Communicating with the community, both delivering information to residents as well as receiving resident feedback, is integral to Communities of Opportunity. A number of methods for community communication have been tried in the past or are proposed for the future. These include community meetings, resident associations, vouchers, and staff outreach workers. This section will focus on the role each has played, and how each method provides for information to flow both from the City to the community and more importantly from the community back to the City.

Community Voice Meetings

As part of the early implementation of Communities of Opportunity, the National Community Development Institute funded the Community Voices Project, an effort to obtain resident input on issues facing these neighborhoods. Approximately 270 residents were engaged in community wide meetings, focus groups, and follow up meetings held in each node. Based on these meetings, the National Community Development Institute laid out a list of priority concerns and strategies to address those concerns that were later incorporated into the 2006 Pilot Phase Business Plan (2006 Plan).

Recognizing the value of community input, the 2006 Plan also included a strategy for ongoing community input through regular community meetings, called Community Voice meetings, in which Communities of Opportunity staff, City representatives, and residents would identify needs, set priorities, and agree on commitments to action. However, the 2006 Plan did not include guidelines on how and when the Community Voice meetings would occur. Communities of Opportunity held only two formal Community Voice meetings at City Hall during the first two years of Communities of Opportunity.

The Opportunity Centers, community centers set up at each of the four Communities of Opportunity nodes, have held their own community meetings. The Opportunity Center staff initiate these informal community meetings, to discuss available programs and services, as well as any other concerns that residents would like to discuss. The Opportunity Center staff do not have attendance lists, agendas and minutes for these community meetings. Table 5.1 below shows the frequency and basic topics of Opportunity Center community meetings

Table 5.1

Frequency and Topic of Opportunity Center Community Meetings

While these informal meetings do provide some input, they fall short of the benefit of formal Community Voice meetings in that they (a) are not held regularly, (b) have an open agenda and only provide community input if a resident offers some, and (c) are not regularly attended by the Director of Communities of Opportunity or City department representatives.

Despite the difficulties in attracting residents to attend Community Voice meetings, the 2008 Plan reiterates the need for Community Voice meetings and calls for them to be held quarterly. However, the 2008 Plan does not state whether City department representatives, elected officials, or the Director of Community of Opportunities will attend. According to the Director of Communities of Opportunity, the Community Voice meetings will start in the fall of 2008.

In addition to holding Community Voices meetings, the Director of Communities of Opportunity should take steps to ensure that actual community input obtained in theCommunity Voice meetings and informal Opportunity Center community meetings reaches City representatives.

• First, the Director of Communities of Opportunity should create standards of documenting and distributing community input for Community Voice and Opportunity Center meetings. Documentation such as attendance lists, agendas and minutes should be available for every Communities of Opportunity-related meeting. Documenting the input will allow for the Director of Communities of Opportunity to identify (a) what programs or services are needed or in need of modification, and (b) a pattern of community requests. This documentation should then be provided to department representatives in planning Communities of Opportunity programs.
  
  
• Second, the Director of Communities of Opportunity should attend the quarterly Community Voice meetings, and ensure that City representatives are present.

Resident Associations

The 2006 Plan included a goal to create broad-based resident associations in each of the nodes that could:

(a) Set goals and priorities for the node;

(b) Create new norms and expectations for the node;

(c) Hold the City and residents accountable to the covenant; and

(d) Advocate on behalf of the node.

Communities of Opportunity created the resident associations in each node, calling them action teams . The resident associations were responsible for interviewing and helping to select the community-based organizations that would provide Communities of Opportunity services in the nodes. While these resident associations were successful in selecting community-based organizations, their role after the selection process was completed was unclear and participation declined. As stated in the July 1, 2008 Fiscal Year-End Report, the ongoing sustainability of the resident associations was mixed. Some residents involved with the resident associations either (a) chose programs that were personally beneficial, (b) left the community once they were able to get their life back on track, or (c) stopped attending the meetings if the programs were not beneficial for their needs. According to the Director of Communities of Opportunity, the resident associations were intended to attract new resident participation and develop new leaders, and while some nodes still have resident associations, none have fulfilled the goals in the 2006 Plan. Table 5.2 shows the current status of the resident associations in each node.

Table 5.2
Resident Association in the Nodes

According to the interviews of community leaders and resident association presidents, the resident associations provided an effective vehicle to share information between residents, community leaders, and Communities of Opportunity. One interviewee summarized the benefits of associations as an alternative to public meetings: residents can voice their opinions at the community meetings or talk to an action team member on a one-on-one basis because some residents may not want to talk to the whole board, and may only want to talk to one person.

Interviews also suggested that resident associations were one way to improve the residents' negative perception that Communities of Opportunity is yet another government-run program that is unaccountable the community.

The 2008 Plan does not include any role for the Communities of Opportunity resident associations. The Director of Communities of Opportunity has indicated that tenants associations, which are created by the San Francisco Housing Authority at each public housing property to represent the residents, will replace the role of Communities of Opportunity resident associations. While all these tenants associations are established, they are in varying states of activity, as shown in Table 5.3.

Table 5.3

San Francisco Housing Authority Tenants Association Activity

Reactivating the tenants associations is not included as a goal in the 2008 Plan. According to the San Francisco Housing Authority, although reactivating the tenants associations is a priority for the San Francisco Housing Authority no specific plan is in place to reactivate the tenants associations., The Housing Authority would need to provide training to residents, such as capacity building and decision making, which the San Francisco Housing Authority is working to do through Hope SF Academy [1].

In order to improve community input through the tenants associations or a defined resident organization, Communities of Opportunity should create a plan with the San Francisco Housing Authority to reactivate inactive tenants associations. The plan should consist of:

(a) Guidelines to reactivate inactive tenants associations in the Communities of Opportunity node;

(b) The participants and their roles; and

(c) A timeline with specific outcomes.

Since some nodes' tenants associations are more active than other nodes, Communities of Opportunity should also create a plan to help the more active tenants associations in the areas where they may need assistance. In addition, Communities of Opportunity should talk to tenants associations' representatives to develop a plan to assist the residents' organizations to participate more effectively in City departments' planning for services.

While the tenants associations are documenting their meetings with agendas, minutes and sign in sheets, the Housing Authority was unable to provide these documents. Communities of Opportunity, along with San Francisco Housing Authority, needs to create standards of documenting (a) the resident organization meeting discussions, (b) attendance, and (c) time and location of the meeting.

Vouchers

Due to the difficulties of gathering a community participation either through Community Voice meetings or resident associations, Communities of Opportunity is proposing a voucher system, which would allow an individual resident to use services from the community-based organizations and city-funded programs of their choice. To date, Communities of Opportunity has not created a specific plan on how (a) vouchers would be distributed to residents, (b) service providers would collect funds, and (c) data regarding resident preferences would be gathered, distributed, and used.

The July 1, 2008 Fiscal Year-End Report states that the voucher system would be in place by fall of 2008; however, according to interviews with the Director and Deputy Director of Communities of Opportunity, the voucher system will not begin until January of 2009.

Opportunity Centers and Community Staff

In addition to quarterly Community Voice meetings and tenants associations, the 2008 Plan relies on Communities of Opportunity community staff to engage the community.

Opportunity Centers

In the 2006 Plan, one of the goals of Communities of Opportunity was to create an Opportunity Center in each of the four nodes: Alice Griffith, Hunters Point, Hunters View and Sunnydale. The Opportunity Centers would:

(a) Provide the residents with access to City and nonprofit services and/or programs such as workforce development, child care, public benefits, financial skills building, and other Communities of Opportunity -linked services and supports;

(b) Become the home-base for Communities of Opportunity community staff and outreach workers to engage residents in the City and nonprofit services and/or programs;

(c) Serve as centers for working families to apply for public assistance and engage in social networks.

The role and goals of the Opportunity Centers did not change in the 2008 Plan.

As stated in the 2006 Plan, all four Opportunity Centers should be established by the end 2007. As shown in Table 5.4 below, three Opportunity Center opened before the end of 2007 and one opened in March of 2008.

Table 5.4

Opening Dates of the Opportunity Centers

Essentially, the Opportunity Centers at the four nodes are places that residents can access information about services and/or programs, and engage in social networks. However, the number of resident visits that each of the Opportunity Centers receives differ as shown in Table 5.5 below.

Table 5.5
Number of Resident Visits

Community Staff

A typical Communities of Opportunity node is served by a number of staff members, most of whom are residents of those respective nodes:

1. A site coordinator who manages the Opportunity Center and provides residents with information and referrals to City and community based organization services.

2. One or more truancy peer coaches who work with the school district and community members to identify truant youth and keep them in school.

3. One or more housing peer coaches who assist residents with redevelopment issues (HopeSF), maintenance problems, back rent, evictions, and transfer within San Francisco Housing Authority properties.

4. One self sufficiency coordinator (shared between all nodes) who performs computer-based benefits screenings.

Chart 5.1 below shows an organizational chart for a generic node as described by Communities of Opportunity staff during interviews with the Budget Analyst.

Chart 5.1

Communities of Opportunity Node Organizational Chart

Each node has a variation on the model above due to the specific needs of each node and the availability of trained staff.

Site Coordinators

The 2006 Plan did not define specific roles and performance goals for the site coordinators of the Opportunity Centers aside from stating that the locally-recruited staff would develop the Opportunity Center by incorporating the residents' opinion. In the 2008 Plan, the roles of the site coordinators are more defined than they were in the 2006 Plans. The site coordinators are responsible for:

(a) Informing and enrolling the residents in the City and nonprofit services;

(b) Rebuilding the trust between the government and the community;

(c) Rebuilding the social networks;

(d) Working with partner departments to bring City services to the community; and

(e) Listening to residents' ideas.

Currently, each Opportunity Center has a site coordinator who provides the residents with access to City and nonprofit services, conducts community events, and works to gain community input.

As stated in the 2008 Plan, Communities of Opportunity relies on Opportunity Center site coordinators to gather community input in addition to conducting outreach, assisting residents with program enrollment, working with partner departments, and organizing events. Based on the interviews of the site coordinators, their main goals are to conduct outreach and assist residents with program enrollments.

Since the Opportunity Center site coordinators' main responsibility is to connect residents with City services, gathering and documenting community input may not be a priority. While the Opportunity Center site coordinators should continue to listen to the community suggestions, standards of asking, receiving, recording, and reporting community input should be implemented to ensure that ideas are correctly documented. Communities of Opportunity needs to create guidelines for the site coordinators and work with the site coordinators to ensure that guidelines are being used.

Peer Coaches

As stated in the 2006 Plan, Communities of Opportunity's goal was to create an outreach/recruiting team of 8-10 residents per node to conduct Communities of Opportunity-initiative implementation and door-to-door outreach. The 2006 Plan did not set any target recruitment or outreach goals for the recruiters.

As each Opportunity Center opened, local residents were hired as recruiters. According to the 2008 Plan, the recruiters were generally unsuccessful in engaging the community in the new programs because the recruiters lacked the necessary depth of knowledge to meet and were overwhelmed by the high level of assistance required by the families.

Communities of Opportunity changed their method to engage the community in the new programs in the 2008 Plan. The recruiters were replaced by peer coaches who were either trained in housing issues or truancy issues. The peer coaches are residents who are either (a) assigned community service hour through Project 20[2] or (b) employed part-time by the Southeast Neighborhood Jobs Initiative. As stated in the 2008 Plan, the housing peer coaches are responsible for discussing and working with the residents in a more private setting (i.e. living room meetings) to discuss any housing issues or redevelopment questions that they could have. The truancy peer coaches are responsible for educating parents about the importance of education and assisting them to get their children to school. The 2008 Plan states that Communities of Opportunity is creating the third set of peer coaches who will focus on jobs and benefits.

The truancy peer coach training was held on January 3, 2008 by San Francisco Unified School District. Communities of Opportunity also held housing peer coach trainings.

Each Opportunity Center has a dedicated housing and truancy peer coach or shares with other Opportunity Centers.

Table 5.6
Number of Resident Visits

Based on the Communities of Opportunity Truancy and Housing reports, the truancy peer coaches assisted 175 youths. Based on interviews, the housing peer coaches assisted and enrolled 259 families in new programs.

Self Sufficiency Coordinator

A single part-time self sufficiency coordinator, who began in March of 2008, covers all nodes. The self sufficiency coordinator performs computer based benefits screenings to determine which services would help residents become self sufficient, such as applying for MediCal, getting child care service and learning about financial responsibility. Based the self sufficiency coordinator interview, approximately 20 residents per month receive self sufficiency assistance. Notably, the 2008 Plan makes no mention of the self sufficiency coordinator.

Goals for Communities of Opportunity Community Staff

To strengthen the relationship between the City and the communities, the 2006 Plan's was to hire local residents as the site coordinators and recruiters. Although this goal is not included in the 2008 Plan the community center staff are made up of Communities of Opportunity residents.

Individual performance goals for each of the staff members are not in place. None of the Communities of Opportunity staff interviewed by the Budget Analyst could identify a monthly performance goal (i.e. number of referrals or meetings) for which they were responsible. The Director of Communities of Opportunity should create measurable monthly goals for each staff member.

Distributing Information within Communities of Opportunity

With Community Voices meetings yet to be held and dormant resident associations in some nodes, Communities of Opportunity community staff are the only method for Communities of Opportunity to communicate with the community.

According to interviews with Communities of Opportunity staff, prior to discussing truancy or housing issues, each peer coach performs a general needs assessment, known as a prosperity plan, for each client. The results of all assessments are compiled and delivered to the Director of Communities of Opportunity to facilitate forecasting service needs. This summary information is not shared with all peer coaches and site coordinators. After completing the prosperity plan, the peer coach engages the resident on either housing or truancy issues, delivering information about that issue and generating a plan customized to that resident's needs. The peer coach reports to his or her immediate supervisor the details of the meeting as well as a strategy for follow up if necessary.

According to interviews, there are regular site coordinator meetings, housing peer coach meetings, and truancy peer coach meetings. These meetings allow for information sharing between staff with the same duties; however there are no meetings that allow for information sharing between all Community of Opportunity staff serving the same node.

Similar to the meeting structure, reports are also not shared across staff serving the same node. Both peer coaches and site coordinators send monthly reports to their immediate supervisors which are ultimately delivered to the Director of Communities of Opportunity; however, these reports are not typically shared between peer coaches and site coordinators even though they serve the same node. While report sharing may introduce resident confidentiality problems, the lack of information sharing within a node is of specific concern because it contradicts Communities of Opportunity's stated goal of providing integrated and coordinated services. The Director of Communities of Opportunity should institutionalize information sharing between staffers working in the same node and staffers performing the same function in different nodes.

Distributing Information to City Departments

Communication is not just about distributing community feedback to Communities of Opportunity members, but delivering that information to the several City departments providing services in these nodes. Based on interviews of City departments, Communities of Opportunity staff, and community members, community input is not systematically reaching the City departments. While it is clear that the Director of Communities of Opportunity takes any community input he might receive to the City departments, there is still not a clear system of communication resulting in a disconnection between the community and City departments. Communities of Opportunity works on the community level to receive community input, but the 2008 Plan does not state how the input is distributed to City departments. In addition, should the City department make a decision based on community input, the 2008 Plan does not state how the City departments would communicate that decision back to the community.

To best utilize the information received, Communities of Opportunity should create guidelines to determine how:

1. City departments formally receive resident input;
2. City departments work with the nodes to make changes to programs;
3. These changes are communicated to the residents.

The implementation of the guidelines will ensure that Communities of Opportunity and City departments are taking advantage the community input.

Conclusion

While Communities of Opportunity has made meaningful progress to communicate with the community, there are gaps in its strategy. Information flow from the City to the community relies on peer coaches and site coordinators. However, neither type of staff member has a performance goal to which they are accountable for delivering that information. Information flow from the community to the City relies on Community Voice meetings, which do not regularly occur, and peer coaches and site coordinators who have neither a standard method to report that feedback nor accountability to gather it. While the Director of Communities of Opportunity takes any community input he might receive to the City departments, there is still not a clear system of communication. In addition, to the extent that the proposed voucher system provides data about resident preferences in service providers, there is no plan on how such data would be gathered, distributed, and used.

The Director of Communities of Opportunity staff has stated that they will use reactivated tenants associations to gather community feedback. However, no plans are in place to reactivate these associations. Once Communities of Opportunity has successfully gathered community input, there is no institutionalized method, nor a plan to create one, for distributing that information throughout Communities of Opportunity staff members and other relevant City departments.

Recommendations

The Director of Communities of Opportunity should:

5.1 Ensure that the quarterly Community Voice meetings are documented and that a senior Communities of Opportunity staff member attends.

5.2 Work with the San Francisco Housing Authority to reactivate the tenants association by creating a plan with (a) guidelines to reactivate a tenants association within a specific community, (b) the participants and their roles, and (c) a timeline with specific outcomes.

5.3 Create a set of guidelines to standardize how community input is documented from (a) site coordinators discussions, (b) peer coach discussions, (c) Community Voices meetings and (d) resident or tenants associations.

5.4 Create a set of guidelines to determine (a) how City departments will formally receive input, (b) how City departments work with the nodes to make possible changes, (c) how the changes are documented, and (d) how the changes are communicated to the residents.

5.5 Create a feedback method/plan to let the residents know how the City Departments are using the community input.

5.6 Create measurable monthly goals for both delivering information and gathering feedback for each Communities of Opportunity community staff person responsible for interacting with the community.

5.7 Create standardized report templates for each Communities of Opportunity community staff person.

5.8 Require reports be circulated to community staff working in the same node and community staff performing the same function in different nodes.

Costs and Benefits

Implementation of the Budget Analyst's recommendations can be accomplished within Communities of Opportunity's existing resources. The intent of these recommendations is to (a) improve the delivery of information to the community, (b) harvest feedback from residents, and (c) distribute resident feedback to City service providers. The benefits of improved communication include tailoring services to its customers, increasing resident enrollment in those services, and increasing the level of resident investment with Communities of Opportunity.