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Community Organizing
Building Power and Institutional Change
Community organizing at the CDC is currently focused on fighting for and maintaining affordable, quality rental housing and on addressing the root causes of school dropout. While the CDC is committed to doing community work throughout the cities of Fitchburg and Leominster, its primary focus, at least for the next few years, will be in the neighborhoods north of Main Street in Fitchburg. We hope to strengthen our work around quality, affordable rental housing and addressing the school dropout rate, while at the same time developing new community leadership around the issues that they would like to see addressed and generating a fresh sense of hope, community, and energy in the neighborhood.
Taking Action Committee (TAC)
The Taking Action Committee (TAC), a group composed of residents concerned with the lack of quality, affordable rental housing, and the CDC are working towards developing a tenants association and creating a tenants’ rights workshop to engage and bring new community leadership on board. The CDC’s Taking Action Committee is working on organizing at the citywide level and outreach and training at the neighborhood level, focusing on the neighborhoods north of Main Street. We conduct outreach by doorknocking and surveying, so that we can get to know the concerns of the people in these neighborhoods. While knocking on apartment doors throughout these neighborhoods, we also educate renters and home owners about the possible hazards of lead paint, especially for young children, and give them information about the CDC’s deleading assistance programs.
The Taking Action Committee’s goal is to prevent the displacement of Fitchburg and Leominster residents; to advocate for the creation of new, and to keep existing family-sized, quality, affordable rental housing. “Affordable rental housing” means that your total monthly cost for renting is less than 30% of your gross monthly income.
Our Principals for Quality, Affordable Rental Housing:
Quality affordable rental housing that includes tenants with a range of incomes is the foundation for safe, healthy and vibrant communities.
Quality rental housing depends upon responsible landlords and responsible tenants.
Quality rental housing minimizes demolition and displacement of residents, preserves the historic character of neighborhoods and respects the environment.
Residents, government and public and private entities should partner to leverage all available resources to build and maintain quality, affordable rental housing.
Quality affordable rental housing should revitalize neighborhoods, encourage community participation and, where feasible, provided tenants with adequate access to services.
Youth Organizing Initiative
The CDC’s citywide youth organizing initiative emerged from the Cleghorn Action Team, which focused its efforts on a neighborhood youth development strategy in response to the overabundance of crime and poverty in the Cleghorn area. The CDC organizing department has, in conjunction with Cleghorn Neighborhood Center staff, built up the capacity of about thirty high school-aged youth to take on community and organizational leadership roles by hosting and facilitating youth organizing workshops covering the topics: approaches to social change, analyzing youth criminalization, understanding and challenging racism, movement and organizing legacies, principles of youth organizing, community generated root cause analysis, and direct action.
Youth leaders are currently in the process of developing a mini-citywide, youth leadership conference, where we hope to develop and launch a citywide youth organizing platform and campaign surrounding issues that the youth who attend the conference identify.
We hope to recruit new and energized leadership from this conference, leaders to participate in the ongoing, citywide organizing efforts and to take the lead in their individual schools. Our hope is that we are able to create, in addition to a citywide union of Fitchburg Public School students, vehicles for student participation in policy and hiring decisions made at the local level, within each of the public schools.
For more information on Community Organizing please contact David Thibault-Munoz,
Director of Community Organizing at (978) 342-9561 extension 120
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