Neighborhoods have to work collaboratively in order for Hamilton to solve some of the challenges it faces, city officials say. But before neighborhoods can unite, individual neighbors have to come together first.

Hamilton’s Sense of Place subcommittee has been working diligently for more than a year to promote and organize conversations among residents of the city’s many diverse neighborhoods in the hopes of fostering more familiarity, feelings of togetherness and civic involvement. The committee’s work is starting to take root in at least four neighborhoods — Lindenwald, the 4th Ward, East Hamilton and the North End — and city officials are hoping to expand the group’s vision to other parts of Hamilton.

In Lindenwald and East Hamilton, residents have been working with police to form neighborhood watch groups. Volunteers are walking the streets not only to help keep them safe, but also to introduce themselves to their neighbors and encourage others to get involved. In the 4th Ward, residents came together to throw a neighborhood party at the Boys & Girls Club on East Avenue, and they organized a home decorating contest during the Christmas holiday season.

Cynthia Stever, one of three members of the Sense of Place team working with the 4th Ward, said future efforts could include organizing a neighborhood clean up, planting a community garden or even coming up with a better name for the neighborhood.

“The 4th Ward is not very descriptive,” Stever said. “The key is to engage people who live in the community… How can you take responsibility for your block or alley? The hope is the momentum will grow and people will see Mrs. Jones cleaning up her yard and say, ‘Maybe I’ll clean up mine.’ “

“I’m a firm believer if you take pride in your neighborhood that will grow into taking pride in your city,” she said.

Councilwoman Kathleen Klink said those are just a few examples of how the Sense of Place committee is working with neighborhoods to build trust, create meaningful relationships, identify problems, develop community leaders and celebrate successes. Klink said the most eye-opening revelation of the past year for her has been how little people in Hamilton know about neighborhoods outside of where they live, and in some cases, even their own.

“We really don’t talk to each other,” Klink said. “We don’t share in each other’s successes and concerns.

“We’ve become very single-minded about our own families. People come home from their jobs, park their car in the garage, shut the door, and that’s it. They don’t come back out,” she said. “People don’t walk in their neighborhoods anymore, they don’t sit on their front porches. A lot of times, we don’t even know who our neighbors are, or who lives on either side of us.”

Klink said a lack of history and familiarity with one another at the neighborhood level can make it difficult to have broader conversations about the city with regard to economic development, jobs and community investment. She said healthy communities develop ways to dialogue and engage with each other, which is the goal of the Sense of Place committee.

“We have to become better learners and listeners,” Klink said. “We have to learn about the histories of these neighborhoods, the desires and interests of these neighborhoods in order to help them grow and sustain paths forward that make sense for them, whether we are talking about jobs, friendships or a clean-up project.”

The committee is holding a meeting at 6 p.m. Feb. 26 at Miami University Hamilton Downtown, 221 High St., to learn how to facilitate meaningful conversations neighbor to neighbor and neighborhood to neighborhood. The session is being facilitated by Eric and Elaine Hansen, of the Cincinnati-based A Small Group. The Hansens, who live in Fairfield, have been facilitating small, group conversations such as these in Cincinnati since the 2001 civil unrest there.

Sarah Woiteshek, director of MUH Center for Civic Engagement, was instrumental in bringing the Hansens to Hamilton. She said the session, which is open to the public, will last about 90 minutes and will focus on how to get to know one another and understand what is at the heart of issues in your neighborhood. The conversation will also explore how to bring more residents into those types of conversations.

“It (the workshop) is the deep breath before the action,” Woiteshek said. “We really believe in public dialogue and our hope is that people will want to learn more and begin having these types of meetings once a month” in their neighborhoods.

Klink added: “Inviting people into the conversation is incredibly important. We all bring distinctive qualities and, clearly, different backgrounds and interests. There is strength in talking about that.”