Harlem-based WE ACT for Environmental Justice (WE ACT) has been awarded a $400,000 grant over two years.
The grant was awarded from the Kresge Foundation to enable WE ACT’s Healthy Homes campaign to amplify the voice of and build power among New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) tenants in Northern Manhattan as they demand healthy homes from NYCHA and New York City. WE ACT is one of 20 community-based nonprofits nationwide receiving grant funding as part of Kresge’s Advancing Health Equity Through Housing initiative.
“Housing, particularly for low- and moderate-income households, is an important platform for individuals and families to achieve health, well-being and economic stability,” said Stacey Barbas, Kresge Health’s Senior Program Officer. “The most effective solutions will emerge when community members have the tools, power and support they need to influence the public and private systems that shape their lives.”
With this funding, WE ACTwill provide a series of workshops for WE ACT members and Northern Manhattan NYCHA tenants. These workshops, along with a voter education and registration campaign, are designed to foster advocacy for policies that will ensure healthy homes for NYCHA tenants as well as generate a large, informed turnout for the 2021 New York City mayoral race.
“Our goal is to build an informed and active bloc of Northern Manhattan voters committed to advancing the needs and interests of NYCHA residents,” explained Cecil Corbin-Mark, Deputy Director and Director of Policy Initiatives at WE ACT for Environmental Justice. “Organizing and mobilizing the thousands of New Yorkers who live in Northern Manhattan NYCHA developments into a political force is the only way to ensure that their needs – including health, well-being, and economic stability – are effectively represented.”
WE ACT for Environmental Justice is a Northern Manhattan membership-based organization whose mission is to build healthy communities by ensuring that people of color and/or low-income residents participate meaningfully in the creation of sound and fair environmental health and protection policies and practices. WE ACT has offices in New York City and Washington, D.C. Visit us at weact.org
The Kresge Foundation was founded in 1924 to promote human progress. Today, Kresge fulfills that mission by building and strengthening pathways to opportunity for low-income people in America’s cities, seeking to dismantle structural and systemic barriers to equality and justice. Using a full array of grants, loans, and other investment tools, Kresge invests more than $160 million annually to foster economic and social change. For more information on Advancing Health Equity Through Housing initiative, visit kresge.org.
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