Keene Housing program provides access to experiences that can make their futures brighter

YOUTH DEVELOPMENT

As most parents know, the toughest word to say is “no.”

For parents in low-income housing, this word is likely used when children ask about dance classes, baseball, swimming, hockey, horseback riding and other interests.

And that word “no” carries a price tag. Children born in poverty or low-income homes lose up to 6,000 learning hours by middle school due to unequal access to opportunity, according to researcher Meredith Phillips. This is what Keene Housing Kids Collaborative calls the opportunity gap, and it can be detrimental to children as they grow into adulthood.

“Where you’re born usually translates into how much money your parents have, which is the greatest predictor of how your life is going to go,” said Joshua Meehan, executive director at Keene Housing. “And there’s a fundamental inequity in that. Where you’re born shouldn’t determine how your life goes.”

However, Keene Housing Kids Collaborative has provided access to community activities to over 1,500 children from low-income homes to help turn “no” into “yes.”

Since 2015, Keene Housing Kids Collaborative has provided activities with over 40 community partnerships like the YMCA, dance studios and youth sports programs. The organization helps kids access these experiences without any stigma or cost.

What makes Keene Housing Kids Collaborative distinctive is that it’s the only community-based organization providing children who are in Keene Housing, Housing Choice voucher holders and select Southwestern Community Service (CitySide, Keene Highlands and Swanzey Township) households with opportunities they would miss because of expenses. The organization provides opportunities to build the foundation for successful adulthood.

Meehan created the program backed by findings from The Social Genome Project from The Brookings Institute. Meehan and Keene Housing Kids Collaborative worked with study data to provide diverse opportunities educationally and socially to children.

Meehan said he hasn’t heard of any program similar to Keene Housing Kids Collaborative in New Hampshire. “What we’ve always hoped for the Kids Collab is that we are building something that is … replicable. So, in other words, other communities can see those successes and see the effectiveness of the interventions and approach to the work, and they can do it too.”

Since 2015, Keene Housing Kids Collaborative has reached over 1,500 households in Keene and Swanzey to help kids participate in more than 3,600 activities, resulting in over 100,000 activity hours.

“There are nearly 600 children that live in the households that we serve, from birth to 17 year olds, so the challenging piece is to have enough funds to provide access to a diverse range of youth programs for all of these kids and give them the opportunities and experiences that will give them the tools to succeed,” the collaborative’s executive director, Sally Malay, said.

Meeghan Somerset and Talee Messenger are advanced public relations students at Keene State College who worked with Keene Housing Kids Collaborative for the Spring 2022 semester. The Collaborative will be participating in NH Gives, an annual, statewide, 24-hour online fundraiser for nonprofits, sponsored by the NH Center for Nonprofits, to be held from 5 p.m. June 7 to 5 p.m. June 8.