Organizational Description: Founded by Unity Lutheran Church, in partnership with the Mission Board of the Southern Illinois District in 2013. Lansdowne Community Initiative is a nonprofit organization to secure vacant properties, rehabilitate existing structures and develop newly constructed affordable housing. We will also provide financial and housing maintenance education and support to homeowners and renters in the Lansdowne Neighborhood.
Vision: We envision all families living within the Lansdowne community as living within a viable community which provides all who live within its confines with opportunities to advance socially, educationally through the strong community supporting such initiatives.
Organizational Goal Outcomes:
- Build community pride by beautifying and strengthening the neighborhood
- Create safe attractive streets
- Promote homeownership and historical character of the housing stock
- Provide new retail opportunities and other neighborhood amenities
- Enhance Jones Park and construct new recreational facilities throughout the neighborhood
Projected Organizational Objectives:
- Build community pride by beautifying and strengthening the neighborhood
- Increase community capacity and ownership by starting a new neighborhood association
- Organize community cleanups
- Encourage community pride through beautification of parks and open space, as well as along major corridors
- Reduce crime and improve public safety organizational relationships with and within the community
- Create safe attractive streets
- Beautify the major commercial corridors
- Provide amenities for public transportation
- Build curbs, improved sidewalks and gutters in interior streets to improve drainage and to enhance the streetscape within the community
- Increase lighting along interior roads
- Reduce litter and dumping along neighborhood streets
- Improve walkability
- Repair infrastructure
- Promote homeownership and historical character of the housing stock
- Develop housing to attract a mix of income levels
- Repair and resell vacant homes to potential homeowners
- Provide homeownership and home repair to new and existing homeowners
- Remove derelict housing and cleanup abandoned properties
- Provide new retail opportunities and other neighborhood amenities
- Increase neighborhood level retail opportunities
- Provide resources to businesses that would like to improve the appearance of their retail building spaces
- Create opportunities for businesses that will hire from within the community
- Explore job training for new and existing residents
- Enhance Jones Park and construct new recreational facilities throughout the neighborhood
- Jones Park
- Upgrade park to include family-related amenities
- Improve maintenance and landscaping
- Renovate pool and fountain
- Provide community garden with individual plots
- Elsewhere
- Restore natural vegetation where appropriate
- Insert hiking/biking trails
- Insert playgrounds where appropriate
- Construct new community center with cultural focus
- Jones Park
