OAKLAND — Tizta and Akram Dallaq dreamed of two things before opening the Dallaq Market in 2014 in East Oakland’s Havenscourt neighborhood: owning their own business, and contributing to the community’s overall health.

They had virtually no business experience, but with guidance from the East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation, they opened a store in the corporation’s Lion Creek Crossings affordable housing development and have since expanded to a second location. They hope to open a third in the coming years, and in an effort to help build a healthier community, they don’t sell tobacco or alcohol.

“I could have opened the store up on my own, but it wouldn’t be the same,” Akram Dallaq said. “They taught me the entire process. … Together we can eliminate these bad areas and open more cleaner environments.”

The help that the East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation provided the Dallaqs is part of its Healthy Havenscourt Collaborative: a partnership of organizations, businesses and residents committed to improving the quality of life for the Havenscourt community, which had a reputation as a high crime area where many residents have poor health.

The long-term initiative started in 2015 by East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation and several partners aims to improve life for residents through a variety of services, from early education programs to infrastructure improvements, said the group’s chief operating officer, Charise Fong. Last year, the group was awarded a $500,000, two-year grant from the Citi Foundation to work as the collaborative’s backbone.

“Our priorities reflect residents’ concerns,” Fong said. “Our overall vision is to improve conditions so families and children can thrive.”

The Havenscourt collaborative and a similar one in West Oakland are the East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation’s “most ambitious community planning and engagement efforts to date,” according to the organization’s website.

The nonprofit has built affordable housing developments in the East Bay for more than 40 years, according to its website. Some of its properties include Swan’s Marketplace in Old Oakland, the Frank G. Mar Apartments near Lake Merritt and the Noble Tower senior housing building.

In 2013, the developer started taking a “healthy neighborhoods” approach, focusing on improving the neighborhoods around their developments.

Havenscourt residents are three times more likely than those in the Oakland hills to be hospitalized because of heart disease and 10 times more likely to be hospitalized due to diabetes, according to Sutter Health and American Cancer Society findings.

The Dallaqs are also residents of Lion Creek Crossings. Before the 567-unit development was finished in 2014, the area was “pretty notorious” for gang-related crime and drug dealing, Fong said.

A development was built in the area in 1964 as “Coliseum Gardens” by the Oakland Housing Authority. Fong said the Oakland Housing Authority in the early 2000s urged the East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation to take it on. The original Coliseum Gardens development was demolished.

Two years into the Healthy Havenscourt Collaborative program, the development has its own Head Start and Supporting Future Growth preschool, after-school and summer programs for children, a computer lab with free internet and literacy classes, and nearly six acres of open park space.

The collaborative also hosts a monthly “Town Marketplace” that features music, a children’s play area and booths from local businesses and entrepreneurs who live in the development.

Some of the collaborative’s top priorities are children’s education and residents’ financial stability, Fong said.

Much of the first year of the collaborative was spent planning, Fong said. The major accomplishments of the second year include developing programs alongside partners to build financial stability for families of young children, providing financial counselors to help parents save for their children’s college tuition and offering early education programs alongside First 5 Alameda County.

“I think this early momentum that joins education and financial partnerships is important,” Fong said. “Being able to join forces around the same community is really critical. It’s a great early marker.”

First 5 senior administrator Carla Keener said the collaborative’s other major accomplishments include coordinating efforts between the partners, continuing to bring in new partners and giving residents a platform to influence it.

Still, she said, there is a lot of work to be done. That’s why the East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation’s “intensive prolonged investment” is important, she said.

“These issues have been talked about for generations,” Keener said. “We’ve done a lot in the past two years, but to address the roots of poverty will take a long time.”

The Dallaqs, who have lived in East Oakland since the 1990s, said they’ve already noticed an improvement.

“When we opened up we were a little scared; we know the area, we’ve lived here,” Tizta Dallaq said. “But now people are much friendlier, and happier. Kids play outside, and we just love it.”