"If there's a silver lining to the pandemic," says Daniela Ogden, Eden Housing's vice president of communications, advocacy and fund development, "it's this: Affordable housing works. Even as residents lose hours and jobs, those who live in Low-Income Housing, Tax Credit housing, or receive Section 8 or 202 housing vouchers, have remained stably housed. The programs, coupled with rent relief provided by Eden's Tenant Relief Fund, have given low-income residents one less thing to worry about."

Sue Reynolds is retiring after 23 years in a job she initially didn’t know she wanted. She was working as a tax credit project consultant for Community HousingWorks, when the exiting director asked her if she'd serve in the position of interim director. Reynolds had never supervised more than one other person at the time when she said 'yes.'
 

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. 

The housing complex, still under construction in Porterville, California, will be called Nupchi Xo' Oy. The name pays tribute to Joseph Darrel Vera, who worked to bring affordable housing to members of the Tule River Tribe. Vera died just before the complex, in a city in the San Joaquin Valley near the reservation, came to fruition. His Indian nickname is Nupchi, meaning "cousin." The complex is being called "Village of the Cousins." 

At Rural Communities Housing Development Corporation (RCHDC), a NeighborWorks America organization in Northern California, tenants were struggling. About three-fourths of the organization's residents have their housing subsidized, and those subsidies are adjustable, so it wasn't so much that they needed help paying their rent during the time of COVID as it was that they needed contact – even at a distance. 

NeighborWorks Week, held this month during a fight for racial equity and a virus that caused neighbors to remain distant from one another, looked different than usual. But the celebration of neighborhoods and what makes them strong continued at many network organizations. Some organizations made their events virtual. Others postponed them to focus on their communities in other ways. And in some places, residents got outside to focus on the neighborhoods they call home.

During world wars, they were called "victory gardens," planted by families to help keep food on the table – and prevent food shortages. With grocery store shelves empty and families told to shelter in place during the COVID-19 pandemic, many people are returning to gardening and to the name.

NeighborWorks network organizations say they are continuing to hear from residents interested in doing the financial education and credit repair that will help them on a path to buying new homes. But even before March turned to April, housing counselors say they were also receiving calls from residents who were worried about what was going to happen if. If they lost jobs. If they couldn't pay their rent or their mortgage as the COVID-19 virus forced businesses to shut down or scale back.