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Like millions of people across the country, residents of six Mutual Housing California communities in Sacramento joined with their neighbors Tuesday afternoon and evening to participate in National Night Out activities.
At Mutual Housing at Norwood, the community room began to fill up early in the afternoon with kids twisting balloons into body ornaments and young teenagers shooting hoops outside and adults gathering around vendor tables that offered resources for improving their lives.
Most importantly for everybody, they were getting to know each other.
“It means a lot,” said Victor Greer, the co-chair of the Norwood residents’ council. “We’re trying to do a lot of things like this to bring our residents together, which is not always easy. But we keep trying. We have a nice message here, which is to bring the community together.”
While much of the work around National Night Out is to foster better relationships between communities and their police departments, Greer said the emphasis is even more basic at Mutual Housing at Norwood.
“The most important thing for all communities is for individuals in the community to be more like a family,” Greer said. “Other than just seeing somebody and saying, ‘I know that person,’ and that’s it. You’ve got to work together, especially if you have kids.”
Greer’s wife, Diane Prophet Greer, pushed a couple of young children in strollers while saying that they are the best thing about NNO.
“It’s actually great for the kids,” she said. “We’ve been doing something like this every year, and I love it. We all get to know each other and be together for a few minutes.”
While kids played and parents talked, other adults in the room checked out the tables in back that featured presentations by Sacramento Works for people who needed help finding jobs, the Sacramento Children’s Home that offered information on assorted family services, and Life Wireless, which provided one free smartphone per Norwood household.
Choua Lee, the property manager at Norwood, offered something else to the 299 people who live in the 88 homes in the three communities in one: herself.
“The importance for our residents is to get to know me,” Lee said. “And I get to know them, and they all get to know their neighbors. I get to kind of mingle, away from the office, and talk to them one-on-one, just like family and friends get together. They get to see the resources that are here tonight and maybe they will benefit them, and then they can attract some other residents here to get some of the information as well.”
Besides Norwood, Mutual Housing California also played host to National Night Out events at the Mutual Housing on the Greenway, Victory Townhomes Mutual Housing, Mutual Housing at Sky Park and Mutual Housing at Lemon Hill communities.
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