Polis: East Winter Garden residents most concerned about infrastructure

Polis Institute representatives met with stakeholders July 24 for another interactive session to work toward goals that will best serve the east Winter Garden community. The Revitalization Network Series meetings are being held at Healthy West Orange and is sponsored by the city of Winter Garden and facilitated by Polis.

Dr. Bahíyyah Maroon, Polis CEO, and Will Jefferson, director of community projects, shared the results of a survey conducted with residents and stakeholders to determine both parties’ top priorities.

“The No. 1 priority for residents is infrastructure, and the No. 1 priority for east Winter Garden stakeholders was economic mobility,” Jefferson said. “None of the individuals in the network among the stakeholders … selected infrastructure.”

Eighteen percent of all occupied homes in east Winter Garden and 22.8% of Revitalization Network members completed the feedback survey. The residents survey resulted in these top priorities: Neighborhood infrastructure, 31%; community safety, 16%; housing, 11%; childcare and youth activities, 9%; and transportation 9%. The network members’ top priorities were economic mobility, 26%; education, 15%; community safety, 13%; housing, 12%; and career paths, 11%.

Other categories in the survey were health care and food security, both of which were deemed low priority in the survey.

“What was most productive was the opportunity for people who serve nonprofits to see, in concrete numbers, the difference between their priorities and the priorities of residents,” Maroon said. “And then during the workshop sections of the meeting, nonprofits were able to learn from each other how that difference in priorities affects their own services and what they might do about it. Services providers recognized a need to change their messaging to better capture people’s interest.”

Polis’ goal is to find the shared common priorities, Maroon said, and in this case, those are community safety and housing.

“A really important part of what we found is the city of Winter Garden’s top priority for infrastructure and all the infrastructure projects it’s undertaking is in alignment with what the residents want done,” she said. “The city is in the position to act on infrastructure, as nonprofits are limited in that. So, the city is aligned with the community’s priority, and the nonprofits overlap in the priority of housing and community safety.”

Maroon said the next phase is an action plan that will give nonprofits and residents step-by-step strategies to work together with a focus on community safety.

She said the eastside neighborhood has a great chance of succeeding with the support of the city.

“The really important piece is, unlike many other revitalization projects, the city of Winter Garden is investing in helping community members become full participants in the activities that affect their neighborhood,” she said. “The next step of this project is community residents coming to the table alongside the nonprofits members so that they are learning how to work together. It’s not work being done for the community, it’s work being done by the community with the support of nonprofit organizations. And that’s the key difference in the next step.”

Maroon said few Community Redevelopment Agencies make the large-scale investment that Winter Garden is making.

“Typically, it’s only the nonprofits that come to the table; it’s only the priorities of the nonprofit,” she said. “Small surveys may be done for feedback on a plan that nonprofits have already decided, so (Winter Garden) putting community residents as 50-50 partners is highly unusual. Getting stakeholders to make that upfront investment is rare.”

The next revitalization network meeting will be held in early October.

The action-oriented work sessions give community leaders and stakeholders practical tools and steps to improve communication between residents and organizations and establish shared goals for community improvement.