A significant part of Norwescap’s work focuses on housing. We believe that everyone deserves a safe place to live, so we work to help people find affordable housing, maintain their utility bills and create the sustainability to stay in their homes. We also partner with local organizations and neighborhoods to find ways to make communities safer, better places to live. These strategies support our work to empower thousands of individuals and families each year to move away from the crisis of poverty and towards a future of prosperity.
Affordability in housing is a crisis that heightened with the COVID-19 pandemic and inflation. Norwescap and their collaborating housing organizations are working tirelessly to meet the increasing need for assistance. We are proud to join forces with a new partner in this work.
We are thrilled to announce that the TD Charitable Foundation of TD Bank, America’s Most Convenient Bank®, has awarded Norwescap a $250,000 Housing for Everyone grant to assist families who are housing-insecure throughout northwestern New Jersey. This grant will support a significant expansion of our services, allowing us to grow our team by adding new Housing Navigators who will provide specialized, location-specific guidance to families who are struggling to find or retain affordable housing. They will support families in navigating the landscape of available resources, while also connecting them to a wide array of additional services including nutritional assistance, financial coaching, employment support, and childcare assistance to support their long-term success.
Over the course of 2020 and 2021, housing emerged as one of the most pressing needs for Norwescap’s participants.
Our needs assessments showed that at the point of intake, more than 16% of the households we were experiencing some form of homelessness, and another 43% were in an unaffordable, unsustainable housing situation. When these situations are not quickly addressed, unaffordable housing can lead to eviction and homelessness, or sacrificing other financial priorities to maintain housing; which leads to food insecurity, and less work opportunity when choking out the funds for transportation or childcare.
Norwescap’s new Housing Navigators, supported by the TD Charitable Foundation grant, will ensure that more individuals and families get the critical assistance they need in the moment of crisis, as well as ongoing holistic support. Through this initiative, Norwescap will be able to help more families make the journey from “suffering” to “thriving,” supporting those facing homelessness and connecting them to safe, affordable housing – and perhaps, even home ownership. We are deeply grateful to TD Bank and the TD Charitable Foundation for this investment in our life-changing work.