The residents who live in Lee House, a senior apartment building owned and operated by the Housing Assistance Program of Essex County (HAPEC), take care of each other. The building, an historic Port Henry hotel in Elizabethtown, New York, converted to affordable housing, has 25 residents who make sure their neighbors make it to doctor’s appointments or to the grocery store to pick up food or an extra container of wipes.

Angela Bannerman Ankoma wanted her mother to have peppers, yams, and other foods she missed from her native Ghana. A 30-year resident of the densely populated, culturally diverse West End in Providence, Rhode Island, the community where she grew up, Ankoma says she knew immigrants in her community who would travel as far as New Jersey to find or sell produce and specialty items that were native to their diet. And she felt for the people in her neighborhood who just needed access healthy food that was culturally responsive.  

Don Gilmore, CEO of Community Housing Development Corp. (CHDC), is keeping his community green. In California, where the environment is first on a lot of people's minds, his NeighborWorks organization is putting energy into green buildings and a transportation assistance program that helps low-income individuals buy or lease "clean" cars.

Carrie Davis, president and CEO of Wealth Watchers, Inc., a NeighborWorks organization, began helping Black farmers during the 2008 housing crisis, encouraging them to use their land to grow food to keep families and neighbors fed – and to provide extra money to offset job losses when factories shut down. In 2020 and 2021, during the pandemic and the economic crisis that accompanied it, she is again encouraging backyard farmers to let the land help with both food and finances.

In Lincoln, Nebraska, Tim Rinne and Kay Walter launched an urban gardening movement in their Hawley neighborhood. In an area classified as a food desert, the couple devised a plan to increase access to fresh, healthy produce, while also developing a way to bring their neighbors closer together. The idea formed about 10 years ago when Tim became increasingly more concerned about how climate change could potentially affect the food supply.

Climate and sustainability haven't always been first in the minds of the people who live in the Talbot-Triangle Eco-Innovation District in Dorchester, Massachusetts, and the surrounding community. Gail Latimore, executive director of Codman Square Neighborhood Development Corp. (CSNDC), knows this.

Sometimes the thing you really need is breathing room, says Malcom Yeung, executive director of Chinatown Community Development Corporation. His organization got a bit of that through funding from NeighborWorks America, in partnership with the Wells Fargo Foundation. Grants from NeighborWorks America's Critical Relief Fund and Rental Resilience Fund allowed staff to focus on their work and on their residents. 

In Texas, Foundation Communities, a NeighborWorks organization, is working hard to keep residents housed with the help of an emergency fund. So far, they've helped more than 700 residents with rental assistance. A grant from NeighborWorks America, in partnership with the Wells Fargo Foundation, made a difference. 

In the laundry room of White River Estates in Hesperia, Michigan, the colors are in the baskets that sit on top of the washing machines. They're also on the wall, thanks to a new mural project meant to bring people together. The project, painted by local artist Renae Wallace, draws on in the rural community's river and surroundings.