Building Peer Power in L.A.

Income inequality

City of Los Angeles (select only if your project has a citywide benefit)

Expand existing project, program, or initiative (expanding and continuing ongoing, successful work)

PVU has provided field-based services and support across Los Angeles since 2020. Our team is led and staffed by individuals with lived experience of incarceration, housing insecurity, substance use, and behavioral health recovery. By meeting people where they are and drawing on lived experience, our team brings firsthand insight into both the systemic barriers our clients face and their overlooked potential.
Through our often field-based touchpoints with clients, we have observed that individuals, especially those returning from incarceration or coming out of homelessness, are struggling to access employment, stable housing, and mental health services. Many are caught in a systemic cycle due to income equity and lack basic necessities and face long waitlists or service shortages for mental health care. Traditional case management often falls short, offering logistical support but not the emotional and peer guidance people need to succeed.

This grant will support PVU's Peer Mentorship Training Program, a free, trauma-informed, and culturally responsive workforce development initiative designed for justice-involved, low-income, and other individuals with lived experience of incarceration, homelessness, or behavioral health recovery. Over a 12-week hybrid training, participants gain core skills in active listening, motivational interviewing, crisis de-escalation, behavioral health support, housing navigation, case management, data entry, and trauma-informed care. Participants also receive 1:1 mentorship and peer counseling, both as part of their training and as needed for personal support. Participants will receive a community-based certification to work as a Peer Mentor/Peer Support Specialist.

Trainees begin as volunteers, shadowing our staff, supporting community outreach, and running support groups to build workforce readiness and confidence. Upon completion, participants transition into internships or part-time field-based roles either through PVU or partner organizations across shelters, parole offices, and community sites. Expert-led sessions from leaders like Dr. Gloria Morrow support pathways into advanced clinical & counseling careers. The goal of the program is to place participants directly into Peer roles across shelters, parole offices, community hubs, & health systems. We also have directly hired cohort participants to work with us on a part-time basis until they stabilize and find full-time work.

If successful, PVU will help transform LA County’s health and reentry systems by developing a sustainable, community-rooted workforce that understands the needs of marginalized populations because they come from those same communities. Our trained Peer Mentors and CHWs will replace punitive or bureaucratic approaches with trust-based support, trauma-informed care, and culturally responsive services. Recidivism will decrease. More people will exit homelessness and have better access to behavioral health services. Our participants will find stable employment, changing not only their lives but those of their families and neighborhoods. This program sets the foundation for long-term systems change, redefining leadership and service delivery from the ground up. Long-term, we aim to scale the program to train 100+ peers annually across our California chapter and create a replicable model statewide.