Mayor's Office for Adult Literacy

Our Initiatives - ARPA Digital Labs

The City of Houston approved the Digital Literacy Equity Project through the Mayor’s Office for Adult Literacy in 2021. This project addresses an issue that existed before the pandemic but was brought to the fore: poor under-resourced communities were ill-prepared to move their education and training efforts to the virtual space. Too many adults lack the digital skills needed to succeed in this economy and were disproportionately impacted by the pandemic.

The overall objective is to make digital technology available in the Complete Communities of Houston by "bringing the technology" to the people. The project has the following activities:

To give 5 computer labs to 5 adult literacy providers in the community along with a mobile technology lab.
To deploy library staff at 5 HPL library branches in targeted neighborhoods to provide digital literacy instruction to adults in areas of high demand.
To hire, train, and deploy two digital navigators and a technology supervisor to help programs build the capacity needed to use educational technology; and,
To expand the Community Technology Kits initiative that makes computers and hot spots available to the community.

LABs installed: