Published in 2021, NYCHA’s Sustainability Agenda outlines accomplishments and goals ahead for addressing climate change while creating healthier, safer homes for NYCHA residents. GCF’s expertise and holistic, place-based model is a key part of the agenda’s goal progress by strategically responding across priority areas of wellbeing, economic opportunity, community empowerment, energy and carbon, and resource management, to advance resiliency and prosperity across NYC public housing. 

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GCF’s core partner is the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA). Our partnership with NYCHA began during Earth Week 2010, when we teamed up with the Office of Resident Economic Empowerment and Sustainability (REES) and Sustainability Departments on our first major recruitment campaign. Since then, GCF has recruited exclusively in NYCHA and our partnership has grown to encompass innovative service, training, employment and career pathways related to NYCHA’s sustainability and health agendas.

NextGen NYCHA
Sustainability Agenda

A three-year evaluation conducted by Dr. Nevin Cohen, Associate Professor at the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate School of Public Health, and Research Director of CUNY’s Urban Food Policy Institute, documented and analyzed results from the Farms at NYCHA program 2016-2018. GCF Corps Members actively supported the evaluation through surveys and outreach. The results validate the holistic model employed by GCF, as backbone organization, and partners through Farms at NYCHA.

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GCF was the inaugural workforce partner on NYC Cool Roofs, featured by Cities of Service: “Cool Roofs was first implemented in NYC in 2010 through a collaboration of NYC Service and the NYC Department of Buildings. NYC Service partnered with Community Environmental Center (CEC), which recruited volunteers and worked with Green City Force to coat over one million square feet of rooftops. CEC managed the volunteer process and Green City Force used the initiative as a learning and work opportunity for disadvantaged youth who were preparing for careers in the clean energy economy” (source).

GCF’s Love Where You Live program built on GreeNYC’s estimate, in 2010, that 30% of the city’s climate goals could be achieved through demand-side action, and the recognition that NYCHA residents lack access to information which could prompt them to act. Corps Members, as young residents in training, master the material and become effective and credible messengers to fellow residents while gaining skills and experience relevant to growing fields. Love Where You Live originally focused on light bulb swaps and education with Corps Members going door-to-door and engaging residents in their homes and grew over the years to address NYCHA community resiliency goals more broadly including energy, water and zero waste.

GCF grew out of a bold policy vision for equity and inclusion in a new green economy. The Clean Energy Corps Working Group was housed by Green for All. GCF was founded to bring the ideas of the Clean Energy Corps to life, in particular the service component focused on purposefully connecting young adults in low-income communities of color with investments and mechanisms driving good green jobs. 

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Red Hook was our first farm, a partnership of GCF with Added Value and NYCHA. The model developed at Red Hook is that of a large-scale, raised-bed farm serving NYCHA residents, powered by young adult residents in service and training for careers, with produce distributed to residents in exchange for compost scraps or volunteering at the farm, and serving as a platform for education and engagement around nutrition. The farm’s 2012 construction and our ongoing commitment to Red Hook was the first example of GCF rooting in a community for a significant amount of time. Over the course of 7 years we had 12 cohorts of GCF-Americorps members participate in service, totalling 240 trained members, with 31 from Red Hook.

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Started in 2013 by JobsFirstNYC, the Young Adult Sectoral Employment Project applies sectoral employment strategies to serving young adults who are out of school and out of work and the employers that may hire them. Green City Force anchored a team with Con Edison, Franklin Energy, L+M Development Partners, Inc., C+C Management, and NYCHA REES, preparing young adults from NYCHA to succeed in careers related to the green economy including: energy efficiency and renewables; green construction, building maintenance and operations; green infrastructure, landscaping, horticulture; and food production, community health and education.

Justin Baker (Cohort 17) along with 6 other AmeriCorps members across the country received the prestigious Corps Member of the Year Award in February 2019. His perseverance and dedication to community resiliency and agriculture within NYC made him a standout candidate for this national award.

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