Connecting care is key to community wellbeing

May 31, 2023
by Samira Payne, Director, Community Revitalization at Rebuilding Together National

Rebuilding Together may have started out as neighbors helping neighbors and evolved into a home repair organization, but today it is a community revitalization organization with a focus on safe and healthy housing as one of the core tenants of the components of a vibrant community

At Rebuilding Together, our community revitalization efforts involve partnering with communities to work towards equity of opportunity, economic stability, safe and healthy housing, community connection and resiliency, and neighborhood health, safety and accessibility. This translates to communities where food and housing are affordable, public transportation is readily available, well paying jobs are accessible to community residents, businesses are locally owned and are thriving, just to mention a few of the elements that make communities vibrant places to live.

Rebuilding Together does not provide all those services, but as a safe and healthy housing organization we build community revitalization partnerships to work with other service providers in our communities and connect our neighbors to other agencies that can meet additional needs. 

We recently partnered with Unite Us, the nation’s leading software company enabling cross-sector collaboration to improve people’s health and well-being. This partnership will allow us to coordinate with other organizations, government agencies, nonprofits and service providers to meet the needs of our neighbors and communities. This illustrates the coordinated approach principle in community revitalization partnerships.

Through this platform, we are able to refer neighbors we serve to other services in the community and receive the care they need to be healthy. Those same organizations are able to make referrals to Rebuilding Together to address critical home repairs and home safety needs for community members. It takes a village to care for one another and Unite Us is a tool at our disposal to keep track of each other’s needs as we work towards more vibrant communities.