U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Improving Access to Mainstream Services for People Experiencing Chronic Homelessness, Palmer House, Chicago, Illinois, May 20-22, 2003

 

Slide 1:

Ending Long-Term Homelessness

Promoting Homeless Employment: The Mix of Housing and Jobs

John Rio, MA, CRC
Corporation for Supportive Housing

Slide 2:

Is A Bed Enough?

  • Homeless people and tenants of supportive housing want to work.
  • Value on personal responsibility
  • Idleness
  • Therapeutic value of work
  • Stable housing provides a platform for work

Slide 3:

Does It Pay To Establish Employment Services & Supports in Your State Plans?

  • Employment Intervention Demonstration Project (EDIP)
  • Job Training Homeless Demonstration Program (JTHDP)
  • Housing-Based Employment Services

Slide 4:

EIDP Findings

  • People received many more hours of clinical services than vocational services
  • The more vocational services received the better their employment outcomes
  • Overtime, more people worked, their jobs lasted longer while time in-between jobs grew shorter
  • Integrated employment services result in positive work outcomes regardless of personal characteristics

Slide 5:

JTHDP Findings

  • E&T programs can serve a wide spectrum of homeless individuals
  • A wide variety of organizations can successfully operate E&T for homeless individuals
  • Programs need comprehensive assessment and on-going case management
  • E&T programs must offer an array of services, including housing services, and coordinate with other providers
  • Work readiness training and job search assistance are important

Slide 6:

JTHDP Findings

  • Identify those homeless persons most likely to benefit from occupational skills training
  • Housing assistance and long-term follow up assistance needed
  • E&T costs for homeless programs varry
  • Most programs cut services when federal support ended

Slide 7:

Model For Employment and Training Services To Homeless Individuals

This organizational flow chart has as its center case management with two way communication with the following: 1) Housing Services, such as, Emergency Shelter, Transitional and Permanent Housing placement, and Housing Assistance Counseling; 2) Support Services, such as, Transportation, Food Meals, Clothing and Work Equipment, Money Management and Budgeting, Personal Hygiene, Child Care, Health Care, Alcohol and Substance Abuse Treatment and Counseling, and Mental Health Treatment and Counseling; 3) Recruitment and Intake, 4) Assessment and Employability Development and Planning, 5) Occupational Skills Training and On the Job Training, 6) job development, job search assistance and placement services, and 7) Post placement follow-up, support services and training.

The boxes representing job development and post placement services are linked to employment and retention.

A box representing Pretraining such as remedial education, basic skills training, literacy training and work experience if connected to Occupational Skills training, and Job development and fed by Assessment and Employability.

Running alongside this case management structure is the McKinney Act which funds the Department of Labor’s national demonstration grant program’s local projects which are connected to the recruitment and intake function of this chart listing the employment services available to homeless individuals.

Slide 8:

Housing-Based Employment

  • Employment services can be integrated into supportive housing
  • Tenants with substance use disorders are more likely to work more than tenants with mental illness or co-occurring disorders
  • Providing employment services is cost effective

Slide 9:

Role of Job Training & Employment in Supportive Housing

This slide shows two different representations of the role of job training and employment in supportive housing. A circle that has the client on top with housing and support services under it and job programs under support services has a line through it indicating this is not the optimal structure. Instead the next image shows the housing, support services and job programs all equally and directly serving the client.

Slide 10:

Implementing Employment: What services need to be available?

  • Outreach and engagement
  • Standing offer of work
  • Vocational Assessment
  • Job Development
  • Employment Supports
  • Occupational Skills Training

Slide 11:

Rent Based Work Incentives

  • Covers tenants in public housing and housing assisted by
    • Supportive Housing Program (SHP)
    • Housing Opportunities for Persons With AIDS
    • Home Program
    • Housing Choice Vouchers (section 8) Program
  • Mandatory Deductions
  • Earned Income Disregard

Slide 12:

What can clients expect?

  • More people will work
  • Workers will follow their own individual pathways
  • Earnings will increase but most will work jobs between $6/hr and $10/hr in integrated settings
  • Reliance on entitlements will decrease over time
  • People with MI or MI/SA will work part-time more so than those without MI

Slide 13:

Benefits Accrue to Tenants, Government, Society

  • The $2,223 cost per person in the first year was offset by tax contributions and transfer payments
  • Reliance on public entitlements will decrease
  • More people are likely to work if more employment services are available

Slide 14:

Supported Employment Is…

An evidenced based vocational practice offering workers with disabilities and special needs a range of services and support as needed on and off an employers worksite aimed at helping the worker keep their job.

Slide 15:

Supported Employment Is...

  • Worker-centered
  • Work First & aimed at competitive employment
  • An evidenced-based practice
  • Replicable

Slide 16:

Shared Values/Congruent Strategies

  • Supportive Housing
    • Integrated
    • Choice-driven
    • Skills for retention, growth
    • Not contingent upon TX compliance
    • No time limits
    • Flexible, individualized supports
    • Contingency planning
    • Respect changing needs, preferences
  • Supported Employment
    • Integrated
    • Choice-driven
    • Skills for retention, growth
    • Not contingent upon TX compliance
    • No time limits
    • Flexible, individualized supports
    • Contingency planning
    • Respect changing needs, preferences

Slide 17:

Featured Activities in Supported Employment

  • Assessment of worker-employer fit
  • Direct job task teaching or adapting
  • Coordination with other providers
  • Inventiveness is key in rural supported employment services

Slide 18:

Social Enterprises: “Meeting the Market with a Mission”

  • Businesses which affirmatively employ Persons with Disabilities and/or other Disadvantages
  • Achieve Social Change: More Unemployed or Underemployed Persons Get Jobs
  • Achieve Economic Change: More local businesses create greater local economic growth

Slide 19:

Why aren’t more communities helping homeless people & tenants work?

  • Getting the money is hard work
  • Program leaders need technical assistance
  • CBO staff need training & supports
  • Mainstream E&T only includes those most likely to succeed in WIA outcome measures

Slide 20:

Show Me the Money…

  • Contract with State/Local Workforce Investment Board
  • SAMHSA & State Mental Health or Substance Abuse Authority
  • State Vocational Rehabilitation Agency

Slide 21:

Be a Champion for Employment Services!

  • Include employment services and supports in your plans to end chronic homelessness
  • Include representatives from the Workforce Development System in your planning
  • Include your Workforce Development partners in paying for employment services for homeless people
  • Seek the assistance you need to address employment for homeless people

Slide 22:

Resources

Slide 23:

“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.” — Henry David Thoreau