SUBMISSION TO ARTMELT 03.09.10
Hanna Hannan
Zootown Arts Community Center 501(c)(3)
Northside Neighborhood Revitalization in Missoula through Arts and Culture
Statistics Provided by the City of Missoula
The ZACC is really excited about Missoula Cultural Council taking a leading role in organizing all of us for a voice in the Downtown Master Plan and the Cultural Plan as a group. I was asked to submit about the ZACC and tell the story of our growing neighborhood. There are so many artists living on or near the North First Street area that last year we decided to make our (often times confusing) location known to the rest of Missoula. We called it the Northside Revitalization Project. The Montana Community Development Corporation and the City of Missoula have both taken note of the revitalized energy emerging in the past years. It’s quaint older houses, diversity of people, and the anchor of the Kettlehouse local watering hole helps!
Continues after the jump
Continues after the jump
The Project began last year with the emergence of the 2009 MAP. A few organizations on north first street wanted to engage our northside residents and Missoulians through creating a map of our locations. It was designed by volunteer graphic designer Sara Kauk. Since then, the ZACC has realized the impact arts and cultural activities have impacted our neighborhood. We are hoping to launch a cohesive revitalization project through federal and private grants (cross your fingers) to address the health and wellness of individuals in low-income communities and individuals in our underserved area.
Through 2010 this will include an increase in programs to enrich lives through free and safe community projects and classes in arts and culture. The Zootown Arts Community Center delivers all ages arts education, fosters sustainable community development, and promotes accessible, life-enriching art experiences for Missoula residents and visitors. We currently have 5 youth programs, 5 drop in artistic resource stations, and 17 adult classes.
ZACC achieves its mission by being a center for hands-on art experience, and by serving as a center for the Missoula community to come together to create, learn, play, and support the Missoula area’s development of the arts, education, and a sustainable economy. ZACC is strategically located on the northside, a neighborhood that has withstood many adversities and whose residents represent a diverse range of economic backgrounds from very poor to very wealthy.
The Zootown Arts Community Center defines our neighborhood as the Northside – a distinct region enclosed by physical boundaries on all sides and cut off from the rest of Missoula. The northside neighborhood represents our primary area of focus for revitalization efforts. We already laid the groundwork by producing a revitalization map resulting in connections with our neighboring organizations and community awareness with the greater Missoula region. We led this to highlight our neighborhood’s location, services, and activities.
Our community is defined as the City of Missoula. The Missoula Valley represents the convergence of five major river valleys – the Hellgate to the east, the Missoula to the west, the Flathead and Blackfoot to the north and the Bitterroot Valley to the south. This unique geography poses a problem for defining limits on the physical range of our community. As the central hub of all these valleys, the City of Missoula provides services to families from the more rural and isolated regions of the Five Valleys area. Similarly, some of our constituents, including participants and volunteers, come to the ZACC from outside Missoula proper. While this is true, a large majority of our constituents reside and work within the boundaries of Missoula.
About the Northside
The Northside developed largely because of its relationship with the Northern Pacific Railroad and St. Patrick Hospital. Traditionally, a high proportion of neighborhood residents worked for the railroad, the Hospital or for the industries that developed around the railroad yard. Once a thriving working class community surrounded with agricultural and range land, the neighborhoods suffered a series of adversities in the latter part of the 20th century that began a new period of disinvestment and decline. Both the 1990 and 2000 U.S. Censuses portrayed Missoula's Northside residential neighborhood as the community's poorest:
· In 1999, this area was predominantly moderate- to low-income with 32 percent of its residents living below the poverty line (compared to 11.7 percent nationwide).
· In 1999, the median household income for the Northside neighborhood was $22,007. This compared with a median household income of $30,366 for greater Missoula and $41,994 for the nation as a whole.
· The Year 2000 U.S. Census also indicated that 37 percent of the neighborhoods’ children under age eighteen and 44 percent of elementary-school-age children lived in poverty.
· Twelve percent of the total population above 65 years of age lived in extreme poverty (incomes less than 1/2 of the poverty level).
Mobility in Missoula County
A significant number of Missoulians are moving in and out of the community. This in-and-out migration affects the quality and effectiveness of schools, programs, social services, neighborhoods, and the community as a whole. The 1990 census found that:
· 55% of Missoulians had lived somewhere other than their current residence in the previous four years,
· 27% had moved from within Missoula County,
· 13% from other towns in Montana, and
· 14% from a different state. 32% of Missoulians have lived at their current address for less than two years.
Poverty in Missoula
Current estimates indicate that almost 16% of Missoulians live in poverty, compared to about 11% in 1970. Some highlights
· The percent of children living in poverty has at least doubled since the 1970 census (from 10% to over 20%). This means 4700 children from 0 to 18 years of age in Missoula County live in poverty.
· Nearly 50% of impoverished Missoula children live in deep poverty, which is half of the poverty level.
· While Montana’s poverty rates from 1989 through 1996 resembled the national rates, they were the highest for states in the Northwest Region. Most likely this reflects two factors: 1) presence of seven American Indian reservations in the state; 2) poverty rates in rural areas are higher.
The ZACC works with our board members, 20 volunteers, 4 interns, and 2 employees to create high impact programs and support community art projects. The ZACC would like to help more financially with Missoula favorites: Day of the Dead, Roots Festival, and MADEfair, but cannot do so until it’s own financial health improves. Until then, the ZACC will continue to be a physical platform for arts and cultural networking, finding opportunities, and volunteering in the community. We are focusing on this throughout the rest of the year.
Working with our partner, the Office of Civic Engagement, we draw much interest in internships and hands-on career development for students interested in social work, community development, and non profit organizational strategies. The Office for Civic Engagement (OCE) is The University of Montana’s primary agent of community activism and civic responsibility. Their mission is to challenge and improve lives with an ethic of service and investment in community. This directly aligns with the ZACC staff goals for this upcoming year.
The ZACC believes that Missoula’s artists have a future, and we need to help them get there. The ZACC staff achieves its mission by aligning and maximizing neighborhood physical and programmic resources (education), solidifying partnerships among citywide agencies and organizations (community), and mobilizing creative, coordinated and sustainable investment in our artists (economy).
This year, through a community building process, you will see the ZACC engage more heavily with individual citizens, organizations, and business agencies to address community needs. One should see the ZACC as a community site grow within the next year. We want to focus the immediate surrounding area, mobilize the development of projects (2010 Orange Street Mural Project) and engage our neighborhood while promoting the center as a safe haven /resource art center in the area.
The ZACC is committed to serving all segments of the community and representing a diverse range of interests at our facility. The ZACC wants to engage individuals in our immediate community that normally may not have the economic means to experience art hands-on during the 2010 year. Most of all, we will develop and foster pride in the surrounding area through program development and networking. The ZACC will be responsible for analyzing the results. ZACC is a public service organization. Through the Neighborhood Revitalization Project, self-growth, and cohesion of community will empower our immediate residents to use the ZACC as a launch pad for leadership development, group strengthening, community engagement, and collaborative projects in the future.
Zootown Arts Community Center 501(c)(3) • 406.549.7555 • www.zootownarts.org
No comments:
Post a Comment