Founded in 1998, the Charlottesville Public Housing Association of Residents (PHAR)’s mission is to educate and empower low-income residents to protect and improve our own communities through collective action. We provide educational and leadership development opportunities for our residents, support for housing redevelopment, and community organizing events across the seven public housing neighborhoods. Each year, PHAR educates, advocates and organizes with close to 1,000 of the lowest income and most vulnerable residents of the community.
Click here to Donate
PHAR’s Leadership and Service Reach: PHAR is the only non-profit in Charlottesville whose Board is 100% reflective of the demographic that we serve, as all our Board leaders are low-income. This year, our Board is also made up 100% of women and is mostly African American. The local residents of public housing are predominantly Black people, many of whom have suffered from structural racism historically and thus racial justice is woven throughout PHAR’s work. We intend to use future support to expand low-income people’s civic involvement, improve residents’ quality of life (including safety) and advocate for the residents’ voice within the redevelopment process. In December 2020, we brought onboard our very first Executive Director in PHAR’s history: Shelby Marie Edwards.
PHAR History: PHAR is the duly recognized and federally mandated representative of public housing residents at the jurisdiction level (see HUD Regulations: 24 CFR Part 964). Our organizational successes include the creation of the Residents’ Bill of Rights for Redevelopment and advocating for Eviction Prevention. We also regularly help to resolve difficulties that residents may have with the housing authority. During the COVID-19 pandemic, PHAR initiated an Emergency Grocery Program to provide regular grocery deliveries, helping the most vulnerable residents to isolate themselves. This program also provided gift cards to all residents to ensure residents have access to food and the knowledge that PHAR supports them during these difficult months.
PHAR Goals and Potential Funding: PHAR is currently seeking funding to assist in our programmatic efforts to educate and empower the residents in the seven main public housing sites in the city of Charlottesville: Crescent Halls, South First Street, Westhaven, Madison Avenue, Michie Drive, Sixth Street, and Riverside. As of right now there are four areas where PHAR could use funding assistance:
1. PHAR Internship Program. PHAR is looking to fund our current and upcoming class of PHAR Interns. This includes PHAR intern stipends, materials for PHAR intern use, program implementation by the PHAR Intern Coordinator and costs for conducting the program. Our interns go on to serve on several boards, including our own. Right now 6 of our 9 Board Members are PHAR Intern graduates.
2. Housing Redevelopment. PHAR is playing a large role in being the residents’ voice for housing redevelopment. You can read about some of our work here and also here. In short, we help to educate residents and hold large institutions, like the housing authority, accountable for following through on their word to provide housing that is safe, housing that is affordable, and housing where the residents have a say.
3. Community Organizing. Our on-going community organizing efforts (which include events such as the Westhaven Community Day) occur at all of our sites. Each year the asks in this area vary depending on the needs of the communities. This past year, for example, during the pandemic we provided groceries to our residents, many of whom were immunocompromised. This year we allocated $16,000 to the program; in the month of January alone, we spent $12,365 in direct costs for the program.
4. General Operating Fund. We intend to use the grant to provide support to all of our programming and our day-to-day costs. This is the area of funding that allows for PHAR to have the most flexibility and our hope is to build this over the next few years.