About Our Project:
According to a recent survey, fewer than one in twenty residents in low-income elder-care facilities in northern Illinois, use broadband services despite the demonstrated appeal for staying in touch with distant family, accessing social and government services, and improving quality of life. Connected Living, Inc., in partnership with the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity and the Illinois Low Income Senior Internet Coalition, plans to transform its Connected Living Adoption and Sustainability Program, a longstanding program that ties technology, training, and technical support together in a way uniquely tailored for the senior community. Through both traditional and grassroots awareness efforts, the project plans to engage its 23 targeted senior housing communities to teach the basics of e-mail, Web access, and other practical broadband applications. The project also intends to collaborate with local Workforce Investment Act organizations to help seniors who develop their digital literacy skills to find part time work.
This project is funded through a two-year grant of$4,731,440 from the U.S Department of Commerce’s Broadband Technology Opportunities Program.
Our Mission:
Getting Illinois Low Income Seniors and People with Disabilities Online also proposes to:
- Provide computer skills and broadband training to as many as 4,900 building residents and neighborhood outreach trainees over the life of the project, offering approximately 224,000 training hours focusing on online connectivity, community resources, and education.
- Provide a free computer and subsidized Internet connectivity to each building resident who attends the training programs available at their center and successfully completes an Internet literacy and skills evaluation.
- Provide a refurbished computer to each neighborhood outreach trainee who attends the training programs, successfully completes an Internet literacy and skills evaluation and demonstrates that he/she has obtained a new broadband subscription.
- Engage “Resident Ambassadors” for each housing development to lead seniors through the Internet adoption process, beginning with awareness, through education, training, practice, and competency, and finally to regular use and subscription.
- Engage third party market researchers and academic evaluators to assess the effectiveness of this program and disseminate learnings via a dedicated website, videos and conferences
Project Partners:
- Oak Park Housing Authority
- Blair Minton Associates
- Habilitative Systems, Inc.
- Sankofa Safe Child Initiative
- Kankakee County Housing Authority
- Housing Authority of DeKalb
- Housing Authority of Henry County
- Housing Authority of Joliet
- Grundy County Housing Authority
- Rock Island Housing Authority
- Moline Housing Authority
- Bethel New Life, Inc.
- Senior Lifestyle Corporation
- Rockford Housing Authority
Contact:
Andrew Lowenstein
Connected Living, Inc.
300 Congress Street, Suite 406
Quincy, MA 02169
(617) 594-5727
andrew@connectedliving.com