The University of Memphis recently joined the Memphis Housing Authority in helping residents of a blighted public housing community with development and restoration both physically and mentally, by building a community resource center.
The Uptown Resource Center, sponsored by the Memphis Housing Authority and The U of M, will hold its official groundbreaking ceremony this morning at 314 Auction St., where the center will be located when it is completed.
Many prominent figures are scheduled to attend the opening, including Mayor Willie W. Herenton, U of M President Shirley Raines, and Congressman Harold Ford Jr.
“The University of Memphis, which has a long-standing relationship with the Memphis Housing Authority, will oversee and evaluate the center,” said Vanessa Spearman, research associate for the Center for Urban Research Extension, or C.U.R.E.
The Uptown Resource Center will offer a range of services, including a family resource center that will teach families about home ownership, home maintenance and home finance training, all of which will allow residents to grow both socially and financially. These services will aid the residents in developing personal, family-life and job-related skills.
Uptown will also have a building devoted to nonprofit organizations, community organizations, disease prevention and small business management and development.
The U of M’s involvement will provide the Uptown center with technology, such as a computer lab with Internet access and computer-related training for the Uptown residents and the Memphis community as a whole.
“The partnership between The U of M and the Memphis Housing Authority is great because it allows the universities to work with community residents,” said Spearman.
The restored Greenlaw/ Manassas community will be helped by some major investments in the area, including a $1 billion contribution to the site by St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
“The resource center will be very beneficial for the residents to get skills to be able to get work at the places which are investing in Uptown,” said Dr. David Cox, director of C.U.R.E.
“The residents will be a huge part of these changes, not just affected by these changes,” Cox said.
“The residents were actually able to go and look at architecture renderings and got the chance to vote for the type of housing they would reside in,” Spearman said.
The Uptown Project will serve as a community resource center for the residents of the nearby public housing developments, comprised of parts of five neighborhoods and developments north of downtown Memphis.
The Uptown site is only one of several of the revitalization and rehabilitation proposals throughout the city of Memphis, called the H.O.P.E projects — the acronym stands for Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere.
