Year of Reckoning Needs Assessments
Community members and partners know best what the barriers and opportunities are for expanding BIPOC homeownership and entrepreneurship. We engaged the community in each of our Year of Reckoning cities to understand how city programs can meet their needs. Their feedback is detailed in these reports, which in turn informed the cities’ workplans.
To learn more about the work of “Year of Reckoning,” and how the needs assessments fit into our overall work together, check out the blog “How 2020’s “Year of Reckoning” Shaped What Comes Next for Closing the Gaps.”
Context & Approach
Living Cities’ Closing the Gaps (CTG) Network is a ten-year initiative that brings together leaders from cities across the country to imagine and build an anti-racist society through the transformation of government policies, practices, and operations. CTG is particularly anchored on a vision for closing racial inequities in income and wealth. In 2021, six cities (Albuquerque, NM; Austin, TX; Memphis, TN; Minneapolis, MN; Rochester, NY; and Saint Paul, MN) in the CTG network participated in a “Year of Reckoning.” During this experience, they underwent a deep racial equity competency training led by the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond (PISAB), Third Space Action Lab, and Black Womxn Flourish. As the six cities emerge from the Year of Reckoning, they are developing and implementing specific strategies in service of their shared anti-racist vision.
Living Cities is providing technical support to the cities to develop strategies in two focus areas: homeownership and entrepreneurship. There are pronounced racial inequities in both areas, but they each also present outsized opportunities to create intergenerational wealth for communities of color. The cities of Austin, Memphis, Minneapolis, Rochester, and Saint Paul partnered with FSG, a mission-driven consulting firm supporting leaders to create equitable systems change, to conduct a community needs assessment to better understand the current state and the inhibiting and supporting drivers of racial equity in each focus area. In the context of the work that the City of Albuquerque’s Office of Equity and Inclusion has done to unearth the systemic disparities facing Black and native communities, the City has partnered with MASS Design Group, a firm focusing on the critical role that architecture has to play in supporting communities to confront history, shape new narratives, collectively heal and project new possibilities for the future, to conduct a community needs assessment.
The needs assessment process had three objectives:
- Increase each city’s understanding of the current state of racial inequities in home ownership and entrepreneurship, and the root causes of those inequities.
- Identify key drivers and inhibitors of racial equity in homeownership and entrepreneurship in each city and specific opportunities for action.
- Lay the foundation for closer ongoing partnership between city governments and their communities in advancing equity in homeownership and entrepreneurship
Albuquerque Needs Assessment
This report consists of two parts. Part I, the Needs Assessment, uses quantitative and qualitative data to convey an understanding of racial inequity in Albuquerque. Part II, the Site Planning & Analysis, identifies specific parcels for equitable development as a response to the findings in Part I. The data gathered as part of this report indicates that Black and …
Austin Needs Assessment
The current racial inequities in homeownership and entrepreneurship in Austin result from deliberate policy choices rooted in a historical pattern of systemic racism toward people of color and preferences toward White people. While Austin has recently experienced a period of extraordinary economic growth, Austinites of color have not benefited equally from the city’s economic prosperity. The city has become known …
Memphis Needs Assessment
The present racial inequities in homeownership and entrepreneurship in Memphis are inextricable from the city’s history. From its founding as the largest inland slave and cotton market and subsequent rapid growth during the Great Migration, through its later deindustrialization, transition to a low-wage economy, and profound White flight, Memphis has formed and reformed its racial hierarchy across generations through acts …
Minneapolis Needs Assessment
The present racial inequities in homeownership and entrepreneurship in Minneapolis are inextricable from the city’s history. While the Twin Cities have grown and maintained as a headquarters for billion-dollar companies across industries, BIPOC communities have been systemically excluded from wealth building opportunities and in some cases, have had their wealth destroyed, like in the case of the destruction of the …
Rochester Needs Assessment
The current racial inequities in homeownership and entrepreneurship in Rochester, NY result from a historical pattern of systemic racism toward people of color and preferences toward Whites. While Rochester has had many periods of prosperity throughout its history, Rochesterians of color have been excluded by housing and educational segregation, underemployment, underinvestment, White and economic flight to suburbs surrounding the city, …
St. Paul Needs Assessment
The present racial inequities in homeownership and entrepreneurship in Saint Paul are inextricable from the city’s history. While the Twin Cities have grown and maintained as a headquarters for billion-dollar companies across industries, BIPOC communities have been systemically excluded from wealth building opportunities, and in some cases have had their wealth destroyed, like in the case of the destruction of …
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