Cornerstones

Together with our community, Cornerstones promotes stability, empowerment, and hope through support, advocacy, and community-building for individuals and families in need. For over five decades, Cornerstones has addressed challenges that threaten families and our region's prosperity, with innovative and impactful programs and partnerships that make a difference. In addition to offering direct services that touch the lives of more than 20,000 individuals each year, Cornerstones understands the importance of advocacy and systems change to support our vision of a community where everyone has access to affordable homes, in healthy and resilient neighborhoods, and where children, youth, and families are thriving. Stability: Cornerstones provides critical support to vulnerable neighbors in times of crisis, offering swift triage for people in need of emergency shelter, food, financial assistance to avert eviction or utilities' shutoffs, and other safety-net services. In fy23, the detrimental effects of our weakened economy, coupled with rising inflation and the end of pandemic era supports placed more low-and-moderate-income families at risk of housing and food insecurity. Emergency shelter and rapid re-housing: during the pandemic, the government provided funding for additional support including emergency food and rental assistance and putting eviction in place. With the end of those supports, fairfax county and Cornerstones have seen a notable rise in the number of unhoused individuals and families in our region. In addition to operating shelter, hypothermia prevention and rapid re-housing programs, Cornerstones has responded to this increased need by supporting homeless families in area motels and working to re-house individuals who took up residence in a homeless encampment. During fy23, ercs programs served 615 program participants, including 53 households with children and 440 single adults. We helped 31 families and 37 individuals were move into homes from our emergency shelter programs. Forty-three individuals moved from unsheltered homelessness to permanent housing.food insecurity/ household assistance and pantry support: Cornerstones supports individuals and families impacted by the high cost of living in our area. For those living paycheck to paycheck, with no liquid savings to fall back on, just one financial crisis can send them looking for help with monthly expenses. During fy23, our assistance services and pantry program (asapp) served nearly 1,900 unique households, benefitting nearly 6,000 individuals who received emergency food, financial assistance, toiletries, and year-round supports an increase of 28% over fy22 service numbers and approaching totals served during the pandemic. Additional support was provided through the cornerstones-reston farmers market's "fresh match" program. This is one of the most successful in Virginia, where Cornerstones matches recipients' snap benefits. In effect, recipients can purchase $2 of fresh produce for every dollar they spend in total this helped recipients purchase nearly $44,000 in fresh, organic, and nutritious food to support their families.

Hope: Cornerstones advocates for policies and systemic changes to reduce poverty and end homelessness and food insecurity. Our advocacy and organizing work begin in our programs, neighborhoods, and schools where information from clients and staff working on the front lines inform our advocacy priorities for local, state and national action. Opportunity neighborhoods: opportunity neighborhoods is a fairfax county-wide effort to tackle inequalities faced by children and youth in disadvantaged areas. Cornerstones facilitates programs in reston and herndon. On initiatives involve collaboration with community leaders, nonprofits, and volunteers to improve connections between schools, neighborhoods, and community services. In fy23, we recruited and trained 16 neighborhood ambassadors who collectively served for 3,000 hours and conducted more 6,000 engagement opportunities. Through these efforts, more than 1,742 residents were introduced to on programs and provided with critical information about cornerstone'Cornerstones's programs and fairfax county resources.education, influence, action: as one of the region's leading nonprofit anchor organization, Cornerstones has gained an authentic understanding of the challenges faced by our neighbors who experience social and racial injustice. In fall of 2022 we brought together 100 community members, experts, and partners to identify key challenges, resulting in separate affinity groups who work together to address disparities in access to affordable housing, children and family resiliency, living-wage jobs and economic security, and systems change to undo racial and social inequity. Cornerstones and its clients participate in other state, regional policy forums, and have hosted non-partisan candidates' forums to give our community the opportunity to meet the candidates and learn about how they will address the priority concerns we identified.cornerstones continues to bring our experience and voice to positions of influence, co-chairing the fairfax county affordable housing advisory council, continuum of care committees for fairfax and loudoun counties, alliance for human services, housing association of nonprofit developers (hand), and serving in leadership roles with the dulles regional and greater reston chambers of commerce.

Empowerment: Cornerstones provides invaluable support for individuals and families long after an immediate crisis is over. Through affordable housing and community care management we empower families with resources to achieve self-sufficiency. Cornerstones provides affordable housing, case management, housing counseling, employment readiness and job training, developmental childcare and out of school time resources. Our community case managers and resident services staff work directly with families who need help, providing information and helping them navigate a range of nonprofit, government, faith-based and community programs who offer additional supports such as esl and financial literacy, us citizenship, homework help, pro bono legal assistance and other supports.quality, affordable rental housing and services: Cornerstones housing corporation (chc) currently owns and manages 104 affordable scattered-site rental homes and apartments dedicated to serving extremely low and low-income households and those leaving homelessness. In fy23, 305 program participants were served, representing 104 households. Sixty-nine households living in our affordable rental units received care management support and services. Chc staff and Cornerstones case managers maintain regular meetings with these families to ensure their successful integration into a participant-based program. Once enrolled, participants will have opportunities to consult with their case managers to establish and pursue personalized goals, which may include securing employment, furthering education, and maintaining stable housing. This comprehensive icm approach aims to empower families to achieve long-term stability and self-sufficiency.new housing development: northern Virginia is one of the most expensive housing markets in the united states. Addressing unmet housing needs has been part of Cornerstones' mission since 1970. In addition to its existing stock of affordable homes, we have 213 units in various stages of development. During fy23, Cornerstones housing corporation began community outreach and engagement as part of the zoning approval process for a 33-unit permanent supportive housing project in fairfax, va. construction is set to begin on a 180-unit project in leesburg, va in early 2025. Our integrated care management strategy at each property will ensure every resident has access to resources and opportunities needed to flourish and feel connected in the new communities.developmental childcare and youth enrichment: Cornerstones laurel learning center provides quality, affordable childcare for infants through school-aged youth from low-income, working families. Laurel offers age-appropriate developmental screening, school readiness, pre- and afterschool academic enrichment, and full-day summer recreational and cultural programs. In fy23, laurel learning center (llc) enrollment increased by 17%, serving 89 students, including children from five families who are currently homeless. The center also provided educational support and teachers for five special education children. Cornerstones kids and parents engage (kape) program offers out-of-school time programs for school-age youth who are at risk of dropping out before graduation, engaging in gang activity, or experiencing teenage pregnancy. In fy23, kape benefited 82 children and youth, providing them with tutoring to help improve math and reading fluency, career education, service-learning, and enrichment activities. Not only did these students receive academic success support, but they also developed critical life skills such as self-awareness, social awareness, self-management, responsible decision-making, and relationship skills. By fostering these connections and building a supportive community, kape is equipping young people with the resilience and confidence they need to build a brighter future for themselves and their communities.connections for hope partnership/community connected sites: the connections for hope partnership (c4hp) was established by Cornerstones as an integrated health and human services campus to address the needs of community members living in a high poverty census tract in the herndon area. Partnership is the foundation of c4hp, with seven nonprofits and fairfax county agencies working collectively to help individuals, families, and neighborhoods access information and resources to meet a wide variety of urgent and ongoing needs. C4hp strategic partners and other providers offer programming in accessible neighborhood locations at c4hp main office and herndon neighborhood resource center across the street. In fy23, c4hp collectively served nearly 9,800 clients and Cornerstones alone helped 240 households access life-sustaining services and programs and networks of support through its delivery of community care management and services navigation. That includes 128 households who were eligible for temporary assistance for needy families (tanf). The neighborhood resource centers received an additional 6,451 inquiries for referrals and other support outside c4hp programs. In fy23, 172 individuals benefited from job training and individualized employment counseling to help them secure higher income or living-wage employment. Sixty-three individuals who participated in the pathways program two or more times obtained employment.