In recent months, the City of Hamilton has created an interdisciplinary department to continue the goal of making Hamilton a great place to Live, Work, and Play. We spoke with Brandon Saurber of the Department of Neighborhoods to get to know what this department has been up to.
What is the Department of Neighborhoods?
The department starts from the premise that a more engaged and connected Hamilton is a stronger Hamilton. We believe that to our core as an organization. Our reason for existing is to connect current and prospective residents to each other, to information, to tools and resources that help them envision a positive future here in Hamilton.
Our day-to-day in Hamilton is handling certain critical initiatives: the 17 Strong neighborhoods initiative, oversight of the 311 service request system, and communications are all housed here. Additionally, we’re temporarily working with the Love Your Block grant from Cities of Service that supplies us with two Americorps VISTAs. The entire staff has assignments to the various committees of the 17Strong Advisory Board.
So much of what we aim to do involves having to pound the pavement, organizing, and being out and knocking on doors. We’re working to adapt our approach a little bit, as we think more creatively about working with vulnerable populations during the coronavirus pandemic.
What are some projects you are currently working on?
17Strong micro-grants are continuing.here will be some events postponed but they’ll happen when we’re all back to normal.
We’re starting work on something called the Sunnyside Project with the 17 Strong neighborhoods. The news and social media are full of bad news right now, so we have this tagline of “No act of positivity too small.” We want to find small anecdotes about what people are doing to help each other and stay connected right now. What are they showing that they love about where they live? Hamiltonians have been resilient for generations. We can’t allow the negative to overtake our identity.
We’re trying to push back on those negative things. 17 Strong’s outreach and communication committees are working together, and we’re supporting them. Brooke Wells (brooke.wells@hamilton.oh.gov) is our point of contact to share a positive story, or just use the hashtag #SunnysideHamilton.
Why are strong neighborhoods important, especially during a time of public health worries?
I think they are more important now than ever. The stories that really make it worth it are people coming together and helping each other. One of my favorite all-time 17 Strong stories was not a large event; it was when we launched our new recycling bins and trash cans, and people were worried because they were so much larger than the prior ones. We had a gentleman in Prospect Hill who said he’d help someone move their cans if one of his neighbors reached out to the City for help. One woman did reach out, he’s continued to help her and over time, they’ve also built a family friendship. There are those heartwarming anecdotes that make it worthwhile for everyone involved in 17 Strong.
There’s so much information and misinformation out there that it’s beneficial for us to have a strong network of neighbors to make it easier for us to communicate initiatives.
It’s great when people go to neighborhood meetings and interact with City employees. We want people in the community to have someone at City Hall who they can call.
We want everyone in our organization to develop relationships and to be the person who can answer a question or address a rumor. It’s not just for reliability and trust; it goes the other way. We are used to hearing one resident’s opinion who says what they want for their neighborhood, but we want to make more seats at the table to get a broader perspective. In doing that we get a little closer to understanding the neighborhood as a whole. With that better understanding, we’re able to better work through issues, concerns, and aspirations within their neighborhood. That’s a really great benefit.
What are your goals and vision for the future of Hamilton’s neighborhoods?
We want every neighborhood to be engaged, but we keep thinking about what that means. We thought it was having monthly neighborhood meetings in every neighborhood a few years ago, but we keep thinking more about how you measure engagement. We consider “engaged” to be where groups are meeting, but also neighborhoods that are coming together on Nextdoor or Facebook, or better yet, are submitting 311 requests.
We want all neighborhoods to be empowered to take that next step. MyHamilton (311) is the best way to get anything done in the city. It’s the most empowering thing for a resident to say “Please get this done,” and hopefully we’re able to do it and meet their expectations. If we are, there is no better way for us to build trust in our ability to deliver for them.