Another excerpt from the Lauren McCrawley interview

March 3, 2022


Due to the response we received after posting a bit of the interview with Federation of Hamilton Neighbourhood Associations Chair Ms McCrawley as featured on 'This is Our Hamilton', we're providing another piece. 

TIOH: Talk a little bit about 'before'. Before the Federation became what it is today. 

McCrawley: Pretty simple: roughly 40% of eligible voters cast their ballots in municipal elections, almost two-thirds of these doing so by 'name recognition'. Their councillors were voted in, governance was executed, some issues came to the fore, were championed by a very, very small number of residents... Mostly, we saw a hands-off relationship on the parts of Hamiltonians concerning City Hall and everything that goes on there.

TIOH: But we did have neighbourhood associations. NAs.

McCrawley: Of course! And some had longstanding histories and were cohesive units advocating for their communities. But we hadn't attained a mindset-shift to 'the commons' at that point. Each NA fought its own battles, sometimes with, sometimes against its own councillor, they were, for the most part, either unable or unwilling to network with other NAs... And more than this, it was a fight to keep an NA going. 

TIOH: Even in the well-established communities. 

McCrawley: Yes. Life is hard. Getting people to make time, to offer up their energies...

TIOH: But at some point, this changed.

McCrawley: Yes. Call it 'critical mass'. Call it 'the tipping point'. But things changed. 

TIOH: Now, as I understand it, this actually came pretty early on. 

McCrawley: It did! In the summer of 2012. When efforts behind fighting AEGD rose to the surface. That interlude galvanized people, and inspired the creation of nine NAs that autumn. A year later, another 13 had been founded. 

TIOH: Why? 

McCrawley: I'm not a social scientist. So-

TIOH: But you are a community organizer. You were on the ground, you helped set up one of those NAs. 

McCrawley: I did, and I am. So from my vantage point, I'd say that people- Look, there's a maxim that therapists use that's particularly apropos, especially in conjunction with the notion that people love to be led, that they love to be engaged in the betterment of their community: 'People remain where they are until they're uncomfortable enough to move.'

TIOH: So the Federation took on life when there was sufficient discomfort in Hamilton. 

McCrawley: (smiling) 

The rest of the interview can be found at www.thisisourhamilton.ca