Blog

On June 30th, Bread for the City wrapped up another exciting fiscal year. Because we were just too busy fighting poverty, working to end racism, growing apples, and cleaning teeth all summer, we’re just getting around to reflecting on our successes now. And since we couldn’t do any of this without your help, we decided to share! Read on to see how your support helped us accomplish so much last year.

So just how great was fiscal year 2016?

Food Program:

In FY16, we saw 15,679 unique food program clients through 75,692 food program visits. This is an increase of nearly 5% in unique clients and over 6% in visits over FY15!

Leonard and Donald taste some greens at our City Orchard retreat in October 2015

Additional successes in FY16 include:

• Thanks to our supporters, we were able to start distributing five days of groceries instead of three.
• We embedded an organizer in the urban agriculture program, who works with clients and staff at City Orchard and on our rooftop gardens.

Clothing Program:

We saw approximately 3,700 visits to the Clothing Room in FY16, and continued to offer internships to PEP graduates.

Social Services:

In FY16, we conducted 22,823 visits in our Social Services departments, including walk-ins, case management, representative payee visits, Pre-Employment Program visits, intakes/re-certification, etc.

At an Amharic HAP informational session in June 2016, we could barely find space for everyone!

Additionally:

• We hired a therapist for the WomenStrong DC program.
• We launched an Amharic-language Housing Access Program, and hired a Spanish-speaking case manager to do Spanish-language HAP.

Medical Clinic:

Our primary care clinic saw 2,621 unique patients through 17,679 patient visits. Plus, our dentist saw 827 patients through 1,796 patient visits – increases of 7% and 3%, respectively, and our behavioral health specialist helped 450 people address their concerns.

Our young friend Max enjoyed his first ever dentist appointment with Dr. Smyles!

Additionally:

• We became a Federally-Qualified Health Center and survived our first HRSA Operational Site Visit.
• Thanks to supporters like you, we hired an ophthalmologist and launched our Vision Care Room! Dr. Rosan has already seen over 250 patients.

Legal Clinic:

In FY16 our attorneys and legal clinic staff conducted 1,806 legal intakes, opened 782 cases, and closed 600 cases.

Additionally:

• With funding from the DC Bar Foundation, we launched a one-year pilot program (including the hire of a new attorney) to help DC residents with the arduous process of getting DC government identification.
• We now have 18 attorneys (including a Fellow and a Covington Loaned Associate).

Advocacy:

This year, we launched an Advocacy Program – the first formal advocacy program that we have ever had. With the promotion of Aja Taylor to Advocacy Director and the hire of four new organizers (along with our existing Community Lawyering Project organizer), this program now has a staff of 6, making Bread for the City one of the largest organizing teams in DC.

Additionally:

• We helped push through City Council a bill funding the Public Housing Fund – a $15M fund to preserve public housing in DC.
• We held monthly affordable housing meetings which had seen huge turnout from clients, neighbors, and concerned community members.

WHEW! I’m tired just reading this. Thank you to all who gave of their time and treasure to make our work possible last year, and let’s make this year another one to remember!