How APAH’s Resident Services Team Supports our Communities

Today, over 4,000 people call APAH properties home, a number that continues to grow as APAH builds or acquires more affordable homes to meet our region’s tremendous need.  For every household, APAH is committed to providing services, programs, and relationships to connect residents with the necessary tools and opportunities to dictate their own futures. As APAH’s construction and acquisition expands at a rapid pace, our growing Resident Services Team is working hard to keep up.

With input from residents, APAH’s Resident Services staff design programs and activities to help address resident-identified challenges and barriers. Typically, services focus on one of four pillars: workforce development; family and financial stability; educational support and enrichment; and health and wellness.

Through the pandemic, the priorities have been on housing stability and food security.  Thanks to the efforts of the Resident Services Team, in collaboration with our property manager, S.L. Nusbaum, nearly 400 households have been helped to access more than $3 million in rent relief, creating a pathway to economic recovery. With the lifting of the federal eviction moratorium, APAH staff are working doubling hard to make sure that our residents are aware and assured that APAH voluntarily extended our eviction moratorium through December 31, 2021 for all of our affordable properties.

Beyond these core areas of focus, the team is entrepreneurial and agile. This past spring APAH hosted two pop-up vaccine clinics to address inequity in vaccination rates in our community – 130 APAH residents received a vaccine. At food distributions and other events, the team along with program partners and volunteers signed residents up for vaccinations, helped people register to vote, and connected youth with activities to combat the boredom and learning loss of the pandemic.

To meet these growing needs, APAH is rapidly expanding its Resident Services Team. Director of Resident Services Marquan Jackson, who joined APAH in April 2021, recognized that more staff were critical to be “on site, and in relationship” with our families.  APAH added three Resident Services Coordinators, Cecilia Gonzalez and Josue Amaya, who both joined APAH in the spring of 2021, and Erin Brown who joined APAH this month. These new staff join the dedicated, existing team, of three Resident Services Managers: Venus Burgess, who manages Adult Health and Wellness and Senior Support; Roxana Hernandez, Housing Stability and Economic Mobility; Jessica Stuart; special projects, and Resident Service Coordinator Ana Hidalgo, who joined the team in 2020.

But the growth is not finished! APAH is continuing to expand its capacity to support our residents.  We are currently seeking a Resident Services Manager with a focus on Children, Youth, and Families, an additional Resident Services Coordinator, and a Volunteer Coordinator.

Thanks to our growing team, APAH residents always know that the Resident Services Team is only a phone call away.

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Partnerships to Create Change

Together, our Resident Services Team uses a collaborative model to partner with organizations like AFAC, Doorways, Aspire! Afterschool Learning, Virginia Cooperative Extension and so many more to deliver asset-building programs to increase family, educational, and/or financial stability. Although most programs were on hold due to COVID, our resident services team holds programming in community spaces across the portfolio under all pillars.  Commonly held past programs include:

• AFAC and other food distributions (Continued during the pandemic)
• Children’s programming (Read Alouds, Story Hours, Girls on the Run)
• Computer literacy classes
• Cooking classes and demonstrations
• Information sessions (Community programs, topic specific)
• Financial/Money Management Classes
• Fitness programs (Yoga, Zumba)
• Senior specific programs
• Social events