Community planning processes take a lot of work. I recently participated in one such process and worked on the resulting report,
A Landscape Assessment and Strategic Plan for Increasing Economic Opportunities for People Experiencing Homelessness in Whatcom County. The goal of the plan is pretty straightforward: expand the opportunities of people who have experienced homelessness to develop skills, increase income, and improve self-sufficiency.
What did it take to pull the plan together? For one, a committed Steering Committee -- with leadership from Greg Winter of Whatcom Homeless Service Center and Barbara Leveque of Whatcom Community College -- that met once a month for almost a year. Getting homeless and employment services providers that had never met before in the same room was key,
Recently, Washington Families Fund and Sound Families grantees gathered to attend our recent training, "Increasing Earned Income for Homeless Families: Strategies for Being a Change Agent at Your Agency." The Tacoma Housing Authority graciously hosted. I had the privilege of facilitating, along with Mark Putnam from Building Changes and national employment for the homeless expert, John Rio, from Advocates for Human Potential. Twenty-five people from six counties (Pierce, King, Snohomish, Thurston, Clallam, and Whatcom) participated.
It was a long day, jam-packed with information, questions, and worksheets that participants used to track key ideas and post-training action steps. I was encouraged and inspired by the passion of the training participants and their desire to continuously
I spent the beginning of this week in Spokane, WA where I experienced hail, snow, sun, and an informative training facilitated by
Jonathan Beard. Building Changes sponsored the training for homeless families providers. The training sought to clarify the not always obvious differences between SSI and SSDI. While their acronyms are only one letter off, they are very different programs.
SSI stands for Supplemental Security Income and is a welfare program that makes payments to aged, blind and disabled people who also meet the means test (looks at income, resources, and living arrangements). SSDI on the other hand is an insurance program, hence its name, Social Security Disability Insurance, and claimants must have paid money into it through the Federal Insurance Contribution Act (FICA
As part of our ongoing commitment to improving employment outcomes for homeless job seekers, Building Changes has begun hosting Peer to Peer Learning Community conference calls among Washington Families Fund homeless services grantees. Earlier this week
Mark Putnam and I hosted our first P2P call and I am excited to report that we had
17 participants, from
9 different agencies from around the state. Participants from Island, Whatcom, King, Pierce, and Snohomish counties participated.
We kicked off the series with a discussion of new funding opportunities related to workforce development, in particular the federal stimulus funding, American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. We also spent time sharing barriers that clients face and highlighting strategies for engaging tenants in job training
As we grapple with rising unemployment and a universal need for higher incomes to meet growing housing costs, the issue of finding pathways to living wage jobs for the homeless becomes pressing for me. A person experiencing homelessness is inherently starting "from behind", often facing issues such as domestic violence, mental health and/or chemical dependency issues, lack of documentation. Living wages are also important for decreasing dependence on entitlements like
TANF. Benefits are designed to help close the gap between income and the costs of living in our community, but they are not intended to replace earned income; yet some homeless families depend entirely on benefits for their cash needs, and live in poverty as a result. This is a reality, not a choice; too many homeless adults
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