Graduation Year

2022

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree

D.B.A.

Degree Granting Department

Business

Major Professor

Richard Will, Ph.D.

Co-Major Professor

Jennifer Wolgemuth, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Robert Hammond, DBA

Committee Member

Dejun Kong, Ph.D.

Keywords

Community Development, Resident Engagement, Community Efficacy, Urban Redevelopment, Social Determinants of Health, Resident-led Community Building

Abstract

Despite its location just a few miles from the burgeoning University of South Florida, the University Area Community (UAC) is considered a severely economically disadvantaged neighborhood. When compared to its surrounding counties, the UAC experiences heightened unemployment and poverty rates in conjunction with a significantly lower median income and rate of homeownership. This study utilized a research method of Narrative Inquiry as told through Qualitative Research to gain a better understanding of the UAC residents’ lived experiences and of how community change agents could succeed in impacting community wellbeing in areas like affordable housing, resident employment, and resident engagement. The study concluded that the most important aspect of empowering residents in these areas consisted of a focus on three important sectors of knowledge: the community’s (and its residents’) history, an understanding of the residents who make up the community, and the identification of residents’ strengths. Finally, it is most important that each of these sectors of knowledge should be approached through the fundamental understanding that ultimately it is not the programming, the offerings, or the initiatives (alone) that best empowers residents to empower communities. Rather, it is the residents themselves and their collective voice and view (i.e. their collective lens), or the residents’ lens that is most capable of empowering a community toward developed wellbeing and lasting, positive change.

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