Black and Latino men pay a heavy price for the structural inequities they face, such as higher rates of poverty, incarceration, and unemployment. New York City's Young Men's Initiative, a combination of new programs and policy reforms, seeks to mitigate some of the effects of these inequitable conditions on young men of color. The educational component of this initiative, the Expanded Success Initiative (ESI), developed by the New York City Department of Education (DOE), focused specifically on improving college and career readiness among Black and Latino male youth. Over four years, the DOE provided funding and other resources to forty high schools to develop programming in three key domains: college-going culture, youth development, and academics. Schools were given substantial flexibility in how they would implement programming within the three domains. In this short piece, the authors focus on the most common change that schools reported as a result of implementing ESI: improved in-school relationships. They draw upon findings from the Research Alliance for New York City School's evaluation of the initiative to discuss the importance and impact of these relationships.