New Pathways, Inc. is a unique neighborhood organization, promoting an innovative model of holistic community development that suggests nonprofits, congregations, businesses, and educational institutions can be the driving force for community rebirth while keeping the needs of existing residents as the highest priority.

In 1983, The Wall Street Journal reported that the corner of Fourth Street and Vance Avenue in Memphis, Tennessee, had become the crossing of poverty and despair in America. This intersection, located in the heart of the New Pathways’ neighborhood, is said to have been the birthplace of the blues where "musicians gathered at Pee Wees Saloon, the Blue Stallion and Club Handy on Beale Street a few blocks away." Until the 1960s, this neighborhood, located adjacent to the downtown core, continued to produce its music. But, the advent of urban renewal programs, the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the eventual deterioration of downtown led to a deafening silence. The Wall Street Journal further reported:

Now all that’s left at the intersection (of Fourth and Vance) is a hollow wreck: Houses once kept up have been left to collapse; housing projects that once were safe now feed crime. On the corner, men stand idle, wondering what happened to the jobs, with the newly-out-of-work joining the never-have-worked. Welfare has bred a new generation here, too; and the government draw has become, in the words of one resident, 'a family heirloom,' which a mother hands down to her children.

According to the 2000 Census, 8,605 residents live in the neighborhood. Approximately 89% of the residents are African-American, 63% live below the federal poverty level, and 33% are unemployed. The median household income is $8,875 per year, and less than 8% of residents own their homes. Memphis’s three largest public housing developments, Lamar Terrace, William H. Foote Homes, and Edward O. Cleaborn Homes, are located in the neighborhood.

Despite these grim statistics, the community is full of assets and opportunities for development. Located on the eastern edge of downtown Memphis and just south of the city’s Medical District, the neighborhood is poised to reap the benefits of several key revitalization projects targeted to areas adjacent to New Pathways. These include the $19 million project that expanded the downtown trolley line through the Medical District, the $46 million federally funded HOPE VI project that redeveloped the Lemoyne Gardens public housing development into College Park, and the $2 billion being invested into downtown’s entertainment, commercial, business, and residential areas. Finally, the Memphis Grizzlies moved into their New Pathways "home" when the FedExForum opened its doors in Spring 2004.

The neighborhood is also home to more than twenty non-profit agencies focusing on issues of education, literacy, social services, health, and economic development. One of the newest non-profit agencies to the neighborhood is the Memphis Biotech Foundation. Founded in 2001, this organization is committed to integrating research, teaching, and biomedical development. Not only will the Memphis Biotech Foundation create unique opportunities for research and academic activities, but it will surely place the New Pathways neighborhood on the global map as an internationally recognized center for the development and commercialization of biomedical technology.

Due to the increased interest in the future of this area, four of the neighborhood’s most successful non-profit agencies entered into a formal partnership to address the community’s most immediate concerns of affordable housing, health, public safety, and workforce development. Founded in June 2001, New Pathways, Inc. is a community development corporation (CDC) began as a collaborative effort between the Metropolitan Inter-Faith Association (MIFA), the Church Health Center, Methodist University Hospital, and St. Patrick’s Catholic Church. Each of these agencies has a proven record of success in the neighborhood:

• Founded in 1968, MIFA is a human services and community non-profit organization formed by a coalition of clergy. Each year MIFA serves over 60,000 clients in west Tennessee through more than twenty programs in five service areas:
  
  1. Empowering homeless families
     
  2. Unlocking the potential of our youth
     
  3. Sustaining the independence of the frail elderly
     
  4. Extending a helping hand to the working poor
     
  5. Developing strong support communities
• The Church Health Center, founded in 1987, is a faith community health ministry. It provides affordable, high quality health care to uninsured workers, their families, the elderly, and the homeless. This agency also encourages its community to get and stay healthy in body and spirit at Hope & Healing, an 80,000 square foot state-of-the-art wellness facility.
  Methodist Hospitals of Memphis is the oldest and largest hospital in the Methodist Healthcare system that operates fourteen hospitals located throughout western Tennessee. Methodist Healthcare is the third largest not-for-profit hospital in the country.
  
• St. Patrick’s is the oldest Catholic Church in Memphis. Founded in 1866, this congregation has become an active stakeholder in the neighborhood. Immediate plans for St. Patrick’s include building twenty houses for low-income families, constructing a community literacy center, and opening a Jubilee School in the neighborhood.

These four reputable organizations, along with residents, Southwest Tennessee Community College and the University of Tennessee Center for Health Sciences, are working to rebuild the neighborhood between Madison, Cleveland, Lamar/Crump, and Third Street, to unite a diverse group of people and organizations, and to address the imperative issues needed to solve community problems. New Pathways will be the driving force for community rebirth between Midtown and Downtown. To adequately achieve this mission, New Pathways is committed to becoming an economically viable organization that facilitates redevelopment of the neighborhood by uniting residents, businesses, schools, and congregations.

New Pathways is building upon the resources of several key organizations:

• MIFA
  
• Church Health Center
  
• Methodist University Hospital
  
• St. Patrick’s Catholic Church
  
• Southwest Tennessee Community College
  
• University of Tennessee Center for Health Sciences
  
• New Pathways is located on the eastern edge of downtown Memphis and just south of the city’s Medical District.
  
• New Pathways is adjacent to several key revitalizations:
  
  1. The Memphis Grizzlies and the $250 million FedExForum opened its doors in Spring 2004.
     
  2. Memphis Biotech Foundation will create unique opportunities for research and academic activities, and it will place the New Pathways community on the global map as an internationally recognized center for the development and commercialization of biomedical technology.
     
  3. $19 million project expanded the downtown trolley line through the Medical District.