Bringing Education Home: One Non-Profit’s Vision
Saturday, May 13, 2006
Critical Issues in Education
In 2001, Peoples’ Self-Help Housing (PSHH), a non-profit organization, entered into the arena of education. PSHH began operating over 35 years ago to provide affordable housing in California’s Central Coast region—a region that is “home” to a diverse range of residents, especially when one looked at the socioeconomic status of the residents. A large portion of the population served by PSHH is the migrant farmworker population and many residents are considered very low-income.
Along with financial difficulties, many of the adult residents at PSHH’s apartment communities had quite low education levels. Additionally, for many of them their English skills were either extremely low or non-existent. All these factors combined to form a scenario where their children were suffering academically because of environmental inputs. While PSHH had already done a fantastic job of providing extremely high-quality affordable housing, part of their vision of “transforming lives” was yet to be realized.