Social programs of the 1990s, in particular those that are neighborhood-based, often carry the often negative stigma of social history. Community workers must recognize that previous experiences and perceptions outweigh promised changes. The challenge for the community worker is to offset the past and replace negative perceptions and beliefs with positive encounters. This paper details the needs assessment process of a multicultural, community-based substance abuse protect to organize alcohol and other drug abuse (AOD) prevention activities in four diverse communities and describes how the neighborhood needs assessment contributed to the empowerment process. This innovative process builds on the strengths perspective and documents that a neighborhood group is able to direct rather than be directed by a project. Traditions of distrust and alienation between neighborhoods and social institutions, fostered over years of failed attempts in social welfare programming, can be offset by a neighborhood participation ownership model.

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