Issue: Afterschool in Housing

Around the country, afterschool programs and low-income housing providers are creating partnerships uniquely positioned to empower children and families with the resources they need to thrive in school and succeed as adults. The Afterschool Alliance actively seeks promising examples of such partnerships to showcase on its national platform.

The Afterschool Alliance works to elevate promising practices occuring at the intersection of affordable housing and quality afterschool and summer learning initiatives. View our webinars and Afterschool Snack posts and visit our partners to learn more about this innovative trend in the afterschool field. 

OUR RESOURCES

See our two Afterschool Snack articles listed above, as part of our 2014 "Housing + Quality Afterschool" Series produced in partnership with the Council of Large Public Housing Authorities (CLPHA). 

You can view accompanying live webinars, featuring the practitioners profiled in each of the articles. 

• Housing Authorities & Afterschool: Ideal Community Partners (April 10, 2014)
  Accompanying our December 2013 Snack article, featuring a partnership between the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles and the Boys & Girls Clubs of Santa Monica.
• Funding Quality Partnerships Between Housing Authorities and Afterschool Programs (July 31, 2014)
  Companion to our April 2, 2014 Snack article, featuring the Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority, federal afterschool funding, and the Cleveland Promise Neighborhoods Initiative. 

OUR PARTNERS

Council of Large Public Housing Authorities (CLPHA)

The Council of Large Public Housing Authorities is a national nonprofit organization that works to preserve and improve public and affordable housing through advocacy, research, policy analysis and public education.

CLPHA’s 70 members represent virtually every major metropolitan area in the country. Together they manage 40 percent of the nation’s public housing program, administer 26 percent of the Housing Choice Voucher program and operate a wide array of other housing programs.

Resources

• Report: "Bringing Education Home: Housing Authorities and Learning Initiatives" (2012)
• Affordable Housing & Education Action Agenda (2015)

Partnership for Children and Youth - HousED Initiative
"California Network for Education in Affordable Housing"

The Partnership for Children & Youth (PCY) was created to connect schools and their community partners in California's underserved communities with available public and private resources. PCY improves the effectiveness of funding streams and services for low income children.

PCY's HousED program strengthens afterschool and summer learning programming for young people by connecting housing-based youth-service providers to each other and training providers to continuously assess and improve their work with kids. 

Resources

• HousED's philosophy
• Overview of HousED's work
• List of current HousED members

The Urban Institute - Metropolitan Housing and Communities Policy Center

About the Institute

The Urban Institute conducts sophisticated research to understand and solve real-world challenges in a rapidly urbanizing environment. Their work engages communities at multiple levels—city, state and country—as they gather data and evaluate programs. Urban Institute scholars blend academic rigor with on-the-ground collaboration as they team up with policymakers, community leaders, practitioners, and the private sector to diagnose problems and find solutions.

About the Policy Center

Housing and place matter. Quality, affordable housing anchors families, and the communities where people live can influence nearly everything in their lives: where they work and how they get there, the quality of schools that their children attend, their health and safety, and even their longevity. With an emphasis on place—from cities and suburbs to tribal lands—the Metropolitan Housing and Communities Policy Center investigates the factors that shape the quality of life in American communities.

Housing and Education Partnerships Series (in collaboration with CLPHA)

Assisted-housing providers are in a unique position to support educators, low-income students and their caregivers outside the school day. By partnering with schools and school districts, housing providers can help address challenges outside school that can become barriers to learning, such as housing instability, truancy and health problems. Their roles as developers and landlords create opportunities to connect housing and education. This series summarizes key elements that shape and strengthen the partnerships in three diverse settings: Akron, Ohio; New Haven, Connecticut; and Vancouver, Washington.

• Developing Housing and Education Partnerships: Lessons from the Field (2015; full report)
   
• Housing and Education Partnerships: A Case Study of New Haven, Connecticut (2015; full report)
   
• Housing and Education Partnereships: A Case Study of Vancouver, Washington (2015; full report)
   
• Housing & Education Partnerships: A Case Study of Akron, Ohio (2015; full report)