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Dear ConnectHome Community Champion,
National Digital Inclusion Week may be ending, but we are just getting started!
We are proud to celebrate your hard work and achievements to narrow the digital divide in your community.
Today, we highlight the an essential digital inclusion component: Building Partnerships.
- Creating
impact by engaging your residents is an
essential part of ConnectHome's model, and it is featured prominently in the
ConnectHome Playbook (Playbook 2: Building Partnerships). Check out and share
this great resource with your community and partners!
- As just one great example of your impact around the country, you can learn more about how Cleveland and Atlanta's ConnectHome initiatives are changing lives in their community.
- This work is only possible thanks to all of our communities, partners, and stakeholders. Today, we thank our partners EveryoneOn and US Ignite for their contributions to the success of ConnectHome.
Please share your National Digital Inclusion Week activities and stories with us at ConnectHome@hud.gov. We look forward to sharing more of your successes throughout this week, and beyond.
Thank you for all that you do!
—The ConnectHome Team
Digital Inclusion Week is a unique opportunity to shine a spotlight on the importance of your ConnectHome efforts while garnering attention and attracting additional resources.
Here are today's events (Google Doc) happening in ConnectHome communities across the country (Google Map):
- Kansas City: Equity and Infrastructure: A discussion of digital inclusion in KC
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Austin: Digital Inclusion Symposium
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San Antonio: First Digital Inclusion Alliance Meeting
To celebrate Digital Inclusion Week, you can host a variety of activities such as an open house, a device donation drive, or a volunteer event to thank volunteers. You can also invite local media and use the week’s celebration to reach out to existing and potential partners.
 The ConnectHome Playbook builds upon your best practices, lessons learned, and insights from the 28 ConnectHome communities. The Playbook offers step-by-step strategies for narrowing the digital divide in any community, nationwide.
Digital Inclusion success requires Building Partnerships, featured in Playbook 2.
Check out and share the Playbook with your community, partners, and those who are interested in launching digital inclusion efforts nationwide!
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Celebrating Your Impact
Cleveland
 Yesterday the Cuyahoga
Metropolitan Housing Authority in Ohio unveiled the nation’s first FCC-defined wireless broadband network in public housing. They worked with
DigitalC, a Cleveland-based nonprofit organization, to build a network that
will provide free, high-speed Internet connections to the 156 residents of the
Cedar Extension High-Rise building.
These senior residents also will receive digital literacy training and a free refurbished desktop computer,
completing the three-legged stool of digital inclusion. This new access will
allow formerly-isolated seniors to connect with friends and family and conduct online banking, shopping, and health research from the comfort of their homes.
“I'm thrilled for both Cedar and Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority!" says Cedar resident Terrri Jones. "It's an opportunity of a lifetime. We thank all of the partners and I'm
honored to be a part of this history.”
Congratulations to Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority and
DigitalC for their great work! We are proud to showcase your work
and to have you as part of the ConnectHome family.
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Atlanta
During a local event for Digital Inclusion Week, Atlanta resident Canveta Burke proudly shared how
ConnectHome has positively impacted her family.
Thanks to Atlanta's ConnectHome initiative, Canveta now has a digital device and in-home Internet access to support her children's education.
Using the Atlanta Public Schools “My Backpack” application, Ms. Burke can now research and secure free educational support, as well as review highlighted subjects with her children. As a result of these efforts, her youngest son shed his Individual Education Plan and is now an honor roll student.
ConnectHome also helped her oldest son complete
homework and school projects. As a result of his success, he was awarded an academic scholarship to college.
Special
thanks to the Atlanta Housing Authority and the City of Atlanta for helping
this family improve their lives and connect to opportunities!
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Congratulations to Philadelphia and T-Mobile
 Earlier this year, the Philadelphia Housing Authority announced a partnership with ConnectHome National Internet Service Provider Stakeholder T-Mobile to provide 4,500 public housing families and students with free tablets and access to T-Mobile's high-speed 4G LTE network.
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Recognizing ConnectHome Communities!
Today we want to recognize three of our ConnectHome sites who were recently recognized for their digital inclusion efforts. Boston, New York, and Kansas City were announced winners of the 2017 Digital Inclusion Leadership Awards sponsored by Next Century Cities and Google Fiber:
- Boston was named a "Leader in Digital Inclusion Best Practices"
- Kansas City and New York were recognized for "Most Promisng New Plan"
Congratulations to these deserving ConnectHome communities!
Thanking our ConnectHome Partners:
On behalf of thousands of HUD-assisted families, thank you to all of ConnectHome's stakeholders that provide affordable high-speed Internet, computers and tablets, and digital literacy training, in addition to the program support and technical assistance provided by HUD's partners EveryoneOn and US Ignite.
Our partners are an essential part of ConnectHome, providing a wealth of on-the-ground knowledge, guidance, and support for our pilot communities, as well as working with our many national and local stakeholders to better serve HUD-assisted residents. Thank you to the hardworking teams at EveryoneOn and US Ignite for making ConnectHome possible.
The success of ConnectHome is due to the communities that have taken up this challenging and rewarding work and is made possible thanks to working with other local and national stakeholders dedicated to digital inclusion, and we thank them all for being an essential part of narrowing the digital divide in HUD-funded communities nationwide!
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