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	Cleveland Community Building Initiative (CCBI): Findings Available

Findings Available

Interim Implementation Findings
Interim Impact Findings
Interim Descriptive/Analytical Findings

Findings

01/01/97: Cleveland Community Building Initiative: The 1995-96 CCBI Baseline Progress Report

In two and a half years, CCBI has gone from a vision to a reality in four villages. These communities have accomplished the difficult process of establishing widely inclusive and participatory governance structures called Village Councils. The considerable investment of time and effort by staff and volunteers has resulted in a nascent capacity for focusing the communities’ attention and resources on issues of vital importance to residents. Converting this focus into successful action though, poses a series of challenges; many of which are detailed in this report. Overall, the evaluation found that significant progress had been made in most villages toward building organizational and leadership capacity and involving the community in shaping its own agenda. Using the communities’ assets to move this agenda forward began at different stages in each village, with some facing challenges in terms of coalescing around a cohesive plan. The evaluation pointed to the need to strengthen and refine the roles and responsibilities of various components of CCBI and its relationships to the community at large.

01/01/99: Cleveland Community Building Initiative: The 1997-98 CCBI Baseline Report on Collaborative Relationships

Overall, this evaluation study on collaborative relationships found that CCBI has faced many challenges and achieved some successes in the development of essential collaborative relationships. However, the citywide partners identified in the Poverty Commission Report have not been involved in the Initiative’s implementation. Although there are inherent challenges in community building such as agency turfism and competition, there is clear evidence within the villages of a pattern of inter-organizational activity that has emerged through the work of CCBI. These inter-organizational relationships can be described as sharing common objectives and in some cases a formal structure. The network of collaborative relationships is impressive not only in terms of the number of participants, but in the fairly even distribution across organizational sections. CCBI is among the most frequently cited collaborators in this network.

10/01/01: Cleveland Community Building Initiative: The End of Welfare as They Knew It What Happens When Welfare Recipients Reach Their Time Limits?

Interim Impact Findings:

"Relative to those who left welfare without facing time limits, the time limited leavers have lower employment rates, work less steadily, work fewer hours and make less per hour and therefore have significantly lower family incomes. They are also less likely to hold jobs with benefits and more likely to depend on public transit or others for a ride to work. And they face more housing hardships such as overcrowding and excessive rent burdens.

However, the time-limited leavers have been more able to utilize support services such as Medicaid and food stamps, employment referrals and housing support, services for which they were still eligible after reaching their cash assistance time limit.

If the goal of welfare reform is more than to simply reduce the rolls, those leaving welfare still require a broad range of services, such as child care, transportation, housing assistance, job training and referral, and emergency funds for unforeseen needs, and may even need more than is already provided. While this is particularly true of the time-limited leavers who face multiple barriers to success off of welfare, even those who voluntarily leave welfare could use greater access to such support services. Understanding the changing characteristics of those leaving welfare, both time limited and voluntary, will be critical in assessing their changing needs. Policy makers need to know they have not gotten rid of a population in need—they’ve only moved them off of welfare. Short of eliminating or extending the time limits for cash assistance, it is clear that other types of support are even more important.

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