A nonprofit working to bring opportunity, prosperity, and equity to Pittsfield, Massachusetts has an uncertain future after three years of work.
Pittsfield is Berkshire County’s largest community with around 43,000 residents. It’s been many things over its existence, but in 2019, the past still looms large.
“We’re a post-industrial city that had a lot of industry leave, and increased poverty, and is just trying to get the economy going again," said Alisia Costa, the initiative director for Working Cities Pittsfield. “Working Cities Pittsfield is an initiative that was started by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. And they were looking at cities like ours trying to figure out how to get them started again, and they found that it was really about cross sector engagement towards a common goal.”
Pittsfield was one of five Massachusetts cities the bank awarded grants to in 2016. To encourage the kind of collaboration the initiative promoted, the grant was contingent on a single application.
“The city, a bunch of nonprofits, and especially residents were a part of that process, including Central Berkshire Habitat for Humanity is the backbone agency, Goodwill Industries, Berkshire United Way, and many other organizations have been a part of this to bring everyone together toward our common goal, which is that we have a just, thriving, and safe city for everyone, that everyone has the opportunities no matter what their background is,” said Costa.
Over 14 listening sessions with residents, Pittsfielders’ struggles came into sharp focus.
“Poverty is very isolating. Transportation. There is racism in our community," listed Costa. "There’s lack of – there’s the sense of not feeling welcome in a lot of spaces by people, so we’re really setting out to change that.”
The group uses the Bridges Out Of Poverty model to examine Pittsfield through a socioeconomic lens, bringing attention to the kind of dislocation people on the lower end of the economic spectrum feel.
“It helps us look at things like hidden rules in a space, where residents walk in to vote or to a public meeting and they don’t know the rules of engagement – how am I supposed to conduct myself? Where am I supposed to sit? What can I say, what can I not say? And we want to open those things up to people so that they feel more welcome,” explained Costa.
To that end, Working Cities Pittsfield maintains a resident forward process.
“We actually hold a monthly networking night called Working Cities Wednesday where residents drive the conversation," said Costa. "They come in and they pitch ideas to make the city a better place, and then we literally break into groups and start working on those ideas, see if they have momentum, see what resources we can bring to bear to make them happen.”
Costa points to two very tangible results the meetings have shown. The first is the Tyler Street Lab in Pittsfield’s Morningside Neighborhood.
“A bunch of different groups were trying to start projects at Working Cities Wednesday," said the initiative director. "They needed a space, they couldn’t figure out how to do it. With a cross sector approach – so, nonprofits – Goodwill Industries supported this initiative along with the city and MassDevelopment and Mill Town Capital, so that’s totally cross sector. That’s resident driven, with nonprofits, government, and business partnering to make the Tyler Street Lab happen, so that these organizations that are starting this projects have a space.”
The Lab – which officially launched in March – houses the first permanent headquarters of the Berkshire County NAACP chapter in decades, plus afterschool programs, community groups, and more.
The other example of a direct outcome from Working Cities Wednesday is the Pittsfield Police Department’s community outreach post in the city’s West Side.
“When residents said that they wanted more of a police presence, Central Berkshire Habitat For Humanity offered up their space and they brought that to Working Cities Wednesday to say what would that look like, what do the residents want that space to look like," said Costa. "And now it’s open to the public Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday and the cops are coming in to support that work.”
At least 300 people have attended the monthly meetings since they began three years ago.
“69 percent of those people came back to a second meeting after they had been to one," said Justine Dodds, the City of Pittsfield’s Housing and Program Manager for the Department of Community Development. She says Pittsfield acknowledges and values the impact Working Cities has had.
“We’ve have 250 people trained in Bridges out of Poverty and they have done an enormous amount of outreach," Dodds told WAMC. "They have what they call navigators that are part of this program that are community navigators that help people work within the system to figure out what resources they need, how they can get assistance to move things forward, whether it’s a new business idea, whether it’s a solution for transportation, to a number of different issues that come up during the meetings.”
Working Cities has focused on the West Side and Morningside neighborhoods, Pittsfield’s poorest communities.
Costa says that despite the cross sector successes the program has achieved within the community, it’s still working on a key relationship.
“I think a big hole we need to fill is the engagement from the business community, because if we’re really going to have economic opportunity where residents have the ability to get the jobs that are out there and keep those jobs, yes, those looking for work need to make some changes, but the models which we use in our human resource development need to change a little bit too in understanding that,” she said.
The three-year, $475,000 grant awarded to Working Cities Pittsfield by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston expires at the end of 2019. Costa says the group is already hard at work on its sustainability plan, but it’s not a done deal that Working Cities has a path forward.
“Looking for funding for this work is a challenge in our region," she told WAMC. "I think this effort is valuable for the community, and it’s really going to take partnering with financial intuitions, writing grants to make sure the work continue, and I think we have a dedicated core team that really believes that can happen.”
Despite the ambiguity of the program’s future, Costa says she’s already moved by what it’s revealed and accomplished in just three years.
“The beauty of this grant is it’s a learning grant," said Costa. "We were actually charged with learning, trying, testing things out, see what works, and then go to the bright spots where you’re getting traction. And I was really surprised at how hungry residents were for engagement, and wanted to be heard, and how a space like Working Cities Wednesday or being able to talk to a community navigator made people feel heard. And sometimes, that makes the biggest difference in someone’s life.”
The next Working Cities Wednesday is this week at 5:30 p.m. at City Hall.
