Published: July 01, 2008 11:27 pm         

Enid’s quality of life in question

Enid Metropolitan Area Human Service Commission wants to know what you think.

The organization is administering an opinion survey to determine what people think about the quality of life needs in Enid.

The commission is a joint venture of service entities aimed at identifying urgent community problems and encouraging and coordinating community service initiatives.

“The Metro Commission does community needs analysis. We have been doing a survey at least every two years,” said Cheri Ezzell, Community Development Support Association executive director and a Metro Commission staff member.

Surveys may be taken online at www.cdsaok.org, clicking on “Greater Enid Opinion Survey.” Paper surveys may be completed at Garfield County Health Department, Garfield County Department of Human Serv-ices, Public Library of Enid and Garfield County and Southern Heights Commun-ity Center. The survey will be e-mailed to select people identified as key informants.

The survey asks for opinions about housing, health care, recreation, transportation and other issues.

“Affordable housing is huge right now, so part of the opinion survey will ask people about their housing,” Ezzell said.

Questions include how long respondents have lived in the area, age, gender, education, where they live, income and ethnic group.

Questions also ask for opinions on purchasing, housing problems, transportation, what recreation facilities need improvement and development and what additional recreation programs should be offered.

“This is a little different because it is asking more general quality-of-life questions,” Ezzell said.

Once compiled, the re-sults will be made public and will help Metro Commission determine areas of focus in the coming year.

“The link takes you to (the Web site) SurveyMonk ey. They automatically compile the results. It makes it much easier to survey a community with this technology,” Ezzell said.

“We want as many people as possible to take the survey. That is the reason for the paper survey and the online survey,” Ezzell said.

Call CDSA at 242-6131 for information.