FDC Introduces our Newest Housing Program

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PRESS RELEASE- For immediate release: August 5, 2021:

Enterprise Community Partners Announces $2.9 Million in Grants to 10 New York State Housing Not-For-Profits through Its Call for Ideas Program

The funding will support these organizations’ innovative initiatives to uproot barriers to fair, equitable, and healthy housing stemming from historic and systemic racism

NEW YORK – (August 2, 2021)  Enterprise Community Partners (Enterprise) today announced $2.9 million total in grants to 10 New York State housing not-for-profits as part of its Call for Ideas Program. The recipients include Asian Americans for Equality (New York City), Brownsville Partnership (Brooklyn), Chester Agricultural Center (Chester), City Roots Community Land Trust (Rochester), Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Rochester (Rochester), Fifth Avenue Committee (Brooklyn), Flatbush Development Corporation (Brooklyn), Home HeadQuarters (Syracuse), Hudson River Housing (Poughkeepsie), and New York Mortgage Coalition (New York City). The individual grants, ranging from $200,000 to $400,000, will support each organization’s innovative initiatives to uproot barriers to fair, equitable, and healthy housing stemming from historic and systemic racism in their respective communities.

“From equipping local real estate developers of color with training and mentorship to improving health outcomes through housing improvements, New York State nonprofits are working diligently and creatively to fill community gaps caused by decades of systemic racism and discrimination,” said Elizabeth Zeldin, Senior Program Director, Neighborhood Impact, New York, at Enterprise Community Partners. “Funding these organizations to develop their own unique and locally grounded innovations is vital to the strength and resilience of New York’s communities, and it’s a privilege for Enterprise to be able to support these diverse ideas and learn alongside our partner organizations.”

The 10 New York State housing not-for-profit grant recipients have developed a diverse array of programs targeting housing inequities in their communities.

The Flatbush Development Corporation is developing and implementing the Tenant Advocacy Project (TAP), which aims to address the systemic confluence of racial, disability, and other protected class discrimination by supporting tenants in three key ways: training clients to become Peer Advocates, deploying Advocates to assist clients in matters relating to housing discrimination, and tracking, mapping, and sharing housing discrimination trends with partners locally.

Flatbush Development Corporation (FDC) is so honored to have been selected as a grantee for Enterprise’s New York State Call for Ideas. This opportunity has created the space for us to focus on and more fully explore and develop this timely idea we have been dreaming about bringing to fruition for some time. The need is great: over 95% of our housing clients are low-income and of color, almost all belong to a protected class. With the support of Enterprise, we are able to realize this ambitious project and not only ensure equity in the housing discrimination grievance process, but facilitate the development of a cadre of peer advocates, while creating a much-needed and powerful data set and source. We strongly believe these “three pillars” of FDC”s Tenant Advocacy Project will make a tangible impact on the movement to remove longstanding barriers and disrupt systematic discrimination — an enormous step toward ensuring stable and secure housing for our community,” said Sally Bowman, Deputy Director of FDC.  
About Enterprise Community Partners

Enterprise is a national nonprofit on a mission to make home and community places of pride, power and belonging for all. To make that possible, we operate the only organization designed to address America’s affordable housing crisis from every angle: we develop and deploy programs and support community organizations on the ground; we advocate for policy on a nonpartisan basis at every level of government; we invest capital to build and preserve rental homes people can afford; and we own, operate and provide resident services for affordable communities. All so that people not only make rent, they build futures. With this end-to-end approach, 40 years of experience and thousands of local partners, Enterprise has built and preserved 793,000 homes, invested $61 billion in communities and changed millions of lives. Join us at EnterpriseCommunity.org.