The UNH Blog

In his State of the Union address, President Obama said “Study after study has shown the sooner a child begins learning, the better he or she does  down the road.”  At United Neighborhood Houses, New York City’s federation of settlement houses and community centers, our member agencies have seen how true this is as they are among major nonprofit providers of child care in the City.  Child after child, we have seen that early learning gives children the tools they will need to succeed in school.  We have also seen how child care gives parents the support they need to find and keep their jobs.

And sadly, we have seen what happens when child care subsidies are cut.  We have heard from so many parents who are working hard to support their young children and who may lose the subsidies they rely on.  They are proud of the progress their kids are making:  how quickly they are growing, how much they are learning, how they are making friends with other pre-schoolers and seeing their teachers as role models. All parents want to see their kids keep learning and growing.  And yet despite the demand from parents and the growing consensus that early childhood education is essential, child care subsidies are at risk of being cut in this year’s New York City budget.  In fact, more than 47,000 children in New York City are at risk of losing child care or after-school.

President Obama has put forward a bold plan to expand early childhood education.  This plan includes investments  in State Pre-K programs, Head Start and Early Head Start.  President Obama’s plan calls for states and localities to build comprehensive systems that ensure the availability of high quality early childhood education for young children from low and moderate income families.

We must respond to this plan by building, stabilizing and strengthening early childhood education in states and localities across the country.  We need to not just fight cuts at the City level but increase investments so that programs have the resources to pay qualified staff to run top quality programs.  We need to expand the capacity of our early childhood systems so that no child loses out on the opportunity for an early childhood education.  

America’s children deserve a high quality early childhood education and President Obama has put forward a bold plan that can bring the benefits of high quality child care and early childhood education to more children.  We call on Congress and local policymakers to ensure that this bold and necessary vision becomes a reality for our children.  

On Friday, May 17, Nancy Wackstein received an honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters from her alma mater, Binghamton University!  Watch Nancy's remarks below. Full text follows. To learn more about Nancy, click here! 

NANCY WACKSTEIN

COMMENCEMENT, COLLEGE OF COMMUNITY AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS

BINGHAMTON UNIVERSITY, STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK

MAY 18, 2013

IT IS A GREAT PRIVILEGE TO STAND BEFORE YOU TODAY. ALTHOUGH I RECEIVED MY MASTERS IN SOCIAL WORK FROM COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, I AM PROUD TO SAY THAT LIKE YOU I AM A GRADUATE OF BINGHAMTON UNIVERSITY, HAVING LEFT HERE IN 1973 WITH A B.A. IN HISTORY.   AS WAS THE CASE WITH THE MAJORITY OF LIBERAL ARTS GRADUATES IN THE 1970S, AT LEAST AT THIS SCHOOL AND  IN THAT LONG-AGO ERA, WE WERE NOT THINKING ABOUT CAREERS, NOR WERE WE THINKING ABOUT MAKING MONEY.  WE NATURALLY SPENT MUCH OF OUR TIME SEARCHING FOR LIFE’S MEANING AND FINDING OURSELVES -– I IMAGINE THAT’S STILL WHAT GOES ON QUITE A BIT HERE IN BINGHAMTON– BUT 40 YEARS ON I REMEMBER MY BINGHAMTON YEARS MOSTLY AS A TIME WHEN I WAS EXPOSED TO ACTIVISM AND TO THE NOTION THAT GETTING INVOLVED WITH A CAUSE OR A GROUP COULD ACTUALLY CHANGE THINGS.      I CLEARLY CAN TRACE MY ROOTS AS AN ADVOCATE TO THIS CAMPUS.  

LITTLE DID I IMAGINE AT THAT TIME THAT IT WAS ACTUALLY POSSIBLE TO CONTINUE BEING AN ACTIVIST ONCE YOU LEFT COLLEGE AND ENTERED THE REAL WORLD.  IN FACT I’M SURE I DIDN’T KNOW BACK THEN THAT SUCH A THING AS THE NONPROFIT SECTOR EVEN EXISTED, LET ALONE THAT IT COULD BE A POSSIBLE CAREER DESTINATION.

BUT LIFE TAKES STRANGE PATHS, AND AS IT TURNED OUT, I HAVE BEEN A PUBLIC SERVANT FOR MY ENTIRE LIFE, BOTH IN GOVERNMENT AND NONPROFITS WHICH  --REMARKABLY -- HAS ALLOWED ME TO REMAIN TRUE TO THE IDEAS AND IDEALS THAT GAVE MEANING TO MY COLLEGE YEARS HERE IN BINGHAMTON…  AND, BELIEVE IT OR NOT, TO ACTUALLY MAKE A DECENT LIVING! 

 SO MY FIRST MESSAGE TO YOU GRADUATES TODAY – AND MAYBE TO YOUR FAMILIES TOO WHO ARE WORRIED THAT YOU CHOSE TO GET AN MSW OR MPA INSTEAD OF AN MBA – IS THAT IT IS PERFECTLY POSSIBLE TO DO WELL BY DOING GOOD.   IN MY LONG CAREER IN THE NONPROFIT AND GOVERNMENTAL SECTORS I NEVER ONCE THOUGHT ABOUT TAKING A JOB SIMPLY BECAUSE IT WOULD PAY ME MORE … AND YOU KNOW, IT SEEMS TO HAVE WORKED OUT. 

SO MY SECOND MESSAGE TO YOU IS ONE OF RESASSURANCE -- THAT IF YOU FOLLOW YOUR PASSION, IF YOU PURSUE WHAT YOU REALLY CARE ABOUT AND ACTUALLY WANT TO DO, YOU CAN HAVE A CAREER THAT WILL BOTH SATISFY YOU AND ALLOW YOU TO MAKE A CONTRIBUTION BUT STILL ENABLES YOU TO SUPPORT A MORTGAGE AND  A FAMILY. 

THE GOOD NEWS IS THAT AS GRADUATES OF THIS COLLEGE YOU NOW HAVE A WONDERFUL PROFESSIONAL CREDENTIAL THAT WILL ALLOW YOU THE GREAT PRIVILEGE OF TRYING TO MAKE LIFE BETTER FOR OTHERS AND TO IMPROVE SOCIETY.   BUT I DON’T WAIT TO SUGARCOAT WHAT AWAITS YOU.  THE NONPROFIT SECTOR, AND INCREASINGLY THE GOVERNMENTAL SECTOR, ARE CHRONICALLY UNDER-RESOURCED… YOU WILL NEVER HAVE THE MONEY OR STAFF YOU THINK YOU REALLY NEED TO DO A JOB WELL.  AND AS I CAN PAINFULLY ATTEST, THE DIGITAL AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS EQUIPMENT AT NONPROFITS NEVER WORKS RIGHT, AND THE WINE SERVED AT NONPROFIT RECEPTIONS IS ALWAYS TERRIBLE. 

BUT NEVERTHELESS,  HAVING ACHIEVED A LEADERSHIP POSITION IN NEW YORK CITY’S NONPROFIT COMMUNITY, I AM INUNDATED THESE DAYS WITH REQUESTS TO MEET WITH PEOPLE WANTING TO CHANGE CAREERS FROM WHAT THEY’RE DOING NOW BECAUSE THEY WANT  TO COME INTO OUR SECTOR AND TO JOIN  OUR LINE OF WORK.   MOST OF THESE FOLKS, HAVING HAD CAREERS IN THE BUSINESS OR LEGAL WORLDS, ARE NOW LOOKING FOR SOMETHING TO DO THAT IS “MORE MEANINGFUL” , THAT RESPONDS TO A DIFFERENT BOTTOM LINE THAN THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR AND CENTS KIND.

 I DON’T MEAN TO SUGGEST THAT EVERY NONPROFIT OR GOVERNMENT JOB IS LOADED WITH MEANING.  BUT FOR MANY OF US THERE IS A PROFOUND SENSE OF PURPOSE AND IMMENSE SATISFACTION TO BE GAINED FROM TRYING TO ADDRESS SOME OF THE MOST DIFFICULT PROBLEMS FACING OUR NEIGHBORHOODS, OUR CITIES AND OUR COUNTRY, LIKE POVERTY OR HOMELESSNESS OR VIOLENCE.

THERE ARE NO EASY SOLUTIONS TO THESE PROBLEMS; IF THERE WERE THEY WOULD HAVE BEEN DISCOVERED A LONG TIME AGO.   BUT THE ATTEMPT TO FIND SOLUTIONS IS TRULY WORTHWHILE:  WITHOUT QUESTION YOU WILL LEARN A LOT ALONG THE WAY AND MEET THE BEST PEOPLE WITH THE HIGHEST LEVELS OF INTEGRITY AND THE MOST AMAZING COMMITMENT.   

AS GRADUATES OF THIS PARTICULAR COLLEGE, YOU HAVE ALREADY MADE THE DECISION THAT YOU WANT TO CONTRIBUTE TO SOLVING SOCIETAL PROBLEMS AND TO HELPING INDIVIDUALS WHO MAY BE LEFT OUT, VULNERABLE OR DISADVANTAGED.   YOU NOW HAVE THE SKILLS THAT WILL ALLOW YOU TO DO SO.

I URGE YOU CERTAINLY TO USE YOUR SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE AND HEART TO HELP INDIVIDUALS, FAMILIES AND COMMUNITIES, BUT I URGE YOU ALSO TO GIVE VOICE TO THEIR NEEDS IN THE LARGER WORLD AS WELL IN PURSUIT OF FAIRNESS AND JUSTICE.  IT IS HARD TO IMAGINE A MORE IMPORTANT OR SATISFYING JOURNEY AND I WISH YOU GREAT SUCCESS AS YOU TAKE YOUR NEXT STEPS FORWARD.  THANK YOU VERY MUCH. 

This opinion piece, by UNH Executive Director Nancy Wackstein and Policy Analyst Carin Tinney, was originally printed in the May 9, 2013 issue of the New York Nonprofit Press. Read the original piece here. 

 Until very recently, most New Yorkers hadn't heard of something called social adult day care. If they did, perhaps it conjured up images of frail seniors on small plastic chairs, drinking from ½ pint milk cartons while having a story read to them by a teacher.  That is why the attention now being paid to this program - due to the recent scandal involving two Bronx Assembly Members and the resulting articles in the New York Times about alleged abuses by “pop up” social day care providers-  is bittersweet.

The unfortunate impression is that this program is at best unnecessary and at worst riddled with fraud, political kickbacks and unscrupulous operators.  But the attention, however negative, does give us a chance to highlight the benefits of this program, which when done the right way by credible and professional providers, has helped thousands of genuinely frail seniors remain independent in their communities and has given their family caregivers essential support and respite.

 The social adult day care model has been around for decades. In many cases, there is a dual focus on providing supervised care and support to seniors while allowing family caregivers a few hours of relief. Social adult day care specifically supports seniors who would have a difficult time adapting to a bustling environment of a traditional senior center  because of their frailty or dementia. These seniors are dependent on continuous care and need extra supervision, usually with eating, using the bathroom, or walking.  The benefit of the social adult day care model is that it allows otherwise homebound older adults to get out and socialize with their peers through art, shared meals, exercise and music.

The challenge to the model, as it was designed, began about a year ago. Many senior center operators located primarily in immigrant communities began noticing a decrease in daily attendance.  As a general rule, the number of seniors served varies on a daily basis, but this was not normal fluctuation.   Seniors were being lured out of senior centers and into “adult day care programs” with cash and other incentives.  This was alarming on many levels.  First, the seniors leaving for adult day programs were not physically or cognitively frail, which is the main eligibility criterion of social adult day care.  Second, this exodus jeopardized funding for traditional senior centers because reimbursement partially depends on the number of meals served daily.  Third, it was clear that these new “social adult day care” programs were unregulated and were not using precious Medicaid dollars in the way it had been intended:  to help frail seniors remain in their communities.  The new centers called into question the integrity of the entire model and cast a shadow on the longstanding history of many quality-driven programs

United Neighborhood Houses, the federation of the city’s settlement houses and community centers, has within our membership some of the finest and most experienced providers of social adult day care.  UNH members helped pioneer the concept and some of their adult day care programs have been operating for over a decade.  It would be a horrible shame for these legitimate and important programs to be swept up in an enforcement reaction meant to shut down the Medicaid cheats.

Legitimate social adult day care programs are one of the components of a comprehensive continuum of care for older adults in their neighborhoods. They greatly benefit a population in need of specialized and supervised care, and contribute to a better quality of life for both seniors and their caregivers through constant emotional support. This program deserves not only to continue but to expand in order to accommodate the dramatic increase in the number of older adults who are projected to need this kind of care.  Let’s not allow a vulnerable population to become the victims of a few dishonest program operators. Don’t throw the good out with the bad.

Nancy Wackstein in Executive Director of United Neighborhood Houses.  Carin Tinney is a Policy Analyst with UNH.

UNH Executive Director wrote the follow Letter to the Editor in response to the article, "Day Centers Sprout Up, Luring Fit Elders and Costing Medicaid"

To the Editor:

Your article (4/23/13) about problematic practices in certain “pop-up” social adult day care programs funded by Medicaid neglects to mention that many legitimate high-quality programs have operated for many years in communities throughout the City.   These programs are operated by several of our members, who are established and well-regarded nonprofit neighborhood-based settlement houses.  Without question these programs have helped thousands of frail older adults with physical and cognitive impairment to achieve a better quality of life while providing welcome relief for their family caregivers.  Abusive practices such as those the article discusses must not cause a disinvestment in these important and legitimate programs: we must not allow the baby to be thrown out with the bathwater.

Nancy Wackstein

Executive Director

United Neighborhood Houses

Whether called “discretionary funding” as the NYC City Council does,  “member items” as the NYS Legislature does, or “earmarks” as the US Congress does, there is a general sense that something stinks about these grants, that there is something vaguely un-kosher about them (is this why they’re called “pork”?), that they represent misuse of public funds at best, a complete scam at worst.   

The public has come to believe that elected officials are rewarding friends and satisfying their own ambitions by delivering such largesse to nonprofit agencies in their communities.  And indeed, when the elected officials are dishonest or the nonprofits receiving these grants have been set up as fake fronts by the elected officials, then certainly this is a huge problem that further undermines the public’s trust in government. 

But I submit that the real issue is INTEGRITY, not discretionary funding.  Honest elected officials and legitimate nonprofits working together can and do use the discretionary funding process to actually protect and enhance a myriad of important community services and to keep critical programs like English classes for immigrants, senior centers for the elderly and afterschool programs for children open.

 

I know this to be true based on the experience of the 38 legitimate, tested and trusted nonprofit community service agencies serving over half a million New Yorkers each year that comprise the membership of United Neighborhood Houses.    

Some may ask why a discretionary grant process should be necessary at all.  Aren’t most nonprofit agencies already supported through government contracts and private donors?  The answer is that government contracts today do not provide even close to 100% of the real cost of providing services, so nonprofits must supplement those contracts through either private funding from foundations, corporations or individuals, or through additional public support.  The designated grants from elected officials called “pork” are one important way for these agencies to keep their doors open and their services running.  Until such a time comes where contracts fully fund services, nonprofit agencies will have to look elsewhere to keep themselves whole.   Moreover, competent and honest local elected officials actually do know better than central governments about local community needs and can target funding accordingly. 

But the key is integrity on both sides.  When the elected official is honest and the nonprofit is legitimate there is nothing wrong with “pork”.  In fact, such funding has become of critical importance as the era of diminished, unreliable and inadequate government contractual support has emerged.   

Call it “pork” if you must.  I call it essential for the health of our communities and our nonprofit sector.

 

UNH mourns the untimely death of Richard Murphy, Commissioner of Youth Services in the administration of Mayor David Dinkins, and decades-long friend and colleague to UNH and settlement houses.   Richard was an innovator:  he was the force behind creating the Beacon model of after-school and  he also helped implement Safe Streets Safe Cities and NYC Youthline while at DYS.  He is recognized as one of the pioneers of the youth development field:   he was an activist, not a bureaucrat, and he successfully mentored and inspired so many in the youth services field.   We remember him as a man who never, ever stopped caring about the welfare of poor and disadvantaged kids through his years in nonprofit and government service.  He will be missed. 

More on Richard Murphy here>> 

Chris Molnar was a wonderful person and a wonderful leader.  Although the agency she led, Safe Space, is not a UNH member, its work was aligned with the work of the settlement houses, and Chris knew this.  We worked together in coalition on many issues, and we will miss her intelligence and passion.  She was a great advocate for children and youth. Her loss is a loss to all of us who believe in fairness and social justice for the poor and vulnerable. May she rest in peace. 

Please read more about Chris Molnar here. 

Image courtesy of New York Times.

Below are my remarks from the January 14 Human Services Council Summit, "Doubling Down". The panel I spoke on was titled "Public Perceptions: How Myths Undermine the Ability to Serve".

One of the many compelling questions the summit organizers asked this panel to consider – when it was still scheduled for November 1^st - was:  What will it take to improve the public’s perception of the human services sector and to gain recognition of the contributions nonprofits make to communities”?  A related question they asked was “do we need a “game changer” to make this happen? 

Folks, in the time between when this summit was originally scheduled and today I think we found at least part of the answer to this question.  Hurricane Sandy was the game changer and what happened around that storm provides, I believe, the “game-changing” opportunity for us. If we don’t seize it fully, I think we will miss one of our best chances to help change the public perception of nonprofits. 

I am the head of the federation of the city’s 38 settlement houses and community centers.  Several of our members are located where the storm hit most severely, and most of our members work in public housing which, even if not in a flood zone, was revealed to have profound needs in this crisis.  I have described the response of our agencies in blogs I’ve written since the storm as nothing short of heroic, and I have not hesitated to use the term “first responders” when describing our agency’s staff members, who biked, hitched and walked to their agencies so they could get to work.

Our agencies – mission-driven nonprofits – did not hesitate to step up to help their local communities, regardless of whether they knew they would be reimbursed for doing so.  It is what they do, it is what distinguishes them from for-profit entitles whose bottom line dictates what actions they take.  For our agencies, it was the needs of their community residents that guided their response, first and foremost, and continuing today, 2 months later.  And because settlement houses are on the ground, community –based, embedded in their neighborhoods, they could be more nimble and flexible and effective than any government bureaucracy could possibly be. Stories abound of how they could send staff and volunteers the next day into public housing projects to find vulnerable people because they already knew where they lived and what they might need.  I genuinely think the first responders label is apt.

And I have to observethat those communities – like Far Rockaway and Coney Island and Red Hook - that lacked a well-developed, experienced, embedded nonprofit infrastructure are those same neighborhoods that are experiencing the slowest recovery and whose residents suffered the most.

There is a terrific article in the January 7^th edition of the New Yorker by Eric Klinenberg, an NYU sociology professor, called Adaptation: How can cities be “climate-proofed”.  He quotes President Obama’s assistant secretary for preparedness & response Nicole Lurie:  “there’s a lot of social science research showing how much better people do in disasters, how much longer they live, when they have good social networks and connections”; she says “it was a big evolution in our thinking to be able to put community resilience front and center”.

Further, Klinenberg quotes Harvard sociologist Robert Sampson, who has found that the benefits of living in a neighborhood with a robust social infrastructure are significant during ordinary times as well as during disasters”.   Last, he quotes the head of emergency preparedness for LA:  it’s not just engineering that matters. It’s social capital”  … social infrastructure matters too”.   Klinenberg himself concludes that the best techniques for safeguarding cities don’t just mitigate disaster damage, they also strengthen the networks the promote health and prosperity during ordinary times.  

And who better to promote social networks, optimize social capital and create social infrastructure than community based organizations like ours, and the nonprofit sector as a whole.  It is time for us to make the case in the most explicit and forceful way possible that although our workers don’t wear uniforms, we too are essential first responders, whether during a crisis or every day.  One of the realities of Sandy is that it shone a spotlight on the vulnerable, poor and have-nots of our City, who obviously suffered more than middle class people.  Even the New York Times covered this aspect of the tragedy, in addition of course to covering the Manhattan residents who flushed their toilets with pinot grigio when the power was out.

So this is an opportunity we must seize.  We must keep the everyday crisis that is poverty and homelessness in the public mind and we can do that by continuing to show how nonprofits, day in and out, are working to end the very slow-moving superstorm of poverty. 

UNH was asked by IBM to participate on their “Citizen IBM” blog, and I posted the entry below. It focuses on the important role settlement houses play in providing a  social safety net, 100 years ago and today. Thanks for reading. The link to the original post is here. 


As United Neighborhood Houses (UNH) enters the New Year, we reflect on the successes and hardships that our member agencies encountered in 2012. UNH is a membership organization, consisting of 38 independent settlement houses and community centers in various neighborhoods in New York City. Our services reach over half a million low and moderate income residents each year. UNH works to strengthen and support the neighborhood-based model of providing social services, and does this through policy development, advocacy work, and capacity-building activities.

But first, the 100+ year old question: What is a settlement house? Also known as community centers, these agencies provide comprehensive social, educational and recreational services in specific neighborhoods – empowering residents and providing the tools to lead successful and productive lives.

Settlement houses sprang from the social reform movement in the late 19^th and early 20^thCenturies, when groups of generally affluent volunteers “settled in” to urban neighborhoods around the country. The first settlement house in the United States was established 125 years ago on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Settlement house founders’ immediate goals were to help impoverished immigrants to become “Americanized,” but they quickly became champions for safer housing, improved public health and decent working conditions. Early settlement house leaders helped create the framework of the social safety net millions rely on today. These leaders fought intently to create change first in their neighborhoods – a foreshadowing of New York City’s popular “locavore” movement today – and then nationally and even internationally.

 Settlement houses have continued to adapt over the last 125 years to meet the ever-changing needs of the communities they serve, and have become a support system that has earned the trust of local residents, government agencies and the philanthropic sector. These enduring models of social support are embedded in their communities, giving them a unique and intimate knowledge of the needs of their neighbors. That special connection with their communities is what gave settlement houses an unparalleled role and perspective when it came to offering relief to Hurricane Sandy survivors.

While acting as highly effective “first responders” in the weeks following the hurricane has been just another important community service on top of a year of meaningful work for these agencies – including offering quality child care and after-school programs for children of working families, operating thousands of units of low-income housing, and serving more than 1.5 million meals to residents in need – these nonprofit agencies are continually facing more and more challenges.

Shifts in funding trends, complex reporting requirements to both private donors and government funders, and new government contracts with restrictive mandates are a challenging reality for settlement houses. Historically, government helped support and maintain a safety net for low-income families by contracting with social services agencies to provide vital programming. However, with government deficits at the city, state and federal levels, services for people in need are often caught in the squeeze of deficit reduction.

Settlement houses have shown their resilience and relevance as trustworthy community hubs for over 100 years. We hope that cuts to core services by government are not the tip of an iceberg of even worse actions, but we know that these perilous times demand that UNH and other advocacy organizations continue to be the strongest possible voice for the important goal of helping all members of our communities.

At a recent Neighborhood Revitalization conference in Washington D.C., I heard a few buzz words that describe leading-edge community work. All of these terms could describe today’s settlement houses – anchor institutions that promote civic engagement and form sustainable communities. Let’s not leave these historic yet incredibly relevant and effective organizations out of the current conversation when it comes to sensible investment in social services. UNH agencies are often considered to have the most effective approach to “community building,” i.e., involving neighbors and residents in determining their own priorities and engaging them in working for local change. This approach will continue to produce stronger and safer neighborhoods and, ultimately, a greater New York City for all of us.

Read the post here>>

One month ago Hurricane Sandy hit the New York City area with unprecedented force.  The impact of the “superstorm” was immediate, but recovery in many of our communities will take months, if not years.   Nonprofit agencies, among them member agencies of United Neighborhood Houses, acted decisively, effectively and quickly to meet the needs of their clients and neighbors; indeed, staff from nonprofits accurately can be described as critical “first responders” too.     As the head of the federation of New York City’s 38 settlement houses and community centers, I was enormously impressed by the work of our members who provided relief, and enormously proud of their leadership. 

The 38 member agencies of United Neighborhood Houses in New York City come from varying traditions.  Some are the original settlement houses in the United States, now over 100 years old.  Others are younger community development corporations, founded to promote housing and economic development.  Others began as community action agencies or food pantries.

No matter their origins, all UNH members today are multi-service hubs of social service, education and recreation in their communities, serving as safe and welcoming centers of community life, primarily focused on assisting and engaging their low and moderate income neighbors.

With the exception of 9/11, no other event in recent New York City history has highlighted the critical importance of these agencies and their place-based approach more than Hurricane Sandy. While the storm had an impact on many different neighborhoods in the City, there is no question in my mind that the neighborhoods that were best able to deal with the storm’s impact were those that had a robust nonprofit infrastructure, in fact those that had a settlement house embedded in their community. 

Before FEMA, before the National Guard, before the City or State government, our agencies were on the front lines, delivering food, blankets, flashlights, comfort and support.  And after these governmental agencies move on to the next crisis, our agencies will remain as anchors in their communities to help them with longer term recovery activities like  mental health counseling, housing assistance, and benefits and entitlements navigation.

The reason our agencies were and will continue to be so effective is that they really know their communities.   When the storm hit, our agencies knew exactly which apartments and public housing developments housed vulnerable older adults or disabled people, so supplies could be delivered to them in a targeted way, even if it meant staff walking up 12 flights of stairs in the dark and cold.  Staff from our agencies knew which doors to knock on to find the pre-school children enrolled in the child care centers that were flooded, so they could make sure these children found a place in other programs right away and their parents could get back to work. 

I am firmly convinced that there is intrinsic and enduring value when nonprofit organizations like ours fully understand the residents and neighborhoods in which they work, in many cases over decades.  Hurricane Sandy reminded us once again that this is an important and very tangible truth.