The Urban Village Community Center Association (UVCA), founded in 2003, is dedicated to educating, training, and empowering the low-income residents of Urban Village Apartments and the surrounding community through the provision of community activities and services.  UVCA is comprised, in part, of residents from the tenant association who joined together to preserve the Urban Village Apartment community in the face of growing owner “opt outs” from Section 8 contracts in Washington, D.C.  UVCA works closely with Hubbard Place Apartments, the management of Urban Village Apartments, and Somerset to stabilize and enrich the community and to provide services to the residents.

Urban Village Apartments is a 72-unit garden style apartment community in Columbia Heights. In 2003, Urban Village Tenant Association and Somerset partnered to acquire, preserve the affordable rents and to renovate the property.  The renovations included built a new multi-purpose room, a computer lab, outdoor community space, and new tenant services offices to assist in resident services programming.  A Tenant Services Fund was established as part of the redevelopment of the property, and an on-going commitment of funds from the cash flow of the property assures program continuity.

UVCA partners with Hubbard Place to provide after-school and summer programs for the youth (ages 5-12) at both properties. The after-school program is offered Monday through Friday and offers homework assistance, academic enrichment, arts and crafts, computer literacy, community gardening, and financial literacy workshops through a new partnership with The Financial Literacy Foundation.
Each summer twenty to twenty five youth participate in a six- week summer program featuring academic enrichment activities, arts and crafts, STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education, financial literacy, community gardening, nutrition education, swimming, and weekly field trips.  Field trips include visits U.S. Treasury, the Newseum, the Smithsonian Folk Life Festival, and a Washington National’s baseball game. The summer program aims to engage youth in fun and educational activities in order to prevent summer learning loss.

We seek to educate and empower the community through the following programs:

Hubbard Place | Galen Terrace | Urban Village | Faircliff Plaza West | Faircliff Plaza East | Fort View | Webster Garden