Koreena Malone, president of the Oak Creek Tenants Association, helped save affordable housing in Oak Creek Cillage by crafting a cohesive agreement on proposed redevelopment in partnership with the Bouldin Creek Neighborhood Association, the tenants association, Travis Heights Elementary School, the developer and Austin Interfaith.  ’I strongly believe that the redevelopment of Oak Creek Village won’t just lead us to a better community but a model for the city of Austin,’ Malone said. 

The Oak Creek Village complex, located at 2324 Wilson St., has 173 units that qualify as affordable housing. According to city documents, the developer is planning to keep all of the affordable housing units in the complex and build up to 313 new market-rate units…The developer also entered into an agreement … to provide on-site, affordable housing for 35 years. Said Kurt Cadena-Mitchell, an Austin resident and leader of Austin Interfaith,… ‘It will lead to a more livable neighborhood and will lead to a more livable Austin.’”

As Austin Becomes More Expensive, Some Fight to Keep It Affordable, Austin American Statesman [pdf]

For One Austin School, Funding Hangs on Affordable Housing, KUT

Oak Creek Village Strikes a New Deal, Austin Chronicle

Oak Creek Village Redevelopment Approved by Austin City Council, Community Impact News

Exiled From Main Street, Austin Chronicle

Video Testimony of Leaders at City Hall, Austin City Council Recorded Session

Reverend John Elford of the University United Methodist Church asserts that politics and faith do mix when it comes to social justice.  In an editorial for the Austin American Statesman he reveals that "A couple of years ago, with the help of Austin Interfaith, we had several meetings with folks who are homeless. We listened to their concerns about life on the streets. I vividly recall one meeting..."  He goes on to describe how congregations from Central Austin came together to support the recent passage of the affordable housing bond.

Read More Here, Austin American Statesman [pdf]

Austin Housing Bond Heads Towards Approval, Austin American Statesman

"Austin Interfaith leaders mobilized members to show up en masse to city budget hearings to plug these programs, meet with council members and bombard council offices with calls and emails in the days leading up to the final budget vote.

The nonprofit was elated that council members agreed to spend money on all of Austin Interfaith’s priorities, totaling $2.4 million.

Austin Interfaith and the parks coalition “were effective because they were very diverse, broad-based groups that had a clear message: that as a world-class city, we should be able to fund some of these critical needs better,” City Council Member Kathie Tovo said."

Organized Groups Won the Day in Austin Budget Vote, Austin American Statesman

"The Austin City Council has adopted its budget for the next fiscal year. For the first time in more than a decade, the council lowered Austin’s tax rate, [putting] the budget for next fiscal year just under $800 million. It is money that will bolster five initiatives Reverend Sandy Jones and Austin Interfaith advocated for. Jones is especially grateful for an additional $350,000 that will restart after-school programs... They're programs that were slashed during the recession and are just now being restored. "They do listen, and they do trust us with the ideas that we bring to them," Jones said. "It showed that they care about our youth. They care about the instruction of the youth in our community."

"Central Health is building a 70,000-square foot facility called the Southeast Health and Wellness Center. Slated to open in fall 2014, the center will cost Travis County taxpayers about $8 million. It will have exercise classes and nutrition counseling, aimed at combating some of the area’s biggest health challenges.  But one of its strongest critics is Ofelia Zapata..."

[Photo Credit: Felipa Rodriguez for KUT News]

A Tipping Point for Healthcare in Dove Springs?, KUT News

Public Calls for Health Organization To Be More Open, Austin American Statesman (08/07/13)

"The Launchpad Fund, which gave nonprofits $10 million starting in the 2010-11 biennium to support career training programs for low-income students, will be replaced by the Texas Innovative Adult Career Education Grant program. The ACE grant program will award about $5 million under a similar model to nonprofits for the next biennium. It will be administered by Austin Community College, which will step into the comptroller's office's current oversight role....

Said Minerva Camarena-Skeith, a representative of Austin Interfaith, the nonprofit that helped found Capital IDEA with business community members and advocates for public funding: “It still gives these job-training programs the opportunity to apply for these $5 million, and also be able to leverage more city and local funds.”

[Photo Credit: Callie Richmond, Texas Tribune]

Job Training  Program Adjusts Amid Funding Cuts, Texas Tribune

Governor Signs Bill: $5 Million for Adult Career Training, Network of Texas IAF Organizations

"Interviews with current and former public officials, real estate experts and citizen activists suggest that Austin has simply lacked the political will to do things differently. “We have very laudable standards on the environment and are willing to go to bat, even to war on those issues,” said Kurt Cadena-Mitchell, a leader with Austin Interfaith, which supports some form of rental registration. “To go to war for the poor, that type of will is not embedded here....”

Why 'Progressive' Austin Failed to Address Substandard Rental Housing, Austin American Statesman

Churches Forgo the Hammer on Housing, USA Today

"The switch at Travis Heights has been in the making for nearly three years.  Austin Interfaith, a coalition of schools, churches and unions, and district labor group Education Austin ...reached out to 100 campuses before they found a partner in Travis Heights willing to become a charter. Their volunteers then went door-to-door, garnering support and hosting school meetings to find out what parents and teachers wanted in a school. They reached 90 percent of the school’s households and got 99 percent support from parents and 97 percent support from staff...."

[Photo Credit: Ralph Barrera, Austin American Statesman]

Switch to Charter Means More Innovation at Travis Heights, Austin American Statesman

How Travis Heights Elementary Could Change Schools in Austin, KUT News

AISD's First Homegrown Charter School Promises Real Life Lessons, KVUE & KHOU

“Texas officials have declined to establish a state-based health insurance marketplace, a major provision of the federal Affordable Care Act. So private organizations are working to educate Texans about coverage options through the federal health insurance exchange, which opens on Oct. 1….The [USHHS] department will also finance at least two “navigators” — organizations intended to guide people through the exchange — per state.

But Jacob Cortes, the lead organizer of the group Austin Interfaith, said that might not be enough. ‘The private sector would have to step up,’ he said.”

Promoting Health Insurance, With No Help From State, New York Times

In a prayer service and press conference organized by Austin Interfaith, Central Texas Bishops and clergy from six religious denominations “pressed Tuesday for reforms centered on keeping families together and allowing unauthorized immigrants to earn legal residency with a path to citizenship….[stating] such principles are key to what they called just and humane immigration reforms.”

Central Texas Religious Leaders: Immigration Change Must be Just, Humane, Austin American Statesman [Printable version]

Lideres de Diversas Iglesias Alzan sus Plegarias por la Reforma Migratoria, Univision 62