In My Business

I've been a little busy lately.  And this month I am going to force upon you one of the reasons that I don't have time to clean my house or blog.

Visions for Change

It's where my new internship is.  And I love it. It's a complicated little poverty initiative to explain, but I will attempt to sum it up in 4 Tuesdays.

20 some years ago, Housing Visions started in Syracuse, taking blighted properties in run-down neighborhoods and completely renovating them in an eco-friendly, sustainable, profitable way.  They are lovely, win energy-efficiency ratings, are made out of lots of recycled materials and are flat out beautiful.  People's heads literally turn when they see a block of Housing Visions properties on a street.  And, they rent them to low-income families who desire a safe, affordable home.

The venture made money, and the management noticed that clients needed other resources to truly get out of precarious life situations besides housings.  That's when the Visions for Change arm of Housing Visions launched.  It is a program that works with individuals who want to get out of poverty, and also works with the community to remove barriers to families in poverty. 

There are 2 different focuses of the program - the Circles Initiative (works on the individual level), and the Guiding Coalition (works on the community level).  I'll break those out over the next few weeks and explain them.

I want to close this post by saying that I would love to spend the rest of my career arm-in-arm with women who are working to get to a better place in life.  This initiative provides hope.  It provides support.  It storms the walls between classes and races.  It says that no family should be held beneath anyone's heels.  It recognizes the value and dignity in each human being.


So we can all pray and cross our fingers and hope that the funding comes through to secure a position for me in the near future;)