| The Center for Urban Initiatives and Research at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee has received a Community Outreach Partnership Center Program New Directions grant of $150,000 to create and implement new community revitalization initiatives in a central urban neighborhood in Milwaukee that has experienced serious challenges related to poverty, housing, crime, and other social and economic conditions. The program's goal is to provide target area residents and the community-based organizations that work with them the skills, resources, training, and education that will increase their collective capacity to transform and revitalize their neighborhood.
Among the activities UWM will undertake with its community partners are: creating a housing/community development internship program for undergraduate and graduate students to provide service learning opportunities in organizations that serve residents of the target neighborhood in the areas of fair lending practices, housing creation and rehabilitation, homeownership, and community development; and creating a neighborhood college that will provide education, training, and technical assistance to both residents and grassroots organizations through capacity building; an oral history project; the Pre-Urban Planners Preparing for Urban Problems initiative (PUPS for PUPS), which provides neighborhood youths with planning skills; and the Citizens Academy for Community Safety, through which residents will learn about law enforcement and means to fight crime, and participate in criminal justice issues in their neighborhood.
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