Why won't people come to our community development meetings?

Visitor Question: When you ask people what is best about our little suburb close to the city, often they say it's the variety of people. When poked a little bit, they will say that they think that people of lesser means are being forced to look elsewhere for nice apartments or houses to rent or buy. The sons and daughters of people who have been pillars of our community just are not able to afford to locate here once they come back from college.

This leads to my question: why is it that when we have a meeting about community development, we are lucky to have two or three people show up? It would seem like if people are worried about housing affordability and issues like homelessness, racial discrimination, and drugs, they would be there early to talk about what we can do.

However, this lack of attendance happens whether we request a formal hearing in front of the city council or whether we have a round table event where people are just discussing housing and other community issues among themselves. What can we do to inspire more participation?

Editors Respond: You are not alone in facing this problem. It seems that since the pandemic, the turnout for in-person events is even worse. You will need some new tactics.

You say that some people are upset that their new college grads can't establish their households back in their home community. How about some personal outreach to those parents?

How about asking all city employees who they know that may have an opinion about the cost of housing or any of the other issues they mention. Make a list of those people and either do the outreach yourself or ask the employee who suggested a friend to make that personal invitation.

As usual, the gentle bribery of food and a good time certainly helps. If you offer either, make sure it is of good quality. No one is motivated to leave the comfort of home for a cheap store-bought cookie. Maybe an ice cream sundae bar or a little wine and cheese spread will get people there.

Alternatively, maybe it's the way you talk about these issues that needs to be changed. If it's too vague or too uninspiring, again people can't be bothered to spend their time at the community development meeting. Try setting up some possible scenarios for people to react to, and then be sure to put something attention-grabbing about your options on your event flyer. By the way, the "flyer" should be handed out wherever people gather, distributed through the business district, posted in the store windows and at the parks. Make a version suitable for social media and then send it to the most media-savvy people in your community. But you need to stir the imagination a little bit, rather than just say you are going to discuss "community development."

Take advantage of any controversies that spring up to educate people about what is at stake, hoping that perhaps you will generate a new interest and some additional volunteers that will help spread the word.

Take advantage of any kind of media-driven "see who's going" or "see who's interested" features on platforms that your community uses. If you have NextDoor active in your community, be sure to post there and enlist people who also are interested in your hot topics to engage with that post.

If there's no NextDoor group or neighborhood association, consider the formation of both to be a necessary backdrop to getting better attendance at your next meeting.

It seems that you have the right idea that a roundtable of some sort may be an easier sell than the traditional public hearing, which you probably don't need anyway until you have specific legislation that needs to pass. But you still have to be specific about the benefits of attending the roundtable and the topics to be discussed.

If there is an underlying issue of mistrust of the local government, keep in mind that you need to deal with that assertively and openly. People often have a good reason for being suspicious, although general paranoia about government is so strong in the U.S. culture right now, you may have to combat a mistrust barrier even if none of your past public officials are convicted felons.

There are plenty of other ideas on this website, so rather than write additional paragraphs, please take a deep dive into the Community Organizations section of the site. You also will find clues about other pages to read by using the links in the yellow box near the top of our Sitemap.

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