With the help of the City of Springfield and Community Partnership of the Ozarks, Heart of the Westside hosted a goal-making discussion for our neighborhood on March 12 with our board and City of Springfield Senior Planner Alana Owen.
It was exciting to see a variety of different people attend! We had our neighborhood principal from York Elementary, Passion A/G Church’s senior pastor, parents, and other concerned neighbors. With this combination of people with different perspectives, great insight into the concerns and actions to move forward for our Heart of the Westside Neighborhood were relayed and discussed.
One of the big concerns discussed was great amount of speeding that happens on our streets like Nichols, West and Calhoun. Our parents desire our neighbors to realize that we have kids and elderly on these streets and last thing to do is be speeding in a local neighborhood. Other big concerns include drug use and disposal of needles, drug houses, and vacant/dangerous properties.
As for actions plans, a reoccurring theme was knowledge and communication of resources available to the neighborhood. With these resources, drug use, dangerous properties and other concerns of the neighborhood could potentially be broken and resolved. As Passion A/G Church’s Pastor Billy relayed, many times the issue cannot just be curbed by reporting or sending a person to jail. It requires healing and permanently breaking habits.
In May, our neighborhood will vote on a what issue to tackle and then create a step-by-step action plan. It’s a joy to see neighbors stepping up to the plate and being a voice. The best is yet to come for Heart of the Westside!