With Communities for Healthy Food NYC, LISC links nutrition and community development
Eating healthy is hard in low-income neighborhoods where understocked bodegas and fast-food stores are typically the only food options. That's about to change with the launch of Communities for Healthy Food NYC. The program is "an innovative neighborhood-based strategy aimed to bring healthier food to communities with higher levels of poverty and food insecurity" says Laurie Tisch, who provided seed funding for the initiative through the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund. LISC and its partners have started to work with local businesses to increase the supply of healthy foods and create programs to educate residents on nutrition and cooking. More[+]...
From "written off" to written about - the story of Olneyville, RI
For living proof of how community development works, look no further than the Providence, RI neighborhood of Olneyville. "When I arrived in the 1990s, a lot of people had written Olneyville off," says Barbara Fields, regional director of HUD and former director of LISC Rhode Island. But then Olneyville residents and a host of organizations, including LISC, "put their heads down" and got to work. Now the neighborhood's transformation has been chronicled in the Providence Journal, which calls it "a model for anyone seeking to make a big project a reality." More[+]...
The New York Times explains how LISC helps poor families take on debt—in the best possible way
Encouraging poor people to get a credit card may seem like a crazy idea. In fact, it is the pathway to financial stability. In this Sunday's New York Times Magazine, a story by Shaila Dewan explains how a new LISC program is helping poor families escape poverty by using debt wisely. The Twin Accounts program is the latest offering of our Financial Opportunity Centers (FOC), a national network of more than 70 sites helping people not only get jobs but also build credit, lower expenses, live on a budget and save for the future. More[+]...
