Engaged Citizens
Overall, engagement in the East Cesar Chavez (ECC) community seems average. The community has neighborhood meetings that are open to the public. These meetings are meant to bring residents interests and issues to head, so individuals and small businesses can be heard. The neighborhood has baseball fields that seem to be regularly in use. These fields host mostly adult softball and kickball leagues. The schools are active with children from ECC and surrounding areas. The murals and other works of art on almost every street corner make me think that someone or some group of people care enough about the area to give it some vibrant personality.
I haven’t found or heard of many service related activities or organizations yet. The primary service center in the area is the Austin Baptist Chapel’s Angel House Soup Kitchen (see link below). The kitchen serves breakfast and lunch to homeless and other needy individuals. This is a necessary service in an area with many homeless individuals. Some of the residents, however, see it as a more of a nuisance. The kitchen brings the homeless into the ECC neighborhood instead of leaving them on the west/downtown side of the interstate. Many homeless don’t just eat at the kitchen, they take residence in the surrounding areas. Most notably, the public library in ECC always has quite a few seemingly homeless individuals, laying scattered throughout its parking lot.
Everyone I’ve talked to about ECC, though, has been more concerned about what the neighborhood and the city can do for them, instead of the other way around. The clear division of residents, offers a sense of contention. This makes each group feel like they’re less than whole in the relationship, and they individually are due something to be made whole.
Individual levels of engagement are pretty divided and carry different intentions among different types of residents. There’s no longer one population of residents – it’s mixed. The more established residents have Hispanic roots. Their businesses are meant to service the local area. The newer residents are mostly white and from a different class. They tear down older dwellings to make room for newer, bigger condos or houses. The new businesses are meant to service anyone in the downtown area – they’re well lit, clean and trendy. There is currently no functioning bridge in between these two groups. They live separate lives, have different values, and interact with their own.
The neighborhood association is still mostly meant to serve the more established residents – and rightfully so. The neighborhood plan issued by the City of Austin in the late 1990s, has been compromised numerous times. These newer residents are the ones who have compromised it. They’ve built the structures against building code, they’ve sought and been granter permitting by the city in contradiction to the plan, they’ve parked their cars up and down the streets. Regardless though, the neighborhood association needs to find a way to serve both groups and accept their differences instead of pretending the division is not real or that the neighborhood can return completely to its roots. The citizens need to work together from here forward to build a stronger community that values its roots and looks forward to what the future holds for it.
1 http://www.angelhouse-abc.com/index.html/
I haven’t found or heard of many service related activities or organizations yet. The primary service center in the area is the Austin Baptist Chapel’s Angel House Soup Kitchen (see link below). The kitchen serves breakfast and lunch to homeless and other needy individuals. This is a necessary service in an area with many homeless individuals. Some of the residents, however, see it as a more of a nuisance. The kitchen brings the homeless into the ECC neighborhood instead of leaving them on the west/downtown side of the interstate. Many homeless don’t just eat at the kitchen, they take residence in the surrounding areas. Most notably, the public library in ECC always has quite a few seemingly homeless individuals, laying scattered throughout its parking lot.
Everyone I’ve talked to about ECC, though, has been more concerned about what the neighborhood and the city can do for them, instead of the other way around. The clear division of residents, offers a sense of contention. This makes each group feel like they’re less than whole in the relationship, and they individually are due something to be made whole.
Individual levels of engagement are pretty divided and carry different intentions among different types of residents. There’s no longer one population of residents – it’s mixed. The more established residents have Hispanic roots. Their businesses are meant to service the local area. The newer residents are mostly white and from a different class. They tear down older dwellings to make room for newer, bigger condos or houses. The new businesses are meant to service anyone in the downtown area – they’re well lit, clean and trendy. There is currently no functioning bridge in between these two groups. They live separate lives, have different values, and interact with their own.
The neighborhood association is still mostly meant to serve the more established residents – and rightfully so. The neighborhood plan issued by the City of Austin in the late 1990s, has been compromised numerous times. These newer residents are the ones who have compromised it. They’ve built the structures against building code, they’ve sought and been granter permitting by the city in contradiction to the plan, they’ve parked their cars up and down the streets. Regardless though, the neighborhood association needs to find a way to serve both groups and accept their differences instead of pretending the division is not real or that the neighborhood can return completely to its roots. The citizens need to work together from here forward to build a stronger community that values its roots and looks forward to what the future holds for it.
1 http://www.angelhouse-abc.com/index.html/