Source: The Brownsville Herald

By: TY JOHNSON

An idea to take inventory of the city’s housing situation has grown into a collective effort to improve Brownsville’s resiliency.

The city is set to compete in the Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities Challenge following a “Roadmap to Resilience” event last week at the BrownsvilleEventsCenter.

What began as a proposed housing symposium between the city, the Housing Authority and the Community Development Corporation of Brownsville quickly grew into the resiliency discussion when officials saw the inclusion and overlap of other issues from health to the economy. When the term “resiliency” kept coming up, the partners decided to grow the event into a citywide effort.

On March 25, city leaders and the general public came together in small groups to discuss the city’s assets in key areas and to hear from Peter Madonia, the chief operating officer of the Foundation.

“It’s not just physical infrastructure,” Madonia said.

Instead, he said the program is more concerned with evaluating what a city’s strengths and weaknesses are and helping them be prepared for emergencies, from hurricanes to economic downturns.