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The Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP) and its partners
within DOL, the Veterans Employment and Training Service (VETS) and the
Employment and Training Administration (ETA), in cooperation with the
Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), funded on September 29,
2003, for a potential five year effort, projects to increase and improve
employment opportunities for chronically homeless individuals with disabilities
through a local partnership with HUD housing providers. The goal of the DOL
cooperative agreements is to enable persons who are chronically homeless to
achieve employment and self-sufficiency, thereby preventing unnecessary
institutional placements. The DOL awards to the communities listed below are
supplemented by parallel HUD permanent housing grants. These demonstration
grants will begin or expand the delivery and implementation of “customized
employment” strategies for homeless individuals with disabilities so that
they may live, work, and fully participate in their communities.
Chronic Homelessness Project Sites
Portland, Oregon Worksystems, Inc. will organize
a coalition of 17 local organizations, including faith based organizations,
from the housing, disability, employment, employer and veteran communities, to
coordinate permanent housing services with customized employment services in an
effort to end the cycle of chronic homelessness for individuals within the
Portland community. The key operational component of this project will be the
Community Services Team (CST), which will use a strength-based assessment and
treatment plans and motivational interviewing to engage individuals in
self-determined service planning. The CST will deliver a full array of services
in a facilitative manner, eliminating obstacles. Customized employment
strategies such as job carving, micro-enterprise development, individual
development accounts (ITA’s) and peer mentors will be the hallmarks of
this effort.
Contact:
Clover Moe
Worksystems, Inc.
711 Alder Street, Suite
200
Portland, OR 97205
cmoe@worksystems.org
Boston, Massachusetts The Boston Private
Industry Council will organize a coalition of local organizations from the
housing, disability, employment, employer and veteran communities in a combined
effort to coordinate permanent housing services with customized employment
services so as to end the cycle of chronic homelessness for individuals within
the Boston community. Through an extensive collaboration, the project will
create a blend of housing and employment services that will be presented in a
seamless and coordinated fashion, providing ease of access to consumers. The
integration of housing and support services with customized employment services
will help program participants to move more effectively towards
self-sufficiency. The project will build a continuum of employment services.
This effort will increase connections and capabilities of the One-Stop Career
Centers and of other service systems to serve persons with disabilities who are
chronically homeless.
Contact:
Dennis Rogers
Boston Private Industry Council
2 Oliver
Street
Boston, MA 02109
dennis.rogers@bostonpic.org
San Francisco, California Under the leadership
of the Private Industry Council of San Francisco, Inc., this award will help
the community implement the concept of offering “vocationalized”
housing to a representative number of targeted individuals, in order to begin
to create a culture of work with the hope of ending the cycle of chronic
homelessness for individuals within the San Francisco community by offering new
strategies for servicing this rapidly growing population. This effort will seek
to better combine and coordinate the multiple services and agencies that
deliver vocationalized housing in an effort to improve both the involvement of
the area’s workforce development system, including the area One-Stop
Career Centers, and the employment options for the chronically homeless.
Contact:
Zelda Saeli
Private Industry Council of San Francisco,
Inc.
745 Franklin Street. Suite 200
San Francisco, CA 94102
zsaeli@picsf.org
Indianapolis, Indiana Under this award, the
Indianapolis Private Industry Council, Inc. will create a new “System of
Care” approach designed to combine and coordinate the various service
delivery partners, including in the employment and housing areas, in a way
which offers the consumer no wrong doors for entry into the system. This
approach will also organize a process that includes housing developers and
employers as direct participants with service providers, consumers and
community members to design, implement, manage and fund individual plans of
care that support sustainable living with full participation in community life,
including through employment.
Contact:
Carolyn Brown
Indianapolis Private Industry Council, Inc.
151 North Delaware Street, Suite 1600
Indianapolis, IN 46204
cbrown@ipic.org
Los Angeles, California Under the leadership of
the Workforce Development Division of the Community Development Department,
City of Los Angeles, ten Los Angeles agencies representing the public and
private, community-based and faith-based sectors have joined together to better
integrate the permanent housing, mental health and other workforce development
programs serving persons with disabilities who are both chronically homeless
and mentally ill. All partners are committed to improving and enhancing the
coordination of activities among agencies that operate emergency shelters,
provide support services to the homeless, offer mental health and substance
abuse treatment programs, provide permanent, supportive, affordable housing and
develop employment opportunities. Customized employment services will be
provided and coordinated with housing and other needed services in order to
break the cycle of chronic homelessness.
Contact:
Jaime Pacheco-Orozco
City Of Los Angeles Workforce Investment
Board
215 W. Sixth Street, 10th Floor
Los Angeles, CA 90014
(213)847-1747
jpacheco@cdd.lacity.org |
