By Sandra Hamameh
In mid-September, two 14-passenger vans operated by Paratransit Community Outreach Ambassadors kicked off a new program that will provide homeless people in Sacramento, California, with transportation, employment, search services, health resources and training about how to use public transit. Paratransit’s Mobility Training and Job Search Shuttle Service for the Homeless, more commonly known as Wheels to Work, is the product of a unique collaboration between Paratransit Inc., Women’s Empowerment, the Sacramento Housing Alliance, Sacramento Steps Forward, the Department of Human Assistance, the California Department of Rehabilitation and other homeless and housing service providers. The vans will be used to transport homeless men and women to job interviews, training programs, access a mobile computer lab, and reach several key service sites. Without the transportation, they would be unable to perform these most basic activities to gain steady employment.
The partnership began in 2009 when a local casino donated two passenger shuttle vans to a sub-committee of Sacramento Steps Forward (SSF) that addresses homeless employment issues. The donation immediately sparked an idea in Bob Erlenbusch, chair of the sub-committee and Executive Director of the Sacramento Housing Alliance. “A recent survey of homeless people shows that thirty percent of the responders identified transportation and access to transportation as a significant barrier to employment,” he explained. “We needed to develop a plan to directly address those barriers. We started by collaborating with our community partners to find real solutions for change.”
One of those community partners, Paratransit Inc., also recognized the need for employment services and transportation for homeless people. Linda Deavens, Paratransit’s Chief Executive Officer agreed to take on the project. Deavens worked with the Department of Human Assistance to secure federal Jobs Access and Reverse Commute (JARC) funding. The federal JARC program, administered by the Federal Transit Administration, was created to address the unique transportation challenges welfare recipients and low-income persons face in seeking to obtain and maintain employment. As many new entry-level jobs are located in suburban areas and/or require late night or weekend hours when conventional transit services are either reduced or non-existent many low-income individuals have difficulty accessing these jobs from their inner city, urban, or rural neighborhoods. JARC also takes into account that many employment related-trips are complex and involve multiple destinations including reaching childcare facilities. In the case of Wheels to Work, Paratransit used JARC funds (as a subrecipient of the Department of Human Assistance) to register, insure, repair and retrofit the two vans, adding them to its vehicle fleet. Said Deavens, “We saw an opportunity to become partners in an innovative program that would provide much needed transportation and employment services to homeless men and women. We pulled together our resources and with the help of the Department of Human Assistance we secured federal funding for a year. We got to work with employment service providers and the result is a program that we can all be proud of.”
Wheels to Work not only provides access to employment services and transportation but it also employs people who were formerly homeless. The program provides “on the job” vehicle operator training to seven formerly homeless women with various disabilities. The Community Outreach Ambassadors, as they are called, are graduates of an 8-week employment skills training program run by Women’s Empowerment. Women’s Empowerment is a non-profit that works with homeless women to help them build the skills they need to go back to work and maintain stable housing. The California Department of Rehabilitation has also been working in collaboration with Paratransit and Women’s Empowerment to provide vocational rehabilitation services to the women. “This program has successfully put seven women back to work,” said Lisa Culp, Executive Director of Women’s Empowerment. “It’s a great example of how effective partnerships can lead to successful employment outcomes for homeless people.”
The Community Outreach Ambassadors provided input about the route and began to compile resources from a variety of employment services agencies to include on the vans. They began their vehicle operations training in August and by the end of October they will have logged nearly 330 training hours both in class and behind the wheel. “I’m glad to be involved in something that allows me to give back to the community” said Sharniece Monroe, a Wheels to Work Community Outreach Ambassador. “We understand what people out there are going through and what they need to take that first step to get out of homelessness. For many, Wheels to Work will be a bridge to that first step.”
By addressing what is at the heart of the persistent transportation-employment barriers so many low-income inner city and rural low-income residents face—no transportation systems that work when and how people who will occupy entry-level jobs need them to—the community-based Wheels to Work program provides a unique template and beacon of hope for people seeking to move out of homelessness, joblessness and poverty in these very challenging times.
Sandra Hamameh is the Program Director for the Sacramento Housing Alliance.
