Who Are We?

Community Voices Heard (CVH) is a membership organization of low-income individuals working together to build the power of our families, our communities and low-income people throughout New York City and New York State.

Since it's founding in 1994, CVH has fought to stop cuts in welfare, save and improve public housing, protect government programs for people in need, create jobs for poor people, develop education and training programs, and create a stronger social safety net.

What Have We Done?

• Educated 25,000 low-income people about their rights and how they relate to pertinent policy issues.
• Contacted and mobilized over 12,000 voters in the South Bronx, East and Central Harlem, and Yonkers in over 50 electoral districts.
• Mobilized over 9,200 low-income people to take a step toward action, injustices in their communities in a more critical way.
• Developed the skills of 3,400 low-income people in organizing for social change through trainings in campaign development, power analysis, and all the tools necessary to successfully create change.
• Developed hundreds of members to take leadership roles in the organization.

Goals

1. Engaging low-income families directly in the work of policy change.
2. Getting NYC to prioritize job creation, anti-poverty programs and improving wages for low-income workers.
3. Spurring the creation of living wage jobs, additional paid transitional jobs with education and training components, and improving working conditions and training for participants in job readiness/ job search programs.
4. Expanding access to and resources for education and training opportunities (including career pathways) for low-income people in New York City and State.
5. Preserving and improving public housing in New York as one of the last bastions of affordable housing for low-income families.
6. Expanding the power of the organization on statewide issues through statewide expansion -- both new chapter formation and deeper coalition work.
7. Expanding civic participation of low-income people of color through non-partisan voter engagement work.
8. Diversifying our fundraising base and tightening our administrative structures to support our sustainability and expansion.

Accomplishments

Some of our organizational accomplishments include:

• Moved Governor Spitzer to sign the shelter allowance bill - a bill that will ultimately bring $47 million in additional resources annually into the NYC Housing Authority to help offset the deficit.
• Won $3.5 million in funding from the State for operating subsidies for public housing -- the state's first contribution in ten years.
• Stopped NYCHA from getting the Federal Moving to Work Waiver, which would have potentially allowed them to privatize, add time limits for residence, and/or demolish public housing.
• Got NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg to create a new Deputy Mayor position to focus on Health and Human Services and create a Commission for Economic Opportunity (CEO) to focus on poverty and joblessness.
• Helped get the City Council to pass the City Access to Training & Education (CATE) Law that allows welfare recipients to go to school.
• Pushed the City to create more than 20,000 paid transitional jobs through a legislative and implementation campaign (Parks Opportunity Program) and then to expand into the Department of Sanitation.
• Stopped a 25% benefit reduction in welfare grants for families in NYS after the passage of the 1996 federal welfare act reform, and saved welfare for childless adults.