Metro Organizer: Equitable Development Updates
January 6, 2009
Event | 2009 Housing Policy Showcase
Event | Xcel Energy Hiawatha Project Community Forum
Event | HIRE Minnesota: Green Jobs for Our Communities
Event | Metro Organizer Networking Session: Organizing Wins!
Training | Progressive Technology Project TechCamp Online
Resource | Community Benefits Agreements: Policy for the 21st Century Economy
Resource | Re:Focus - Making Development Choices for Future Generations
Article | Stimulus for Whom? Using Federal Infrastructure Investment to Chart a Brighter Future for All
Article | The Truth About Green Jobs
Job Opportunity | Training Coordinator - Campus Camp Wellstone
Event | 2009 Housing Policy Showcase
8 - 11:30 am
Monday, January 12
Wilder Center, St. Paul
The Minnesota Housing Partnership invites you to the 2009 Housing Policy Showcase for Supporters and Advocates. The forum will feature key legislators giving their perspectives on what to expect in 2009; housing leaders detailing their policy agendas and priorities; and a report on Minnesota housing trends.
RSVPs are required. To RSVP and for more information, please visit the Minnesota Housing Partnership web site.
Event | Xcel Energy Hiawatha Project Community Forum
6:30 - 8:30 pm
Monday, January 12
Plaza Verde, Third Floor, 1516 East Lake Street, Minneapolis
Xcel Energy is proposing to build two new substations in the Phillips community of Minneapolis, one near Hiawatha Avenue and another near I-35W, connected by high voltage transmission lines. The Phillips Community Energy Cooperative is hosting a community meeting to discuss the Xcel Hiawatha Project. They invite all to attend and to be open to thinking about this project not from a pro or con perspective, but rather as an opportunity to be proactive about energy use in the neighborhood.
Event | HIRE Minnesota - Green Jobs for Our Communities
6 - 7:30 pm
Tuesday, January 27
Lao Family Community of Minnesota, St. Paul
HIRE Minnesota aims to unite a variety of community voices in a campaign to grow our economy and produce thousands of green jobs for low-income people and people of color in Minnesota. The campaign will seek commitments for new jobs in emerging sectors and secure major commitments for business development and job training for people of color.
Come to this town hall meeting to learn about this exciting campaign and the opportunities to improve our communities. Free food and musical entertainment. RSVP to let the Alliance know you'll be coming!
Event | Metro Organizer Networking Session: Organizing Wins!
3 - 5 pm
Thursday, January 29
Rondo Community Outreach Library, St. Paul
The Alliance invites metro-area organizers to our next Metro Organizer Networking Session. Come share your organizing wins from 2008 and join in the discussion on how to build our future organizing strategies from the experience gained from our victories. What did we learn? What’s next? The last hour of the event will be dedicated to informal networking. Bring your cards, program information and date books to set up one-on-ones with other organizers.
This event is free, but RSVPs are required. Light refreshments will be served. The Rondo Community Outreach Library is located at the corner of University Ave. and Dale Street. FREE underground parking is available enter from University Ave. on the south side of the street.
Training | Progressive Technology Project TechCamp Online
TechCamp is PTP’s boot camp for community organizers that covers the basic tech skills that every organizer needs to know. TechCamp Online will use web conference tools to enable you to attend TechCamp sessions from your office. All you need is the software you will be training on, a computer with high speed internet access, a browser like Firefox or Internet Explorer and a phone.
Sessions will be held on the third Thursday of every month. The basic session will be held in the morning from 11:00 - 11:45 am and the intermediate session will be in the afternoon from 1:00 - 1:45 pm. The cost is $25 per session.
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Resource | Affordable Housing for Low-Income Families: The Impact of the Recession and Foreclosures in the Twin Cities
This new report from the Wilder Center (PDF) looks at the effects of the recession and the foreclosure crisis on low-income families in the Twin Cities. It finds that nearly 1 in 5 households in the Twin Cities are both low-income and cost-burdened by their housing situations. The report discusses a variety of consequences to low-income families, including a decrease in homeownership, rent increases, homelessness and educational instability.
Resource | Community Benefits Agreements: Policy for the 21st Century Economy
In less than a decade, community benefits agreements—legally binding agreements negotiated between developers and broad-based coalitions of community and labor organizations—have strengthened local labor markets by transforming thousands of low-wage jobs into good, living wage and/or union jobs. Community benefits agreements (CBAs) have also provided access to jobs and job training for local neighborhood residents most affected by new developments in their communities. This report from The Mobility Agenda (PDF) examines the core components of CBAs that address low-wage work, strengthen local labor markets and advance the goals of social and economic inclusion. It offers brief examples of successful campaigns that highlight why CBAs are an approach to consider when community resources are at stake.
Resource | Re:Focus - Making Development Choices for Future Generations
This report from the McKnight Foundation highlights the Twin Cities' outer-ring suburbs, which — as they continue to widen — have the potential to either enhance or diminish the region’s overall quality of life. External factors are constantly changing the dynamics that shape these communities. The mortgage crisis has slowed growth pressures. The rise in gas prices has made transportation a central consideration in families’ decisions about where to locate within the region. Finally, a full third of the CO2 emissions that cause climate change are believed to come from transportation, which has exposed the inefficiencies of our current land-use patterns. All these external factors further reveal the interdependence of our region, and the growing need for local responses within this larger context. Read more from Re:Focus (PDF).
Article | Stimulus for Whom? Using Federal Infrastructure Investment to Chart a Brighter Future for All
The $500+ billion stimulus package making its way through Washington presents a once-in-a-generation chance to fight poverty and expand opportunity. But we will never realize that potential if the package doles out money using the same broken systems we have always used. We cannot continue an infrastructure policy that feeds sprawling exurbs and cuts off low-income communities from economic and social opportunity. In a newly released four-page analysis, Stimulus for Whom? (PDF), PolicyLink lays out ways the stimulus package can be used to promote equity in America.
Article | The Truth About Green Jobs
More and more politicians and advocates are framing climate change as "a moment of opportunity for innovation and job creation," as President-Elect Obama has put it, that can revitalize the flagging US economy. But occasionally, enthusiasm outpaces reality. This article from Mother Jones sifts through the challenges facing the green jobs movement.
Job Opportunity | Training Coordinator - Campus Camp Wellstone
Campus Camp Wellstone, a program of Wellstone Action, is seeking a training coordinator (PDF). Campus Camp Wellstone trains students and youth nationwide on how to run energized, community-building, WINNING campaigns. The training coordinator will focus on electoral and issue campaigns, and carry out standard trainings on campuses as well as customized trainings with partner organizations.
The Metro Organizer is a resource to Twin Cities-based organizers who work on racial, environmental and economic justice issues. The newsletter keeps organizers connected to the most recent and valuable information related to organizing, equitable development and regional equity.
To contribute a news item for the next Metro Organizer, please contact Tracy Nordquist Babler at tracy@metrostability.org.
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