The Brownsville Partnership Hosts 7th HOPE Summit
Thank you to everyone who made the 7th Annual Hope Summit our most successful yet! This year’s event welcomed 72 friends, family, and partners to discuss the reactivation of the Livonia Ave corridor, in alignment with the Brownsville Plan. Dr. Tenya Blackwell from The Arthur Ashe Institute and Dr. Stephanie Furquhar from the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) joined the members of the Livonia 4 Development Team to facilitate a conversation around health, housing, access, and racial equity.
What We Learned
The opening plenary, moderated by Shelevya Pearson, was able to bring to light the following issues:
Ensure that any new housing that is built in Brownsville and on Livonia Ave includes mental health service offerings in an uninterrupted continuum—from children to seniors.
Increase opportunities for social cohesion as a way to encourage community engagement and the healthy benefits of connectivity through the new buildings.
Encourage innovative design solutions to connect people to greenery, and support the spiritual and healthy healing that comes with reconnecting to nature.
Use the collective impact of this collaboration to disrupt the systems that continue to permit structural racism to persist in communities of color such as Brownsville.
Build on the benefits of stable quality housing to drive results on impacting the Social Determinants of Health.
Our Commitment
The Brownsville Partnership is committed to preserving the words that were exchanged at this Hope Summit, as we strive to develop and cultivate new restorative environments along Livonia Ave and in Brownsville.
The Brownsville Partnership aims to work with local partners in government, philanthropy, and non-profit sectors to outline a mental health roadmap for Brownsville access to the general public and made available to the Livonia 4 Development Team for its new programming array.
Through the Brownsville Partnership’s new contact with The Arthur Ashe Institute, Enterprise Community Partners and CB16 “Call 2 Action” Health Committee, we are excited to stay in touch with relevant updates on the release of the new Health Action Plan for Brownsville, and the opportunity to integrate its findings into an adaptable framework for the new Livonia 4 Project.