During National Arts and Humanities Month, NeighborWorks America offers another look at what organizations do to incorporate arts in their communities.

For J'Tanya Adams, resident leadership is the key to unlocking possibilities. "Projects have to be community driven," explains Adams, who started Historic West End Partners, a nonprofit that focuses on economic and cultural development in Charlotte, North Carolina's West End. "Community leaders can recognize community needs and identify pain points and potential wins.

For decades, the Mission District in San Francisco has been a hub for working-class Latino immigrants. As immigrants from other places arrived, too, the district maintained its Latino centricity  with a supportive, vibrant ecosystem. Then, gentrification, arm in arm with the tech industry, began to change the neighborhood – both the people who could afford to live there and the businesses they frequented.
 

NeighborWorks America has its foundation in resident leadership, the idea that those living and working in a community know best how to make their community stronger – and how to lead others in the effort. Each year, NeighborWorks honors some of those leaders with the Dorothy Richardson Award for Resident Leadership while also bringing attention to the work of resident leaders everywhere.

Kristina Aguilar's expertise was working on interior walls. DeJeaun Biggle liked the heavy lifting and tarring the foundation. But painting trim? "Tedious," he says. The neighbors worked together  to build their homes – and each other's – as a part of NeighborWorks Great Falls' Owner-Built Homes Program, which began in 2005  through USDA's Mutual Self-Help Program.

There's a growing divide between those who can access services digitally – like education, work and health care -- and those who can't. The issue is top-of-the-mind for housing practitioners, who often work with the very individuals that the divide is hurting the most. Some NeighborWorks network organizations are already working on solutions, such as setting up hotspots and working WiFi into their future projects.