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Bill Reinke, Executive Director, and Rebecca Gomez, Home Ownership Center Assistant, Neighborhood Housing Services of Southwest Wisconsin
Challenge: Our service area of Southwest Wisconsin is home to a growing population of Hispanic residents, drawn by jobs in the dairy and meat-packing industries. To fulfill their potential, these individuals need greater access to employment, housing, economic and civic-leadership opportunities.
How we responded: Neighborhood Housing Services of Southwest Wisconsin (NHSSW) works to expand its services to Hispanic people through a multi-pronged engagement strategy that includes an in-house Hispanic Leadership Initiative, a partnership with the MultiCultural Outreach Program (MCOP) and relationship-building with other community groups in the region.
Our ultimate objective is to develop Hispanic leaders and spur greater participation by this community in social and economic life.
To head its Hispanic Leadership Initiative, NHSSW recruited a Spanish-speaking staff member charged with forming partnerships with leaders in the Hispanic community. One important contact has been a dairy industry veteran who has built a strong rapport with Hispanic workers in the area. NHSSW staff also has traveled to surrounding regions with more established Hispanic populations to learn from government workers about effective strategies for better serving and engaging these individuals and families. Going forward, NHSSW plans to bring these government officials to our community to network on inclusionary strategies for better involving Hispanic residents in community life and operations.
One of the lessons we have learned is that the Hispanic community is widely decentralized, which makes organizing and engagement more difficult. Thus outreach strategies typically used in rural areas are needed, along with strategic partnerships.
An enabler of all of these activities is NHSSW's partnership with the MultiCultural Outreach Program, which has a mission of supporting the immigrant population of Southwest Wisconsin. Staff from both organizations worked together to create a tenant/homebuyer education course, and organized other multicultural events. The existing resource directory for Richland County was translated into Spanish and distributed widely.
More generally, NHSSW staff have met with civic and educational leaders to discuss their experiences in working with Hispanic families and how our organizations can partner together to create multicultural interaction in the county. We have learned that the school system is an effective partner for reaching dispersed residents. We partnered with the public school's ESL teacher, who invited NHSSW staff to set up an information table at a Spanish-language presentation for parents.
Now, other are brainstorming ways they can use our local model to build partnerships with school districts for to improve multicultural relationships.
Challenge: Our service area of Southwest Wisconsin is home to a growing population of Hispanic residents, drawn by jobs in the dairy and meat-packing industries. To fulfill their potential, these individuals need greater access to employment, housing, economic and civic-leadership opportunities.
How we responded: Neighborhood Housing Services of Southwest Wisconsin (NHSSW) works to expand its services to Hispanic people through a multi-pronged engagement strategy that includes an in-house Hispanic Leadership Initiative, a partnership with the MultiCultural Outreach Program (MCOP) and relationship-building with other community groups in the region.
Our ultimate objective is to develop Hispanic leaders and spur greater participation by this community in social and economic life.
To head its Hispanic Leadership Initiative, NHSSW recruited a Spanish-speaking staff member charged with forming partnerships with leaders in the Hispanic community. One important contact has been a dairy industry veteran who has built a strong rapport with Hispanic workers in the area. NHSSW staff also has traveled to surrounding regions with more established Hispanic populations to learn from government workers about effective strategies for better serving and engaging these individuals and families. Going forward, NHSSW plans to bring these government officials to our community to network on inclusionary strategies for better involving Hispanic residents in community life and operations.
One of the lessons we have learned is that the Hispanic community is widely decentralized, which makes organizing and engagement more difficult. Thus outreach strategies typically used in rural areas are needed, along with strategic partnerships.
An enabler of all of these activities is NHSSW's partnership with the MultiCultural Outreach Program, which has a mission of supporting the immigrant population of Southwest Wisconsin. Staff from both organizations worked together to create a tenant/homebuyer education course, and organized other multicultural events. The existing resource directory for Richland County was translated into Spanish and distributed widely.
More generally, NHSSW staff have met with civic and educational leaders to discuss their experiences in working with Hispanic families and how our organizations can partner together to create multicultural interaction in the county. We have learned that the school system is an effective partner for reaching dispersed residents. We partnered with the public school's ESL teacher, who invited NHSSW staff to set up an information table at a Spanish-language presentation for parents.
Now, other are brainstorming ways they can use our local model to build partnerships with school districts for to improve multicultural relationships.
