Strategy

The Issue

Homelessness and housing insecurity affect the well-being of entire families, impacting health as well as the ability of family members to work and go to school.

Low-income housing in disrepair financially drains occupants through structural inefficiencies such as lack of insulation, inadequate windows, and other factors that increase the cost of heat and utilities.

Our Plan

To develop a clear understanding of Springfield’s neighborhood housing issues by studying the neighborhood demographic and evaluating the availability, adequacy, appropriateness, affordability, and amenities of the housing market.

We will continue to provide housing counseling services and tenant-landlord conflict resolution services, weatherize housing units of low-income families, conduct Housing Education Workshops on tenants’ rights and responsibilities, and educate low-income individuals to develop the necessary skills to maintain their homes, such as by budgeting or credit counseling.

Those with low incomes will achieve housing stability.

The Issue

Secure living-wage employment is perhaps the single most important determinant of economic stability. If a household has an adequate annual income, its members will have access to more services, which contributes to a better quality of life.

We’ve identified two primary areas in which additional support to obtain and maintain self-sustaining employment:

• Training and education to become a qualified employee
• Job search assistance for positions the individual is qualified for

Our Plan

To enhance our current employment-support programming to target other vulnerable populations: specifically, incarcerated individuals, individuals re-entering the community after incarceration, and others without a solid work history.

We will provide job skills training, counseling/coaching, computer classes, GED classes, adult education, adult literacy, and adult language classes. For employment search assistance, we will provide support with interviewing skills, job searching, resume writing, counseling/coaching, dressing for success, developing work history and experience (including volunteer opportunities), and post-incarceration re-entry assistance. We will provide intensive case management and support to ensure that 100% of participants successful at obtaining jobs.

The Issue

The causes and varieties of crime are many and complex, as are the solutions to preventing it. We believe that by creating linkages with robust community policing programs already in place will empower citizens to “take back” the neighborhoods which they currently perceive to be unsafe.

Our Plan

To partner with re-entry providers to help those who have been convicted of a crime readjust to society and overcome employment and housing barriers rather than fall into recidivism. We will create linkages with already-in-place programs such as C-3 policing, sector meetings, and Citizen’s Police Academy by having case managers attend these meetings.

We do not merely provide services to people with low income; we actively seek their input and encourage their participation in running our agency, as staff members, volunteers, and, most notably, as members of our Board of Directors.