No Space to Build? Create Community Engagement Anyway by Maximizing the Use of Neighborhood Spaces

Session Description: Are you interested in engaging your city's most isolated and disconnected residents and lack the necessary funding to do so?  No problem.  Join us and learn what the City of Anaheim's Community Services Department has done to create and establish communication and meaningful engagement between its residents and key community stakeholders while maximizing the use of open spaces in key neighborhoods throughout the entire city.

In 2021, like many cities across the entire nation, Anaheim was tasked to provide services to residents in a very different way given the number of barriers and restrictions in place due to COVID-19 public health and safety concerns.  This, coupled with the city's complete shutdown, made it difficult for the Community Services Department to serve it most vulnerable residents.  Access to resources was limited and more so for those residents that were already isolated and disconnected with very few options to seek and receive immediate assistance.

A service implementation plan was devised through a proof-of-concept program that proposed to bring resources into key neighborhoods through a series of "pop-up" resource events with the goal of stabilizing the home environments of the city's highest needs and most vulnerable residents. The stakes were high, but failure was not an option!  In short time, the proof-of-concept plan proved itself worthy and was officially adopted into the city's annual budget. 

Join us and learn how this mobile concept and approach can be applied in your city while also learning how to build programming in limited-use spaces in neighborhoods