Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen

"Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought."
- Albert von Szent-Gyorgyi



Help not wanted in distressed urban neighborhoods

(In more ways than one...) Job-readiness programs can't meet demand for work among poor, ex-offenders

AVONDALE — The line forms at 7:30 on the first Monday morning of every month. Men in baggy jeans, some clutching manila folders with application forms, stand on red commemorative donor bricks outside the Urban League of Greater Cincinnati. A woman, wearing a backpack, waits by the door.
Most don’t have high school diplomas, but many have criminal records. None has a job, and some have been unemployed for more than a decade. They’re hoping for one of about 25 spots in the Urban League’s successful flagship program, SOAR (Solid Opportunities for Advancement and Retention). The three-week employment boot camp might be their last best chance to find work and start inching their way out of poverty...

OMG! Sounds a lot like my good friend Rachael; whom I first met when my 1st ever-roommate (purely houshold split expenses)/landlord booted me OUT on the Streets in Latonia back in 2005... She was My CaseMgr & Friend @ Welcome House and helped me find and get into my current HOME...

One of the keys to saving Avondale COVINGTON – more than rehabbing houses or putting up new commercial buildings – is helping more of its residents find and keep jobs.
“Joblessness triggers all kinds of other problems – crime, drugs, family dislocations, neighborhood disorganization,” says Harvard University sociologist William Julius Wilson, author of “When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban Poor.” He warned that the loss of steady jobs for the urban working class would further decimate places like Avondale.
Just the same, the rippling negative effects of joblessness in Avondale and similar communities are attracting attention here and

HAPPY PRIDE MONTH COVINGTON!

The pitfalls of "entertainment districts' Downtown’s are, and are, not Entertainment Districts. It depends, as certain policies can give them similar qualities. That being said, giving further caveats to these differences is necessary. It... is best to breakdown Entertainment Districts into two categories: overnight vs. naturally-occurring. http://bettercities.net/news-opinion/blogs/anonymous/17976/pitfalls-entertainment-districts

Jon Ryker This article is right up the tree I've been barking....get residents in who have spendable cash, and let the business fabric evolve from THEM....do not chase tourists.....in the long haul, you must have families....this means that something like the Banks or 4th St Live or the Levee or anything else you want to just transplant from somewhere else is not what we should be trying to do....make the place liveable....make filling the vacant houses and apartments above empty stores AFFORDABLE for individual developers....then, when you've added a couple thousand people with spendable cash who LIVE here, see what evolves....  Douglas - Exactly so...if you want to be useful as a local government, remove the barriers to that sort of development...take the buildings you own for back taxes....knock some down and give the lot away to neighbors or make parks out of them....those which are marketable, sell for a dollar to small developers with strings on the quality of development...these can then be sold to people who like and can afford nice houses....some could be repurposed....between the addition of parks and nice new houses and apartments your'e ripe for serious move-in's, IF you get the school system fixed! Then, when that happens, you can start being concerned about how you're going to develop the riverfront and the other larger development projects....

Michael Connett ‎"these can then be sold to people who like and can afford nice houses..." In other words, stop creating affordable housing for low-income families and they'll go away, eh! "People who have what they want are very fond of telling people who haven't what they want that they don't want it." -Samuel Clemens

Covington Kentucky What has happened, and continues to happen is that Covington has grown into the social services capital of Northern Kentucky.

Stephen Casper Sadly, but true. We have to find a way to raise the bar for everyone! Even those who drew the short straw deserve better. I continue to ask for city to develop an overall housing strategy, sometime soon we will begin.