The Partnership for Greening Blue Hill Ave

The Partnership for Greening Blue Hill Avenue was born as a natural result of the collaboration efforts of Nuestra and YouthBuild Boston. With the combined “greening” experience of both organizations, an aggregate history of 50 years providing affordable housing and supportive services to the community, and our commitment to addressing the foreclosure crisis in Dorchester, Roxbury and Mattapan, the discussions over the past year gravitated towards an opportunity to collaborate for neighborhood revitalization along the Blue Hill Avenue corridor, which contains Nuestra properties and YouthBuild projects from top to bottom.

The power of community development nonprofits working together to address the needs of targeted low-income communities in practical ways that create economic, career, environmental, health, educational, and general quality-of-life opportunities through green urban planning and building is substantial. The Partnership’s model can succeed both locally and nationally for urban areas where aging housing stock is a concern, particularly given the additional health challenges low-income families face with drafty windows and poorly insulated spaces. Two major goals of the Partnership are to weatherize over a thousand housing units in the city of Boston and train hundreds of young adults (ages 18-24) for jobs in the green building trades, thereby significantly increasing the earning power of Roxbury, Dorchester and Mattapan’s residents while substantially reducing their utility costs and improving their health.

About:

Nuestra Comunidad:

Nuestra Comunidad Development Corporation is devoted to building the wealth and enhancing the physical, economic and social well-being of Roxbury and other underserved populations in greater Boston through a community driven process that promotes self-sufficiency and neighborhood revitalization.

In 1981, following two decades of widespread arson and disinvestment, residents of the Dudley Street neighborhood in Roxbury created Nuestra Comunidad Development Corporation to take control of the land, build new housing and leverage their combined energies for a better future. Today, Nuestra is one of Boston’s most successful community development corporations. Our work as an organization is an innovative combination of housing development and preservation, community organizing and specialized homeownership promotion and preservation services that engages community members in the process of rebuilding and strengthening their neighborhoods.CLICK HERE to learn more.

YouthBuild Boston:

Launched in 1990 with 28 young people in a church basement, YBB was the first replication of the YouthBuild model outside of New York. The mission of YouthBuild Boston Inc. (YBB) is to improve opportunities for young people of Boston by teaching skills that will equip them to support themselves and help develop personal and neighborhood responsibility. The guiding principle of YBB is "Youth or young adults, when treated as valuable resources, will realize that they can be partners in rebuilding their community". YBB realizes that the difficulties that young people face must be overcome by addressing the terrible and overwhelming lack of empowerment that they often feel. These feelings are reinforced by a society that views them as part of the problem, and not the solution. YBB recognizes that these individuals are capable of and vital to improving their lives and the condition of their community.CLICK HERE to learn more.