Housing & Employment Alignment in the Portland, Oregon Metro Area
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The document summarizes a partnership between four public housing authorities and three workforce development board regions in the Portland, Oregon metro area. The partnership received $5.5 million in funding to help 480 public housing residents increase their career prospects and earnings potential through training programs, paid internships, and job placement assistance in industries like healthcare, construction, manufacturing, and offices. The goals were to better align housing and employment systems, increase participants' earnings, and help them obtain career-track jobs. The partnership achieved successes like increased earnings and credentials earned but fell short of goals for career-track employment rates and unemployed participants entering employment. It identifies challenges faced and opportunities to sustain collaboration.
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Housing & Employment Alignment in the Portland, Oregon Metro Area
- 1. Housing and Employment Alignment in the Portland, Oregon Metro Area
- 2. The Partners
- 3. Improve system Increased income $15,000/year & reduced average housing subsidies $4,800/year per resident employed Partnership History Great Recession lowered job prospects for public housing residents Partners improved alignment, shared resources and sought grants Pilot program for training and paid internships for public housing residents
- 4. Workforce Innovation Funding Consortium applied to the Department of Labor: 3 Workforce Development Board Regions 4 Pubic Housing Authorities
- 5. Housing Works • Self sufficiency through career track employment • $5.5 million dollars • November 2012 − April 2016 • Evaluation Results April 2017 Healthcare Construction Manufacturing Office
- 6. Goals • Increase collaboration between Housing Authorities & Workforce Development Boards • Increase efficiency by co- investing resources & reducing redundancies • Increase participants’ earning potential • Attainment of career track jobs with advancement pathways 1. Systems Alignment 2. Participant Impact
- 7. Aligned Partner Model Partner Agencies • Career coaching • Support services • Connect to WorkSource Coordinated services to common customer WorkSource • Preparatory Services • Training • Job Placement • Liaisons
- 8. Participant Flow Career - Track Employment Weekly Career Coach Support Career Mapping Career Link Course Training Job Placement & Retention WorkSource Liaisons
- 9. Program Outcome Successes Goal Final Outcomes Total Participants Served 480 477 Earned industry-recognized credentials 210 299 Earnings increase (for people who entered program employed) 20% or more 649% Subsidy Reduction:Average annual reduction in subsidy by households that retain employment $3,250 In final evaluation report
- 10. Program Outcome Challenges Goal Final Outcomes Percent who enter Career Track Employment 75% 34% Entered employment (for those who entered unemployed) 65% 45%
- 11. Alignment Challenges • Takes time for staff to learn to work with other agencies and with target populations. • Benefit policies create disincentives to increase income • Housing authorities saw need to shift culture to set expectations for employment • Need for systems alignment with DHS
- 12. Successful Partnerships • Each partner provides services of expertise with coordination around common customer • Frequent meetings at all levels helps break down silos • Leveraging resources from each partner strengthens commitment and sustainability
- 15. Sustainability Opportunities • Family Self Sufficiency case manages will work with Liaisons • Short term rent assistance for other employment program participants • Specialized services for homeless population
Editor's Notes
- Good morning! My name is Blair Schaeffer-Bisht. I have a background in affordable housing and as some of you know I started my career here at NeighborWorks Orange County. Now I am a Senior Project Manager at Worksystems, the workforce development board for the Portland, Oregon Metro Area. Today, I will speak about some of the work that our organization has done to create systems alignment between housing and workforce development. Specifically, I will discuss the Housing Works program, that fortified connections between housing authorities and workforce development boards in four counties and helped public housing residents increase self sufficiency. Today, I encourage you all to think about how partnerships and stronger systems alignment can strengthen your work and improve the lives of the people who you work with.
- The three organizations that formed the initial partnerships that led to Housing Works were Home Forward, Worksystems, and WorkSource Portland Metro. Home Forward is the Housing Authority for the City of Portland and Multnomah County. Worksystems is the Workforce Development Board for Multnomah and Washington Counties. We partnered to help low income public housing residents to get training and jobs. For those of you who aren’t familiar with workforce development boards, we receive federal funds from the Department of Labor to run local American job centers, also called one stop centers, and provide training and job placement services to the public. In Oregon, our American job centers are called WorkSource.
- Our partnership started in 2010. The great recession lowered the job prospects for many public housing recipients. Home Forward and Worksystems decided that we needed to work together during this time when federal funding did not meet local needs. We realized that in order to maximize our service to low income residents, we had to improve systems alignment, commit shared resourced, and apply for grants. This led to a grant from the Paul G. Allen Foundation for a pilot program which funded classroom training and paid internships for 50 people and had a 50% success rate in placing housing residents. The average household income increased by more than $15,000 a year. The effects extended well beyond the families by reducing average housing subsidies by over $4,800 per resident per year. Four participants ended their housing assistance and one became a homeowner. The partnership changed the nature of our relationship. Before the pilot, Home Forward was considering developing their own workforce program. Instead the pilot helped us see the value of working together while focusing on our areas of expertise. It also led to a bigger partnership, the Housing Works program.
- In 2011, the Department of Labor announced the Workforce Innovation Fund. They were looking for promising practices that could be brought to scale to efficiently serve job seekers. Realizing that other organizations could benefit from the the success attained through the pilot, Worksystems and Home Forward approached two other Workforce Development Boards and three housing authorities in Washington, Clackamas and Clark Counties. We submitted an application as a regional consortium.
- We received $5.5 million to achieve self sufficiency through employment in four sectors: Healthcare, Construction, Manufacturing, and Office. The program lasted about 3.5 years and just ended at the end of April. 20% of the grant was spent on an outside evaluation firm that is analyzing the program. Final results will be available in April 2017.
- There were four main goals for the program. 2 related to systems alignment and two are focused on the impact for participants. 1. Increase collaboration between the region’s WIBs and PHAs through the execution of formal agreements that dedicate ongoing resources to coordinate co-funded services and through purposeful policy alignment that reduces barriers to partnership over time. 2. Increase the efficiency of the region’s WIB and PHA services by co-investing resources with the shared goal of eliminating program redundancies and increasing resident employment. 3. Increase the earning potential of housing authority residents by improving access to and retention in training services linked to high-demand occupations. 4. Accelerate a path to self-sufficiency for PHA residents through attainment and retention of employment in high-demand occupations with pathways for advancement.
- In order to achieve these goals, we designed Housing Works based on lessons learned during the pilot and other collaborative work. We have learned that while many people can access the resources in our WorkSource centers individually, low income people facing multiple barriers to career track employment often need intensive coaching and support. Since WorkSource staff does not do case management, this is achieved through partnering with community based organizations-in this case the housing authorities. The Aligned Partner model reflects WSI’s strategy for moving people with multiple challenges into career-track employment. Partner staff provide vocationally focused case management – which we call career coaching. They offer support services or assist people in accessing them from the community And they agree to use to use WorkSource services to help their clients achieve career goals, thereby reducing duplication of efforts WorkSource Liaisons bridge the two systems by educating partners about WorkSource services while also helping Worksysems understand the needs of our partners.
- This graphic shows the process that Housing Worsk participants followed during the program and we have continued to base many other programs off of this model. They start with Career Mapping, a workshop that helps them explore which occupations are a good personal fit for them. Then attend a two week course called Career Link, which allows them to research deeper into the day to day realities of the occupation that they are considering,. After choosing a career track, they enter training and upon completion, they receive job placement and retention services in their career track. During the whole process, Career Coaches checked in with participants, usually on a weekly basis WorkSource Liaisons provided training and technical assistance to vocational case managers. Often, just navigating through a public system, like one-stops is difficult, so coaches were glad to have one-point of contact that they could go to for questions or information.
- We were almost able to meet of total participants served our goal with 477 customers. 299 people earned industry-recognized credentials The earnings increase for people that entered the program employed is 649%. This is so high because a lot of people’s wages increase (wage increase was about 90%), but also because a lot of people increased the number of hours that they work The evaluators will be looking at the last two goals, but in the meantime, the Housing Authority of Washington County has run their own numbers on savings and has found that once a participant is employed they save on average $4,400 a year in housing subsidies per participant. After about 6 years, the program will have paid for itself and in the seventh year, it would actually save them $83,000. -Overall 74% of participants exited the program employed.
- Although the program attained a high placement rate, our primary goal was helping participants attain career plan employment, we were not able to meet our very specific goals of 75% of participants who entered career plan employment or 65% of people who entered the program unemployed who entered employment.
- Systems alignment takes time. It took our staff time to learn to work with other agencies and learn each other’s cultures and vocabulary. It also took time for WorkSource staff to learn how to work with a population with high barriers to employment. There are disincentives to participating because people start to lose benefits. The system can create a disincentive for individuals to participate and succeed. People don’t want to risk losing housing benefits or other government assistance. Housing Authorities identified a need to shift the culture within their organizations to set an expectation for employment for work-able individuals. Working with DHS partners to ensure people don’t lose benefits through participation in program. Progress made, but more needed.
- Even though we did experience these challenges, one of the biggest successes was the partnerships that we created. The evaluators and partners have found that what has helped us maintain successful partnerships and systems alignment throughout the grant is that each partner has provided their service of expertise while adjusting and learning from the culture and priorities of the other agency and coordinating around the needs of common customers. Additionally, the communication infrastructure we developed (monthly county meetings and bi-yearly ED meetings, quarterly meetings of line level staff) is extremely useful and helped us break down silos between agencies and be able to address problems as they arose. Leveraging resources from each partner is critical to participant success and long-term stability. If we had only relied on grant funding, we do not think the partnerships would have been as strong and sustainable as they have become. Leveraging resources during the grant helped normalize committing shared resources so that now after the grant has ended, each county is still maintaining a smaller scale of the grant through the core funding streams.
- I have talked a lot about the high level achievements of the grant, but I wanted to share a short snipit of a success story from one of our participants. What enabled us to serve people like Sonja are the strong partnerships that we created. As you can see, the partnerships not only changed our mentalities about the value of working together, they also changed the way that the housing residents thought about themselves and their potential. We learned that by partnering with other agencies, you can reduce redundancies and provide more comprehensive and efficient services to local residents.
- Thank you for your time! If anyone has questions after the summit, please feel free to contact me at the email address on the screen.
- Each region is sustaining the program in different ways. In each region, the partners have set up a continued version of the program, whereby WorkSource liaisons will work with the Family Self Sufficieny case managers ( a HUD funded program) at each housing authority. In some cases, the Liaisons are dually funded by both partner and in some cases the Liaison will actually be stationed part time out of the housing authority for better collaboration. Through the relationships formed during the program, workforce development boards have communicated the need for housing resources for participants in other employment programs. Two of the four housing authorities were able to set aside short term rental assistance funds for employment program participants who are homeless or are at risk of eviction. The workforce development boards also recognize the specialized support that people who are struggling with housing instability require, and Worksystems is in the process of opening a WorkSource center at a local nonprofit who specializes in serving homeless people. We’re really proud of the successes that Housing Works achieved, and the partnerships that were formed will have infinite impact in the way that we continue to solve problems as a region.