HomeRise, a San Francisco nonprofit that has been around for more than 30 years, helps secure housing for the homeless population and offers job training and temporary work placements with a goal of permanent employment. The last count of unhoused people in San Francisco tallied about 8,000 people.
Since the onset of the pandemic, more than 3,700 people have been served by the City of San Francisco's Shelter-in-Place (SIP) hotels - launched in April of last year. When the SIP program ends, HomeRise will partner with the city to help remaining participants obtain permanent supportive housing.
CEO Rick Aubry says the ‘housing first’ model is critical. “It's something that has been studied numerous times that's proven to be the most effective intervention. It's something that is somewhat counter-intuitive for lots of folks, because there is sort of a moral imperative in the United States where you have to earn it, before you get in.”
The 1,500 HomeRise units are a combination of acquired single room occupancy buildings and new construction. The units are home to 1,920 people including 300 children who live with one or two parents.
Rick Aubry, CEO at HomeRise (Photo: HomeRise)
Aubry continues, “If you provide people with the safety and security of a place to live and you let them then start organizing their lives, it’s proven much more likely that their lives will prove to be successful.”
A Place in the Workforce
Supporting the transition into work is also crucial to the HomeRise model, according to Aubry. “Job training, per se, is not the solution. Jobs are the solution.”
“It’s critical for us to build a training program - DeskReady - that fundamentally guarantees somebody show up for a few weeks for very basic entry-level training [to work as a front desk clerk],” explains Aubry.
Upon completion of DeskReady, Aubry says, “We will hire you in our temporary agency, Solutions SF. You work with us for a period of months in a paid job, while you're getting ongoing training. They either working in our buildings, or we have numerous customers throughout the city who are providers of permanent housing models that also require folks to be desk clerks.”
(Photo: HomeRise)
“The motivation is not, ‘We're just training you.’ The motivation is creating employment and a career path.”
A Path to Permanent Employment
Training participants come from a number of areas in the Bay Area, according to Iesha Fraser, the director of employment opportunities at HomeRise. “Our program is based in the community,” says Fraser. The organization often receives referrals for DeskReady participants from city partners.
HomeRise residents make up a smaller percentage of job training cohorts. “I would say less than 6% of residents have come through the program, but those who have, are successful in their permanent placement jobs,” says Fraser.
Iesha Fraser, director of employment opportunities at HomeRise (Photo: HomeRise)
The organization is currently developing a workforce initiative to encourage the involvement of more of its residents. “One of the barriers to our residents being interested in our program is that SSI (supplemental security income) barrier. Of course, they don't want to lose the medical benefits or the payments. Understanding residents can work 16 hours and still keep all of those things is one of the big initiatives that we have for next year,” explains Fraser.
She notes that the living situations of participants who are not housed by HomeRise are another consideration for employment. “They may be in transitional housing. They could be in a shelter. What we try to do on the social enterprise side is understand that sometimes there's a curfew. We advocate on their behalf by speaking to a case manager. Once they're employed, they want to work. Where it becomes difficult is the risk of, ‘Am I going to lose a bed?’”
Ultimately, the goal is a permanent job, says Fraser.