Jan. 30 “Tackling Poverty” Event to Focus on Homelessness and Housing

Posted on December 6, 2012 by Colin Powell Center

City Limits Magazine is hosting an event at El Museo del Barrio, 6:00 pm, on January 30, 2012. The event will focus on the national and local policy agenda for urban housing and homelessness, but is part of a greater series titled, “Tackling Poverty.” The panelists include the following people:

Ralph da Costa Nunez, President and Chief Executive Officer Institute for Children, Poverty, and Homelessness,
Christopher M. Brown, Director for Legislative Affairs, PolicyLink, and
David Jones, President and CEO of Community Service Society,

with a time for networking to follow. The event is free and open to faculty, community partners, students, etc. Below is the event page, as well as the registration page. Hope to see you all there, and please feel free to share and forward. (We will also post this on our Facebook page!)

Event page: http://www.tacklingpovertynyc.com/#!upcomingevents/cee5
Registration:http://tacklingpovertymanhattan.splashthat.com/

Join Us: on Dec. 6 for “Stop and Frisk and Marijuana Arrests: Policing Communities of Color in Harlem and Beyond”

Posted on October 28, 2012 by Colin Powell Center

In 2011, More than 684,000 individuals, primarily young African-American and Latino men and women, were stopped under New York City’s controversial “Stop and Frisk” policy. Now the Center and key partners will spotlight the devastating consequences of these and related policing tactics in a community justice forum on Thursday, December 6.

DATE: Thursday, December 6, 2012
TIME: 6:30 p.m.
PLACE: Faculty Dining Hall, NAC Building, CCNY campus
WHO: Free and Open to the Public; reception following.
RSVP here now, or by email: cpowellctr [at] ccny.cuny.edu Continue reading →

Service-Learning Faculty Fellow Links Community Voices to Neighborhood Needs

Posted on August 16, 2012 by Colin Powell Center

Professor Mary Lutz presents the results of the West Harlem community needs assessment project to members of Community Board 9. Photo: Genéa Stewart

By Mary Lutz and Jonathan Bennett

How do you find out what New York City communities need? You stop people on the street and ask them.

This simple and ingenious technique for assessing community needs has been tested successfully in two of New York City’s 59 Community Districts and is the subject of a 43-page report released this month by CCNY’s Center for Worker Education Professor Mary Lutz, a service-learning faculty fellow and public scholar with the Colin Powell Center.

“It’s easy to imagine that this method, in combination with local political action, could be an important step to bring creative small-town democratic decision making into big city life,” says Professor Lutz. “It is a promising alternative to the top-down decision making that is currently favored by the Bloomberg administration.”

Continue reading →

Save NYC’s Abandoned Buildings, Save the Planet

Posted on July 26, 2012 by Colin Powell Center

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A vacant building in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Photo: Flicker Clicker / Creative Commons

By Alex Davies, Communications Coordinator

In a January 2012 report, grassroots advocacy group Picture the Homeless surveyed vacant buildings and properties in New York City, finding enough space to house nearly 200,000 people — four times the homeless population of the city.

As the Center expands its work on environmental issues, I’ve been thinking about how the expression, “the greenest brick is the one already in the wall” applies to the report. It’s the unofficial mantra of the design section of TreeHugger, an environmental blog I contribute to. Here’s a simpler way to put it: It’s a waste (of time, money, energy, and resources) to build an entirely new structure when there’s one already there. Continue reading →

CCNY Students Bring a New Community Garden to Harlem

Posted on July 18, 2012 by Colin Powell Center

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A child and a CCNY student enjoy the community garden in Hamilton Heights. Photo: City Agricultural Network

The City Agriculture Network (CAN) formed in the winter of 2010, funded by a Community Engagement Fellowship awarded to Kaizhong (Johnny) Huang by the Colin Powell Center. The goal of CAN, which received continued funding from the Center for 2010-2011, was to create a community garden from scratch in Hamilton Heights, and promote understanding and knowledge of the processes by which food can be created, distributed and consumed in a sustainable and equitable manner.

Two and a half years into the project, CAN is producing food, promoting healthy eating, and reducing the local carbon footprint. The below update on the group’s activity is by Elizabeth Kelman, a CCNY student who is now managing the network. Continue reading →

Center Fellows Reflect on the Meaning and Challenges of Service (Part II)

Posted on June 26, 2012 by Colin Powell Center

This “word cloud” was generated using terms pulled from the fellows’ Service Wiki. Image via Wordle.net.

This is the second post in a two part series on a Wiki created by the Colin Powell Center’s Partners for Change fellows to explore themes around the idea of “service”.

During our discussions of “service” in the Partners for Change seminar another emergent theme was “permanence.” Questions and assertions of service projects’ longevity and sustainability were tossed around while trying to define what makes a project effective. In other words, how do we know if service is making an impact? There were several conflicting views on permanence as it relates to service, but all the fellows’ voices were heard. At the end of the unit, and perhaps after some important time for reflection, the fellows produced a collaborative voice in their “Service Wiki.” The following is an excerpt on “permanence.” Continue reading →

To Improve Health in Harlem, a Fellow Joins the Community

Posted on June 12, 2012 by Colin Powell Center

colin powell center partners for change service harlem

Rebecca Moore at a health fair attended by the Partners for Change health care fellows. Photo: Sophie Gray

Before having the opportunity to be a Colin Powell Partners for Change health fellow I had never truly recognized the health crisis facing the Harlem community. I knew it existed, but before I was given a chance to meet the community and discuss the daily lives and activities of people past whom I have walked on the streets for the three years I have lived in Harlem, I did not know how complex and deep rooted these issues were.

Continue reading →

Soda Bad, Pot Okay? Pondering New York’s New Legal Paradigm

Posted on June 8, 2012 by Colin Powell Center

7-Eleven’s Big Gulp has escaped the proposed big soda ban. Photo: section 215M / Creative Commons

In New York City, buying a 24 ounce soda was fine a month ago. Openly possessing marijuana was not. Since then, a lot has changed. Mayor Michael Bloomberg unveiled a plan to ban the sale of sugary drinkers larger than 16 ounces; Governor Andrew Cuomo has proposed a bill, with Bloomberg’s support, to reduce the charge for open possession of up to 25 grams of marijuana from a misdemeanor to a violation.

Rather than editorialize on either plan (there has been a lot of that already), I want to point out some surprising connections between the two. Continue reading →

Neighborhoods and Nations

The blog of the Colin L. Powell Center for Leadership and Service

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