Neighborhood Revitalization

Habitat for Humanity’s Neighborhood Revitalization (NR) program was designed to help Habitat as we work to transform neighborhoods using a holistic approach. Habitat joins residents, nonprofits, businesses, local governments, and communities of faith to create and implement a shared vision of revitalization.

NR represents an expansion of services for Habitat for Humanity. Instead of focusing solely on new construction, there is an added emphasis on home rehabilitation, external maintenance, and creating an improved quality of life for neighborhood residents. All projects are tailored to fit the needs of the community, and are carried out as part of a community coalition.

In the summer of 2018, Evergreen Habitat selected Fourth Plain as the next focus area for the Neighborhood Revitalization program. Since then, we have been hard at work building relationships in the community with neighborhood residents and partner organizations. In that time, we’ve worked with partners to create the Fourth Plain Coalition. The goals of the coalition are to work toward an equitable, diverse, and thriving Fourth Plain corridor by aligning partners and agencies across sectors to promote healthy environments, support families, and strengthen the community.

This past year, Habitat and the Fourth Plain Coalition received a grant from BUILD Health Challenge aimed at tackling the social determinants of health along the corridor. As a part of this partnership, Evergreen Habitat for Humanity, Clark County Public Health, the City of Vancouver, and over 30 multi-sectoral partners are focused on reducing the health and economic disparities experienced by families living on the Fourth Plain corridor. The goal of this project is to prevent and mitigate the negative impacts of unaffordable, substandard, and unstable housing to positively impact the mental health status of residents living along the corridor. This will be done through four intentional, systemic interventions: strengthening local data infrastructure, local legislative advocacy, policy assessment and implementation, and training local leaders to promote sustainable, healthy neighborhood development.

To learn more about Habitat’s Neighborhood Revitalization efforts or how you might get involved, contact Heather at heather@ehfh.org or 360-737-1759.