Community leaders in Kansas City&rsquo;s old Northeast are grappling with the demise of an organization that helped keep things together for a quarter-century.</p><p>When the not-for-profit Old Northeast Inc. folded last month because of money troubles, it meant an end to a lot of programs that many residents of the ethnically diverse area may have come to take for granted:</p><p>&bull;There suddenly is no convenient meeting place for the area&rsquo;s Community Action Network (CAN), where citizens and police work together to address problems.</p><p>&bull;The mobile crime watch is in limbo.</p><p>&bull;The graffiti abatement program is on hold.</p><p>&bull;There is no one to organize area-wide cleanups and waste-tire collections.</p><p>&ldquo;It leaves a void that needs to be filled,&rdquo; said Rebecca Koop, executive director of the Northeast Chamber of Commerce.</p><p>The chamber has tried to pick up some of the slack, but its primary mission is business promotion. Chamber President Bobbi Baker-Hughes has been meeting with leaders of the six different neighborhoods that make up the Northeast &mdash; Independence Plaza, Pendleton Heights, Lykins, Scarritt Renaissance, Sheffield and Indian Mound &mdash; to chart a way forward.</p><p>The CAN center had been housed at Old Northeast Inc.&rsquo;s office at 6612 Independence Ave. Since it closed, the CAN&rsquo;s weekly meetings at noon on Wednesdays have been moved to the East Patrol police station at 27th Street and Van Brunt Boulevard. But that is outside the Northeast area and attendance has suffered. Northeast neighborhood leaders want to find a closer location.</p><p>Lee Lambert of the Independence Plaza Neighborhood Association is organizing a committee to form a not-for-profit corporation to take over the CAN center operations.</p><p>&ldquo;We didn&rsquo;t foresee years ago that Old Northeast was ever going to fail,&rdquo; Lambert said of the organization. &ldquo;We thought everything would be fine operating under their umbrella.&rdquo;</p><p>Scott Wagner of the Indian Mound Neighborhood Association said the new group should be tightly focused and not try to do all the things that Old Northeast Inc. used to do.</p><p>&ldquo;What I would hate to see is for us to create another organization that would be weak and have the opportunity to fail,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We can&rsquo;t afford that. So I would just as soon keep the mission of the CAN organization very straightforward, very workable, very doable so it can be successful.&rdquo;</p><p>From the beginning Old Northeast Inc. was a catalyst for neighborhood revival, helping people obtain low-interest loans to buy or rehab houses. The organization targeted whole blocks to eradicate blight and inspire others. It also helped to build new homes on vacant properties and to replace drug-infested apartment buildings.</p><p>The organization partnered with the Missouri Housing Development Commission and the Bank of America Community Development Corp. to renovate the housing project on Ninth Street now known as Olive Park Village. It acquired and demolished the former Clay Elementary School, a blighted eyesore in the Sheffield neighborhood.</p><p>The group also erected the stone and iron gateway to the Northeast on Benton Boulevard just north of Interstate 70.</p><p>Over the years the organization helped guide millions of dollars of investment in the old Northeast. Its goals were to stabilize declining neighborhoods, increase property values and encourage people to remain in the urban core.</p><p>Old Northeast Inc. was founded in 1983 on a shoestring with an office on St. John Avenue that was so decrepit they used a Coke bottle as the floater in the toilet tank. Cathy Wagner was director of the organization for 18 years before stepping down in 2001. Nancy Kwilas then became director.