CwD Annual Report
What Our Annual Report Reminded Me
Every year, City with Dwellings publishes an annual report. On the surface, it’s an opportunity to share what we’ve accomplished over the past twelve months. This year, Andrea Howell, our Director of Community Engagement, and I spent weeks pulling together the data, celebrating milestones, and wrestling with how to best capture what happened in 2025. In the process, I found myself stepping back from the daily rhythm of the work and seeing the bigger picture.
While the challenges facing our community continue to grow, I came away encouraged. The report reminded me what our community can accomplish when people choose compassion, generosity, and shared responsibility. It also reminded me that some of our greatest successes don’t always look dramatic.
Success doesn’t always make the headlines.
Annual reports are full of numbers. Ours is no different.
In 2025, neighbors visited our Community First Center nearly 10,000 times. We answered more than 2,100 calls from people looking for help. We connected with 236 neighbors living outside. We helped over 130 households avoid homelessness through emergency financial assistance averaging just $400, and we ended the year walking alongside 54 neighbors in supportive housing. Hundreds of volunteers gave their time, talents, and hearts to this work.
And every one of those numbers represents a neighbor.
- A parent who didn’t have to tell their children they were losing their home.
- Someone who finally replaced an ID or birth certificate after years without one.
- A neighbor whose foot received care before a small medical issue became an emergency.
- Someone who signed a lease after months of gathering documents and waiting for an opportunity.
- A volunteer who discovered that serving a neighbor changed them, too.
Those moments rarely make the evening news, but they’re exactly the kind of victories that strengthen a community.
Prevention changes everything.
One page in the report stopped me in my tracks: In 2025, our neighbors requested more than $325,000 in emergency financial assistance. We were able to provide just over $54,000.
I’m grateful for every family we were able to help. I’m also convinced we can do more.
We see it every week. A relatively small amount of assistance can keep a family housed, prevent an eviction, restore utilities, or help someone reunite safely with family. That’s why we’ve made expanding our Community Prevention & Housing Stability Fund one of our highest priorities. We know that helping people stay housed is almost always less costly, and far less traumatic, than helping them recover after they’ve lost their housing.
We’re building something that lasts.
The report also reminded me that City with Dwellings has grown into something bigger than a collection of programs.
Every day, we bring together neighbors, churches, healthcare providers, landlords, volunteers, nonprofits, and government partners around a common purpose: helping people move toward housing stability with dignity. We’re strengthening the connections that make our community more resilient, and we’re continuing to invest in prevention, supportive housing, landlord engagement, and long-term solutions that create lasting belonging.
This work grows because hundreds of people decide it matters. Every gift, every volunteer hour, every partnership, and every act of encouragement strengthens our ability to walk alongside our neighbors.
One number in the report especially challenged me.
Forty.
That’s how many Foundation Builders, our recurring monthly donors, supported City with Dwellings in 2025.
Recurring gifts provide something every nonprofit needs but few people think about: stability. They allow us to respond to urgent needs, retain great staff, plan for the future, and spend less time worrying about tomorrow’s budget and more time walking alongside our neighbors today.
If you’ve been encouraged by what you’ve read here or by the work City with Dwellings is doing in our community, I’d love to invite you to become a Foundation Builder. Whether it’s $10 a month or $100, your recurring gift helps build the steady foundation that makes all of this possible.
Become a Foundation Builder: https://givebutter.com/CWDFB
And if you’d like to see the full story behind these reflections, I hope you’ll take a few minutes to read our 2025 Annual Report. I’m incredibly grateful for what this community built together, and even more excited about what comes next.
