| The East Side Community Outreach Partnership Center (COPC) in St. Paul, Minnesota, is administered by a coalition of three local institutions of higher learning: Macalester College, Metropolitan State University, and the University of Minnesota. The COPC's target area encompasses the East Side of St. Paul, an area that is challenged by a deteriorating housing stock, de-industrialization, and an increasing rate of poverty. To meet these challenges, COPC partners have identified three goals: to develop and maintain an adequate supply of safe, decent, and affordable housing; to provide an adequate number of jobs that pay livable wages and are available to area residents; and to provide residents with the skills necessary to secure well-paying jobs within the neighborhood.
The East Side of St. Paul is composed of two older working class neighborhoods known as Dayton's Bluff and Payne-Phalen. According to 1990 census figures, Payne-Phalen has 26,665 residents, while 15,499 people live in Dayton's Bluff. Residents of color represent 16 percent of the East Side's population. Areas of both neighborhoods are within the city's Enterprise Community.
If current economic trends are not reversed, the East Side could become an "underclass community" of concentrated poverty. The area's official unemployment rate was 5.6 percent in 1979, but increased to 8.3 in 1989, when the city rate stood at 6 percent. Together, Dayton's Bluff and Payne-Phalen account for 15.5 percent of the city's total population but 28 percent of its welfare recipients. The neighborhoods' poverty rate doubled between 1980 and 1990 from 10.9 percent to 20.1 percent.
The University of Minnesota's Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA) coordinates the East Side COPC collaboration. CURA draws on faculty and students from across the university to work on applied research and outreach projects with a wide range of public and nonprofit organizations. COPC partners include the East Side Neighborhood Development Corporation, Dayton's Bluff Neighborhood Housing Services, the Local Initiatives Support Corporation, the American Indian Family Center, the Minnesota Campus Compact, the Dayton's Bluff Community Council, the Payne-Phalen Community Council, the Merrick Community Center Job Bank, the Phalen Corridor Initiative, and the Urban Coalition.
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