Bethel New Life - Towards a Healthy Sustainable Community

Description 

Bethel New Life is a community development corporation working to revitalize Chicago's primarily African American West Garfield Park community through the creation of livable-wage jobs, the rehabilitation of low-income multi-family housing using energy-efficient designs, the development of community education and health care programs, and the cultivation of neighborhood improvement projects. By taking advantage of underutilized community resources and emphasizing the utilization of environmentally kind technologies, Bethel has helped convert a community suffering from an unemployment rate of 27% and a housing crisis in which 40% of its housing stock has disappeared since 1970 into a healthy, sustainable place to live. 

Founded by Bethel Lutheran Church, Bethel New Life originated as a volunteer organization dedicated to providing affordable housing. "We soon found out even the most affordable housing isn't affordable if you don't have a job," said Mary Nelson, Bethel's President. So the community organization expanded its mission to include job training and job creation. Bethel's Employment Services Center, opened in 1984, helps as many as 400 community residents every year find full-time employment. Then in 1993, as part of a United Way tour, representatives from the Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratories visited Bethel and a revolutionary partnership was born: Argonne and Bethel forged a "technology transfer" program designed to further environmentally-sound job creation programs and to launch new community development initiatives designed to improve the local environment and increase energy conservation. 

Program Highlights 

Recycling Facility 

• In 1992, Bethel opened its $1.2 million Material Recovery Facility, a recycling plant that has the capacity to handle 100 tons of recyclable plastic daily and employs 50 low-income community residents. Argonne is lending its support to provide cleaning and advanced separation technology that would enable the facility to process a greater variety of waste, raising facility revenues by at least a factor of four.
• In addition, Argonne is investigating the possibility of utilizing recycled waste as building materials, which would provide a market for locally-recycled materials and would offer community employment opportunities. Such efforts have attracted eight more companies offering local jobs, environmentally sound manufacturing processes and additional recycling revenue. A company that removes ink from office paper has moved into the industrial recycling center, and the others are preparing to move into the community.

• Argonne and Bethel are instituting a pilot program in which two community apartment buildings will be rehabilitated to include energy-efficient construction and technologies. One building will be rehabbed for maximum energy conservation using the best current technology. The second building will be rehabbed using cost-efficent energy conservation measures. The energy performance of the buildings will be measured over two years and the most cost-efficient/energy-efficient measures will be employed in future designs.

• Bethel and Argonne are developing a curriculum designed to provide training in hazardous waste remediation. The curriculum will be designed with the input of an advisory committee of companies engaged in waste remediation to ensure a close fit between the skills developed within the program and the skills needed within the industry. Individuals completing the program will receive assistance through the Employment Center in securing employment.

• The Urban Engineering Program is designed to ensure local opportunities for local residents. In conjunction with the Colleges of Engineering at Illinois Institute of Technology, University of Illinois-Chicago and local community groups, Bethel and Argonne are developing a pilot undergraduate program to apply engineering technology to the problems unique to America's older cities.

• The West Garfield area contains numerous structures abandoned during the industrial flight of the 1970's. Argonne and Bethel have developed a program in which local community residents are trained in environmental analysis and cleanup of these facilities, providing them with the skills necessary to work professionally in the field of site restoration. In addition to providing local job opportunities, hazardous sites in the community are cleaned and, after refurbishment, the structures are made available for new tenancy. 

In addition to the intiatives spearheaded by Bethel's partnership with Argonne, Bethel maintains numerous initiatives designed to transform a discarded neighborhood into a sustainable community. 

• As an alternative to institutionalization, Bethel developed a community-based care initiative for the elderly that now employs more than 300 residents as care givers.
• Bethel reconditioned an abandoned hospital that now serves as a regional health center, a performing arts center, and provides housing for the elderly.
• Bethel also helped secure $300 million in funding to keep the neighborhood Lake Street El (elevated train) Station open, enabling community input into the rehabilation and providing local jobs.
• Finally, in keeping with its tradition of developing synergistic models, Bethel converted an abandoned city block into the New Life park, using recycled plastic to construct a variety of park structures including the benches. Shredded automobile tires now serve as the "landing" area under the swings.

Vital Statistics

Program Management/Partnerships: Bethel New Life, Inc., a community development corporation, manages the "Towards a Healthy Sustainable Community" project and has entered into partnerships with Argonne National Laboratory (Department of Energy), the University of Illinois at Chicago, the University of Chicago, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the Center for Neighborhood Technology, Chicago community colleges, local high schools and elementary schools, local community groups, and others. 

Budget: $8 million annually. 

Community Served: The 25,000 primarily African American residents of the West Garfield Park neighborhood in Chicago. 

Measures of Success:

Trained and placed in employment more than 4,000 people.

Established a community recycling facility.

Converted an abondoned block into an environmentally kind park.

Created an Urban Engineering Program offering summer internships.

Attracted new, environmentally friendly industries to the area.

Has rehabilitated and made available low-income housing to community residents.