Mile High Connects has received a $1.6 million, two-year grant from the Ford Foundation to help the organization's core nonprofit partners focus on affordable housing, jobs, affordable transit and healthy places.
Mile High Connects is a broad partnership of organizations from the private, public and nonprofit sectors that connects people, through transit, to better opportunities. The organization works collaboratively to leverage resources and inform policy, empowering low-income communities to access good-paying jobs, education and affordable housing.
"The Denver region is at the forefront of innovation in their approach to connecting people and their needs in the community they live," says Lisa Davis, program officer at the Ford Foundation. "Mile High Connects brings together diverse partners to focus on equity, and we see the impact of a grassroots and grasstops collaborative to affect change for low-income communities and communities of color."
As the first national funder to invest in Mile High Connects, the Ford Foundation has supported the collaborative's mission and work since 2011. The latest grant is supported by the Ford Foundation's Connecting People to Opportunity Initiative, which elevates the work of organizations that pursue integrated approaches to housing, land use and environmental planning, public transportation and community infrastructure, and aligned workforce opportunities.
"For many people in low-income communities and communities of color, transportation is a lifeline to greater opportunity," says David Miller, chief executive of The Denver Foundation. "The Ford Foundation's ongoing support of Mile High Connects helps ensure that transit in this region develops in ways that are equitable, smart and a model for the nation."
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