History of Urban Vision

Urban Vision was incorporated in Virginia in January 2004
with the mission to provide residential services at low-income housing complexes. Charles Martin became the Executive Director of Urban Vision and launched headlong into the process of making positive social, economic, and political change at Friendship Court—a Federally subsidized (Section 8) neighborhood in Charlottesville. He was joined by Toya Washington as Program Manager and Drew Sanderford as an intern.

Since its inception, Urban Vision has collaborated with more than 48 different Charlottesville organizations. Some highlights of these partnerships include:

• Adult Education, to help graduate several residents with G.E.D.'s
• FOCUSED after-school programs, partnering with Clark Elementary School (City of Charlottesville) and Woodbrook and Greer Elementary Schools (Albemarle County) to benefit students from low-income neighborhoods.
• The Virginia Employment Commission, to coordinate quarterly job and educational fairs
• The Senior Corps of Retired Executives and the Charlottesville Police Department, for help with data collection and safety

Urban Vision has provided direct services to more than 75% of the 150 housing units at Friendship Court and is hopeful that this number will continue to rise as programmatic successes are passed from resident to resident. In addition in August 2006, Urban Vision began full programming in the Park's Edge community in Albemarle County.

Urban Vision continues to hone its mission and strategies as it benefits from increased experience and rigorous evaluation of data collections and measurements. It also has succeeded in extending some of its programs to include other low-income areas such as the summer of 2005 Youth Camp at South 1st Street (City) and additional FOCUSED programming serving children in the Mallside and Park's Edge communities (County).

Urban Vision maintains its commitment to create and implement sustainable programs that provide economic opportunities, opportunities for lifelong learning and promotes educational equity.