Your Housing Team met on February 12 for what could be labeled an educational event. Our teacher was the very entertaining and information filled Jules Nielsen from the Leaven Land and Housing Coalition.
The two hour meeting was divided into two areas that your team was happy to get much needed information about. One was a technique for gathering information and establishing good relations. That technique is called a ‘research meeting’. These meetings could be with individuals or entities from which your Housing Team needs information or clarification on a certain subject. The end result of such a meeting would obviously be to garner the information, but is also designed to establish open communication and a good relationship with the individual or entity. As you know, this is your team‘s first experience in the area of affordable housing and we will have many needs for more information and/or clarification which we will gladly pass on to you.
The other half of the meeting was spent discussing the concept of ‘community engagement’. Obviously this implies discussions with our neighbors and the surrounding area. As with all endeavors, there are successful and unsuccessful ways of doing things. Our advantage is working with the Leaven Land and Housing Coalition. This coalition has participated in many community outreach endeavors and has developed a technique for successfully interacting with and establishing a cooperative atmosphere in the surrounding community for other housing projects. We look forward to that same success here at St. Paul’s.
Our next step, beginning in our March meeting, will be implementing this new knowledge by investigating how these two areas can be implemented in our potential housing project. We are sure that our learning will produce positive results!