Members of the Case Western Reserve University community are invited to the next Power of Diversity event to explore the opportunities mixed-income communities create. Titled “Bringing the Power of Diversity to Life through Mixed-Income Communities: Reality Check from Residents and Practitioners,” this panel discussion will be held Friday, March 22, from 12:30 to 2 p.m. in Tinkham Veale University Center, Ballroom A.
Harvard University’s Opportunity Insights paper provided evidence that diverse neighborhoods lead to more economic mobility than segregated neighborhoods. But how do we create diverse neighborhoods in cities as segregated as Cleveland?
One policy approach is intentionally mixed-income housing and communities. Cleveland won a $35 million federal Choice Neighborhoods Initiative grant in 2021 to transform the Woodhill Homes public housing estates into a mixed-income community. Case Western Reserve University is the lead anchor institution for the initiative. The first new mixed-income building, Woodhill Station West, opened recently.
During this panel discussion, residents and practitioners will discuss their aspirations for the building and the challenges they are facing to make an inclusive, equitable community come to life.
Moderated by Mark Joseph, the Leona Bevis and Marguerite Haynam Professor of Community Development and founding director of the National Initiative on Mixed-Income Communities at the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences, this panel will feature the following participants:
- Yvette Hunt (SAS ’92), resident street captain in the Buckeye Neighborhood;
- Karla Trammel, director of community life with The Community Builders; and
- L’Carla Burns, community manager for Woodhill Station West with The Community Builders.
A Woodhill Legacy resident also is expected to join the conversation.