Esperanza Community Housing Corporation

Founded in 1989 out of a successful community organizing campaign to prevent the displacement and housing vulnerability of tenants, Esperanza has grown to become a national leader in advancing the Promotores de Salud (Community Health Promoters)  Model  in targeting health disparities, improving health, and increasing access to health services for community residents.  Since 1995, Esperanza has trained and mobilized 474 Promotores de Salud, through an intensive 6-month training, to provide culturally accessible primary prevention, health education  and advocacy services to families and children in South Los Angeles.  In 1998, Esperanza began cultivating its Healthy Homes collaborative to address primary prevention of lead poisoning and other housing-based hazards,  in a multi-layered approach to mitigating environmental health hazards in the home.  Recognized as a National Healthy Homes Leader, Esperanza established the Healthy Breathing Program which uses a Healthy Homes approach in its home-visitation model to focus on the identification of asthma triggers, iterative health education, and management of asthma episodes in the home.