The Three R’s of Re-neighboring
As Metanoia positions to embark on a three year strategic plan beginning in January, one of the words you are going to start hearing a lot of is ‘re-neighboring.’ Re-neighboring within the context of community development is an intentional process of relationship building with the goal of strengthening a neighborhood. It happens principally with those who actually live in a neighborhood. The “re” part acknowledges that all too many of our neighborhoods (wealthy and low income alike) have become collections of people that do not know one another. In wealthier communities this has some negative side effects, but in low income communities people truly need good neighbors to survive. It is good neighbors who will provide an extra set of eyes to keep crime down or watch a child for a single parent. Good neighbors speak out when something goes wrong and pick up trash on the street before it blows into your yard.
I first heard the terminology around re-neighboring through association with the Christian Community Development Association. It was there that I also learned the three R’s of this effort to create strong communities through paying attention to what kind of neighbors we nurture. Each of these R’s describes an important group of people that are important to the work of creating a healthy community. They each bring gifts to a neighborhood that are unique and need to be uplifted. So here we go:
Re-locaters: I’m starting with these folks first because they are the ones that usually get all the attention (even though, in some ways they are least important to sustainable change). These are people that choose to locate themselves in a new distressed community for the purpose of making that neighborhood healthy. My wife and I are in this category as are some of our staff (such as Erica Briggs, our Children’s Leadership Director). Re-locaters bring outside knowledge into the neighborhood and usually tend to be wealthier and better educated (at least, if you measure those things by dollars and degrees) than their neighbors. Re-locaters bring knowledge, but they also have to be extremely careful not to take over and negate the gifts of the other two sets of neighbors below.
Remainers: The remainers are those who have lived in a neighborhood for many years. They tend to be middle aged to older adults, but they also might include young people who chose to stay in the community for a variety of reasons even after high school graduation. Their knowledge and understanding of the neighborhood is essential. Many can tell stories of times when the neighborhood was a healthier, vibrant place. They may be a little discouraged, but they are courageous and have chosen not to leave when others made that decision. Us re-locaters must let the remainers be our teachers (too often re-locaters get that idea reversed to their peril). They can help us avoid pitfalls and give us perspective for the long haul work of community transformation. At least once a month, I sit down over a cup of coffee with our local city councilman (also a Metanoia Board Member), Michael Brown. He’s a strong remainer. I come with questions and he teaches me about the community and helps me understand what his neighbors have been going through long before I arrived. If our work at Metanoia doesn’t honor and create space for remainers we’ve failed in our efforts at healthy communities.
Returners: In many, ways, Returners are the ‘holy grail’ of community development. These are people that leave the community to pursue a life beyond the neighborhood at some point, but then elect to return to the community. Sometimes returners are recent college graduates, at other times returners are older adults who may be trying to return to their roots or care for an elderly family member. They are important and powerful because they tend to bring some of the gifts of both re-locaters and remainers. Returners are also an important bell weather because their return means that the community has reached a level of stability and health that is encouraging people to consider returning. Metanoia’s first homebuyer, Tineaka Robinson is a returner. She is now raising three children, one of whom Raekwon is a senior in high school who attends Metanoia’s Youth Leadership Programming. She lives across the street from our Evelyn and I and has been a great neighbor. Her son is strengthening the neighborhood by mentoring young children at Metanoia and volunteering at a local senior citizens home. Returners can be powerful because they know of the world beyond the neighborhood, and they also know the neighborhood well enough to have a smaller learning curve than re-locaters.
It takes each of these three R’s to create a healthy community. There is a name for community developed with just re-locaters – it’s called gentrification, and it is as much a threat to distressed communities as crime and poor schools. But we’ve also learned a slightly longer term that describes community developed with all three groups – gentrification with justice. Bringing new residents in to be neighbors in the existing community is important, but not more important than honoring and creating space for those who are already in a community to thrive. I hope over the next three years you will see Metanoia engage in a process that truly honors the three R’s of re-neighboring.
