Peoples Housing's
Community Arts Program 1993-1995

VII. MUSINGS AND CONCLUSIONS OF A COMMUNITY ARTS DEVELOPER

I believe that the integration of arts and cultural programs and enterprises at the grass roots level is an effective and powerful method of community development.

	A drum jam outside the Howard Theater leads to a series of free drum classes and workshops featuring the drumming group, Primal Connection.

I have seen how the types of arts programs we created at Peoples Housing changed peoples lives and possibly saved them. There are a number of reports and studies that document this power (the most recent is Coming Up Taller - Arts and Humanities Programs for Children and Youth At Risk, The President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities, 202-682-5409. You can visit their Web site at: http://www.cominguptaller.org).

I believe our method of creating programs was responsible and efficient. Given the scandalous lack of funding for neighborhood programming and infrastructure building, our adaptation of the asset based model of community building was logical and imperative.

We were making great strides in building a system of arts assisted community development programs when Peoples Housing collapsed and we were forced to cease operations.

There are several major conclusions I have drawn after three years at Peoples Housing and 16 years of work in the arts in Chicago.

Groups like Peoples Housing are masters of space creation and management. Most much of what we accomplished inside CAP could not have been possible without the several wonderful spaces that were put at our disposal. The power of easily accessible community space should be carefully noted. Many activities were initiated by people who entered the spaces and were inspired to create activities to fill them up.

I was not asked to pay for the use of the spaces and so our programs had a tremendous freedom to experiment, take risks and be open to the widest possible range of community uses. Peoples Housing paid my salary for the first year and provided about $10,000 in programming expenses and about $50,000 in physical rehab costs for the Howard Theater lobby and upstairs spaces (the rehab costs were financed by a loan from LISC). After the first year, I raised my own salary and funds for the arts staff and program supplies. While I was somewhat effective here, I found it extremely difficult to raise money for community based arts programs and arts facility improvements. Securing start-up and sustaining funds for this work was and remains problematic.

From 1990 to 1995 I attempted to communicate the power of the arts to cultural workers and to professionals outside the arts. I have been to conventions of municipal officials; I have presented to groups of community development professional; I have lobbied the community lending staff of commercial banks; I have worked with commercial developers and urban planners; I have argued with grass roots community activists and I have written cultural policy statements for candidates for public office. There is a great deal of mutual education we in the arts arena need to do with our colleagues in the community development field. I find that arts folk do not know much about the development world and development practitioners need to know much more about the potential of neighborhood arts.

Finally, I would say that we concentrate on seeking out, nourishing, coaching and expanding our community based creativity pool. I believe one of the criticisms that can be leveled at Peoples Housing and many other CDCs is that it failed to powerfully develop the human capital of the immediate neighborhood. We need to pay much more attention to the dynamics of talent development and skill transfer and make them the overarching priorities of our community based development work.

One of the most exciting aspects of the arts is its universal and transcending appeal to people of all ages, classes and educational experience. The arts provides a tremendously engaging and effective way to involve people and get them to exercise their creative muscles. There is a time honored principle in the organizing work of the Industrial Areas Foundation: "Imagination precedes implementation". Or, as we would say inside CAP, "If you can't imagine it, you can't change it". The arts is an immensely powerful vehicle for expanding a person's creative and imaginative facilities -- and by extension, those of an entire neighborhood.

	The Peoples Housing CAP sponsored dozens of activities - book stalls, circus classes, a youth newspaper and much, much more!

I hope that community development practitioners will seriously consider adding grass roots arts and cultural programs to their tool box. I hope that they will seek out the artists and their other creative neighbors to aid them in the goal of rebuilding our cities and creating a just and balanced society

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