sports_basketballAnnouncing our 2024 NBA Foundation Grant Award Supporting Youth Experiencing Homelessness: read about this impactful award.
In January 2024, Native Connections applied to the NBA Foundation’s grant program supporting the advancement of educational and career opportunities for Black youth.
We are pleased to announce that The NBA Foundation has awarded NAC $225,000 to support our mission and expand our capacity with two exciting new positions. Please join us in welcoming our new ‘Education, Employment, and Life Skills Specialists’, who will support our youth communities for a duration of 17 months, beginning in July 2024 and continuing through November 2025.
Through the funding awarded by the NBA Foundation, Native American Connections (NAC) will advance the work of our Youth Services Program located at HomeBase facilities in Central Phoenix and Surprise, AZ. HomeBase is an emergency youth housing shelter community for homeless youth that offers counseling, care, and supportive staff at no cost to recipients. Our ‘Education Employment and Life Skills Specialists’ offer classes five days a week to assist youth in completing their educational goals and aid in gaining employment. In addition to this hands-on support, these specialists will help residents create long-term goals designed to provide direction, create stability, and help develop a vision for long-term success.
Currently, NAC operates three service sites for homeless youth: HomeBase Central and HomeBase Surprise, our residential programs for youth ages 18-24, and Saguaro Ki, a transitional housing site for youth with minimal income located on the Central campus. 80% of NAC’s youth are BIPOC; Black, Indigenous, People of Color. The program has served more than 800 homeless youth since NAC began its operations in 2010.
A 2023 report from the Department of Housing and Urban Development recorded Arizona seeing the steepest rise in homeless individuals under age 25 in 2022, giving AZ the seventh-largest population of homeless youth among the states for that year. This award from the NBA Foundation bolsters NAC’s efforts and commitment to end youth homelessness by providing quality health, housing, and development services to our community.
NAC would like to extend a special “Thank you” to the Phoenix Suns/Mercury Foundation to whom we are grateful for supporting our application.
Learn more about NAC's youth Drop-In Centers, HomeBase Emergency Shelter, and Saguaro Ki Transitional Living at www.nativeconnections.org/youth.
Learn more about the NBA Foundation at nbafoundation.nba.com.
Our traditions are the foundation of our organization - explore, learn, and utilize resources available for all.
Get the support you need with health, housing, and community services available at Native American Connections.
Your support changes lives and builds healthy communities. Find ways to get involved.
A "chronically homeless" individual is defined to mean a homeless individual with a disability who lives either in a place not meant for human habitation, a safe haven, or in an emergency shelter or in an institutional care facility if the individual has been living in the facility for fewer than ninety (90) days and had been living in a place not meant for human habitation, a safe haven or in an emergency shelter immediately before entering the institutional care facility. In order to meet the ‘‘chronically homeless’’ definition, the individual also must have been living as described above continuously for at least twelve (12) months or on at least four (4) separate occasions in the last three (3) years, where the combined occasions total a length of time of at least twelve (12) months. Each period separating the occasions must include at least seven (7) nights of living in a situation other than a place not meant for human habitation, in an emergency shelter or in a safe haven.
Federal nondiscrimination laws define a person with a disability to include any (1) individual with a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities; (2) individual with a record of such impairment; or (3) individual who is regarded as having such an impairment. In general, a physical or mental impairment includes, but is not limited to, examples of conditions such as orthopedic, visual, speech and hearing impairments, cerebral palsy, autism, epilepsy, muscular dystrophy, multiple sclerosis, cancer, heart disease, diabetes, Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), developmental disabilities, mental illness, drug addiction, and alcoholism.