The Navajo Nation encompasses 27,000 miles in New Mexico, Arizona and Utah. On the reservation, steeped in history and customs, there are also challenges when it comes to housing, to supplies and lumber, to hookups to clean running water. Add in a national pandemic and the challenges grow exponentially. So does determination to meet them.

As NeighborWorks America highlights stories about the work of individuals and nonprofits in our network, those stories may sometimes relate painful or traumatizing experiences. Isay Gulley's personal narrative includes her experience with threats and racism, which led to her determination for homeownership not only for her family, but for others in her community.

Isay Gulley believes you have to have more than a job; you have to have a goal and mission in your

At Midwest Minnesota Community Development Corporation (MMCDC), a NeighborWorks network organization in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, the COVID-19 pandemic made life more complicated. But a number of residents in the community had already been struggling, relates Laura McKnight, director of housing and real estate.

The link between housing and health care has been getting national recognition over the past few years. And it's become a focus for Community Housing Partners (CHP) in Christiansburg, Virginia.

Prestamos CDFI, a division of NeighborWorks network nonprofit Chicanos Por La Causa, has funded billions of dollars in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans during the pandemic, with more than three fourths of those loans going to minority-owned businesses. By the end of June, the Community Development Financial Institution funded $7.6 billion in loans, supporting hairstylists, artists, custodians and more.

Preem Cabey had wanted a house for years. But when she found the perfect home, a "fixer-upper" available through the Albany County Land Bank, she didn’t qualify for a loan that would cover the repairs. "I wasn’t working enough hours," says Cabey, who had been a director of a recreational facility while working as an artist and community advocate.

NeighborWorks America welcomed eight new affiliates to its robust network, adding both capacity and expertise. This brings the number of NeighborWorks network organizations, located in every state, Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C., to 247.

When Malcolm Yeung interviewed for the executive director post at Chinatown Community Development Center, COVID-19 was still on the horizon. "By January 2020, it was becoming clear we were on the precipice of something very monumental," he says. "I don’t think it quite hit home as to how monumental."
 

Erich Nakano, executive director of Little Tokyo Service Center (LTSC), says his journey to housing and community development began with three events. An activist whose parents sought to amplify stories about Japanese internment in the United States, Nakano says friends, family and fellow college students all shined lights on a path to working with the community he loved.

The 1970s

A pòh poh dons a jacket in a flowery print that screams springtime. A gùng gung wears a fedora and a butterfly tie. The smiling faces of residents of San Francisco's Chinatown and Chinatowns across the United States and in Canada grace the pages of "Chinatown Pretty: Fashion and Wisdom from Chinatown's Most Stylish Seniors," a book by Portrait Photographer Andria Lo and Writer Valerie Luu.