The decade-long partnership between Advancing Communities Together and the City of Palmdale 

There is a version of community development that looks good on paper but never quite reaches people. Programs get funded, reports get written, press releases go out and somehow, the people who need help most remain on the outside looking in. Then there is what has been quietly happening in Palmdale, California for over a decade. 

Since 2013, Advancing Communities Together (ACT) and the City of Palmdale have been building something that doesn’t always make the front page but shows up every single day in the lives of real people: a genuine, evolving, multi-layered partnership rooted in a shared belief that no single individual,  government or nonprofit can transform a community alone. 

Their story is about what becomes possible when collaboration isn’t just a talking point, but a practice. 

It Starts With a Shared Vision 

ACT was founded in 2013 by Rossie and Olivia Cherry with a straightforward but ambitious mission: transform the lives of youth and disadvantaged individuals and  communities through academics, work-based learning, pre-apprenticeship training, mentorship, and affordable housing. The program originated in Lancaster and relocated to Palmdale. 

The partnership began with the remolding of City of Palmdale’s Neighborhood house on R-4 and from that birth a long-term collaboration with The City of Palmdale built an aligned mission and service in our community.  The Palmdale Dream Center, one of ACT’s flagship initiatives providing transitional housing for opportunity youth aged 18 to 24 was itself the product of collaborative effort with the city. That’s significant. This partnership wasn’t retrofitted onto existing programs. It was woven into the foundation.  Under ACT’s program young people are trained in construction modalities and utiilze those technical skills to rehab the Palmdale Dream Center.  

The best partnerships don’t begin when one party needs something from the other. They begin when both parties see the same problem and decide to face it together. 

Where Theory Meets Reality

It is easy to agree that homelessness is a problem. It is much harder to do something about it. What ACT and the City of Palmdale have demonstrated over the years is that shared commitment without shared action is just a statement. 

Their collaboration on housing has been concrete and courageous. When the City developed its Homelessness Prevention Plan, ACT wasn’t just consulted, it was contracted as a fieldwork partner to gather on-the-ground data needed to build a strategy grounded in facts. When winter temperatures dropped and unhoused residents needed shelter, ACT opened an emergency winter shelter with 35 beds in partnership with the City and the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. 

When the moment came to address the crisis of interim housing, the City provided a funded through the American Rescue Plan Act and ACT provided it unused land to help  develop Dream Village: a 20-unit crisis housing complex designed as a safe and dignified place of stability and transition for unhoused adults. 

Trust is built through risk. When a city puts real resources behind a community organization’s vision, it signals to the entire community that this work matters. 

Breaking the Chain 

Housing alone doesn’t break cycles of poverty. ACT and the City of Palmdale understood early that stable housing had to be paired with pathways to economic self-sufficiency, and that’s where their workforce development collaboration has been especially powerful. 

Through AV YouthBuild and ACT’s Division of Apprenticeship Standards-approved pre-apprenticeship programs in construction and building trades, opportunity youth and adults, who once had no clear entry point into the workforce have gained real skills, real credentials, real futures, and real employment opportunities. 

“ACT and AV YouthBuild offer young adults the chance to complete their education, receive work skill training, find housing, and break the chain of homelessness, poverty, and uncertainty.” – Palmdale City Councilmember Austin Bishop 

That phrase, “breaking the chain”, is the whole point. When young people in Palmdale get trained, certified, housed, and employed, the ripple effects go far beyond one family. They reach neighborhoods, schools, and the local economy. This is what community transformation actually looks like. 

Showing Up in the Neighborhood

Some of the most meaningful moments in this partnership don’t involve grant dollars or government contracts. They happen on Saturday mornings when City staff, ACT team members, YouthBuild students, and residents show up together to clean a block, plant something, fix something, or simply spend time in a neighborhood that deserves attention. 

The Adopt-a-Block program and Global Youth Service Day events have brought ACT and the City together for exactly this kind of ground-level community care. These aren’t photo opportunities; they are relationship investments. They build trust between institutions and neighborhoods that makes everything else possible. 

The most sustainable collaborations aren’t only about big programs. They’re about consistent presence. Showing up builds credibility that no press release can manufacture.