Crossway Community

ISSUE AREA: PLACE

City: Kensington, MD
Education - Social Development - Public/Private Partnership

Contact:
Kathleen Guinan
Crossway Community, Inc.
3015 Upton Drive
Kensington, MD 20895
(301) 929-2505
kguinan@crossway-community.org

Date Published: October 2006

Crossway community is an initiative created to deal at once with the three main issues facing single-parent families: housing, childcare and education. It seeks to give low-income, single mothers with educational opportunities while at the same time providing them with child-care options. Crossway acts to combine the best aspects of homeless shelters, domestic violence shelters and transitional housing programs combine into an environment that fosters community learning.

In 1990, the plans for the community were created around an abandoned school in Kensington, MD which was given to the initiative by Montgomery County. This model of living provides single family residents with accommodations, childcare and general education. In an arrangement with Montgomery County, the Crossway community would fund the interior and programming of the facility, while the county would facilitate the upkeep of the exterior of the building. A partnership agreement of this nature allows the Crossway community to operate a campus, sports fields, thirty housing units, ten classrooms, and a security system. The financial freedom of this partnership also allows the community to tailor its education programs to each family to whom it provides support.

Aside from offering basic community center programs, such as holding policy forums, hosting civic and religious organizations, and running social events, Crossway community serves up to 1,500 families per year. These families come to Crossway through many channels including alumnae recommendation and social organization referral. Women come to the community and, depending on their willingness to learn and their economic situation, live either off or on campus. Though many families live on campus, Crossway provides educational and care services to over one hundred individuals living off campus.

Crossway community enjoys close relationships with many Montgomery county government departments and organizations. The community works closely with the Montgomery County Housing Opportunities Commission, the Montgomery County Department of Housing and Community Affairs, the Montgomery County Department of Health and Human Services and Montgomery County Public Libraries. In addition to working closely with the public sector, Crossway also collaborates with regional businesses, non-profit organizations (e.g. Child Find, Wheaton Redevelopment), religious institutions, and schools and civic groups throughout the Washington, D.C. area who focus on serving their communities.

The public/private partnerships built by the Crossway Community can be used as a model example of how regional governments can support the creation of innovative and community- serving initiatives.

Resources:

www.crossway-community.org