Project SOAR: Breaking the Cycle of Poverty for Residents in Subsidized Housing

Affordable housing and homelessness

East LA South LA City of Los Angeles (select only if your project has a citywide benefit)

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

Maria, a single mother of three living with a Section 8 voucher, called our office in tears—her 17-year-old daughter wanted to attend college and pursue a nursing career but didn't know where to start. Unlike residents in HACLA housing developments who have on-site access to Project SOAR Education Navigators, Maria's family was on their own. This story reflects the reality for 80,928 Section 8 residents across LA with an average family income of just $18,039. While public housing residents receive integrated support services, Section 8 families—scattered across 469 square miles—face isolation from critical college and career resources. Without dedicated support, these families remain trapped in cycles of poverty. Project SOAR seeks to address this issue by providing a dedicated Education Navigator for Section 8 residents to ensure they do not miss out on college advising, career support and a pathway to economic mobility.

Since 2017, Project SOAR has supported the college and career aspirations of residents across HACLA’s 14 public housing sites with tremendous success, as described in Question 9. We prioritize 9th-12th graders, college students and disconnected youth under 25; however, our door is open to any resident with college and career goals. Services include: academic and financial planning, career exploration, college application and financial aid support, scholarship assistance, enrollment guidance, college persistence coaching, transfer planning, resume development, job readiness training, and connections to paid internships and employment opportunities. More than 6000 residents have benefited from the program and 1,092 have received on-going one-one-one support.
Section 8 voucher recipients have caught wind of Project SOAR’s invaluable support. In 2024, we received requests from over 150 Section 8 households. Unfortunately, due to capacity restraints, we weren’t able to serve them. Support from LA2050 will allow Project SOAR to hire a dedicated full-time Education Navigator to provide college and career advising specifically to Section-8 housing residents. Unlike our site-based navigators, this position offers flexibility to travel between SOAR locations closest to Section 8 residents, facilitating appointment scheduling and connecting students and families to additional resources and services.

During the grant period, 6,000 Section 8 housing residents will benefit by receiving information about Project SOAR’s support and services. Of this number, 300 residents will meet one-on-one with the Education Navigator and develop a college and career plan.
In years 2-3, we will expand to serve 10,000 Section 8 families annually. We will continue to partner with HACLA to ensure that we are maximizing every opportunity to reach this target population.
By 2035, we envision a Los Angeles where housing voucher recipients achieve college graduation rates equal to their housed counterparts. This pilot becomes the blueprint for housing authorities nationwide, inspiring policy changes that mandate educational support for all assisted housing residents.