New Partnership with Prince George’s County Faith Community Has Potential to Transform Affordable Housing

This week, Enterprise Community Partners (Enterprise) announced the expansion of its Faith-Based Development Initiative into Prince George’s County, where it will partner with faith-based organizations to convert their unused land into affordable homes.

The Greater Washington Community Foundation is proud to support this effort with a $40,000 grant that contributes to $525,000 in total funding from partners including Bank of America and Prince’s George’s County. The funding will help up to seven houses of worship as they develop new housing on their vacant property. The program was announced at a “clarion call” at Refreshing Springs Church of God in Christ, a local church in Riverdale, Maryland.

“The Greater Washington Community Foundation is proud to partner with Enterprise to increase affordable housing solutions in Prince George’s County by investing in the capacity of faith institutions to develop properties on otherwise idle assets,” said Darcelle Wilson, Senior Director for Prince George’s County. “This project perfectly aligns with our new strategic vision to increase economic mobility and close our region’s racial wealth gap. In doing so, we are taking a deliberate approach to engaging the faith community around community development efforts that will ensure Prince George’s County is a place where everyone prospers.”

Faith-based organizations across the country own tens of thousands of acres of vacant or underutilized land. As costs for land and housing remain high, this initiative will enable them to serve their communities in new ways by creating affordable housing. The initiative will provide specialized training, technical assistance, and funding over two years to participating houses of worship as they plan new developments on their land.

The Faith-Based Development Initiative was originally launched by Enterprise in 2006 and has been highly successful in communities across the Mid-Atlantic region. Since it’s inception, the initiative has helped create or preserve more than 1,500 affordable homes, with thousands more currently in the development pipeline.

Grantmaking for Success: Approaching the Evaluation Process with Equity in Mind

On March 20, the Greater Washington Community Foundation’s Health Equity Fund hosted its first IDEA Summit for nonprofit partners from its inaugural $9.2 million grant round. The event brought together nonprofit leaders from across DC at the historic True Reformer Building to discuss what is often the most dreaded part of the grantmaking process – reporting and evaluation.

“Our goal here is to figure out how we can scale up those things that are working,” Tonia Wellons, President and CEO of The Community Foundation shared. “To come together as partners and be laser-focused on what we’re measuring and how we show impact.”

“What we’re doing here is co-designing success,” Dr. Brandy Farrar, a Managing Director for American Institutes for Research (AIR) explained. AIR serves as the evaluation partner for the Health Equity Fund. “Instead of establishing an arbitrary checklist of universal benchmarks, we want to work with each of you to identify what success looks like and how can we measure it.”

Partners were organized into tables based on their focus area and geographic location. Each table was given a set of discussion questions and was encouraged to set aside time to network and share ideas with their tablemates. This networking proved invaluable for many partners, as they were able to make connections with fellow changemakers within their respective spaces.

“Y’all are so inspiring,” one leader shared. “It’s so amazing to be here and see all the connections between the work that we do.”

“We represent such a diverse array of folks here,” another added. “And yet there’s this common thread in coming together in the continuum of care for our community.”

“I’m excited to feel a lot of love in this room – you gotta love on people, because once you start loving on people, you start seeing how the world can change.”

Responses from Group members when asked about organizations that they partner with.

Each group was then asked to ‘co-design success’ by identifying what success looks like – including the actions, beneficiaries, and impact behind each. Groups were encouraged to brainstorm beyond the scope of their individual organizations – allowing them to think creatively and on a macro scale about the impact of their work. The result was a list of solutions that stretched from increasing food bank access for seniors to reforming eligibility for government assistance programs.

The groups also had opportunities to answer questions about an array of topics such as promoting staff wellness, supporting diverse perspectives in the workplace, sharing resources with local government, and common evaluation challenges. All responses were collected by the AIR Evaluation team and will be used to help establish the evaluation benchmarks.

“This event is as much for our partners as it is for us,” Dr. Marla Dean, Senior Director of the Health Equity Fund shared. “Our goal is to use IDEA summits to better inform and orient future funding opportunities.”

“But it’s also about equity,” she continued. “The more we take time to listen to our partners – the ones who are on the ground, doing the work – the better we can understand from each one what success looks like and how we, as a philanthropic partner, can provide support that goes beyond the dollar figures.”

Guaranteed Income: A Strategy to Support Economic Mobility

With over 100 pilots currently operating around the country, guaranteed income programs have proven to be one of the most promising approaches to provide greater economic stability for families.

The Guaranteed Income pilots happening around the country provide direct cash assistance for a limited period of time – with no strings attached. The pilots are designed to give individuals and families increased flexibility and financial freedom to overcome whatever barriers they may face – whether it is meeting basic needs, paying down a debt, moving into permanent housing, furthering their education to secure a better job, or to stop working a second job and instead be home for family time.

The Greater Washington Community Foundation is an early adopter and investor in several guaranteed income pilots throughout our region, including:

• Arlington’s Guarantee (Arlington, VA) launched in September 2021 as a partnership between The Arlington Community Foundation and Arlington County Department of Human Services. This pilot program provides a monthly unconditional cash payment of $500 over 18 months to 200 families. Target outcomes for participants include increased financial well-being, a heightened sense of personal agency, and community belonging. 

• MoCo Boost (Montgomery County, MD) launched as a public-private partnership to provide $800 a month to 300 households for 24 months. This pilot program includes 100 households recently served by the Montgomery County Homeless Continuum of Care and 200 participants with at least one child/dependent who had previously sought assistance from the County during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

• In DC, The Community Foundation joined with several local and regional foundations to launch Let’s Go DMV!, a 5-year guaranteed income pilot providing $1,000 a month to 75 hospitality workers who lost their jobs during the pandemic. Cash payments started in March 2022. All but one participant is a person of color, with about half being immigrants and the other half being primarily from DC or the region.

• We are currently working with partners to design, support, and launch a similar pilot project in Prince George’s County in 2023.

Additionally, with the recognition that health, economic mobility, and wealth are inextricably linked, we have invested in a broad array of guaranteed income pilots and cash transfer projects in DC through our Health Equity Fund.   

We are confident that these pilot programs will demonstrate that guaranteed income programs stimulate economic mobility and help close the racial wealth gap.

As we provide financial support for these guaranteed income programs, we will also be building consensus and public will to make guaranteed income a publicly funded instrument of community stability and prosperity.

Together, We Prosper

Our guaranteed income program investments are part of our multi-year commitment to increase economic mobility to close the racial wealth gap. Contributions raised through our Together, We Prosper Campaign will help accelerate the work to pursue economic justice and shared prosperity for all the people of our region.

We believe that by increasing economic mobility and building community wealth, we can help our entire region to prosper. The Together, We Prosper campaign will help build sustainable funding for community needs today and into the future, while enabling us to put powerful economic strategies to work in the parts of our community experiencing the deepest disparities.

Click Here to Learn More!

Bridging the Health and Wealth Gap Through Guaranteed Income

In September 2022, The Community Foundation announced the inaugural grant round for the Health Equity Fund — a $95 million fund designed to improve health outcomes for DC residents through an economic mobility framework.

A number of those inaugural grantees are currently (or will soon become) part of the growing Guaranteed Income or Cash Transfer movement — a group of initiatives and pilot programs across the country that are using cash payments to provide direct assistance to community members.

As part of our journey to understand the impact that these programs can have in our community, we reached out to some of our partners to understand how providing direct cash assistance helps the communities they serve.

My Sister’s Place

My Sister’s Place (MSP) emergency cash transfer program, RISE Trust, serves 45 families who have experienced domestic violence. Financial abuse goes hand-in-hand with domestic abuse, and is one of the main reasons survivors stay in, and return to, abusive relationships.

MSP is providing $500/month for 24 months to our participants. Equally as important, financial literacy and programs with our partner, Capital Area Asset Builders, will allow our participants to gain financial education, the combination leading to financially empowered and hopeful families.

Just 3 months into the program participants are getting their credit scores for the first time, creating financial goals, and learning about how trauma affects finances. Participants reported being able to drop a part-time job and having more time with their children, paying off credit card bills, feeling a new sense of hope and a reduction in stress. We are excited to see the impact after 24 months.

Mother’s Outreach Network

Mother’s Outreach Network (MON) deploys policy advocacy, legal programs, and community building to address and strengthen the social determinants of health for Black mothers. MON is specifically focused on Black family preservation -- building the economic security of Black mothers involved with Washington, DC’s Child and Family Services Agency (CFSA). These women are some of the city’s most economically marginalized mothers.

In 2019, 4 out of every 5 D.C. cases in foster care stemmed from neglect-based allegations alone. These were cases where parents were charged with harming the “health or welfare” of a child under 18 years of age by failing to accord them “adequate food, clothing, shelter, education or medical care.” 

To combat this, in 2021, MON conceived of a guaranteed income pilot research program to provide monthly unconditional cash payments for three years to DC residents that identify as Black mothers and have current or recent involvement in the child welfare system. Set to launch in three phases starting in early April 2023, MON's program seeks to inform policy around how poverty reduction affects involvement of parents in the child welfare system.

Capital Area Asset Builders

Capital Area Asset Builders (CAAB) started to be involved in the guaranteed income and cash transfer movement in the Fall of 2017. At CAAB we strongly believe that in order to achieve poverty alleviation, financial stability and long-term prosperity community members need access to information, education, empowerment, and money. No one community member can ever be directly serviced out of poverty. Without access to money one’s dreams and aspirations cannot be converted into goals and actions. With access to money, they can be.

Since early 2018, CAAB has been managing DC Flex, the nation’s first eviction- and homelessness-prevention cash transfer program. DC Flex is funded by the DC Department of Human Services (DHS) for the benefit of low-income TANF-receiving families to be able to pay rent on time and thus avoid eviction and homelessness. Since the creation of DC Flex, we have seen the significant impact the program has in enabling a family to stay housed, avoid financial hardships, and be put on a pathway to financial security. DC Flex goes beyond providing cash assistance. Program participants also receive financial wellness services provided by CAAB: bank accounts, budget management, financial wellness workshops, one-on-one confidential financial coaching sessions, information on the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit, as well as access to free tax preparation services.

DC Flex was supposed to be a 4-year long pilot program for 125 low-income families in Washington, DC with total annual cash transfers of $900,000. Because of its deep impact, DC Flex has now grown to benefit 669 low-income families and 125 low-income individuals with total annual cash transfers of over $6.5 million. In addition to DC Flex, over the past 4 years CAAB has also partnered with several private sector and non-profit sector partners to manage 7 other guaranteed income and cash transfer initiatives. We celebrate and applaud all entities offering guaranteed income and cash transfer programs.

Budgeting to End Homelessness: A Letter to DC Mayor Bowser

Dear Mayor Bowser:

I am writing on behalf of the Greater Washington Community Foundation and its Partnership to End Homelessness Leadership Council. We are very grateful for your ongoing leadership to reduce homelessness, and we applaud your bold third-term goals to advance economic and racial equity. As you work to develop your Fiscal Year 2024 budget proposal, we ask that your agenda for equity prioritize ending chronic homelessness and making substantial investments in affordable housing for DC households with extremely low incomes (0-30 MFI). In addition, we urge you to take steps to connect DC residents experiencing homelessness with the substantial number of vouchers funded for this purpose in recent years.

As you know, the Partnership to End Homelessness is a collective effort of private sector business leaders, philanthropists, and national and local nonprofits working to ensure homelessness is rare, brief, and non-recurring. The Partnership provides direct investments to strengthen the homeless services system and increase the supply of deeply affordable and supportive housing in every ward of the city. We know that the private sector and philanthropy play an important role in supporting and funding efforts to end homelessness. However, we also know the city’s success depends on the leadership of the DC government in both adequately funding and skillfully implementing evidence-based solutions.

Our FY 2024 budget recommendations align with the recommendations of our community advocacy partners. The recommendations below reflect several realities: the ongoing economic instability resulting from the pandemic, the need for continued funding to end chronic homelessness, the challenges DC has faced to implement the vouchers funded in recent years, and the enormous need for deeply affordable housing. Our recommendations are as follows:

Expand Permanent Supportive Housing and Targeted Affordable Housing to end chronic homelessness: We recommend:

• $36.6 million in Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) to end chronic homelessness for 1,260 single adults

• $18.9 million for PSH for 480 families and $58.4 million for Targeted Affordable Housing for 1,920 families. These investments would end homelessness for all families who are living in shelters or struggling with the uncertainty and challenges of Rapid Re-Housing.

Support Emergency Rental Assistance for all who need it: One-sixth of DC residents with low incomes are behind on their rent. Meanwhile, rents continue to rise sharply, even in rent controlled units. The pandemic and its ongoing impacts highlight the critical importance of funding emergency rental assistance at much higher levels than before the pandemic. Due to the combination of rising rents, the higher numbers of eviction filings and the higher number of actual evictions, sustained and increased ERAP funding is needed to avert preventable evictions and increases in homelessness and housing instability. We recommend:

• $117 million in FY 202 to fund DC’s ERAP program.

Provide sufficient staffing to put residents into PSH: A shortage of case managers and outreach workers has made it hard for the District to connect residents who are eligible for PSH with housing. This failure contributes to the inability to help residents move from tent encampments to their own home and results in human suffering and widespread frustration.

• We urge you to provide enough funding in the Department of Human Services for the staffing needed to ensure every available unit of PSH is connected with a resident experiencing homelessness.

• We ask you to work closely and urgently with the DC housing Authority to identify and implement collaborative solutions to address long processing times for vouchers.

Preserve Public Housing, Expand Affordable Housing: Housing is the solution to homelessness. We urge you to make a substantial commitment to affordable housing for households earning 0- 30 percent of the Median Family Income (MFI). Expanding deeply affordable housing, paired with targeted funding to end homelessness, will create the long-term housing stability needed to provide security to all DC residents and to make homelessness rare, brief, and non-recurring. We recommend:

• $60 million to repair and preserve public housing.

• $17.3 million for 800 Local Rent Supplement Tenant Vouchers, to assist those on the DC Housing Authority waitlist.

Support safe and affordable housing for targeted populations: The District’s housing investments should take into account the unique needs of certain populations. To that end, we recommend:

• $18.6 million for housing for victims of domestic violence, including building new permanently affordable housing, supporting transitional housing, and providing emergency housing support. Collectively, this will support 166 families.

• $1.3 million to provide tenant vouchers to 60 returning citizens

Create storage options for people experiencing homelessness: One of the traumatizing consequences of experiencing homelessness is the inability to safely secure and maintain one’s belongings. We recommend:

• $1.5 million to create storage options for 600 residents experiencing homelessness.

Expand non-congregate shelter for people experiencing homelessness: The District should take steps to transform its shelter system to make them smaller, safer, and trauma informed. Shifting away from large congregate shelters is essential to supporting the dignity of unhoused residents but also to help them recover.

Continue to invest in homelessness prevention: We urge you to expand programs that help prevent homelessness, including Project Reconnect, an effective and low-cost program that enables people to exit homelessness quickly.

Support efforts to end youth homelessness: We recommend:

• $25 million to increase youth homelessness provider contracts to account for inflation and provide providers the opportunity to administer recruitment and retention bonuses to staff. (DHS)

•  $1.7 million to create a traveling mental health unit to meet the mental health needs of unaccompanied youth experiencing homelessness. This unit will meet youth where they physically congregate to increase access to mental health support. (DBH)

• $1.1 million to create a targeted workforce development program for unaccompanied youth experience homelessness mirroring the Youth Works model which not only provides workforce supports but wraparound services (DOES)

As the District works to address serious ongoing challenges and the impact of the pandemic, including high levels of housing instability, it is imperative to continue prioritizing actions that will advance racial and economic equity and meet the needs of DC residents with the lowest incomes. Not only is that the right thing to do, but it also is essential to DC’s future. Stable and affordable housing is the key to creating healthy communities, which in turn supports school success, promotes public safety, and narrows DC’s racial income and wealth gaps.

Thank you again for your leadership and commitment to ending homelessness in our city. We urge you to make 2024 the year that DC makes bold and significant investments to end homelessness and to increase the supply of deeply affordable housing for extremely low-income households.

Sincerely,

Tonia Wellons

President and CEO, Greater Washington Community Foundation
Chair, Partnership to End Homelessness Leadership Council

In Pursuit of Economic Justice Recap: National Leaders Discuss Guaranteed Income Movement

Last week, The Community Foundation hosted a panel of national leaders in the guaranteed income movement for a discussion about how philanthropy is working to increase economic mobility by launching and investing in guaranteed income programs. The event was the first of the “In Pursuit of Economic Justice” Webinar Series – designed to bring together experts to explore innovative approaches to closing the racial wealth gap.

“Part of our 10-year strategic vision to close the racial wealth gap is to invest in innovative solutions that can move beyond providing economic stability to promoting economic mobility and eventual prosperity for communities of color,” President & CEO Tonia Wellons shared. “The guaranteed income movement is one of those.”

“Guaranteed income is designed to allow those who are economically disadvantaged to be the arbiters of their own financial lives,” Natalie Foster, President & Founder of the Economic Security Project shared. “It’s based on the premise that as we provide people with regular cash payments – with no strings attached – that they can live with dignity and make the choices they need to prosper.”

Foster has been with the guaranteed income movement since one of the first pilot programs launched in Stockton, CA in 2017. Six years later, the movement has grown to encompass more than 100 pilots across the country – including four in the Greater Washington region: Let’s Go DMV! (DC), MoCo Boost (Montgomery County), Arlington’s Guarantee (Arlington), and ARISE (Alexandria).

The Community Foundation is a proud partner for several of these initiatives and plans to help launch a similar program in Prince George’s County in the coming months.

““The problem is not that these people aren’t working – the problem is that the economy is not working for them.””

— Natalie Foster

Foster explained that one of the biggest challenges facing the growing movement lies in narrative building – specifically in addressing common misconceptions surrounding guaranteed income and the social safety net.

“Many in our society have a very harmful ideology that poverty is an individual failing,” Foster continued. “We know that is not true. For communities of color, we know it is a structural and systemic failure.”

“The problem is not that these people aren’t working – the problem is that the economy is not working for them.”

“For those of us with wealth, there are multitude of public subsidies – like tax deductions – that we can access with ‘no strings attached’,” added Geeta Pradhan, President of the Cambridge Community Foundation. “Yet for our low-income populations, we ask them to explain themselves, fill out forms, jump through hoops, and waste time that they don’t have – just to get the help they need.”

“The time has come for us to put aside these systemic inequities when it comes to our social safety net.”

Pradhan and the Cambridge Community Foundation joined the guaranteed income movement in 2021, when they partnered with Mayor’s for Guaranteed Income to launch Cambridge RISE. The project has been so successful that the Mayor’s Office of Cambridge, Massachusetts announced an additional $22 million in federal funding for the project last year – making it one of the largest programs in the country. The investment highlights what Foster says is an important step towards one of the long-term goals of the movement.

 “The vision of the guaranteed income movement is not simply to launch pilots in certain parts of the country,” Foster explained. “The vision is that philanthropic dollars will serve as the R&D (Research & Development) and power building muscle to influence and enact policy.”

Foster highlighted the Child Tax Credit (CTC) and Expanded Income Tax Credit (EITC) as examples of existing policies that could be expanded upon – a measure that the DC Council chose to take this past year to establish a new monthly basic income program.

“I think you have a real opportunity,” Pradhan said, speaking directly to The Community Foundation’s donors. “Your community is already doing an amazing job in the guaranteed income space – and through those initiatives, we continue to learn more and more about how we can make our community stronger. As donors, your generosity is what helps us create change in our communities.”

“It’s not often you get the opportunity to have such a return on your investment,” Foster added. “Not only from a policy standpoint in the long-term – enacting long-awaited systemic change – but also in the short-term – providing tangible support that truly makes a difference for people in your community.”

Click here to view the full recording of In Pursuit of Economic Justice: A Primer on Guaranteed Income Programs. This event is the first of a series of conversations exploring innovative approaches to closing the racial gap.

Listening to the Community: Sharing Montgomery Meets With Leaders in East-County

Members of The Community Foundation’s Montgomery County Advisory Board, staff, and Sharing Montgomery donors recently visited with community partners in Montgomery County’s East-County region – one of the “Priority Neighborhoods” identified by The Community Foundation as part of its new 10-year strategic plan. The event follows a similar visit with Up-County partners that took place last November.

The day began at Manna Food Center’s headquarters in Silver Spring, where the group met with a panel of nonprofit leaders who have been at the forefront of the battle against food insecurity in Montgomery County. A battle that they say has continued, even as COVID cases have declined.

“Let’s not have amnesia about what we experienced during the pandemic,” Jackie DeCarlo, CEO of Manna Food Center shared. “As one our volunteers shared ‘I hope we never go back to normal; the pandemic made me realize that -- for a lot of people -- normal just wasn’t working”.

Despite the challenges, these partners have only continued to innovate. Rev. Kendra Smith, of East County Hub led by Kingdom Fellowship, and Pat Drumming, Executive Director of Rainbow Community Development Center, outlined how they work collaboratively with local businesses, grocery stores, and farmers to rescue thousands of pounds food.  DeCarlo explained how Manna Food Center now partners with local ethnic food markets to establish a voucher system that allows families to obtain culturally appropriate foods to make homecooked meals while also supporting critical local businesses.

“Essentially, we’re working with what already exists to recreate a new food system,” Rev. Kendra Smith of East County Hub of Kingdom Fellowship explained. “One that has the flexibility to respond to our community’s needs.”

The panel expressed gratitude to the donors of Sharing Montgomery and Food for Montgomery for their extraordinary support in recent years. They further highlighted how major investments over the last few years enabled them to secure shared cold storage – increasing their capacity to collect, store, and distribute perishable food items like meat and fresh produce.

“We can’t continue to look at food insecurity in isolation,” Rev. Smith explained. “Many of the families we’re serving are multi-generational. We need to examine all the social determinants of health and start having conversations about how we can work together and collaborate to address the root causes behind the needs that these families have.”

After a quick tour of the Manna Food Center’s choice pantry, the group then moved on to Paint Branch High School in Burtonsville, MD, where they met with representatives from local nonprofits working to promote economic mobility and higher education: IMPACT Silver Spring, College Tracks and the Achieving College Excellence & Success (ACES) partnership of Montgomery College, the Universities at Shady Grove, and Montgomery County Public Schools.

Much like the safety-net partners, these nonprofit leaders had to continuously pivot and innovate since the outbreak of COVID.   For IMPACT Silver Spring, that meant finding ways to provide direct cash transfers so families in crisis could meet their needs more efficiently (an effort supported by The Community Foundation’s Neighbors in Need Montgomery Fund).  Meanwhile, CollegeTracks and ACES initially struggled to connect with students virtually while schools were operating remotely but ultimately found their efforts made them even more accessible.

“We were able to engage with their families in ways that we’d never done before,” explained Mecha Inman, CEO of College Tracks. “We were able to directly answer their questions about the college application process and help them become better informed about how to support and advocate for their students.”

Andres Maldonado, Assistant Director of ACES, further shared how ACES expanded their outreach to better serve students and their families – ensuring that students not only had access to academic support, but also important resources like food, employment opportunities, and mental health services. 

In response to how residents are helping their families and neighborhoods recover, Michael Rubin, Interim Director of IMPACT Silver Spring, shared how they are advancing worker collaboratives, empowering people with the resources and capital they need to start new enterprises that will ultimately help them on the pathway out of poverty and keep wealth in our local economy.

“We are not going to safety net ourselves out of the racial wealth gap. We are not going to safety net ourselves out of poverty,” Rubin shared. “We have to do things differently.”

Following the tour, Anna Hargrave, Executive Director for Montgomery County for the Greater Washington Community Foundation, reflected on two key takeaways:

• While the nonprofit partners we heard from have different missions, there is a common practice that has fueled their many accomplishments; they authentically listen to the community, making sure residents’ voices are driving change.

• Knowing the federal pandemic relief dollars are dwindling, we must empower our local nonprofits with flexible support they will need to further meet the urgent needs plus advocate for policy changes that will help our lowest-income neighbors who were hit hardest by the pandemic and are still struggling to recover.

To learn more about upcoming in-person and virtual visits plus other learning opportunities, contact Olivia Hsu at ohsu@thecommunityfoundation.org.

Housing: A Social Determinant of Health

Neighborhood & Built Environment (Housing) is one of the five social determinants of health, as identified by the US Department of Health and Human Services.

In DC, 80 percent of residents’ health outcomes are driven by socioeconomic factors, compared to just 20 percent driven by clinical care. Access to safe, quality, affordable housing – and to the supports necessary to maintain that housing -- constitute one of the most basic and powerful social determinants of health.

Research demonstrates that housing and health are inextricably linked:

• Poor health is a major cause of homelessness. Chronic physical and behavioral health conditions can lead to loss of income and contribute to the loss of stable housing and episodes of homelessness.

• Lack of stable housing makes people sick. People experiencing homelessness are at higher risk for infectious diseases, injuries due to accident or violence, the exacerbation of chronic physical conditions like diabetes, mental illness, or addiction, and death due to exposure. Homelessness has been found to “age” people up to 20 years beyond their chronological age.

• Homelessness makes it harder to heal. Homelessness complicates efforts for health professionals to successfully treat chronic conditions, illnesses, and injuries. Discharging a patient from a hospital to a safe and stable environment is critical for proper wound care, compliance with recommended treatments and medication regimes, and access to healthy foods and a place to rest and recuperate.

The Partnership to End Homelessness knows that housing is healthcare and that housing increases economic mobility. Access to quality, affordable, supportive housing can prevent illnesses and help successfully treat health conditions

The Partnership works to increase health equity and improve health outcomes for DC residents through its investments in the development and preservation of housing that is affordable to households with extremely low incomes, including Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH). PSH is an evidence-based practice that combines permanent affordable housing with comprehensive support services for people who have experienced chronic homelessness.

Through its direct grantmaking and impact investing programs, the Partnership supports the creation of housing for extremely low-income households.

One example of this work is a recent project from Jubilee Housing. The EucKal apartments will create a combined 50 units of housing that will be affordable to very low-income individuals and residents of permanent supportive housing. This project was made possible through a $500,000 recoverable grant from The Community Foundation to support Jubilee Housing’s development of PSH and other housing investments. In addition to the EucKal project, this funding was also leveraged to purchase four buildings in Adams Morgan and Columbia Heights to create 120 new units of housing for residents with low incomes. Jubilee plans to further expand its reach by creating housing to serve families, returning citizens, and individuals exiting homelessness. The organization hopes ultimately to provide housing to approximately 317 individuals annually, across 102 permanent units and 18 single room occupancy units.

Learn more about The Community Foundation’s Impact Investing Programs

Enterprise Community Loan Fund Impact Note

In partnership with Enterprise Community Loan Fund, the Partnership offers an Impact Note - an impact investing option for donors seeking to make a difference in the housing space. To date $14.8 million has been invested through this initiative, which has been leveraged to create and preserve 482 homes affordable to low-income households making less than 50% of the area median income. Projects have also included 96 units with supportive services and 192 units serving senior residents. Check out our 2022 Enterprise Community Loan Fund Impact Report to learn more about our investments and impact.

To learn more about how the Partnership’s investments in ending homelessness improves health outcomes for DC residents, contact Jennifer Olney at jolney@thecommunityfoundation.org or Silvana Straw sstraw@thecommunityfoundation.org.

The Next Step in our Journey with the DMV Book Group

Dear Book Group Family,

Thank you for those of you who have been a part of the Greater Washington Community Foundation’s book group over the last year. 

As a group, much of our time and attention has been focused on socializing ourselves about the ways that racism, economics, politics, and policy making have played out in American history and created the disparities we see in our society. We have done so with the expectation that we could all align around a shared understanding about the racial and economic choices, histories, policies, and impacts that perpetuate the disparities we see in our society—the racial wealth gap in particular. 

To this end, please allow me to offer a draft perspective that we will test, revise, and eventually hold together:

In our book group, we have learned how racism and our prevailing political and economic systems were born and raised together.  We have seen how they are mutually reinforcing structures that have instigated profound harm in the lives of Indigenous and Black peoples, and other people of color. 

While these groups have suffered the most, we all suffer as long as these systems remain unchallenged and unchecked. We believe that the racial and economic justice that so many of us seek will only come by transforming BOTH the hearts, minds and behaviors of individuals AND the interlocking systems that govern our lives and well-being.

Over this next year we will be making an intentional pivot to volumes and published pieces inviting us to imagine compelling and concrete solutions that address the racial and economic issues keeping us all from living our highest collective potential.

We set the tone for this pivot toward solutions at our last book group when we read Solidarity Economics: Why Mutuality and Movement Matter. One of the book’s co-authors, Professor Manual Pastor joined us to offer perspectives on the book.  He invited us to reimagine an economic system built on the values and practices of mutuality—in other words an economy that moves away from competition, individualism, and winners and losers, to one that models collaboration, the human desire for community, everyone doing well.   

I’m excited to continue our journey as we discuss Collective Courage: A History of African-American Cooperative Thought and Practice. If you don’t have time to read the entire book, feel free to skim this article that includes in an interview with the author of the book—Jessica Gordon Nembhard – who will be joining us for our book group session on March 31st. You can register here. 

I hope you’ll continue to join us in the work of learning, dreaming, and taking action together.  The change we seek will take all of us.

In Solidarity,

Ronnie Galvin
Senior Fellow & Book Group Facilitator

Meet Our Spirit of Philanthropy Award Honoree – Terri Lee Freeman

The Greater Washington Community Foundation was proud to honor Terri Lee Freeman with the 2023 Spirit of Philanthropy Award at our 50th Anniversary Celebration of Philanthropy .

As the longest-serving and first Black female President and CEO of The Community Foundation (from 1996-2014), Terri was the catalyst for remarkable growth of the organization’s assets and impact in the community. Her visionary leadership was the driving force behind critical initiatives that helped our community through major crises, instigated groundbreaking conversations about race and racism, and mobilized resources to expand equity, access, and opportunity for all residents of the Greater Washington region. This work was unparalleled for its time and paved the way for The Community Foundation’s new strategic vision to build community wealth and close the racial wealth gap.

During her tenure, Terri was recognized by the Washington Business Journal as one of its “Women Who Mean Business” and by Washingtonian Magazine as a “Washingtonian of the Year” and “100 Most Powerful Women of Washington”. Since leaving The Community Foundation, she has pursued her passion for civil rights and social justice as the former President of the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee, and now as the Executive Director of the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture in Baltimore.

Terri Lee Freeman was appointed Executive Director of the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture in December 2020. The seventh director of the State’s largest museum devoted to African American history, Freeman is responsible for providing strategic leadership in furthering the museum’s mission as an educational and cultural institution. To that end, she has worked with staff and board to develop a five-year strategic plan that culminates in a planned renovation of The Lewis Museum’s permanent history exhibition, a growth in visitors, membership, funding support and community outreach. Freeman seeks to connect history to current events and expand the museum’s connection to the very rich and vibrant communities which make up the state of Maryland.

Prior to joining The Lewis Museum, Freeman served as President of the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee for six years. During her tenure Freeman broadened the Museum’s reputation as the new public square. She oversaw the Museum’s MLK50 commemoration, an international commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and designed and executed signature programming like “Unpacking Racism for Action,” a seven-month-long dialogue program delving into issues of implicit bias and structural racism. 

Before the NCRM, Ms. Freeman served as President of the Greater Washington Community Foundation for 18 years. She distinguished herself for her community building and her ability to grow the Foundation’s reputation as an effective and strategic funder in the metropolitan DC region. 

Her intense passion for the nonprofit sector and community was nurtured while serving as the founding executive director of the Freddie Mac Foundation; at the time, one of the five largest corporate foundations in the metropolitan Washington region.

Ms. Freeman currently serves on the boards of BoardSource, the Downtown Partnership of Baltimore, Visit Baltimore, the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance, and the University of Dayton, her alma mater.  In 2020, she was identified as an Outstanding Alum by the University of Dayton.  And in December 2020, the Memphis Magazine identified her as Memphian of the Year. A frequently sought-after speaker, Ms. Freeman lives by the saying that what is most important is what people say about you when you aren’t in the room. 

Freeman received her bachelor’s degree in journalism/communication arts from the University of Dayton and her master’s degree in organizational communication management from Howard University.