| Approximately 6,700 people live in Lexington, Kentucky's East End Community, an inner city neighborhood that is characterized by poverty and a lack of commercial development. Although the neighborhood contains a number of historically important buildings, recent revitalization efforts in Lexington's downtown area have had little measurable impact on the East End.
Slightly more than half (51 percent) of the East End's population lives below the poverty level, compared to 14.1 percent of residents living in the surrounding Fayette County. The median household income for the community is approximately $10,000, well under the $28,000 average for Fayette County households. More than one-quarter (27.9 percent) of East End households receives public assistance compared to 5.6 percent in the county as a whole. While 80.2 percent of the overall population of Fayette County has graduated from high school, the East End's percentage is 25 percent. Not surprisingly, the East End's 18-percent unemployment is more than four times the Fayette County total unemployment rate of 4.6 percent.
The East End Community Outreach Partnership Center (COPC) will work with the University of Kentucky (UK), the Lexington Fayette Urban County Government (LFUCG), 24 community organizations, and local citizens to revitalize the East End Community. The COPC work plan will focus on resident-identified needs for community and family self-sufficiency, better educational attainment, affordable and habitable housing, and neighborhood revitalization.
Components of the COPC work plan include: - The Community-Family Resource Program, which will create six Village Exchange Groups in which residents can share knowledge and skills as they work toward self-sufficiency.
- The Family Educational Resource Program, which will provide services to families in order to increase school performance, decrease the dropout rate, and help residents get jobs.
- The Housing Revitalization Program, which will provide comprehensive assistance to help residents improve their housing stock and increase homeownership.
- The Neighborhood Revitalization Program, which will promote commercial development in the East End.
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