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Mission District San Francisco Town Hall Addresses Lower-Income Residents’ Concerns

March 20, 2014 Housing

MEDA facilitates school meeting about housing crisis and families under stress

On March 19th, Bryant Elementary in the Mission District played host to an insightful Housing Town Hall to bring the community together to express their concerns about the rising cost of San Francisco apartments. Turnout exceeded expectations—emblematic of the breadth of the issues facing lower-income families in the Mission.

MEDA is 100% committed to pushing forward this much-needed dialogue about housing issues in the Mission . . . and last night was a step in the right direction. Conversations being had in kitchens across the Mission were brought into the public realm, with empathy now the common ingredient. Kudos to Claudia DeLarios Moran, San Francisco Unified School District Family Liaison, and other partners who worked collaboratively to make this meaningful event a reality.

To get the conversation flowing, MEDA staff initially facilitated English- and Spanish-speaking groups of about six residents each. The consensus? Attendees lamented that they are caught in a Catch-22: move out of their long-time neighborhood of choice, or San Francisco altogether, because of escalating rents versus working two or more jobs just to pay shelter costs in the Mission, leading to less time with their children. Either scenario causes stress, taking the family unit on a downward spiral, with an outcome of psychological, emotional, physical and fiscal issues. Dr. Zea Malawa of Dr. Nadine Burke Harris’ Center for Youth Wellness, located in the nearby Bayview, gave a presentation on this dire matter.

The event emcee was Hydra Mendoza, Education Advisor at City and County of San Francisco, with a translator on hand. The town hall panel comprised city officials Jeff Buckley, who is Senior Advisor to Mayor Lee, Supervisor David Campos and Supervisor Malia Cohen; complementing that trio were local activists Oscar Grande of People Organizing to Demand Environmental & Economic Rights (PODER) and Lucia Kimble from Causa Justa :: Just Cause. The panel answered questions from residents and vowed to transfer the latter’s concerns into action.

MEDA plays its part via the Mission Promise Neighborhood, an evidence-based continuum of services that focuses on lower-income Latino students and their families at Bryant Elementary, César Chávez Elementary, Everett Middle School and O’Connell High School. Family Success Coaches work to keep children and their families on the path to success.

The poignancy of the town hall was summed up by MEDA’s Director of Community Real Estate, Karoleen Feng: “We were keyed up to see so many families from the Mission schools both come and find solutions to their housing problems and share their challenges with city and school district leaders. We heard that our families also came away realizing they were not alone in their problems or in wanting to find solutions, and MEDA will continue working with them to address the impacts on families and their children.”

The dedicated MEDA team promises to keep pushing the dialogue. MEDA is all about solutions.

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November

A Promising Approach to Asset Building

November 6, 2013 Asset Building, Partners

We are excited about our partnership with PolicyLink, the San Francisco Office of Financial Empowerment and Citi to document and share best practices for asset building in Promise Neighborhoods -and we are starting right here in the Mission. The Mission Promise Neighborhood will work to ensure every family has the resources they need to be financially successful.

Read the Huffington Post about our Asset Building Services below.
Click here to go to Huffington Post website.

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Posted: 11/06/2013
By: Pam Flaherty and Angela Glover Blackwell

In the third of this week’s series of four blog-eds by the Asset Building Policy Network, Pam Flaherty and Angela Glover Blackwell highlight how asset building can help unlock opportunity in America.

There is a looming crisis that threatens to confine a generation of young Americans to a life of limited opportunity and low prospects. Consider this statistic: by 2018, 45 percent of all jobs will require an associate’s degree or higher. Yet today, only 27 percent of African Americans, 26 percent of U.S.-born Latinos, and 14 percent of Latino immigrants have that level of education. By 2020, 5 million jobs will go unfilled unless we increase the number of college graduates, and that includes those from low-income communities of color. The jobs gap may undermine our national economy and our ability to compete and create a prosperous society for all.

To plug this opportunity gap, over 50 Promise Neighborhoods across the country – including 36 that have received funding from the U.S. Department of Education’s Promise Neighborhoods program – are working to improve educational outcomes in underserved communities. Promise Neighborhoods are communities of opportunity weaving an integrated collection of services around children and families to link education, health, housing, and other social supports that are strong enough to ensure that children can grow up safely, in good health, graduate from college, and acquire good jobs.

Now, several Promise Neighborhoods are incorporating a crucial new element to their initiatives – asset building. Asset building strategies like financial education, children’s savings programs, predatory lending protection, and investment guidance empower low-income families to achieve long term financial goals and build wealth. Children’s savings accounts (CSAs) are a good example to demonstrate how asset building works.

Children with savings accounts are up to seven times more likely to attend college than those without an account. This is true regardless of family income, race, or educational attainment. Few facts better illustrate the power of financial inclusion – the provision of safe and affordable financial services to low-income and underserved families – to unlock economic opportunity. Local groups are leading the way: the Mission Promise Neighborhood in San Francisco has partnered with the mayor’s office’s Kindergarten to College program to provide CSAs for every child in the neighborhood. More than just a savings account, CSAs focus parents and students on planning for the future, which in turn strengthens their commitment to what they need to do today to make college a reality.

We need to support more young people on the path to college success. The Asset Building Policy Network, a coalition of the nation’s preeminent civil rights and advocacy organizations and Citi, with funding from the Citi Foundation, has launched an exciting new project with PolicyLink to incorporate essential asset-building strategies into the network of Promise Neighborhoods, scaling up its network to serve over 200,000 children and families by 2016.

Collectively, we aim to break the cycle of generational poverty and build brighter futures for children and families, and our national economy.

About the Asset Building Policy Network

The Asset Building Policy Network (ABPN) is a national coalition that collectively advances savings and asset building policy at the federal level, builds national capacity of the network’s members, and bolsters long-term financial security for low- and moderate-income communities of color. ABPN members include: Center for American Progress, Citi,Corporation for Enterprise Development, National Association for Latino Community Asset Builders, National Council for La Raza, National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development, National Urban League and PolicyLink.

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September

Mission Promise Neighborhood Launches with Family Resource Fair

September 10, 2013 Events

MEDA thanks all our partners, staff, volunteers, elected officials and John O’Connell High School for making our Resource Fair such a successful event!

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By Rigoberto Hernandez
Posted September 8, 2013 12:52 pm

As Mission students return to school this fall, they will not only encounter new teachers and classmates, but a whole infrastructure of services at their schools that promises to improve their quality of life.

Starting this year, the Mission Economic Development Agency, along with the school district and other nonprofits, will implement an initiative at four Mission Schools that will provide everything from after school programs to workshops. Earlier this year the department of education granted MEDA the Mission Promise Neighborhood Grant worth $30 million over five years aimed at helping students at underperforming schools in the district.

The House of Representatives Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, along with other city officials, announced the grant to several dozen families that attended a press conference on Saturday at John O’Connell High School.

Read Full Mission Local Article>>

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July

Mission Promise Neighborhood Launch, September 7th

July 26, 2013 Uncategorized

Join us for this special occasion!

Mission Promise Neighborhood Launch

Saturday, September 7th
10:00am – 1:00pm
John O’Connell High Schoolat 2355 Folsom Street, San Francisco (between 20th & 19th Street)
Free!

Bring your family!

There will be local organizations and lots of kids’ activities including: • San Francisco Fire Department fire engine • Tricycle raffle • Prizes • Free gifts • Music • Entertainment • T-shirts and tote bag giveaway for kids and parents.
Plus free food and fun activities for the whole family!

Come learn about:

Early child development
After-school programs
Education scholarships
Improving your credit score
Computer classes
College savings
Buying a home
Foreclosure assistance
Job placement
Financial health

Mission Promise Neighborhood is a city-wide community partnership that has been created in support of kids and families living, working and going to school in the Mission District. It brings together schools, colleges, community organizations, businesses and community leaders to help kids graduate and families achieve financial stability.

For more information call 1.866.379.7758 or visit missionpromise.org.

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December

U.S. Department of Education Awards MPN $30M Grant

December 21, 2012 Uncategorized

MAYOR LEE ANNOUNCES SAN FRANCISCO AWARDED U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 2012 PROMISE NEIGHBORHOODS GRANT

Five-Year, $30 Million Grant to Mission Economic Development Agency, San Francisco Unified School District & City to Improve Education in Mission Neighborhood

December 21, 2012, San Francisco, CA — Mayor Edwin M. Lee and Superintendent Richard Carranza today announced that the U.S. Department of Education has selected San Francisco’s Mission Economic Development Agency (MEDA) to receive a five-year, $30 million Promise Neighborhoods implementation grant, among the highest amount granted of only six other selected areas in the nation.

“The Promise Neighborhoods grants will not only help our children succeed in school, but these grants will lift up families and whole communities,” said Mayor Lee. “I thank President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan for choosing the Mission community as one of seven recipients of the Promise Neighborhoods implementation grants so that we can continue to prepare our youth for the 21^st Century workforce.”

“By delivering support holistically in a linguistically- and culturally-competent manner, this grant will bridge together successful local nonprofits and public and private partners to work with kids and families: empowering the community, breaking cycles of poverty, and ensuring every child can reach their full potential, from cradle to college to career,” said Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi.

“This is a great opportunity to further coordinate neighborhood resources and services to strategically support accelerated learning for children and families in the Mission District,” said Superintendent Richard A. Carranza of the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD). “We look forward to collaborating to make sure students within the Mission District have access to all of the opportunities that should be afforded to children. This is an important complement to the work we have begun through our school improvement initiatives.”

“This investment in our community will allow us to create true innovation and ensure children, youth and families in the Mission have strong schools, opportunities to become economically successful, and robust systems of family and community support that will allow them to thrive,” said MEDA’s Executive Director Luis Granados.

In December of 2011, MEDA received a $500,000 Promise Neighborhoods planning grant to carry out a community-wide planning process to create a continuum of services that would meet the Mission District’s needs, with a focus on low-income Latino students and families and students at Cesar Chavez Elementary, Bryant Elementary, Everett Middle School, and John O’Connell High School. Throughout 2012, MEDA worked the Mayor’s office, community based organizations, city agencies, SFUSD, and the United Way of the Bay Area to write an implementation proposal that was submitted to the Department of Education in July 2012.

The Promise Neighborhood implementation grant will help leverage SFUSD’s three-year $45 million Federal School Improvement Grant (SIG) that expires in June 2013 to support the transformation of student outcomes at state-identified “persistently low-performing schools.” Mission area schools are demonstrating improvement by incorporating a deep focus on literacy instruction, professional development for teachers, additional support staff, and a community schools approach.

“This is a great day not only for MEDA and our partners, but for the Mission as a whole,” said Supervisor David Campos. “With these funds, we will be able to deliver services in a coordinated way, ensure that families and children can access what they need, and help all families and students realize their full potential. We are excited and look forward to starting the work to build a better Mission District.”

Implementation grantees received awards between $1.4 million to $6 million to fund the first year of a five-year grant to execute community-led plans that improve and provide better social services and educational programs.

In addition to San Francisco, six other areas received implementation grants: Los Angeles, Boston and Roxbury Massachusetts; Washington D.C.; Chula Vista, California; Lubbock, Texas; and Indianola, Mississippi. San Francisco and Los Angeles received the highest awards of $6 million annually for five years. Award amounts reflect first-year funding with additional years subject to congressional appropriations.

Promise Neighborhoods is one of the signature programs of the White House Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative, which supports innovative and inclusive strategies that bring public and private partners together to help break the cycle of intergenerational poverty. It encourages collaboration between the U.S. Departments of Education, Housing and Urban Development, Justice, Treasury and Health and Human Services to support local solutions for sustainable, mixed-income neighborhoods with affordable housing, safe streets and good schools.

Contact:
Victor Corral, Mission Economic Development Agency
415-282-3334 ext. 134 and vcorral@medasf.org
Mayor’s Office of Communications, 415-554-6131
San Francisco Unified School District, 415-241-6565

About Mission Economic Development Agency (MEDA)

MEDA is a 39 year old nonprofit organization based in San Francisco’s Mission District and provides free services to low-income families to help them become financially prosperous. Already a leading provider of services to alleviate poverty in San Francisco, MEDA is the lead agency for the Mission Promise Neighborhood, a collaborative community effort to support school improvement and revitalize the Mission neighborhood by creating a cradle-to-career pipeline for students and families.

MEDA would like to thank JPMorgan Chase & Co., First Republic Bank, and Citi for their support of the Mission Promise Neighborhood.

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MEDA facilitates school meeting about housing crisis and families under stress

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