Urban Vision Alliance (UVA), a civic and technology nonprofit, today announced a new initiative to help eliminate street homelessness by building broad, private-public coalitions to develop collaborative, large-scale housing projects with integrated wrap-around services.

Urban Vision Alliance will host a press conference to announce this new coalition on Wednesday, March 2, from 5:00-7:00 p.m. at the office of global architecture and planning firm, Gensler San Francisco. UVA’s growing alliance of 32 businesses, nonprofit organizations, and community leaders will collaborate to support its first partner projects, including multiple projects with DignityMoves and The Salvation Army’s ‘The Way Out’ initiative, which alone, will add up to 1,500 new beds to help address San Francisco’s homeless epidemic.

“At the heart of Urban Vision Alliance is a coalition of inspired people who believe street homelessness can be solved; and that we have the land, capital and expertise to do it,” said Gabriel Baldinucci, CEO of Urban Vision Alliance. “UVA’s focus is to bring these stakeholders together to collaborate in new ways to help our fellow citizens experiencing street homelessness and improve our cities.”

Urban Vision Alliance’s collective impact model and technology platform is designed to help cities, such as San Francisco, more easily form broad alliances to collaborate on cost-effective plans for all housing types such as emergency shelters, interim supportive, permanent supportive, and affordable housing. UVA facilitates partnerships to integrate critical wrap-around services that result in better experiences and improved outcomes for more people at lower costs.

“Urban Vision Alliance is taking a new and innovative approach to addressing this critical issue,” said Scott Wiener, California State Senator. “It is exactly the type of community initiative we need to help achieve the important goal of ending street homelessness.”

Among the first to join Urban Vision Alliance are industry business leaders that specialize in building development from real estate, design, engineering, and construction firms as well as business leaders in consulting, legal, media, and technology such as DCI Engineers, fuseproject, Gensler, Gomez Vazquez International, Goodwin, Langan, Nextdoor, Reuben, Junius & Rose LLP, and Webcor. Each of these partners has offered to provide pro bono and/or discounted services to UVA partner projects, with commitments to date totalling $7.8M.

Also joining Urban Vision Alliance are health and human services providers and other nonprofit organizations such as Back on My Feet, DignityMoves, Miracle Messages, RescueSF, and The Salvation Army (San Francisco and Alameda County).

“Urban Vision Alliance partners have significantly helped us in our goal to redevelop six of our San Francisco properties and increase transitional housing capacity by up to 1,500 new beds, starting with our phase one project at 850 Harrison where we plan to add 400 beds,” said Theo Ellington, Director, Homeless Initiatives and Community Development of The Salvation Army. “We are proud to be a part of this alliance,” added Ellington.

Additional UVA Partners

Bill Dunn Technologies, Care Through Touch Institute, Collective Impact, Craft Product School, Deepblocks, DXLabs, Exeboard, Giant Containers, Idea Czar, Independent Institute, Kit Switch, LifeMoves, MSR Communications, Poverty Stoplight, Saint Francis Homelessness Challenge, Solutions for Change, and UrbanSim.

About Urban Vision Alliance (UVA)
Urban Vision Alliance (UVA) is a San Francisco-based civic and technology nonprofit founded in 2019. The organization is dedicated to eliminating street homelessness by building broad private-public coalitions to cooperate on large-scale citywide plans. To date, UVA is an alliance of 32 organizations and growing, including real estate firms, nonprofits, and corporations such as: Back on My Feet, DCI Engineers, DignityMoves, Gensler, Gomez Vazquez International, Goodwin, Nextdoor, RescueSF, The Salvation Army, and Webcor among others.

For more information visit: www.urbanvisionalliance.org 
Follow Urban Vision Alliance on Instagram: #urbanvisionalliance
Facebook: Urban Vision Alliance
Twitter: @UV_Alliance

Media Contact:
Shannon Atlas 415-203-4363
[email protected]
MSR Communications for Urban Vision Alliance