St. Nicks Alliance Introduces Nabe 3.0, an Innovative New Initiative
to Fight Community Poverty, and
Celebrates 63 Affordable Apartments Coming to North Brooklyn
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 1, 2015
Contact:
Lori Ann Doyon, St. Nicks Alliance, 718.388.5454 ext. 167, ldoyon@stnicksalliance.org
Jaime Williams, on behalf of CCF, 914-325-8877, jaime@anatgerstein.com
BROOKLYN, N.Y. (Oct. 1, 2015) — St. Nicks Alliance, a local Brooklyn community development organization, today unveiled a new model, NABE 3.0, to address poverty in North Brooklyn, and showcased 63 new affordable apartments in the Williamsburg neighborhood.
NABE 3.0 uses transformational coaches who help individuals and families access housing, employment, and education services through partnership with schools, nonprofits, and government agencies. Through NABE 3.0, St. Nicks Alliance’s transformational coaches and other staff provide afterschool programming at PS 18 and intervene with at-risk students referred by the school; place individuals in employment and enrolls adults in literacy classes; organize tenant associations and prevent families from falling into homelessness. They do this with the help of partners in government.
The NABE 3.0 initiative is made possible through a $1 million investment from Change Capital Fund, a collaborative of funders investing in the development of new, data-driven strategies created by community organizations. Change Capital Fund believes that nonprofits with strong community ties and core competencies in housing, education and jobs are well positioned to change the outcomes for individuals and families otherwise stuck in poverty.
“We need to support more data-driven strategies that identify cost-effective solutions to reduce poverty and inequality. One of the best ways to do that is to support sophisticated community-focused nonprofits. That’s why CCF is investing in St. Nicks and NABE 3.0,” said Sam Marks, Executive Director of LISC New York and member of Change Capital Fund donor collaborative.
Kate Dempsey, Director of Strategy and Operations at the NYC Center for Economic Opportunity, which serves as an ad-hoc member of the Change Capital Fund, said, “The de Blasio administration is very interested, and has already invested significant resources, in neighborhood-level strategies to address inequality. Community based organizations, like St. Nicks, have an important role in coordinating strategies on the ground and providing critical services to communities in need. The City’s Center for Economic Opportunity is especially interested in evidence-based programs that have an impact beyond the individual served, which is also CCF’s agenda: to create communities of opportunity.”
“Government spends billions to address poverty and we need to find more effective strategies,” said St. Nicks Alliance Executive Director Michael Rochford. “NABE 3.0 combines evidence based strategies with innovative techniques that offer a new community approach that enables children to succeed in school, families to find safe affordable housing, and adults to secure a living wage.”
“For 40 years, St Nicks Alliance has been among the leaders in building community and becoming effective in transforming the lives of our community,” said St. Nicks Alliance President Joseph Robles. “We celebrate our past accomplishments with new ideas. On behalf of our active board and staff, we have collaborated to test new ideas and find innovative approaches to creating opportunity and success.”
St. Nicks Alliance’s efforts to address the housing shortage for local low-income families include two affordable developments, the North Brooklyn Opportunities Project and Kings Villas. Both projects, which are scheduled to be completed in 2016, will provide a combined 63 affordable units in North Brooklyn. These developments are part of St. Nicks Alliance’s long history of affordable housing development. The organization manages over 1,100 units of affordable housing and in 2014 alone renovated 12 buildings with 199 units.
These projects will house dozens of families thanks to financing from New York City Housing and Preservation Department, Capital One Bank, and Local Initiatives Support Corporation-National Equity Fund.
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ABOUT ST. NICKS
St. Nicks Alliance transforms the lives of low and moderate income people through employment, education, housing, and health care. St. Nicks delivers impactful services with measurable outcomes to children, adults, and the elderly. As a civic anchor we carry out this mission within the context of building a sustainable community for all people through the arts, environmental advocacy, and urban planning.
ABOUT CHANGE CAPITAL FUND
The Change Capital Fund (CCF) is a collaboration of 15 foundations and financial institutions dedicated to the revitalization of distressed New York City communities. Members of the CCF donor collaborative are: Altman Foundation, Capital One, Citi Foundation, Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation, Enterprise Community Partners, F.B. Heron Foundation, Local Initiatives Support Corporation, M & T Charitable Foundation, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Mizuho Bank Ltd, New York Community Trust, New York Foundation, Scherman Foundation, United Way of New York City, and NYC Center for Economic Opportunity.