Through an exceptionally challenging year, United Way of Greater Los Angeles’s community, donors and staff stepped up like never before to help our most vulnerable neighbors. The Year-End Impact Report 2020 highlights our top 5 efforts from last year.
While we don’t know all that 2021 has in store for us, we know the pandemic and its economic repercussions will be felt for years to come. Struggling families still need our help. We are encouraged and hopeful as we look forward to help build a more JUST LA.
Join us this year as we:
1. Boost tenant support efforts
We face a looming “eviction tsunami” as tens of thousands of additional families face homelessness and extreme financial struggle. We will fight to keep people in their homes through the worst of the pandemic and its aftereffects. We’ll advocate for extending eviction moratoria at the federal and state levels and for passing relief like rental forgiveness and assistance.
We don’t take anything for granted: United Way’s mission includes testing our work in order to continually improve outcomes. This year, TransformED grantees will examine and record the results of their investments, with aims of publishing a white paper next year. With good feedback, we can expand promising programs and help even more students.
3. Invest in shelter improvement
People experiencing homelessness need a safe place to live and get on their feet as they work to get into permanent housing, and too few shelters today provide that. To help generate additional spaces where people want to come inside, we will work with partners on improving our shelters—and improving lives immediately for the people we’re working to bring home.
4. Reframe on our work on racial justice
Amid the surging protest movement of 2020, United Way of Greater Los Angeles asked ourselves how our own work could more directly and intentionally support racial justice. We created and adopted a comprehensive roadmap to advance racial equity. We are reexamining our programs as well as developing trainings for board members and staff. Our work must build racial equity in housing, education and economic mobility policies, addressing the chronic underinvestment in low-income communities and communities of color.
5. Seek partnership and allies at the federal level
We anticipate a much-needed return of support for Housing First policies and more concern at the federal level for unsheltered Angelenos. We are also hoping to see cohesive education leadership at the national level to help manage the transition back into the classroom, as well as the assistance we need to get people safely back to work and support those who have struggled during the pandemic.