the funding 

for the IDA match, worked closely with 

applicants, administered the program on 

a day-to-day basis, and provided business 

and credit counseling. 

While part of the IDA’s success can be 

attributed to the individual capabilities of 

the partners, those associated with the 

program also describe a unique spirit 

of cooperation that characterizes the 

program and has made it work so well. That 

cooperation didn’t happen by itself, they 

say. The partners took deliberate steps to 

ensure that it was part of every aspect of 

their collaboration. 

How can other organizations replicate this 

kind of success? Interviews with partners 

yielded these insights:

• Don’t rush into a project.

“You need time to propose an idea, 

think about it, absorb it, think about 

the problems, ask follow-up questions 

of each other and other parties,” says 

Chaparro. “I want 6 months to really 

think about the projects I’m working on. 

Time is invaluable. This is a complicated 

project so we needed a lot of time to 

work out all the details.” 

• Choose your partners well. 

“Partner with people and organizations 

that have good reputations,” says 

Chaparro. That means looking at the 

track records of potential partners to 

make sure that they are known for 

delivering on promises and following 

through on commitments. In addition, 

try to determine if the organization is 

a mover and shaker in the community 

and also that your main contact 

is a mover and shaker within the 

organization. That individual should be 

planning to stay with the organization 

for the foreseeable future and should 

have enough clout to make your project 

an organizational priority. 

Choosing partners with care will 

help the project accomplish its goals 

more quickly, but it will also build 

the program’s credibility within the 

community, says Diaz.

“When we ask for a meeting with 

financial institutions, they show up 

because of the legitimacy of all these 

organizations working together,” he 

says about the IDA partners. “They 

know we mean business and they know 

we are getting things done.”

• Get to know your partners in advance.

Chaparro makes a point to get involved 

in community activities that don’t 

necessary relate directly to his job 

at Midland College. As part of that 

effort, Chaparro chaired the Midland 

Affordable Housing Alliance and 

currently leads the Midland AssetBuilding Coalition. It’s all a part of 

24 
SECTION 1: Midland College

“Five or 6 years ago, I served on 

the selection committee for Habitat 

for Humanity and spent a summer 

reviewing applications, meeting the 

families, and deciding which families 

to select for the coming year,” says 

Chaparro. “Because I worked at Habitat 

for Humanity, I knew they are doing 

great things with the financial literacy 

piece. That experience was invaluable. If 

you don’t know your partner, you could 

be making a lot of assumptions that 

may not be valid.”

• Get buy-in from key community 

stakeholders.

“Community leaders need to see that 

you are not an outsider coming to do

to them, but that you are with them,” 

says Cordes-Pitts. “They need to feel 

that the partnership offers everyone 

equal input.”

Midland College students on campus.

his ongoing effort to meet and build 

relationships with potential partners, 

he says.

“At first, I wondered why I was involved 

with all this affordable housing stuff,” 

admits Chaparro. “I knew it was related 

to our HSIAC work, but it was taking 

up a lot of time and I found myself 

wondering when it would start paying 

dividends. But over time, through these 

connections, I became an advocate 

for affordable housing. I began to 

understand the need. I also understood 

how difficult it is to make an impact. 

I learned that it’s not the one thing 

you do in affordable housing that will 

change the outcomes for a community. 

It is the 100 things you do in affordable 

housing.”

Chaparro’s understanding of the 

affordable housing community helped 

make the IDA program an easy fit for 

Alynda Best at Habitat for Humanity 

because it allowed her organization 

to participate “in a way we felt 

comfortable,” she says. Specifically, 

Best points to her request that Habitat 

for Humanity be allowed to offer its IDA 

participants a different financial literacy 

program than other IDA participants 

attended. Chaparro says that being 

flexible on this point wasn’t a big 

decision for him because he was familiar 

with the Habitat for Humanity model 

and trusted that Habitat for Humanity 

would do a good job providing financial 

literacy training to its clients. 

25 
COLLABORATING FOR CHANGE: PARTNERSHIPS TO TRANSFORM LOCAL COMMUNITIES 

John West saw the need to seek that 

early buy-in from within his own bank 

and recommends that others in his 

position do the same. 

“I have had 100-percent support from 

our management and our board of 

directors,” he says. “That support has 

been critical. Make sure your board is 

aware all along where you are going 

with a project like this.”

• Make sure all partners are on the 

same page.

 All of BEDC’s IDA partners say they 

appreciated the fact that Chaparro 

made it very clear from the beginning 

exactly what would be expected from 

them and what they could expect from 

other partners. 

“Alfredo realizes the need for 

communication,” says Cordes-Pitts. “He 

will tell you that it is just his personal 

style, but it really has helped. He 

wanted everything very clearly spelled 

out. He made it very easy to partner in 

this grant.”

Chaparro has worked hard to earn 

this and other glowing reports. In 

particular, he was a stickler when it 

came to ironing out the details of 

the memorandum of understanding 

(MOU) that he executed with each 

partner. He insisted that each partner 

meet with him three times before 

the MOU was signed. During the 

first meeting, Chaparro summarized 

verbally what he and the partner had 

already discussed informally about 

their individual responsibilities within 

the project. During the second meeting, 

Chaparro sat down with the president 

or executive director of the partnering 

organization, presented a written 

draft of the MOU, and gave attendees 

the opportunity to either agree to 

that draft verbally or make necessary 

adjustments. During a third meeting, 

Chaparro reviewed the final draft of the 

MOU, after which he and the partner 

signed on the dotted line.

“My experience is that most grants 

administrators just go through that first 

level to get partnership commitments,” 

he says. “Then they draw up the 

draft MOU and go get the signatures, 

without ever discussing it again. It 

doesn’t surprise me that, down the 

road, the partners are saying, ‘Well, 

I thought you were going to do this’ 

or ‘No, I didn’t intend that.’”

• Make sure each partner has a 

“win-win.” 

Chaparro says he was impressed when 

CNB President John West made it 

clear that the bank’s interest in the IDA 

program was not entirely altruistic. 

“John has stockholders, he is interested 

in market share,” says Chaparro. “That 

information is power for me. Because 

once I understand better where 

partners are coming from, that allows 

the relationship to hit new levels. 

That won’t happen until you really 

26 
SECTION 1: Midland College

understand what the other person is 

looking for in the relationship and the 

partnership. I get nervous when I think 

a partner is agreeing to participate in a 

project just to be nice. I worry that as 

soon as there are problems down the 

road, they may not follow through on 

their commitments.”

• Choose your battles. 

Because partnerships between 

organizations always involve individuals 

who have different personalities, 

disagreements are inevitable, 

says Chaparro. To make sure those 

disagreements don’t sabotage 

partners’ relationships, it’s important 

to discern whether a particular fight is 

worth fighting, he says. For example, 

a disagreement early in the IDA 

partnership involved whether noncitizens 

would be welcome to participate in the 

program. While Chaparro was inclined to 

allow that participation, several partners 

and community leaders voiced strong 

disagreement with that policy, he says. 

“I knew that we could still serve a 

tremendous number of people even if we 

didn’t serve noncitizens,” says Chaparro. 

“So I made a decision not to take on that 

fight. I decided it was not instrumental 

to the project, and I didn’t want to put 

the partnership in jeopardy right at the 

beginning of the project. I’m not the only 

one who has compromised along the 

way. Everyone has given in on issues 

because those issues weren’t worth the 

possibility that the project would be 

negatively affected.”

• Leave yourself an out. 

“You never know how things will 

change,” says Cordes-Pitts of Casa 

de Amigos. “There needs to be an 

opportunity to correct, amend, or 

dissolve the partnership if that becomes 

necessary.”

• Do what you said you would do.

Without exception, the partners in the 

IDA project point to the trustworthiness 

of Chaparro and Seanard as the 

highlight of the collaboration. 

“If they say they are going to do 

something, they get it done,” says Diaz. 

“And that has earned them a great 

amount of respect in the community. 

That is why when they call a meeting, 

everybody shows up.”

Sustainability

The relatively short timeframe of the 

Savings for Independence Program has 

been an issue for all of the partners, who 

would rather have seen the program 

become a permanent fixture in Midland or 

at least last for more than 3 years. 

“Something like this just doesn’t happen 

in 2 or 3 years,” says West. “We have seen 

acceleration over the past year in the 

number of people who sign up for the IDA. 

And as these graduates go out and start 

their business or buy a home, the word gets 

27 
COLLABORATING FOR CHANGE: PARTNERSHIPS TO TRANSFORM LOCAL COMMUNITIES 

around. The program is just starting to get 

a reputation in that community. We can’t let 

this thing go now.”

Midland College and its partners continue 

to search for ways to continue the IDA 

program after HSIAC funding runs out in 

late 2010. But in the meantime, they are 

continuing their efforts to promote a 

variety of strategies aimed at increasing 

the financial stability of the low- and 

moderate-income families of Midland. 

Most of that work is taking place through 

the Midland Asset-Building Coalition, which 

was established during the HSIAC grant 

period. The coalition includes all of the IDA 

partners and a number of new partners, 

including local banks. 

“Asset building will continue in Midland 

with or without HSIAC money,” says 

Chaparro, who is already planning to 

include a financial literacy component in 

the college’s next HSIAC grant application. 

“The work we started with this grant has 

changed our organization. In 5 years, I’d like 

the BEDC to become the premier financial 

literacy organization in town.”

That work has already begun. The BEDC 

succeeded in attracting 140 participants 

and 20 presenters to Midland’s first assetbuilding conference in 2008. The center also 

sponsored two special events to recognize 

local organizations that are helping lowand moderate-income individuals build 

wealth. Then, in February 2010, the Midland 

Asset-Building Coalition brought together 

presidents of Midland’s financial institutions 

to discuss 10 asset-building strategies in 

which they might consider participating. 

Some of those strategies, which may be 

appearing in Midland in the near future, 

include the development of secured, 

credit-building loans that individuals can 

report to credit agencies and, when repaid, 

will improve that person’s credit history. 

Chaparro and Seanard are also hoping to 

convince new and old partners to expand 

the city’s financial literacy programs, 

increase efforts to curb predatory lending 

and tax refund anticipation loans, promote 

the Earned Income Tax Credit, and expand 

downpayment assistance and counseling 

for first-time homebuyers. In addition, 

David Diaz of MCDC would like to see 

Midland establish a land bank where 

private individuals or the city of Midland 

could donate land for future development 

of affordable housing.

“The city has stepped up to the plate 

in providing land for us and for Habitat 

for Humanity,” says Diaz. “But both 

organizations now have a pretty hefty 

appetite for undeveloped land and the city 

is having a hard time keeping up with us. 

If we are really going to make a dent in 

affordable housing, we need to take our 

efforts to the next level.”

Whatever that next level is, the partners 

stand committed to helping local residents 

build wealth so they can become financially 

secure. And, for now, they say, the best 

way to accomplish that goal is through 

homeownership.

28 
SECTION 1: Midland College

“In Texas, a house is probably the biggest 

asset that a low-income family will ever 

own and for the most part, it continues to 

appreciate,” says Diaz. “I know there have 

been problems and meltdowns throughout 

the country, but I can’t say that that is the 

case here in Texas. Families who purchased 

a home 7 years ago for $60,000 now own a 

house worth $100,000. So once they grow 

out of the house or decide to sell, they are 

going to walk away with some nice equity. 

In Texas, and in Midland, homeownership 

has proven to be a very effective means of 

building wealth.”

This approach seems to have worked so 

far for participants in the IDA program, 

according to Seanard. 

“We are taking people who have 

traditionally been on government 

assistance,” she says. “We’re getting them 

off that assistance and we’re turning them 

into homeowners. They are paying property 

taxes. They are taking care of their homes. 

And they are teaching their children to do 

the same. That’s going to have an incredible 

domino effect on their children and future 

generations.” 

29 
SECTION 1: Partnership Snapshots

31 

H S I A C S N A P S H O T S

Using Community Organizing to Raise Awareness 

about Recycling

At ASC’s Community Partnerships Recycle Fashion Show 

2009, student Georgia Anderson wears an outfit made from 

discarded grocery bags.

Adams State College

Alamosa, Colorado

1999, 2004, 2009

Goal of the Partnership: The Adams State 

College (ASC) Community Partnerships EcoOrganizing project was designed to help 

residents of the San Luis Valley in south 

central Colorado take direct action to improve 

their local environment. A variety of partners 

worked together to develop and coordinate 

targeted environmentally related projects and 

events, several of which focused on recycling. 

Role of the Partners: Partners worked with 

ASC’s Community Partnerships office to 

develop and coordinate targeted eco-projects 

and events, including the following:

Environmental Sustainability Study: With 

local assistance, the U.S. Environmental 

Protection Agency (EPA) conducted a pilot 

feasibility study that measured the economic 

and ecological sustainability of the San Luis 

Valley and identified the valley’s strengths and 

weaknesses related to that sustainability. This 

study provided valuable information to the 

partners as they developed their environmental 

programs.

Recycled Exhibit and Fashion Show: ASC and 

its partners sponsored a gallery exhibit and 

fashion show in conjunction with “America 

Recycles Day.” The exhibit and fashion show 

promoted the creative and functional use of 

recycled and repurposed products within 

the San Luis Valley and inspired business ideas 

for products using materials that are typically 

discarded. Items on display included a solar water 

heater made from plastic bottles and aluminum 

cans, decorative Christmas lights made from 

plastic liquor bottles served by airlines, a beach 

bag crocheted from plastic grocery bags, and 

candlesticks assembled from various found-metal 

objects. The exhibit effectively linked business 

development with ecological art and gave artists 

a venue in which to sell their work. The exhibit 

has become an ongoing event sponsored by the 

Colorado Council of the Arts. The St. Vincent de 

Paul Thrift Store donates materials for the annual 

recycled fashion show.
COLLABORATING FOR CHANGE: PARTNERSHIPS TO TRANSFORM LOCAL COMMUNITIES 

32 

Reusable Shopping Bag Program: Communitywide cooperation was required for the success of 

what has become an ongoing reusable shopping 

bag program. The program has decreased 

the amount of plastic bags sent to the local 

landfill and increased local awareness of the 

environmental harm that plastic bags can cause. 

Since the program began in 2005, more than 

2,000 reusable bags have been sold by a variety 

of local vendors, including the college. Partners 

in this effort are the City Market of Alamosa,

which offers a rebate to customers using the 

bags; EARTH, ASC’s student-run environmental 

group, which promotes the program locally; and 

the ASC Athletic Department, which participated 

in the project through its CHAMPS (Challenging 

Athletes Minds for Personal Success) program. 

The college administration supported the program 

by purchasing a reusable shopping bag for each 

ASC employee.

Bottle Cap Recycling Program: ASC partners 

worked together to launch a bottle cap recycling 

program because the local recycling center did 

not accept these caps. Partners in the project 

included Alamosa Open High School and several 

community organizations, including Sodexo,

ASC’s food contractor. The program was carried 

out in partnership with the Aveda Corporation,

a manufacturer of botanically based beauty 

products, which sponsored the program with 

the goal of creating new caps out of 100-percent 

recycled materials. Community members dropped 

off their caps at ASC’s Community Outreach 

Center. 

Benefit to the Grantee: Thanks to HSIAC grant 

activities, the amount of recycling taking place on 

the ASC campus has increased, and the college 

has reduced its carbon footprint. In addition, 

ASC students have become more involved in 

the community and feel a greater sense of 

belonging. This has helped to increase student 

retention rates. Because the recycling project 

received extensive media coverage, the college 

also enjoyed a public relations boost during the 

grant period. 

Benefit to the Community: By working with ASC 

Community Partnerships on the feasibility study, 

the EPA gained a model for similar feasibility 

studies that it plans to conduct in other parts 

of the country. The City Market of Alamosa’s 

participation in the reusable shopping bag 

project garnered more respect for the store 

among environmentally aware residents of 

the San Luis Valley. The store also gained new 

customers, because vendors who sold the bags 

throughout Alamosa usually directed customers 

to the City Market’s rebate program. Similarly, 

the volunteer-run St. Vincent de Paul Thrift 

Store, which does not conduct any marketing 

activities, gained more visibility among college 

students as a result of its participation in the 

recycling fashion show.

For more information, contact: 

Mary Hoffman, Executive Director

Community Partnerships

Adams State College

208 Edgemont Street

Alamosa, CO 81102

Phone: 719–587–7372

E-mail: mchoffma@adams.edu

H S I A C S N A P S H O T S
SECTION 1: Midland College

33 

H S I A C S N A P S H O T S

Working Together to Provide Adult Education to 

Low-Income Populations

Child Development Associate (CDA) graduation ceremony at 

Martin Luther King, Jr. Neighborhood Center.

Arizona Western College

Yuma, Arizona

2000

Goal of the Partnership: Local partners came 

together to provide training and education 

at the newly opened Martin Luther King, 

Jr. Neighborhood Center in the Carver Park 

neighborhood of Yuma, Arizona. The center 

is owned and operated by the city of Yuma. 

Arizona Western College (AWC) used HSIAC 

funds to equip a computer lab within the 

neighborhood center and employ a full-time 

adult education coordinator and a part-time 

clerical support person who work at the 

center.

Role of the Partners: A variety of partners 

worked together during the construction 

period and after the center was opened. 

They include the following:

• The Housing Authority of Yuma provided 

classroom space and referred low-income 

clients for Basic Education and General 

Educational Development classes while 

the Martin Luther King, Jr. Neighborhood 

Center was under construction.

• The Yuma Private Industry Council,

the local Workforce Investment Act 

(WIA) One-Stop Career Center, provided 

funding for job training. Even before the 

neighborhood center was built, HSIAC and 

WIA funds allowed the partners to serve 

301 low-income individuals. 

• The city of Yuma supported the efforts of 

the college’s Small Business Development 

Center, which provides business 

management courses and free counseling 

services for neighborhood businesses. 

• The local Volunteer Income Tax Assistance

organization uses the HSIAC-supported 

computer lab to help low-income and elderly 

residents file tax returns. 

• Through a partnership between AWC and 

Carver Elementary School, local parents 

and their children come to the computer 

lab together to learn computer basics. In 

addition, the Crane School District Adult 
COLLABORATING FOR CHANGE: PARTNERSHIPS TO TRANSFORM LOCAL COMMUNITIES 

34 

H S I A C S N A P S H O T S

Education program uses the lab to teach 

technology skills to its students. 

• The college is represented on the 

neighborhood’s Weed and Seed Steering 

Committee and works with partners to support 

activities that promote a drug and crimefree neighborhood.

Benefit to the Grantee: The HSIAC funds provided 

the seed money and inspiration for creating 

partnerships that continue to support the Carver 

Park Neighborhood. These partnerships have 

become particularly important because the state 

of Arizona recently cut its matching funds for 

the federal Adult Education Program. The Yuma 

community will now look to AWC to take a lead in 

filling the anticipated gap in remedial education. 

The supportive relationships that AWC now has 

with a variety of partners will be very valuable 

as the college develops strategies to meet these 

needs.

Benefit to the Community: During this project, 

AWC and its partners developed the Yuma County 

Adult Education Consortium, which consists 

of state-funded adult education providers, 

nonprofit organizations, and the Yuma Private 

Industry Council. Through this collaboration, adult 

education providers have learned to identify their 

individual strengths and weaknesses, recognize 

their particular target populations, and work 

more collaboratively by sharing their resources 

and making referrals to each other’s programs. 

Additional grants have been acquired by building 

on these relationships. 

For more information, contact:

Lynn La Brie, Dean 

Business and Workforce Development

Arizona Western College

1351 South Redondo Center Drive 

Yuma, AZ 85365

Phone: 928–317–6178 

E-mail: lynn.labrie@azwestern.edu 

CDA graduates pose with instructors second and fifth from left.
SECTION 1: Partnership Snapshots

35 

H S I A C S N A P S H O T S

Revitalizing a Neighborhood and Its Most Vulnerable 

Residents

employment counseling, and job contacts 

for Green Job Corps members. The center 

is sponsored by the Workforce Investment 

Board, California Employment Development 

Department, and the JobLink Networking 

Group.

• Franciscan Workers of Salinas provides 

personal, social, and career guidance and 

counseling.

• Members of the Buddhist Temple of Salinas

offer agriculture instruction and mentoring 

to Green Job Corps members. One temple 

member owns and operates Hirahara Farms, 

an organic blueberry operation, while other 

members have knowledge and experience in 

agribusiness.

• Watsonville Wetlands Watch, an advocate 

for wetland issues, provides education and 

training in habitat restoration and natural 

history.

California State University, 

Monterey Bay

Seaside, California

2007, 2009

Goal of the Partnership: California State 

University, Monterey Bay (CSUMB) 

established a “Green Job Corps” that 

provides job training and employment for 

very low-income adults who are experiencing 

significant barriers to employment. The project 

is based on the belief that employment gives 

people the opportunity to gain confidence, 

integrity, and control over their own lives. 

The Green Job Corps strives to provide crew 

members with new baseline skills that will 

help them become effective jobseekers. It also 

seeks to maximize crew members’ positive 

energy, minimize their stress level, and help 

them build healthy relationships.

The Green Job Corps is only one part of 

CSUMB’s efforts to revitalize the blighted 

Chinatown neighborhood of Salinas. Through 

other activities, also supported by HSIAC 

funds, the university has established a 

community learning center that serves as the 

classroom for the Green Jobs Corps program 

and houses a silk-screening cooperative that 

is run by formerly homeless individuals. In 

addition, community members and students 

work together to grow organic vegetables in 

the neighborhood’s Community Unity Garden.

Role of the Partners: 

• One-Stop Career Center of Monterey 

County provides one-on-one assessment, 

Self-empowered—Green Job Corps participants lay on a 

pile of plants.
COLLABORATING FOR CHANGE: PARTNERSHIPS TO TRANSFORM LOCAL COMMUNITIES 

36 

• Interim Inc., a local provider of supportive 

services and affordable housing for people 

with mental illness, offers supportive 

services to some crew members, including 

housing, counseling, and an art program.

• Men in Transition, which runs an 18-unit 

single room occupancy community for men, 

offers support services for several crew 

members, including housing and counseling.

• Victory Mission, a shelter for homeless 

individuals, provides housing and spiritual 

counseling for several crew members.

• Benefit to the Grantee: The Green Job Corps 

project has provided community-based 

volunteer opportunities for CSUMB students, 

who must complete a service-learning 

requirement before they can graduate from 

the university. The project has attracted 

service-learning students from a variety of 

programs, including Visual and Public Arts, 

Computer Sciences, Oral History, Business, 

Hunger and Homelessness, Museum 

Studies, and Health and Wellness. Students 

in the CSUMB School of Business serve as 

mentors, coaches, and instructors to Green 

Job Corps members as they develop their 

personal skills and search for jobs.

The relationships have been truly reciprocal. 

Corps members gain a sense of confidence and 

community by working with the CSUMB students 

while the CSUMB students learn to appreciate 

the knowledge and capacity of people who 

otherwise would seem to have fallen through the 

cracks. The power of the experience has been 

transformative for participating students.

Benefit to the Community: The Green Job Corps 

has been able to improve the lives of individuals 

whom many project partners serve on an ongoing 

basis. Crew members found a new confidence 

that translated into greater community 

participation and positive social interactions. 

Many crew members have become leaders in 

the community, while others have become active 

and successful jobseekers who are proactive in 

addressing the barriers that slowed them down 

in the past. Sixty-six percent of Green Job Corp 

graduates have found employment or ongoing 

learning opportunities. In addition, the Job Corps 

completed landscape projects that beautified a 

forgotten neighborhood in Salinas’ Chinatown. A 

kitchen garden planted at a local mental health 

residential facility provided healthy activities and 

food for the residents.

Partners in the project have also experienced 

increased awareness of one another and 

improved interagency communication and 

understanding. The increased networking creates 

a larger pool of qualified individuals who can 

support local outreach programs. For example, 

a Job Corps member was asked to continue to 

provide garden and greenhouse instruction to a 

housing facility where a garden was built. Job 

Corps members have volunteered for habitat 

restoration projects and have taken positions 

on community steering committees where they 

provided valuable input on several projects. 

For more information contact:

Ken Feske, Manager

Soledad Street Revitalization Project

Service Learning Institute

California State University, Monterey Bay

100 Campus Center, Alumni and Visitor Center

Seaside, CA 93955

Phone: 831–582–5083

E-mail address: kfeske@csumb.edu

H S I A C S N A P S H O T S
SECTION 1: Partnership Snapshots

37 

H S I A C S N A P S H O T S

Bringing College Services to a One-Stop Career Center

Central Arizona College – Pinal 

County Community College 

District

Coolidge, Arizona

2004, 2007

Goal of the Partnership: Although it is larger 

than the state of Connecticut, Pinal County, 

Arizona, never had a comprehensive one-stop 

career center. The goal of this partnership was 

to establish such a center in the same location 

as a new Skill Center operated by Central 

Arizona College (CAC). The Skill Center offers 

short-term training programs to meet the needs 

of the clients who take advantage of services 

offered at the One-Stop Career Center. This colocation of a One-Stop Center and a collegesponsored training program is a first for 

Arizona. 

The comprehensive One-Stop Career Center 

has attracted more than 1,000 clients/

participants per month since it opened in May 

2009. The college-sponsored Skill Center offers 

intensive programs to train nursing assistants 

and green construction workers, and a program 

on computer applications for business users. 

Two courses on employment readiness are 

included in all training programs offered at the 

Skill Center. 

Role of Partners:

• Arizona Department of Economic Security

offers employment services, veterans’ 

services, and vocational rehabilitation.

• Central Arizona Association of Governments 

(CAAG), Pinal County Re-Employment 

Pre-Layoff Assistance Center (REPAC), 

Pinal County Housing, and the Gila Pinal 

Workforce Investment Board are all 

partnering agencies in the One-Stop Career 

Center. CAAG and REPAC refer clients to the 

center through Workforce Investment Act 

programs for adults, youth, and dislocated 

workers. 

Benefit to the Grantee: CAC’s Skill Center 

programs and other college programs have 

received more referrals from project partners 

since the completion of the comprehensive 

Students (left to right) Jeffrey Fagenbush, Kenneth Herbert, 

Rex Turvin, Cornelius Lewis, Max Bolt, Dallas Leavell, and 

Alex L’Esperance are proud of their solar panel mounting 

accomplishment.
COLLABORATING FOR CHANGE: PARTNERSHIPS TO TRANSFORM LOCAL COMMUNITIES 

38 

H S I A C S N A P S H O T S

One-Stop Career Center. The college has also 

enjoyed increased participation from project 

partners on program advisory committees and 

in campus strategic planning initiatives.

Benefit to the Community: CAC’s participation in this 

project accelerated the development of the OneStop Career Center. In addition, the partners have 

benefitted from having the college as a partner 

when they request resources from the state, apply 

for federal funds, and seek training opportunities 

for staff members who are co-located in the 

college facility.

For more information, contact: 

Al Larson, Director

Business and Community Outreach

Central Arizona College

Casa Grande Center

1015 East Florence Boulevard

Casa Grande, AZ 85222

Phone: 520–494–6601

E-mail: Al.Larson@centralaz.edu

Student Harold Meckler is using an iron tamping tool to 

compact moist soil in a wooden form to construct a rammed 

earth wall.
SECTION 1: Partnership Snapshots

39 

H S I A C S N A P S H O T S

Working with Residents to Preserve Local History

Colorado State 

University–Pueblo

Pueblo, Colorado

2000

Goal of the Partnership: Colorado State 

University–Pueblo used its HSIAC funds to 

purchase two acres of land and two historic 

buildings owned by the Colorado Fuel and Iron 

(CF&I) company. Purchase of the land, which 

is located in Pueblo’s Bessemer neighborhood, 

allowed the Bessemer Historical Society 

to accept CF&I’s donation of an extensive 

historical archive that dates from 1872 and 

documents the evolution of the neighborhood, 

the city, the state, and the American West. 

CF&I specified that it would only make its 

donation if the university and the historical 

society took steps to properly store and 

manage the archives. Because the fragile 

archives would have been difficult to move, 

the partners realized they could not accept 

the donation until the property was secured. 

By preserving Bessemer’s heritage, the 

university and its partner set out to revitalize 

the neighborhood that housed CF&I’s Rocky 

Mountain Steel Mill for 126 years.

Role of the Partner: The Bessemer Historical 

Society was formed by local residents to 

save the CF&I archives and buildings. This 

organization continues to maintain the archives 

collection.

Benefit to the Grantee: Faculty members and 

students have used the CF&I archives in their 

classes and as part of their research. One faculty 

member published a book based on the contents 

of the archives.

Benefit to the Community: Without the HSIAC 

grant, purchase of the CF&I buildings would have 

been impossible. That seed money also allowed 

the university and the historical society to secure 

additional grants to hire full-time staff to maintain 

the CF&I archives. Since the land purchase, a 

museum has opened in the building next door to 

the archives. This museum has increased local 

interest in the archives and brought tourists into a 

blighted neighborhood.

For more information, contact:

Dr. Jonathan Rees 

Colorado State University–Pueblo

1612 East Abriendo Avenue 

Pueblo CO 81003 

Phone: 719–549–2541

E-mail: Jonathan.Rees@colostate-pueblo.edu

CF&I Main Administration Building.
COLLABORATING FOR CHANGE: PARTNERSHIPS TO TRANSFORM LOCAL COMMUNITIES 

40 

H S I A C S N A P S H O T S

Educating Low-Income Students through a Neighborhood 

Learning Center

Doña Ana Community College 

Las Cruces, New Mexico

2000, 2009 

Goal of the Partnership: The Mesquite District 

of Las Cruces, New Mexico, is known as a 

low-income area troubled by urban blight, 

deteriorating infrastructure, declining housing 

stock, high crime rates and drug proliferation, 

poor health conditions, and very low levels of 

educational achievement. Doña Ana Community 

College (DACC) used its 2000 HSIAC grant to 

construct the Mesquite Neighborhood Learning 

Center (MNLC) to address the district’s high rates 

of unemployment and low rates of educational 

attainment. With its 2009 HSIAC grant, the college 

has addressed the economic development of the 

community by using the MNLC to provide social 

services and workforce and life skills training.

In collaboration with community partners, 

MNLC serves approximately 500 residents of the 

Mesquite district each year. The community’s 

low-income students have used the center to 

transition to higher education or to the workforce. 

In addition, older students are becoming role 

models for their children, thus helping to break 

the cycle of poverty.

Role of the Partners: A number of partners 

provide classes and services within the MNLC. 

Through their participation in the center, 

partners have been instrumental in helping the 

community’s low-income students with housing, 

health issues, family therapy, job searches, tax 

preparation, job-skills training, childcare, and 

education. 

• The New Mexico Department of Workforce 

Solutions sends a staff member to MNLC 

once a month to provide workshops in 

interviewing skills, résumé assistance, and 

individual employment counseling. 

• Jardín de los Niños provides childcare for 

students who qualify for this program. 

• Tierra Del Sol provides homebuyer education 

and training in financial management and 

credit management. 

• Southwest Counseling Services provides 

individual, group, and family therapy or 

case management services for mentally ill 

individuals and adults with substance abuse 

problems. 

MNLC building exterior.
SECTION 1: Partnership Snapshots

41 

• Community Action Agency provides tax 

preparation training and workshops. 

• Clínica de Familia provides health 

workshops, health fairs, and trainings.

• DACC’s Adult Basic Education Program

provides General Educational Development 

classes in both English and Spanish. It also 

sponsors English as a Second Language 

classes.

• DACC’s Small Business Development Center 

provides classes and support for students 

who want to open their own businesses. 

• The city of Las Cruces offers the use of 

facilities, support from the Weed and Seed 

Program, and security through its police 

department.

Benefit to the Grantee: As a result of the MNLC, 

the college has enjoyed good relations with all 

the partners that have collaborated with the 

center. These partners are always willing to 

participate in any event that the MNLC sponsors 

and to provide support letters and letters of 

intent when the center is requesting additional 

funds. Partners have allowed the college to offer 

services that otherwise would not have been 

available to its students and their families. 

Benefit to the Community: By working in close 

partnership with the college, partners are able to 

extend their services to a much broader audience 

and make their dollars go further. They are also 

able to use the resources of the college and the 

other partners to improve their own services. 

For more information contact:

Luly Valencia-Glenn

Program Coordinator

Mesquite Neighborhood Learning Center

Doña Ana Community College

890 North Tornillo Street

Las Cruces, NM 88001–2269

Phone: 575–528–4054 

E-mail: lulyvale@nmsu.edu

H S I A C S N A P S H O T S
COLLABORATING FOR CHANGE: PARTNERSHIPS TO TRANSFORM LOCAL COMMUNITIES 

42 

H S I A C S N A P S H O T S

Helping Individuals Increase Money Management Skills

of homelessness and poverty through 

a continuum of housing enriched with 

supportive services. The Youth Policy 

Institute provides education, training, and 

technology services to lift low-income 

families out of poverty. Tierra del Sol 

empowers individuals with disabilities to 

realize their greatest human potential—

becoming independent, productive, and 

valued citizens.

Benefit to the Grantee: Los Angeles Valley 

College has been able to provide additional 

services to Valley MAP participants. These 

participants were introduced to other college 

resources and programs during the course 

MAP participant Roger Arias reviews his personal budget.

Los Angeles Valley College

Valley Glen (Van Nuys), California

2002, 2007

Goal of the Partnership: The Los Angeles Valley 

Money Management Awareness Program (Valley 

MAP) is a multifaceted economic development 

program aimed at educating and training 

individuals in financial literacy, homeownership, 

and small business development. The program 

targets the low- to moderate-income residents 

of the northeast San Fernando Valley with 

special focus on minorities and persons 

with limited English proficiency. Valley MAP 

programs have increased financial literacy, 

utilization of traditional banking institutions, 

and homeownership among participants. 

The program has also contributed to the 

development, stabilization, and strengthening of 

microenterprises.

Role of the Partners:

• Junior Achievement (JA) hosted classes and 

graduations for program participants at its 

Finance Park facility in Los Angeles. Finance 

Park is a unique hands-on experience to 

promote financial awareness and increase an 

individual’s interest and aptitude for financial 

self-sufficiency.

• Los Angeles Family Housing Corporation, 

Youth Policy Institute, and Tierra del Sol

referred participants to the program. The 

Los Angeles Family Housing Corporation’s 

mission is to help families transition out 
SECTION 1: Partnership Snapshots

43 

of their training, including the college’s 

Career Advancement Academy and its Trade 

Adjustment Assistance programs.

Benefit to the Community: Program partners 

are also tapping into other college-sponsored 

programs, including job clubs, job fairs, and 

customized training.

For more information, contact:

Lynne Yonemoto

Money Management Awareness Program

Los Angeles Valley College

5800 Fulton Avenue

Valley Glen, CA 91401

Phone: 818–947–2941

E-mail: yonemolm@lavc.edu Financial literacy instructor Sheldon Burg (fifth from left) and 

Gary Hickman Executive Director of JA (far right) pose with 

financial literacy class participants.

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H S I A C S N A P S H O T S

Providing Daycare to Low- and Moderate-Income Families

Sul Ross State University

Alpine, Texas

2005 just year

Goal of the Partnership: Sul Ross State University 

(SRSU) used its HSIAC grant to construct, develop 

programming for, and pilot test the operation of 

the Sul Ross Childcare and Family Support Center. 

The center was built a block from SRSU’s main 

campus on one-third of an acre of universitycontributed land. It provides daycare and 

afterschool care for 81 children who range in age 

from 6 weeks to 12 years. Placement preference 

is given to the children of parents who have low 

or moderate incomes. The center may also target 

some SRSU student parents for whom the lack 

of childcare represents a significant barrier to 

success in postsecondary education. 

In addition to providing childcare services, the Sul 

Ross Childcare and Family Support Center offers 

information on parenting skills and fair housing 

options through its parent resource center. Center 

staff members refer parents needing further 

counseling or fair housing assistance to area 

professionals who provide these services. 

The number of low- to moderate-income families 

able to receive licensed childcare increased 

substantially after the opening of the Sul Ross 

Childcare and Family Support Center. This 

is particularly true for families with children 

between the ages of 6 weeks and 1 year, since the 

Sul Ross Childcare and Family Support Center is 

the only provider of licensed infant care in Alpine. 

The HSIAC grant helped SRSU triple the number 

of infants for whom it could care.

Role of the Partners:

• Sul Ross State University provides in-kind 

salaries for SRSU faculty who work at the Sul 

Ross Childcare and Family Support Center in 

developing programmatic offerings for the 

community and some university students and 

parents.

• The Family Crisis Center of the Big Bend

and the Alpine Housing Authority provide 

counseling services for center parents and 

refer families to the center.

The Sul Ross Child Care and Family Support Center.
SECTION 1: Partnership Snapshots

45 

Benefit to the Grantee: The relationship between 

city agencies and the university has been 

enhanced through center activities. 

Benefit to the Community: Referrals from the 

Family Crisis Center and from the housing 

authority for families in need of childcare are 

handled more efficiently and with fewer steps. 

For more information contact:

Gregory M. Schwab

Enrollment Management

Sul Ross State University

400 North Harrison, P.O. Box C-119

Alpine, TX 79832

Phone: 432–837–8039

E-mail: gschwab@sulross.edu

H S I A C S N A P S H O T S
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H S I A C S N A P S H O T S

Creating a Business Incubator to Spur Economic 

Development

University of New Mexico–

Resource Center for Raza Planning

Albuquerque, New Mexico

2000

Goal of the Partnership: The Resource Center 

for Raza Planning (RCRP) in the School of 

Architecture and Planning at the University of 

New Mexico helped the Rio Grande Community 

Development Corporation (RGCDC) build a 

20,000-square-foot business incubator near 

Albuquerque. 

The South Valley Economic Development 

Center (SVEDC) includes an office area where 

entrepreneurs can lease space for new 

businesses; shared administrative support 

areas, computer labs, conference rooms, 

and classrooms; a commercial kitchen where 

entrepreneurs process food products; and a 

small retail area where vendors can sell locally 

produced products, including products made 

at the incubator. The incubator enhances 

employability and economic self-reliance among 

low-income Latino residents of the South Valley 

region and leads them into successful business 

enterprises that provide products and services to 

the community and taxes to the local government. 

The work of the RCRP was critical to the 

development of the South Valley Economic 

Development Center. Using HSIAC funds, RCRP 

produced a series of community and economic 

assessments and prepared grant applications that 

helped to advance construction of the business 

incubator. RCRP also developed and implemented 

job generation and business assistance 

programs at SVEDC. The collaboration between 

RCRP and RGCDC continues to offer an 

excellent model of how a university can assist 

a community-based organization in reaching its 

economic development goals. 

Role of the Partner: The Rio Grande Community 

Development Corporation worked closely with 

RCRP students as they developed business 

plans, hiring and training plans, pro formas, 

and grant applications for the SVEDC. Students 

also staffed the project’s community advisory 

committee. These and many other tasks required 

a close working relationship with RGCDC staff 

and its board of directors.

South Valley Economic Development Center.
SECTION 1: Partnership Snapshots

47 

Benefit to the Grantee: By applying university 

resources to local needs, this project helped 

RCRP students learn how to connect their 

graduate work to the community in very 

concrete and useful ways. 

Benefit to the Community: The ribbon cutting for 

SVEDC occurred in 2005. After nearly 5 years of 

operation, the center is operating in the black and 

generating successful economic and community 

activity. In a continuation of the partnership 

between RCRP and RGCDC, a graduate student 

in the School of Architecture and Planning is 

conducting an evaluation of SVEDC to assess 

its past work and to help it prepare for future 

expansion. Another student serves as a volunteer 

staff member at the incubator.

For more information, contact:

Teresa Cordova 

School of Architecture and Planning

2401 Central Ave NE

University of New Mexico

Albuquerque, New Mexico 87131–0001

Phone: 505–277–3922

E-mail: tcordova@unm.edu

Mural on the South Valley Economic Development Center.

H S I A C S N A P S H O T S
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H S I A C S N A P S H O T S

Boosting Economic Development through Incubators 

and Information

University of Texas at Brownsville 

and Texas Southmost College

Brownsville, Texas

2002, 2005, 2008

Goal of the Partnership and Role of the Partners: 

Since 2002, the University of Texas at Brownsville 

and Texas Southmost College (UTB/TSC) has 

used HSIAC funds to launch three separate 

projects that offer technical assistance and 

support to entrepreneurs in the Brownsville 

region. All of the projects were carried out at 

UTB/TSC’s International Technology Education 

and Commerce Center (ITECC).

• Business Incubator: Between 2002 and 2004, 

the university created an incubator that 

provides a supportive environment to help 

new and growing businesses succeed and 

create jobs. Since the incubator opened, 64 

companies have been started and more than 

700 clients received technical assistance. The 

incubator has helped to create an estimated 

620 jobs and has the potential to create an 

additional 450 jobs over the next 2 years.

Partners in the project include the Greater 

Brownsville Incentive Corporation, which 

invested $5 million in the ITECC. This 

investment funded a technology center and 

a 21,000-square-foot flexible work space that 

are used by incubator clients. In addition, 

the Brownsville Economic Development 

Council continues to provide support, in 

the form of incentives and networking, to 

incubator companies. Finally, the Economic 

Development Administration contributed $1 

million to the incubator’s construction budget.

• Raymondville Outreach: A second project, 

which took place between 2005 and 2007, 

provided outreach and incubator services 

to selected rural communities. During 

this period, UTB/TSC partnered with city 

of Raymondville to seek funding for a 

13,000-square-foot center that will house 

the Raymondville Economic Development 

Corporation, the Raymondville Chamber of 

Commerce, Workforce Solutions, and a 

UTB/TSC incubator and educational 

component. The city of Raymondville

purchased the land for the facility and the 

Willacy Industrial Foundation, in partnership 

with the city and UTB/TSC, received a 

$300,000 grant from the HUD Rural and 

Economic Development program to fund a 

UTB/TSC business incubator tenants.
SECTION 1: Partnership Snapshots

49 

portion of the center, as well as an additional 

$1.5 million from the Economic Development 

Administration. Valley Telephone 

Cooperative, Inc., a local communications 

company, agreed to run fiber optic cable to 

the facility. The center opened in June 2010.

• Go Green Assistance Center: The Go 

Green Assistance Center, established 

in 2008, has become a trusted source of 

information on energy conservation issues 

and methodologies. The center partners 

with subject matter experts to provide 

an information center and to conduct 

workshops and conferences. This project 

has involved multiple partners, including 

the Community Development Corporation of 

Brownsville and Youth Build, which worked 

together to construct a split-model energyefficient home that serves as a training and 

awareness aid. Another key partner, Apple 

Energy Group, has provided training for 

weatherization and other green buildingrelated needs. The UTB/TSC Architecture 

Department has helped the center develop 

design concepts. The UTB/TSC Distance 

Learning Department contributed to the 

development of information kiosks featuring 

large-screen televisions. 

• To date, more than 800 people, from third 

graders to city officials, have received 

training and or awareness at the Go Green 

Assistance Center. A grant from the Texas 

Workforce Commission helped the center 

develop curricula in the area of solar, wind, 

and green building. A grant from the state 

of Texas Comptroller’s Office will be used 

to install photovoltaic panels on a portion of 

the ITECC roof and one wind generator on 

the premises. The small, hybrid system will 

help offset energy costs and will serve as a 

training module for the Go Green Assistance 

Center. 

Benefit to the Grantee: Through these 

HSIAC-supported projects, UTB/TSC has 

been able to increase its capacity in terms 

of facilities, resources, opportunities for 

students, opportunities for faculty, enhanced 

community involvement, creation of jobs within 

the university, leveraging for future funding 

opportunities, and training opportunities.

Benefit to the Community: The business 

incubator, in combination with the ITECC Center, 

is a proven economic development tool that has 

played a direct role in the recruitment of new 

companies, the support of existing companies, 

and job creation. 

As a result of the Raymondville outreach project, 

a small city—home to 10,000 residents—will 

have an economic development tool that is 

expected to provide training, generate jobs, 

start new businesses, and increase local tax 

revenues. In addition, Raymondville and the 

surrounding small communities are now linked 

with an institution of higher education through 

video conferencing and other technology. 

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H S I A C S N A P S H O T S

To date, the Go Green Center has provided 

very tangible benefits to specific partners. 

For example, the Community Development 

Corporation of Brownsville was able to use the 

center to train Youth Build participants in the 

construction of an affordable, energy-efficient 

home. The CDC and other local organizations 

continue to use this home as a training aid. In 

addition, the center has also provided a realworld environment for weatherization training 

programs that the Apple Energy Group conducts 

for inspectors, contractors, and other interested 

parties. The UTB/TSC Architectural Program has 

also used the center to expand on the classroom 

experience of its students. 

For more information, contact:

John Sossi, Director

International Innovation Center

Office of Sponsored Programs

University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas 

Southmost College

80 Fort Brown

Brownsville, TX 78520

Phone: 956–882–4119

E-mail: john.sossi@utb.edu
SECTION 1: Partnership Snapshots

51 

H S I A C S N A P S H O T S

Collaborating on a Multipurpose Learning Facility

University of the 

Incarnate Word 

San Antonio, Texas

2001

Goal of the Partnership: The University of 

the Incarnate Word (UIW) worked with the 

Presa Community Center (PCC) to establish a 

multipurpose learning facility for the South Presa 

community. South Presa is an historic district 

in the southern sector of San Antonio, which is 

characterized by few businesses, a declining 

service industry, and an absence of community 

resources. At the same time, however, the area is 

home to a rapidly growing population of Hispanic 

immigrants and younger families.

UIW and PCC established the learning center 

to enhance the academic achievement of local 

elementary school children, improve computer 

literacy, and train parents to help their children 

perform well in school. The facility is located on 

the grounds of the PCC, which has served south 

San Antonio for more than 30 years. The center’s 

technology laboratory provides community 

residents with access to computers for Internet 

access, personal use, and skills development. 

UIW students in the business, information 

systems, computer sciences, and computer 

graphic arts programs work one-on-one with 

neighborhood residents to assess their existing 

skills, identify new skills that need to be learned, 

and provide tutoring and coaching.

Role of the Partners:

• University of the Incarnate Word serves as 

the academic support for service-learning 

projects carried out at the learning facility by 

psychology and computer arts majors.

• Presa Community Center identified the 

core goals and needs of the community and 

provided space and staff support to carry out 

the goals of the grant.

Benefit to the Grantee: This partnership helped 

UIW strengthen its outreach to south San 

Antonio and, in doing so, helped to fulfill its own 

outreach mission to underserved members of 

society. Now, more families in south San Antonio 

recognize the name of the university, which has 

helped UIW recruit additional students. Most 

notably, the long-term partnership between UIW 

and PCC has helped the university enhance its 

curriculum in the areas of service-learning and 

civic engagement. 

Benefit to the Community: With help from the 

HSIAC grant, PCC dramatically expanded its 

services in the areas of computer literacy, 

financial literacy, and parent support. It also 

gained a reputation as a training ground for 

college students. An ongoing working relationship 

with faculty and students in the university’s 

Department of Psychology has helped the 

center improve its services in the area of child 

development. The computer lab has helped the 
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52 

H S I A C S N A P S H O T S

center become a technology hub for community 

residents who need training in and access 

to electronic forms of communication. An 

unexpected outcome of the partnership has been 

the addition of a licensed psychologist to serve 

the mental health needs of the community. 

For more information contact:

John M. Velasquez, Ph.D., Professor

University of the Incarnate Word

3721 South Presa Street

San Antonio, TX 78201

Phone: 210–829–3960

E-mail: velasque@universe.uiwtx.edu

Stephanie Smith, President and 

Chief Executive Officer

Presa Community Center

3721 South Presa Street

San Antonio, TX 78210

Phone: 210–532–5295

E-mail: stephaniesmith@presa.org 
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53 

H S I A C S N A P S H O T S

Helping Local Communities Find Ways to Manage 

Water and Energy

Woodbury University–Arid Lands 

Institute

Burbank, California

2009

Goal of the Partnership: The Planning + Design 

Assistance for Water- and Energy-Wise 

Communities project at Woodbury University 

is designed to provide creative and practical 

solutions to water-scarce communities that 

are seeking smart ways to manage water and 

energy. The HSIAC-supported project, which is 

taking place in Burbank, California, and Rio Arriba 

County, New Mexico, also provides students in 

the university’s Arid Lands Institute (ALI) with 

exciting opportunities to apply their studies to 

real challenges.

In Burbank, the project is helping city planners 

look for opportunities—such as land use, 

localized infrastructures, increased density, 

and innovative building systems—to decrease 

reliance on energy-intensive water imports, 

increase harvest and use of local rain water, 

reclaim storm water runoff, and recycle municipal 

supplies. In Rio Arriba County, residents are 

working closely with ALI students to review 

and update a community-based watershed 

management plan and find opportunities for 

economic growth while respecting the integrity 

of distinctive ecological and cultural systems.

Role of the Partners: Partners in the project 

include the city of Burbank in California and the 

Embudo Valley Acequia Association and Rio 

Arriba County in New Mexico. Partners provide 

technical assistance, background information, 

access to stakeholders, existing planning 

documents, publicity for public events, and much 

wisdom and experience on the political, social, 

economic, and technical constraints surrounding 

the projects.

Benefit to the Grantee: During the first year of its 

HSIAC grant, Woodbury University has benefitted 

from increased visibility among its partners 

and their constituents. The university is now 

seen as an active participant in investigating 

issues critical to the West’s current and future 

development. 

Benefit to the Community: In Burbank, the project 

has resulted in a regular schedule of public 

workshops focused on building systems designed 

to save water and energy. These workshops 

bring more than 50 participants to the Woodbury 

University campus on Saturday mornings to learn 

from design professionals in a hands-on setting. 

The project has helped build a bridge between 

the creativity of academia and the desire of 

homeowners, trades people, and small-business 

owners for practical, small-scale solutions. By 

asking ALI to review and critique its new Climate 

Action Plan—currently in draft form—Burbank 

has provided university students and faculty with 

an opportunity to participate in formulating an 

exciting set of policy recommendations, testing 

those recommendations in design studios, 

reviewing those recommendations with the 

input of the public, and potentially generating 
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H S I A C S N A P S H O T S

fresh policy ideas that are applicable to urban 

communities throughout California and the West.

In Rio Arriba County, the project has created an 

opportunity to bring together representatives 

from disparate, and often conflicting, sectors 

for creative collaboration. The Lower Rio 

Embudo Valley Watershed Management Plan, 

first generated by local residents, will now 

be developed with the ongoing creative input 

and technical expertise of local farmers; 

water commissioners; local organizations; and 

county, state, and federal agencies, including 

the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land 

Management. Considering that more than 85 

percent of the land in the Lower Embudo Valley 

study area is publically owned by multiple 

agencies, this level of collaboration is an exciting 

breakthrough in creating a holistic approach to the 

area’s ecological and cultural sustainability. 

Generally, the relationships between ALI and its 

partners are off to a promising start. In Burbank, 

the public workshops hosted at Woodbury are 

particularly welcome due to recent budget cuts 

by the neighboring city of Los Angeles and the 

closure of many of that city’s environmental 

affairs programs. In New Mexico, ALI’s efforts 

have helped create a coordinated team, 

strategy, and work sequences that exceed initial 

expectations for multi-jurisdictional cooperation. 

This cooperation has the potential to serve as 

a model for rural communities throughout the 

county, state, and region.

For more information, contact:

Hadley and Peter Arnold, Directors

Arid Lands Institute

Woodbury University

7500 Glenoaks Boulevard

Burbank, CA 91510

Phone:  818–394–3335

E-mail: aridlands@woodbury.edu
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55 

H S I A C S N A P S H O T S

Building a Library to Serve a City and a College

Yakima Valley Community College

Yakima, Washington

2001, 2008

Goal of the Partnership: Yakima Valley 

Community College (YVCC) is working with the 

city of Grandview, Washington, to construct, 

equip, and operate a joint city/college library that 

will serve local residents and students attending 

the YVCC Grandview Campus. 

The city of Grandview has a small library but it is 

not adequate to meet existing community needs. 

Similarly, YVCC does not have a library at its 

Grandview Campus and needs one to support its 

various academic programs. Neither entity has 

the financial resources to expand library services 

on its own. However, by pooling resources, 

both organizations will be able to provide its 

constituents with a library that meets their needs. 

The new community library will be larger than the 

city’s existing library, will have expanded hours, 

and will offer more services than are currently 

available.

Once constructed, the library will also house 

materials and space for community training 

activities and seminars, including small business 

development training, first-time homebuyer 

workshops, literacy programs, and technology 

training. 

Role of the Partners:

• The city of Grandview is playing an active 

role in the library design process. In addition, 

the city will assume responsibility for 

operating and staffing the new library when 

it opens.

• Local chambers of commerce, the University 

of Washington Foster School of Business,

and Consumer Credit Counseling Service 

of Yakima Valley will work with the college 

to design, offer, and promote training 

opportunities in the library once it is 

constructed.

Benefit to the Grantee: The city of Grandview 

and YVCC have been partners since the YVCC 

Grandview Campus was established in 1990. 

Architectural drawing—Grandview Library.
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H S I A C S N A P S H O T S

Since that time the college and city have worked 

closely to inaugurate each of the campus’s major 

growth phases. 

Benefit to the Community: Partnerships with the 

college strengthen both the economic vitality of 

Grandview and its chambers of commerce.

For more information, contact:

Bryce Humpherys, Dean

Yakima Valley Community College

P.O. Box 22520

Yakima, WA 98907

Phone: 509–882–7049

E-mail: bhumpherys@yvcc.edu
SECTION 2

Tribal Colleges and 

Universities
59

SECT ION 2

Using a New Building to Help Tribal Members 

Achieve Better Health Outcomes

Salish Kootenai College

P a b l o , M o n t a n a

T he fact that Native Americans have higher rates of heart disease and diabetes 

than other Americans came as no surprise to administrators at Salish Kootenai 

College (SKC) in Pablo, Montana, when they reviewed Indian Health Service 

(IHS) statistics for their region in 2002, but something about the IHS data did surprise 

Dr. Joseph McDonald, who served as SKC president for 30 years until his retirement 

in June 2010.

“There are 12 regions in the Indian Health 

Service and in the 1990s, our region ranked 

second overall in many of the negative health 

statistics that the health service collected,” 

says McDonald. “That sort of galvanized 

everyone into saying, ‘We have to do better 

than this.’”

Regional Differences in Indian Health included 

health data that the IHS had collected during 

1998 and 1999 in all of its regions. What 

caught the attention of SKC officials was 

the data comparing health outcomes in the 

Billings region—which includes Montana and 

Wyoming—with outcomes in every one of 

the other IHS regions. Overall, all the regions 

showed poor health outcomes compared 

to the general U.S. population. As a group, 

the report stated, Native Americas were 249 

percent more likely than other Americans 

to die of diabetes, 20 percent more likely to 

die from heart disease, and 14 percent more 

likely to die from a stroke. They were also 

more likely to develop tuberculosis, become 

alcoholics, and commit suicide.1

As if that news was not bad enough, the 

health outcomes in the Billings region were 

worse, in some cases, than two-thirds of 

the other 11 IHS regions. Overall, Billings 

had the third-highest death rate among 

the IHS regions and the second-highest 

number of deaths from malignant tumors 

and lung cancer. It ranked third among the 

12 IHS regions in number of deaths from 

heart disease, stroke, breast cancer, and 

1. Indian Health Service. 2000. Regional Differences 

in Indian Health 1998–99 Edition. Washington, D.C.: 

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. 
COLLABORATING FOR CHANGE: PARTNERSHIPS TO TRANSFORM LOCAL COMMUNITIES 

60 

pneumonia. The numbers of regional 

deaths that were related to diabetes placed 

Billings in sixth place among all 12 of the 

IHS regions. IHS data collected for 2000–

20012

 and 2002–20033 reported similar 

health outcomes for tribal members living 

in SKC’s region.

“The real health issues had started long 

before we saw that report in 2002,” says 

Lon Whitaker, SKC’s vice president of 

business affairs. “But that report was a 

clarion call to us. When something like this 

becomes a major issue in the community, 

then it’s something that we as a college 

have to do something about.”

Joe McDonald Health and 

Fitness Center

In 2002, SKC was already working hard to 

sponsor health and fitness programs for 

residents of the Flathead Indian Reservation 

where it is located. However, its facilities 

were no match for the local demand—or 

the local need—for health fairs, disease 

screenings, and facilities that could 

encourage Tribal members to increase 

their physical activity and learn healthy 

eating habits. For example, SKC operated a 

400-square-foot fitness center, equipped 

2. Indian Health Service. 2003. Regional Differences 

in Indian Health, 2000-2001 Edition. Washington, 

D.C.: U.S. Department of Health and Human 

Services. 

3. Indian Health Service. 2008. Regional Differences 

in Indian Health 2002-2003 Edition. Washington, 

D.C.: U.S. Department of Health and Human 

Services. 

with 10 exercise fitness machines, in the 

basement of a building it had purchased 

from the Tribal Housing Department. But 

when the Tribal Health Department started 

referring patients to that facility, it had 

trouble meeting the increased demand. 

Likewise, a campus health fair quickly 

outgrew the classroom where it took place 

each year. 

“The health fair got so big we had no place 

to hold it anymore,” says McDonald. “We 

could only get 300 people in our largest 

classroom, but we were getting almost 

1,000 participants at that event. We had 

to start offering it in late spring or early 

summer so we could have it outside. 

There was just no way we could get 

everyone inside.”

Committed to doing more to meet the 

demand for health and fitness activities on 

the reservation, SKC set out to build what 

has become known as the Joe McDonald 

Health and Fitness Center. Construction 

of the multipurpose, 42,000-square-foot 

building was funded by two grants from the 

Tribal Colleges and Universities Program 

(TCUP). The first grant, awarded in 2003, 

financed the construction of the fitness 

portion of the center, which includes a 

gymnasium and indoor walking track. The 

second grant, awarded in 2005, allowed 

the college to add a classroom wing to 

the building and to introduce a health 

education component to the fitness center.

“We asked the architects to design the 

fitness center as the first stage of a much 
SECTION 2: Salish Kootenai College

61 

larger facility,” says McDonald. “They used 

three permanent walls and a knock-out 

wall so we could expand later. Fortunately, 

we were lucky enough to get the second 

HUD grant.”

SKC was able to supplement its TCUP grant 

with funds from the U.S. Department of 

Agriculture, which helped to pay for an 

instructional kitchen where college and 

Tribal Health Department staff hold cooking 

classes that can be broadcast on the 

SKC television station. In addition, the 

SKC Foundation guaranteed a $2 million 

construction loan, which helped the college 

finish the project. The Paul G. Allen Family 

Foundation financed the purchase of 

bleachers for the gymnasium.

Even though community outreach is not 

the focus of TCUP grants, which primarily 

funds construction, renovation, and 

expansions of on-campus structures, the 

Health and Fitness Center has played an 

important role both on the SKC campus 

and within the college’s northern-Montana 

community. First and foremost, says 

Whitaker, the center is a campus building 

that supports the college’s curriculum and 

a variety of extracurricular activities for its 

approximately 625 full-time and 365 parttime students. In addition, however, the 

center has taken on a life of its own as a 

gathering place for members of the Pablo 

community and the Confederated Salish 

and Kootenai Tribes. It also has become a 

popular exercise venue for Tribal members 

and Pablo residents and an important 

source of information and resources that 

help local residents achieve and maintain 

good health. 

“The center is really our attempt to help 

our community members get past some of 

those troubling health issues like our higher 

diabetes levels, our higher rates of obesity, 

and our higher rates of heart disease,” says 

Whitaker. “On the whole, we are unhealthy 

and we need to get healthier.”

Since the day it opened in 2005, the Joe 

McDonald Health and Fitness Center has 

been available to all Tribal members, 

who are welcome to use its facilities or 

participate in its continuing education 

programs at no charge. Community 

residents who are not Tribal members can 

use the facilities by paying a $10 monthly 

fee in addition to nominal charges for 

individual classes and programs. Those 

programs run the gamut from recreational 

volleyball and basketball leagues to yoga 

and tai chi classes, all of which are open 

Aerial view of health fair attendees.
COLLABORATING FOR CHANGE: PARTNERSHIPS TO TRANSFORM LOCAL COMMUNITIES 

62 

to non-students. In addition, Whitaker 

estimates that the center hosts some 

kind of health fair or screening event at 

least once a month. Information about 

community services is routinely distributed 

by staff at the center’s information desk. 

And the center’s exercise equipment and 

indoor walking track are always available 

for use. 

The track is particularly popular because 

it is the only indoor facility of its kind 

within a 2,000-mile radius of Pablo. That’s 

a big advantage in a region where winter 

temperatures are often below zero and 

seasonal snow accumulation can reach 200 

inches. The fact that the track is elevated 

above the gymnasium floor makes it 

available even when the gym is being used 

for other events. 

“Basically, Tribal members come in here 

and become members of the college health 

club,” says Whitaker. “This gives them a 

fitness center that is affordable, which is 

important for many of our Tribal members.”

More than 17,000 people use the center in 

any given year and about three-quarters 

of those users are community residents 

who attend health fairs and classes, fill 

the stands during games played by the 

SKC basketball team, or simply use the 

center as a place to walk, says Whitaker. 

About 2,000 people attended a recent 

Women for Wellness Health Fair and 1,500 

came to campus for a recent career and 

jobs fair, says McDonald. During its first 

year of operation, almost 2,500 Tribal 

members attended cultural events at the 

center, including pow-wows and wakes. 

More than 3,000 community members 

registered for health classes and almost 

4,000 participated in exercise programs 

there. More than 700 community members 

attended meetings held at the center by 

community organizations while 1,600 fire, 

police, and hospital personnel came to 

the center to stay in shape or receive their 

required training. 

Partnership with Tribal 

Health Department

Community members who attend a 

health fair or health screening at the Joe 

McDonald Health and Fitness Center are 

likely to see C. Brenda Bodnar behind one 

of the tables. Bodnar, a registered dietician 

who works with the Confederated Salish 

and Kootenai Tribal Health Department, 

participates in many of the health-related 

events that take place at the center, 

including an annual woman’s health fair 

and a number of events where community 

members can be screened for heart disease, 

diabetes, and other chronic conditions. 

Many of the screenings are coordinated and 

staffed by students in the college’s nursing 

program, which also sponsors an AIDS 

prevention program for the community. 

“We collaborate with many of the projects 

that they do,” says Bodnar. The success 

of those collaborations, she says, comes 

from the fact that the health department 

and SKC share a common mission to help 
SECTION 2: Salish Kootenai College

63 

Tribal members stay healthy so they can 

either avoid or successfully manage chronic 

diseases. 

Bodnar believes that the tendency of Tribal 

members to develop heart disease and 

diabetes is directly related to the obesity 

that she sees increasing among residents 

of the Flathead Indian Reservation. Bodnar 

is most concerned about data showing 

that obesity is fast becoming a problem 

for young members of the Confederated 

Salish and Kootenai Tribes. Between 2007 

and 2009, the rate of obesity increased 

by 5 percent each year among younger 

Tribal members, age 15 to 45, who receive 

their primary care at the Tribal Health 

Department. Bodnar is worried that if those 

trends continue, many of these younger 

Tribal members will soon run a greater risk 

of developing diabetes.

Currently, most Tribal members who do 

get diabetes see the first signs of the 

disease at age 65 but don’t develop serious 

complications—including foot problems, 

cardiovascular disease, and kidney 

disease—for another 20 years, says Bodnar. 

But if rates of obesity continue to climb 

among younger people, diabetes and its 

complications could affect a significantly 

younger age group on the reservation.

“We’re expecting the younger population 

to start seeing complications from diabetes 

when they are 45 to 65,” she says. “That will 

have huge implications for our Tribe.”

Bodnar is fighting the obesity trend by 

promoting exercise and healthy eating 

through two health outreach programs 

for residents of the Flathead Indian 

Reservation who are eligible to receive 

primary healthcare services through the 

Tribal Health Department. A cardiovascular 

prevention program, called Native Heart 

Beats, includes 150–200 individuals who 

suffer from some form of heart disease. 

Each person in the program works closely 

with a case manager who meets with them 

regularly to establish heart-healthy goals 

and monitor their progress in meeting 

those goals. Primarily, says Bodnar, 

participants in the program are encouraged 

to exercise for 150 minutes a week, take 

their medications as directed, eat healthy 

foods, and visit their primary care physician 

regularly.

About 700 Tribal members are enrolled 

in the Flathead Diabetes Program, a less 

formal program that is open to individuals 

who register with the Tribal Health 

Department and are invited to special 

Indoor walking area.
COLLABORATING FOR CHANGE: PARTNERSHIPS TO TRANSFORM LOCAL COMMUNITIES 

64 

programs and cooking classes throughout 

the year. Several of those programs include 

classes in healthy cooking that Bodnar 

conducts in the instructional kitchen at the 

health and fitness center.

“I’m the registered dietician for the Tribe 

and my main audience for those classes is 

people with diabetes,” she says. “But others 

are welcome to attend and often people will 

drop in if they happen to be at the fitness 

center that day. We have classes there at 

different times of the year. Cherry picking is 

a popular activity along Flathead Lake, so 

we had a cooking class during harvest time 

to show people how to can cherries and 

make sugar-free cherry jam.”

In addition to hosting the cooking classes, 

the health and fitness center also serves as 

a primary exercise venue for members of 

both the Native Heart Beats and Flathead 

Diabetes Program who live in the Pablo 

area. 

“Living in northern Montana, we have a lot 

of cold, inclement weather, so our patients 

can’t just go for a walk outside whenever 

they want to,” says Bodnar. “That’s where 

the fitness center in Pablo is useful. We are 

always talking to our clients about the need 

to exercise. And if they live in Pablo, we 

refer them to the college’s fitness center.”

Some of these clients could get their 

exercise in private fitness centers, says 

Bodnar, but many aren’t comfortable using 

the fitness machines they find there. They 

prefer instead to walk on the college’s 

indoor track and to participate in organized 

exercise classes that the center sponsors, 

including yoga, tai chi, step aerobics, and 

walking groups.

“They are comfortable with that,” says 

Bodnar. “They like having organized groups 

where they go on specific days as part of 

their weekly plan.”

In addition to referring her current clients 

to the health and fitness center, Bodnar 

often meets new clients at the health fairs 

and screenings that the center hosts. Those 

events give the Tribal Health Department 

a perfect opportunity to raise awareness 

about heart disease and diabetes among 

members of the tribal community, she 

says. Often, Tribal members must hear the 

educational messages multiple times before 

they will be receptive to them, she says. 

“If we are out there enough times then we 

will be there when they need to hear the 

information and are ready to listen,” says 

Bodnar. “Almost every time we do one of 

these screenings we come upon a new 

diabetic who maybe wasn’t aware that they 

even had the condition. Maybe they are not 

diabetic at this time but they are creeping 

up there. That’s the time to get them started 

on a prevention program.” 

Still, Bodnar says it can be hard for Tribal 

members to make healthier choices, 

especially when fast food is so plentiful and 

inexpensive. While the same challenges 

face all Americans who are fighting the 

obesity crisis, Native Americans experience 

unique challenges that are rooted in a 

pattern of relocation that took many of 
SECTION 2: Salish Kootenai College

65 

them away from reservations during their 

formative years. Many older Tribal members 

spent their childhoods at boarding schools 

run by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, says 

Barbara Plouffe, manager of the Tribal 

Health Department’s Community Health 

Division. Others left the reservation through 

the Urban Indian Relocation Program, 

which was established in 1952 to encourage 

reservation dwellers to move to major 

urban areas like Chicago and Denver to 

find jobs. Many Tribal members eventually 

returned to the reservation, says Plouffe, 

but they had already missed important 

cultural training that is traditionally passed 

on to young people by Tribal elders and 

family members.

“We have whole generations of Indians 

who didn’t learn how to cook traditional 

foods or grow their own gardens because 

they were off the reservation at boarding 

school or in the relocation program,” she 

says. “If they had stayed here, they might 

have learned things that would have helped 

them enjoy a healthier lifestyle.”

Commitment to Health

McDonald and Whitaker say that the 

health and fitness center was designed to 

fill the kind of health education gaps that 

Bodnar describes. This type of initiative 

isn’t new for the college. Over the years, 

it has also taken aggressive action to fill 

other gaps that prevent Native Americans 

from receiving the best healthcare 

possible. In 1989, for example, the college 

became one of only three Tribal colleges 

in the nation to respond to a shortage of 

Native American healthcare providers by 

establishing a registered nursing program. 

SKC was the first Tribal college to offer 

both an associate’s and a bachelor’s degree 

in nursing and the first to be nationally 

accredited by the National League for 

Nursing. 

“Over the past 20 years, we have led the 

nation by graduating over 172 Native 

American nurses,” says McDonald. “Arizona 

State University and the University of North 

Dakota haven’t produced as many nurses 

as we have. We are pretty proud of our 

nursing program.” 

Responding to a similar need for providers 

of dental care, SKC established a certificate 

program for dental assistants in 1990. Each 

semester, that program operates at its 

50-student capacity, says Whitaker. 

Exercise room in the Joe McDonald Health and Fitness Center.
COLLABORATING FOR CHANGE: PARTNERSHIPS TO TRANSFORM LOCAL COMMUNITIES 

66 

“It is really successful,” agrees McDonald. 

“One year we produced 30 percent 

of all the practicing Native American 

dental assistants in the country. It is an 

extraordinarily popular program for us 

and it fills a huge need in the Indian Health 

Service. That means our students always 

have jobs when they graduate.” 

Collaborating with the 

Community

Getting students good jobs is only part of 

SKC’s mission, say McDonald and Whitaker. 

Chartered by the Consolidated Salish 

and Kootenai Tribes in 1977, the college 

has a clear mission to “educate and be 

here for our tribal members,” who make 

up 75 percent of the SKC student body, 

says Whitaker. Activities that support that 

mission are evident throughout the campus 

and its history. 

For example, during its first 11 years, 

the college conducted three communitybased educational needs assessments in 

cooperation with Tribal departments and 

community members to determine how its 

curriculum could better serve local needs. 

A campus construction committee, made 

up of community members, members of 

the college’s Board of Directors, and SKC 

faculty and staff, has worked for 10 years 

to develop plans for constructing new 

campus buildings, including the health 

and fitness center. 

“In return, all of our different academic 

programs and support programs work with 

every one of the 34 Tribal departments,” 

says McDonald. “The police and fire 

departments come into the health and 

fitness center to stay in shape. We offer 

courses designed for the training and 

certificates they need. We do the same for 

the hospitals. We cooperate with everyone.”

The collaboration between campus and 

community is further strengthened by 

the fact the college’s board members are 

selected by the Confederated Salish and 

Kootenai Tribal Council. In addition, the 

social structure of the reservation helps to 

foster collaboration, as does the longevity 

of Tribal and campus leaders, who make 

it their business to create and nurture 

partnerships that typically last for decades. 

“Everybody knows everybody on 

the reservation and the informal 

communication and agreements are as 

strong as the formal ones,” says McDonald. 

“We see people at lunch, we see them 

at dinner, and we talk constantly about 

opportunities that we can pursue together.”

Tiny Tots Thanksgiving Celebration Powwow.
SECTION 2: Salish Kootenai College

67 

This spirit of cooperation works well on the 

reservation, but it is also applicable to any 

rural community, where organizations know 

they can be more effective if they work 

together, says McDonald. In addition, that 

spirit can be intentionally fostered through 

an institutional philosophy that encourages 

faculty, staff, and students to get involved in 

the community by volunteering and serving 

on community boards. That’s exactly what 

has happened at SKC, where faculty and 

students alike are encouraged to follow the 

example that McDonald sets for them. 

“Joe McDonald is at every wake that takes 

place on the reservation,” says Whitaker. 

“If someone is sick, he visits them. He is 

on lots of boards and commissions. He 

has great energy to get out there and to do 

things and be visible in the community.” 

McDonald’s commitment to community 

engagement spurred SKC to develop 

administrative policies during his tenure 

that fostered collaboration. For example, 

each academic department has an 

institutional board that includes community 

members who help guide its direction.

“The nursing department’s board 

has representatives from hospitals in 

Kalispell, Missoula, Ronan, Polson, and 

Plains,” says McDonald. “The dental 

assistant department has dentists, dental 

assistants, and dental hygienists from all 

over western Montana on its board. This 

gives us credibility and it helps to involve 

community members in the college. Those 

people then go out to the community and 

talk about what the college does.”

Nowhere are the walls between the campus 

and community more fluid than in the Joe 

McDonald Health and Fitness Center. 

“Tribal members look at the facility as a 

community asset,” says Whitaker. “They 

are not afraid to come and ask us if they 

can use it. They understand that the center 

is part of the academic structure of our 

college, but they also know that, for the 

most part, community-based events 

happen there.”

Those community events have included 

cultural celebrations like pow-wows, which 

are held at least 3 times a year. Those 

events can attract anywhere from 300 to 

1,000 people who travel great distances 

to dance, sing, socialize, and honor Native 

American culture. In addition, the center 

has hosted the funerals of a number of 

prominent Tribal leaders.

“When a Tribal elder passes away, there is 

a huge amount of expectation around the 

SKC graduate Tasheena Bigcrane and Montana Senator Max Baucus.
COLLABORATING FOR CHANGE: PARTNERSHIPS TO TRANSFORM LOCAL COMMUNITIES 

68 

funeral,” says Whitaker. “That individual has 

been a leader in the cultural and traditional 

structure of the Tribe for a long period of 

time. There is no other place in the area that 

could host these large ceremonies. They are 

an important part of what we do here.”

Building a Campus Community

In addition to welcoming the outside 

community to the SKC campus, the health 

and fitness center has also played a huge 

role in renewing the sense of connection 

that faculty, staff, and students feel with 

one another. For example, the building has 

helped forge a spirit of collaboration among 

groups of students who actually worked 

on its construction. Faculty and students 

from the college’s Heavy Equipment 

Department prepared the fitness center’s 

construction site, while undergraduates in 

the Building Trades Department completed 

the building’s rough framing and finishing. 

The student involvement helped SKC 

save about $100,000 on construction costs 

but, more importantly, it gave students 

a sense of ownership that makes them 

more respectful and better stewards of 

the college’s property, says McDonald. 

As a result, SKC boasts a clean, litter-free 

campus that has never seen a speck of 

graffiti. “The students simply don’t allow it,” 

he says. 

Elementary and high school students who 

use the fitness center’s gymnasium or walk 

on its track feel that sense of community 

when they are on campus and it affects 

their perception of SKC, says Whitaker. 

“They start to build a bond with us and 

then they decide to attend college here 

because it is a comfortable place to start 

their education,” he says. 

Finally, the health and fitness center 

has helped SKC students feel a part of 

something that is bigger than themselves 

if only because, for the first time in the 

college’s 30-year-history, all faculty, staff, 

and students can now gather together in 

one place for meetings and ceremonies.

“The health and fitness center is the only 

place that the college has for large groups,” 

says McDonald. “Up until now, SKC had 

to hold its graduation off campus at public 

high schools or at the Tribal high school. 

I was ashamed of that. I was ashamed that 

we could never have a meeting on campus 

with the entire faculty and all the students. 

But now that has changed. This building has 

brought us together and that has given us a 

great sense of pride.” 

68
SECTION 2: Partnership Snapshots

69 

T C U P S N A P S H O T S

With New Classroom Facility Everybody Wins

Bay Mills Community College

Brimley, Michigan 

2008

Goal of the Project: Bay Mills Community 

College (BMCC) used its TCUP funds to 

construct a new facility to accommodate its 

health and fitness curriculum, its growing 

student enrollment, and its community 

programming. The Bay Mills Indian Community 

leased the property to BMCC for the project 

and provided some site preparation. The War 

Memorial Hospital Physical Therapy Department 

leases space in the building and provides 

physical therapy treatment.

Benefit to the Grantee: BMCC has increased 

overall classroom space dedicated to its health 

and fitness curriculum, provided space for 

future expansion and additional community 

programming, and provided students with a 

venue for on-the-job training, job shadowing, 

and part-time employment.

Benefit to the Community: The community 

now has a health and fitness facility where 

community members can exercise on their 

own or as part of scheduled classes, and 

community elders exercise for free. Bay Mills 

Police Department officers have signed a 

memorandum of understanding with BMCC 

whereby they can exercise for free during their 

work hours. Community members no longer have 

to travel 25 miles one way for physical therapy 

treatment because War Memorial Hospital 

provides physical therapy on site. 

For more information, contact:

Kathy Adair 

12214 West Lakeshore Drive

Brimley, MI 49774 

Phone: 906–248–8404

E-mail: kadair@bmcc.edu

Exercise room in the new facility.
COLLABORATING FOR CHANGE: PARTNERSHIPS TO TRANSFORM LOCAL COMMUNITIES 

70 

T C U P S N A P S H O T S

Campus Library Promotes Literacy and Reading Programs

College of Menominee Nation 

Keshena, Wisconsin 

2008

Goal of the Project: College of Menominee Nation 

(CMN) is using its TCUP funds to complete the 

second phase of the newly constructed campus 

library to increase the availability of community 

library outreach programs. 

Benefit to the Grantee: There were no community 

library programs in place prior to this grant. 

CMN now has the space, training resources, 

and technology to coordinate essential literacy 

programs and reading encouragement programs. 

The Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin 

understands the value of education and training 

as a major economic development opportunity and 

views CMN as a vital force in that development. 

Benefit to the Community: The expanded library 

has allowed the college to host the recent Big 

Read event, which encourages individuals to 

pick up a book and read it. More than 175 adults 

and children attended the kickoff event, making it 

the largest event of this kind on the Menominee 

reservation. Book discussions held at the local 

senior centers attracted 119 participants.

The College of Menominee Nation Library.

For more information, contact:

Ron Jurgens 

P.O. Box 1179

Keshena, WI 54135 

Phone: 715–799–6226, ext. 3011

E-mail: rjurgens@menominee.edu
SECTION 2: Partnership Snapshots

71 

T C U P S N A P S H O T S

Building Faculty Housing While Enhancing Economic 

Development

Fort Peck Community College

Poplar, Montana

2009

Goal of the Project: Fort Peck Community 

College (FPCC) is using its TCUP grant to 

construct four faculty housing units on campus. 

Once completed, these units will help the 

college attract professional faculty members, 

hospital staff, and government officials to its 

remote, rural community, which suffers from a 

lack of housing. 

Benefit to the Grantee: With four new housing 

units on campus, FPCC will be able to welcome 

at least four faculty members to campus. This 

will allow students to take required classes 

on a continuous schedule without a waiting 

period and to graduate within the college’s 

2-year prescribed timeframe. It will also help the 

college attract more students. 

Benefit to the Community: The construction 

of these housing units will bring economic 

development to the Poplar region by allowing 

the college to hire local tradesmen and 

purchase construction materials from 

local vendors. 

For more information, contact:

Noel Sansaver, TCUP Project Manager

Fort Peck Community College

605 Indian Avenue

Poplar, MT 59255

Phone: 406–768–5555

E-mail: nsansaver@fpcc.edu

A Fort Peck student dormitory built with funds from a 2006 

TCUP grant.
COLLABORATING FOR CHANGE: PARTNERSHIPS TO TRANSFORM LOCAL COMMUNITIES 

72 

T C U P S N A P S H O T S

Revitalizing a Tribal Community Through Campus 

Infrastructure Improvements

Little Big Horn College

Crow Agency, Montana

2006

Goal of the Project: Little Big Horn College used 

its TCUP grant to construct a new on-campus 

building that houses a library, administrative 

offices, and archives facility. The new building 

allowed the college to expand its outreach to area 

schools, increase its organizational capacity, and 

store important historical documents that will 

perpetuate the culture and traditions of the Crow 

people. TCUP funds were supplemented by a loan 

from the Crow Tribal Administration. 

Benefit to the Grantee: Construction of any 

new building at Little Big Horn College helps to 

increase student enrollment as local residents 

become more aware of college services. Over 

time, relations between the college and its 

community begin to evolve and develop. The 

college hopes that these enhanced relations will 

allow it eventually to become accredited as a 

4-year institution of higher education.

Benefit to the Community: When any positive 

change takes place on the Little Big Horn College 

campus, the self-esteem of students is enhanced 

and the Crow community identifies positively with 

the growth and development. With each new 

building, the campus and the town of Crow Agency 

are revitalized. 

In addition, as the college expands, its capacity 

to provide new or improved curricula to meet 

student and community needs also expands. 

Community members know they can get a good, 

comprehensive education at Little Big Horn 

College without having to leave the area or travel 

to an out-of-state university. 

For more information, contact:

Dr. David Yarlott, Jr.

Little Big Horn College

1 Forest Lane

P.O. Box 370

Crow Agency, MT 59022

Phone: 406–638–3107

E-mail: davidyarlott@lbhc.edu

Interior of the Little Big Horn Cultural Center.
SECTION 2: Partnership Snapshots

73 

T C U P S N A P S H O T S

Preserving Tribal Culture Through a Historical Center

Oglala Lakota College

Kyle, South Dakota

2001

Goal of the Project: In 2001, Oglala Lakota College 

(OLC) received a TCUP grant to help build the 

Oglala Lakota Historical Center. The TCUP grant 

was supplemented by funds from the American 

Indian College Fund and the Lilly Foundation. In 

addition, the American Indian Higher Education 

Consortium provided logs for the building and the 

Oglala Sioux Tribe provided the land.

The Oglala Lakota Historical Center houses 

OLC’s Lakota Studies and Graduate Studies 

Department and a main-floor exhibit and 

presentation space. The exhibit space features 

a permanent display about the Wounded Knee 

Massacre and space for visiting Lakota art 

exhibits. During the summer months, the center 

hosts Lakota artists and craftspeople who 

exhibit and demonstrate their work for tourists, 

community members, and local students. 

OLC serves the Pine Ridge Reservation, which is 

home to 28,787 Tribal residents, including 1,800 

OLC students and 4,167 students in kindergarten 

through 12th grade. The Oglala Lakota Historical 

Center is helping to preserve the culture that all 

of these Tribal members share.

Benefit to the Grantee: While OLC offers both 

bachelor’s and master’s degrees, it is the most 

community college in America. The Oglala 

Sioux Tribal government is represented on the 

college’s board of trustees, which also includes 

one elected representative from each of the 

reservation’s nine districts, one representative 

from the tribe’s council of elders, and one 

representative from 

the college’s student senate. 

OLC continually reaches out to the Tribal 

community through its instructional centers, 

which are located in each of the reservation’s nine 

population centers. Each of these centers has a 

local board, comprised of community members 

and students, which keeps the college focused 

on its mission and provides ongoing direction 

regarding college programs and services.

Oglala Lakota Cultural Center.
COLLABORATING FOR CHANGE: PARTNERSHIPS TO TRANSFORM LOCAL COMMUNITIES 

74 

T C U P S N A P S H O T S

Benefit to the Community: OLC has served 

its community for 39 years by providing 

training, college degrees, General Educational 

Development classes, and many other programs. 

The college has been a leader in the preservation 

and teaching of the Lakota culture and language.

For more information, contact:

Marilyn Pourier, Development Officer

Oglala Lakota College

490 Piya Wiconi Road

Kyle, SD 57752

Phone: 605–455–2045

E-mail: mpourier@olc.edu
SECTION 2: Partnership Snapshots

75 

T C U P S N A P S H O T S

Student Population Growth Spurs Cafeteria Expansion

United Tribes Technical College

Bismarck, North Dakota

2008

Goal of the Project: United Tribes Technical 

College (UTTC) is using its TCUP funds to 

expand and renovate the campus cafeteria 

to accommodate the growth of the student 

population.

Benefit to the Grantee: This expansion and 

renovation will allow UTTC to feed 150 to 311 

students and staff at any setting. The U.S. 

Department of Agriculture Rural Development 

provided additional funding of $220,000, which 

allows UTTC to include additional features and 

amenities such as heated floors, a front patio, 

folding walls to increase meeting room capability, 

dropped ceilings, and additional ventilation in the 

cafeteria/kitchen area. 

Benefit to the Community: The updated cafeteria 

facility will provide a larger facility to host both 

campus and other events and allow UTTC to 

expand its programs.

Conceptual drawing of the planned UTTC cafeteria.

For more information, contact:

Curtis Maynard

3315 University Drive

Bismarck, ND 58504

Phone: 701–255–3285, ext. 1638

E-mail: cmaynard@uttc.edu
SECTION 3

Research Grants
79 

SECT ION 3

Dr. Tatjana Meschede: 

Identifying Bridges and Barriers to Housing 

for Boston’s Homeless Street Dwellers

University of 

Massachusetts Boston

B o s t o n , M a s s a c h u s e t t s

During the winter of 1998–1999, Boston’s public health community was rocked 

by the news that 16 homeless individuals had been found dead on the streets 

of one of the nation’s most affluent cities. The men and women, who died 

during a span of a few colder-than-normal months, were characterized as “rough 

sleepers.” As a group, this subset of the homeless population typically avoids public 

shelters and sleeps instead in doorways, alleys, bus terminals, train stations, subway 

tunnels, or abandoned buildings and cars.1

At first, community-based organizations that 

serve Boston’s homeless population assumed 

they understood the reasons for the deaths. 

Obviously, they hypothesized, the individuals 

in questions had “fallen through the cracks” 

and for one reason or another had made 

a conscious decision to avoid services—

including shelters, healthcare, detoxification 

programs, and substance abuse treatment—

that could have saved their lives. Further 

investigation, however, nullified that theory 

and, in the process, sent a dramatic wake-up 

call that service providers and government 

agencies could not ignore. 

The deceased individuals had not been hiding 

in the shadows of the homeless service 

delivery system, it turns out. In fact, many of 

the city’s service providers knew them well.

“All of the people who died had been in 

the hospital or the emergency room within 

several weeks of the time that they died,” says 

Dr. James O’Connell, president and street 

physician with Boston Health Care for the 

1. O’Connell, J., Mattison, S., Judge, C. M, Strupp Allen, H.J., and Koh, H.. 2005. “A Public Health Approach to 

Reducing Morbidity and Mortality among Homeless People in Boston.” Journal of Public Health Management 

Practice, 11(4), 311–316.
COLLABORATING FOR CHANGE: PARTNERSHIPS TO TRANSFORM LOCAL COMMUNITIES 

80 

Homeless Program (BHCHP). “And much to 

our surprise, most of those people had also 

been in our state’s detoxification system 

within days or weeks of the time that they 

died. That showed us that despite all our 

efforts, despite our great shelters and our 

great healthcare, we were staring at an 

appalling mortality rate among vulnerable 

people who were coming into our state and 

city agencies in droves. We were all failing.”

Failure was not something O’Connell 

was willing to accept. As a founder of 

BHCHP, he has worked for almost a quarter 

century as primary care physician to 

thousands of homeless men, women, and 

children. BHCHP was established in 1985 

as one of 19 Health Care for the Homeless 

Programs funded nationally by the Robert 

Wood Johnson Foundation and the Pew 

Charitable Trust. Over the last 24 years, the 

organization has evolved into the largest 

and most comprehensive healthcare for the 

homeless program in the country. Last year 

alone, its 300 employees delivered services 

to more than 11,000 homeless individuals, 

providing services in shelter-based and 

hospital-based clinics and through street 

outreach. BHCHP also provides temporary, 

medical respite for homeless individuals 

who are too sick to be living outside.

“The big picture story is that we have been 

interested in the public health aspect 

of homelessness for a long time,” says 

O’Connell, who holds a medical degree 

from Harvard University and a master’s 

degree in philosophy and theology from 

Cambridge University in England.

O’Connell’s extensive experience on 

the streets of Boston, and his personal 

connection to many people who live there, 

made him an obvious choice to join a 

Massachusetts Department of Public Health 

(MDPH) Task Force that began meeting in 

early 1999 to determine exactly how so 

many homeless individuals could have died 

when they were making such frequent and 

heavy use of public services. The task force 

was convened and chaired by Dr. Howard 

Koh, then Commissioner of Public Health 

for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts 

and now Assistant Secretary of Health in 

the U.S. Department of Health and Human 

Services. The group met for several years to 

implement an integrated response to what 

was now considered to be a public health 

crisis. 

The cause of premature death among 

homeless people was not a new issue 

for BHCHP. In the early 1990s, Dr. Steven 

Hwang, a BHCHP physician at the time, 

conducted several studies challenging 

the common assumption that a double 

diagnosis of mental illness and substance 

abuse was a major risk factor for 

premature mortality among homeless 

people. Hwang found, instead, that a triple 

diagnosis of mental illness, substance 

abuse, and a major medical problem was 

more predictive of early death among 

the homeless, says O’Connell. BHCHP’s 

investigation into the 1998–1999 street 

deaths, carried out at Koh’s request, 

validated this finding, he says.
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81 

“Everyone who died had a major mental 

illness in their chart,” he says. “They were 

also struggling with a substance abuse 

problem and they had the terrible burden of 

medical illness as well.”

MDPH Task Force on 

Homelessness

The cross-agency collaboration inaugurated 

by the MDPH Task Force on Homelessness 

was unprecedented in Boston. The task 

force included representatives of every 

stakeholder group that had contact with 

homeless individuals, including:

• State agencies working in the areas of 

mental health, public health, welfare, 

housing, and corrections.

• The Emergency Shelter Commission of 

the city of Boston.

• Academic medical centers such as 

Massachusetts General Hospital, New 

England Medical Center, and Boston 

Medical Center.

• Detoxification units and recovery 

programs.

• Homeless advocates like the 

Massachusetts Shelter and Housing 

Alliance, and Homes for Families.

• Homeless people.

• Healthcare clinicians, including BHCHP.

• State, city, and metropolitan transit 

authority police.

• Emergency medical services personnel.

• Shelter providers and street outreach 

workers.

• Downtown neighborhood associations.

• Researchers and evaluators from local 

universities, including the Center 

for Social Policy at the University of 

Massachusetts Boston (UMass-Boston), 

which was known in state government 

circles as an advocate for the poor.2

“It was a pretty interesting gathering of 

people who usually don’t get a chance 

to look at a problem across the system,” 

says O’Connell. “I think that the stars were 

aligned on this. Here we had a visionary 

leader in a state-level position who called 

2. O’Connell, J., Mattison, S., Judge, C. Strupp Allen, 

H.J., and Koh, H. 2005. “A Public Health Approach to 

Reducing Morbidity and Mortality among Homeless 

People in Boston.” Journal of Public Health 

Management Practice, 11(4), 311–316.

Dr. Tatjana Meschede.
COLLABORATING FOR CHANGE: PARTNERSHIPS TO TRANSFORM LOCAL COMMUNITIES 

82 

people together to say ‘Look, this is a 

terrible problem, it is going to take all of us 

to look at it, and we can’t do it alone.’ And 

that leadership fostered an environment 

that was relatively rare in my experience. I 

really salute Dr. Koh for what he did. It was 

like manna from heaven.”

The task force began by meeting monthly, 

but often came together on a biweekly 

basis, according to Dr. Teresa Anderson, 

who joined the group as director of 

the Office of Statistics and Evaluation 

in MDPH’s Bureau of Substance Abuse 

Services. The list of invitees was long and 

attendance at the meetings often reached 

75, she says. 

“Dr. Koh was a very firm believer in 

community partnerships because that 

is very much the way public health 

operates,” says Anderson, who now serves 

as associate director of the Evaluation 

and Measurement Unit in the Center 

for Health Policy and Research at the 

University of Massachusetts Medical School 

in Shrewsbury. “A lot of the task force 

discussion was really about the fact that 

there was no good system through which 

these service providers could network with 

one another. When emergency medical 

technicians in Boston encountered a 

homeless person on the street, they didn’t 

really have a mechanism for calling the Pine 

Street Inn (a local shelter). The success of 

the task force, we hoped, was its ability to 

help those organizations connect with one 

another. Through that connection, hopefully, 

the chances of someone spending a cold 

night on the street would be reduced.”

Koh and Anderson felt strongly that this 

new sense of collaboration among service 

providers and other stakeholders would 

become the hallmark of the task force. 

But they wanted to know for sure whether 

that collaboration was translating into 

an improved service delivery system 

for homeless individuals. That’s when 

Anderson approached Dr. Donna Haig 

Friedman, director of the Center for Social 

Policy at UMass-Boston, to see if she could 

help the task force obtain some researchbased answers to that question. 

Friedman already had a reputation in 

Boston for her work with the homeless. 

Her doctoral dissertation, later published 

as a book called Parenting in Public, had 

featured interviews with women who were 

raising children in homeless shelters. As 

director of the Center for Social Policy, she 

was also deeply involved in the creation 

and implementation of the Massachusetts 

Homeless Management Information 

System (HMIS), a project that brought her 

in close contact with service providers. 

The center also worked closely with the 

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban 

Development to offer technical assistance 

to other states that were instituting HMIS 

systems to collect client-level information 

on the characteristics and service needs of 

men, women, and children experiencing 

homelessness.
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83 

Friedman recommended that Tatjana 

Meschede, a graduate assistant at the 

center, take on the task force project. After 

advertising the position and interviewing 

several candidates, MDPH followed that 

recommendation. Working in partnership 

with Anderson and O’Connell, Meschede 

would spend the next 3 years tagging 

along with BHCHP medical teams as they 

provided healthcare to homeless people 

on the streets, in shelters, and in hospitalbased clinics. Based on that experience, 

on her analysis of available data, and her 

interviews with service providers and street 

dwellers, Meschede would eventually 

write her doctoral dissertation, as well as 

a shorter report summarizing her findings, 

which was released to the public. She 

completed her dissertation in 2004 with 

support from HUD’s Doctoral Dissertation 

Research Grant (DDRG) Program.

“Tatjana is a very concerned, thoughtful 

researcher,” says Anderson. “She trained 

with the best. You don’t get any better 

in qualitative work or concern for the 

homeless than Donna Friedman. It was 

a really good partnership, a really good 

synergy of people coming together at the 

right time.”

The Researcher

When Tatjana Meschede signed on 

to work with the MDPH Task Force on 

Homelessness, she was in the first year of a 

doctoral program in public policy at UMassBoston’s McCormack Graduate School of 

Policy Studies. Meschede already had spent 

several years researching homelessness 

when she received her assistantship with 

the graduate school’s Center for Social 

Policy. And, she had already decided to 

write her dissertation on homelessness, 

even though she admits it was a bit early 

in her doctoral training to make such a 

decision. 

“They really loved that I would take this as 

a dissertation topic,” says Meschede about 

MDPH. “They were very supportive and 

at the same time they were collaborating 

with Boston Health Care for the Homeless. 

That was my entry into that community 

partnership.”

A native of Germany, Meschede came 

to the United States on a Fulbright 

Scholarship, the international educational 

exchange program sponsored by the 

U.S. Government to “increase mutual 

understanding between the people of 

the United States and the people of other 

countries.” She studied in California for 

Medical personnel attending homeless men.
COLLABORATING FOR CHANGE: PARTNERSHIPS TO TRANSFORM LOCAL COMMUNITIES 

84 

2 years and then decided to “see the East 

Coast” before going back home.

“I did not plan to stay, but I met my 

husband,” says Meschede, who now has 

two children in high school. Committed to 

remaining in the United States, Meschede 

began investigating master’s degree 

programs in Boston and settled on the 

applied sociology program at the University 

of Massachusetts. 

“My interest really was to learn more about 

homelessness,” she says. “When I first 

got to this country, I saw many homeless 

people at the central bus station in Los 

Angeles. Coming from Europe more than 

20 years ago, I didn’t really know what 

homelessness meant. I had no point of 

reference; no one outside of the United 

States really knows much about it. I was 

really curious about the problem, so the fact 

that I could start exploring it really attracted 

me to the program at UMass-Boston.”

While pursuing her master’s degree, 

Meschede began working with one of 

her professors, Dr. Russell K. Schutt, on a 

research project involving the homeless 

in Boston. After earning her degree, she 

followed Schutt to Harvard University 

to study housing options for mentally ill 

homeless individuals. When her work on 

that project ended 3 years later, Meschede 

went back to the UMass-Boston to pursue 

her doctorate and to work with Friedman in 

the Center for Social Policy. 

“Her research fit perfectly with my research 

experience, my interest in homelessness, 

and my statistical experience,” says 

Meschede. “It was perfect timing.”

Developing the Partnership 

with BHCHP

Meschede took a very measured approach 

to her research for the MDPH Task Force 

on Homelessness. She was in no rush to 

develop her research questions or to design 

her study of homeless street dwellers in 

Boston. Instead, she took a full year to 

observe BHCHP street teams in action 

so she could learn about the challenges 

that they and their homeless clients 

experienced on a daily basis. 

“I didn’t come in as the expert,” she says. 

“I was really there to learn from them. 

I took at least a year to really understand 

what was going on out there on the streets, 

from their perspective and other people’s 

perspective. Then I felt that I was ready to 

craft a research study.” 

During that first year, Meschede spent many 

hours talking with O’Connell and members 

of his team, participated in staff meetings, 

and attended conferences with other Health 

Care for the Homeless programs around the 

country. O’Connell also helped Meschede 

make connections with other Boston 

service providers, including clinicians at 

several detoxification programs that admit 

homeless people. Meschede also tagged 

along with BHCHP medical teams to get a 

first-hand look at their work and to meet the 

homeless individuals they served.
SECTION 3: University of Massachusetts Boston

85 

“Sometimes when you come in as a 

researcher, you feel totally on the ‘other 

side,’” she says. “Community partners may 

be skeptical of this person from academia 

who has no idea what it’s like to work 

on the front lines. But they (BHCHP staff) 

totally opened up to me about what it 

means to provide services to people on the 

street.”

By the same token, O’Connell praises 

Meschede for enthusiastically embracing 

the opportunity to accompany BHCHP 

teams that work on the street, often after 

midnight on cold winter nights. He also 

appreciated her openness to the program’s 

homeless clients, who responded 

amazingly well to Meschede once they 

understood that she would listen to their 

stories without judgment.

“One of the rules that we have on the street 

is that you never get anything done unless 

you have a chance to have a relationship 

and be known by the people out there,” 

says O’Connell. “We have had a long 

relationship with these folks on the street 

and I think Tatjana knew that if she tagged 

along with us she could piggyback on 

that trust and gain entry into their lives. I 

thought she did a spectacular job of putting 

aside her academic gown and learning 

what was going on at the street level. For 

years, most of the people we work with 

didn’t even know that she was someone 

doing her Ph.D. dissertation. They just 

thought she was another team member.”

After a year of observing and learning, 

Meschede formulated her research 

question. Using her MDPH and DDRG 

funding, she decided to find out if and how 

the services provided by public shelters, 

healthcare professionals, detoxification 

centers, and substance abuse programs 

actually helped homeless individuals 

move off the street and into some kind 

of permanent housing situation. The 

implication of that research question was 

that such movement into housing would 

help to prevent premature death among 

these vulnerable individuals.

Bridges and Barriers to 

Housing

O’Connell says he knew well all the issues 

and challenges facing Boston’s homeless 

population. But he needed good data on his 

patients’ long-term health outcomes and on 

the effectiveness of strategies that BHCHP 

was using to help these individuals.

James O’Connell doing street outreach.
COLLABORATING FOR CHANGE: PARTNERSHIPS TO TRANSFORM LOCAL COMMUNITIES 

86 

“We were desperate for anything that 

would help us understand how to improve 

what we doing and evaluate what was 

happening,” says O’Connell. “So our hope 

was that if Tatjana could really look at some 

aspects of what we were doing and come 

up with some strategies that we could 

work on, this partnership would be worth 

its weight in gold. And I think that is what 

happened.”

By the time Meschede began her work, 

BHCHP had taken some steps to collect 

the data it needed to better understand the 

long-term impact of its services. In early 

January 2000, the organization identified 

a group of 119 BHCHP clients who lived 

on the street all year long, no matter what 

the weather, and were among the most 

vulnerable street dwellers in the city. Most 

of these individuals were 45–46 years old; 

had a triple diagnosis of medical illness, 

substance abuse, and a major mental 

illness; and had made 3 or more visits 

to the emergency room during the prior 

3 months. A significant number had a 

diagnosis of cirrhosis, heart failure, or renal 

failure and/or had a history of frostbite. 

BHCHP decided to follow this group of 

individuals very closely for 10 years and 

to implement an intensive medical care 

plan that it hoped would improve their 

chances of staying alive long enough to 

get off the street. The size of the group, 

which represented 15 percent of the 

BHCHP caseload, changed over time as 

new individuals joined the group and other 

members of the group entered housing, 

disappeared, or died.3

O’Connell’s first look at this group’s medical 

data was a “tipping point” that convinced 

him that something was terribly wrong with 

the system that served Boston’s homeless 

population. The most dramatic data showed 

that Medicaid had paid for an incredibly 

large number of emergency room 

visits—18,340 in over 5 years—for the 119 

people in the initial BHCHP high-risk group.

“We were dealing with about as high a 

service-utilizing population as you can 

imagine,” he says. “And mind you, they also 

had the highest mortality rate of any subpopulation we knew. They were going to the 

emergency room all the time but they were 

still dying at incredibly high rates.”

Meschede’s dissertation focused on this 

high-risk group, which had grown to 

include 174 individuals by the time she 

conducted her research. Her study had two 

separate but complementary parts. On the 

quantitative side, Meschede created and 

analyzed a unique dataset that merged 

BHCHP and MDPH data about this group of 

174 high-risk people. Meschede’s qualitative 

research included 36 interviews with service 

providers, street outreach team, respite care 

and detoxification staff, and current and 

formerly high-risk street dwellers. 

3. Meschede, T. 2005. Bridges and Barriers to 

Housing for Chronically Homeless Street Dwellers.

Center for Social Policy, University of Massachusetts 

Boston. Boston, MA.
SECTION 3: University of Massachusetts Boston

87 

This mixed-method approach to research 

has several advantages, says Meschede. 

“The numbers give you information about 

the extent of substance abuse or service 

use,” she says. “And during the interviews, 

you try to understand how those numbers 

really impact the life and the experience 

of homeless people and the people who 

provide services to them. That’s a very 

critical piece of the research and you can’t 

get that with quantitative data. Nor can you 

get the service-use patterns with qualitative 

data. They are both very critical to really 

trying to understand the problem.”

Merging Data Sets

To complete her database work, Meschede 

first reviewed the information that BHCHP 

maintained about the medical conditions 

of its group of 174 high-risk clients. Then, 

she accessed the MDPH database, which 

contained information about the utilization 

of substance abuse services by these 

individuals. The final, merged database, 

the first of its kind in Boston, showed that 

most high-risk individuals suffered from 

severe medical conditions that were directly 

related to life on the streets. In addition, 

most had substance abuse problems 

(94 percent) and a major mental illness 

(82 percent). 

Surprisingly, the street dwellers used health 

and substance abuse services extensively, 

cycling continually between the streets and 

service programs. More than two-thirds 

(77 percent) accessed respite care while half 

(54 percent) visited the emergency room 

at the Boston Medical Center (BNC), and 

a third (31percent) used BMC’s inpatient 

units. In addition, two-thirds (60 percent) 

were seen in detoxification programs and 

a third (31 percent) used either short-term 

or long-term substance abuse treatment 

programs. 

“It was a unique database,” says Meschede. 

“That was only possible because of my 

partnership with the Department of Public 

Health. As an individual researcher, I would 

never have gotten permission to access (the 

substance abuse data).”

The database was particularly valuable 

to MDPH because it gave the department 

information about the medical conditions 

of clients in its substance abuse programs. 

The original MDPH database contained 

comprehensive information about every 

individual who entered a substance abuse 

program, but that information contained 

several important gaps, says Anderson.

Terri Anderson, University of Massachussetts.
COLLABORATING FOR CHANGE: PARTNERSHIPS TO TRANSFORM LOCAL COMMUNITIES 

88 

“I could run through the bureau’s data 

and spot people who were flagged as 

homeless, but there was very little in it 

about their physical or behavioral health 

issues outside of their substance abuse,” 

says Anderson. “Merging the data gave 

us a view of these individuals from the 

perspective of their primary care physician 

and a view of them from the perspective of 

their substance abuse treatment provider. 

Put that information together and you had a 

more comprehensive picture of the people 

we were serving.”

That kind of comprehensive picture was 

exactly what the MDPH Task Force on 

Homelessness was seeking, says Anderson.

“In the absence of data, decisions get 

made based on people’s assumptions, 

presumptions, and personal experience,” 

she says. “But these can be limited and 

people tend to generalize. We now knew 

something about this group. We could say, 

‘This is what they look like.’”

Housing First

The picture of the high-risk homeless 

population that emerged from Meschede’s 

new database was expanded even further 

by the 36 interviews that she conducted 

with homeless individuals and service 

providers. A total of nine individuals in 

BHCHP’s high-risk group, some of whom 

had been homeless for up to 20 years, 

shared stores with Meschede about living 

on the streets, the services they have 

accessed, and their plans for moving to 

housing. In addition, nine former members 

of that high-risk group, who had been on 

the street for up to 16 years and off the 

street for up to 2 years, talked about their 

experiences transitioning to housing. 

Meschede says she found these interviews 

to be “mind-opening.”

“Before this, I had worked with projects 

that were shelter-based, so I had never had 

any experience on the streets,” she says. 

“It was a whole new world and it was 

so much more intense than I had ever 

anticipated. In the end, I was really 

surprised how comfortable the homeless 

people felt talking to me and how willing 

they were to share their lives with me.”

O’Connell, too, was pleasantly surprised, 

and relieved, about how well accepted 

Meschede became among the homeless 

people she interviewed. If people on the 

street hadn’t accepted her, he says, it would 

have been impossible for her to carry out 

her study.

“We deal with a pretty rough population of 

people who are pretty independent, pretty 

feisty, and don’t like change or strangers,” 

says O’Connell. “It takes a long time to 

engage people and build up enough trust 

so they will open up. Usually, they hide 

things, they don’t share with you, or they 

tell you whatever you want to hear.”

During her conversations with chronically 

homeless individuals, Meschede learned 

that there were a variety of reasons why a 

person winds up living on the street. 
SECTION 3: University of Massachusetts Boston

89 

“Before I began this research, a lot of 

people tried to make me believe that 

people were choosing to be on the street 

and they didn’t want to go to the shelter,” 

she says. “But as I started to learn so much 

more about the entire service system for 

homeless people that we have created in 

this country, I realized how poorly it works. 

We end up with chronic homelessness 

among people who just cycle in and out of 

shelters because they are so fed up with 

the shelter system. They just can’t tolerate 

it anymore. They live on the streets not 

because they choose to but because there 

is no other alternative for them. And the 

system wasn’t helping.”

That system, referred to as the “continuum 

of care,” required Boston’s homeless 

individuals to move successfully through 

various levels of sheltered housing and 

show progress in overcoming their 

addiction before they could receive 

assistance to live independently. Homeless 

people who followed the continuum 

typically started out living in public shelters 

and then graduated to a transitional 

housing program and then to their own 

apartment in the community. 

Few members of BHCHP’s high-risk group 

followed the prescribed continuum of 

care and, in the end, their extensive use of 

services did not predict positive housing 

outcomes. Part of the problem, says 

Meschede, may have been that the service 

and housing systems operated separately 

and service providers did not see it as their 

role to address housing issues. 

“Philosophically,” she wrote in her final 

report, “staff in these programs may also 

feel mental health and substance abuse 

issues need to be addressed first, as some 

of them indicated. On the other hand, 

street dwellers who were not able to access 

housing may have been sicker or more 

disorganized.”4

Indeed, Meschede was surprised to 

discover that service providers and 

homeless individuals had such different 

views regarding the paths to and from 

homelessness. The homeless adults 

Meschede interviewed talked primarily 

about their need for permanent housing 

and complained about structural barriers, 

such as lack of affordable housing and 

service program rules, which kept them 

from accessing that housing. Service 

providers, on the other hand, felt that 

4. Meschede, T. 2005. Bridges and Barriers to 

Housing for Chronically Homeless Street Dwellers. 

Center for Social Policy, University of Massachusetts 

Boston. Boston, MA.

Nurse with a homeless patient.
COLLABORATING FOR CHANGE: PARTNERSHIPS TO TRANSFORM LOCAL COMMUNITIES 

90 

chronically homeless individuals end up in 

a cycle of street life and short-term program 

attendance due to substance abuse and 

psychiatric disability. 

“It definitely surprised me,” she says 

about the difference of opinion. “I think it’s 

because the work of service providers is 

about services, not housing. Day by day, 

they were providing some kind of service to 

these individuals but that service was not 

necessarily linked to housing. So this was 

the lens they had in viewing the problem.”

After completing her interviews with 

representatives of both groups, Meschede 

identified “Housing First,” a relatively 

new idea at the time, as a better approach 

than the continuum of care to serving 

homeless people. The Housing First 

approach suggests that a homeless 

individual’s primary need is to obtain 

stable housing. Once that is accomplished, 

the other issues facing the individual 

can be better addressed. Endorsing this 

approach, Meschede included several 

policy recommendations in her report 

that focused on the need to create better 

affordable housing options for high-risk 

street dwellers and to reduce the number 

of eligibility requirements for that housing.

“We can’t expect people to be sober and 

take their medications before they have 

housing,” says Meschede. “We can’t put 

housing at the end of the continuum as a 

reward for compliance. We need to look at 

homelessness as a housing problem. First 

we house them, and then we start working 

with them. And it’s not just about putting 

people into housing. There also needs to be 

supportive services in place, especially for 

people who have lived on the streets for a 

number of years.”

While the Housing First approach has 

gained more popularity in recent years, 

only a few pilot projects were trying out the 

approach in 2004 when Meschede’s report 

was published. Among those pilots was a 

project that BHCHP launched with a local 

agency to house 24 of its most vulnerable 

clients while providing them healthcare 

services. Today, BHCHP delivers healthcare 

services to 220 clients who live in their own 

apartments.

“At the time Tatjana came on, we were still 

trying to figure out the effect of housing 

these folks,” says O’Connell. “How will they 

handle it? Will their substance abuse get 

better if they are inside, rather than outside? 

There really was no information anywhere 

about whether this would work or not.”

Meschede’s findings about the efficacy of 

Housing First were validated in 2006 when, 

with O’Connell’s help, she was hired by 

Father Bill’s Place, a homeless shelter and 

housing program in Quincy, Massachusetts, 

to evaluate the effectiveness of its Housing 

First program. That 2-year study concluded 

that moving into their own room provided 

formerly chronically homeless women and 

men with a chance to leave their homeless 

existence behind, reunite with family 

members, improve their health status, 
SECTION 3: University of Massachusetts Boston

91 

receive disability income, and improve their 

quality of life.5

Ongoing Research, 

Continuing Partnerships

With her dissertation behind her, 

Meschede’s research work no longer focuses 

exclusively on homelessness. Instead, as 

research director of the Institute for Social 

Policy and Management in the Heller 

School for Social Policy and Management 

at Brandeis University, she has broadened 

her research agenda to study issues related 

to the economic insecurity of low- and 

moderate-income populations, seniors, and 

people of color.

“I’m still working with poor people and the 

many issues facing them,” she says. “That 

is my life’s work. That is never-ending.”

Meschede continues to enjoy many 

of the professional relationships that 

she established while working on her 

dissertation. Occasionally she is called 

upon to “be an expert” on topics relating 

to homelessness in Boston. She recently 

invited some of the service providers 

she interviewed for her DDRG-supported 

research to make presentations to 

students at Brandeis. And she often finds 

herself guiding students as they conduct 

community-based studies that are similar to 

her own dissertation research.

5. Meschede, T. 2006. Moving Here Saved My Life: 

The Experience of Formerly Chronically Homeless 

Women and Men in Quincy’s Housing First Projects

(Interim Report). McCormack Graduate School, 

University of Massachusetts Boston. Boston, MA.

“My dissertation research definitely 

helped me to better understand the mixedmethod approach, and that has helped me 

encourage students that these kinds of 

studies are doable,” she says. “When you 

start a project that involves community 

partners, you never know how it is going 

to turn out. It takes a little bit of courage to 

face the unknown and a lot of faith that it is 

going to turn out well.”

Despite these uncertainties, Meschede 

remains convinced that working with 

community partners is the best way to 

ensure that applied research will be rich 

and relevant.

“When you do policy research in any area, 

you need to have partnerships with the 

organizations that work on the ground,” 

she says. “I have a very optimistic view 

of partnerships because of the wonderful 

experience that I had with Boston 

Healthcare for the Homeless. And I’ve 

been able to able to create a couple of 

other really good partnerships with other 

organizations.” 

Partnerships are at the heart of the work 

of the Center for Social Policy, where 

Meschede worked while conducting her 

DDRG-supported dissertation research. First 

established as a planning arm of the United 

Way in the 1980s, and then spun off as a 

freestanding policy research enterprise, the 

Center for Social Policy came to UMassBoston in 1992. At any given point, the 

center is conducting 10–12 different applied 

research projects with the help of research 

teams that include its staff, consultants, 
COLLABORATING FOR CHANGE: PARTNERSHIPS TO TRANSFORM LOCAL COMMUNITIES 

92 

faculty affiliates, graduate assistants, and 

undergraduate interns. The center also 

has two advisory groups that help guide 

its work. One advisory group consists of 

professionals working in the fields affected 

by the center’s research. The other group 

is made up of people who are living the 

realities of poverty. In addition, says 

Friedman, many of the center’s research 

teams have at least one member who has 

experienced the realities of whatever issue 

the team is studying.

Collaboration with community stakeholders 

has become a standard way of conducting 

research for Friedman since before she 

arrived at the Center for Social Policy in 

the early 1990s. After she wrote her own 

dissertation on the experience of parents 

living in homeless shelters, she invited 

eight women connected with those shelters 

to help her write a book based on her 

dissertation. 

“At the end of each chapter, there is a 

reflection by a mother, a staff member, 

and a director,” says Friedman about the 

book. “This is just one example of my 

commitment to engage with people who 

are experiencing the realities of our work. 

We use that as a model for all of our work, 

and I feel that Tatjana was traveling the 

same pathway when she joined us.”

Keys to Partnership 

Success

Meschede, Anderson, O’Connell, and 

Friedman all have strong opinions, based 

on their own experiences, about to make 

the most of partnerships and how to be a 

good partner. Here’s a sampling of their 

advice:

• Listen to your partners.

“Listening is a big, big piece of the 

research process,” says Meschede. 

“Listening is going to help you with 

your research questions because your 

community partners are working on 

the problem you’re interested in and 

they are the experts. If you come in as 

the expert, it prevents you from really 

learning and really finding out what the 

issues are that they should research or 

evaluate. The first step is to learn about 

the issues. Then you can create the 

research project.”

For this reason, Meschede tells her 

students not to feel pressured to write 

a full research plan before they even 

meet with a partner.

“They feel that they have to know 

upfront what information they need 

and how they are going to get that 

information,” she says. “I tell them, 

‘Don’t do that. Have some ideas, yes. 

But start by asking (partners) about 

their ideas.’”

• Trust your instincts. 

Once you’ve listened to the partner’s 

point of view and learned as much as 

you can about the partner’s work and 

the challenges it faces, you still must 

use your skills as a researcher to define 

the research questions, says Meschede. 
SECTION 3: University of Massachusetts Boston

93 

Partners may not know what they want 

from a research project. Or they may 

have an unrealistic view of the scope of 

questions that can be answered within a 

particular study. 

Fortunately, says Meschede, she didn’t 

have this problem with MDPH, thanks 

to Theresa Anderson’s experience 

as a researcher. Anderson knew 

that Meschede’s research needed to 

be narrow in scope if it was going 

to provide useful information. That 

approach paid off, says Anderson.

“In the end, because Tatjana had good 

specificity in her research question, she 

was able to answer that question,” says 

Anderson. “And we knew exactly what 

kind of information we were going to get.” 

• Identify the benefit to the partner.

“There must be some benefit to the 

partner,” says Meschede. “People are 

very, very busy these days. They don’t 

have time to do something for you on 

top of everything they already have to 

do. So they need a reason to buy in to 

the project.”

• Maintain your objectivity.

It’s important for researchers to 

be aware of the partner’s agenda, 

especially in cases where the partner 

wants the research to present a positive 

view of the organization. Meschede 

said she ran into this situation several 

years after she finished her dissertation 

research.

“(The partners) had the attitude that 

‘Everything we do is great,’” says 

Meschede. “But that is not what the 

data showed. Then it gets tricky. You 

have to remain true to the data, even 

if that means disagreeing with the 

partner.”

• Don’t distance yourself too much.

Anderson says that researchers must 

work closely with a partner while, at the 

same time, maintaining their distance 

and objectivity. By the same token, 

community partners must contribute to 

the research process without trying to 

control it.

“No thoughtful researcher of Tatjana’s 

caliber wants to be micromanaged,” 

says Anderson. “You don’t want to be 

told what to say or told what to do. You 

also need sufficient distance because 

you need to be objective. On the other 

hand, if you’re too distant, you can also 

Big move—Jeff Loughlin with homeless patients before they were 

moved to Jean Yawkey Place.
COLLABORATING FOR CHANGE: PARTNERSHIPS TO TRANSFORM LOCAL COMMUNITIES 

94 

miss a lot of detail. So what you really 

want to do is balance those two things. 

You don’t want to be micromanaged, 

but you really do need that partnership.”

• Balance your research timeline with 

your partner’s deadline.

It can be challenging to conduct 

dissertation research while you are 

accountable to an external party, says 

Friedman. 

“The partner has certain priorities and 

timeframes and internal challenges,” 

says Friedman. “And in some cases 

those kinds of things require a lot 

of delicate negotiation and problem 

solving. This can be challenging if 

students are out on their own.”

Friedman says that, in these and other 

instances, her graduate assistants 

benefit from being associated with a 

university and a center that already has 

a history of community engagement. 

“We have ongoing and broad 

relationships with these partners and 

we can provide backup that will help 

overcome the obstacles,” she says.

• Make a commitment.

O’Connell says that it was easy for 

his staff to welcome Meschede as 

a member of the team because she 

communicated to them early that 

she was not just using BHCHP as a 

laboratory for her research. 

“She made it really clear that she was 

in this for the long run,” says O’Connell. 

“She wasn’t just coming for a visit and 

going back to her academic studies. She 

was with us a lot, every week for years. 

So it made it easy to just plug her into 

the team.”

• Don’t be afraid to offer—or accept—

constructive criticism.

O’Connell says he encouraged 

Meschede to look carefully at BHCHP’s 

operations and welcomed her 

observations.

“She had observations that made us 

look really hard at ourselves and rethink 

some of the things we were doing,” 

he says. “It really was a treat for us 

because she was looking at aspects of 

our work that we had basically no time 

to look at. Plus, she brought with her 

all the expertise from the university 

and her own not-too-shabby academic 

background.”

Long-Term Impact

At the end of her DDRG-supported work 

in 2004, Meschede wrote a report that was 

unveiled at a public event that attracted 

more than 100 participants and garnered 

attention from the Boston Globe and local 

television stations. 

“For me, it was really important not to 

write a dissertation that would just sit on 

the shelf,” she says. “I really wanted to 

produce something that could be used by 

communities, and I think I succeeded to 

some extent.”
SECTION 3: University of Massachusetts Boston

95 

O’Connell agrees. BHCHP was able to 

use the report to “get our hands around 

patterns of usage so we could figure out 

what was working and what wasn’t,” he 

says. That information helped O’Connell 

break down a few structural barriers 

that were keeping BHCHP patients from 

accessing the substance abuse treatment 

they needed. In one instance, O’Connell 

fought against a requirement that 

homeless people could not gain access 

to detoxification at night unless they 

first visited the emergency room (ER). 

When O’Connell found out that homeless 

individuals who received that clearance 

from the ER hardly ever made it to detox, 

he pushed for—and received—permission 

to provide medical clearance himself, 

directly from the street.

Despite advances in expanding access to 

detoxification, Meschede’s research made 

it clear that homeless individuals were 

still being shut out of 30-day treatment 

programs, says O’Connell. 

“That’s where Tatjana’s research really led 

the Department of Public Health to try and 

find better strategies to open up halfway 

houses, the 30-day step-down programs, 

and methadone clinics to these folks,” says 

O’Connell. “It was very clear from Tatjana’s 

study that they weren’t getting into 

treatment, even though they were the 

most vulnerable and high-risk people.”

The best thing about the research, says 

O’Connell, is that BHCHP didn’t have to 

make an argument for better access to 

Personal outreach to Boston’s homeless.

treatment. Instead, the data made that 

argument very clearly.

“I think we always knew we needed better 

access, but making an appeal based on 

your own experience on the street doesn’t 

really hold much weight with legislatures,” 

says O’Connell. “However, if you have data 

that shows not only a high mortality rate 

but also poor access to treatment, then 

you’re not blaming anyone. The data just 

shows what is going on. It is very powerful 

stuff to get things changing.”

After leaving UMass-Boston, Meschede 

says she heard that different homeless 

shelters had requested her report and used 

it to conduct their planning for the future. In 

addition, says Anderson, the report helped 

to educate members of a second statewide 

task force on homelessness, which was 

established after Howard Koh left MDPH. 

“That report lived on after Howard’s group 

ended,” says Anderson. “When a new task 
COLLABORATING FOR CHANGE: PARTNERSHIPS TO TRANSFORM LOCAL COMMUNITIES 

96 

force formed, the report helped to advise 

that group about what had been done in 

the past, what information we had learned, 

and what data was available. It did have an 

impact on that new group.”

The report—and the work of the MDPH task 

force—also has an impact on the working 

relationships among all the stakeholders 

working on issues of homelessness, says 

O’Connell. 

“We learned, hands down, that a problem 

as complicated as homelessness requires 

multiple agencies working together on a 

solution,” says O’Connell. “I can’t solve the 

problem of homelessness just by doing 

medicine, even though good medicine is 

one of the solutions. Tatjana’s paper pushed 

people to work better together where we 

had worked in silos before. Since then, 

there has been a lot more collaboration 

and sharing of data, things that we really 

should have been doing for a long time. 

What was created by the research and the 

task force was really a ground-level working 

relationship among service providers that 

continues today in a big way.” 
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97 

R E S E A R C H G R A N T S N A P S H O T S

Shining a Spotlight on the Plight of Elder Homelessness

Kelly Mills-Dick 

Boston University School of 

Social Work

Boston, Massachusetts

2009 DDRG

Goal of the Partnership: According to recent 

estimates, there are more than 75,000 homeless 

elders in the United States today. Such high 

numbers represent the failure of both the 

aging and homeless service systems to meet 

the needs of the most vulnerable older adults 

in our communities. The housing and aging 

literature pays little attention to the homeless 

elderly, and research on this population group 

remains limited. The purpose of this study was 

to address this critical gap by exploring how 

older adults and outreach workers define and 

mitigate problems associated with urban elder 

homelessness. 

Kelly Mills-Dick, a doctoral candidate at the 

Boston University School of Social Work 

(BUSSW), is using a Doctoral Dissertation 

Research Grant to conduct a qualitative study to 

better understand elder homelessness through 

the perceptions of those on the frontlines. The 

ongoing study consists of a series of interviews

with and observations of outreach workers and 

homeless older adults affiliated with Hearth, Inc.,

a Boston-based nonprofit organization dedicated 

to ending homelessness among the elderly. By 

sharing the perspectives and experiences of 

Hearth, Inc., outreach team members and their 

homeless clients, Mills-Dick is seeking to identify 

the causes of elder homelessness and to shed 

new light on the design of programs and policies 

that might represent permanent solutions to 

this serious social problem. Study participants 

expressed the hope that, when completed, 

Mills-Dick’s research will help to raise 

awareness about elder homelessness, reduce 

the stigma that older homeless individuals feel, 

and boost community resources to serve this 

population group. 

Role of the Partner: Based in Boston, Hearth, 

Inc., is the only organization in the country with a 

sole focus on and a comprehensive approach to 

elder homelessness. Hearth, Inc., was originally 

founded in 1991 by a group of seven women with 

Outreach case manager with a client at Boston shelter

 for women.
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98 

R E S E A R C H G R A N T S N A P S H O T S

diverse experience in housing, health, and human 

services. This group of founders, which included 

a now-retired BUSSW professor, was concerned 

about the number of elders within the homeless 

population and the lack of community response 

to the plight of these individuals. Hearth’s mission 

is to eliminate homelessness among older adults 

through housing, outreach, and advocacy. The 

organization helped Mills-Dick recruit older adults 

and outreach workers to participate in her study. 

Benefit to the University: This OUP-sponsored 

project has further strengthened the longstanding 

collaborative relationship that exists between 

BUSSW and Hearth, Inc. For more than a decade, 

Hearth, Inc., has been a training site for BUSSW 

graduate students interested in geriatrics. More 

recently, BUSSW has partnered with Hearth, 

Inc., to promote research that can inform policy 

decisions about best practice models of service 

delivery to homeless and precariously housed 

older adults.  

This particular project has already provided 

several benefits to the university, including the 

identification of a research agenda to assess 

the effectiveness of outreach programs and 

services targeted to homeless elders. In addition, 

the project led to the incorporation of content on 

housing and homelessness in later life into the 

BUSSW gerontology curriculum.

Benefit to the Partner: The Hearth, Inc., outreach 

team welcomed the opportunity to take a step 

back from their day-to-day challenges to think 

more broadly about homelessness and to talk 

openly about the challenges they face. Team 

members felt they were making a difference, 

not just by working with older clients, but by 

participating in a research project that could lead 

to changes in the way services are provided to 

homeless elders.

The partnership project also brought new 

attention to the issue of elder homelessness 

to the work of Hearth, Inc., and to the unique 

challenges that individual homeless elders face. 

Participants expressed the hope that this new 

attention would help facilitate the adoption of 

public policies aimed at improving the quality of 

life of older homeless individuals in Boston and 

nationwide.

For more information, contact:

Kelly Mills-Dick, MSW

Boston University School of Social Work

Phone: 518–429–1672

E-mail: kellymillsdick@gmail.com

Judith G. Gonyea, Ph.D., MSW

Dissertation Chair

Boston University School of Social Work 

264 Bay State Road

Boston, MA 02215

Phone: 617–353–3748

E-mail: jgonyea@bu.edu
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R E S E A R C H G R A N T S N A P S H O T S

Evaluating the Knoxville Homeless Management 

Information System

Courtney Cronley, Ph.D.

University of Tennessee College 

of Social Work

Knoxville, Tennessee 

2008 DDRG

Goal of the Partnership: The University of 

Tennessee’s College of Social Work (UT-CSW) 

has coordinated and directed the Knoxville 

Homeless Management Information System 

(KnoxHMIS) since 2004. As a UT-CSW doctoral 

student, Courtney Cronley, Ph.D., used her 

Doctoral Dissertation Research Grant to evaluate 

the implementation of this information system 

among Knoxville service providers who serve 

homeless individuals. UT-CSW has provided 

assistance with KnoxHMIS to these service 

providers for the past 6 years.

Cronley conducted organizational culture 

assessments at seven Knoxville-based providers 

who serve the homeless. She then measured 

KnoxHMIS use at each of the organizations 

and examined the relationship between 

organizational culture and technology use. 

Cronley’s goal was to determine the extent to 

which providers used KnoxHMIS and the factors 

that contributed to and hindered its successful 

implementation. 

Role of the Partners:

• The partnership between Cronley and 

the East Tennessee Coalition to End 

Homelessness (ETCEH) emerged from 

UT-CSW’s role as coordinator and director 

of HMIS implementation among service 

providers who belong to the ETCEH. 

ETCEH provided letters of support inviting 

service providers to participate in Cronley’s 

research. 

• Knox Area Rescue Ministries, Volunteer 

Ministry Center, Helen Ross McNabb 

Center, Knox County Community Action 

Center, the YWCA, the Salvation Army, and 

Catholic Charities participated in Cronley’s 

organizational culture and technology use 

evaluation. Knox Area Rescue Ministries 

sponsored a community forum to present the

research findings.

Using the HMIS at Project Homeless Connect.
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R E S E A R C H G R A N T S N A P S H O T S

• Benefit to the University: This communityuniversity outreach project strengthened 

the partnerships between UT-CSW and the 

participating organizations and has provided 

UT-CSW faculty with both teaching resources 

and research opportunities. For example, 

faculty members and homeless service 

providers have used KnoxHMIS data when 

preparing grant proposals and have written 

grant proposals for research that uses the 

system to collect data. 

Many UT-CSW research classes require students 

to conduct independent projects that involve 

analyzing and interpreting data. While this handson experience with data analysis provides an 

important skill set, it can be challenging to collect 

primary data during the course of an academic 

semester. In addition, accessing secondary data 

can be expensive and often outdated. Information 

management systems such as the KnoxHMIS 

provide students with meaningful and up-to-date 

case studies on the social conditions in their 

community. For instance, students have used deidentified KnoxHMIS data to examine predictors of 

chronic homelessness and to explore the unique 

characteristics of homeless victims of domestic 

violence. Results and findings from this work are 

then returned to service providers who use it as 

they strive to improve services for the homeless. 

Benefit to the Partners: This project has helped 

Knoxville’s service providers improve the 

frequency and consistency of their KnoxHMIS use 

and has identified areas in which organizations 

serving the homeless may need additional 

support. For example, results from this project 

showed that some of the providers who serve 

homeless individuals operate within highly 

rigid organizational cultures, meaning that staff 

members expect clear policies and procedures 

for work activities. In response, UT-CSW 

devoted greater resources to developing clearer 

operating procedures for the KnoxHMIS. 

In addition, increased community resources 

were provided to UT-CSW so it could consult 

and collaborate with service providers to make 

KnoxHMIS usage integral to their business 

practices. Subsequent to Cronley’s evaluation, 

KnoxHMIS support was also directed to helping 

organizations reengineer their work processes 

and environments in ways that supported 

Project Homeless Connect intake.
SECTION 3: Partnership Snapshots

101 

technology use. In addition, enhanced technical 

training for KnoxHMIS implementation and use 

was provided to the participating organizations. 

Since Cronley finished her research, ETCEH has 

continued to recognize how KnoxHMIS can be 

used to reduce the prevalence of homelessness 

and help homeless people transition into housing. 

The study contributed to ETCEH’s decision to 

conduct a careful review of its service network 

with an eye toward improving care coordination, 

streamlining client intake procedures, and 

improving clients’ abilities to move out of 

homelessness and reintegrate into society. 

The Knoxville-Knox County Office of the TenYear Plan to End Chronic Homelessness has 

devoted more funding to technology training and 

implementation support since the study ended. 

The Volunteer Ministry Center, a participant in 

this project, has taken advantage of the enhanced 

supportive services to expand its use of the 

KnoxHMIS as a way to capture client case notes. 

The organization has also improved its ability 

to coordinate care and facilitate client housing 

through enhanced client data collection. 

Project Homeless Connect making HMIS ID cards.

For more information, contact:

Courtney Cronley, Ph.D. 

E-mail: cronley@rci.rutgers.edu 

David A. Patterson, Ph.D.

College of Social Work

University of Tennessee

224 Henson Hall

Knoxville, TN 37966–3333

Phone: 865–974–7511

E-mail: dpatter2@utk.edu

R E S E A R C H G R A N T S N A P S H O T S
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R E S E A R C H G R A N T S N A P S H O T S

Understanding the Housing Careers of Low-Income 

Individuals

Kim Skobba

University of Minnesota

St. Paul, Minnesota

2005 EDSRG

Goal of the Partnership: Kim Skobba’s Early 

Doctoral Student Research Grant (EDSRG)-

supported research project focused on the 

“housing careers” of low-income families and 

how the receipt of housing assistance influences 

the path that these families follow from one 

housing accommodation to the next. The study 

compared the housing careers of individuals 

who use Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers 

with the paths followed by individuals who are 

on the waiting list for these vouchers. Skobba 

sought to determine how the receipt of housing 

assistance has an impact on an individual’s 

housing tenure, quality, mobility, and preferred 

living arrangements. She also examined whether 

Section 8 policies promote normative housing 

career patterns for low-income individuals.

Families participating in the study moved 

through a variety of housing accommodations, 

including doubling up with friends and relatives, 

living in shelters and transitional housing, and 

renting apartments in the private market. Some 

study participants moved strategically through 

housing accommodations in order to improve 

their housing situation and neighborhood 

conditions. Significantly, study participants were 

more likely to move for negative reasons such 

as evictions, safety concerns, and relationship 

problems. Both the Section 8 voucher holders 

and those individuals still on waiting lists 

experienced residential mobility patterns that 

were fundamentally different from the patterns 

experienced by higher income families.

Role of the Partners: Skobba conducted her 

research in collaboration with two partners: the 

St. Paul Public Housing Agency and Metro 

Housing and Redevelopment Authority (HRA), 

both located in St. Paul, Minnesota. Each 

organization provided demographic data on 

Section 8 voucher holders, assisted in the 

recruitment of research participants, and 

answered questions that emerged during the 

data analysis.

Dr. Kim Skobba, nonprofit research and communications 

consultant.
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R E S E A R C H G R A N T S N A P S H O T S

Benefit to the University: Through her research, 

Skobba created a model for examining the housing 

careers of low-income families. Subsequent to this 

research, Professor Edward G. Goetz, director of 

the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs at the 

University of Minnesota, received funding from 

The McKnight Foundation to examine the impact 

of affordable housing on low-income families. 

Goetz and Skobba are using the housing career 

model, developed through Skobba’s EDSRGfunded research, to study families living in 

subsidized housing. The two researchers hope to 

refine their understanding of the housing options 

available to low-income families and identify 

life circumstances associated with upward and 

downward movement through housing markets. 

Such information could help housing providers 

and policymakers take steps to shorten periods 

of instability for low-income families and identify 

non-housing factors that can lead to positive 

mobility outcomes. 

Benefit to the Partners: Skobba’s study provided 

insight into the rationale behind certain patterns of 

use that housing authorities often observe among 

their tenants. For example, the St. Paul Public 

Housing Agency and the Metro HRA receive 

frequent inquiries from families who want to rent 

apartments with more bedrooms than are allowed 

under their Section 8 vouchers. In exploring these 

requests, Skobba found that participants in the 

study often made adaptations to their housing, 

such as a parent sleeping on the couch or a parent 

and young child sharing a room, so that teenage 

family members could have their own space. 

Learning about these adaptations provided Skobba 

and her partners with a better understanding 

of why families were so interested in additional 

bedrooms. It also provided important insight into 

the impact that a lack of affordable housing can 

have on a low-income family’s quality of life.

For more information, contact:

Kim Skobba

Kim Skobba Consulting, LLC

68 East Canyon Drive

Hudson, WI 54016

Phone: 651–294–9018

E-mail: kim@kimskobba.com 
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Studying Collaboration in Transit-Oriented Developments

Laurie A. Walker

University of Denver Graduate School of 

Social Work

Denver, Colorado

2008 EDSRG

Goal of the Partnership: In recent years, the 

city of Denver has placed increased emphasis 

on transit-oriented developments (TOD) that 

locate walkable, typically mixed-income housing 

communities near a rail stop, bus station, or 

other transit facility. Early Doctoral Student 

Research Grant Program (EDSRG) grantee 

Laurie A. Walker used mixed methods to gather 

survey data and conduct in-depth interviews 

with residents and professionals involved in 

planning for the TOD-focused redevelopment of 

two public housing neighborhoods in Denver. 

Walker worked with community residents 

and University of Denver graduate students 

to conduct her research at Denver’s South 

Lincoln and Sun Valley public housing 

developments. She then studied whether these 

two developments experienced more or fewer 

housing and management problems than more 

traditional public housing communities. Walker 

also evaluated the genuineness of partnerships 

within a resident advisory committee and 

examined whether residents’ relationships 

with one another, their belief that organizations 

can address neighborhood problems, and the 

presence of a transition or relocation plan could 

predict resident readiness for mixed-income 

redevelopment.

Role of the Partners:

• Denver Housing Authority (DHA) held public 

meetings to gather input and guidance from 

residents about its master redevelopment 

plan.

• Students from the University of Denver 

Graduate School of Social Work and public 

housing residents collected surveys from 

tenants in DHA communities. 

Benefit to the University: University of Denver 

social work students working at South Lincoln 

and Sun Valley gained a better understanding 

of the issues facing public housing residents. 

Sun Valley resident David Roybal prepares to survey South 

Lincoln residents during his light rail commute from work.
SECTION 3: Partnership Snapshots

105 

R E S E A R C H G R A N T S N A P S H O T S

They witnessed the change of “social control” in 

the neighborhoods when gang and drug activity 

seemed to take over on nights and weekends. 

They saw both the fear of retaliation among 

people who tried to stop illegal activity in their 

neighborhoods and the sense of empowerment 

that those residents received from the survey 

process. These experiences helped students take 

learning past theory and into application. 

As an instructor of master’s level social work 

classes, Walker’s experience designing, 

conducting, and sharing the results of the project 

provided concrete examples for the classes she 

teaches. 

Benefit to the Partners and the Community: DHA 

is striving for a redevelopment effort that mitigates 

displacement, improves the health and selfsufficiency of residents, and gives them new 

opportunities. The research process provided 

the housing authority with an open line of 

communication through which it could “checkin” with residents regarding its performance 

and gather feedback from those individuals 

who will be most directly impacted by the TOD 

redevelopment. The information gathered by 

Walker and her research team also benefitted 

the local resident council and other organizations 

that advocate for public housing residents in 

Denver. Finally, the survey process fostered 

a sense of community among public housing 

residents, who became engaged in directing the 

future of their housing communities. 

For more information, contact:

Laurie A. Walker

University of Denver Graduate School of 

 Social Work

2148 South High Street 

Denver, CO 80208

Phone: 720–690–1134

E-mail: Lwalker5@du.edu
APPENDIX

HSIAC Grantees 1999–2009

TCUP Grantees 1999–2009

Research Grantees 1994–2009
HS IAC

Hispanic-Serving Institutions Assisting 

Communities Grants 1999–2009

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development administers the Hispanic-Serving 

Institutions Assisting Communities (HSIAC) grant program, which institutions of higher 

education can use to revitalize local communities while fostering long-term changes in the 

way they relate to their neighbors. 

The HSIAC program has facilitated numerous partnerships that are successfully addressing the 

most critical social and economic issues that this country is facing, including poverty, education, 

housing, healthcare, and local neighborhood capacity building. In addition, the program has 

assisted colleges and universities in integrating community engagement themes into their 

curricula, academic studies, and student activities.

A list of HSIAC grantees and the year(s) in which they received their grant(s) is below.

Grantee Institution Grant Year(s)

Adams State College 2009, 2004, 1999

Alamosa, CO

Allan Hancock College 2004

Santa Maria, CA

Arizona Western College 2000

Yuma, AZ

Bakersfield College 2003

Bakersfield, CA

Barry University 1999

Miami, FL

Boricua College 2002

Brooklyn, NY

Bronx Community College 2001, 1999

Bronx, NY

A-1
COLLABORATING FOR CHANGE: PARTNERSHIPS TO TRANSFORM LOCAL COMMUNITIES 

A-2 

Grantee Institution Grant Year(s)

California State University, Bakersfield 2003

Bakersfield, CA

California State University, Dominguez Hills 2002

Carson, CA

California State University, Fullerton Foundation 2005

Fullerton, CA

California State University, Long Beach/Foundation 2007

Long Beach, CA

California State University, Monterey Bay 2009, 2007

Seaside, CA

California State University, Northridge 2002, 2000

Northridge, CA

California State University, Stanislaus 2005

Turlock, CA

Central Arizona College-Pinal County Community College District 2007, 2004

Coolidge, AZ

Central New Mexico Community College 2000

(formerly Albuquerque Technical Vocational Institute) 

Albuquerque, NM

Cochise College 2001

Douglas, AZ

Colorado State University-Pueblo 2000

(formerly University of Southern Colorado) 

Pueblo, CO

Columbia Basin College 2009, 2006, 2002

Pasco, WA

Conservatory of Music of Puerto Rico 2009

San Juan, PR
HSIAC Grantees 1999–2009

A-3

Grantee Institution Grant Year(s)

Del Mar College 2001

Corpus Christi, TX

Doña Ana Community College 2009, 2000

Las Cruces, NM

Donnelly College 2002

Kansas City, KS

El Paso Community College District 2009

El Paso, TX

El Paso Community College, Rio Grande Campus 2000

El Paso, TX

Elgin Community College 2009

Elgin, IL

Florida International University 1999

Miami, FL

Gavilan College 2002, 1999

Gilroy, CA

Heritage University 2009, 2007, 2005, 2003

Toppenish, WA

Houston Community College 2000

Houston, TX

Houston Community College System 2004

Houston, TX

Hudson County Community College 2000

Jersey City, NJ

Imperial Valley College 2008, 2004

Imperial, CA

Lehman College 2003, 2001

Bronx, NY
COLLABORATING FOR CHANGE: PARTNERSHIPS TO TRANSFORM LOCAL COMMUNITIES 

A-4 

Grantee Institution Grant Year(s)

Long Beach Community College District 2003

Long Beach, CA

Los Angeles Mission College 2005, 2001

Sylmar, CA

Los Angeles Trade-Technical College 2007, 2001

Los Angeles, CA

Los Angeles Valley College 2007, 2002

Valley Glen (Van Nuys), CA

Merced College 2000

Merced, CA

Mesalands Community College 2006

Tucumcari, NM

Miami-Dade Community College–InterAmerican Campus 2001

Miami, FL

Midland College 2007, 2003

Midland, TX

Modesto Junior College 2006, 2002, 2000

Modesto, CA

New Mexico State University 2004, 1999

Doña Ana, NM 

Northern Essex Community College 2002, 1999

Lawrence, MA

Northern New Mexico College 2004

Española, NM

Otero Junior College 2007, 2004

La Junta, CO

Palo Alto College 2000

San Antonio, TX
HSIAC Grantees 1999–2009

A-5

Grantee Institution Grant Year(s)

Passaic County Community College 2006, 1999

Passaic, NJ

Phoenix College 2002

Phoenix, AZ

Pima County Community College 2005, 1999

Tucson, AZ

Research Foundation of CUNY/Lehman College 2008

City University of New York 

Bronx, NY

San Antonio College 2007, 2003

San Antonio, TX

San Bernardino Community College District 2002

San Bernardino, CA

San Diego State University–Imperial Valley Campus 2003, 2000

Calexico, CA

San Jacinto College Central 2003

Pasadena, TX

San Jacinto College North 2006, 2001

Houston, TX

Santa Ana College/Rancho Santiago Community College District 2004, 1999

Santa Ana, CA

Southwest Texas Junior College 2001

Uvalde, TX

Southwestern College 2008, 2005, 2002

Chula Vista, CA

St. Mary’s University 2008

San Antonio, TX

St. Philip’s College 2003, 1999

San Antonio, TX
COLLABORATING FOR CHANGE: PARTNERSHIPS TO TRANSFORM LOCAL COMMUNITIES 

A-6 

Grantee Institution Grant Year(s)

Sul Ross State University 2005

Alpine, TX

Taft College 2002

Taft, CA

Texas A&M International University 2001

Laredo, TX

Texas A&M University–Kingsville 2008

Kingsville, TX

The National Hispanic University 2005

San Jose, CA

Trinidad State Junior College 2007

Trinidad, CO

Universidad del Este 2006, 2002

Carolina, PR

Universidad del Turabo 2009, 2006, 2002

Gurabo, PR

Universidad Metropolitana 2003

San Juan, PR

University of Arizona–South Campus 2002

Sierra Vista, AZ

University of Miami 2001

Miami, FL

University of New Mexico–Albuquerque 2000

Albuquerque, NM

University of New Mexico–Taos 2008, 2004

Taos, NM

University of Puerto Rico 1999

San Juan, PR
HSIAC Grantees 1999–2009

A-7

Grantee Institution Grant Year(s)

University of Puerto Rico at Carolina 2008

Carolina, PR

University of Puerto Rico at Humacao 2006

Humacao, PR

University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College 2008, 2005, 2002

Brownsville, TX

University of Texas at El Paso 2004, 2000

El Paso, TX

University of Texas at San Antonio 2006, 2002

San Antonio, TX

University of Texas–Pan American 2008, 2003, 1999

Edinburg, TX

University of the Incarnate Word 2001

San Antonio

Urban College of Boston 2006

Boston, MA

West Hills Community College District 2005, 2004, 2002

Coalinga, CA

Western New Mexico University 1999

Silver City, NM

Woodbury University 2009

Burbank, CA

Yakima Valley Community College 2008, 2001

Yakima, WA
COLLABORATING FOR CHANGE: PARTNERSHIPS TO TRANSFORM LOCAL COMMUNITIES 

A-8 

HSIAC Grantees
B-1

TCUP

Tribal Colleges and Universities 1999–2009

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development administers the Tribal Colleges and 

Universities Program (TCUP) grant, which Tribal colleges can use to build, expand, renovate, 

and equip their facilities and to expand their role into the community through providing needed 

services.

Tribal colleges and universities serve as repositories of higher education and Tribal knowledge. 

They also provide a broad range of community services and act as gathering places for Tribe 

members.

A list of TCUP grantees and the year(s) in which they received their grant(s) is below.

Grantee Institution Grant Year(s)

Bay Mills Community College 2008

Brimley, MI 

Blackfeet Community College 2003

Browning, MT

Cankdeska Cikana Community College 2007, 2004, 2002

Fort Totten, ND

Chief Dull Knife College 2003

Lame Deer, MT

College of Menominee Nation 2008, 2004, 2001

Keshena, WI

Diné College 2006

Tsaile, AZ

Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College 2002

Cloquet, MN

Fort Belknap College 2005, 2001

Harlem, MT
COLLABORATING FOR CHANGE: PARTNERSHIPS TO TRANSFORM LOCAL COMMUNITIES 

B-2 

Grantee Institution Grant Year(s)

Fort Berthold Community College 2007, 2005

New Town, ND

Fort Peck Community College 2009, 2006, 2002

Poplar, MT

Institute of American Indian Arts 2008, 2007, 2001

Santa Fe, NM

Keweenaw Bay Ojibwa Community College 2002

Baraga, MI

Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwa Community College 2004

Hayward, WI

Leech Lake Tribal College 2003

Cass Lake, MN

Little Big Horn College 2006, 2001

Crow Agency, MT

Little Priest Tribal College 2002

Winnebago, NE

Nebraska Indian Community College 2009

Macy, Nebraska

Northwest Indian College 2008

Bellingham, WA

Oglala Lakota College 2009, 2007, 2005, 2003, 2001

Kyle, SD

Salish Kootenai College 2008, 2005, 2003

Pablo, MT

Si Tanka University 2002

Eagle Butte, SD

Sinte Gleska University 2003

Mission, SD
TCUP Grantees 1999–2009

B-3

Grantee Institution Grant Year(s)

Sisseton Wahpeton Community College 2009, 2002

Sisseton, SD

Sitting Bull College 2009, 2007, 2005

Fort Yates, ND

Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute 2001

Albuquerque, NM

Stone Child College 2006, 2004, 2002

Box Elder, MT

Tohono O’odham Community College 2008

Sells, AZ

Turtle Mountain Community College 2006, 2003, 2001

Belcourt, ND

United Tribes Technical College 2008, 2003

Bismarck, ND
COLLABORATING FOR CHANGE: PARTNERSHIPS TO TRANSFORM LOCAL COMMUNITIES 

B-4 

TCUP Grantees
C-1

DRGR 1994 Grantees

Frank D. Beck

Pennsylvania State University

Human Ecology, Pro-Growth Effort, and 

Community Development: The Case of 

Enterprise Zones (Tax Incentives, Economic 

Development)

Cynthia Jean Bogard

State University of New York at Stony Brook

No Place Like Home: Rehousing Homeless 

Families in an Age of Declining “Family 

Values”

Camille Zubrinsky Charles

University of California, Los Angeles

I Have Always Wanted to Have a Neighbor, 

Just Like You: Race and Residential 

Segregation in the City

Research Grants 1994–2009

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) administers the Doctoral 

Dissertation Research Grant (DDRG) program, which enables doctoral students, sponsored 

by accredited institutions of higher education, to cultivate their research skills through the 

completion of dissertations on policy-relevant housing and urban development issues.

HUD competitively awards one-time DDRG grants to doctoral students currently enrolled in 

accredited programs to fund research studies that may have an impact on federal problem 

solving and policymaking and that are relevant to HUD’s policy priorities and annual goals and 

objectives. Awardees represent a wide range of disciplines, including architecture, planning, 

anthropology, sociology, social work, history, economics, political science, and public policy.

DDRG grantees from 1994 to 2009 are listed below with their school and research topic.

Sandra E. Crewe

Howard University

Unmotivated or Unchallenged: An 

Ethnographic Study of Sanctioned Welfare 

Recipients Residing in Federally Assisted 

Housing

Christopher Zigmund Galbraith

University of Texas at Austin

Old Houses Never Die: Assesing the 

Effectiveness of Filtering as a Low-Income 

Housing Policy

Taeil Kim

Carnegie Mellon University

Place or Person? A Labor Market Analysis of 

Central-City Poverty

Xiangxing (Max) Lu

Indiana University

Analyzing Migration Decisionmaking: 

Residential Satisfaction, Mobility Intentions, 

and Moving Behavior
COLLABORATING FOR CHANGE: PARTNERSHIPS TO TRANSFORM LOCAL COMMUNITIES 

C-2 

J. Jeff McConnell

State University of New York at Stony Brook

The Social Establishment of Homelessness: 

Social Policy and Individual Experience in 

the Development of a Social Problem

Wendy S. Meister

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Creating Neighborhoods: Physical 

Environment, Resident Involvement, and 

Crime at a Revitalized Housing Project

Reynold F. Nesiba

University of Notre Dame

Interstate Banking and Community 

Reinvestment: An Evaluation of How Bank 

Mergers and Acquisitions Influenced 

Residential Lending Patterns in St. Joseph 

County, Indiana, 1985–93

Zeynep Önder

Cornell University

Public Policy Issues Related to FHA 

Financing: FHA Borrowers, FHA Loan Limit, 

and Homeownership

Nicolas O. Rockler

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Regional Productivity and Public 

Infrastructure Investment

Lisa Jean Servon

University of California, Berkeley

Reconstructing Urban Poverty Policy: 

Alternative Credit, Poverty Alleviation, and 

Economic Development in the U.S. Inner 

Cities

Michael A. Stoll

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

“Can I Get a Job?” The Relative Importance 

of Space and Race in Urban Young Adult 

Labor Markets

DDRG 1995 Grantees

Sheila Crowley

Virginia Commonwealth University

A Constructivist Inquiry of the Interpretation 

of Federal Housing Policy In and Among 

Three Entitlement Jurisdictions

William H. Dozier

Western Michigan University

The Role of Race in the Perpetuation of 

Inadequate Housing

Ingrid Gould Ellen

Harvard University

Sharing America’s Neighborhoods: The 

Changing Prospects for Racial Integration

Bradley R. Entner Wright

University of Wisconsin–Madison

Pathways Off the Streets: Homeless People 

and Their Use of Resources

Eric Fure-Slocum

University of Iowa

The Challenge of the Working-Class City: 

Recasting Growth Politics and Liberalism in 

Milwaukee, 1937–52
Research Grantees 1994–2009

C-3

Karen J. Gibson

University of California, Berkeley

Income, Race, and Space: A Comparative 

Analysis of the Effects of Poverty 

Concentration on the White and Black 

Neighborhoods in the Detroit and 

Pittsburgh Metropolitan Areas

Catherine A. Hill

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

The Political Economy of Military Base 

Redevelopment: An Evaluation of Four 

Converted Naval Bases

Jeffrey Richard Kling

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Identifying Causal Effects of Public Policies

Neil J. Kraus

State University of New York at Albany

Race, Neighborhoods, and Community 

Power: Buffalo Politics, 1935–95

Theresa J. Mah

University of Chicago

Buying Into the Middle Class: Residential 

Segregation and Racial Formation in the 

United States, 1920–64

Anthony N.M. Pennington-Cross

George Washington University

The Export Price Index and a Simultaneous 

Equations Model of Metropolitan Area 

Development

Jessica Pitt

Cornell University

Towards Comprehensive Community 

Development Practices: The Responses of 

Community Development Corporations

Yodan Y. Rofe

University of California, Berkeley

The Usefulness of “Neighborhood 

Experience Maps” As a Tool in City Planning 

and Urban Design

Donna Rubens

State University of New York at Buffalo

An Ethnographic Case Study of the 

Organization of Care in a Transitional 

Housing Project for Pregnant and Parenting 

Teens: Program and Policy Implications

Thomas W. Sanchez

Georgia Institute of Technology Equity 

Implications and Impacts of Personal 

Transportation Benefits on Urban Form

DDRG 1996 Grantees

Susan Baer

University of Maryland at College Park

Gentrification and the Role of Community 

Organizations in Preventing AfricanAmerican Displacement

Mary V. Basolo

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Housing Policy in the Local Political 

Economy: Understanding the Support for 

Affordable Housing Programs in Cities

Liesette N. Brunson

University of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign

Resident Appropriation of Defensible Space 

in Public Housing: Implications for Safety 

and Community
COLLABORATING FOR CHANGE: PARTNERSHIPS TO TRANSFORM LOCAL COMMUNITIES 

C-4 

Reid Cramer

University of Texas at Austin

Local Economic Development Planning in 

Low-Income America: The Implementation 

of the Empowerment Zone and Enterprise 

Community Program

Dale A. Darrow

University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee

An Analysis of the Demographic and 

Developmental Impacts of Central-City Rail 

Transit Stations

James R. Elliott, Jr.

University of Wisconsin–Madison

The Work of Cities: Underemployment 

and Urban Change in Late-20th-Century 

America

Margaret Etukudo

University of Illinois at Chicago

Analysis of Small and Microenterprise 

Programs: Implications for Urban Economic 

Development Policy

Hongmian Gong

University of Georgia

Location Analysis of Business and 

Professional Services in U.S. Metropolitan 

Areas, 1977–92

Craig Gundersen

University of California at Riverside

Direct Measures of Poverty and Well-Being: 

A Theoretical Framework and an Application 

to Housing Poverty in the United States

Seong Woo Lee

University of Southern California

Models of Homeownership: Immigrants’ 

Assimilation, Structural Type, and 

Metropolitan Contextual Effects on 

Homeownership Attainment

Atiya N. Mahmood

University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee

Socio-Spatial Analysis of Women’s 

Home-Based Work: Identifying Economic 

Revitalizating Aspects of the Home-Setting

Michael Maly

Loyola University

Racial and Ethnic Diversity in Select U.S. 

Urban Neighborhoods, 1980 to 1990

Marc J. Perry

University of Wisconsin–Madison

Using Geo-Demographic Methods for 

Improving Small-Area Population and 

Housing Unit Estimates

Laxmi Ramasubramanian

University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee

Knowledge Production and Use in 

Community-Based Organizations: 

Examining the Influence of Information 

Technologies

Janet Smith

Cleveland State University

Interpreting Neighborhood Change
Research Grantees 1994–2009

C-5

DDRG 1997 Grantees

Raisa Bahchieva

Cornell University

Racial Differences in Housing Search 

Behavior

Cecilia T. Castelino-Pinto

City University of New York Graduate 

Center

Evicting the Batterer: Institutional and 

Non-Institutional Strategies Some Battered 

Women Use

Karen Chapple

University of California, Berkeley

Paths to Employment: The Role of Social 

Networks in the Job Search for Women on 

Welfare in San Francisco

Kathyrn M. Doherty

University of Maryland at College Park

Emerging Patterns of Housing, Community, 

and Local Governance: The Case of Private 

Homeowners Associations

Larissa S. Larsen

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

A Comparison of Chicago’s Scattered Site 

and Aggregate Public Housing Resident’s 

Psychological Self-Evaluations

Lisa E. McGuire

Case Western Reserve University

Welfare to Work Transition With Public 

Housing Residents: Applications of the 

Transtheoretical Model

June Y. Park

Columbia University

A New Understanding of Our Nation’s 

Rising Homeless Rates and Low Rent 

Housing Vacancy Rates

Becky Pettit

Princeton University

Navigating Networks and Neighborhoods: 

An Analysis of the Residential Mobility of 

the Urban Poor

Kenneth E. Poole

George Mason University

The Role of Practitioner Networks in the 

Successful Diffusion and Implementation of 

Policy Innovations: Lessons From Enterprise 

Zone Experiences

Vera Prosper

University at Albany, State University of 

New York

Tenant Aging in Public and Publicly Assisted 

Multifamily Housing and Its Public Policy 

Implications for Housing and Long-Term 

Care

Robert Self

University of Washington

Shifting Ground in Metropolitan America: 

Class, Race, and Power in Oakland and the 

East Bay, 1945–77

Kala Seetharam Sridhar

The Ohio State University

Urban Economic Development in America: 

Evidence From Enterprise Zones
COLLABORATING FOR CHANGE: PARTNERSHIPS TO TRANSFORM LOCAL COMMUNITIES 

C-6 

Patricia Stern Smallacombe

University of Pennsylvania

Why Do They Stay? Rootendness 

and Isolation in an Inner-City White 

Neighborhood

Scott Susin

University of California, Berkeley

Housing the Poor: Rent Vouchers and the 

Price of Low-Income Housing

Mark A. Wallace

American University

The Benefits of Scarcity: An Analysis of the 

Windfall Gains From Limited Recipients in 

Competitive Grant Programs

Jenell Lora Williams-Paris

American University

African-American Women’s Activism and 

Ghetto Formation in a Washington, D.C. 

Neighborhood

Sean W. Zielenbach, Jr.

Northwestern University

The Art of Revitalization: Improving 

Conditions in Distressed Inner-City 

Neighborhoods

DDRG 1998 Grantees

Mahyar Arefi

University of Southern California

Neighborhood Jump-Starting: Los Angeles 

Neighborhood Initiative

Karen J. Baehler

University of Maryland at College Park

Fair Shares and Formula Fights: A Study of 

Federal Social Welfare Distribution

John Wesley Edwards

Cornell University

Building the Open City? Residential Mobility 

and Urban Policy Innovation in the 1970s

Laura E. Harris

State University of New York at Albany

A Home Is More Than Just a House: A 

Spatial Analysis of Housing for the Poor in 

Metropolitan America

Edward J. Jepson, Jr.

University of Wisconsin–Madison

The Meaning of Ecosystem Theory to the 

Planning Profession–An Interpretation and 

Analysis of Sustainability

Rachel Kleit

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Housing, Social Networks, and Access 

to Opportunity: The Impact of Living in 

Scattered-Site and Clustered Public Housing

Nicole Marwell

University of Chicago

Social Networks and Social Capital as 

Resources for Neighborhood Revitalization: 

Volume One and Two

Ellen A. Merry

University of Virginia

The Effect of the Mortgage Interest 

Deduction on Mortgage Debt and Housing 

Demand

Gabriella Modan

Georgetown University

The Struggle for Neighborhood Identity: 

Discursive Constructions of Community 

and Place in a United States Multiethnic 

Neighborhood
Research Grantees 1994–2009

C-7

Kristopher M. Rengert

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

The Effect of Minority Ownership of 

Financial Institutions on Mortgage Lending 

to Minority and Lower Income Home 

Seekers: A Cross-Section and Time-Series 

Analysis

Julia Sass Rubin

Harvard University

Community Development Venture Capital: 

A Study of Cross-Sector Organizations

Brian Schmitt

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

Do Community Reinvestment Act 

Agreements Work?

Mara S. Sidney

University of Colorado at Boulder

The Struggle for Housing Equality: 

Impact of Fair Housing and Community 

Reinvestment Laws on Local Advocacy

Theresa Y. Singleton

Temple University

Reinvesting in Community: the 

Organizational Impacts of Community 

Reinvestment

Lois A. Stanley

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

How Context Influences Local Economic 

Development: Strategies for Military Base 

Redevelopment in the 1990s

DDRG 1999 Grantees

Sandra L. Barnes

Georgia State University

Positive Homeownership Attitudes, 

Homeownership Behavior, and 

Neighborhood Ties in Poor Urban 

Neighborhoods

Daniele Bondonio

Carnegie Mellon University

Do Geographically Targeted Development 

Incentives Revitalize Communities? 

Evidence From the State Enterprise Zone 

Programs

Sherri L. Clark

American University

Policy, Perceptions, and Place: An 

Ethnography of the Complexities of 

Implementing a 

Federal Housing Program

Kelly J. Clifton

University of Texas at Austin

Local Access, Non-Work Travel, and Survival 

Tactics In Low-Income Neighborhoods

Sarah S. Gardner

City University of New York

Green Visions for Brownfields: Policy 

Coalitions for Urban Redevelopment

Roger B. Hammer

University of Wisconsin-Madison

The Geography of Residential and 

Employment Inequality: Workplace and 

Home Place in Urban Space
COLLABORATING FOR CHANGE: PARTNERSHIPS TO TRANSFORM LOCAL COMMUNITIES 

C-8 

Lezlee J. Hinesmon-Matthews

University of California, Los Angeles

Faith-Based Versus Secular Approaches 

to Community Development in AfricanAmerican Communities: The Case of Los 

Angeles

Jerome Hodos

University of Pennsylvania

Second Cities: Globalization, Institutions, 

and Political Culture in Struggling Regions

Thomas Kamber

City University of New York

Local Politics and Housing Vouchers

Lucie Laurian

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Mobilization as a Response to Risk 

Perceptions and Declines in Housing Values 

in Communities Around Superfund Sites

Michael Leo Owens

State University of New York at Albany

Pulpits and Policy: The Political Impact and 

Pitfalls of Black Church-Based Community 

Development

Stephanie Shirley Post

Rice University

Cities and Their Suburbs: “Go Along to 

Get Along”

Stefan Rayer

Cornell University

The Incorporation of Peripheral Areas in 

Metropolises Undergoing Restructuring

Mary Gail Snyder

University of California, Berkeley

Informal Housing: Shelter Strategies and 

Resources Among Low-Income Households

Lisa A. Sutherland

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Creating Healthy Communities One Byte at 

a Time

Amy Winston

Purdue University

Factions and Corporate Political Strategies 

in Harlan County, Kentucky: Implications for 

Community Sustainability

DDRG 2000 Grantees

John Baranski

University of California, Santa Barbara

Making Public Housing in San Francisco: 

Liberalism, Social Prejudice, and Social 

Activism, 1906–76

Susan K. Brown (formerly Wierzbicki)

University of Washington

Isolation and the Enclave: The Presence and 

Variety of Strong Ties Among Immigrants

Alvaro Cortes

Wayne State University

The Impact of Urban Universities on 

Neighborhood Housing Markets: University 

Decisions and Non-Decisions

Spencer M. Cowan

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

The Impact of Statewide Inclusionary Land 

Use Laws on the Supply and Distribution of 

Housing for Lower Income Households
Research Grantees 1994–2009

C-9

Lynne Dearborn

University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee

Immigrant Culture and Housing Provision, 

Examining the Nexus: A Case Study of the 

ACTS Landmark Housing Program and Its 

Hmong Participants (3-Volume Dissertation)

David Eldridge

University of Pennsylvania

The Making of a Courtroom: LandlordTenant Trials in Philadelphia’s Municipal 

Court

Ajay Garde

University of Southern California

The New Urbanism as Sustainable Growth? 

Impressions and Implications for Public 

Policy

Jennifer L. Glanville

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Ties and Trust: Understanding How Social 

Capital Operates in Neighborhoods

Judith Grant Long

Harvard University

Full Count: The Real Cost of Public 

Subsidies for Major League Sports Facilities

Joseph Grengs

Cornell University

Transit Turning Inside Out: Federal 

Transportation Policy and Inner-City 

Accessibility During the ISTEA Years

Ed Hamlyn

University of Texas at El Paso

The Impact of Climate Change on the Upper 

Rio Grande Basin

Andrew Helms

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

The Economics of Housing Renovation: 

Three Empirical Studies

Amy Hillier

University of Pennsylvania

Mapping the Future? Redlining and the 

Home Owners’ Loan Corporation

Jennifer Johnson

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Finding Work in the City

William H. Lockhart

University of Virginia

Getting Saved From Poverty: Religion in 

Poverty to Work Programs

Ellen Myerson

University of California, Berkeley

HOME Rental Projects: Influence of 

Financing and Organizational Type on 

Project Efficiency, Project Location, and 

Tenants Served

Marla K. Nelson

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

Producer Services, Agglomeration 

Economies, and Intra-Metropolitan 

Location: The Public Accounting Industry 

in the Chicago and Minneapolis-St. Paul 

Regions

Sharon I. O’Donnell

University of Houston

Quality Decisions: A Stochastic Equilibrium 

Model of Homeownership
COLLABORATING FOR CHANGE: PARTNERSHIPS TO TRANSFORM LOCAL COMMUNITIES 

C-10 

Jennifer Pashup

University of Chicago

Gentrification and Neighborhood Change: 

Who Goes, Who Stays, and How Long-Term 

Residents Cope

Melina Patterson

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

Learning Places: Community Schools in 

Community Development

Karen Pence

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Foreclosing on Opportunity: State Laws and 

Mortgage Credit

Hollie Person Lund

Portland State University

Breaking Down Barriers to Community 

Life: Social Contact, Local Travel, and 

Community Sentiment and Cohesion in 

Suburban Neighborhoods

Randal Pinkett

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Creating Community Connections, 

Sociocultural Constructionism, and an 

Asset-Based Approach to Community 

Technology and Community Building

Eileen Robertson-Rehberg

Cornell University

An Evaluation of the Strategic Uses of 

Community Development Block Grants in 

Small Cities in Upstate New York

Juan Sandoval

University of California, Berkeley

The Geography of Opportunity and 

Vulnerability: State TANF Policy, Welfare 

Dependency, and the Diversity of Welfare 

Caseloads

Laura G. Solitare

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

Public Participation in Brownfields 

Redevelopments Located in Residential 

Neighborhoods

Jill Strube

Florida International University

Fiscal and Organizational Determinants of 

Transportation Outputs and Outcomes: A 

Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis of 

Sustainability Factors

Rainer vom Hofe

Cornell University

A Regional Computable General 

Equilibrium (CGE) Model for HUD Policy 

Analysis: The Case of New York State

Malik Watkins

The Ohio State University

Faith/Community-Based Organizations 

and the Political Process Model: Social 

Mobilization as an Explanation for Member 

Participation in Community Building

Laura Wolf-Powers

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

The Effect of Labor Market Intermediaries 

on Career Opportunity for Less-Skilled 

Workers: A Study of Intermediaries in the 

Telecommunications Installation and Repair 

Industry in New York City, Los Angeles, and 

Washington, D.C.
Research Grantees 1994–2009

C-11

DDRG 2001 Grantees

Jennifer Altman

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

Matching University Resources to 

Community Need: Case Studies of 

University-Community Partnerships

LaTanya Brown

Howard University

A Study to Determine if HOPE VI Sites 

Influence Area Housing

Susan Clampet-Lundquist

University of Pennsylvania

Moving Over or Moving Up? Short-Term 

Gains and Losses for Relocated HOPE VI 

Families

Sarah Coffin

Georgia Institute of Technology

The Brownfields Reality Check: A Study of 

Land Value and the Effects of Brownfields 

on the Locations of Section 8 Housing

Silvia Dominguez

Boston University

Latina Immigrants in Public Housing: Race 

Relations, Social Networks, and Access to 

Services

Roxanne Ezzet-Lofstrom

University of California, Irvine

Valuation of Metropolitan Quality of Life in 

Wages and Rents

Leslie Frank

University of Connecticut

“I Never Really Took Much Notice:” The 

FHA and Suburbanization in the Providence 

Metropolitan Area, 1934–55

Falan Guan

University of Southern California

Multi-Worker Households Residential 

Location Choices–A Disaggregate 

Comparative Approach

Carolina M. Katz Reid

University of Washington

Achieving the American Dream? A 

Longitudinal Study of the Homeownership 

Experiences of Low-Income Families

Jibum Kim

University of Chicago

The Role of Subsidized Housing and Ethnic 

Community on Living Arrangements and 

Time Use of Korean American Elderly

Richard W. McConaghy

University of Massachusetts at Boston

Mortality, Moveout, and Refinancing as 

Factors in HECM Reverse Mortgage Payoffs

Jonathan Q. Morgan

North Carolina State University

The Role of Regional Industry Clusters in 

Urban Economic Development: An Analysis 

of Process and Performance

Howard Nemon

University of Pennsylvania

Community Economic Development in 

Distressed Urban Neighborhoods: A Case 

Study of the Philadelphia Empowerment 

Zone
COLLABORATING FOR CHANGE: PARTNERSHIPS TO TRANSFORM LOCAL COMMUNITIES 

C-12 

Mathew Reed

Northwestern University

Moving Out: Section 8 and Public Housing 

Relocation in Chicago

Daniel A. Sandoval

Cornell University

Rising Tide, Sinking Boats: The 

Consequences of Economic Restructuring 

and Racial Segregation for Connecticut’s 

Inner City Poor

Kai A. Schafft

Cornell University

Tracking Incidence of Residential Mobility 

Among Poor Families in Upstate New York: 

The Influence of Economic Change and 

Housing Stocks on “Poverty Migration”

Susan Thering

State University of New York

Documenting the Community Capacity 

Building Benefits of Participatory 

Community Design and Planning and 

Developing Indicators of Community 

Capacity

Zhong Yi Tong

University of Maryland at College Park

The Impact of Targeted Homeownership 

Tax Credit Program: Evidence From 

Washington, D.C.

Tien-Chien Tsao

University of Michigan

New Models for Future Retirement: A Study 

of College/University Linked Retirement 

Communities

Shannon Van Zandt

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Achieving The American Dream: The Impact 

of Homeownership on Opportunity for 

Low- and Moderate-Income Individuals

Daniel A. Wishnoff

City University of New York

The Tolerance Point: Race, Public Housing, 

and the Forest Hills Controversy, 1945–75

DDRG 2002 Grantees

Grigoriy Ardashev

University of Louisville

Fragmentation, Sprawl, and Economic 

Development: An Analysis of 331 

Metropolitan Areas in the United States

Philip Ashton

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

Advantage or Disadvantage? The Changing 

Institutional Landscape of Central-City 

Mortgage Markets

William Bartosch

Brandeis University

Congress, Problems Definition, and 

Inattentive Publics: An Analysis of Disability 

Policymaking for Alcoholics and Drug 

Addicts

Kim DeFronzo Haselhoff

University of California, Irvine

The Use of Redevelopment Housing SetAsides in Southern California: A New Look 

at Cities and Redistributive Spending
Research Grantees 1994–2009

C-13

Fred Ellerbusch

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

Residential Redevelopment of BrownfieldsIs Human Health Being Protected?

Todd Gish

University of Southern California

Building Los Angeles: Urban Housing in the 

Suburban Metropolis, 1900–36

Jennifer Gress

University of California, Irvine

Understanding the Role of Social Capital 

in the Production of Affordable Housing in 

Orange County, California

James Hanlon

University of Kentucky

Distressed Public Housing and HOPE VI 

Revitalization: An Analysis of Park DuValle 

in Louisville, Kentucky

Michael Hollar

George Washington University

Central Cities and Suburbs: Economic 

Rivals or Allies?

Eunju Hwang

University of Minnesota

Desire to Age in Place Among Korean 

American Elders in Minnesota

Mona Koerner

University of Texas at Austin

Performance of the Hollow State: State 

and Local Responses to the Devolution of 

Affordable Housing

David Mainor

Tulane University

Urban Transformations: Does Inner-City 

Revitalization Pose a Risk to Neighborhood 

Cohesion?

Martha M. Matsuoka

University of California, Los Angeles

From Neighborhood to Global: CommunityBased Regionalism and Shifting Concepts 

of Place in Community and Regional 

Development

Deirdre Oakley

State University of New York at Albany

Fallacies of the Welfare State: The Enduring 

Response of Community- and Faith-Based 

Organizations—1920s and 1990s

Michele Wakin

University of California, Santa Barbara

Documenting the Use of Vehicles as 

Housing: Towards a More Permanent 

Solution

Mark T. Wright

University of Louisville

Low Income Housing Tax Credits: 

Comparing Nonprofit Versus For-Profit 

Developments in Terms of Cost and Quality

Zhou Yu

University of Southern California

Immigrants and Housing Attainment: 

Different Forms of Residential Assimilation
COLLABORATING FOR CHANGE: PARTNERSHIPS TO TRANSFORM LOCAL COMMUNITIES 

C-14 

DDRG 2003 Grantees

Tiffany Chenault

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State 

University

Qualitative Analysis of Resident Council in a 

Public Housing Neighborhood

Alexandra Curley

Boston University

The Effects of HOPE VI on Resident 

Outcomes and Social Capital

Zaire Dinzey-Flores

University of Michigan

The Social Impacts of Spatial Design: Puerto 

Rico Housing Policies and their Effects on 

Crime and Neighborhood Interactions

Robert Fairbanks

University of Pennsylvania

Communal Re-appropriation of Blighted 

Spaces: The Politics of Everyday Life in 

Kensington Recovery Houses

Martin Farnham

University of Michigan

Housing Choice, Aging and Fiscal Policy

Chad Farrell

Pennsylvania State University

Urban Mosaics: Multiracial Diversity and 

Segregation in the American Metropolis

David Greenburg

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Embedded Practices Community 

Organizing, Community Development and 

Urban Change

Michal Grinstein-Weiss

Washington University

IDAs for Housing Policy: Analysis of Savings 

Outcomes and Racial Differences

Derek Hyra

University of Chicago

Federal Policies, City Politics and Inner City 

Development: The Economic Transformation 

of Harlem and Bronzeville

Tatjana Meschede

University of Massachusetts–Boston

Bridges and Barriers to Housing for 

Chronically Homeless Street Dwellers: The 

Effects of Health and Substance Abuse 

Services on Housing Outcomes

Juris Milestone

Temple University

University Expertise and Community 

Design: An Ethnographic Study of an Urban 

Design Workshop

Joseph Nichols

University of Maryland–College Park

Three Essays on the Role of Housing in 

Wealth Creation

Oswaldo Urdapilleta Gonzalez

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

A Structural Model of Individual’s Decisions 

on TANF, Public Housing, Food Stamps and 

Work Participation

Martha Valado

University of Arizona

Factors Influencing Homeless People’s 

Perception and Use of Urban Space
Research Grantees 1994–2009

C-15

Qingfang Wang

University of Georgia

How Does Space Matter in Ethnic Labor 

Market Segmentation? A Case Study of 

Chinese in the San Francisco CMSA

Yizhao Yang

Cornell University

Neighborhood Physical Form and 

Residential Satisfaction: Do New Urbanist 

Neighborhood Physical Attributes Enhance 

Residential Satisfaction?

DDRG 2004 Grantees

James Armstrong

PHA Directors Association/ Virginia Tech

Lessons Drawn from Local Housing 

Authorities: Characteristics of Survival 

and Success

Andrew Aurand

University of Pittsburgh

Smart Growth and The Cost of Housing: 

Is Smart Growth Smart for Low-Income 

Households?

Lisa Bates

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Neighborhood Triage as a Planning 

Strategy: Evaluating Impacts Throughout 

Urban Areas

Gregory Burge

Florida State University

A Theoretical and Empirical Investigation 

of the Effects of Impact Fees on the 

Affordability of Starter Homes

George Carter

University of Michigan

From Exclusion to Destitution: Residential 

Segregation, Affordable Housing, and 

the Racial Composition of the Homeless 

Population

Kristen Crossney

Rutgers University

The Paradox of Predatory Lending: An 

Examination of Federal Policy and Home 

Finance Industry

Mathew Cuddy

Rutgers University

Inflexibility in Urban Infill Housing 

Specifications: The Problem with Parking 

Requirements

Arielle Goldberg

The City University of New York

New Voices, New Strategies: Opportunities 

for Innovation in the Post-9/11 Revitalization 

of Lower Manhattan

Yan Lee

University of California Los Angeles

Increasing Mortgage Credit to Minority and 

Low-Income Neighborhoods: The Impact of 

the Community Reinvestment Act

Michael McQuarrie

New York University

Community Politics, Urban Regimes, and 

the Transformation of Low-Income Housing

Criseida Navarro-Diaz

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Promoting High-Tech Growth: Road to 

Advancement or Exclusion?
COLLABORATING FOR CHANGE: PARTNERSHIPS TO TRANSFORM LOCAL COMMUNITIES 

C-16 

Pamela Rogers

University of Texas at Austin

Intraurban Mobility Patterns of Mexican

Immigrants in Emerging Gateway Cities

Sapna Swaroop

University of Michigan

The Social Consequences of Racial 

Residential Integration

Mark Tigan

University of Massachusetts–Amherst

Citizen Participation in HUD Programs: 

From the Great Society to New Federalism

Michael Wenz

University of Illinois at Chicago

Casino Gambling, Economic Development, 

and Housing Markets

Duan Zhuang

University of Southern California

Redlining Revisited: Spatial Dependence 

and Neighborhood Effects of Mortgage 

Lending Discrimination

DDRG 2005 Grantees

Ryan Allen 

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Refugee Job Search Strategies in Portland, 

Maine

Shirley Chao 

Tufts University

Optimizing Food and Nutrition Services in 

Assisted Living Facilities: The FANCI (Food 

and Nutrition Care Indicators) Survey

Keri-Nicole Dillman 

New York University

Ownership and Outcomes: Investigating 

Nonprofit and For-Profit Subsidized Housing 

Developers in New York City

Scott Davis

University of Virginia

A Structural Model of the Effects of Housing 

Vouchers on Housing Consumption and 

Labor Supply

Nicole Esparza

The Trustees of Princeton University

Aiding the Homeless: A Survey of Urban 

Nonprofits

Catherine Fennell 

University of Chicago

Civic priorities and grassroots possibilities: 

The transformation of Chicago’s Henry 

Horner Homes

Michele Gilbert 

Kent State University

Rowing Upstream? Empowerment Zones in 

Distressed Urban Communities

George Hobor

Arizona Board of Regents

Plugging into the Global Economy: A 

Study of Economic Development in Former 

Industrial Cities

Matthew Marr

The Regents of the University of California

The Changing Territories of Poverty and 

Opportunity: An Ethnographic Study of the 

San Francisco Housing Authority and 

HOPE VI
Research Grantees 1994–2009

C-17

Patrick McNamara 

University of Nebraska at Omaha

Collaborative Success and Community 

Culture: Cross-Sectional Partnerships 

Addressing Homelessness in Omaha and 

Portland

Jaren Pope

North Carolina State University

The Impact of Mandatory Disclosure Rules 

in the Housing Market

Jane Rongerude

Regents of the University of California, 

Berkeley

Transitioning Out of Homelessness in Two 

Global Cities: Los Angeles and Tokyo

Jenny Schuetz

Harvard University

Regulation of Multifamily Housing in 

Massachusetts

Gretchen Suess

Temple University

Beyond School Walls: The Politics of 

Community and Place in Two Philadelphia 

Neighborhoods

Barbra Teater 

The Ohio State University

Residential mobility and the Section 8 

housing choice voucher program: Factors 

predicting mobility and the residential 

decision-making process of recipients

Griff Tester 

Ohio State University

The Prevalence and Process of Sex and 

Familial Status Discrimination in Housing

Gretchen Weismann

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Neighborhoods and Networks: 

Opportunities in Residential Mobility 

Programs (3-city study of the Impacts of the 

Moving to Opportunity program on family 

self-sufficiency and youth behavior)

DDRG 2006 Grantees

No DDRG grants were made in 2006.

DDRG 2007 Grantees

Debbie Becher

Princeton University

Strengthening Communities: Eminent 

Domain for Urban Redevelopment, 

Philadelphia 1995–2005

Matthew Desmond 

University of Wisconsin–Madison

Causes and Consequences of Eviction

Diana Karafin

Ohio State University

Neighborhood Integration, Housing 

Inequality, and Safety

Julia Koschinsky

University of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign

Modeling Spatial Spillovers from Rental to 

Owner Housing

David Madden

Columbia University

The Public and Urban Development in 

Brooklyn: A Historical-Ethnographic Case 

Study
COLLABORATING FOR CHANGE: PARTNERSHIPS TO TRANSFORM LOCAL COMMUNITIES 

C-18 

Charles Nier

Temple University

Racial Wealth Inequality: Credit 

Discrimination and African American 

Homeownership during the Great 

Migration, 1910–1960

Evelyn Perry

Indiana University

Race in Place: Evaluating the Promise of 

Residential Integration

Charlene Reiss

North Carolina State University

Measuring Client Participation in 

Organizational Decision-Making: A Survey 

of Agencies Providing Emergency and 

Temporary Shelter

Yong Jun Shin

University of Wisconsin–Madison

Media Impact on Local Low-Income 

Housing Policy and Media Strategy for 

Housing Policy Improvement

Jenna Tighe

University of Texas at Austin

Opposition to Affordable Housing: How 

Perceptions of Race and Poverty Influence 

Views

Andrée Tremoulet

Portland State University

Manufactured Home Park Closures

Anita Zuberi

Northwestern University

Neighborhood Safety and Moving to 

Opportunity: Understanding Gender and 

Life Course Differences using a MixedMethods Approach

DDRG 2008 Grantees

Meghan A. Burke

Loyola University of Chicago

Active Members of Diverse Communities: 

A Contextual Examination of Racial 

Self-Concept

Barbara Combs

Georgia State University Research 

Foundation, Inc.

The Ties that Bind: The Role of Place in 

Social Cohesion, Racial Identity Formation, 

Accord, and Discord in Two Historic, BlackGentrifying Atlanta Neighborhoods

Courtney Cronley

The University of Tennessee

Examining How Organizational Social 

Context Affects Implementation of 

Homeless Management Information 

Systems

Martha Galvez

New York University

Defining Choice in the Housing Choice 

Voucher Program: The Role of Market 

Constraints and Household Resources in 

Location Outcomes

Constantine Kantokosta

The Trustees of Columbia University

The Political Economy of Inclusionary 

Housing: Adoption, Implementation, and 

Neighborhood Effects

Richard Koenig

Southern New Hampshire University

Improving Tenants Lives Through Affordable 

Rental Housing
Research Grantees 1994–2009

C-19

Amanda Lehning

The Regents of the University of California

Local Government Innovation Creating 

Aging-Friendly Communities: A Strategy for 

Aging in Place

Rachel Meltzer

New York University

The Private Provision of Public Services: 

Essays on Private Associations and the 

Communities They Serve

Jonathan Spader

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Implications of Risk-based Pricing 

for Affordable Homeownership and 

Community Reinvestment Goals

Kristie Thomas

University of Pennsylvania

Homelessness and Domestic Violence: 

Examining Patterns of Shelter Use and 

Barriers to Permanent Housing

Danielle Wallace

The University of Chicago

Neighborhoods and Individuals’ 

Perceptions of Disorder: Exploring Public 

Housing Residents’ Interpretations of their 

Physical Environnment

Julia Wesley

Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Revivals Among the Urban Poor: A Look at 

Civic Participation and Collective Efficacy 

in Churches

DDRG 2009 Grantees

Len Albright

The University of Chicago

Community Social Organization and the 

Integration of Affordable Housing Residents 

in a Suburban New Jersey Community

Suzanne Charles

The President and Fellows of Harvard 

College

Suburban Gentrification: Residential 

Redevelopment and Neighborhood Change

Andrew Greenlee

The University of Illinois at Chicago

Relational Analysis of Mobility in Illinois 

Housing Choice Voucher Program

Michael Lens

New York University

Estimating the Spatial Relationships 

Between Subsidized Housing and Crime

Brian McCabe

New York University

An Empirical Test of the Homeowner-Citizen 

Hypothesis

Kelly Mills-Dick

Trustees of Boston University

Voices from the Street: Exploring How 

Older Adults and Outreach Workers Define 

and Mitigate Problems Associated with 

Urban Elder Homelessness

Alexandra Murphy

The Trustees of Princeton University

The Social Organization of Suburban 

Poverty: A Community Study of Poverty in 

the Suburbs
COLLABORATING FOR CHANGE: PARTNERSHIPS TO TRANSFORM LOCAL COMMUNITIES 

C-20 

Michael Powe

The Regents of the University of California

Loft Living in Skid Row: Policies, Plans, 

and Everyday Practices in a Distressed 

Neighborhood

Richard Smith

The Regents of University of California

Immigrant and Minority Entrepreneurship 

in Federal Community Development 

Programs
C-21

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) administers the Early Doctoral 

Student Research Grant (EDSRG) program, which enables doctoral students, sponsored 

by accredited institutions of higher education, to cultivate their research skills through the 

preparation of research manuscripts on policy-relevant housing and urban development issues.

The EDSRG program is open to pre-candidacy doctoral students. Awardees represent a wide 

range of disciplines, including architecture, planning, anthropology, sociology, social work, 

history, economics, political science, and public policy.

EDSRG grantees from 2001 to 2008 are listed below with their school and research topic.

EDSRG 2001 Grantees

Lisa K. Bates

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Can Housing Filter Without the 

Neighborhood Filtering?: An Empirical 

Investigation

Laurie S. Goldman

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Coordination, Miracle Work, and Artistry 

in the Practice of a Tenant-Based SelfSufficiency Program

Lariece M. Grant-Brown

The Ohio State University

A Study of Neighborhood Choice: The 

Impact of School Quality

Michal Grinstein-Weiss

Washington University

Racial Differences in Savings and Assets 

Accumulation in IDAs: Implications for 

Homeownership

Laura Lanza

University of Pennsylvania

Mapping Residents’ Views, Voices, and 

Visions: A Pilot Study on the Use of High 

Tech Tool for Community Planning in LowIncome Neighborhoods

Thomas A. Mlay

The Ohio State University

The Spillover Effects of Suburban Amenities

Barbara A. Sherry

University of Illinois at Chicago

From Rhetoric to Reality: The Impact and 

Effectiveness of New Forms of Public and 

Private Housing on Community Building

Yan Song

University of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign

Valuing the Impacts of New Urbanism 

Features on Prices of Single-Family Homes: 

A Case Study of Portland, Oregon

Jennifer E. Steffel-Johnson

University of Colorado at Denver

Building Public-Private Partnerships to 

Increase the Potential for Affordable 

Housing Provision in New Urbanist 

Developments
COLLABORATING FOR CHANGE: PARTNERSHIPS TO TRANSFORM LOCAL COMMUNITIES 

C-22 

Zhou Yu

University of Southern California

Housing Tenure Choice of Taiwanese 

Immigrants: A Different Path to Residential 

Assimilation

EDSRG 2002 Grantees

Andrew Aurand

University of Pittsburgh

The Impact of Regional Government 

Structure on the Concentration and Supply 

of Affordable Housing

Katrin B. Anacker

The Ohio State University

Analyzing Mature Suburbs Through 

Property Values

Christopher R. Cunningham

Syracuse University

Urban Growth Boundaries and Uncertainty 

on the Timing and Intensity of Land 

Development

Sarah R. Dunn

University of California, Berkeley

The Effect of Prevailing Wage Legislation on 

Affordable Housing Construction

Kevin Gillen

University of Pennsylvania

The Impact of Tenant-Based Section 8 

Housing Voucher Concentration on the Real 

Estate Market in the City of Philadelphia

Jonathan Martin

Cornell University

Housing Opportunity, Smart Growth, and 

Income Inequality: Developing a Prospectus 

for a National Study

Raymond Massenburg

University of Illinois at Chicago

From Residential Segregation to Social 

Disorder: A Multilevel Analysis of the 

Neighborhood Effects of Subprime Lending 

on Homeownership and Neighborhood 

Quality

Jenny Schuetz

Harvard University

Land, Money, and Politics: Essays on 

Government Intervention in Housing 

Markets

Laura Stephens

University of Arizona

The Role of Religious Organizations in 

Community Initiatives to Feed and House 

the Homeless

Duan Zhuang

University of Southern California

Impacts of Competing Risks of Mortgage 

Termination in Underserved Areas

EDSRG 2003 Grantees

Russell Bennett

University of Alabama

Building Capacity for Special Needs 

Housing: A Comparative Analysis on the 

Perspectives of the Provision of Technical 

Assistance among Rural Organizations
Research Grantees 1994–2009

C-23

Kristen Crossney

Rutgers University

The Behavior and Regulation of Predatory 

Mortgage Lending

William Ewell

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Threshold Effects of Neighborhood 

Homeownership Rates and the Impacts on 

Property Values and Rental Prices

Staci Gilliam

Howard University

The Changing Role of Government: 

Assessing the Implications of Shifting the 

Section 8 Housing Vouchers Program from 

Federal to State Operation

Dawn Jourdan

Florida State University

Intergenerational Participation: A Case 

Study of Actual and Perceived Levels of 

Participants of Joint Adult-Youth Planning 

Process

Jonathan Lepofsky

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Building Community Through Partnerships: 

The Impact of Renewal Community 

Designation on Local Revitalization

Laura Pangallozzi

Rutgers University

Faith-based Housing Capacity: Provision by 

a National Denominational Affiliate in the 

New York Region

Tricia Petras

Ohio State University

A Neighborhood Level Analysis of the 

Impact of Violent Crime on Housing Markets

Stephanie Yates Rauterkus

Louisiana State University

The Home Equity Conversion Mortgage: A 

Study of Attitudes and Awareness

Leah Tsoodle

Kansas State University

The Impact of Preferential Assessment on 

Housing Affordability

EDSRG 2004 Grantees

Felix AuYeung

University of Pittsburgh

Evaluating Rent-to-Own Programs: Path 

to Home Ownership for Low-Income 

Renters and Tools for Inner-City Community 

Development

Karen Danielsen-Lang

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and 

State University

Tenure Choices Among Minorities in Rental 

Gated Communities: An Underserved 

Market for Homeownership?

Andrew Deener

University of California Los Angeles

How Gentrification Deters Community 

Cohesion and Causes New Forms of 

Segregation: Lessons from a Los Angeles 

Neighborhood

Heather Luea

Kansas State University

Housing Costs, Non-Housing Consumption, 

and Household Debt
COLLABORATING FOR CHANGE: PARTNERSHIPS TO TRANSFORM LOCAL COMMUNITIES 

C-24 

Jeffrey McLaughlin

The Regents of the University of California

The “Bonus” of Affordable Housing: 

Analyzing California’s Density Bonus Law

Marlene O’Meara

University of Texas at Arlington

Evolving Challenges for Community 

Housing Development Organizations

Valerie Riecke

Georgia Institute of Technology

Public Construction Contracting: Reducing 

Regulatory Barriers to the Development of 

Affordable Housing, as well as all Forms 

of Multi-family Housing, by Allowing 

Alternative Contracting Techniques

EDSRG 2005 Grantees

Lyndsay Boggess

University of California

The Impact of Crime on Local Housing 

Demand in Los Angeles, California, 

1992–2004

Lynn Clark

The University of Akron

Landlord Attitudes toward Released 

Offenders

Michael Eriksen

Syracuse University

Crowd Out, Stigma, and the Impact of 

Low Income Housing Tax Credit and Public 

Housing on Neighborhoods

Cathy Yang Liu

University of Southern California

Space, Race and Skill: Intra Metropolitan 

Geography of Minority and Immigrant 

Youth Employment in Chicago, Los Angeles 

and Washington, DC

Abhishek Mamgain

University of Southern California

Is Sub Prime Lending Leading to Reverse 

Redlining and Price Discrimination?

Kimberly Mitchell

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State 

University

Whose Choice Is It Really? An Analysis 

of Property Owner and Manager 

Characteristics and their Impact on Housing 

Choice Voucher Acceptance

Corianne Scally

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

The Entrepreneurial Role of State Housing 

Finance Agencies in Housing Policy, 

Finance, and Administration

Kim Skobba

University of Minnesota

Influence of Section 8 Vouchers on Housing 

Careers

Leslie Strnisha

Case Western Reserve University

Neighborhood Effects of the Low Income 

Housing Tax Credit

Laura Tach

Harvard College

Effects of HOPE VI Redevelopment on 

Community Dynamics and Social Isolation
Research Grantees 1994–2009

C-25

EDSRG 2006 Grantees

No grants were made in 2006.

EDSRG 2007 Grantees

Courtney Cronley

University of Tennessee

Assessing the Relationship between 

Organizational Social Context and 

Technology Utilization Among Homeless 

Service Providers

Elizabeth Holt

Tulane University

Housing Conditions and Health: An 

Evaluation of the Impact of Residents’ 

Health Knowledge

William Larson

George Washington University

Estimating Differences Across Cities and 

Household Types in the Effects of Housing 

Vouchers on the Welfare and Housing 

Choices of Recipients

Stephanie Moulton

Indiana University

Targeting the Under-Served: An Evaluation 

of State MRB Programs

Rocco Pendola

University of California, Irvine

Central City Gentrification: A Perspective 

from the Streets of Skid Row, Los Angeles

Richard Smith

University of California, Berkeley

Immigration, Minority Businesses, 

and Spatial Mismatch in HUD Renewal 

Communities, Empowerment Zones, and 

Enterprise Communities

Hannah Thomas

Brandeis University

How Did I Get to Foreclosure? A Qualitative 

Study of the Processes Leading to 

Foreclosure

EDSRG 2008 Grantees

Andrew J. Greenlee

The University of Illinois at Chicago

A Relational Analysis of Porting in Illinois’ 

Housing Choice Voucher Program

Adrienne Holloway

Northern Illinois University

Increasing Affordable Rental Housing in 

Suburban Communities

Cindy Marchand-Cecil

Portland State University

Acilhtablbixw, Xwaac’ al’ al’ 

(Native American Longhouse): Health 

Communities, A Gathering Place

Leonor Vanik

The University of Illinois at Chicago

Through My Eyes: Transitioning into the 

Community
COLLABORATING FOR CHANGE: PARTNERSHIPS TO TRANSFORM LOCAL COMMUNITIES 

C-26 

Eric N. Waithaka

University of Washington

Envisioning Possible Futures: Emerging 

Adults from Low-income Families in the 

Seattle Asset-Building Initiative and their

Visions about Asset-Ownership

Laurie Walker

University of Denver

Collaboration in TOD of HUD 

Neighborhoods

Robert M. Walsh

The Regents of the University of Michigan

The Vancouver Urban Model: A New 

Typology for High Density Urban Housing 

with Potential for Application in American 

Cities
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