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The Community Initiatives division complements our Development and Property Management activities by supporting residents in making the most out of their new housing and environment. We help our residents focus on the basics—transitioning into a new home, finding a new or better job, building household income and assets, positively engaging kids and building their new community. |
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With a staff of over 35 full-time professionals working at 12-15 of our newest or “focus” sites, we start by assisting residents qualify for and successfully transition into the best housing choice for their families. Resident Services Coordinators sit down with each family, outline their housing options relative to family size, available subsidies, construction schedules and admission and occupancy criteria. For families temporarily relocated from public and assisted housing undergoing redevelopment, we help them sort through relocation options, school transfer issues and moving logistics.
Admission to our new mixed-income housing generally requires meeting high standards related to employment, income, tenant, credit and criminal histories. To help residents meet all housing criteria and requirements—and set larger goals related to employment, education or savings—Community Initiatives staff help families chart “success plans” or individualized assessments with responsive, progressive steps to achieving concrete outcomes. Each year, our site staff help over 1,700 entire families initiate then progress on these plans.
Site staff also help families prepare for some of the challenges they will face in their new housing, offering in-depth occupancy training and workshops to all new residents related to housekeeping, household budgeting, living in a diverse community, leadership development and even dealing with unruly neighbors.
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Once a family moves into our housing, we make sure that all members fully understand occupancy expectations through frequent communications and organized workshops. Typically, Community Initiatives staff conduct 180 or so “new resident welcome and orientation” sessions each year, for anywhere between 1-20 residents in each session.
What’s more, we keep a careful eye out for any sign that a new family may be experiencing difficulty once it moves in, maintaining with Property Management an “early intervention” process to address any occupancy problems. These efforts keep families in place and help prevent evictions. On average, Community Initiatives site staff prevent nearly 1,100 evictions per year—saving about $3,800 in staff time and court, transaction and turnover costs associated with fully processing an eviction.
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Many of our families struggle with under-employment and, too often, unemployment. About half of our 15 current focus sites offer structured job supports to residents, including readiness, skill building, training and/or placement assistance; five of our sites have employment case managers dedicated to this work. At these sites about 500 residents per year actively participate in these efforts, and our staff have helped make over 1,500 placements in new or better jobs for these participants over the last five years.
We also make sure that working families claim tax and other available benefits related to day care, health care, nutrition and transportation that help “make work pay.” Every dollar of benefits added to a paycheck helps boost families out of poverty and build savings—perhaps for a down payment on a home or college tuition. Each winter, Community Initiatives staff conduct an asset-building campaign across our sites to promote these benefits to residents. Since 2000, the annual campaigns have helped nearly 5,000 residents claim almost $10 million in Earned Income and Child Tax Credit benefits alone.
In addition to building household income that supports a stable tenancy, our focus on jobs and making work pay is the foundation for longer-term asset building. Early on our site staff assist families with budgeting, credit maintenance, savings plans and financial education. We also help identify tenants that may be interested in becoming home owners, and direct them to local home ownership counseling and savings programs.
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As they navigate their housing transitions and build income and assets, our Community Initiatives staff also help families access any needed supports along the way—such as day care or after-school care, transportation, credit counseling, health care, senior services, individual or family counseling, of even substance abuse treatment if needed.
In each of our developments, site-based Program Managers structure and coordinate a local service provider network that responds to a site’s overall requirements—perhaps demand for adult education or early childhood development—and the objectives of individual families. We identify the best local providers then negotiate a formal referral and service agreement with them. In doing this, we tap and build on local capacities rather than trying to offer services directly. Across our sites we make nearly 2,000 “successful” referrals on average each year to provider partners in these networks in which the referred individual or family receives a documented service or benefit.
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As children and youth outnumber adults in most of our developments, Community Initiatives coordinates with local providers an array of youth development activities both on and near our sites. These activities are structured to help youth cultivate key competencies related to academics, social-cultural functioning, recreation and athletics, understanding the work world and community involvement—all of which are associated with successful adult outcomes.
Across 10 sites with some form of youth development programming— including six properties with computer resource rooms—approximately 1,200 youth participate in one or more of these competency-building activities each year. On average, somewhere between one-half to three-quarters of those participating complete the full course of the program activity—be it a four-season scouting program or chess club that meets after school throughout the academic year.
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Most of our newer developments are built on demolished former public and assisted housing sites that were once a prominent part of the surrounding neighborhood. As the new housing development is built out and occupied by residents from diverse social and economic backgrounds—including many of the former public or assisted housing tenants—Community Initiatives staff assist incoming residents both establish their “new” community and reconnect it to the surrounding neighborhood. These efforts range from helping form a new neighborhood association or a parents-teachers group at the local elementary school, to organizing a block club with the police precinct or sponsoring a holiday celebration with local merchants.
Over the last four years, site-based staff have helped residents conduct about 14 of these activities per year at each of our sites, which help draw out new resident leaders among other tangible benefits. Of those showing interest, we assist a half-dozen or so residents at our properties complete some form of multi-session leadership development training each year. And perhaps most importantly, we have helped 5,330 adults register to vote for the first time—initiating them into broader civic engagement that can truly help build their community’s future.
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