Residents, Businesses Get Scoop on Community Web Portals
Two years ago Dionne Baux, program officer for LISC Chicago’s Smart Communities program, entered ‘Humboldt Park’ into her Internet search bar, curious to see what stories would pop up first.
‘The first three listings were focused on how many people in the neighborhood had been shot or robbed in the past week, and how there were drug dealers on every street corner,’ Baux recalled recently at a brown bag lunch convened by LISC to discuss the benefits of online community portals for businesses and residents in Chicago neighborhoods.
This event at the Humboldt Park field house officially launched LISC Chicago’s Smart Communities Program, which has brought web portals to Humboldt Park and four other communities. Read about the launch event at http://www.smartcommunitieschicago.org/news/3112
LISC CHICAGO FILE PHOTO
“At the time,” said Baux, “the community had no online portal. The positive news stories coming out of the neighborhood weren’t being picked up, and reporters outside the community were only focusing on the neighborhood’s problems. ‘But now if you Google ‘Humboldt Park,’ the portal is the first thing that pops up, and you hear the positive stories coming out of the community,’ she added. ‘It has helped change the mindset of people about their community, it changes the mindset of all the social services and businesses in Humboldt Park, and it changes the perceptions of the community to outsiders.”
The Humboldt Park Portal is one of five that LISC Chicago, through its Smart Communities program—a multifaceted effort to improve digital technology and literacy—helped neighborhood organizations establish in Auburn Gresham, Chicago Lawn, Englewood, Humboldt Park and Pilsen. The portals are community-driven websites that often provide local businesses with web access for the first time, helping them connect with local residents and bring in people from outside the neighborhood. It allows neighborhood businesses, organizations, and residents to share stories, events, and listings with others.
The luncheon brought together community and economic developers from several Chicago neighborhoods to learn about the possibilities of the portals. Baux was on hand to provide expertise on how participants could bring portals to their own communities.
‘Their open-source format enables anyone in the community to submit news items or notices,’ said Gordon Walek, LISC Chicago’s communications manager. ‘It really showcases a wide variety of subjects, much as you’d see in a local newspaper, and it’s also a great tool for businesses. One of the benefits is that it allows business organizations to post contact information, photos, and videos, and for small businesses—many of which might not have the sophistication or resources to have their own website—this is a real boon.’
Dionne Baux, LISC Chicago program officer for the Smart Communities Program, is happy to see the positive stories that portals have been able to tell about often stereotyped neighborhoods.
LISC CHICAGO FILE PHOTO
With development leaders from more than a dozen Chicago neighborhoods in attendance, the discussion centered on the benefits that portals provide to communities and how best to communicate those benefits to business owners who may not have the resources or knowledge to get online.
Both Sheree Moratto of the Rogers Park Business Alliance and Melinda Kelly of the Chatham Business Association identified the lack of technological resources as a primary obstacle. “What we’d be dealing with is that many of the businesses in our area have no prior experience with computers,” said …READ THE FULL STORY BY FOLLOWING THE LINK: