By Donita Fry, Contributing Columnist
Portlanders may be aware of the city’s reputation for being
progressive, one that infuses sustainable theories and practices in all aspects
of economic and community development. Portland also prides itself on
tolerance, social equity and diversity.
Yet, as I became informed and active in social justice and
equity issues facing people of color in this city, I discovered that Portland
still has room for improvement in becoming a healthy, sustainable city. I
affirm this statement through my experiences as a woman of color living in a
region that has some of the worst disparities facing communities of color in
the nation.
Elders from my tribe say everyone has a song to sing. This
song is the reason we are on this earth. When we are doing what we came on this
earth to do, we know true happiness. These are principles of traditional
knowledge practiced by many cultures. How will we know our song? We are experiencing
exciting times; collectively, we are working toward more profound measures of
social reform and creating truly sustainable development. Together, we are
embarking on innovative and uplifting projects that are shaping equitable,
healthy, outcomes for our families and environment. Together we are envisioning
and creating connected neighborhoods that support the needs of our relatives —
familial and ecological. I would like to highlight work emerging from the
community in the Cully neighborhood in Northeast Portland. This project is
recognizing the potential inspired when we are singing our song. Cully
residents and community-based organizations are creating an enabling strategy
to accelerate neighborhood-scale sustainability.
According to the Coalition for a Livable Future’s Equity
Atlas, the Cully neighborhood suffers from multiple environmental harms —
poverty, lack of food access, lack of parks, and lack of access to nature:
- 18 percent of Cully residents live in poverty,
compared to a regional average of 9.9 percent - 24 percent of Cully residents live within one
quarter-mile of a grocery store; the regional average is 34 percent - 24 percent of Cully residents live within one
quarter-mile of a park; the regional average is 49 percent - 5 percent of Cully residents live within one
quarter-mile of habitat; the regional average is 64 percent
Many of Portland’s low-income people and people of color
spend their daily lives in places that suffer disproportionate environmental
impacts in environmentally-deficient places like Northeast Portland’s Cully
neighborhood. Beginning in 2010, three locally trusted community-based
organizations came together and established Living Cully: A Cully Ecodistrict.
The project’s vision is a long-term, community-driven and equity-based strategy
to introduce environmental assets into Cully in response to existing community
needs and connect underserved residents to the design, construction and use of
these assets. The community is reinterpreting sustainability as an anti-poverty
strategy.
First and foremost, Living Cully produces equity benefits.
This requires an equity lens of asking at the start of each day: How do we
produce outcomes that benefit low-income people, people with disabilities and
people of color? It’s a necessary approach to address some of the disparities
shown in the Coalition of Communities of Color’s recent research documenting
deep and growing disparities in our region. We are asking ourselves, what would
our communities look like if everyone prospered and developed to their fullest
potential?
Living Cully is a strong partnership of Hacienda Community
Development Corporation, the Native American Youth and Family Center, and Verde
— nonprofits joining ongoing neighborhood-based efforts to build community, build
environmental wealth for low-income people and honor the unique cultural
traditions of the diversity of people in the Cully neighborhood. Living Cully
partners have individual signature projects that combine environmental,
economic and social justice goals, build community priorities, and provide
equity: Let Us Build Cully Park!, Rebuilding Clara Vista, Columbia Biogas,
Cully Pathways to Nature, Habitat for Humanity housing and revitalization
efforts, Colwood Open Space & Park, and Safe & Connected Cully
(sidewalks and street improvements).
A great example of this collaborative effort is the Let Us
Build Cully Park! project. Cully’s 13,300 residents have only one park (with
only a dog park and limited trail) in the neighborhood. Neighbors have been
advocating for a park for a long time and successfully advocated for
development of a park atop an old landfill near Northeast 72nd Avenue and
Killingsworth. I served on the committee that developed the master plan to turn
this neighborhood blight into a park. Part of our charge was to think outside
the box and ask, “How do we lift up individual song?” and honor the diversity
of the neighborhood. It is with great pleasure that we discover human nature is
motivating this work.
Let Us Build Cully Park! engages low-income youth and youth
of color in deep and meaningful ways. Seventh- and eighth-grade students at
Scott School integrated the design of the community garden at the park into
their school curriculum last year, learning about landfills, community gardens and
working alongside a landscape architect to create the design. Homeless students
at the Community Transitional School, along with students at Scott, Rigler, and
Hacienda CDC’s Expresiones program, are nearing completion of the design of the
play area. For many of the students, sustainability is not new, but this
experience brings them closer to ownership of the means by which Portland
develops and builds wealth, which is defined from diverse worldviews. For the
first time in a long time, local Native American community members participated
in a ground blessing ceremony to acknowledge and welcome the reclamation of
land at the Cully Park site. The Native American community also engaged in the
design of a Tribal learning garden as a feature in the park. There are plans to
replicate and practice this work at other sites around Portland.
The Cully Park project is integrating social and cultural
conditions, social practices, and community values and attitudes into a
completely new context. Cully residents serve as examples of conscious
transformation of a social type, resulting in a reinvigorated and revitalized
community with economic prosperity, renovated civic pride and deep community
involvement.
Together with all the neighborhood-serving organizations, we
are building the community’s capacity to design, plan and build the assets
needed for a healthy and vibrant neighborhood. We are working to anticipate and
address the displacement of low-income people, as has so often happened in
Portland neighborhoods when investments are made. In a time of dwindling public
resources, we are establishing new partnerships, strengthening existing
relationships and maximizing our resources toward one common goal: building a
healthy connected neighborhood that produces needed assets and multiple
benefits (green jobs/job training, minority/woman-owned business opportunities
and community engagement).
Portland possesses great natural attributes and social
capital that enhance neighborhood livability. Watch what is happening in Northeast
Portland and what is possible from authentic community development in Cully!
Donita S. Fry is an enrolled member of the
Shoshone‐Bannock Tribe of Fort Hall, Idaho. Fry coordinates and facilitates the
work of a grassroots advocacy group called the Portland Youth and Elders
Council at the Native American Youth and Family Center. She is a participating
partner in multiple commissions and programs with the City of Portland.
Formed in 2001, the Coalition of Communities of Color
(CCC) is an alliance of culturally specific community-based organizations with
representatives from six communities of color: African, African American, Asian
and Pacific Islander, Latino, Native American, and Slavic. Representation on
the CCC is determined by individual communities, and all decisions are based on
consensus.
The mission of the Coalition of Communities of Color is
to address the socioeconomic disparities, institutional racism, and inequity of
services experienced by our families, children and communities; and to organize
our communities for collective action resulting in social change to obtain
self-determination, wellness, justice and prosperity.
This article appears in 2013-03-15.