COVERING THE BASICS
Our philosophy of Investing in People recognizes that our households do not have equal access to opportunities and resources as a result of their incomes, illiteracy, language barriers, learning barriers, incarceration, or the fact that they live in a low-resourced neighborhood.
We cannot expect children and households to thrive if they don’t have enough food on their table at the end of each month, or new shoes or clothes for work or school; if they don’t have access to stable transportation, or medical assistance, digital devices or the internet.
BHI focuses much of its energy in this area because we firmly believe that you cannot Build Hope without a strong foundation. Resource Resilience shores up and solidifies our residents, giving them the freedom and opportunity to begin investing in themselves. Our Resource Resilience program is flexible in is approach and goals by evaluating need gaps and responding accordingly.
Our Resource Resilience Programs include:
Internet Connectivity. BHI has obtained funding to implement a variety of methods to help residents with affordable internet options, including developing a WiFi system at three public housing sites, partnering with ATT and T-Mobile to provide thousands of free hotspots to residents, and a new partnership with Starry Internet to wire and beam internet at 10 of our residential properties.
Food Security. We have partnered with food manufacturers, farmer’s markets, restaurants, and companies like EveryTable to provide weekly groceries, farm fresh deliveries, or hot meals to our residents during the holidays, summer or when households have expressed need. Partnerships with the LA Regional Food Bank and various hot meal programs via the US Department of Agriculture have been instrumental in responding to the needs of families living in public housing.
In addition to bringing healthy food into homes through donations, BHI wants to support local food growing through the expansion of community gardens at HACLA residential properties, and support hyper-local food cooperatives and food banks. Giving our families and elderly residents the tools to grow their own food and herbs and teaching them the benefits of food as medicine provides empowerment through restorative and engaging methods.
Welcome Baby Program. Providing parents with diapers, pull-ups, formula, wipes, furniture and other supplies to ensure our families with young children are properly supported.
Our most active Resource Partners include:
- National Book Foundation’s Book Rich Environment: A collaboration between nonprofit organizations, national government agencies, and corporate publishers, this initiative connects BHI’s residents with reading-related resources, working to improve opportunities and outcomes. The program provides BHI with a minimum of 20,000 books a year, which we distribute to our residents through community libraries, new mother care packages, and in all our offices and public areas.
- Baby 2 Baby: provides children in need with diapers, clothing and all the basic necessities that every child deserves. Every year Baby2Baby provides BHI with close to 60,000 diapers, 5,000 wipes, 2,000 bottles of formula, baby clothes, and furniture.
- Human IT : Provides refurbished and new computers to BHI residents and clients with at least 1-year of free technical support and assistance with access to low- to no-cost internet solutions. BHI and Human IT have worked on a series of initiatives and continue to push their partnership to bridge our community’s digital divide.
