Earlier this year, the Alliance issued its first-ever call for proposals for a nationwide Workforce Innovation Fund. Not quite knowing what to expect from the process, our staff committee was overwhelmed by nearly a thousand applications from across the country.
We heard about various ways to attract and train all types of talent, including people with lived experience, social workers, lawyers, medical professionals, and journalists. An organization in Montana was focusing on group therapy and yoga to help staff manage vicarious trauma. And, in Connecticut, an organization sought to provide housing to its workers, reducing their stress about becoming homeless while aiding people who are homeless.
These were just a sampling of the ideas present in the hundreds of applications. Ultimately, it became necessary to make some difficult decisions, and the Alliance was unable to fund a long list of good ideas and good people doing good work. This process was very competitive; the two selected organizations were:
Grantee #1: Lived Experience Advocacy Network (LEAN) — Minnesota
The organization will launch Ladders & Lifelines, a program that will offer training and mentorship to people with lived experience who are working or seeking employment in the homeless services field.
Grantee #2: Oasis Center — Nashville, TN
Working with area youth, the organization has a multi-faceted approach to supporting its staff. Grant funding will help to sustain and expand its existing workforce support that includes wellness stipends, holiday shift bonuses, self-care events, team-building apparel, and hotel rooms that allow for continued operations during snow days.
As we reviewed all the applications, a couple of things became clear.
First, many organizations in our field are trying to maximize the services they provide with limited and often shifting resources.
Some wrote about being hit hard by the expiration of federal COVID-19 relief funds. Others indicated that they were bracing for potential budget cuts in the months ahead. These challenges were larger than the minimal resources tied to the Alliance’s innovation fund. However, they further fed our fire for our advocacy in Washington, D.C. and every other level of government. (Please stay in the loop on the Alliance’s advocacy efforts by signing up for our advocacy alerts)- Second, we noted the degree to which too many workers in our field go without some things that should be considered basic.Funding limitations prevented the Alliance from using this grant funding to support healthcare plans for workers who had none, staff expansions that were needed to maintain basic services for clients, or comprehensive paid leave policies — but we certainly heard you when you expressed those needs. And then there were the many small and overwhelmingly reasonable asks: comfortable places to sit during employee breaks, safety promoting equipment, and various types of emergency funds that help employees living paycheck to paycheck weather the unexpected (such as car trouble, a child’s educational expense, or an unusually high bill). We wish we could have funded them all. But we also recognized the dire need for better organizational budgets and living wages.
Finally, as we watched your videos and heard your stories from every corner of the country, it reaffirmed our knowledge of the many wonderful people daily working within our field with the goal of helping to uplift other people and better their communities. We are proud to work with you.
Looking toward the future, the Alliance will continue to explore ways that we can advance and support the field’s workforce needs, so they are staffed in ways that will allow them to meaningfully serve their clients and actually end homelessness. And we look forward to continuing to partner with every applicant (and non-applicant in the field) to do this work.
You might also be interested in
Stay Updated: Solutions, Stories, and Ways to Make an Impact
Sign up to receive updates on the Alliance’s work, including the latest research, advocacy efforts, and real stories of progress — plus ways you can help drive lasting change.