By Janet Byrd, Executive Director
Welcome 2017! It’s shaping up to be quite a year in Oregon and across the country. Here at Neighborhood Partnerships we are looking forward to working with you to build increased opportunity for all Oregonians, to protect the progress we’ve made, and to bring people together to think and talk strategically about how we live up to Oregon’s potential and the full potential of our residents.
Much of our work in the coming six months will be focused around what’s happening in Salem and the Oregon Legislature. There’s lots to do to make sure we increase housing stability for renters and increase housing options in all corners of the state. We need strong policy plus state resources to make housing opportunity a reality for all Oregonians. We’ll also be working to create brighter futures for every child in Oregon with our Oregon Bright Futures Fund proposal. Every child born in Oregon deserves to know that they have resources to help them achieve their dreams after high school. We hope you’ll join us in this work. Read Jill’s blog post for information about how you can help us succeed.
We know this won’t be an easy year, but we’re ready to work hard. We’ve already been hard at work with our partners preparing these proposals, and we feel good about the choices we’ve made. We at NP have been guided for many years by the principle that our work should be targeted to benefit those who most need it, with the assumption that if we do that, the policy will work across all demographics. We were thrilled to see Angela Glover Blackwell’s recent article “The Curb Cut Effect” in the Winter 2017 Stanford Social Innovation Review that describes this principle perfectly. I plan to keep it near at hand to re-read when the best policy choices demand more work to build consensus.
Happy New Year all – we look forward to this year ahead with you!