our policy work
Community development is about rebuilding disenfranchised neighborhoods as a means of improving people's lives, stabilizing and growing local economies and strengthening the health of our nation overall. Community development takes many forms and involves a variety of partners. The LISC advocacy effort targets all potential public and private partners with a message specifically designed to illustrate the win-win scenarios created by improving the overall quality of life of any jurisdiction, whether local, state or national.
The following are some general themes that all community development advocacy efforts share:
- Community development is a "bottom-up" strategy that encourages local resident participation in crafting solutions to the social and physical problems found in their neighborhoods.
- Community development is holistic, because neighborhoods are not one-dimensional. Community development efforts encompass a broad-spectrum of activities such as housing production; education; employment; childcare; health services; encouragement of diversity in race; ethnicity and economic situation; crime prevention; economic development; and market revitalization, among others.
- Community development is based on the idea that the conditions of a neighborhood - both positive and negative - have a direct effect on the people who live in those neighborhoods. Therefore, in order to improve the lives of residents, direct improvements must be made to the neighborhoods in which they reside. Further, because neighborhoods do not exist in isolation, but rather are an interconnected network of economies, neighborhood conditions strongly impact the local, regional and national economy. Thus, neighborhood improvements benefit all of us, no matter where we live.
While community development has historically focused on challenged neighborhoods, it's not about making poor neighborhoods better for poor people. It's about helping people to build wealth and assets, and get out of poverty. What's more, community development efforts serve people with a variety of incomes and backgrounds. In fact, one goal of community development is to encourage diversity - economic, social and ethnic - in neighborhoods, thereby creating more stable, healthier communities.
Virginia LISC makes a great effort to create a supportive environment for community development practitioners. We work with a variety of stakeholders from public and private sectors to increase understanding about the work of community rebuilding.
Our policy work is focused on key issues of:
- Housing Preservation
- Smart Growth
- Healthy Communities
- Workforce Housing
- Deconcentration of Poverty
- Sustainable Community Development
LISC offers an objective view of both the qualitative and quantitative impact of community rebuilding investments. Utilizing technology, research and knowledge sharing networks, LISC helps to shape public policies and private sector resource allocations that support quality, scaled community change.
Partnering with groups like the Richmond Community Development Alliance, the Virginia Housing Coalition, Housing Virginia, the Virginia Association of the American Institute of Architects, Southern Environmental Law Center and others, Virginia LISC works to give community development a voice to create positive change for all Virginians, regardless of Economic or ethnic diversity.