On July 27th, the New York Times published an article on the work of the Newark Now Family Success Center at Bradley Court. The article powerfully captures how Family Success Centers are connecting people to essential services and resources in comprehensive ways.

At 67, Mattie Gordon is still raising children, and she is weary.

When Ms. Gordon was 16, her mother died and she was sent from Georgia to Newark to live with an aunt. Instead of going to 11th grade, she went to work in a laundry. She married young, had seven children in seven years, and by the time she was 29, she and her husband had split, for many reasons, she said, including his drug use. He died long ago.

She is blind in one eye, crippled in one leg, and has lived for the last 20 years in Bradley Court, a public housing project known as a haven for drug dealing and a hot spot for murder. Three of her sons are dead ? two in infancy and one from AIDS. Her only daughter died from breast cancer at 36, leaving two children whom Ms. Gordon has cared for these last 10 years. "I had to," she said, "the father's in jail."

Click here to see the rest of the article on NYTimes.com