Civic Identity

"You will gain a greater sense of how your personal skills, abilities and interests may aide in community development and leadership."

Kayla Nguyen, Brianna Lupo, Michelle Anderson, Allyson Stoops

Civic Identity: What is it? (Brianna)

Develops over time by engagement with other individuals who bring a diverse set of experiences
Locating yourself in a broader community
Challenge to integrate empathy, ethics, and critical thinking to create a holistic sense of self

Took at the Milwaukee Museum Art

How did we develop our civic identity as group?

Our service team had 16 members, so there were a lot of diversity. We all have different backgrounds, majors and experiences. But we came together and served in Milwaukee community on urban housing. Throughout the service trip, we had an opportunity to learn and expand on our personal skills, strengths, and interests. We applied all the teamwork strategies and the knowledge on homelessness. Then we brought toward those things to serve in the Milwaukee community. We had worked with several organizations. It broadened our perspective more positive due to the stories and experiences from people we worked along during those days.

The Cathedral Center

Application of Service

Cathedral Center is a non-profit organization, a shelter house. When we think of the Shelter House, we might just think that it is a place to sleep for couple days or short term. But after the visiting, we noticed that it is much more than a roof or a bed.

At the Cathedral Center, we were open-minded listening and learning about the programs they offer. Their goal is to ensure that each woman and family has housing before they leave shelter if at all possible. We also met the volunteer coordinator, Anna. She told us more on their mission, programs and her own experience at the shelter house. She also gave us a deeper understanding on the circumstances of homeless individuals must battle through each scenario in the real life. She had us pretend to be homeless, whom need a shelter house service. Then, she walked us through from entering the shelter house, do the paper work, to the room, the process of getting us back on permanent housing track and a job for long term income. Then, we met LaTayshia and shared with us many heartbreaking stories and the hope of the homeless people whom are resident there. The most impact and touched our feeling was the story of the little boy whom was excited to has his own bed when arrived at the Shelter House.

Another unique thing of shelter house that the meals provided by volunteer and community. So, volunteers can make impact for the community by spend a little bit of time and cash to helping feed the homeless. The Cathedral Center also cooperate with the Friendship House, which provides a long-term stable living condition.

ACTS Housing

ACTS Housing is a nonprofit empowerment agency that supports low-income families to achieve home-ownership in Milwaukee’s most challenging neighborhoods. They supports families by providing home-buyer counseling, real estate brokerage, home rehab counseling, and low-interest loans to help families finance the rehabilitation of their new home.

Application of Service

While visiting the ACTS Housing, we got the opportunity to come over Ray's house. Our tasks were helping the owner to repaint the garage, window frames and wall inside and throw away all the unused items. The communication and teamwork strategies are needed. We split up into small groups. Half of the group stayed back to scrape the paint off and painted the wall and garage. Other half carried the things out and took those to the dump. Two of our teammates carried out an old stove together. We collaborated on these tasks and got it done on time. With this service work, it utilized our personal skills and interests to help for better cause. It was like how we use painting skills and strengths to help the new homeowner. It was small thing that makes impact and filled us with happiness on helping them.

Habitat for Humanity

Habitat for Humanity is a non-profit organization which provide adequate housing for those who cannot obtain it. The houses are built for them with no cost and only with the 300 service hours on building home from the new homeowners and pay 30% of their income. They also provide with no interest loans that way they can sufficiently pay off their homes. Volunteers are constantly helping out in assisting the building of homes.

Application of Service

At the Habitat of Humanity, we got the opportunity to work on a Habitat construction site. Some of us might have experience on using tools or fixing things at home. Some might not have those experience at all. Then, the whole team got divided into three small teams and worked on three different house construction sites with different tasks. We got to meet and worked with other Habitat volunteers that were assisting us on that day. So, everything went smooth and it was a nice experience. This service work show how we collaborate with the other Habitat volunteers to work on construction site and perform tasks involving physical labor at construction site. It gave us the capability on using tools and adjusting the setting. It also showed how we do not necessarily to have construction skills to be a part of the framing team. All we need a passion for service and open-minded on learning new skill. We still can help out to bring the impact for the community.

New Inspirations and Interests (Michelle)

Although most of us were quick to admit that public housing wasn't most of our first choices on that first day of class, we all took on this new passion for learning about and serving the housing problem in Milwaukee and even in Iowa City. Throughout the class we got the opportunity to learn and hear from multiple different organizations all working to decrease homelessness in Iowa City.

At first I wondered, how can this relate to what we will be doing in Milwaukee? However, as we were on the trip and traveling around the city, speaking to members of the community and nonprofit organizations, it became clear that there were many similarities. For example, the price of housing in each of the cities were really high to get into a good part or neighborhood, like most places. We noticed this in Milwaukee by going on a driving tour of certain neighborhoods and then looking up the prices. In Iowa City, it's easy to notice because we live here and it's become our problem to find affordable housing. This inspired our team to take notice of this and I think we would all agree that it's important to recognize this as being such a big problem and working on ways to improve it. We did this in Milwaukee by going to the Cathedral Center, working with ACTS Housing, and with Habitat for Humanity. We plan to continue our work here, in Iowa City, by volunteering as a group to Habitat Restore and personally taking time away from our busy schedules to maybe volunteer at another organization we heard about it class.

Service Impact on our Personal Civic Identities (Allyson)

Many of the activities that we had a chance to partake in showed us the unique identities within the Milwaukee area. While they do have a unique identity that is different than many of our home towns or the identity we all associate with Iowa City, we can all relate to having community pride and relationships. Many of the organizations we worked with recognize that Milwaukee is not perfect and has many internal issues, but they are not giving up on their community. They are working to better it, as many people in Iowa City or other towns do too.

That being said, the organizations showed persistence and courage to help solve their own issues and not wait around for the most convenient of times. It also promotes conversation around important social issues that need to change for the betterment of people that are affected. Promoting conversations about these topics encourages more and more people to get involved and make a change. Seeing people acknowledge the problems in the area and make movements to change it is refreshing to acknowledge and motivate ourselves to want to change our involvements in our communities and change our society for the better.

Although Iowa City is much different from Milwaukee, many of the issues, especially affordable housing and homelessness, still pertain to the area and are something that we have to focus on solving in our own community.

Continuing to Foster Civic Identity in Iowa City (Brianna)

While the issues we saw in Milwaukee regarding housing insecurity and affordability are unique to the dynamic of the city. As Milwaukee was increasing in size in the mid-1900s, a people could make a solid living in Milwaukee's many factories to provide for their families. As factories shut down, many of these workers lost their jobs and the city's housing market began to age. Today, housing in Milwaukee is largely segregated by ethnicity and it is extremely easy to tell the good neighborhoods from the bad. There is a severe lack of affordable housing and homeless shelters are at capacity and in high demand. The housing hotline receives nearly 1000 calls each night, with only around 100 beds in the city to accommodate those individuals.

In Iowa city, the settlement and current dynamic of the city differ, as do the housing issues. Because Iowa City is a college town, the majority of the rental market involves college students and ebbs and flows with the academic year. Rental prices are high, but student loans allow students to continue to occupy this housing. New high-rise apartments are being continuously built in the city, but developers often pay millions of dollars to avoid having affordable, or Section 8, housing in their buildings.

Because of the difference in the cities, it is different to foster a civic identity in Iowa City. Additionally, each individual fosters his/her own civic identity. Ways to further engage in this issue in the community involve spreading awareness of urban housing issues, attending policy meetings, and continuing to volunteer with organizations like Habitat for Humanity, Shelter House or Under Your Wing, and Ronald McDonald House. By engaging with these organizations, individual passion can continue to shape one's civic identity. Continually, surrounding oneself with diversity on campus and in the community can share valuable viewpoints from many different backgrounds. Integration of empathy with volunteering, engagement, and critical thinking can help to form a greater sense of civic identity and a positive impact in the community.

In Summary (Allyson)

Our trip to Milwaukee taught us a lot about issues that are plaguing our modern day society. We learned a lot about the issues that Milwaukee is going through and how people within the community are going out of their way to help solve the issues. Our service helped people in what may seem like an insignificant amount, but it helped change our perspectives toward service and our involvement in more way than one. We appreciated the opportunity to help out organizations such as Habitat for Humanity and Acts Housing as we have learned so much through the organizations and they have motivated us to be more active participants in our community. Our experiences on this trip have motivated almost all of us to apply to go on a trip again and to get more involved in the Iowa City community.

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