See It: The Community being helped

We plan to create another housing cooperative focused on sustainability and social justice in Kalamazoo. We provide affordable, cooperative, and community-focused housing. Our organization will be committed to cooperation and democratic member control, advancing the cause of higher education, acting as a model for ecologically sustainable living, and community service and education that works toward social justice.

We came to this idea after seeing campus cooperatives around the country and learning that no alternative housing of this nature exists in Kalamazoo. We see a need for a stronger off-campus student community in Kalamazoo that is involved in the city rather than isolated from it. We also recognize the increasing costs of living in Kalamazoo and the need for affordable, reliable housing. Many students subsist on low incomes and routinely deal with irresponsible landlords, two factors that we want to address with our project.

Community outreach programs will be developed to educate people on sustainable living and cooperation. These programs may take the form of workshops, classes, discussion groups, publications, and tours of the house. We hope to serve as an example of sustainable living for those around us.

Our organization owns one house but we are working to expand to a second.

See It: The Community being helped

“what would our communities and our society look like if the collective vision, leadership, energy and talents of even a small percentage of all young people were directed toward community transformations?”

This year, the Youth Outreach Advocate of the Eviction Defense Network is focusing on developing a housing advocacy youth leadership program in downtown Los Angeles. By working with youth (ages 13-18) directly in Los Angeles high schools, the YOA helps facilitate leadership development so they can find their own ways to help their families, school mates, and neighbors to protect against poor housing conditions and evictions. Activities on housing education and economic empowerment such as the “Create your Ideal Community” and “Jeopardy: Types of Affordable Housing” will build on youth creativity and energy. Trainings on causes for eviction, how to read rental contracts, and Los Angeles housing codes will educate students around housing defense. Communication, “how to outreach,” and community building workshops will build on youth leadership. In addition, the students will connect to the large Spanish speaking population in LA by translating and raising awareness around the eviction process through student led workshops. As their leadership develops, the students will begin to take larger steps in addressing their housing issues by participating in arts and education projects such as the Home Sweet Home: Stories of Urban Housing in the Big City Youth Film Festival on Social Justice. During this Spring 2008 the students will put their lessons into community action as they will plan and execute the first annual youth oriented and run tenant rights fair at their high school.

Results: After only 6 six months, the Youth Outreach Advocate has provided tenant rights, gentrification, and housing workshops to nearly 600 students. After follow-up and partnerships with both Los Angeles High School and the Miguel Contreras Learning Complex, about 30 high school students have become actively engaged in participating in housing defense trainings, conducting survey projects, and planning workshops. After the youth run survey project collected over 400 student surveys, it was determined that about 1 in 3 high school students know friends or family that have been displaced/evicted, 1 out of 2 live in substandard housing conditions, and 1 in 3 believe their home living situations affect their academic achievement.

See It: The Community being helped

I live in a densely populated urban area with a high murder rate and homeless problem. I want to see each street or neighborhood have it's own "Club House". A place for use by neighborhood children ages 12 to 17, where they can come and sit in warmth or air conditioning depending on the season. It would be a home-like setting, with games, television, internet and meals and snacks served.

I would like to see abandonned homes to be used for club houses, with second floor housing for the elderly, homeless and disabled (entryway through separate doors).

See It: The Community being helped

I am in a group called College Bound St. Louis. During the summer of 2006 we helped build one family's home. We worked a toal of 24 hours. W e would start at 7am and end aroung 2pm or 3 pm. Since I wasn;t very expirienced in home bulding, I was selected to be the safety officer for our house. I had to make sure that everyone was wearing the correct equipment. I also had to give them annoucements on what the schedule throughout the day would be. The house was finally completed in the summer of 2007. The family was very happy with our accomplishments.

See It: The Community being helped

Iroquois High School in Louisville, KY has a chapter of Amnesty International that will be concentrating on homelessness and Hurricane Katrina Relief this year. We will be volunteering with ULM (Urban Life Ministries) Relief rebuilding houses in Biloxi, Mississippi.

See It: The Community being helped

The Archive Institute Poster Competition 2007 is a project that places children at the forefront of the campaign against HIV/AIDS. In response to the UNICEF’s call to action, we are seeking to unite the efforts of children around the world against the destructive pandemic of HIV/AIDS.

Express your imagination and creativity to us through artwork! The 2007 ARCHIVE Institute poster competition calls for poster designs from young artists under the age of 18 who want to help bring increased attention to the widespread AIDS epidemic. We expect submissions as diverse as the impact of the virus on individual and community lives. The theme for the competition focuses on the relationships between HIV/AIDS, “the home”, housing and/or communities. Winners from six regions will be identified accordingly. The competition will be launched during the summer of 2007 and winning entries will receive recognition in the January 2008.

The entries for this competition are important as both an archival record and an educational tool. Participants will have a chance to record how HIV/AIDS affects their surroundings. The posters resulting from the competition will represent how the disease affects young people and their environments around the world. A traveling exhibition will help to raise awareness of this and hopefully inspire others to get involved in the helping to stop the epidemic.

Here are some questions you might want to use as a guide for your poster submission artwork. Keep in mind that you may use these questions as inspiration or raise your own concerns about these themes.

●Where does AIDS come from and how can humans overcome it? Who will inherit the AIDS problem? How can we best respond to the spread of HIV and AIDS? How does AIDS affect our society?

●How can we educate people about AIDS and communicate with them about the epidemic? How can we use technology to alleviate the global problem of AIDS?

●What are some of the lessons we have learned from the spread of the AIDS epidemic? What do communities/villages affected by AIDS need most? Who should be in charge of relieving the AIDS problem?

What are some of the ways in which our homes and housing in general are affected by the disease? How can our homes and housing in general help treat or help control the spread of HIV/AIDS?

See It: The Community being helped

We could all come together and bulid houses for the homeless in society. They all feel the is no shoulder to lean on but we as one people under God will help put back thier smiley faces. If we could do this for a couple of people at least someone will enter a room put something down with no fear of someone taking it. To someone out there in the street, a home means every thing as a car would mean the world to someone. The crime wave in this socitey will also be reduced. After the homes, we could also find some petty jobs for them to do. HMMMMM as the saying goes "its easier said than done" " two heads are better than one" lets all join in the fight to getting the homeless of the street for a better you, a better me and a better America!

See It: The Community being helped

The Affordable Housing Management Program provides renovation assistance to owners of small-scale rental properties with the understanding that they will rent out these properties at a reduced rate for a length of time in proportion to the amount of assistance they receive. In terms of the physical renovation of these properties, the services offered by SAFER are identical to those of the Family Match program, and include coordination and supervision of all subcontractor work, recruitment of volunteers for manual labor, and delivery of supplies. Property owners who enroll in this program sign a contract with SAFER which legally binds them to rent their units at a rate below the market rate for a specified time period. The length of time and rate stipulated in the contract is devised to equate the total amount of money the owner has saved through free labor and any government grants with the total amount of money lost by offering the units at a reduced rate.
The AHMP addresses affordable housing issues for two different populations: small-scale property owners who do not have the initial capital to put their rental units back on the market, and low-income families who can save money toward their own home by paying rent at only a fraction of the market rate. Because rental rates have increased by as much as 100-150% in many areas of New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina, the low-cost rental units created by this project fill a vital need for the city’s many low-income residents. Additionally, SAFER targets renters who agree to enroll in a first-time homeowners class and also helps them to use existing resources to improve their credit with the object of eventually buying their own home. Because the low-rent housing created by AHMP allow families to save as much as $60,000 over a 5 year period, the possibility of buying a home becomes a highly realistic prospect for those living in the renovated units.
All volunteers and SAFER staff members involved in AHMP, as well as all of our organization’s other programs, are university students or recent graduates. Therefore, this affordable housing initiative is planned and carried out exclusively by young adults.

See It: The Community being helped

Ashley Rhodes-Courter was born in North Carolina in 1985 and entered foster care in 1989. Over the next nine years, she lived in 14 placements before being adopted at age 12 by Phil and Gay Courter of Crystal River, Florida. By law, she had all the rights and privileges of any other American child, but her circumstances put her in a position where she had no parents, no home, and no voice for almost ten years. Many of her 14 foster homes were illegally overcrowded, one was extremely abusive, and two were modern orphanages serving troubled and dangerous children. When she was seven, she landed in a very abusive foster home where 16 children shared a three-bedroom trailer. They were underfed, beaten, forced to swallow hot sauce, run laps in the blistering sun, and crouch in painful stress positions—similar to the ones used on the prisoners in Iraq.
Since she was 14, her speeches have encouraged children still waiting for permanent homes, inspired more parents to adopt older children, and helped change the hearts and minds of those in power so today’s foster children won’t get lost in a system that is failing them. Ashley has made it her mission to be a voice for the thousands of children who are neglected in foster care each day. Ashley gives inspiration to troubled youth who feel like their lives, actions, and ideas don’t matter.
From kindergarten to the third grade, she changed schools at least twice a year. Yet for her, academic institutions were sanctuaries where she was rewarded for her hard work and given the encouragement and support to succeed despite the horrors that were happening in her “home” life. Even when she was stripped of family and possessions, she knew that she would have a safe place to spend the day and ultimately gain an education she would have for the rest of her life.
Because of this, Ashley gives thanks and a wide variety of motivational speeches to schools and colleges, educators, administrators, volunteers, Court Appointed Special Advocates CASA’s, Guardians ad Litem, and other foster care and adoption organizations. Ashley will make you laugh, cry, but most importantly, will motivate you to overcome your adversities and make the world a better place for yourself and others.
In recent years Ashley has broadened her messages to support a wider range of motivational applications, including overcoming personal challenges and succeeding with educational goals.

See It: The Community being helped

2006 BRICK Award winner Ashley Gunn started Students Aiding Indigent Families (SAIF) after a mission trip to Africa the summer before entering 7th grade. SAIF is a not-for-profit organization which purchases foreclosed houses, repairs and remodels them, and works with urban families to purchase the homes below market value. Additionally, SAIF helps families to figure out a mortgage financing plan that works for them.