| Southern Illinois University Carbondale's (SIUC's) Community Outreach Partnership Center is providing outreach and assistance to the residents of North Carbondale, Illinois (NC). NC encompasses the largest African-American community in any Illinois municipality south or east of the East St. Louis area. Its social, economic, and housing indicators rank it among the most disadvantaged communities in the country.
In 1947, Carbondale was a small town of approximately 11,000 residents, with most of its commerce deriving from its proximity to the Illinois Central railroad and U.S. Highway 51, and from surrounding coal mining and agricultural activities. That year, Southern Illinois Normal College became Southern Illinois University Carbondale and the town underwent a radical transformation. During the next 23 years, Carbondale's population doubled and SIUC's student enrollment went from 3,000 to more than 20,000.
As SIUC grew, south Carbondale became a prosperous university town, but North Carbondale remained virtually untouched by this prosperity. Carbondale became two communities divided by class, income, lifestyle, and to a large extent race. North Carbondale is itself divided racially, with low-income Blacks living mostly on the east side of NC and working class Whites living on the west side. The contrast between living conditions on the east side of North Carbondale, with its many vacant lots and small houses, and Carbondale's southern periphery, consisting largely of spacious lawns and expensive houses, is startling.
NC contains about two square miles and in 1990 had 3,315 residents. At that time, NC's median household income was $14,570, 39 percent of the population lived below poverty level, and unemployment was 13.4 percent. One-fourth of NC's adult population had not graduated from high school. A housing survey conducted in 1998 confirmed that conditions have changed very little since 1990.
The North Carbondale Citizens Advisory Committee, spearheaded by the Attucks Community Service Board, recently was organized in NC to address housing and other community development problems. SIUC's Community Outreach Partnership Center (COPC) is supporting Attucks and assisting in its development as an umbrella organization for community development in NC. Besides Attucks, the main partners in the COPC are SIUC's Center for Rural Health and Social Service Development, its Office of Economic and Regional Development, and the City of Carbondale.
The COPC also is working to improve affordable housing options, helping residents obtain employment or start or expand small businesses, contributing to neighborhood revitalization, developing health care services, and expanding educational resources in NC. In addition, the COPC functions as a clearinghouse and provider of technical assistance for NC residents in their efforts to start new community development programs.
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