African Community Housing & Development (ACHD)的动态

Transcript

When I came to. This state. And 2005 around 2007. I and Adan Hussein have established a small organization. Dad was mighty and strong and Somali Youth and Family Club. That was a time that I thought I built a nest for my community. But it was an app fortunate situation that the nest was not enough. Bilan was in a Graduate School in Ireland mood and as soon as she graduated that has happened. It was her energy and her capacity to take into that a large amount of work day and night and share with me. Read my wisdom and my knowledge and the amount of information that I have could help her. Put us back into the track. I remember coming back home from school with all this knowledge and ready to apply everything that I learned. I saw the gaps in our community and I saw the educational experiences other children were getting and I wanted to bring that to the kids that we were serving. I've seen Hamdu doing this work as long as I can remember and I was so grateful that she included me in this journey and that's why it was really important for me to remind her that what she was doing was important and it was part of. Her legacy? The wisdom and knowledge that she gained over the years was essential to our community moving forward. I just felt like if we don't build again, who will stand in the gap? All of our people. The elders of the community entrusted us to bring an organization that would meet the immediate needs of the community, but they also tasked us with the vision for the long term. There were so many late nights of grant writing and doing programming and providing services and case management, and we were making huge progress. Then COVID hit. That's really what changed everything. During the COVID-19 pandemic, a CHD was entrusted to distribute approximately $38 million in federal rental assistance to support the community directly. Our team built this reputation of service and the unique ability to provide linguistically and culturally relevant connections to the African Diaspora community that opened the door to this opportunity for thousands of families. Once that door opened, though. It hasn't slowed down. We've scaled and continued to respond to the needs of our community through our four pillars of service, housing and social services, education, economic development and now real estate development. The most fulfilling part about my job is having deeper conversations with the parents. A lot of times they come and then they tell me they're happy because their kids are happy. There was one to stay. A kid stopped in the middle of hiking. And then he's like, am I supposed to feel peace like this? And then we told him, yeah, like, you're a nature. You're supposed to feel this way. Me growing up, my grandma used to take care of me. So now I'm taking care of the elders and making sure they're good. There's been a natural progression to what we offer for the community. Human Services, dealing with emergency support and basic needs, then creating stability so they can breathe, think and dream big again. That led us to economic development. Many members of our community have an entrepreneurial spirit but need support navigating systems and building infrastructure. So we're doing that through our small business. Relationships and the work we do in our farmers market. We've created this special place where culture, community and economic empowerment is possible. We are really, you know, working hard to. Consider all of the elements that make an inclusive space for everyone we're trying to serve. So for customers that looks like, you know, giving out $5 to all the kiddos, we accept SNAP, EBT and do unlimited matching. We always offer our resources with as few barriers as possible to our customers, so we try to ask minimal or no questions. For our free food and resource assistance, we're always offering a wide range of activities. And resources from other healthcare and Wellness providers and community organizations, understanding their needs and their goals and their desires and allowing that to inform the work that we do. That's the same space that we're creating in our economic development programs. Creating that space for small businesses to thrive on their terms, creating spaces for their culture to show through in a way that connects to the people that they want to reach and not, you know, some of our limited perspectives of. It defines success. I was present in 2000. I think the time was 14-15, something like that in Tukwila Council. Meeting when a school principal stood in?? the you. The podium and asked that she's worried about substandard housing because there are children that come to the school is with bed bugs in their pockets. Bed bugs in their pockets. And then she added, and they don't look like me. They don't look like me. What do you mean by And she said, well, they looked like you. That's what I meant. And that is when I invited the community moms asking them, do you have bed bugs in your houses? But then one of them went brought a tissue full of bed bugs. And she said, is this what you are talking about? And I said yes, and then the others also said yes, if that's what you're talking. I have bed bugs, I have bedbugs, I have bed bugs. And that was a turning point for me. We've so many stories from our community enduring harm in substandard housing. There are so many barriers at play. There's culture, language and information gap. We see our community falling prey to the predatory behaviors that we see in our housing, especially in the communities that have historically been underserved. We've known since the beginning of ACHD that we had to build homes for our community. We had no idea how we would actually get to this moment. But we are here. As we embark on this fourth pillar, as Black housing developers, we are energized by the vision of an informed and unified African Diaspora community committed to the holistic development of their families, creating a vibrant environment that fosters generational prosperity, celebrates culture, strengthens community connections, and supports thriving tourism in our region. We want all of us to thrive. You want the best for our children, all of us. Black, brown, white. The need is the same. What we need to do is what every mother and every father would need to do regardless. But the gap, the economic gap, the social gap or the wealth gap is what creates that one child has more. Then the other child, right? So when this happens, those who have should not dictate to those who do not have.