FOR MOST, RENT SUBSIDY MEANS GOING TO WORK

(Article published in HWW July-Aug 2007)

Just about everybody in the NYC family shelter system is looking for a job. Or so it seems.

Since the city announced the new ADVANTAGE rent subsidy, the Department of Homeless Services has held dozens of meetings to explain it to the people who are needed to make the program work. That is, the directors and the housing specialists and other staff of the shelters. The city relies on them to achieve its current goal -- that is, to move quickly to place their residents in permanent housing.

Louis Rodriguez, Executive Director of St. John’s Place Family Center in Brooklyn, explains how he is handling the challenge: "First of all, we surveyed all our families and found that 45 out of 97 families don’t qualify for any rent subsidy. They are undocumented. Or they are on public assistance which would have qualified them for Housing Stability Plus, but that’s finished. Or they are unemployed so they don’t qualify for WORK ADVANTAGE, and they don’t have either SSI or an ACS case."

The ADVANTAGE program offers several specialized rent subsidies. FIXED INCOME ADVANTAGE is rent assistance for people who receive Federal benefits like Social Security Disability. CHILDREN’S ADVANTAGE is rent assistance for families with open ACS cases. SHORT TERM ADVANTAGE is for families with income enough to move out of shelter quickly.

But for most people, the only option is WORK ADVANTAGE which requires 20 hours of paid work a week.

"Our strategy," Rodriguez says, "is to meet with all of these families and assess if they are work ready and if they are not find out why. Then we will offer them three options: If they are ‘work ready,’ we’ll offer them a two week refresher course to give them help with resume writing, job hunting, and job placement.

"If they need training, we’ll refer them to our Employment Center or we’ll refer them to other opportunities for training."

According to Rodriguez, St. John’s Employment Center currently specializes in training for maintenance jobs but he hopes they will soon add other skills.

"We asked our residents what kind of jobs they had considered and they listed security, home health aide, child care, and all sorts of retail — all jobs that mainly require only a high school degree. The trouble is some of these jobs pay low wages that are hard to live on.

"What we want to do is work with our people to raise their earning capacity."

The new ADVANTAGE subsidy gets good marks from many families and workers because, unlike HSP which required an open welfare case, ADVANTAGE rewards and encourages work, But there are still reasons to worry. As Partnership for the Homeless’ attorney Heidi Siegfried testified to the City Council "The program rewards only those that are working at an income that is unavailable to too many of our clients. The jobs that our clients have been able to get will not allow them to pay the rent after the first year and probably not after the second – and this is the case even for those with jobs well above the minimum wage."

(One city official was quoted as saying "All they have to do is hold a job for a month and then they can go back on public assistance for the rest of the year." But of course that might not look good when it’s decided whether to renew the subsidy for a second year.)

Anna Rodriguez, Employment Vocational Coordinator at the Regent Family Residence, encourages residents to get jobs but also to improve their earning power. "We assist clients with their resume and cover letter. We help them set up an e mail address and post their resume on monster.com or hotjobs. com. We refer them to educational programs, GED programs, internships and vocational training in skills such as computers and medical technology."

Since the ADVANTAGE rent subsidy requires working at a job 20 hours a week, finding time for a serious training program – not to mention child care -- can be a challenge.

CALL FOR INFORMATION

For information about free classes for adults, call the Literacy Assistance Center Hotline Monday through Friday at (212) 803-3333. You can learn where to find

1. • adult basic education
   

2. • GED prep
   

3. • English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL)
   

4. • computer skills and job training for adults and out-of-school youth.
   

Tell the LAC Hotline what kind of education you need, where you live, what days and times you can take classes, and a referral specialist will help you.

Or you can find that information on the Internet, click on the LAC website at www.lacnyc.org and go to the Adult Education Locator.