RP: Human Empowerment as Economic Justice

Housing and Homelessness

Pilot or new project, program, or initiative

Each night, 20% of California’s 2 million community college students are experiencing homelessness, according to the 2020 UCLA report, State of Crisis. This equals at least 100,000 community college students facing housing insecurity in Los Angeles County today. In addition to concerns around their basic safety and wellness, these students are less likely to pass classes, graduate, and achieve economic viability. Some, facing particularly significant challenges, are on the path to persistent or chronic homelessness. Even with billions invested, L.A.’s homeless ranks are swelling every day, with a majority of newly homeless citing “economic hardship” as their main reason for ending up on the street. Landing a good job can lift a person out of homelessness, but current and prior research agree: many impoverished, traumatized adults lack the vocational skills, self-esteem, and emotional intelligence critical to starting and maintaining upwardly mobile career paths.

The Realization Project is a pilot demonstration that provides living-wage employment, housing, and economic security of racially diverse adults. This is accomplished through an innovative human empowerment framework for direct services that is culturally relevant, goal oriented, and trauma informed. Working adults are screened using ERt’s cutting edge PPH (predicting persistent homelessness) tools. Cohort members are provided with housing and other necessities as well as academic, personal and behavioral health support. Project participants engage a nine-month colloquium that engenders success in diverse career settings. The sessions focus on achieving housing and employment outcomes, as well as scholastic achievement, financial literacy, and physical and emotional healing. Key demographic and experiential data are collected during and after the intervention to inform ERt’s ongoing research on solutions to homelessness in Los Angeles County and beyond. After the intervention, 83% of participants got job offers paying $20+/hour, and 3 in 4 accepted jobs and promotions. All reported increased career readiness, as well as improvements in other quality of life measures. Over 90% solved acute issues of housing insecurity. This pilot is proving to be the best way to address homelessness because empowering people to afford housing is a more sustainable solution than providing permanent supportive housing.

This grant will position the Project to strengthen existing homelessness prevention systems in 6 ways: 1. Implement collaborative, employment-based strategy complementing housing, mental health and social service systems without competing for the same resources. 2. Coalesce broad public support for empowering homeless adults to earn an income, afford housing and share in the dignity of work. 3. Leverage untapped resources for helping homeless adults achieve employment and housing goals. 4. Promote evidence-based screening tools identifying high-need workers for early intervention, preventing chronic homelessness 5. Demonstrate that costs for comprehensive employment services are offset by the public costs that are avoided by preventing persistent homelessness. 6. Advocate for employment as a scalable strategy, utilizing mainstream support including public job creation initiatives, local hire agreements, college and university grants, job training programs, and union apprenticeships.

Quantitatively, the Project is being evaluated by both cohort comparisons and pre-post comparisons. A comparison group of individuals for whom public costs, housing and employment outcomes are known provide a basis for quantifying differences in participant treatment group outcomes compared to a control group of similar individuals who did not receive services. The control group is being identified by creating propensity score matches based on screening probabilities for persistent homelessness. The Realization Project is demonstrating success through four key measures: 1. Improvements in personal well-being 2. Obtaining and keeping living wage jobs 3. Obtaining and keeping housing 4. Reductions in public costs that offset program costs