Within our defined community, there are 36 vacant lots and 34 burned out or boarded residential and business structures. These lots and abandoned structures blight our community and have become sites for illegal dumping and havens for drug users and assorted suspicious activities. Also, within our community, 982 homes out of 1,306 are owned by absentee landlords and 1,416 individuals live in poverty. Presently, our area has the highest public transportation rate in Nashville. The closest grocery store and drug store are five miles away, and the closest shopping mall is 17 miles away. The COPC Economic Development Committee and the neighborhood associations want to empower all residents in the community to proactively respond to these distressing statistics by reclaiming their homes and streets and the proud history that once defined the community.
Committee goals include:
*Conduct a community economic and marketing feasibility study
*Seek various external funding sources to promote development and vitality
within the community
*Develop partnerships with various private and public organizations and businesses
that could assist the Committee in attaining economic development
*Explore ways in which the three neighborhood associations can pool their
strength and resources to project a stronger voice in local government matters
Patricia Totty (patricia.totty@state.tn.us), David Harris(sir_david_94@yahoo.com), and Laurie Hauber(laurie.hauber@vanderbilt.edu) serve as co-chairs of the COPC Economic Development Committee.