The Westside Resource Center, located at 907 Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, will host volunteers that week and expand their hours of operation to accommodate anyone wanting to sign up for the waitlist. 

Through this document, we seek to continue to make data more accessible and understandable, by physically putting qualitative information into people’s hands. 

All NPUs were invited to review and comment on the snapshot before we released the document. We will continue to collect data and update the document as new data sets are released or community suggestions are made.

Notes from the public engagement meeting can be found here: Boone/Mims Park Meeting: Westside Future Fund. 

On Friday, only 59 hours after meeting with the community, Mr. Thadani presented the “draft” plan for this section of this community, noting that he finished some of the drawings mere hours before producing the slideshow. The length of the presentation prevented many people from asking questions but common areas of concern were the lack of community input into the plan (few ideas from the community seemingly made it into the suggestions), and lack of education/schools in the plan.

All official information from Westside Future Fund and Thadani + Associates can be found at: www.PlanWestside.com

Submit your idea now! http://www.civicatlanta.org/westside-idea-submmision

If you are interested in volunteering time or skills: http://www.civicatlanta.org/westside-volunteer

CCI has hired two new program managers that will be focused on this initiative full-time: Raina Turner and Nathan Jones.  Reach out to them at westside@civicatlanta.org

The WCA Data Dashboard serves as a one-stop shop for key data that is accessible to community stakeholders, researchers, local government agencies, and relevant foundations interested in sustainable Westside community development.

“We believe that this tool has the potential to encourage greater data-driven decision-making at the neighborhood and Neighborhood Planning Unit (NPU) level in addition to supporting research and policymaking that addresses significant challenges in areas of education, economic development, transit and mobility, and public safety,” said WCA Associate Director Mackenzie Madden.

In its current form, the dashboard offers resources in seven categories:  1) Community Profiles, 2) Economic Development, 3) Education, 4) Public Safety, 5) All Data, 6) Historical Data, and 7) Resource Library.

Presently, the dashboard displays information for NPU’s K, L, and T – the three NPUs connected to the WCA – as compared to the City of Atlanta.

The dashboard is a user-friendly tool that:  1) draws upon available quantitative and qualitative data, 2) stores data collected for current and future research initiatives, 3) provides metrics for assessing the success of diverse engagement and intervention models, and 4) develops comprehensive reports to identify the impact of “anchor institutions” such as Georgia Tech on neighboring communities to highlight knowledge gaps.

The Data Dashboard project began in 2011 as a static Westside neighborhoods asset map created in conjunction with faculty in the Georgia Tech College of Architecture. Under the leadership of Dean Royster and her WCA leadership team, the first virtual tool was created in Fall 2013 by a group of graduate students in Dr. John Stasko’s Data Visualization class. That iteration mapped transit and walkability in the city. The platform also provided a heat map of census data that has since been transformed into the Big Data tool available today. Graduate Research Assistants in the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts continued building the dashboard into its present form.

Katie O’Connell, MCRP 2015, was hired as the Project Manager for the Data Dashboard in Summer 2014. She began by researching similar platforms across the country and collecting relevant data for the city of Atlanta. During an Online Tools session of the WCA’s 2014 Community Studio, O’Connell was able to determine the basic pros and cons of existing resources such as the Atlanta Regional Commission’s Neighborhood Nexus, the U.S. EPA’s Enviromapper, and the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. Several focus groups with Westside residents and stakeholders were held as various portals were designed to garner feedback on the usability of the dashboard.

The WCA staff has presented the dashboard at various conferences and symposia including The Center for Community Progress’ Vacant Properties Conference in 2015, Atlanta Studies Symposium, TEDx Atlanta, and the Georgia Tech Center for Urban Innovation.

The WCA Data Dashboard has been made possible through various stages of development in collaboration with entities at Georgia Tech including College of Architecture, College of Computing, Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts, the Center for Geographic Information Systems, and with funding from the Ford Foundation.

Please visit wcadatadashboard.iac.gatech.edu to explore the platform. Please use the hashtag #WCADataDashboard in social media settings, when referencing the tool.

Upcoming Meetings:

Tuesday June 16th

The Phoenix Partnership: English Avenue Drug Market Initiative

Time: 6:00pm

Location: Lindsay Street Baptist Church – 550 Lindsay Street NW, Atlanta GA 30314

Monday June 22nd

The Phoenix Partnership: English Avenue Drug Market Initiative

Time: 6:00pm

Location: Pilgrim Baptist Church – 498 English Ave NW, Atlanta GA 30318

The official Call-In is scheduled for Tuesday June 30^th at a location TBA.

See more resources at: http://www.dmimsu.com/

The panel consisted of 5 speakers listed below and in the attachment you can find out more about them and their organizations:

1. Vince Smith – Executive Director – Gateway Center
2. Jack Hardin – Chairman – United Way Regional Commission on Homelessness
3. Bill McGahan – Founder and Chairman – Georgia Works!
4. Ed Powers – Executive Director – Hope Atlanta: Programs of Travelers Aid
5. Stacy Horn Koch – Interim Executive Director, Atlanta Homeless Continuum of Care

Two main topics emerged throughout the conversation: an increased supply of affordable housing in the city as a tool to end homelessness and an over-arching disagreement on the disjointed approach to homelessness in Atlanta (i.e. the current situation at Peachtree and Pine).

WCA Graduate Assistant, Jeshua Pringle, was left pondering a few questions:

• Can tax breaks on property taxes to offset the cost of affordable housing be provided at a local level? Can the City of Atlanta mandate affordable housing on the front end and give development incentives with lower property taxes over time?
• Can the City of Atlanta create an ordinance requiring developers to have a unit or two dedicated to homelessness? Alignment with a program like Georgia Works could be a requirement for housing.
• How can Georgia Works or other training programs be paired with the new bond referendum? Could this be an opportunity to decrease Atlanta’s homeless population while funding low skill jobs?
• What are the joint metrics of these programs? How many people do they serve and how do they impact the number of homeless persons in Atlanta. How do the numbers mentioned compare to the whole? Evaluating the total impact would be helpful to understanding the role these organizations play.

 NCA Panelist Profile

WCA Staff attended the Atlanta Regional Commission’s first Building Opportunity Workshop on Poverty and Transportation Access in Metropolitan Atlanta on January 21, 2015. Speakers included Rebecca Burns, Deputy Editor of Atlanta Magazine; Keith Parker, CEO of MARTA; Dr. Michael Rich, Executive Director of Emory Center for Community Partnerships; and Nathaniel Smith, CEO of Partnership for Southern Equity. Attendees had round-table discussions to give input on these issues in the context of: the vision, policies, funding, and obstacles.

View the attachment for highlights of the presentation, and view ARC’s website: http://atlantaregional.com/the-regional-plan/get-informed/building-opportunity-workshop-series for slides, maps, and a full report on the table discussions.

View the video that Atlanta Magazine produced on income inequality on a 2 mile, 5 minute drive from downtown to the Westside traveling Ivan Allen Jr. Blvd to Joseph E. Boone Blvd.: http://www.atlantamagazine.com/article/video-atlantas-income-inequality-in-less-than-2-miles-and-5-minutes/

Poverty and Transportation Highlights 2015

Paul Morris Updates the NCA

Atlanta BeltLine, Inc. on the Westside

WCA staff attended the first Northwest Community Alliance of the year. Paul Morris, President and CEO of Atlanta BeltLine, Inc. (ABI) was the evening’s guest speaker. Mr. Morris did a wonderful job of updating the residents on recent accomplishments of the BeltLine, new policies adopted by the Board, and some timelines for assessments, grants, and implementations. He was gracious enough to answer questions after he spoke. His presentation as well the question/answer section can be found in the attachment below.

NCA_Jan2015_PaulMorris
 

For more information on the Atlanta BeltLine visit http://beltline.org/

Atlanta BeltLine Trail