Participating in a Place-Based Employment Initiative Lessons from the Jobs-Plus Demonstration in Public Housing Linda Yuriko Kato November 2003 Jobs-Plus Funding Partners U.S. Department of Housing and The Rockefeller Foundation Urban Development The Joyce Foundation U.S. Department of Health and The Annie E. Casey Foundation Human Services The James Irvine Foundation U.S. Department of Labor Surdna Foundation, Inc. Northwest Area Foundation The Stuart Foundation BP Washington Mutual Foundation Dissemination of MDRC publications is also supported by the following foundations that help finance MDRC’s public policy outreach and expanding efforts to communicate the results and implications of our work to policymakers, practitioners, and others: The Atlantic Philanthropies; the Alcoa, Ambrose Monell, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Fannie Mae, Ford, Grable, and Starr Foundations; and the Open Society Institute. The findings and conclusions in this report do not necessarily represent the official positions or policies of the funders. For information about MDRC® and copies of our publications, see our Web site: www.mdrc.org. Copyright © 2003 by MDRC. All rights reserved. Overview Is it feasible to engage large numbers of public housing residents when employment services are offered right in their own housing developments? This is one of the many questions that the Jobs- Plus Community Revitalization Initiative for Public Housing Families (“Jobs-Plus” for short) is trying to answer. Since 1998, Jobs-Plus has been under way in six cities in an attempt to raise the employment and earnings of residents of “low-work, high-welfare” public housing developments. Jobs-Plus offers residents employment-related services, rent reforms and other financial work incentives that help to “make work pay,” and community support to strengthen work-sustaining activities among residents. Operating on-site at the developments and offering service referrals to off-site partner agencies, Jobs-Plus seeks to inform all working-age residents about its services and to accommodate all who come forward for help. Key Findings • Implementation challenges. Program operators had to overcome residents’ entrenched skepticism; contend with crime and safety problems; and address wide variations in residents’ employment histories, cultural backgrounds, and service needs. Efforts to address these problems diverted staff energies away from the program’s immediate employment goals. • Saturation. The sites achieved widespread awareness of Jobs-Plus among the target group of residents, enlisting some of them as outreach workers to play a key role in enhancing the program’s profile and credibility among their neighbors. • Residents’ engagement. Initial delays in implementing some features of Jobs-Plus added to the challenge of getting residents to embrace the program. However, as of June 2001, over half the targeted working-age residents across the sites had officially attached themselves to Jobs-Plus either as individual enrollees or as members of a household that received rent incentives. However, as additional Jobs-Plus services and program components became available over time, attachment rates increased among the targeted populations. Jobs-Plus’s place-based approach also permitted the site staff to assist residents in a variety of informal ways that proved critical to the program’s appeal. • Contrasting site experiences. Variations in residents’ participation from site to site were influenced primarily by organizational factors, including differences in the sites’ ability to achieve stable program leadership, adequate professional staffing, and continuous support of the local housing authority. At the Dayton and St. Paul sites, an impressive 69 percent and 78 percent of targeted residents, respectively, became attached to Jobs-Plus; by contrast, at the Chattanooga site and at one of the two sites in Los Angeles, only 48 percent and 33 percent of residents were attached to the program. This report presents recommendations for how housing authorities and their partner agencies can implement Jobs-Plus’s offer of on-site employment assistance. It describes practical steps that can be taken to promote employment as an expectation that comes with tenancy among working-age residents and to mobilize community resources to address residents’ employment needs. The lessons of this report are also applicable to other place-based employment initiatives that strive to be more accessible and more responsive to residents by locating in low-income communities outside of public housing. -iii- Contents Overview iii List of Tables, Figures, and Boxes vii Preface xi Acknowledgments xiii Executive Summary ES-1 1 Introduction 1 The Jobs-Plus Approach 2 Limited Lessons About Using a Place-Based, Saturation Strategy to Promote Employment 6 Key Questions Addressed by This Report 9 Data Sources 11 Conclusion 12 2 Challenges Facing a Saturation Strategy in Public Housing Communities 15 A Rocky Road to Building Program Capacity 15 Residents’ Skepticism Toward Service Programs and the Housing Authority 20 Crime, Substance Abuse, and Safety Issues in Baltimore, Dayton, and Imperial Courts in Los Angeles 21 Resident Turnover in Baltimore, Chattanooga, and Dayton 23 Differences in Residents’ Work Histories, Cultural Backgrounds, and Service Eligibility 25 Conclusions 38 3 Capitalizing on Place in Implementing the Jobs-Plus Approach 41 Broadening the Target Population of Jobs-Plus 42 Informal On-Site Opportunities to Engage and Assist Residents 44 Residents in Outreach and Service Delivery 46 Collaborating with Housing Services to Promote Employment 49 Drawing on Referral Partnerships with Local Service Agencies 51 Conclusions 54 4 Residents’ Patterns of Participation in Jobs-Plus: A Quantitative Assessment 55 Measuring Participation in Jobs-Plus 55 Data Collection 57 Rates of Jobs-Plus Attachment, Enrollment, and Service Referral or Participation 59 Conclusions 81 -v- 5 How and Why Residents Participated in Jobs-Plus 83 Widespread Awareness of Jobs-Plus 83 Different “Waves” of Participants 84 Patterns of Service Usage and Reasons for Participation 85 Reasons for Staying Away from Jobs-Plus 101 Conclusions 105 6 Lessons and Recommendations 107 Challenges to Getting Residents to Participate in Jobs-Plus 107 Accomplishments of the Jobs-Plus Approach 109 Substantial Cross-Site Variation in Residents’ Participation 111 Factors Contributing to Cross-Site Variation 111 Lessons for Community-Based Employment Initiatives 115 Conclusions 116 Appendix A: Site Descriptions and Their Programs 119 Appendix B: Supplemental Exhibits to Chapter 4 127 References and Bibliography 137 Recent Publications on MDRC Projects 143 -vi- List of Tables, Figures, and Boxes Table Page 1.1 The Jobs-Plus Model 3 2.1 Residential Stability of Targeted Residents Living in the Jobs-Plus Developments in 1998 24 2.2 Residential Stability of Targeted Residents Living in the Jobs-Plus Developments in 1999 25 2.3 Residential Stability of Targeted Residents Living in the Jobs-Plus Developments in 2000 26 2.4 Selected Characteristics of Targeted Household Heads Living in Jobs-Plus Developments Between 1998 and 2000 27 2.5 Selected Characteristics of Targeted Households Living in Jobs-Plus Developments Between 1998 and 2000 28 2.6 Public Benefits Receipt and Household Income of Jobs-Plus Baseline Survey Respondents, by Development 33 2.7 Education Background of Jobs-Plus Baseline Survey Respondents, by Development 35 2.8 Jobs-Plus Baseline Survey Respondents’ Self-Identified Reasons for Difficulty in Finding a Job, by Development 36 4.1 Rates of Participation in Various Jobs-Plus Activities Among Jobs-Plus Enrollees Who Lived in the Developments Between 1998 and 2000 73 4.2 Attachment Rates of Targeted Residents Living in the Jobs-Plus Developments Between 1998 and 2000, by Selected Demographic Subgroup 76 4.3 Attachment Rates of Targeted Residents Living in the Jobs-Plus Developments Between 1998 and 2000, by Income Subgroup 79 B.1 Sample Sizes of Targeted Residents Living in the Jobs-Plus Developments Between 1998 and 2000, for the Full Sample and by Demographic Subgroup 129 B.2 Characteristics of Targeted Residents Living in the Jobs-Plus Developments Between 1998 and 2000, by Site and Attachment Status as of June 2001 131 -vii- Figure Page 1 Attachment Rate Among All Targeted Households Living in the Jobs-Plus Developments at Any Time Between 1998 and 2000, by Development ES-4 1.1 The Jobs-Plus Strategy 4 2.1 The Jobs-Plus Implementation Time Line 16 2.2 Current and Past Employment Status of Jobs-Plus Baseline Survey Respondents 32 4.1 Attachment Rate Among All Targeted Residents Living in the Jobs-Plus Developments at Any Time Between 1998 and 2000, by Development 60 4.2 Attachment Rate Among All Jobs-Plus-Targeted Residents, by Year of Residence (All Developments Combined) 61 4.3 Attachment Rate Among All Jobs-Plus-Targeted Residents, by Development and Year of Residence 62 4.4 Attachment Rate Among All Targeted Households Living in the Jobs-Plus Developments at Any Time Between 1998 and 2000, by Development 64 4.5 Cumulative Attachment Rate Among All Jobs-Plus-Targeted Residents Living in the Developments in 1998, by Development 65 4.6 Rates of Attachment, Enrollment, and Rent Incentives Receipt Among All Targeted Residents Living in the Jobs-Plus Developments at Any Time Between 1998 and 2000, by Development 69 4.7 Rent Incentives Receipt Through December 2002 Among All Targeted Residents Living in the Jobs-Plus Developments at Any Time from