Affordable Housing : Nehemiah Homes
IAF-East created and implemented the nation's first Nehemiah housing effort in 1982 in Brooklyn. Since then IAF affiliate East Brooklyn Congregations has built 2,900 new townhouses in formerly blighted areas there, with another 840 homes now in the pre-development stage. Another 1,000 Nehemiah homes have been built in the South Bronx by South Bronx Churches. Nearly 900 new homes have been constructed in Baltimore by Baltimoreans United In Leadership Development, 135 homes in Philadelphia by Philadelphia Interfaith Action, and 147 homes in the District of Columbia by Washington Interfaith Network.

New Smaller, More Effective High Schools
IAF-East affiliates began three of the first newer, smaller, higher quality public high schools in New York more than 10 years ago - sparking a rapidly expanding movement in school revitalization and reform. IAF East affiliates now co-sponsor five of these schools in New York and are considering starting several more.

After-School Programs
IAF-East organizations created the first authority dedicated to the funding and support of after-school programs - the Child First Authority in Baltimore.

Alliance Schools
The Alliance Schools Initiative grew out of relationships between member institutions in the local Texas IAF organizations and the public schools in their neighborhoods. The Texas Network took relational organizing principles into schools in low income communities to engage parents and community in the transformation of their schools to improve student achievement.  The success of the Alliance Schools enabled Texas IAF Network leaders to win the creation of the Investment Capital Fund, a $9 million competitive state grant fund to support restructuring schools in collaboration with community organizations to improve student achievement.

This model of school organizing has been replicated by the IAF organizations throughout the Southwest, and has been widely recognized by both the public and private sector as a successful strategy for community engagement and student achievement.  Most recently, a study by the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University credits Austin Interfaith’s work with area Alliance Schools for increasing student achievement on standardized tests by an average of 15-19%, as well as for improving professional culture and parent involvement at the campuses.  In fact the Annenberg study found that Austin Interfaith’s work with the schools benefited not only those particular campuses, but resulted in substantial new resources for all high poverty, low-performing schools in the district.

The San Antonio Education Partnership
Concerned about high dropout rates, COPS and Metro Alliance in San Antonio worked with businesses, school districts, the city and area universities to provide scholarships to high school students who graduate with a B average and 95% attendance record.  The Education Partnership was designed to agitate the imagination of high school students,  provide them with an incentive to stay in school, and guarantee financial assistance to attend college.  Since 1989 over $14 million has been invested in more than 2,900 area students who have earned college degrees. 

School Reform in Texas
In 1983 the Texas Legislature created a Select Committee on Public Education to lay the groundwork for teacher pay raises and the tax increase required to pay for them.  The Texas IAF Network pushed the Select Committee to include school finance reform on its agenda and then was the critical center to the passage of the comprehensive school reform legislation – House Bill 72.  HB 72 represented the first attempt by the state at school finance equalization, and included the first statewide accountability system.  The Texas IAF Network was credited with doing the pragmatic politics necessary to navigate the bill through the competing interests, and for teaching the state’s political leaders about the importance of school finance.

Living Wage
IAF-East affiliates designed and passed the nation's first living wage bill in Baltimore in 1994 and in New York in 1996. IAF affiliates in Texas, Arizona and elsewhere have successfully pushed for living wage legislation in their communities. Today, living wage bills, sponsored by many organizing groups, exist in nearly 100 communities.

Workforce Development
The Southwest IAF is pioneering the preparation of workers trapped in poverty level jobs, through long-term preparation for high-skill / high-wage jobs and fuller participation in public and economic life through public investments of local, state and federal funds.  Such projects are the results of local organizations bringing together employers, community college administrators and community leaders to create workforce development and education programs for real jobs in high demand occupations.  Inspired by the success of the oldest of these labor market intermediary institutions, Project Quest in San Antonio, leaders have built an additional five projects across the Southwest: Capital IDEA in Austin, Texas; Project ARRIBA in El Paso, Texas; VIDA in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas; JobPath in Tucson, Arizona; and NOVA in Monroe, Louisiana.

Collectively, these institutions have trained and placed nearly 11,000 adults in jobs which pay an average of $39,375 annually with benefits and a career path in the period from 1994 – 2008.

Health and Environmental Cleanup
The IAF East affiliate in Hudson County New Jersey launched a lawsuit against the Honeywell Corporation, which led to a recent ruling that calls for Honeywell to spend as much as $400 million to remove toxic chromium from Jersey City sites. Negotiations are currently underway between IAF affiliate Interfaith Community Organization, Honeywell, and other parties that will lead to one of the largest clean-ups in recent years.

Affordable Health Insurance
In 2006, the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization, an IAF affiliate in Massachusetts, was a leader in a statewide coalition that secured universal healthcare for all Massachusetts citizens. Key components of this legislation include:

• Expansion of the state Medicaid program to cover 27,000 children and 58,000 adults.
• Reinstatement of dental and eyeglass benefits for Medicaid recipients.
• Enrollment of 65,000 low-income adults (below 100% Federal Poverty Line) in comprehensive private health insurance plans with no premiums or deductibles and with minimal co-payments.
• Sliding-scale subsidies for 150,000 low/moderate-income adults (100-300% FPL) to purchase comprehensive private health insurance plans with no deductibles and with minimal co-payments.
• Insurance market reforms that make it easier and cheaper for moderate-income individuals and small businesses to purchase quality health insurance.
• Assessments totaling approximately $100 million/year on businesses that do not provide health insurance.
• $125 million in additional new state spending on health insurance subsidies

Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP)
Following draconian budget cuts to the program in 2003, the Network of Texas IAF Organizations spent the next two legislative sessions working to restore full funding for families earning up to 200% of the poverty line.  In 2007 the bill to expand coverage languished for seven weeks in the Senate Finance Committee after passing the House chamber. The Texas IAF Network leaders polarized with the Lt. Governor at a press conference, calling on him to stop blocking the bill.  After negotiating a compromise eligibility provision that allowed for income verification checks for families between 185% and 200% of the federal poverty threshold, the bill passed, with its author crediting the Texas Network leaders for the success.  This made an additional 127,000 children eligible for health care in Texas.

Expanding Healthcare for Uninsured in Iowa
In a 2004 house meeting campaign, SWIAF affiliate A Mid-Iowa Organizing Strategy (AMOS) began hearing stories about the crushing burden of medical debt.  Through research actions, leaders discovered that insurance companies were negotiating 50 - 60% hospital discounts for their customers which then led to grossly inflated hospital charges.  The only group that paid those inflated charges were the uninsured.  An extensive period of conversation and negotiation with hospital CEOs led to a commitment from all area hospitals to discount their charges to the uninsured at the same rate those with insurance receive, on average a 55% discount.  The two largest hospital systems also committed to expanding their charity care policies, resulting in an additional $3 million in assistance to lower-income patients in the first year alone.

Indigent Health Care
In the summer of 1985, the Texas Legislature approved the historic Indigent Health Care legislation that for the first time made clear that the state had a role in financing social programs for low income residents.  The Texas IAF Network was at the center of the issue throughout the legislative session.  When a filibuster killed the legislation at the end of the session, leaders and their legislative allies confronted Governor Mark White with a call for an immediate special session, lest the momentum be lost.  The legislation passed the special session in just three days, and was much broader than originally anticipated by the political leadership.

Illinois Progress on Health Care
United Power's FamilyCare campaign succeeded in establishing this program in 2002.  Since then, nearly 400,000 additional parents have received coverage due to United Power's efforts.  In 2006, Illinois created All Kids, which now covers approximately 125,000 children.  And, in 2008, United Power and PACT, the young adult effort in the northern Illinois area, won the passage of a young adult option that allows families to extend coverage of their dependent children to their 26th birthday (or 30th birthday if they are veterans).  This will cover as many as 325,000 young adults.  All told, nearly 850,000 Illinois residents have benefited from health care coverage due to the efforts of United Power and IAF.

Blight removal and reconstruction
The lessons of the Nehemiah experience in New York have led IAF affiliates to push for the large-scale removal of blight and reconstruction of intensely devastated sections of Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington. IAF pressure led to the passage of a $295 million blight removal bond issue in Philadelphia and a $100 million dollar bond issue in Washington. A similar anti-blight bond issue is now being considered in Baltimore. The systematic removal of blight, preparation of large sites, and reduction of bureaucratic obstacles is seen by IAF affiliates as the only way to attract major development of all kinds back to the shrinking cities of the northeast and Midwest and to combat suburban sprawl in an effective and practical manner.

Colonias
The Texas IAF organizations on the border, (i.e. Valley Interfaith, EPISO and the Border Organization), with the sister organizations of the Texas IAF Network, put the issue of infrastructure for colonias on the public agenda in Teas and the nation in the 1980s and 1990s.  Colonias are neighborhoods of homeowners in unincorporated areas that lack infrastructure—especially access to water and wastewater.  Texas IAF Network leaders organized over two decades to build the political power to move governors, senators, elected officials and the voters of Texas to invest over $2 billion to bring water and wastewater and other infrastructure improvements to the colonias along the Texas-Mexico border.

Foreclosure Prevention
In the face of thousands of foreclosures in the San Fernando Valley and South Central Los Angeles, One LA-IAF organized homeowners into negotiations with banks and crafted a unique solution to the complicated situation involving shared sacrifice on the part of homeowners, the banks and the public.  The City of LA and the Society of St. Vincent de Paul invested $2 million into an innovative pilot project, involving loan modifications and “silent second” loans, designed as a demonstration project with the potential to be a model for the nation.  Local leaders secured commitments from commercial banks to reduce principal on bank-held loans in the project areas, and are now in conversation with HUD and Treasury officials.  

The IAF affiliate in Milwaukee, Common Ground, has published an analysis of the way the foreclosure crisis has ravaged sections of that city and is negotiating with several major financial institutions to put in place a plan to refinance and renovate hundreds of homes.

Metro IAF's 10% IS ENOUGH Campaign
On July 22, 2009, 17 IAF affiliates from London, North Carolina, and the metropolitan areas of Chicago, New York, Boston, and Baltimore-Washington launched a campaign to re-instate laws against usury in both the United States and United Kingdom. The campaign is called "10% Is Enough." The 17 affiliates are seeking a 10% cap on interest rates, similar to the caps that once were set by states before Congress and several courts undermined common sense in the financial system in 1980.

The leaders of the 17 affiliates -- under the umbrella name of Metro IAF -- asked the major financial institutions in both countries to revisit the issue of usury and to stop its practice. A new website -- www.10percentisenough.org -- has been set up. Please, visit it to find out more about this effort. Or contact Metro IAF senior organizers Arnie Graf or Mike Gecan.

Fully committed to comprehensive immigration reform, the Southwest IAF organizations have been actively working at federal, state and local levels for more humane conditions for immigrants.  Affiliates organize native-born as well as foreign-born supporters for national reform, educate recent immigrants with financial and know-your-rights toolkits in predominantly-immigrant institutions, and work to support policies which protect immigrants while defeating those which would unfairly penalize them for their status.  California affiliates have successfully changed vehicle impoundment laws in urban municipalities and equipped thousands of individuals with government accepted photo-ID cards; the Arizona network successfully blocked scores of anti-immigrant legislation; affiliates in Iowa have led voter education initiatives on the fiscal and economic impacts of immigration; and Texas organizations are launching civic academies in judicatory participation.  All immigration initiatives are deeply rooted in the faith and democratic teachings of member institutions and seek to connect leaders across race, ethnic and language lines.