A year after the groundbreaking of a mixed-income housing development in Flint, we are learning more about the community planning and engagement behind the project to help create a more equitable future for a Flint neighborhood and its residents.

Since 2014 the city of Flint and the Flint Housing Commission have been collaborating to relocate Atherton East Townhomes. Atherton East is a public housing complex that was built on a flood plain and isolated from bus routes. The city has shared that relocating Atherton East residents to new mixed-income housing that’s more centrally located and closer to resources and amenities would help move the community “towards social equity in Flint.”

The city of Flint’s planning department reached out to Flint TRHT (Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation) that’s led by the Community Foundation of Greater Flint (CFGF) to help facilitate community conversations around equity and systemic racism in the public housing system.

Flint TRHT recently shared a glimpse into this work in the Michigan TRHT Year 3 Report, which provides narratives and evaluations of the four Michigan TRHT sites’ community engagement efforts over the past year.

In the Atherton East project, Flint TRHT worked with the city on the relocation and community engagement process by facilitating community planning sessions, visioning sessions and racial healing circles with residents of the housing complex, the neighborhoods adjacent to the new housing, and city staff and partner agencies. The sessions were focused on building relationships between community members and ensuring that the new development is inclusive and equitable.

Through the facilitated sessions, Flint TRHT shared that the conversations “uncovered significant trauma among the public housing residents” but also demonstrated how “communities can heal from decades of racist policy and work collectively to improve the quality of life for all.”

The Flint TRHT-led sessions resulted in an action plan for continued relationship building between the resident groups, as well as a determination that city staff needed further training on implicit bias as well as team building to cultivate trust among staff.

“Our success lies in using local healing practitioners and listening to residents. We are learning of the hopes and dreams Atherton East residents have for their new home along with the trauma they have suffered in the previous environment,” Lynn Williams, community engagement officer at CFGF said. “This is our chance to make it right, and let the residents define what they want their neighborhood to be. We are also helping city planners achieve what they felt like is an elusive goal of the master plan – social equity.”

While COVID-19 paused future gatherings, CFGF said the relationship building has begun and future action planning will continue to include all stakeholders.

Want more?

The W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation (TRHT) effort is a national, community-based process of transformative, sustainable change, addressing the historic and contemporary effects of racism. Michigan is home to four of the 14 TRHT collaborations in the country. The sites in Battle Creek, Flint, Kalamazoo and Lansing have been working deeply in TRHT efforts, supported by CMF with funding from WKKF. Learn more about TRHT.

Connect with Flint TRHT.