Housing-Based Community Engagement
As part of CCSJ, CCDC expanded its resident services offerings to include community engagement in the largest low-income housing site in Chinatown, colloquially known as “the Pings,” and a site in the Tenderloin neighborhood called Tenderloin Family Housing (TFH). The residents of both sites are racially and ethnically diverse. At the Pings, 60 percent of residents identify as Chinese and 20 percent identify as Black. Residents at TFH include numerous Arab, Black, Chinese, Latine, and other immigrant families and families of color. The goals of the community engagement team are to create an inclusive and supportive environment for all residents and to make sure residents feel heard and treated with dignity.
Credit: Bob Hsiang
Much of the community engagement team’s day-to-day work is in support of residents facing emergencies, conflicts, safety concerns, or other urgent issues. The community engagement team uses a trauma-informed, healing, and restorative approach to de-escalate conflicts, mediate between different parties, and help residents avoid unwanted relocations. They also support site-wide programming to cultivate resident cohesion. Through daily interactions, the community engagement team become social anchors whom residents come to trust and rely on when they face issues, big or small.
Main program components
Office Hours
The community engagement team holds regular office hours where residents can walk in to ask for help. This can range from translating mail into English to resource referrals after losing a source of income.
Community-Wide Programming
The team manages the Youth Ambassadors program, which engages young residents to support community events and deliver newsletters and small gifts, all in the service of a friendly resident atmosphere. This program is described in more detail in a separate section.
One-on-one Intensive Support
The community engagement team will provide more intensive support for serious issues, such as when residents are having difficulty paying rent. The team will work to connect tenants with resources and advocate on their behalf to the property management team. In one instance, the team supported a youth resident through a restorative justice process to address property damage they had caused.
Keys to success
Showing up for the everyday, so you can be trusted in crises
Consistency and showing up for small everyday issues is important to build trust. When small issues arise, residents can practice being vulnerable in asking for help. This also provides staff an opportunity to show that they will treat residents with respect and can be trusted to champion their issues. Over time, resident trust deepens, allowing staff to provide support for bigger and bigger issues. As one staff member put it, residents can come to them for anything from the “everyday mundane to the everyday sacred.”
Diversity in staffing
It is very important for the team to be culturally and linguistically competent to support a diverse resident population. The team is composed of racially and ethnically diverse staff, including Arab, Black, and Chinese staff members, with many years of professional experience in resident services and bilingual capacity. Linguistic and cultural closeness to specific staff members can be an entry point for residents to build relationships with the entire community engagement team.
Promoting an affirmatively positive atmosphere
The team not only intervenes in negative incidents, but they also promote a positive community atmosphere through community events and giveaways. In this way, the team is not just seen as “problem-fixers” and combats potential stigma that might be associated with interacting with this team. This holistic approach also affirms that safety is not just the absence of incidents, but also a thriving and cohesive community.
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