Down the Street

Building resilient communities

Vital parts of building a neighborhood network

1. An invitation to connect needs to be face to face. I cannot say this strongly enough. Invitations cannot be shared via facebook, an email list or even a flyer. To build a neighborhood community, you need to talk with your neighbor.
2. Be welcoming – everyone in the group does not need to have the same reason for resisting. Each member will have different passions, different skills and different risk levels. Building a safe space to have open, messy and difficult discussions will help the group strengthen connections.
3. Geographic basis – neighborhood where you live, neighborhood where you work, church group, business group, sport group must be hyper-local. Think 1 square mile - a named neighborhood or a school neighborhood.
4. Every neighborhood group will look different – a group near a school will likely want to patrol more than a group near a university who may want to provide mutual aid to students.

Some members will have a focus of mutual aid, some will have a focus of ICE watch, some will have a focus of school patrol.

All members should be ready to do what they can when the situation arises.

And the way we are resisting now will not look the same three months from now.

How to invite your neighbor

(especially if you are an introvert)

A great first indicator of potential is liberal leaning signs and flags

1. Say hi when you walk by with your dogs/kids, strike up a conversation about gardens/new decorations/roof/paint
2. Find a neighbor who you remember having a Harris sign and say “I remember you having a great Harris sign in your yard prior to elections; are you as overwhelmed with what’s going on as I am?”
3. Find a neighbor who has flown a PRIDE flag this year and say “Hey, I love(d) your flag! Any chance you want to start a Signal chat with me and some neighbors to make sure we have a safe space to chat about what’s going on in the US?”
4. Find a neighbor who you have seen at a rally, Indivisible meeting, at the library, at a charity/mutual aid event and say “Hi, I saw you at ___ recently, and I’m really scared about ____. Since we were at the same event, I assume you have similar fears. Any chance you’d like to get together for a coffee/tea/drink to chat about it?”
5. And then, ask your neighbor to invite a like-minded person to the chat.

Follow up

Keep getting together. That may look like a weekly stitch-n-bitch, an every-other-week postcard writing session, or a neighborhood potluck every month at a house or community center. Some weeks it will be 2 households, some it will be 20 households. Don’t lose hope when it’s a smaller gathering, it might mean it’s time to switch it up – time, location, event. The main point is to keep talking, keep sharing and keep building.

ICE is the first incursion, but it will not be the last. Our communities are built to respond to any threat, regardless of it’s source, and we are here for our community. Whether that is forming rapid response networks, school and church security patrols, escorting our marginalized neighbors to their homes.