Orange County

Recently, the Orange County Health Department launched plans for the Family Success Alliance, modeled after the success of the Harlem Children’s Zone. 

With its inception as the Rheedlen Centers for Children and Families in 1970, the Harlem Children’s Zone aims to disrupt generational poverty with a holistic, long-term approach providing education and support from early childhood through college, supportive services to families to prevent homelessness, and health services including obesity prevention.  Serving over 13,000 children and 13,000 adults in 97 blocks of Central Harlem, the engaged children (70% in the served blocks) have a 92% college acceptance rate, 100% of pre-K participants are assessed as school ready, and the 800 local employees fuel economic growth.  The Harlem Children’s Zone also serves as the Model for President Obama’s Promise Neighborhood Initiative that has awarded 58 grants to communities across the country to implement similar programs. 

Addressing affordable housing so that all people can afford to live in our community is an extremely important issue to many in our community. It has been given as a reason to develop and redevelop our towns and as a reason not to. Many organizations including the Community Home Trust, EmPOWERment Inc., Habitat for Humanity, the InterFaith Council, CASA, Orange County Justice United, and The Marion Cheek Jackson Center have been working with the towns and county to provide and/or advocate for housing at prices attainable across all spectrums of income.

In this season of municipal budget discussions, a rundown of what our towns and elected boards are working on around affordable housing seems appropriate. I asked members of each elected board what their board is focused on this year. Here is a summary.