How Do Residents Currently Get Information?
Our respondents when asked, “How do you currently find out about services and events in the City of Hartford?” 44% of respondents cited that word of mouth was their main source of information. Some forms of word of mouth cited from respondents included landlords, religious leaders, and also family and friends.
How Satisfied Are Residents?
Overall the majority (67%) of residents interviewed expressed that they were “satisfied” with the information received from the city. Although residents claimed to be satisfied, out of these 16 residents, only 6 had actually physically reported contacting the city. The residents who did contact the city and were satisfied were generally satisfied with the bulk removal request services. As well as bulk removal, residents thought that the city has been working to improve the city.
The residents (21%) who were dissatisfied with the city mostly all contacted the city for various reasons. 2 Residents contacted for bulk removal, 2 for sanitation, 1 for town hall, and 1 for taxes. This was insightful because all residents unsatisfied have had previous interactions with the city. The main reason for dissatisfaction were long wait times and the system in place. These wait time varied from telephone waits and waits for the request to be filled. Specifically, a resident said that the “City could be doing more… Economy is based on non-residents… More focus on transplants like ex cons, students, and hospitals”. While another resident emphasized that “the employees are not the problem but the system itself could use some help”. One of the most important quotes that was said was that “the city could do more in terms of city services”. This was very useful in our analysis because it shows that people are unaware of how many services that are available to the residents .Overall the reason for dissatifaction, emphasized that some residents feel that they are undermined in comparison to other residents. Although there were many aspects that people said could use some help, some residents said that the city has improved drastically saying that “conditions have improved a lot since the 90s and 80s”.
The majority of residents that we interviewed did not contact the city for services and when contacting the city the majority of requests were with bulk, snow, leaf, and trash removal. As well as removal, tax questions and road maintenance (pot hole) were also reported as main services utilized. It is our mission to inform the residents of the numerous more city services that are useful and not being utilized.
What Do Residents Want to Hear More About?
One of the main goals of our research was to improve communication between Hartford residents and the City of Hartford. One question that we asked in our in-person interviews was “What would you like to hear more about from the City of Hartford?” Below are the responses we collected.
While conducting our in-person interviews we noticed different trends in the type of information people want to hear from the city. When we asked question 10 of our survey, which states “what would you like to hear more about in regards to city services,” 17 of the 25 total respondents replied that they would want to hear more information about recreational events and/or services that get residents of Hartford engaged with the community.
How Do Residents Want to Receive Information?
We also asked residents how they would like to receive information from the City of Hartford. One person suggested using the City of Hartford’s website, two respondents said they wanted updates to be posted in the public libraries and two respondents suggested a physical newsletter. Among the other suggestions were through social media, through a texting service, and through a local TV station.
When asked the question “What would make you personally more likely to utilize informational services through the City?” residents suggested a variety of ways the City of Hartford could communicate. The most common suggestions are shown in the graph below.