Keeping People Housed: Connecting residents with resources

With a national network of community-based organizations and its strong partnership with the Wells Fargo Foundation, NeighborWorks America continues to support housing counseling services for renters and homeowners facing distress.  

"Through the Keeping People Housed Initiative, we quickly distributed grants to housing counseling agencies in the NeighborWorks network and provided organizations with training, technical assistance and peer learning opportunities," says Noelle Melton, vice president of National Homeownership Programs & Lending at NeighborWorks. "These funds have supported outreach about available programs and connected residents with legal aid and community resources."   

For instance, at Asian Americans for Equality (AAFE), a NeighborWorks network organization in New York, staff supported — and continue to support — residents through counseling and by finding rental assistance programs for residents whose financial situations became more precarious during the pandemic.  These programs helped renters pay past-due rent and prevented eviction. One such program, the Excluded Workers Fund, assisted residents regardless of their immigration status. 
 

 
  AAFE also offered Know Your Rights workshops in 2019 to help tenants with heat and hot water shutdowns during the winter months. These workshops were available in Nepali, Bengali, Mandarin and Spanish languages to further meet community needs. Additionally, the Keeping People Housed Initiative helped AAFE create and sustain successful programs like legal clinics through a partnership with the Asian American Bar Association. The two organizations collaborated to offer pro bono legal clinics, which served more than 150 people last year, 80% of whom wanted help around housing. 

The Keeping People Housed Initiative and NeighborWorks' partnership with Wells Fargo show the value in funding and supporting housing and community development organizations that can then provide critical services for individuals and families, helping stabilize housing and lives.

Interested in learning more about NeighborWorks' Keeping People Housed Initiative with support from the Wells Fargo Foundation?

• Education and counseling help keep people housed
• Finding ways to keep people housed
• Outreach and counseling help with 'Keeping People Housed'
• Network organizations work to keep people housed