Neighborhood Revitalization Initiatives
Integrating these initiatives with existing programs amplifies our capacity to transform distressed neighborhoods with innovative place-based strategies.
Youth Policy Institute is the only nonprofit in the country to have been awarded all three signature White House Neighborhood Revitalization Initiatives—Promise Neighborhoods, Choice Neighborhoods, and Byrne Criminal Justice Innovation—and is the lead implementation partner for the Los Angeles Promise Zone. Integrating these initiatives with existing programs amplifies our capacity to transform distressed neighborhoods with innovative place-based strategies.
Centerpieces of President Obama’s strategy to fight poverty, the White House Neighborhood Revitalization Initiatives and Promise Zones work to better serve neighborhood residents and to break down silos between federal agencies. YPI’s model of braiding multiple funding sources in targeted neighborhoods to achieve common outcomes exemplifies the intent of these initiatives by offering cross-sector solutions, rather than separated and siloed services. As a result, YPI and our partner agencies can be more cohesive and effective.
Promise Zone Designation
Brings together 14 federal agencies to braid funding and break down silos.
Promise Neighborhood Grant
Helps us transform Hollywood and Pacoima schools into vibrant centers of opportunity and excellence.
Choice Neighborhood Planning Grant
Helps us to develop a plan to create more affordable housing.
Byrne Criminal Justice Innovation Grant
Helps us make our neighborhoods safer.
Common Features
- Public-private partnerships with clear accountability structure.
- Collective impact: Partners work together to achieve common outcomes.
- Funding does not just come from the federal government: YPI’s model is premised on blending varied funding streams to create more robust services.
- Data shared across partners and used for course corrections.
Byrne Criminal Justice Innovation Program
Youth Policy Institute is the only nonprofit in the country to have been awarded three signature Neighborhood Revitalization Initiatives as well as a federal Promise Zone Designation.
Youth Policy Institute was awarded the Byrne Grant by the U.S. Department of Justice in September 2013. Only 14 Byrne Grants were awarded nationally.
The Los Angeles Byrne Criminal Justice Innovation Program (Byrne) goals are to reduce crimes that contribute to neighborhood disorder and increase public safety. Byrne also seeks to increase social cohesion through the revitalization of community “anchor points” and ultimately forge social ties through positive community interactions that elicit a sense of mutual trust and shared values.
To fulfill the Byrne goals, YPI will be guided by the theory of “collective efficacy,” that includes community engagement and police intervention to establish a critically important strong base for sustainability over the long-term. If individuals and neighbors improve their willingness to intervene, enhance their trust among each other and with the police and envision their communities as places where they can reside without fear of crime, then overall criminal activity will decrease.
YPI BYRNE PROGRAMS
Youth Neighborhood Justice Program
Hollywood and Pacoima
Trained volunteer youth mediators facilitate discussions between peers on school campuses and guide the restorative justice process.
Safe Passages in Hollywood
Joseph LeConte Middle School
Approximately 20 to 40 community resident volunteers are placed at strategic crosswalks before and after school to assist youth and their families. These volunteers are also trained on how to recognize and report on criminal activity.
Lemon Grove Park
Hollywood
Environmental design and safety improvements are being applied to the park in conjunction with community partners to re-establish the area as a neighborhood anchor point.
Neighborhood Prosecutor Program
Hollywood
The City Neighborhood Prosecutor will focus on crime and public safety problems that are being identified by YPI and area residents as specifically problematic in the Hollywood area of the Byrne program.
Improvements to Bradley Plaza & Van Nuys Blvd.
Pacoima
Pacoima Beautiful and the L.A. Department of Transportation are leading implementation efforts in development and improvements within the area. YPI will provide various programming efforts in support of these vitalization efforts.
Pacoima Public Safety Project
Pacoima
This project, led by the City Attorney’s Office, will focus efforts on environment risk-reduction initiatives for the Promise Neighborhood Schools.
For more information, contact:
Janet Ruiz
Public Safety and Community Justice Manager[email protected]
Choice Neighborhood Planning Grant – Hollywood
Neighborhood Transformation
Choice Neighborhoods is a signature White House Neighborhood Revitalization program directed by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. This planning grant partners with publically-assisted housing located in Hollywood to develop a transformation plan for a sustainable, diverse, and affordable neighborhood for the community. This grant was awarded in late 2013. The final neighborhood transformation plan will be completed in November 2015.
Locally Driven Strategies
The Choice Neighborhoods Planning Grant embodies the essence of the power of locally driven strategies to comprehensively address pressing neighborhood issues around distressed public or HUD assisted housing. Various stakeholders from targeted housing and the surrounding community will obtain a better understanding of the issues confronting their community through a robust engagement process. Understanding how to overcome barriers to programs and services access that can help empower the community to create more equitable developmental, commercial, recreational, physical, and social services for their neighborhood.
Three Goals
The Choice Neighborhoods Initiative Grant focuses on three distinct goals:
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Housing: Transform distressed public and assisted housing into mixed-income housing and maintain or increase the current affordable housing stock over the long-term.
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People: Support and encourage positive outcomes for residents within housing developments and the surrounding neighborhood. Increase outcomes as related to health, safety, employment, multi-modal transportation, and education.
- Neighborhood: Support and encourage the transformation of underserved neighborhoods into sustainable mixed-income, vibrant communities with access to well-functioning services, high quality schools, and employment opportunities, transportation, among other assets.
For more information, contact:
Vanessa Esparza
Director of Community & Family Support[email protected]
Los Angeles Promise Neighborhood
Signature Education and Poverty Program
The Promise Neighborhood Initiative is the Obama Administration’s signature education and anti-poverty program strategically developed to transform schools and communities into vibrant centers of opportunity and excellence.
Youth Policy Institute is the lead agency for the Los Angeles Promise Neighborhood and was awarded a $30 million grant by the U.S. Department of Education in December 2012 and again in 2016.
Every Student Succeeds Act
Promise Neighborhoods and Full-Service Community Schools are now a permanent part of education law, thanks to the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) passed by Congress in 2015. And in 2016, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions sponsored a resolution about the importance of extending the Promise Neighborhoods work.
The Committee strongly believes that Promise Neighborhoods grantees may need more than five years to implement the transformational reforms and demonstrate the results envisioned by this program. ESSA, which authorizes Promise Neighborhoods as a stand-alone program, allows the Department to extend grants for a period of up to two years. The Committee directs the Department to use that authority to extend funding for current high-quality Promise Neighborhoods programs that have demonstrated promising results through their initial implementation grant.
Cradle-to-College-and-Career-Support
The Los Angeles Promise Neighborhood is transforming the communities of Pacoima and Hollywood by implementing a continuum of integrated cradle-to-college-and-career services. The Promise Neighborhood includes a range of school options including traditional, charter, pilot, and partnership schools.
New model for collaboration in Los Angeles
The centerpiece of the Promise Neighborhood is an innovative public-private partnership with the City and County of Los Angeles and Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) that incorporates diverse funding streams around a core set of outcomes and objectives. The Promise Neighborhood is currently transforming 19 neighborhood schools into full-service community schools. Many of YPI’s partners are involved in the collaboration and have the option to share data through the groundbreaking Efforts-to-Outcome data system.
Continuum of Services
The Los Angeles Promise Neighborhood and YPI focus on integrating wrap-around services that include: prenatal and early childhood development, extended learning time, linked learning, technology initiatives, summer and bridge programs, college preparation, career development, dropout and gang prevention, and reconnections for out-of-school youth. YPI also provides family support services that include: case management, referrals to health and housing services, and legal support. In addition, YPI offers adult education, including ESL (English as a Second Language), GED (General Educational Development) and computer literacy classes, as well as a comprehensive asset building program that includes financial literacy education, matched savings accounts, individual development accounts, financial coaching, and free tax preparation.
Every Promise Neighborhood Center has become a one-stop shop for families, modeled on YPI’s Hollywood FamilySource Center.
LA #’s
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Total population in LA living in poverty: 23%
source: Kids Count Data Center: Population in Poverty.
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Children living in poverty in LA: 60%
The share of children under age 18 who live in families with incomes less than 200 percent of the federal poverty level. (2013)
source: Kids Count Data Center: Children Below 200% Poverty
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Of the population 25 years and older that lives in poverty:
- 44% of did not graduate from high school
- 22% graduated from high school
- 20% have some college experience or possess an associate’s degree
- 14% have a Bachelor’s degree or higher.
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High School Graduation Rate: 70.4%
51.5% for English Learners
source: Cohort Outcome Data for the Class of 2013-14 by Race/Ethnicity
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An income of $56,960 is required to afford a 2-bedroom unit at fair market rate ($1,424)—this translates into 3 full-time jobs at minimum wage.
source: National Low Income Housing Coalition, Out of Reach 2015
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YPI currently serves over 25,000 students and approximately 9,020 families through educational programming and supportive services.
source: YPI Research Department, 2015
As YPI continues to grow and expand wraparound services for youth and families, inter-generational poverty will end for thousands in Los Angeles.
Los Angeles Promise Zone
Vision:
To create a dynamic, safe, and livable community with high academic achievement and strong economic growth over the ten-year designation period and beyond.
The Promise Zone program is President Obama’s signature anti-poverty initiative, first announced in his 2013 State of the Union address. In January 2014, on the 50th anniversary of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty, the City of Los Angeles and lead implementation partner Youth Policy Institute were awarded one of the first five federal Promise Zone designations in an announcement by the President at the White House.
The goal of the initiative is to significantly reduce poverty through job creation, increased economic activity, improved educational opportunities, improved public safety, and leveraged private capital, while preserving and expanding housing affordability.
The LA Promise Zone is comprised of five ethnically and linguistically diverse neighborhoods in Central Los Angeles – Hollywood, East Hollywood, Koreatown, Pico-Union, and Westlake. With a population of just over 165,000 in the densest part of the city, 35% of Promise Zone residents live in poverty. A full 25% of households have a family income of less than $15,000 per year. High unemployment, high school dropout rates, and a shortage of affordable housing are barriers to a future of hope and promise.
The LA Promise Zone initiative is a collective impact project involving leaders from government, the private sector, and community organizations to target resources to create jobs, boost public safety, improve public education and stimulate better housing opportunities for residents and neighborhoods. We do this by identifying and implementing innovative solutions to problems that affect our neighborhoods.
With the City of Los Angeles and the Youth Policy Institute leading the initiative, 50 local organizations partner to meet Promise Zone goals; 40 more have signed on as supporters of the initiative. These organizations represent the diverse makeup of the LA Promise Zone and provide the linguistically and culturally appropriate services necessary to meet the needs of the area’s multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and Limited-English Proficient populations.
To date, 14 federal agencies have awarded 42 new grants for a total of $162 million to support this place-based approach to fighting poverty in Los Angeles, ranging from education, workforce, health and wellness, economic development, and asset building, to Early Head Start centers and Full-Service Community Schools. Last year targeted high schools averaged a 6.6% increase in graduation rates, with academic achievement and family incomes on the rise.
Priority Projects underway and developed by the Promise Zone working groups address these four goals:
1) Create Economic Opportunity
2) Improve Educational Outcomes
3) Make Neighborhoods Safe
4) Create Equitable, Sustainable & Livable Communities
There is much work to be done and opportunities ahead, for Angelenos to help transform the Promise Zone and create neighborhoods of growth and opportunity.
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Map of the Los Angeles Promise Zone
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