BELLA COMMUNITIES
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Mission Statement
Bella Communities works to preserve, provide and operate affordable housing for low-income families and people with special needs. We believe that when housing provision is enhanced with empowering supportive service programs, we equip our low-income housing residents with the opportunity to not just get by, but to get ahead. We innovate supportive service programs to bring sustainable results to our low-income housing residents to achieve self-determination and self-actualization. Our resident volunteer program engages low-income housing residents to volunteer, earn an economic opportunity and aspire. Our transformative model of safe and decent housing assets coupled with social capital creates thriving community impact for all citizens.
About This Cause
Studies have shown that low-income residents have virtually little savings and no reserves to weather financial hardships. As evidenced by McKernan and Ratcliffe (2009), more than 57 percent of low-income families were “asset poor” in 2007, without enough liquid (financial) assets to finance consumption for three months at the federal poverty level. Faced with constant financial fragility, residents suffer from anxiety, instability, and evictions in their struggle to make ends meet. Residents have no choice but to mentally retreat from their communities thereby dismissing opportunities for civic engagement. Compounding the problem, this lack of local volunteerism and community involvement further reduces the residents’ ties to their community. Consequently, they fail to strengthen social networks and accrue social equity, and also fail to foster skills building and self-worth. Estimates show greater than 10 million households (40+ million people) living in low-income housing communities. These communities have limited economic resources, low civic engagement and inadequate vibrant neighborhoods. Residents in low-income housing are often the working-poor group, have subsidized housing but still have a renter’s portion, barely meeting basic expenses, and with little reserves and virtually no savings. Faced with constant financial fragility, residents suffer from anxiety, instability, and evictions. Residents mentally retreat from their communities and dismiss civic engagement. Compounding the problem, is that a lack of local volunteerism further reduces the residents’ ties to the community which then fails to strengthen social networks and accrue social equity, and fails to foster skills-building and self-worth. Bella Communities engages residents living in low-income communities to volunteer with other non-profit organizations in the immediate neighborhood as a pathway into economic opportunity. Bella Communities facilitates rent incentives for volunteerism because it is a bridge to help residents with an EARNED economic opportunity. We believe through this Resident Volunteer United Program, residents are stitching an economic opportunity to build a financial backstop to weather financial hardships, lifting this burden and anxiety, participating in community civic engagement, accruing knowledge and building professional, social, and personal skills. Harnessing a strategic campaign of mobilizing and teaching low-income residents, educating and consulting with affordable housing investors and property managers, and involving and outreaching to local non-profits in the immediate neighborhood, Bella Communities effectively tackles simultaneously both financial empowerment and civic engagement mobilization in low-income housing communities. The ReV-UP program mobilizes low-income residents in affordable housing communities to volunteer and earn a rent incentive as an economic opportunity. The program places low-income residents at the core of volunteerism to help address social issues such as affordable housing stability, self-determination and self-sufficiency, and building social capital and civic engagement. ReV-UP was launched as a pilot program from 2012-2013. It was designed and tested to tackle simultaneously both financial empowerment and civic engagement mobilization. The program mobilized the traditionally underrepresented group of volunteers - low-income residents - to be the change maker. The results of the pilot program generated about 2,000 new volunteer hours for local non-profits; and helped residents earned rent incentives up to 25% of the renter’s portion. Early results from the field also showed property owners accruing benefits and avoiding rent losses when supportive service spending is invested in providing low-income residents with an economic opportunity. With an impact grant from the Foundation, Bella Communities will be able to support the expansion of ReV-UP to its next demonstration phase to further mobilize residents in low-income housing communities to volunteer and earn a rent incentive as an economic opportunity. The significant portion of the grant will go directly to fund the “rent incentive” as the economic opportunity. Bella Communities wants to select about 25 low-income properties (roughly 6,000 households) to be “early adopters” in order to replicate and validate the success and scalability of this approach. We solve it by working with cross-board stakeholders to implement a program-based systematic approach to recruit, orientate, educate, connect, facilitate, incentivize, manage low-income volunteers in large-scale community events and self-enrolling micro-volunteering opportunities.