Shout Out: Eastern Bank Recognizes Will Arvelo
Pictured above from left are Rahn Dorsey, chief impact officer, Eastern Bank Foundation; Quincy Miller, president, Eastern Bank; Will Arvelo, executive director, Cross Roads House; Nancy Stager, president and CEO, Eastern Bank Foundation; Bob Rivers, CEO and chair, Eastern Bank.
For Will Arvelo, who was homeless in the 1980s, finding both short- and long-term solutions to homelessness and poverty is critical.
The executive director of Cross Roads House in Portsmouth was recently recognized by Eastern Bank, which each year honors a cohort of passionate nonprofit leaders and organizations for their commitment and dedication to their work.
Cross Roads House provides emergency and transitional shelter to homeless men, women and children in the Seacoast Area. But it also goes beyond that, meeting with developers and advocating for affordable housing throughout the Seacoast.
“I understand what it’s like to be homeless, and it freezes you from kind of making progress with your own life and thriving,” Arvelo says. “If you don’t have a roof over your head, and if you don’t have food, and you don’t have a support system, then all of that can stop you from having the life that you should be having — a successful life, whatever that means to you.”
While Arvelo advocates for systems that thoughtfully include a wide diversity of people across income levels, he has a clear vision for the New Hampshire that he wants to see.
“I believe that a well-balanced community means a community that makes space for every one of us, regardless of socio- economic status,” he says. “In the Seacoast, we’ve got to work on the housing, because we can’t retain our workers or attract new workers if we have no affordable housing for them.
“If (we) have these balanced communities, we have to really be open to building different kinds of housing that will allow different kinds of people to live in our communities,” Arvelo says. “Otherwise, we become stale. We need a way to change as a community and as a state.”
This article is featured in the winter 2023 issue of 603 Diversity.
603 Diversity’s mission is to educate readers of all backgrounds about the exciting accomplishments and cultural contributions of the state’s diverse communities, as well as the challenges faced and support needed by those communities to continue to grow and thrive in the Granite State.
