Forging Partnerships through Community Outreach

The dream of The Other Side Village is to create a thriving, fully functional community. But as they say, no person is an island, and we think the same can be said of a community. The Village’s success will depend on the extent to which it can integrate into the larger community we hope to join, which is why we are seeking connections and common ground with our neighbors.

Community outreach gives us the opportunity to develop relationships and ensure that the design and amenities of the Village serve the needs of the community that will surround it, which we hope will be the West Side. 

A Mutually-Beneficial Relationship

Our goal with community outreach is to answer questions, as well as to seek out input from the people whose neighborhood we hope to join. Sam Grenny, the Village’s Director of Communications, hopes to foster a relationship of trust with the residents in the community, in which they bring their problems to the attention of the Village and see actual solutions put in place. 

Sam says it would be a “disservice” if the Village came into the neighborhood assuming we know what the concerns are and how to fix them. “We are coming into the community to listen, learn, and find out the problems,” Sam says, “Then we can work on community-minded solutions.” 

For example, instead of deciding on the businesses that would work in the Village downtown area, we surveyed the community to find out what types of businesses they believe their neighborhood needs. Overwhelmingly, the respondents requested food businesses because the area surrounding Indiana Avenue is a food desert and everyone in the area needs greater access to nutritious, affordable food. 

Without asking the community, we would never have known that the single most valuable thing the Village can bring to the neighborhood is a grocery store.    

Building Trust and Seeking Feedback

We knew that in order for this relationship to work, we needed to earn the trust of our neighbors. 

For starters, we were an open book–we passed out literature to homes, businesses, and churches in the area, describing the Village’s mission and inviting people to check out The Other Side Academy and Thrift Boutique. We poured money and time into digital outreach. And we invited anyone and everyone to come and tour the Academy, where they were able to see the unique peer-led model in action and experience the impact we’ve had on that neighborhood. Over the course of 2021, we had hundreds of people take us up on this offer. 

We held an open house where we invited neighbors and business owners in the area to get up close and personal with the Village team as a big “get to know you” event, held in the neighborhood just down the street from our proposed site. Over 100 people attended and gave their suggestions. In fact, attendees gave such valuable input that the Village team was able to make significant improvements to the plan in order to better serve the area’s needs, such as adding a plan to advocate for sidewalks along Indiana Ave and the creation of a neighborhood advisory committee made up of nearby residents and businesses. 

We also attended city council meetings and community councils for Poplar Grove, Glendale, and Fairpark to answer questions and listen to community members’ concerns. We invited everyone who came to engage with us further by touring the Academy or following up another way and many did.  

After all this, we wanted to find out how the community really felt about the Village and whether our outreach had an impact, so we hired an independent company called Landslide Political to canvas the 3400 homes surrounding our proposed site. With 842 respondents, 59% of neighbors expressed support for the project, with 30% having no opinion, and only 11% opposed. This nearly 6-to-1 ratio of support was even more than our team could have hoped for. 

Ongoing Community Connections 

One major takeaway from our outreach efforts is that the Village needs systems in place to continue to facilitate communication with the surrounding community well beyond when the building begins. Our plan would not be half as strong as it is today without the input we’ve received from the community, and we are not about to stop improving it now. Additionally, because the Village will be a focal point for the community at large, residents of surrounding neighborhoods will need a place to turn to express their concerns and have questions answered. 

To facilitate this, we are in the process of creating a neighbor advisory committee that can meet regularly to collect community feedback and make suggestions. This will also be a place where we can seek out neighbors’ input on things like design and safety measures to make sure the Village is truly serving the neighborhood it’s a part of. 

We are grateful for all of the feedback we’ve received thus far and will continue to seek it out. And we are overwhelmed by the support we’ve felt and the hope that’s inspired about building something special with the West Side. 

Reach Out to Us 

Are you a member of the community surrounding the proposed site on Indiana Avenue? We want to hear from you!