WASHINGTON, DC -- After months of fighting over aid to last summer’s hurricane-hit communities, Congress finally approved a compromise budget bill earlier this month that will provide millions of dollars to help schools care for displaced students. The budget bill provides $8,500 for each displaced student, $9,000 for each one that is not English-speaking like Nairelys and Jason, and $10,000 for disabled students requiring special education.
WASHINGTON, DC -- Understanding that stable homes provide an important platform for individual success and thriving communities, nine of the nation’s largest private foundations, including The Melville Charitable Trust, have joined forces to create the Funders for Housing and Opportunity collaborative with the goal of ensuring individuals and families across America who spend more than half of their income on rent -- or have no homes at all -- will be able to afford safe, stable rentals in thriving communities. Together, Funders for Housing and Opportunity will commit grant dollars that will be used to catalyze systemic change; $4.9 million has already been committed to four grantees over the next three years.
WASHINGTON, DC -- The increasingly desperate affordable housing crisis has led nine U.S. foundations, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and The Melville Charitable Trust to announce on Tuesday that they are launching a partnership to tackle systemic problems in the housing market. The aim: to ensure that the more than 11 million families across the country that spend more than half of their paycheck on rent and those who are homeless have access to safe, affordable housing. The partnership, called Funders For Housing and Opportunity, has divided an initial $4.9 million in grant money between four nonprofits that tackle housing insecurity. This first tranche of money is aimed “mostly in the area of policy, advocacy and organizing,” said Susan Thomas, senior program officer at Melville Charitable Trust and chair of Funders for Housing and Opportunity.
WASHINGTON, CD -- Nine foundations, including The Melville Charitable Trust, have pooled about $10 million to build a three-year public-advocacy campaign to ensure Americans have secure, affordable places to live. The collaboration includes several foundations that haven’t previously concentrated on housing, such as the Annie E. Casey Foundation and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The new coalition, called Funders for Housing and Opportunity, today announced $4.9 million in three-year grants to four coalitions and projects, each of will mount public-awareness campaigns to call attention to housing issues.
WASHINGTON, DC -- In rare bipartisan agreement, Congress on Friday approved a massive budget deal that will increase federal spending in Connecticut, providing big boosts for the state’s defense industry and health care programs and even helping schools educate displaced students from Puerto Rico. ...A new measure was added to the extenders package that would help Westport’s Newman’s Own Foundation, which gives 100 percent of the profits made from the Newman’s Own food business to charity, but would have been hit with a 200 percent tax this year unless it divested or got the exception.
DANBURY, CT -- Danbury has won the Working Cities Challenge put forth by the Boston Federal Reserve and been awarded $450,000 in a multi-year commitment to improve the lives of low- and moderate-income residents.