About Hope through Housing

Hope through Housing provides low-income children, families and seniors with quality, best-practice services that promote prosperity, quality of life and physical well-being. Over the past 25 years, Hope through Housing has provided more than 2 million hours in supportive services, including preschool, after-school, senior wellness and upward mobility programs.

WHO WE ARE

Hope through Housing Foundation was established in 1998 by National Community Renaissance (National CORE), one of the leaders in the affordable housing industry. By the mid-90s, National CORE had gained a reputation for providing high-quality apartment communities and turning around tough neighborhoods negatively affected by poverty, crime, isolation and neglect.

Wanting to do more to help the children, families and seniors who lived in its communities, National CORE created the Hope through Housing. Hope through Housing was incorporated as an independent nonprofit organization to develop and administer a broad range of charitable and educational programs for children, young adults, low-income and underprivileged families and the general public. For the next several years, Hope through Housing focused on providing evidence-based programs and services that:  (1) prepared children to be ready to learn; (2) prepared youth for social and academic success; and (3) allowed seniors to remain healthy and independent.

Today a true collaborative partner with National CORE, Hope through Housing continues to evolve in order to better serve individuals. Hope through Housing has expanded beyond direct services, enhancing our mission to break the cycle of generational poverty through strategies such as building strategic partnerships and regional capacity among providers. We are taking a greater role in advocacy among policymakers and other stakeholders.

Our goal across all of these programs is to direct, leverage, and support community development activities and resources across a variety of partners, resulting in targeted neighborhood transformation around affordable housing sites.

WHAT WE DO

It is within this context of continued economic need that Hope through Housing in partnership with National CORE works to address social and economic needs among its 90+ housing communities, currently encompassing almost 10,000 units and more than 25,000 residents in multiple states. National CORE knew that stable housing was a critical, but by no means sufficient, step towards ending generational poverty. Besides shelter, families needed other services and resources to transform their lives, and even typical supportive service offerings under affordable housing mandates were not enough to generate this change.

WHY IT MATTERS

Hope through Housing believes that affordable housing can be a platform for transformational change at the individual and neighborhood level. For households, securing affordable housing supports economic and social stability, which enables families to regain self-sufficiency and independence and can lead to greater prospects for mobility and improved quality of life. For the children in these households, this economic and social stability secures a safe haven for them in which they learn and grow and gives them a better chance of succeeding in school and beyond and of breaking the cycle of generational poverty.

At the neighborhood level, affordable housing sites can be hubs for community revitalization. Whether serving as centers for community activities or attracting new investments —both financial and social— to the area, affordable housing can be a catalyst for improving neighborhood appearance, reducing crime and delinquency, and nurturing community-wide well-being. And the two levels are interconnected: stronger individuals and families contribute to stronger communities, and affordable housing is a starting point for both.

But while access to affordable housing can be a launching pad for these aspirations, transformational change and an improved quality of life are by no means foregone conclusions.

This is where Hope through Housing plays a critical role: we aim to deliver and coordinate community services for residents that are designed to help them stabilize their lives, pursue new economic and social opportunities, and achieve better quality of life not only through affordable housing but through social connections, services, and systems that help residents and communities thrive.