FORWARD: Issue #5: Housing
Community-Led Change
A July 2022 community meeting was part of the Community Stories Project, where resident storytelling is resulting in physical manifestations of a historic sense of place in San Francisco, California. Photo by Amy Sullivan, courtesy Mercy Housing.
The best-thought-out housing initiatives will fail if they lack leadership from the communities they seek to serve.
Particularly important for change-makers is understanding how communities see themselves—community identity—and responding to real community needs. While all the artist-led projects in this issue of FORWARD are designed to be responsive to needs as expressed by community members, two in particular are focused on empowering residents to express and solidify community identity and preserve housing affordability in the midst of rapid change.
In Brooklyn, New York, a theater piece gave residents of a public housing project creative opportunities to weigh in on their frustrations, needs, and hopes, while a parallel survey gathered community concerns to be relayed to city officials. High on residents’ lists of needs was the refurbishing and reopening of their community center, a hub of community identity. In Northern California, the massive makeover of a public housing site inspired a series of dinners in which residents told stories of their lives in the predominantly BIPOC community. The goal: preservation of these priceless narratives in various art media, for future generations of residents to learn from and be inspired by.
Continue reading to find out how these artist-led projects prioritize community as a powerful driver of change.
Soft
Cultural and social capital yields new commitments
Location: Gowanus Houses Community Center, BRIC House, Brooklyn, New York.
Artist Role: Productions by Theater of the Liberated (ToTL) as part of Making Gowanus, strengthening cultural connections, and identifying community needs of Gowanus Houses public housing residents in planning processes.
Partner Organizations: Hester Street in collaboration with a neighborhood steering committee.
Result/Impact: Building intergenerational social capital among residents, while showcasing their creativity. ToTL continues to engage arts and culture to advocate for New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) residents. The project elevated Gowanus community voices in New York City's planning process, and the creative community continues to activate around citywide processes. Cultural leaders partnered with Fifth Avenue Committee and Gowanus Neighborhood Coalition for Justice (GNCJ) to win commitments for housing repairs and the permanent reopening of the Gowanus Houses Community Center.
Frantasia Fryer performs in Soft. Photo © Theater of the Liberated, courtesy Hester Street.
What I want for my community? Is for it to shine. Not like rain or shine. But like a vibrant shine. Like some fresh kinda LED lights shine. And y’all, what’s a community if it ain’t mine? I gots lots of ideas and not enough time to implement, stories that don’t cost more than my rent. And community programs that are truly free, with no hidden fees and just, pictures of me.
With her poem, performed during the intergenerational theater production Soft, Frantasia Fryer, a Gowanus Houses resident, expressed concerns central to her public housing neighborhood: recognizing residents’ lived experiences and needs, repairing housing conditions, and reopening the Gowanus Community Center.
After neighborhood planning and rezoning conversations in 2016–2017, Theater of the Liberated (TOTL), founded by artist and Gowanus Houses resident Imani Gayle Gillison, collaborated with Masoom Moitra at Hester Street to develop Making Gowanus, an intergenerational arts forum. The cultural organizing project, in partnership with a steering committee of public housing residents, community leaders, artists, nonprofit organizations, and political representatives, was designed to raise public housing residents’ voices in dialogues about community change.
Steering committee members—including Fifth Avenue Committee, Naturally Occurring Cultural Districts NY (NOCD-NY), Arts Gowanus, Groundswell, Gowanus Canal Conservancy, Textile Arts Center, Spaceworks, FUREE, Arts & Democracy, BRIC, Gowanus Houses Art Collective, and former NYC Council members Stephen Levin and Brad Lander—supported ToTL’s development of a summer arts camp for local youth and a social justice theater production and exhibit called Soft.
Gowanus Wildcats perform in Soft. Photo © Theater of the Liberated, courtesy Hester Street.
Carolyn Ferguson performs in Soft. Photo © Theater of the Liberated, courtesy Hester Street.
Artists Masoom Moitra and Imani Gayle Gillison speak at the conclusion of Soft. Photo © Theater of the Liberated, courtesy Hester Street.
Gowanus Wildcats perform in Soft. Photo © Theater of the Liberated, courtesy Hester Street.
Performed at BRIC House, the play identified troubles, traumas, and other issues faced daily by public housing residents, including the challenges of deferred or neglected maintenance, with humorous skits about problems such as actually getting a plumber to come to your apartment, poignant appearances by community elders, and a performance by the longstanding Gowanus Wildcats drill team. Parallel to the project, Gillison, with Moitra and NOCD-NY, facilitated a Cultural Blueprint for Healthy Communities process with more than 75 neighbors, resulting in a report entitled “We Are Your Neighbors!” that was shared with local elected officials and city agencies, including the NYC Department of City Planning.
The Gowanus Community Center, a cultural hub closed for nearly two decades, is the heart of the community. As a result of the performance at BRIC House and direct community action, New York City allocated money for repairs in 2017. Yet the city hasn’t completed the community engagement process nor selected a service provider to operate the center after renovations. Meanwhile, the community has reactivated the center with discussions, cultural activities, holiday celebrations, and an artist residency with ToTL. Residents continue to advocate for the center’s permanent reopening, including a community-driven operating structure and programs, alongside broader housing needs.
“Building intergenerational social capital among residents, while showcasing their creativity, was certainly an amazing outcome of Making Gowanus and Soft,” says Sabine Aronowsky, campaign manager, Fifth Avenue Committee. Moreover, the artist-led initiative “created allyship that’s galvanized residents into long-term affiliation with the Gowanus Neighborhood Coalition for Justice (GNCJ), which has elevated community voices in the Gowanus neighborhood planning process, including participation in a community exhibit of Undesign the Redline."
Through GNCJ’s advocacy in that process—and the adoption of a 21-page Points of Agreement with the City—Gowanus Houses and Wyckoff Gardens have won $200 million for renovation of all residential units, and a renewed commitment to renovate and reopen the community center. “The bureaucratic contracting and agency processes slowed things down for the center, and the pandemic added to delays,” says Aronowsky. She adds, nonetheless, that “we’ve created the first-of-its-kind local Community Oversight Task Force of a City-sponsored rezoning with a commitment from City decision-makers to engage with the community and report on progress at least quarterly, which should ensure accountability and follow-through.”
A workshop with Urban Bush Women at Gowanus Community Center. Photo by SJR Photography.
Theater of the Liberated performs a second play, WOKE!, at Gowanus Community Center. Photo courtesy NOCD-NY.
The Gowanus Community Center is a hub of community activity. Residents participate in artmaking at a holiday event. Photo courtesy Imani Gayle Gillison.
Residents participate in artmaking at a holiday event. Photo courtesy NOCD-NY.
Theater of the Liberated cast and friends paint materials for a Juneteenth procession. Photo courtesy NOCD-NY.
Theater of the Liberated leaves land blessings and sings during a Juneteenth procession. Photo courtesy Theater of the Liberated.
The Community Stories Project
Preserving community amidst transformation
Location: Sunnydale HOPE SF, San Francisco, California.
Artist Role: A multipronged approach to capturing stories and creating a historical sense of place.
Partner Organizations: The San Francisco Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development (MOHCD), the HOPE SF Initiative, San Francisco Housing Authority (SFHA), Mercy Housing California, and Related California.
Result/Impact: Resident storytelling dinners result in physical manifestations of a historic sense of place.
Notes from a July 2022 community meeting for the project; resident storytelling is resulting in physical manifestations of a historic sense of place in San Francisco, California. Photos by Amy Sullivan, courtesy Mercy Housing.
Sunnydale HOPE SF, San Francisco’s largest public housing community in one of the city’s most vibrant but historically underserved neighborhoods, is undergoing transformation. New streets, parks, and homes, along with childhood education, recreation, and wellness centers, are under construction for longer-term and new residents, through a partnership led by the San Francisco Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development (MOHCD), the HOPE SF Initiative, San Francisco Housing Authority (SFHA), Mercy Housing California, and Related California.
Because generations of BIPOC families have lived in Sunnydale, “We want to make sure their history and stories aren’t lost in the midst of revitalization.”
— Ashlei Hurst
Because generations of BIPOC families have lived in Sunnydale, “We want to make sure their history and stories aren’t lost in the midst of revitalization,” says Ashlei Hurst, director of Community Life, Mercy Housing California. A $100,000 National Endowment for the Arts Our Town grant, in partnership with the San Francisco Arts Commission, supports the Community Stories Project through Mercy Housing California. In collaboration with Tommy Wong from Civic Design Studio, which specializes in cultural impact projects, and Nancy Pili Hernandez of the artist collective Trust Your Struggle, Sunnydale is taking a multipronged approach to capturing residents’ stories, which in turn will help to create a historic sense of place.
Residents are creating a timeline “starting with the neighborhood’s founding in 1941 into the future,” Hurst says. The team is also gathering documentation via storytelling dinners with residents. During community meetings and workshops, residents are invited to talk about any memorable event that occurred in Sunnydale, from kicking a soccer goal to shopping at a former store to snapping a picture. After a recent storytelling event, initiated by a slideshow that Wong facilitated, a resident said, “We’re still here, we still care, and the love that we have for our community still exists. The old Sunnydale and the new Sunnydale can and will coexist and make our community better. Growth is good.”
Learn about their storytelling workshops. Video produced by Joe Sullivan, courtesy Mercy Housing.
Residents’ stories may result in a painted or tile mural, an art gallery in the Community Center lobby, a documentary, or stories accessed by a QR code. “Tommy and Nancy bring a level of creativity and vision to the work that’s enhanced the project,” Hurst says. “They meet people where they’re at and facilitate conversations accessible to everyone. Only skilled artists can do that.” And their artistic processes empower the residents. “It meant a lot to me to share my memories past and present with people who I grew up with and those who live here now,” said one resident, “to rekindle stronger friendships in the family of our neighborhood.”
Tommy and Nancy bring a level of creativity and vision to the work that’s enhanced the project. They meet people where they’re at and facilitate conversations accessible to everyone. Only skilled artists can do that.
— Ashlei Hurst
FORWARD: Issue #5
Housing
© COPYRIGHT 2022 - FORECAST PUBLIC ART ISSN 2768-4113