Hire253 - Kelly Blucher, Goodwill
- An almost full report out
- 542 people attended
- 50% female and 50% male
- Race (highest representation at the top)
- White – 159 folks
- Black – 106 folks
- Multiracial – the next group
- Others
- Referrals – so many agencies – so collaborative
- (She mentioned a bunch speaking really fast, and I didn’t want to leave anyone out, so a generic kudos to everyone –ed.)
- Ages (highest representation at the top):
- youth (16-24) – 104 folks
- 35-44 – next most numerous
- 55 and over –
- others
- Education Levels
- Most had some college but didn’t finish – says folks need support while they are in college
- Next largest group had less than high school diploma – so we need GED classes to support these folks
- 404 of the 542 people would like follow up help an resources from organizations. – that is a big lift – now that we have it broken up, how can we all work together to reach back and continue working with them.
- Over 100 veterans attended
- Barriers (highest number of response at the top)
- identified that they were currently experiencing homelessness – 150 folks
- didn’t answer why.
- Criminal background
- Working poor
- Single parents
- Top fields – had 14 staffing agencies. Fedex hired the most folks, but the staffing agencies were big. Staffing is a good way to re-enter the workforce
- Office admin
- Construction
- Warehouse
- Staffing agencies
- Have only contacted 20% of the 80 employers in attendance, and have 154 verified hires so far (wait a minute, my neighbor was just telling me that “those vagrants are too high and too lazy to get work” – are you sure that is right, Kelly… -ed.)
- Committee put in a really big effort to contact employers and let them know the purpose of the event.
- October event – will work with employers to get them prepared to work with folks with criminal backgrounds.
- Have a 25% hire rate so far –better preparation next time can increase that to 50% (as if that isn’t good enough…-ed).
- Transportation for newly hired folks is important – sound outreach provided some. Need way to get to work until 1st paycheck comes (honestly, I had never thought about this. Two weeks of financial support to cover transportation seems like such a doable problem to solve. –ed.)
- In an effort of good partnership, Goodwill would like to challenge another nonprofit in a softball match. Create a team and challenge goodwill. (Catholic Community Services is on this in a big way –the trash talk has already begun… –ed.)
- Al – Do you have a way to break out the demographics of the people who were hired. Kelly – we can, with some follow-ups. We don’t have staff to do those follow ups – we would have to distribute that follow up work out. Gerrit – we can do the follow up for those who identified as homeless.
- Did you ask about needing medical services? Kelly – no but we can work on that (I think that is what was said – my notes on this made no sense. –ed).
- Theresa – about barriers, did you ask if folks were formerly incarcerated – Kelly – did ask about “criminal background”. Theresa – I can do follow up based on the criminal-record folks.
- Maureen – asked the County for 4 years of why people report being homeless – 2nd highest response was underemployed. Would love to get data showing folks becoming fully employed and track them for a period. If we can prove how employment impacts homelessness. Kelly – we’d be interested in doing that. The Goodwill Center for Strong families does track a lot clients for a long time. Sound Outreach has a similar center for families that does that tracking.
- Alice – you keep hearing about follow up phone calls – was there a contact preference? Kelly – we didn’t identify a follow up preference, but we do have phone and e-mail.
- (Everyone clapped and cheered a lot – like so: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opT_JGssUVk – or maybe not quite like that…–ed.)
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