Introduction
The Core Neighbourhood Development Council (CNDC) is a group of people representing community-based organizations, government, businesses, and community based initiatives who have come together to work with the community to identify the most important priorities that need work, and to help create programs and partnerships that respond to them. The idea for the CNDC came from Quint Development
Corporation in 2001 when they recognized the need for a multi-sectoral approach to community-led change in the core. For the past year and a half the CNDC has initiated a broad-based community consultation that has resulted in the development of an overall
20-year vision for the core neighbourhoods, and a 5-year strategic plan for how to meet the goals identified.
Rationale
The Core Neighbourhood Development Council has been created because people see the need to have a more coordinated approach to strengthen the quality of life in the core neighbourhoods of Saskatoon. Currently in the core most groups are working fairly independently on issues, without much knowledge about what each other is doing. There are a wide range of housing programs, children and youth programs, food security programs, job training initiatives, and government initiatives underway, but each is generally focused on its own activity, and not connected into a wider overall vision for improving whole picture of issues in the core. This approach to community development has been occurring in many communities in the United States for about the last 20 years, and have come to be known as Comprehensive Community Initiatives . There are even a few organizations now that have been created to do research and support work for these initiatives, such as the
Aspen Roundtable on CCI’s, and the Annie E Casey Foundation.

The Core Neighbourhood Development Council – A CCI in Saskatoon
The CNDC is underway as a local attempt at a Comprehensive Community Initiative.
There are several partners in place from government, community organizations, and business who have been involved in this project for over a year.
Highlights so far: o The Core Neighbourhood Development Council has created a common place for various stakeholders in the community to meet and plan for community development in the Core Neighbourhoods, relationships have been strengthened, opportunities for networking and overlap have been developed. o There has been an intensive four-stage community consultation process, involving input from close to three hundred community members and stakeholders. o There has been an articulation of a 20 year vision for the Core neighbourhoods, broken down into four main areas – Our Neighbourhood Life and Culture,
Housing and Supporting Our Citizens, Our Economic Life in the Core
Neighbourhoods, and Our Natural Environment. o There has been a set of strategies developed as a five-year strategic plan to meet this vision. The plan identifies 13 Goal statements, and 62 strategies to address specific concerns in the Core. o Four Community Newsletters have been produced and distributed to approximately 8000 households in the core, describing each stage of the process and the outcomes. o In moving into an “action” stage, the Council has begun to identify specific projects to begin to move ahead with, and is in the process of developing a formalized organizational structure to ensure viability and relevance over the long term.
The Emergence of a Community Defined Strategic Plan – Six Priorities to Work on
After almost a year of intensive consultation with the community through focus groups, surveys, and community planning meetings, we now have a prioritized list of goals and strategies that the community has defined to help focus the work of the Council. These priorities were voted on at the Community Congress in October of 2002 when over 70 people, including community members, representatives from community organizations, government representatives, and stakeholders came together to collectively define a focused set of goals for the Council to move ahead on. The Priorities were outlined as follows:
Priority 1 – Quality Rental Housing
Goal: A mix of safe, affordable rental housing is available in the core neighbourhoods

Strategies:
1.
Expand community and cooperative ownership of existing and new rental accommodation and establish measures to ensure long-term affordability (e.g.
Putting the land under a community land trust).
2.
Advocate the clean up or closing of slum landlord and unsafe housing properties through the creation of incentives and the enforcement of relevant by-laws.
3.
Lobby for federal and provincial tax incentives to provide equity dedicated to investment in affordable housing.
Priority 2 – Affordable Home Ownership
Goal: Affordable home ownership is available for low & moderate income residents
Strategies:
1.
Continue to provide opportunities for residents to purchase and renovate houses in the core neighbourhoods through homeownership co-ops as part of Quint’s
Affordable Housing Program.
2.
Encourage credit unions and banks to develop innovative financial products directly focused on increasing housing affordability.
3.
Organize regular home improvement and maintenance workshops aimed at lowincome homeowners and renters and, in partnership with organizations in the coop and private sectors, (for example, Bent Nail Tool Co-op, Saskatoon Co-op, or
Home Depot), develop programs to reduce the costs of home improvement supplies for qualified low-income people who undertake their own work.
Priority 3 – Food Security
Goal: All residents of the core neighbourhoods are able to access quality food at fair prices
Strategies:
1.
Determine the feasibility of a centrally located grocery store and/or food co-op with grocery delivery service.
2.
Enhance access to community gardening opportunities through use of vacant land.
Priority 4 – Job Training and Career Support
Goal: In the core neighbourhoods, residents can receive training, career development and job placement support tailored to their individual needs.
Strategies:
1.
Provide a linked continuum of services tailored to meet individual needs; (i.e. addiction rehabilitation programs, people needing life-skills, literacy & numeracy, career planning, volunteer placements, customized training that is job specific,

linkage to apprenticeship programs and other specialized education, and assistance in job finding, placement and retention). This might take the form of a core community training and resource centre.
2.
Adapt best practice labour force development models from other urban centres to address problems and gaps in the services available.
3.
Provide daycare and transportation for those residents excluded from job training or employment opportunities.
Priority 5 – Safety
Goal: Residents, businesses and community organizations cooperate with each other and with relevant levels of government to maintain neighbourhoods that are safe and secure for all people.
Strategies:
1.
Educate and raise awareness in the schools about the dangers of the sex trade and how to avoid recruiting pressures from Johns, pimps, and prostitutes.
2.
Increase the safety of neighbourhoods by implementing environmental design principles that improve street and park safety (e.g. more lighting on streets and in parks; pedestrian friendly environments to increase foot traffic)
3.
Advocate for increased police bike and foot patrols to improve resident-police relations emphasizing increased friendly, helpful non-challenging contact and accessibility of police officers, especially in the evenings.
Priority 6 – Young People
Goal: Core Neighbourhoods provide a range of quality programs, activities and opportunities for young people
Strategies:
1.
Expand the youth coop model into more neighbourhoods.
2.
Support youth initiatives focused on food security and production (e.g. youth gardening, jobs and micro-business opportunities in the food processing sector)
3.
Create interesting and challenging opportunities for youth through designing work experience and work-study internships relevant to their interests and community priorities.
Next Steps
Developing a Structure, Clarifying the Mandate
Now that this consultation has occurred, the CNDC is in the process of creating an organizational structure that will allow for the kind of deliberate, comprehensive, collaborative work that will be required to respond to the priorities outlined in the plan above. This is an exciting time as the various partners work together to break new ground in establishing working partnerships that are tied together by the structure and relationship building that has gone into the development of the CNDC. By the end of

Summer 2003 we hope to have two or three projects underway that respond directly to the priorities outlined above.
We have also outlined four mandate areas that will provide focus and direction to the type of work the CNDC will do. The mandate areas are defined as follows:
1.
Coordination/Networking Mandate – provide a mechanism and process for communication and updating of activity of different actors and initiatives in the Core
Neighbourhoods
2.
Resourcing Mandate – Provide staffing, technical assistance, social marketing, access to funding to projects and initiatives that are identified as responding to the key priority areas outline in the Plan.
3.
Community Capacity Building Mandate – Engage and work with the Community as leaders and decision makers in the process, provide opportunity for skill development and leadership development where appropriate and useful.
4.
Facilitation/Animation Mandate
–
Coordinate the creation of partnerships who can initiate projects that respond to needs identified in the plan that are not being addressed or could use enhancing or expansion.