Using Public Engagement to Build Healthier Communities! P2 Collaborative of Western New York 2014 Creating a Healthier Community Conference

OPEN BUFFALO VISION Open Buffalo is a civic initiative to make major long-term improvements in justice and equity in the City of Buffalo. Our goal is to create an equal and just region open to full democratic participation by all its residents, open to innovative ideas and policies, open to new leaders and open to meaningful economic opportunity and sustainable wealth creation for all.

TODAY’S SITUATION City of Buffalo residents face severe challenges, bearing the burdens of concentrated poverty, racial and economic segregation, disenfranchisement, and mass incarceration. Recent Census data showed that a majority of Buffalo children are being raised in poverty. Buffalo suffers from a school-to-prison pipeline, exacerbated by the city’s concentrated and racialized poverty.

HOW DID OPEN BUFFALO FORM? Open Society Foundations initially reached out to four community groups: Coalition for Economic Justice, Partnership for the Public Good, PUSH Buffalo, and VOICE-Buffalo. These groups crafted the Open Buffalo plan through a broad-reaching community process with door knocking, community events, focus groups, three working groups, a planning council, and an advisory committee. Local foundations, government officials, academics, labor and business leaders, activists, and residents all played key roles in shaping the plan.

COLLABORATION HAS BEEN KEY In late 2013, the Open Buffalo collaborative submitted its final proposal to the Open Society Foundations for the Open Places Initiative. Originally 16 cities had been asked to apply and of those eight received planning grants to put together final proposals. The numbers show that this was a huge endeavor and largely successful thanks to community support the process received.

STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS

HOW DO WE GET THE JOB DONE?  Innovation Lab  Worker Equity  Leadership Development  High Road Economic Development  Mobile Democracy Centers  Justice and Opportunity  Arts Integration

INNOVATION LAB  Open Buffalo’s Innovation Lab will be an urban-based think tank, building Buffalo’s capacity to generate new ideas, do original research, draw more effectively on local and national best practices, share information more broadly, and draft new laws and policies.

WORKER EQUITY Open Buffalo’s Worker Equity Table is addressing poverty, inequity, and training needs among workers, particularly minorities, refugees, youth, and ex-offenders, with a special focus on those working temporary and contingent jobs.

LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT Through our leadership development efforts, we will help see that Buffalonians shape their own futures. Our Emerging Leaders program will train over 100 residents per year to mobilize their communities around equity issues and to take on leadership roles in community, nonprofit, and government sectors.

HIGH ROAD ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT The High Road Economic Development Table will make sure that the community benefits from economic development programs and projects through quality jobs, education and training, local and minority business opportunities, and green design and operations, with an initial focus on newly funded public works projects in the City of Buffalo.

MOBILE DEMOCRACY CENTERS Open Buffalo’s Mobile Democracy Centers will engage at least 1,000 residents per year with voter registration, information about equity issues, and advocacy tools to increase individual engagement and action while overcoming geographic and cultural divides.

JUSTICE AND OPPORTUNITY Open Buffalo’s Justice and Opportunity Table will initially work with the Buffalo Public Schools and the criminal justice system to develop Restorative Justice practices, in which all the stakeholders affected by an injustice discuss its effects and decide what should be done to repair the harm, offering more satisfying resolutions to victims and better results for offenders and communities.

JUSTICE AND OPPORTUNITY Through Open Buffalo collaboration, activists from several autonomous entities have achieved notable progress side by side. Open Buffalo partners and Erie County jail management have recently reached a historic agreement that will bring proven- effective Restorative Justice practices to the Erie County Correctional Facility and the Erie County Holding Center.

ARTS INTEGRATION With the creation of its Arts Network and Arts Integration Strategy, Open Buffalo will convene powerful minds and outsize creative talents to grow civic capacity on underserved Buffalo blocks and to bring overdue systemic changes in focus areas of High Road Economic Development, Justice and Opportunity, and Worker Equity.

ARTS INTEGRATION Arts/Equity Coordination Create a network of social justice-minded arts groups. Train arts groups on how to work with the public, especially youth, on social justice issues. Foster more collaboration between arts groups and social justice groups. Create a digital library of Buffalo art related to social justice.

ARTS INTEGRATION Arts in Open Buffalo Campaigns Arts in Civic Capacity Building Use arts events and resources as part of Mobile Democracy Centers. Bring Mobile Democracy Center to arts/culture/heritage events. Train Emerging Leaders in arts as part of social movements; draw emerging leaders from arts programs/groups. Include arts and artists in Innovation Lab programs. Activate both the Arts Network and entire Open Buffalo movement in support of arts/culture as a key part of public life in Buffalo.

ARTS INTEGRATION Changing Places Open Buffalo will also look to join forces with projects poised to physi-cally transform blighted environments. The Ferry Street Corridor Project provides a good example of this. This project will mine stories of an urban thoroughfare which embodies this city’s East-West divide. The Corridor project will compile authentic local stories, teach residents how to express their stories through performance art, and bring sorely needed infrastructure investment to the decaying intersection of Ferry and Main streets.

FOR MORE INFORMATION & TO GET INVOLVED… please visit Call ext OpenBuffalo : open_buffalo :