United Way of Harrisonburg & Rockingham County, Inc.

Our immediate goal is to reduce the financial burden that ALICE individuals and families face by funding programs that support the areas of housing, childcare, transportation, food, healthcare, education and life-skills development. Our grant process changed in 2019 to reflect this goal and you can see the complete list of our grant investments here: https://uwhr.org/Our-Investments

Additionally, we are looking to the future and determining what strategies will help reduce the number of ALICE individuals and families in our community. This is a new part of our work that will continue to develop during and beyond the pandemic.

We will continue to provide grant funding to high-priority needs throughout our community. We will also continue our work on educating the community on the ALICE project so that everyone will be aware of how widespread this population is and how they can help.

Additionally, we have brought on initiatives like Build United, a program that helps keep low-income homeowners in their homes by providing repairs for weatherization, safety, and accessibility.

Another strategy that we implemented in 2019 is a coordinated care network through Unite Us, called Unite Virginia, providing effective ways for people to access community resources. With a mix of healthcare, human service, local government and public education organizations participating in the network, providers can more effectively refer clients to one another without them getting lost in a sea of resource directories and outdated phone numbers.

In 2021, we officially adopted advocacy as a formal strategy to support people living at or below the ALICE Threshold. In partnership with our ALICE Coalition, we work alongside of community leaders focused on serving ALICE and connect directly with local and state elected officials to impact these populations.

Our organization is currently achieving our goals for funding programs within our community that are supporting ALICE individuals and families, and we are beginning to assess our capacity for reducing the number of individuals and families living below the ALICE threshold. We are being thoughtful about how we approach the second goal, and part of that time is being spent determining what we need in order to be successful.

So far we are proud to have brought the ALICE framework into our community and to have done the amount of education that we have over the past few years. We will continue to look into the future for opportunities to innovate, collaborate, and change the way we approach community issues so that we are not only addressing the symptoms, but also the root causes.