Rita Adair looks forward to breaking the wall. <

But she realizes that like many other initiatives in the Allied Drive area, this one won't be enough. <

Adair runs Dane County's bustling Joining Forces for Families office in a crammed, converted three-bedroom apartment just off the street. <

Inside the office, with its decades-old tile floor, beaten sofa and worn rugs, residents receive free, limited access to a phone, food, condoms, clothing and bus passes. There is a fax machine so people can send forms required for government programs. <

The building also provides space for the Madison School District, Madison police, Head Start, UW-Extension, the faith-based Allied Partners, Nehemiah Community Development Corp. and Community Action Coalition and others. They offer a variety of services, including housing assistance, nutrition advice, eviction prevention money. <

"There are a lot of people who work hard in Allied every day," Adair said.But the space and furnishings are inadequate - food pantry goods are stocked in office closets and donated clothes are jammed onto hangers and a table in a hallway. <

"I have to turn away a lot of clothes because I don't have the space," Adair said.In several weeks, however, Dane County will lease an adjacent three-bedroom apartment to double the agency's space. <

Adair can't wait to knock down the wall. <

The office will finally have a decent meeting room and space for more agencies, including the county executive's early childhood initiative, the Tenant Resource Center, interns from local colleges and others. <

The sad reality, however, is that the services still aren't enough to solve entrenched problems of the neighborhood, Adair said. <

"What we do is Band-Aids," she said. "It's not changing someone's life."--------- <

It may seem like an odd notion, but many people working to lift Allied Drive agree: The neighborhood's salvation lies in corporate boardrooms just as surely as it's in the hands of social workers such as Adair. <

The roots of the neighborhood's problems - poverty, drugs, crime, substandard housing and poor educational attainment - need to be attacked, they said. <

Leslie Ann Howard, president of United Way of Dane County, which played a major role in rebuilding troubled neighborhoods throughout Madison over the past decade, said the most difficult, expensive challenge in Allied Drive is improving its physical structure. <

In particular, Howard said, residents need better housing options, rather than the present deteriorating collection of apartments, so they'll want to develop a stake in the neighborhood instead of moving away at the earliest opportunity. And there must be more businesses in the neighborhood, to cater to residents' needs while providing employment, she said. <

Howard said the Wisconsin State Journal's eight-day series of reports on the neighborhood, which started last Sunday, heightened her own sense of urgency. Immediate action is needed, she said. <

The fastest, most effective way to foster better housing and economic development in the Allied Drive area would be to conduct a summit meeting of people with a stake in the neighborhood - including businesses - and to set up a group that would coordinate efforts, Howard said. <

"We've got to have somebody that's the glue and keeps it together and keeps it going," Howard said. "If our community feels we're the group to do it, we'll do it." She added, though, that it's possible that community leaders might determine that ongoing efforts by Madison and Dane County officials are sufficient. <

Juan Jose Lopez, executive director of Boys & Girls Club of Dane County, which runs Allied Drive's small neighborhood center and soon will launch a campaign to build a center with a gymnasium, agreed that businesses must become more involved. <

"I don't think it should be a governmental entity that takes the lead," said Lopez, a Madison School Board member. "I think it has to be a team approach." That team, he said, should include businesses, residents, service providers, United Way, Dane County, the Madison and Verona school districts and the cities of Madison and Fitchburg. <

"We in Madison should have a commitment that every neighborhood, every community, is thriving and succeeding," Lopez said. "The change in this area is long overdue ... If we put all the right things in place, I think we will succeed." <

Jim Haney, president of Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, the state's largest business organization, said the newspaper's examination of Allied Drive showed "there just aren't institutions on the scene that are holding it together. And it's really a dire situation when people don't feel safe walking to public transportation, or to the store, or anything. <

"I mean, it's hard to fathom that in Madison. You just think, where is this world? ... <

"Your whole story cries out for community mobilization," Haney said. Like Howard and Lopez, he said businesses must be at the center of the action. <

"As a resident of this community and as a business doing business here, I don't think we can ignore it," Haney said. "We all have some responsibility to say, 'Is there something the private sector can be doing, that we aren't?' We ought to look at it." <

It will take even more coordination among all parties to address longstanding problems in the neighborhood, County Executive Kathleen Falk said. "I'd like to see us focused, and in a really realistic way," she said. --------- <

In response to the series, by Friday more than 15 people had called the United Way 211 service to offer time or materials to groups working on behalf of Allied Drive residents, and an unknown number of people contacted agencies directly, said Erika Monroe-Kane, United Way director of marketing. <

Sreethara Sivam, a retired high school and college chemistry teacher living in Reedsburg, was touched by the plight of the neighborhood and has offered his services as a driver or tutor. <

"It seems like a neighborhood that needs help, desperately," he said. "Let's take care of the children." <

Lindsey Daffeh, 22, a factory worker, called Big Brothers - Big Sisters of Dane County in hopes of becoming a mentor to Allied Drive children. Daffeh, who's considering enrolling in college to become a teacher, said she'd be willing to drive the 20 miles to Allied Drive, although officials at the charity might match her to a child nearer her home. <

"Maybe it would help out the parents because they'd have some time to do things they need to do, like . . .do errands," Daffeh said. "I know it's kind of hard if you have kids. And then (the children) would be occupied, not doing things they shouldn't be doing."