Join the NCRC Facebook Page!

Post by the Hawthorne Hawkman, image from NCRC.

For starters, the Northside Community Reinvestment Coalition, or NCRC should NOT be confused with the Northside Residents' Redevelopment Council, NRRC.  Nor should people mistake it for the tornado response group Northside Community Response Team, NCRT.  Organizations like the Northside Tenants Rights Coalition (NTRC) and the Northside Coalition Responding to Coalitions with Redundant Coalition Names (NCRCRCN) don't technically exist yet, but we've thought about creating them just to be more confusing.

Instead, we've dedicated ourselves to defending community wealth.  If that sounds a bit vague, well it's supposed to be.  NCRC is a grassroots coalition of neighborhood groups, religious and cultural organizations, and service-based organizations, formed in response to the foreclosure crisis in north Minneapolis.  While foreclosure prevention outreach has been the cornerstone of NCRC's work, we remain a resident-driven group and those resident leaders will define for us what "community wealth" means and how we should support that in north Minneapolis.

NCRC has been doorknocking consistently over the past several years to reach out to north Minneapolis residents at risk of foreclosures.  Instead of picking a block or two at random in hopes of finding someone in need, we use public records to ensure that every single door we knock on is a household at risk of foreclosure.  Over the years, the coalition has gotten better and better at its efforts to reach people and save homes.  But we don't win every time.  Although we meet every week to knock on doors, there are still far to many foreclosures for a small group to contact everyone.

And that's where you come in, readers of North by Northside.  Join us every Thursday, 6-7 p.m. at the Minneapolis Urban League to go out for a quick doorknocking session.  Since we may do additional outreach sessions, go to our new Facebook page and "like" it.  Just like there was a wide push to get people to join the Clean Sweep NoMi page, please do the same here.  Share NCRC's page with your friends, and encourage them to do more than just "one-click activism."  It takes knocking on about ten doors to reach one person at home who will be referred to or seek foreclosure prevention services.  Given the level of foreclosures that still plague our community, the reality is stark:  we need more volunteers hitting the streets.

More information on NCRC's activities and goals will appear on our site, so please, follow us on Facebook and join us in our outreach.