Neighbors Helping Neighbors

Affordable housing and homelessness

South Bay

Expand existing project, program, or initiative (expanding and continuing ongoing, successful work)

Housing is a human right, yet over 5,000 neighbors in Service Planning Area 8 (SPA 8) are without it. Homelessness is not a personal failure - it’s the result of entrenched economic, racial, and structural injustices. High living costs, stagnant wages, and an underfunded safety net have created conditions where many are left behind. In Los Angeles City Council District 15 (CD15) - from Watts to San Pedro - these inequities are especially visible. In 2024, 5,428 neighbors were counted as unhoused in SPA 8 which includes CD15.
Traditional systems are restricted. While traditional programs exist, their rigid rules and slow processes often fail to meet urgent needs. These systems weren’t built for the complexity, urgency or humanity of the crisis.
Harbor Connects offers a more just, nimble response. We need your support to bring service providers together and directly serve our community in the effort to get and keep people housed.

Harbor Connects moves quickly when traditional service providers can’t. This grant will sustain and expand our three-pronged approach that treats housing emergencies with the urgency they demand: rapid microgrants, strategic convenings, and navigation support that helps neighbors cut through bureaucratic mazes.
Our microgrant program provides flexible, gap-filling aid for the most urgent needs. Up to $2,500 annually per household covers what traditional funding can’t—car repairs to get people to work, housing deposits, or hotel stays that rigid funding streams often ignore. Rooted in trust and strong relationships with frontline providers, we fill critical gaps quickly—often the same day—when systems fail to respond in time.
We see service providers as essential allies, not competitors. Through strategic convenings, we unite organizations, agencies, and community members to break down silos, share resources, and co-create solutions. We amplify collective impact—and build a supportive network of mutual aid and trust.
We make the complex simple. Our wayfinding program guides neighbors and providers through systems, ensuring timely access to the right services—information often inaccessible, or challenging to find, to those most in need.
Together, these efforts form a community-driven, flexible response to housing insecurity rooted in compassion, dignity, and solidarity. Your support empowers us to bridge systemic gaps and fight homelessness with compassion and agility.

Los Angeles County’s Harbor Area will see lasting change as more neighbors gain and maintain stable housing—reflecting compassion, dignity, and opportunity for all. Harbor Connects combats provider burnout and isolation by building strong, equitable partnerships based on mutual respect and shared commitment. By tackling staffing and funding shortages with strategic resource coordination and nimble gap-filling support, we remove barriers that disproportionately impact marginalized communities.
Our wayfinding ensures neighbors access the right services at the right time and connects providers to foster collaboration and resource-sharing, strengthening the entire homelessness support ecosystem. Together, this effort builds a unified, resilient Harbor community. Looking ahead, we will expand with the Neighbors Helping Neighbors volunteer program and launch a CEO convening in San Pedro and Wilmington to deepen collaboration and advance housing justice across the region.