Community Organizing & Resident Engagement (CORE) Program

Model and Strategy

Community Housing Partnership's (CHP) Community Organizing & Resident Engagement (CORE) Program fosters personal agency, civic responsibility and community participation among persons often found languishing on the margins of society. Persons experiencing extreme poverty or homelessness not only suffer from compromised physical, psychosocial and economic outcomes, but a rarified lack of trust and confidence in the various resources available to them as citizens, including those that shape the very landscape that directly impacts their lives. CORE is a resident engagement model that leverages hallmark community organizing principles, peer networks and supportive housing to not only bring these marginalized communities into the civic space, but to have them be principal leaders in creating public policies that are just, inclusive and representative of what has made San Francisco a vibrant city for so many generations: the freedom to dream big and the opportunity to realize those dreams.

Impact

This mobilization begins with tenants residing across CHP's housing portfolio, and leverages unique peer-to-peer relationships to multiply and drive public policy victories leading to a City in which every resident has an equitable opportunity to live, work, learn and thrive.

CORE's groundwork is incubated across CHP's 1,000-unit portfolio, wherein nearly 1,300 individuals are housed.

The campaigns therein formalized are then deployed at scale through leveraging linkages with multiple community-based coalitions, trade unions, businesses, elected officials, and the residents themselves.

The impact directly affects the more than 180,000 San Franciscans living in poverty, and indirectly the citizenry at large due to the creation of just and inclusive public policy.

Metrics of success will include: 75% participation in trainings; 75% retention rates; 80% satisfaction levels; 65% requesting additional trainings; 70% reporting understanding and intent to engage in civic activities; 80% reporting the establishment and expansion of social networks; and 70% reporting an increased positive outlook for the future.

Community Housing Partnership