Doreen and list friends, I apologize for checking in late on this topic. I have been having a bit of trouble with my e-mail service and have not kept up lately. Another reason I took a break is that I just completed a Master's thesis on this very topic, Community Gardening on Public Housing Properties. I sampled a dataset from HUD of 4,000+ housing authorities in the U.S., and surveyed 925 of them. I had about 250 responses, not all of whom have gardens on their properties, but many do. My impression of the administrators who responded was overwhelmingly that they are devoted to their mission and to the welfare of their residents, and many see gardening as a positive benefit. Even many of those for whom it has not worked out were praising its benefits. I am not attempting to generalize about the extent of gardening, since those with an interest in the subject were much more likely to respond. However, I have proof from their own hands that it is beneficial and appreciated in many quarters.
There is also the unfortunate fact that HAs are under intense political pressure to practice property management more like the private sector does, and the direction of development might be difficult to influence. Don't overlook your elected representatives and any other supporters or stakeholders you can enlist on your side. It sounds as if your opponent has much more power than patience. Keep trying to conduct your communication on the highest and most reasonable plane possible, even (especially) if they do not respond in kind. One outcome of my study has been the conviction that if CG's benefits can be shown to address the most important Housing Authority and HUD priorities, it might become more widespread and even receive official support one day, as it has sometimes had in the past. I have some data on how those connections might be drawn. Because I promised confidentiality, I can't share identifiable HA responses, but if you would like to contact me offline, I would be glad to help you with any information or ideas that I could. If the issue is still open, or if my findings would be of interest to anyone, I'm here. Leslie Provence MPA 2007, UTSA lprovence at sbcglobal.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://list.communitygarden.org/pipermail/community_garden_list.communitygarden.org/attachments/20070531/4147068e/attachment.html
