HEART OF THE WEST SIDE COALITION
Over the last 10 years, Community Partnership and volunteers have been helping to revitalize declining communities and have been assisting neighborhoods further strengthen the foundation for a healthy community through creating a vision, asset mapping, community capacity building initiatives and integrated prevention programming.
The Heart of the West Side Resources Gaps Analysis project provided a framework for building a stronger neighborhood, and qualitative, quantitative and spatial analysis of baseline data were prepared using GIS to identify neighborhood specific concerns.
The vision came to fruition with the opening of a Community Resources Center made possible through a Community Service Block Grant to OACAC. The Partnership teamed up with OACAC in the development of a coalition made up of members of each Partnership collaborative, to fully integrate supportive services to enhance the quality of life and reduce barriers to service access for the residents living within the Heart of the West Side neigh-borhood. Four primary focus areas have been identified: seniors, children and families, neighborhood improvement, and neighborhood safety.