City Heights, a diverse community in San Diego, has enjoyed a renaissance of culture, art, urban renewal, and housing in the past few decades. The lucky residents who live in this enclave have seen their property values increase, as well as crime rates go down. One of the reasons for this communal upturn is because of FaceLift, a local Community HousingWorks that operates in City Heights.
FaceLift is a non-profit organization that has been building, owning, and renovating City Heights properties for affordable housing since 1995. FaceLift is run by local volunteers who select homes that would benefit from renovation and other community outreach initiatives to clean up local neighborhoods. This organization helps provide qualified City Heights’ homeowners and their neighbors exterior home improvements, including paint jobs, landscaping, parkway beautification, and other elements that help beautify a neighborhood. The first FaceLift project took place in the Fairmount Village neighborhood of City Heights. Since the beginning, residents have benefitted from this organization’s efforts to help the community improve by removing graffiti, cleaning up debris-filled alleys and backyards, and painting houses. With local citizens’ help, the volunteers at FaceLift have created a safer environment for City Heights at large. This also contributes to giving residents a renewed pride in their community and hope for a better quality of life. FaceLift has been responsible for painting over 550 homes in 13 neighborhoods, removing over 1,500 tons of trash from City Heights alone.
According to City Heights’ local website, more than 50 percent of the neighborhoods’ residents live below the poverty line. FaceLift seeks to improve the safety, appearance, energy efficiency and sustainability of the selected homes they work on, as well as their surrounding neighborhoods, thereby improving the condition of City Heights housing stock, and securing homeowner stability—given the diverse makeup of the population, this is of utmost importance. If City Heights wants to continue to thrive and enjoy its recent economic turn-around, organizations such as FaceLift are vital players in community revitalization. Though FaceLift projects last the duration of a day or so, they ultimately impact their chosen neighborhoods for years to come; slowly, one house at a time, year by year, City Heights citizens’ circumstances improve thanks to the charity and awareness of FaceLift.
Grade Potential tutors in City Heights have similar concerns for the residents of their community—though they are of the academic variety. Tutors renovate and revitalize the academic skills, work ethic, and direction that struggling students need to see their grades turn around. They take as much pride and joy in their work as the volunteers for FaceLift; what’s better, is that any student in need can benefit from Grade Potential tutors’ work, and do not need to be chosen the way the recipients of FaceLift’s services are twice a year. There really is no reason to delay working with a tutor for anyone living in City Heights.