Supportive Housing-Based Employment Services.

Introduction

Homeless and formerly homeless individuals with multiple barriers to employment are not commonly well-served by employment and training programs or by the vocational rehabilitation system. State vocational rehabilitation agencies demand that applicants for services must have a permanent living address, a policy based upon the assumption that stable housing is a prerequisite for successful employment. Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) entry and outcome expectations for participants frequently exceed what individuals with multiple barriers to work can achieve in the time frames required. The current Welfare to Work opportunities to engage Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) in the work force include neither help for individuals with disabilities receiving Social Security benefits nor single adults without children. In sum, formerly homeless and homeless individuals with chronic debilitating health conditions, incomes below poverty, low levels of education, and poor or inconsistent work histories are left out. Significant proportions of this population are the long-term shelter stayers and tenants of supportive housing.

Supportive housing is a solution to homelessness, since it offers those who become tenants a permanent, affordable home with onsite social and employment services. Tenants, once stabilized in supportive housing, want to work. As federal, state and local policies are directed to decrease reliance on public entitlements, tenants and their supportive housing landlords have an obvious shared interest in making available vocational services that result in employment outcomes.

A National Initiative: Supportive Housing-Based Employment Services

In just over 2 years, 1,000 jobs were filled by tenants of supportive housing as part of the Corporation for Supportive Housing's "Next Step: Jobs" employment initiative. This outcome lends credence to the claim that, when given the necessary training, social and rehabilitation support services and the opportunity of employment, individuals with multiple barriers to employment can work. Supportive housing offers the basic, critical ingredients and a stable platform for positive vocational outcomes. These ingredients include continuous case management services, permanent housing and a culture that is supportive of working tenants. Three years ago, the Corporation for Supportive Housing (CSH) established an employment initiative with 21 nonprofit supportive housing providers, employers, state vocational rehabilitation agencies, and tenants to increase employment among individuals in supportive housing in Chicago, New York and the San Francisco Bay Area. Next Step: Jobs is funded by the Rockefeller Foundation; also, in 1996 the Rehabilitation Services Administration, U.S. Department of Education, awarded CSH funding to create linkages between the supportive housing and vocational rehabilitation systems in New York City.

The Corporation for Supportive Housing is a national intermediary established in 1991 by three of America's largest foundations to increase the supply and quality of supportive housing in the United States. Supportive housing is a new type of living environment for people with special needs that promotes individual independence while providing a safety net of support services so tenants can reintegrate into mainstream society. As the only national intermediary organization with an exclusive focus on the supportive housing industry, CSH weaves the different funding streams, disciplines and bureaucratic worlds of housing and human services to help expand the quantity and quality of permanent stable housing for people with special needs.

The formation of these partnerships and the development of this project have been driven by a number of factors that face employers and supportive housing. First, the demands for radical changes in welfare policy will adversely impact the tenants and operators of supportive housing as benefits are reduced or terminated. Second, the need for a reliable, trained and sustained work force in many sectors of our economy continues to present opportunities for those previously left out of the work world. Third, our research shows that individuals with special needs who have a stable living environment with the social services in place have the interest and capacity to return to competitive employment when given the opportunity and the necessary supports to succeed at work. In Next Step: Jobs we have assembled employers, a national intermediary, a cadre of supportive housing agencies, and a tenant work force to "retrofit" supportive housing buildings with vocational services in a national demonstration of a place-based employment approach.

Implementing Employment Strategies

Three supportive housing-based employment service agencies provide examples of how strategic approaches and innovative programming can result in employment outcomes for severely disabled individuals. In Chicago, Thresholds has developed a partnership with the United Parcel Service for tenants that has helped to shape a more supportive work environment for individuals with serious mental illnesses. In New York City, the Jericho Project has achieved an employment rate of 60 percent with more than half of its tenants working full time and has developed a partnership with the New York State Office of Vocational and Educational Services for Individuals with Disabilities. In San Francisco, Conard House has developed a successful restaurant, strengthened a relationship with the California Department of Vocational Rehabilitation and is a lead agency in a Bay Area Collaborative to increase employment rates for supportive housing tenants.

Job Development at Thresholds' Austin Apartments

Thresholds, recently awarded the U.S. Department of Labor's coveted Exemplary Public Interest Contribution (EPIC) award, is a large, internationally known psychosocial rehabilitation agency serving individuals with serious mental illnesses, including those dually diagnosed with substance abuse. In recent years the agency has developed two supportive housing buildings, Austin Apartments and Rowen Trees, serving 102 tenants.

Thresholds helped UPS solve some of their personnel problems. The company supports a diversified workforce and has demonstrated a commitment to hiring people with multiple challenges to employment. UPS offered part-time jobs with a living wage and benefits, which is ideal for many individuals with serious mental illness. Due to the company's production oriented workplace, it was imperative to find strategies to assist tenants in being as productive as possible as soon as possible. UPS management has shown a strong commitment to providing accommodations that will assist Thresholds tenants in being successful.

UPS management worked with Austin's job developer to identify jobs that were less stressful and physically demanding. At the start of the initiative, UPS identified three supervisors of the area the tenants worked in to be trained as job coaches. This provided a 3:5 ratio of job coaches to tenants. The UPS supervisors came to Thresholds to receive training in psychosocial rehabilitation as well as mental illness and job support. As time went on, the placement expanded to more tenants working in different areas of the building as well. The Austin job developer continued to meet biweekly with UPS supervisor/job coaches. When one of them was promoted to the training department, she continued to serve as liaison between the job coaches and the Thresholds staff. Problems surfaced as the placement became larger and because of the UPS Teamster strike of 1997. A solution was suggested by UPS management to maintain a 2:1 ratio of job coach to tenant. Recruiting of job coaches ensued where supervisors in many areas of the building identified employees who seemed to have the skills needed to be a job coach. These UPS employees were provided with additional training by Thresholds staff. Also, a continuous training schedule was established. As more Thresholds tenants become employed, the number of UPS job coaches will increase. An official communication procedure was established using the existing parties who have been involved in this project from the start. UPS and Thresholds found a solution that centered on training current UPS staff to understand the needs of people with mental illnesses and to have the skills necessary to support them in the UPS work environment. The Illinois Department of Human Services, Office of Rehabilitation Services, provides the funding to continue to assist tenants in developing work readiness skills and for the individual needs of tenants returning to work.

Jericho Project: A Vocationalized Agency

Founded in New York City in 1983, the Jericho Project provides permanent supportive housing for 186 formerly homeless single men and women in recovery from substance abuse disabilities. The mission is to help tenants achieve independent living in the community, which is defined as maintaining sobriety and working. Toward this goal, a holistic range of onsite social services is offered to tenants. These services include case management, individual and group substance abuse counseling, recreational and socialization activities, family reunification support and counseling, aftercare follow-up services for project graduates, and vocational/educational services.

As the Jericho Project emphasizes tenant employment as a central element of the agency's primary mission, the vocational and educational services component has become a key onsite service. Through involvement with the Next Step: Jobs initiative, the Vocational and Educational Services Department has evolved into one which adheres to a vocational rehabilitation modality. The department utilizes a choose-get-keep model, adapted to the Jericho Project population, that sets out to help an individual seek and maintain employment in a career of their choice (Danley, & Anthony, 1987). In addition to offering individual and group vocational rehabilitation counseling, the employment service offers job development and placement, an inhouse stipended work experience program, situational assessments based on Dunn's (1973) model, educational support and referral, and job retention counseling.

While these inhouse services have proven effective, the development of referral linkages with outside employment and training providers has proven useful to tenant employment. Jericho is a vendor of the New York State vocational rehabilitation agency and has participated in an online interactive referral system where tenants use the Internet to apply for state sponsored vocational rehabilitation services. Through networking with other New York City based supportive housing providers in the Next Step: Jobs initiative, Jericho Project tenants have been able to gain access to the Marriott International's Pathways to Independence program which provides guaranteed employment with the organization after completing the training. Other linkages have been developed with food services training and supported employment programs. These referral relationships have enabled the Jericho Project to minimize duplication of services and maximize opportunities for tenants.

The Educational and Vocational Services Department at Jericho Project works closely with the social services in the three supportive housing buildings in the agency that are supervised by three program directors. The Jericho Works Program (JWP) is an integrated inhouse work adjustment program jointly administered by the house directors and the employment program director. Case managers routinely have contact with employment staff and are included in tenants' vocational planning activities.

The result of the Jericho Project's participation over 3 years in the Next Step: Jobs initiative has been an increased employment rate among tenants from 30 to about 60 percent and involvement of nearly one-third of tenants in outside vocational and/or educational programs (Jericho Project, 1998a). The 3-month, 6-month and 1-year job retention rates for placed tenants over a 14-month period were reported as 95, 82 and 61 percent, respectively, with average salaries of over $8.00 per hour. (Jericho Project, 1998b). These results seem to demonstrate the effectiveness of onsite vocational rehabilitation services in a supportive housing environment. Tenants report that the opportunity to develop and achieve employment goals using both internal and outside resources has been a major factor in their successful reintegration into independent community living. At the Jericho Project, commitment to vocational rehabilitation and "vocationalized" housing services has clearly been beneficial to the tenant population it serves.

Creating Jobs At Conard House

One of the largest nonprofit social service agencies in San Francisco, Conard House has been serving people who have mental illness for over 30 years. The agency operated a transitional halfway house for 25 residents; 19 cooperative apartments for 100 tenants; 6 single room occupancy hotels offering permanent, affordable housing to over 300 tenants; 2 multiservice centers; and a vocational center. In response to clients' expressed desire to work, complaints about the limitations of day treatment and assertions that they, the tenants, could do as good a job catering Conard House events as well as the outside caterer hired by the agency, a catering business was started. The budding business grew to cater the events of other nonprofits, law firms and private parties and eventually moved to it's own space on a busy street in downtown San Francisco. However, within a year the economy had changed and catering was seen as a luxury, and the business began to fail. Undaunted by the turn of events, Conard House seized the opportunity to use its location, its workforce and its creativity to open Expresso Thyself Cafe, a retail coffee and muffin business. In the beginning, the business grossed $100 per day. Over the next few years, Conard House grew the customer base, expanded the menu, increased the capacity of the physical space, and saw their gross sales soar to over $1,000 per day.

One of the greatest difficulties in running a training program within a business is juggling the demands of multiple sets of customers, sometimes with opposing needs. Conard House wants to offer tenants quality training and to employ as many people as possible, but the business can only afford a limited amount of jobs and training slots. Customers demand quality goods and efficient service, which at times is difficult for trainees to deliver. A labor force that is in constant transition is not how most other businesses operate. As trainees learn and become more productive they move on to other outside employment, creating an inherent contradiction between business and vocational rehabilitation goals.

In order to stay in business, the cafe needs to make money and pay the bills by competing in the open market. It is not enough to be a nonprofit agency, the cafe must offer a great product with great service. It became necessary for Conard House to study its business, to examine the competition's, to realize that what it does is different from its competitors, and that it was crucial to make its product better than the competition's. As this business venture grew, Conard House needed to add to the skills of the vocational counselors and to employ restaurant experts who knew more about this type of business.

Conard House tenants have benefited from the integration of supportive housing and employment services. Working as a team with employment services staff, case managers are aware of and support tenants' vocational goals. Establishing a business advisory council has also benefited tenants through the expansion of jobs and local employer involvement, an increased understanding of psychiatric disabilities, a lessening of the stigma of mental illness, and from more employers' using Conard businesses.

Supportive Housing-Based Employment Strategies

The Next Step: Jobs initiative is designed to systematically discover, develop and disseminate the most promising strategies and practices for enhancing the rate and quality of employment available to the tenants of supportive housing. Anecdotal evidence, evaluation data and the research of others suggests that particular strategies, principles of practice and organizational qualities are associated with positive employment outcomes. Next Step: Jobs has pulled together these strategies into a model place-based approach that includes:

* vocationalizing the housing environment and organization;

* hiring tenants within the supportive housing industry;

* providing tenants with job development, job placement and retention services;

* linking with existing employment and training programs; and

* creating additional jobs through nonprofit entrepreneurial ventures.

The supportive housing industry is itself a prime employer of tenants who want permanent jobs in social services, vocational rehabilitation, security, maintenance, food services, and clerical occupations. In addition, it provides paid and unpaid work experiences in these fields. Supportive housing organizations have also been entrepreneurial by developing businesses that employ tenants.

Implementing a multidisciplinary employment strategy means more than "adding on" an appendage of vocational service to existing services. Integrating services in most cases means reviewing and reworking the way the organization functions to deliver a more comprehensive array of assistance. The term "vocationalizing" has been used here to mean the process by which as many aspects as possible of the housing environment and the operating organization are designed to support positive vocational progress of tenants. The vision of change necessary to vocationalize an organization and its buildings is based upon observable, measurable ingredients supporting several themes such as: an organization wide buy-in, service availability and flexibility, relapse prevention services, internal job postings, accountability for employment goals, provision of adequate space, and the orchestration of staff efforts in property management, social services and employment services.

A successful strategy of the Next Step: Jobs initiative has been the nonprofit providers' focus on reviewing their budgets, vendor contracts and job descriptions in order to identify positions that could be filled by tenants. Collectively, the participating organizations made over 400 inhouse jobs available to tenants in the supportive housing industry, and one organization has 45 percent of its work force represented in current and former tenants. Hiring inhouse capitalizes on existing resources and jobs that serve as the transitional and permanent jobs that tenants need to reenter the labor force. These jobs may be in food services, property management, maintenance, construction, administration, and social or employment services. These jobs are often restructured, if necessary, to accommodate some tenants' need for part-time positions and supportive settings while still maintaining normalized performance requirements. Becoming employers of supportive housing tenants enables providers to know what it takes to employ very disadvantaged workers and to convincingly tell private sector employers that "we hire our tenants and it works for us; you should hire them too." Inhouse hiring has the side benefit of increasing organizational accountability to and credibility with the very population the industry is in business to serve; as a result, more tenants become involved in organizational decision making.

Job search and placement is a tried and true tool of any successful employment program. Supportive housing providers have demonstrated creativity in adapting traditional job development, placement and retention services to meet the needs of both tenants and employers. In supportive housing-based employment, jobs are developed for tenants reflecting the interests and talents of the tenants rather than based solely on what jobs are available in the market today. When job developers approach job development, they talk with the tenant first, communicate with social service staff and then set out to identify an industry, an employer, and develop a job most likely to complement the needs of that particular tenant rather than developing jobs and telling tenants that this is the list of available jobs from which they must choose.

In order to avoid reinventing the wheel by creating a parallel employment and training system for supportive housing tenants, supportive housing organizations develop mechanisms to create linkages with existing employment and training resources in their area that can meet tenant needs. Surveying local resources prior to the initiative, providers have reached out and connected with other community employment services on both an individual tenant and larger scale programmatic level. Newly forged linkages to employment and training resources have included both formal and informal arrangements for referral and cooperative agreements.

Job creation is a strategy in which supportive housing providers have established business enterprises and tenant micro-enterprises as a means for meaningful opportunities for tenant employment. While venture development remains an interest of many, this strategy poses challenges that not all nonprofit organizations can or should step up to meet. A variety of businesses have been created, including a laser cartridge refurbishing operation, a recycling and janitorial service, several thrift shops, a computer learning center, retail food enterprises, and an institutional catering business.

Through Next Step: Jobs, we have learned that these strategies are guided by a set of principles listed in Table 1 that are associated with successful employment programs not unlike those attributes identified by Barker (1994).

Table 1 The Nine Programmatic Principles of Successful Employment Programs

Employment strategies are likely to be most successful if
implemented with these principles in effect:

1. Inclusiveness. Particularly in a housing-based approach, every
tenant is a candidate for vocational services, even if they may
not be able to get or keep a full-time, competitive job. We have
every reason to be hopeful about all tenants joining the work
force and that we will see more tenant employment if staff firmly
believe in their tenant's capacity to work.

2. Flexibility. One program coined this the "WIT" factor in which
"Whatever It Takes" is the standard operating procedure guided by
creativity and flexibility (Barker, 1994).

3. Voluntary. Tenants must themselves choose to make use of
employment services that are available in their building just as
they choose to engage social and support services.

4. Work First. If an individual wants to work, assist him/her to
get a job as quickly as possible. Long-term classroom training,
assessments and other prerequisites to getting a job discourage
people.

5. Long-Term View. Although you may place someone in a job as a
first step, the most intervention will probably be needed after
the job starts. Vocational services for individuals with multiple
barriers to employment must extend beyond 90-day or even 6-month
"successful closures."

6. Choice. Successful programs help individuals make informed
choices about working.

7. Ongoing Wrap-Around Supports. Supports and assistance in
entitlements and benefits counseling, one-to-one counseling,
contacts with employer, job placement and retention, substance
abuse relapse prevention, job coaching, as well as money
management, case management, and steadfast encouragement can be
critical ingredients in turning failures into learning
experiences and successes.

8. Outcome Orientation. Success can be measured in small or
incremental steps. The success of any employment intervention is
ultimately measured by increases in the amount, duration and
quality of employment gained by the target population.

9. Continuous Contact. In order to help somebody deal with a
difficult boss, being fired or quitting or getting a raise, you
have to know it happened. Tracking progress of every individual
served not only allows program operators to see where their
program needs to change to better the needs of its participants
and to report to funders but also reflects accountability to the
participants.

Some Early Findings from the Next Step: Jobs Evaluation

Early evaluation results (Hopper, 1997; Rog, 1998; & Proscio, 1998) describe the tenants in Next Step: Jobs buildings as primarily African American males in their late thirties or early forties. These tenants were extremely poor; 69 percent had experienced periods of homelessness and faced significant challenges to employment, including: 51 percent reporting substance additions; 40 percent reported a mental illness; and most had poor or inconsistent work histories. Most tenants have been dependent on public supports for sustenance, including one-third on general public assistance (welfare); more than half were receiving Supplemental Security Income (SSI) or Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI); and 31 percent lacked a high school diploma. Preliminary results from the Next Step: Jobs external evaluation informs us that the population living in supportive housing is consistent with descriptions of populations considered hard to employ and that have many barriers to overcome in their vocational recovery. It would be unfair if not untrue to label the supportive housing population as work shirkers. Many tenants do have experiences in the work force, even if these are episodic events. Many have worked earlier in their lives and express a desire to return to work.

Of the 1,093 tenants that went to work during the first 2 years of the project, 636 tenants were employed in training and temporary and permanent jobs within the participating agencies. Tenants worked between 13 and 32 hours per week for a wage that ranged between $4.88 and $9.17 per hour. Most did not receive healthcare benefits as part of their compensation. Thus far, employment has not meant economic independence for supportive housing tenants but has served as a vehicle for involving 65 percent of the tenant population in work activities. Individuals with substance addictions moved more quickly into employment than individuals with serious mental illnesses. The population and the buildings tenants live in are not homogeneous. Supportive housing helps a variety of people with diverse needs, experiences and abilities that impact their employment prospects. Employment status at 2 years seems to be positively related to previous work experience. An overwhelming majority of those tenants who entered supportive housing with a job worked during the monitoring period. Those tenants who did participate in the employment services in the buildings were more likely to be working during the monitoring period than those who do not participate. The stories of employment among tenants are complex, reflecting the uniqueness of each tenant. A closer look at a sample of tenants reveals that some tenants worked 6 months more during the 2 years of the project than in the 2 years prior to enrollment in Next Step: Jobs.

There have also been substantial changes in the fabric of the supportive housing agencies that have added to or strengthened their employment services. These agencies have become entrepreneurial, establishing 19 businesses offering more than 250 tenants employment. They have placed an emphasis on employment that is at least equal to the position of their social services, most frequently creating a senior staff position for employment services on par with the social services director. Nearly all of the agencies have incorporated job development into their agency functions and have begun to change the culture of their buildings to reflect the importance of work in the lives of their tenants. In New York City, four agencies have become vendors of the state vocational rehabilitation agency; and in the San Francisco Bay Area, agencies have partnered to form a supportive housing employment collaborative to maximize their resources and job development opportunities for tenants.

The strategies developed in Next Step: Jobs can be and is being replicated in other supportive housing programs across the country with local environment adaptations. In Minneapolis, CSH and Thresholds have conducted presentations to nonprofits, as has Jericho in New York City and Lakefront in North Carolina. As the key national provider for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's technical assistance program in special needs housing, CSH and Next Step: Jobs agencies are helping define employment as a critical service in supportive housing. A proponent of model programs noted that these kinds of innovations give us hope by showing that, despite barriers and setbacks, it is possible and practicable to materially improve services for individuals with chronic disabilities; and, although model programs themselves cannot literally be adopted, the principles and ingredients upon which they are founded can be replicated with modifications based on local circumstances (Bachrach, 1988).

Bibliography

1. Bachrach, L.L. (1988). On importing and exporting model programs. Hospital and Community Psychiatry, 39 (12).

2. Barker, L.T. (1994). Community-based models of employment services for people with psychiatric disabilities. Psychosocial Rehabilitation Journal, 17 (3).

3. Dunn, D.J. (1973). Situational assessment: Models for the future. Menomonie, WI: Materials Development Center, University of Wisconsin-Stout.

4. Danley, K.S., & Anthony, W.A. (1987). The choose-get-keep model: Serving severely psychiatrically disabled people. American Rehabilitation, 13 (4), 6-9, 27-29.

5. Hopper, K., Rog, D., Holupka, C.S., Brito, M.C., Davidson, C., Lester, R., & Roy, K. (1997, July). Next Step: Jobs interim evaluation/documentation report. A report to the Corporation for Supportive Housing.

6. Proscio, T. (1998). Work in progress 2: An interim report on Next Step: Jobs. A report to the Corporation for Supportive Housing.

7. Rog, D., Holupka, S.C., Brito, C.M., Storm, A., Hopper, K., Roy, K., Davidson, C., & Lester, R. (1998, June). Next Step: Jobs second evaluation/documentation report.

8. The Jericho Project (1998a). Vocational/ Educational Services Department. Unpublished document.

9. The Jericho project (1998b). Job placement and retention, January 1997 to March 1998. Unpublished document.

Mr. Rio is Project Coordinator, Corporation for Supportive Housing, New York, NY. Ms. Russell is on the staff at Thresholds, Chicago, IL. Mr. Dudasik is Director, Vocational and Educational Services, Jericho Project, New York, NY. Ms. Gravino is Director of Vocational Services, Conard House, San Francisco, CA.3