Tenant Safety Workshop - This February 20th event, a shared project between the WWU AS Legal Information Center and the CCC, brings speakers to WWU to talk with students about important off-campus life issues. Speakers include Bellingham Fire Department, City of Bellingham Rental Registration staff, Bellingham Emergency Management, the Northwest Clean Air Agency, the CCC and the ASLIC. Additionally, we're arranging the workshop to be videotaped, so students can have year-round web-based access to the important content of this workshop. Click here to view the event flyer!

Tenant Waste Task Force - At the last meeting of the TWTF, potential pilot projects were evaluated and participants tried to narrow the list down to ideas that seemed to have the most community energy/enthusiasm and were most do-able. Some great ideas are emerging, though it is becoming even clearer how complex this issue is and how addressing it needs to reflect a community-wide commitment to the solutions.

Litter Outreach - Partially as a result of the TWTF, we launched a "Litter/Garbage/Recycling" page on the Off Campus Living website. We put some initial relevant content on this page and will continue to add content that provides information and resources. We'll also continue our good work with Bellingham PD's new litter enforcement officer when that position gets up and running.

Litter Impact Video - We hired a video production student and are in the beginning stages of creating a short engaging video about the litter issue. We envision that this video could be launched in a social media campaign, particularly around times of lease changes and school term breaks.

Online Rental Clinic - We're working with a group of Technical Writing students to create an online course about renting/off campus life. This would be an engaging online "class", relevant to the student demographic, which would provide resources and important information to consider before and during living off campus.

Student Research and Engagement - This quarter has shown a big increase in our partnerships with WWU faculty and students in our work. Currently a group of WWU Community Health students are launching an important research project into the apparent decrease in problematic student-related alcohol issues in our community and what the potential causative factors might be. This would provide important direction to our work (finding out "what's working" and how to do more of that). I've also been spending more time speaking in classes and with groups of students, taking advantage of the ever increasing relationships that the CCC is building, both on the WWU campus and community-wide, to share our messages.

"Town-Gown" - The City of Bellingham's Town-Gown Initiative is launching and we're so excited to be an integral partner in this effort. Planning and Community Development Director Rick Sepler presented the initiative to the Mayor's Neighborhood Advisory Commission last month, and the City is taking steps to secure grant funding for the initial research/information gathering that will launch the project. Additionally, I'm planning to attend the International Town-Gown Association annual conference in June, and to gain important information and connections with colleagues in similar roles as mine, to talk about what's working and what trends they are seeing. Also, as part of the Town Gown Initiative, the City will be evaluating initiating a "Party Registration" program, similar to other successful programs in other municipalities. I'm working closely with Officer Osterkamp, BPD's Neighborhood Police Officer, to begin the work of designing the educational materials that would accompany and be crucial to the potential implementation of this program.

Collaborations with Neighborhood Police Officers - I continue to work closely with BPD's Neighborhood Police Officers, particularly Officer Osterkamp, in addressing specific student-related issues in neighborhoods with targeted outreach and education. This continues to be a highly effective collaborative effort that benefits neighborhoods and students alike.

Rental Registration and Safety Inspection - We continue to work closely with the City of Bellingham's Rental Registration and Safety Inspection staff in anticipation of the rental inspections starting in the 2nd or 3rd quarter of 2016. We all understand the importance of getting good information out to student-tenants and to ensure that all students have access to safe housing in the community.

In general - In addition, I continue to attend neighborhood association meetings and to share about the CCC in other community venues. We also continue to use our Facebook page to push messages out. It's hard to believe we get all of this work done in just 24 hours/week (!) which is a testimony to our great partners and the amazing power of collaboration.

 

If you have questions about any of our projects, want to pitch in, or want to meet and talk about the work, always feel free to email me! Thanks for reading up on what's new with us and, as always, thanks for your support!
Carmen