NELI AT 2017 ILLINOIS MUNICIPAL LEAGUE CONFERENCE
NELI VAZQUEZ ROWLAND ADDRESSES THE 2017 ILLINOIS MUNICIPAL LEAGUE’S 104th ANNUAL CONFERENCE ON REDUCING POVERTY AND ENDING HOMELESSNESS IN YOUR COMMUNITY
Chicago, IL (September 24, 2017) On September 23, 2017, Neli Vazquez Rowland, Co-founder and President of A Safe Haven Foundation, addressed elected officials from across the State of Illinois at the Illinois Municipal League’s 104th Annual Conference in Chicago, Illinois. The conference took place in Chicago at the Hilton Hotel on Michigan Avenue. Vazquez Rowland presented A Safe Haven’s comprehensive model and approach for consistently Reducing Poverty and Ending Homelessness in Your Community. She was joined by James Bassett, A Safe Haven’s long-time Advisory Board Member and former City Manager, who introduced her to an audience of enthusiastic municipal attendees.
The 104th Annual Conference is the premier event for elected officials throughout Illinois and reaches thousands of municipal decision-makers. The conference was attended by over 2,000 municipal attendees comprised of elected officials including municipal mayors, village presidents, clerks, alderman, trustees or councilman, as well as city managers, administrators, department heads and attorneys.
“I’ve been a city manager for over 20 years A Safe Havens Model has impressed me as the most comprehensive approach to solving multi-dimensional challenges around that exist around poverty such as the costs and consequences of the opioid epidemic, crime, social, housing and Economic development at the root level for families, youth or veterans in the most efficient and repeatable ways I have personally ever encountered. The extensive question and answer session following the presentation was a good gauge that indicated City managers and municipal leaders are eager for real and measurable solutions. I was honored to be a part of helping inform my colleagues that A Safe Havens Model can be a resource for them to consider implementing in their communities” James Bassett, Former City Manager and Consultant for Various Cities
“People are yearning for ideas that really work and are productive in terms of ending the cycle of poverty and homelessness. Those in crisis want to get back on their feet, and if we are able to help them get there we don’t have to continually serve the same people over and over again” Neli Vazquez Rowland, Co-Founder and President of A Safe Haven Foundation
During her presentation, Vazquez Rowland shared with the audience how her personal journey of the frustration with a system fraught with fragmented services and gaps in funding led to the creation of the A Safe Haven model. She discussed how social responsibility and social enterprise models can create new sources of funding—a triple bottom line to generating revenue, and how public and private partnerships can be formed to overcome barriers and unlock limitless potential in transforming the lives of tens of thousands of lives trapped in poverty systems. She shared her aspiration to influence a paradigm shift in the way our nation addresses the root causes of poverty by shifting focus on aligning all our resources with solutions driven models.