Commissioner Hess testified at the May 13th budget hearing, and DHS stated in a press release [1], that in the first year of the Work Advantage program 4,000 households signed leases with one of the Advantage programs. He further highlighted that as of that meeting, no families had returned to shelter. Although given that all of the Advantage programs, save Short Term Advantage, pay the vast majority of the rent consistently for one year, few families should be leaving the program yet, and only a few families signed leases in the first months of the program could have possibly finished their first year thus far.

The Critical Activities Report lists the most recent statistics for move outs from the family shelter system only.

This raised the question of how successful we assume our clients receiving the Work Advantage program will be even if they receive a full two years of assistance, taking into consideration educational background, work history and the economy. New Destiny shared that they are able to collect information from the DV shelters regarding the characteristics of the clients they serve. The possibility of a similar effort in the homeless shelter system was raised. We agreed to explore this possibility further and Lindsey agreed to draft a survey that might serve as a tool to collect this information.

Lindsey also raised that some groups had requested lower literacy fact sheets on the Advantage programs, which she has been drafting. The suggestion was made that those sheets include information about what types of work count with respect to the Work Advantage program (must receive a pay check, POPs project counts, WEP does not).

The Coalition shared a story regarding a client who has been living in a building that has been being foreclosed upon for over a year. Due to complications with her personal and economic circumstances, DHS has said that the client will not be eligible for a second year of Work Advantage although she has no income. As a result, she is slated to return to shelter by the end of the month if none of our Advocacy efforts are successful. HomeBase was not able to assist her, as the Commissioner had mentioned would be the case.

A representative from Brownsville HomeBase raised that each of the HomeBase offices are operating differently and that they are doing targeted outreach to engage HSP recipients in Brownsville.