News

Are You Turned Outward?

November 3, 2015 in Uncategorized

Written by Kelly Rider, Government Relations and Policy Director, Housing Development Consortium

A few weeks back, the Harwood Institute came to King County for a 3 day workshop with local governments and community partners. The workshop goals included:

  • Strengthen and empower community partnerships to address community priorities and challenges
  • Train participants to identify and authentically understand community priorities and
  • Inspire public institutions toward authentic engagement.

Throughout our time together, we were challenged to turn outward:

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JUST Program: Available to HDC Members

October 8, 2015 in Guest Post

Guest post written by Francis Janes, JUST Program Manager

Developed by Seattle based International Living Future Institute, the JUST Program is a robust and elegant social justice transparency platform and disclosure tool. The JUST Program can be viewed as a “nutrition label” for socially responsible organizations and corporations. The JUST Label provides at-a-glance information about an organization’s progress in key social justice categories such as diversity, equity, safety, employee benefit, local benefit and community stewardship.

When organizations participate in the JUST Program, organizations can test how they are really doing in reference to these social justice metrics and, as a result, may choose to work towards greater social justice and equity in the workplace. The JUST Program is available to all organizations in all sectors including publicly traded corporations, privately held businesses, non-profits, government agencies, educational institutions, and cooperatives.

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Introducing All Home

October 1, 2015 in Uncategorized

Written by Erin Murphy, HDC Communications Manager

We are very excited to share the announcement below regarding the Committee to End Homelessness re-branding as All Home as of today. HDC has participated in this re-naming and re-branding process and fully supports this change. While the name and look of an organization or group is not necessarily more important than the impact of their work, a name/logo/website etc. still go a long way in reflecting the desired impact and the perception of the organization. For this reason, HDC is completely behind All Home as they strive to build an inclusive movement in order to achieve their plan to address homelessness in King County.

The news below comes directly from our partners at the Committee to End Homelessness, now All Home.

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What is HDC Reading?

March 31, 2015 in Member Services, Racial Equity Initiative

In anticipation of the upcoming HDC 7th Annual Celebration Luncheon on April 30th, and guest speaker, Eugene Robinson, Executive Director, Marty Kooistra, recently had a conversation with Racial Equity Initiative Coordinators, Monica Joe and Reuben Waddy, to ask them about their impressions and key takeaway’s from Robinson’s book: Disintegration: The Splintering of Black America.  

DisintegrationCover04.01.15Marty: Monica and Reuben, I hear that you have had a chance to read the Eugene Robinson book, Disintegration: The Splintering of Black America, in anticipation of his appearance here.  Did it spark enthusiasm for you to hear him speak? 

Monica: It definitely helps shape the HDC work specifically for Seattle-King County and the Racial Equity Initiative, because he talks about how we can’t just address one “Black Community” because that doesn’t mean anything in this day and age.  So that definitely complicates our work while guiding how we move forward.

Reuben: The whole point of the book was to establish a sort of progression for how we view African American dynamics. How he framed that progression is applicable to how King County itself can become more inclusive. We have to be aware of cultural differences even within different cultural brackets.  And once you get to the nitty gritty, nuanced details, equity work becomes, not necessarily easier, but a lot more apparent with more definable goals.

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