As COVID-19 continues to spread, NeighborWorks network organizations continue to connect with community members and to take measures to try to ensure their safety. Here's a look at what organizations are doing in Vermont and Missouri.

Neighborhood. Porch. Living room. That's where James Clark, head of the St. Louis Metropolitan Area De-escalation Center, says we must go to talk about gun violence within communities. And that's where his outreach workers have been going for the past two and a half years. 

The black community is facing an internal crisis, Clark says. "African-Americans have to look at the fact that African-Americans kill African-Americans every day in every major city. We can't ignore that. Not to address it is passing it on to future generations." 

Housing is on everyone's lips, says Sheila Rice, who just completed a term as interim executive vice president and chief operating officer for NeighborWorks America. She expects the trend to continue through 2020. 

For starters, the health-care industry is highlighting housing, Rice says, pointing to a quote that is everywhere from the Champlain Housing Trust to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: "Housing is health care." 

It’s obvious to me that if [people with disabilities] are not in the room, we are not included in the discussion at all as a community of people. This is how I ended up effectively homeless for four months,” Melissa Mitchell, disability ambassador