Housing and Education Partnerships: A Case Study of Vancouver, Washington
Author: Galvez, Martha
Date: 2015-03-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Public Housing,Urban Schools,Public Schools,Partnerships in Education,Case Studies,Low Income Groups,Objectives,Leadership,Financial Support,Data,Decision Making,Coordination,Attendance,Elementary Secondary Education,Homeless People,Community Education,Early Childhood Education,After School Programs,College Preparation

The housing and education sectors are being asked to do more with fewer resources. School districts often struggle to meet the needs of low-income students who deal with challenges outside of school and to connect them to resources that can strengthen their academic competencies. Public housing authorities and other assisted-housing providers similarly recognize the need for an array of support services to help their clients achieve financial and family stability. Housing providers have been exploring the role they can play, particularly in improving child outcomes overall and educational outcomes specifically. The premise is that housing providers have a unique opportunity and entry point to improve children's outcomes by connecting them to services and by bringing opportunities right into their homes or developments. Housing authorities in particular are in a favored position to reach low-income families and connect educators, low-income students, and their caregivers outside the school day. By partnering, school districts and housing authorities can begin to identify and tackle barriers to learning that poor students may face, such as housing instability, truancy, and health problems. By combining their resources and leveraging their individual strengths--programmatic, financial, and social--educators and housing authorities are learning how they can have a greater impact on low-income students' lives. Those partnerships represent uncharted territory for many school districts and housing authorities. The Council of Large Public Housing Authorities (CLPHA) is a membership association that represents 70 of the largest public housing authorities in the country. To support and expand its members' ambition and capacity to support educational outcomes, CLPHA kicked off an education initiative in 2013. As part of that initiative, CLPHA is providing technical assistance and field-building support to practitioners, conducting policy advocacy on Capitol Hill, and entering partnerships with other national organizations to advance meaningful and sustainable partnerships between the housing and education sectors. In 2014, with the support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, CLPHA enlisted the Urban Institute to examine promising practices emerging from partnerships in three diverse cities: Akron, Ohio; New Haven, Connecticut; and Vancouver, Washington. This brief focuses on one of three partnership sites: Vancouver, Washington. The overview of findings from cases studies of all three sites, &quot;Developing Housing and Education Partnerships: Lessons from the Field&quot; (ED559308) documents some creative approaches and promising practices to inform local efforts to launch partnerships, as well as national-level policy and advocacy efforts.