History
Nati’s House DBA Neutral Ground has served the City of Santa Ana since 1992, established in 2007 as a 501 C-3 non-profit organization, and has built community trust and earned an impeccable reputation for targeted services in prevention, intervention, and mediation and conflict resolution for students and families residing in Santa Ana.
The health and wellbeing of the Santa Ana community has been an integral component of Neutral Ground’s mission since the beginning. In 1975, at the age of 15, our founder, Nati Alvarado, born and raised in the City of Santa Ana, had become a young father and struggled with involvement in the juvenile justice system. This later impassioned him to help others to avoid the mistakes and heartache that he and his family experienced throughout his youth, and to tackle systemic issues that continue to further marginalize our most vulnerable youth and communities. Neutral Ground is truly an agency that is homegrown and reflective of the heart and human capital of the City.
Nati’s House DBA Neutral Ground has served the City of Santa Ana since 1992, established in 2007 as a 501 C-3 non-profit organization, and has built community trust and earned an impeccable reputation for targeted services in prevention, intervention, and mediation and conflict resolution for students and families residing in Santa Ana.
The health and wellbeing of the Santa Ana community has been an integral component of Neutral Ground’s mission since the beginning. In 1975, at the age of 15, our founder, Nati Alvarado, born and raised in the City of Santa Ana, had become a young father and struggled with involvement in the juvenile justice system. This later impassioned him to help others to avoid the mistakes and heartache that he and his family experienced throughout his youth, and to tackle systemic issues that continue to further marginalize our most vulnerable youth and communities. Neutral Ground is truly an agency that is homegrown and reflective of the heart and human capital of the City.
Mission
Neutral Ground’s mission is to create a healthier, safer Orange County centered on its communities most impacted by gang violence; breaking the cycle of poverty, child abuse, academic failure, and teen pregnancy through restorative practice, youth development, academic support, and the strengthening of meaningful relationships.
Vision
Neutral Ground visualizes Santa Ana and Orange County in all that they can be–where kids get to be kids, where the streets are safe, a City and County that choose to invest in education before incarceration, a City and County home to schools that meet youth where they are and that spearhead the movement to transition traditional punitive approaches to ones that are restorative and healing, and a community in which every individual has the opportunity to thrive.
And beyond the City of Santa Ana and Orange County, we envision a world in which kids are not touched by the justice system, and in which kids are never subjected to circumstances that might corner them into acting in ways that result in this contact or into a forced resiliency. A world in which kids get to be kids.
Neutral Ground’s vision is schools that invest in mental health resources before metal detectors; parks that are safe for the families they were created for; a city that values its youth wholeheartedly and invests in that value through and through. Neutral Ground is working every single day to turn this vision into a reality.