Links
Building On and Connecting With Current Efforts
For the past 20 years, many have come together to improve the health and well-being of City Heights families. These efforts have results and have created strong networks and collaborations. These include, but are not limited to:
Building Healthy Communities
Building Healthy Communities, a 10-year, $1 billion initiative of The California Endowment that began in 2010. In connection with state-wide policy initiatives, 14 communities, including City Heights, are taking action to make where they live healthier. They are doing this by advocating to improve employment opportunities, education, housing, neighborhood safety, unhealthy environmental conditions, access to healthy food and more. The goal: to create places where children are healthy, safe and ready to learn. Ultimately, they are aiming at nothing less than a transformation in the way all of us think about and support health for all Californians.
The Building Healthy Communities group for City Heights is led by Mid-City Community Action Network (Mid-City CAN) and composed of local grantees, partners, and community members that aim to improve the health of City Heights so that children are healthy, safe, and ready to learn. Mid-City CAN’s mission is to create a safe, productive, and healthy community through collaboration, advocacy, and organizing.
City Heights Community Development Corporation
City Heights Community Development Corporation enhances the quality of life in City Heights by working with our community to create quality affordable housing and livable neighborhoods, foster economic self-sufficiency and stimulate investment. It is a proactive, dynamic and forward looking organization that provides a range of community and economic development services which address identified needs within the community. Programs which have been created in order to assist residents of City Heights include: Small Business Development, Resident Self Sufficiency, Active Transportation, Community Engagement, Neighborhood Enhancement, and Workforce Development. Together these services and programs help City Heights’ residents overcome considerable disadvantages in housing, business, employment, health, education, and poverty.
City Heights Community Development Corporation
The City Heights Educational Collaborative
The City Heights Educational Collaborative is a partnership between San Diego State University (SDSU), Price Charities, San Diego Unified School District and the San Diego Education Association (SDEA). The Collaborative purpose is to employ the resources of San Diego State University to improve the academic performance of students in three City Heights schools: Hoover High School, Monroe Clark Middle School and Rosa Parks Elementary School. These three schools operate as “community schools” providing comprehensive health and social services to students and their families.
The Collaborative’s The College Avenue Compact Program is the umbrella for an array of interventions, each with its own outcomes related to the overarching Compact outcomes. Beginning with Hoover’s class of 2011, students meeting the requirements have been guaranteed admission to San Diego State University.
The City Heights Educational Collaborative
SDUSD Hoover Cluster
SDUSD Hoover Cluster is a committed group of students, parents, teachers, and principals working to build strong, democratic, public schools that attract students, families and professionals who want to learn, grow and achieve. The overarching goal of the Hoover Cluster is of all of our students to be actively literate and proficient in math and sciences, and graduate from high school prepared to go on to college and career and become successful, contributing, participating members of a democratic society and who make a positive difference in a multi-lingual and multi-cultural world. The priorities of the Hoover Cluster include high enrollment of neighborhood students, parent and community engagement around student achievement, closing the achievement gap with high expectations for all, and neighborhood center with services depending on neighborhood needs.
Live Well, San Diego!
County of San Diego Health & Human Services Agency’s Live Well, San Diego! Initiative is working to create a healthy, safe and thriving county. Programs such as Nurse Family Partnership, video interviewing to enroll clients into Medi-Cal and CalFresh and the Beacon Project are getting City Heights residents access to services. HHSA has also assisted City Heights schools in adopting wellness policies, farm to school, and increased physical activity to create healthier environments in schools. Working with the community leaders, HHSA coordinates the Healthy Communities Central Region Leadership Team, which actively works to ensure that all families in Central Region San Diego live safe, healthy and self-sufficient lives.
First Five San Diego’s Quality Preschool Initiative
Preschool is an important part of early childhood development. Studies show that children who go to preschool do better in kindergarten. Generally, children who go to preschool learn better and are better able to behave in a classroom when they get to kindergarten. In partnership with the San Diego County Office of Education (SDCOE), First 5 San Diego’s Quality Preschool Initiative provides high quality, half-day preschool in 12 communities throughout San Diego County including Central San Diego, of which City Heights is a part. The ultimate goal of the QPI program is to reduce the school readiness gap and improve school achievement in San Diego County by expanding access to high quality preschool. More than 25,000 children are expected to be served over the next three years.
First Five San Diego’s Quality Preschool Initiative
United Way of San Diego County
United Way of San Diego County is part of a network of nearly 1,800 community-based United Ways around the world. Locally, United Way is creating sustainable change in the areas of education, income, health and homelessness. United Way believes that we are all connected and interdependent; we all win when a child succeeds in school, when neighbors are financially stable, when all of us are healthy. Using a Community Impact business model they identify specific issues, the strategies most effective in solving them, and the partners most adept at implementing solutions.
United Way of San Diego County
The AjA Project
The AjA Project provides photography-based educational programming to youth affected by war and displacement; students think critically about their identities, develop leadership skills, and become agents of personal and social transformation. The AjA Project is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization headquartered in San Diego, California. Utilizing participatory photography methods and an assets-based model, AjA’s after-school and in-school programs transform the lives of displaced youth.