North Carolina

Greensboro, North Carolina Aims for an Inclusive Recovery

With its continued dependence on shrinking manufacturing jobs, Greensboro's economy has been hard hit by our nation’s economic crisis. Greensboro lost more than 23,000 jobs in the past year and registers an 11.3 percent unemployment rate, compared to 9 percent for the nation as a whole.

PolicyLink is partnering with the Beloved Community Center (BCC), the Community Innovators Lab (CoLab), the Greensboro Green Committee, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to promote equity and opportunity in the implementation of recovery dollars in the city of Greensboro.

The local work is coordinated by the Beloved Community Center who has a convened a large coalition of government and community leaders to develop model programs to equip lower-income people with the skills to work in the city's weatherization, sustainable gardening, renewable energy and other green efforts being support by recovery act funds. This model of inter-city coalition-building is being expanded to five other cities in North Carolina.

With PolicyLink and MIT support, BCC is working with the city of Greensboro, to develop stimulus funding applications, map Greensboro and North Carolina's stimulus possibilities, refine workforce training and organizing curriculum, and coordinate trainings and community strategy sessions to promote public participation in processes that will decide what stimulus money is being used for and how it is spent.