As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, Florida is described as "a surging state," which is not what the president of a housing nonprofit — or anybody else — wants to hear. At Rural Neighborhoods Inc., a NeighborWorks network organization in Florida City, Florida, they are working to keep residents safe.

As communities struggle to find balance and recover from the impacts of COVID-19, high unemployment and social injustice, NeighborWorks organizations are working to balance the need for change and supporting equality while also keeping residents united and safe. 

In Minnesota, it seemed like a simple thing: Amanda Welliver wanted to send chalk to 200 new homeowners in the Twin Cities that her organization, NeighborWorks Home Partners, had helped with down payment assistance.

"Alexa?" a retired resident says to the digital assistant sitting on the table. "Tell me a joke."

Alexa, a cloud-based voice service, might respond with the one about the cat who stopped playing basketball. (Why? He threw up too many hairballs.) Or the one about how people survived before sandpaper. (They roughed it.)

Older residents living in the communities built and maintained by St. Mary Development in Dayton, Ohio, were afraid to leave home – and had been advised not to. They were concerned about public transportation. They were advised not to go to grocery stores. But they needed food. A number of organizations partnered to get it to them.
 

Since 1993, NeighborWorks America has convened over 15,000 lower-income resident leaders at its annual Community Leadership Institute (CLI). The nation's largest effort to amplify resident voices equips these leaders with the tools, seed funding and network of support they need to drive changes in their neighborhoods. 

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.

At their core, nonprofits are set up to help people. But in times like this, the need for help can be overwhelming. Here’s how two NeighborWorks organizations are working to meet the needs of their communities and the needs of their staffs.