Agenda

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D.3

To:	Contra Costa County Housing Authority Board of Commissioners
From:	Joseph Villarreal, Housing Authority
Date:	November 10, 2015

Contra

Costa

County

Subject:

Reading Programs Offered by the Housing Authority

Action of Board On: 11/10/2015

APPROVED AS RECOMMENDED

OTHER

Clerks Notes:

VOTE OF SUPERVISORS

AYE:

John Gioia, Commissioner
Candace Andersen, Commissioner
Mary N. Piepho, Commissioner
Karen Mitchoff, Commissioner
Federal D. Glover, Commissioner

ABSENT:

Fay Nathaniel, Commissioner

Contact:

925-957-8028

I hereby certify that this is a true and correct copy of an action taken and entered on the minutes of the Board of Supervisors on the date shown.
ATTESTED: November 10, 2015
,

BY:	, Deputy

RECOMMENDATIONS

CONSIDER report on the reading programs offered by the Housing Authority and its partners at several housing developments.

BACKGROUND

The Housing Authority (HACCC) has begun to invest its own resources and to partner with outside agencies, including the County Library System, to develop early reading programs at several of its public housing developments. Over the course of the next few years, the goal is to establish mini-libraries at every public housing site that has an office, and to make books available to children of Section 8 families who come in for office appointments.

BACKGROUND (CONT'D)

In April of this year, HACCC partnered with Grace Worship Center of the East Bay and REading ADvantage of Brentwood to open mini-libraries and offer reading programs at the El Pueblo public housing development in Pittsburg and also at the DeAnza Gardens tax credit property in Bay Point. HACCC plans to open mini-libraries at Los Arboles in Oakley, Alhambra Terrace in Martinez, and Bayo Vista in Rodeo in early to mid-2016.

HACCC is also part of the national and Bay Area Campaign for Grade Level Reading. The Campaign focuses on an important predictor of school success and high school graduation—grade-level reading by the end of third grade. As part of the campaign, HACCC received a $10,000 grant from the 50 Fund, the legacy fund of the Super Bowl Host Committee, to finance HACCC's literacy efforts over the summer and continuing still.

Finally, HACCC has also been helping public housing families with children under age 5 to register with Dolly Parton's Imagination Library. Launched in 1995, Dolly Parton's Imagination Library mails a high quality, age-appropriate book each month to registered families. The program helps insure that every child can have books, regardless of their family’s income. Dolly’s Imagination Library has gone from just a few dozen books to over 60,000,000 books mailed to children in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. Currently over 750,000 children receive books each month and independent reports have shown Dolly Parton's Imagination Library drastically improves early childhood literacy for children enrolled in the program.

Beth Campbell, HACCC's Director of Asset Management, will give an oral presentation about the agency's literacy efforts. Attached is a recent article from the Contra Costa Times about HACCC's first two mini-libraries.

VOTE OF SUPERVISORS

RECOMMENDATIONS

BACKGROUND

BACKGROUND (CONT'D)

FISCAL IMPACT

CONSEQUENCE OF NEGATIVE ACTION

CLERK'S ADDENDUM