Sustainability
Community building creates a lasting legacy.
By Joe O'Neill

To date, HFH Hungary has built 36 houses in three communities, including eight duplexes in Felsogöd.

Whether it's on an African savanna or in an American inner city, building sustainable communities has certain commonalities.

Among them is what experts call "social capital" -- people stepping up to accept responsibility for more than their own home and their own family. It means engagement in and involvement by those who are the community -- and an ongoing commitment to improving it.

Not only a catalyst for necessary services, social capital increasingly is proving to be a key factor in sustainable development and the reduction of poverty. It even reaches beyond the material dimensions of well-being -- health, education, clean water -- to the non-material: gender disparities, social exclusion and insecurity.

"The momentum that is generated from building a house goes to making the park better, to getting a clinic, to all those efforts that contribute to the community overall," says Karen Foreman, former director of international affiliates for Habitat for Humanity International.

Decent shelter often empowers homeowners, such as the Herrera family in El Salvador, to embark on microenterprises.

The combination of social capital and viable economic activity is fundamental to building sustainable communities, emphasizes Foreman, now a visiting lecturer on non-profit management at the University of Washington in Seattle. "The social-capital commitment and economic activity are critical," says Foreman. "You need money to be moving -- not that everyone has to make a lot -- but you need a degree of viability. Then people can move forward to build the church, the mosque, the synagogue, the clinic, the child-care facility. Help can come from the outside, but local people must own it."

Most community proponents say ownership isn't likely in the absence of effective leadership. Never take citizen participation and community pride for granted, says Michael Rank, an assistant professor of social work at the University of South Florida in Tampa. For without both, communities -- domestic or international -- will flat-out fail, he says.

"You can do nothing in a local community without citizen organization," says Rank. "The number one ingredient is leadership within that citizenry. And you need cohesiveness to create a political block. Unless there's that kind of organization, no one will pay attention to it."

From the perspective of Bert Green, executive director of HFH of Charlotte (N.C.), the two key elements in building sustainable communities are leadership development within the community and solid planning -- both strategic and developmental. "Planning then enables you to go through leadership changes better," points out Green.

Rank, a former probation and parole officer from Philadelphia, Pa., also lists three other keys to community sustainability. He cites developing effective political representation; keeping money spent in the community recycled in the local economy; and getting commitments from local government -- such as the police and health departments -- to protect the interests of the local community.

"Not only do you have to be well-organized," adds Rank, "but you need to show some kind of economic potential and use the ballot box. In the United States, at least, you can't afford to be politically impotent."

Put in political terms, communities can't afford to be without grass-roots interest and support.

"We can't 'inflict' sustainability on a community," explains Dave Nichols, community coordinator for the Lakewood Community Development Corporation in Charlotte, N.C. "You need the three legs under any stool -- the community or neighborhood, the association and service providers. But if you don't have the grassroots, you cannot achieve sustainability."

It's also a truism, says Nichols, that community members should be diverse in their composition.

"Diversity is a critical element," stresses Nichols, "whether it's a whole city or a 40-house neighborhood. Racial diversity is a part of it, [but you need] cultural, religious and economic diversity as well.

"The community that is created," he says, "needs to be incorporated into the larger community. You need to think in terms of police, transportation, health, sanitation and who monitors and works with these entities...You can't assume because you build 40 low-income houses that you've done the community a favor until you've provided resources. This is about more than curbs and gutters. If you're not going to diversify the community itself, then you'll have to redouble your efforts to provide staffing or other personnel to build those structural links to the broader community."

And whether the community in question is stateside or overseas, its needs are best met through local solutions, says Foreman. "Be flexible and creative, but don't lose the 'brand name' that is Habitat," Foreman notes.

And be wary of Band-Aid approaches that only address the short term, she cautions. "Relief work is not sustainable," underscores Foreman. "You must deal with root causes -- jobs, education, health."




Joe O'Neill is a writer based in Tampa, Fla.



Reprinted from Habitat World Magazine, June/July 2000.
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©2000 Habitat for Humanity International