With the help of Fr. Pat Sullivan of St. Anthony of Padua parish in Westwood, Jan Marie Bell organized a group of volunteers in 1987. With a strong desire to help neighbors help themselves, Jan set out to connect her community while also revitalizing it.With Fr. Pat preparing for retirement, Fr. Joseph Sullivan came to St. Anthony’s within the next few months and wasted no time getting this volunteer organization up and running. He was responsible for acquiring the first major grant funding and for obtaining the org’s IRS 501(c)(3) nonprofit tax-exempt status in 1988. With a continued focus on improving the communities in which they lived, Fr. Joe was also responsible for naming the organization Southwest Improvement Council (SWIC).

Neighborhood Improvement Teams were organized as a result of surveys that matched community needs with individuals who had the skills to address those needs. It wasn’t long before the Teams earned nicknames: “Earth Angels”, “Urban Gleaners”, “Graffiti Busters” and “Block Captains”, to name a few. Neighbors were eager to help each other and improve their community.

In just a few short years, SWIC saw a need to not only clean-up its neighborhoods, but to make housing affordable to its predominantly low-income community. Forming a partner nonprofit, Southwest Neighborhood Housing Corporation (SWNHC), SWIC set out to acquire vacant homes, rehab them and sell them at an affordable price. The organization also began developing and managing affordable rental properties.

In 1992 SWIC leased and moved into the Westwood Community Center, where it managed all activities, programs and sporting events for the City of Denver. It was during this time that SWIC also developed a valuable partnership with Volunteers of America (VOA) and began providing a hot lunch Monday through Friday at the Center for neighborhood older adults, age 60+.

With a continued desire to make home ownership possible and sustainable in southwest Denver, SWIC became a US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Approved Agency and began offering housing counseling services in 2004. While Home Buyer Education was another HUD offering, SWIC didn’t add the curriculum to its Housing Counseling program until 2017. In 2019, SWIC’s counseling team member become a Certified Housing Counselor to meet HUD certification requirements.

Founder Jan Marie Belle retired in 2018, but SWIC continued to call Westwood home until February, of 2023, when it purchased a property at 5045 W 1st Avenue in Denver. Located in West Barnum, approximately two miles northwest of Westwood Community Center, SWIC remains deeply embedded in the communities it has always served.

While SWIC is more than proud of the fact that it survived the COVID-19 pandemic, organization officials are prouder of the way it evolved and adapted over the past 35 years. SWIC is certainly not what it was in those early years – but then, the neighborhoods it serves are far from what they were back then. Changing demographics have presented opportunities for SWIC to expand on the services it provides to a rapidly growing older adult population, while the troubled state of the housing market has made it more important than ever for the organization to continue its work to help individuals realize their dream of owning a home.

An organization that was formed to improve the quality of life in southwest Denver, SWIC’s strength lies in its ability to adapt and evolve to serve the most vulnerable and support its neighbors with their current and most prevalent needs at any given time. SWIC also partners with like-minded community nonprofits and agencies to fill gaps in services and address inequities across the southwest Denver community. Jan Belle’s initial dream of connecting her community lives on today in all that SWIC does and will continue to do long into the future.