In an effort to integrate the equity discussions started at Equity Summit California on April 10 into the co-located Housing California 2012 Annual Conference held April 11-12, the Sacramento Housing Alliance is providing a limited number scholarships for the Annual Conference.  These scholarships are only available to Equity Summit Attendees who are unable to attend the Annual Conference due to financial need.  (Equity Summit attendance will be verified prior to reimbursement.)

WHAT CAN I APPLY FOR?

Applicants may apply for one of the following:

1)    Full Conference Scholarship – Recipients will receive conference admission for April 11-12, 2012, and reimbursement for actual costs for travel (up to $200, based on location), lodging (up to $100 per individual), and dinner (up to $30 per individual – Tuesday and Wednesday night only). – NOTE: Sacramento residents are not eligible for “Full Conference Scholarships.”

2)    Conference Fee Waiver – Recipients will receive conference admission for April 11-12, 2012. It does NOT cover travel, lodging, or dinner.

NOTE: Individuals who are unable to front the costs of attending the conference are encouraged to find a local housing or homelessness organization that is willing to sponsor the applicant for a Full Conference Scholarship. The organization will be responsible for advancing conference costs to the scholarship recipient. Housing California will reimburse the organization for actual costs for travel, lodging, and dinner. Please contact Sacramento Housing Alliance if you wish to take advantage of this option.

REQUIREMENTS

All applicants must demonstrate ONE or more of the following on their application:

• S/he is actively involved in the equity community (or related field) through employment, education, training, or volunteer work.
• S/he demonstrates a strong commitment to advancing equity in his/her application.
• S/he is a consumer or under-served group.

All applicants must demonstrate financial need.

All scholarship recipients must attend Equity Summit California AND the Housing California 2012 Annual conference. Should the recipient fail to attend, future scholarship applications will NOT be considered and Sacramento Housing Alliance will NOT reimburse the recipient or sponsoring organization for any costs incurred (if applicable).

DEADLINE TO APPLY

All sections of the application must be completed and returned no later than Thursday, March 8, 2012 by 5:00 p.m. PST. Late or incomplete applications will not be accepted. NO EXCEPTIONS.

Applicants are responsible for confirming that their applications were received. Sacramento Housing Alliance is not responsible for fax malfunction or e-mail transmissions.

NOTIFICATION

All scholarship recipients will be notified via e-mail by Wednesday, March 14, 2012.  This will include information on discounted lodging for Conference attendees. Please note that discounted hotel rates end on March 19, 2012.)

QUESTIONS? NEED ASSISTANCE?

If you have any questions or need assistance filling out your application, please contact Narisha Bonakdar at (916) 455.4900 x303 or narisha@sachousingalliance.org.

To apply online, click here.  To apply via mail or fax, click here and fill out the application online. Then print the scholarship application and fax or mail

Fax: (916) 455-4917

Mail to:

Narisha Bonakdar

Sacramento Housing Alliance

1800 21st Street, Suite 100

Sacramento, CA 95811

Dear Homeless Advocate:
The Sacramento Housing Alliance (SHA) is urging your organization to write a support letter for Goodwill’s Community Service Proposal. Goodwill proposes to manage the Alternative Sentencing program for the Sacramento Superior Court in a revenue neutral manner. This means that they will return an estimated $250,000 to the county for use to support County Homeless Programs.

SHA hopes you agree that this is a “win-win” concept and your organization supports Goodwill’s proposal and Supervisor Phil Serna’s leadership in finding desperately needed sources of funds for supporting the homeless programs in our county.

Thank you for taking five minutes to send your support letter now directly to Supervisor Serna .

SAMPLE SUPPORT LETTER

Please cut and paste onto your letterhead, complete and email

Date

Dear Supervisor Serna:

(Your Organization) is pleased to offer our support to Goodwill’s Community Service proposal to manage the Alternative Sentencing program for the Sacramento Superior Court. I understand that their proposal is not only to operate this program in a revenue neutral manner but also offers to return excess revenue, estimated to be $250,000, from the program to the Department of Human Assistance Homeless Programs.

This money is desperately needed. Our struggling economy has placed more Sacramento individuals, families, veterans, seniors and people with disabilities into homelessness at the exact time that public funding to protect them from the weather and the streets has dramatically decreased. (Give example of impact that the increased need has on agency. Or give example demonstrated increasing need.)

I also have every confidence that Goodwill will manage this program well. Goodwill has been part of the Sacramento Community for more than 70 years and have an excellent record of direct service to individuals and a large network of community partners who will put their community service referrals to work. Agency name is pleased to be one of those partners.

I hope that Goodwill’s proposal receives full consideration by the county. Agency name believes it is the best way to serve community service volunteers and generate funding for Sacramento’s homeless.

Thanks to Goodwill for their “win-win” proposal and to you, Supervisor Serna for your continued leadership to prevent and end homelessness in the Sacramento Region.

Sincerely,

(Your Name)

Press Release

For Immediate Release                                       Contact: Sandra Hamameh

Tuesday, September 27, 2011                            Office: (916) 455-4900

“Wheels to Work”

Drives to End Homelessness in Sacramento

New program launched this week to provide transportation, mobility training,and employment assistance for the homeless

Sacramento, California — In mid-September, two 14-passenger vans operated by Paratransit Community OutreachAmbassadors kicked off a new program that will provide homeless people with transportation, employmentsearch services, health resources and training about how to use public transit. Paratransit’s Mobility Trainingand Job Search Shuttle Service for the Homeless, more commonly known as, Wheels to Work, is the productof a unique collaboration between Paratransit Inc., Women’s Empowerment, the Sacramento HousingAlliance, Sacramento Steps Forward, the Department of Human Assistance, the California Departmentof Rehabilitation and other homeless and housing service providers. The vans will be used to transporthomeless men and women to job interviews, training programs, access a mobile computer lab, and reachseveral key service sites — without the transportation, they would be unable to perform these most basicactivities to gain steady employment.

The partnership began in 2009 when two passenger shuttle vans were donated from Thunder Valley Casinoto a sub-committee of Sacramento Steps Forward (SSF) that addresses homeless employment issues. The chair of the SSF Homeless Employment Committee and Executive Director of the Sacramento HousingAlliance, Bob Erlenbusch, immediately thought of how the newly acquired vans could be utilized.

“A recent survey of homeless people shows that thirty percent of the responders identified transportationand access to transportation as a significant barrier to employment. We needed to develop a plan todirectly address those barriers. We started by collaborating with our community partners to find realsolutions for change.”

One of those community partners, Paratransit Inc., also recognized the need for employment services andtransportation for homeless people. Linda Deavens, Paratransit’s Chief Executive Officer agreed to takeon the project. After working with the Department of Human Assistance to secure federal Jobs Accessand Reverse Commute (JARC) funding, Paratransit registered, insured, repaired and retrofitted the two vans, adding them to their vehicle fleet.

“We saw an opportunity to become partners in an innovative program that would provide much neededtransportation and employment services to homeless men and women. We pulled together our resourcesand with the help of the Department of Human Assistance we secured federal funding for a year. We got to work with employment service providers and the result is a program that we can all be proud of.”

Formerly Homeless Women Find Work Driving for Paratransit

Wheels to Work not only provides access to employment services and transportation but it also employspeople that were formerly homeless. The program provides “on the job” vehicle operator training to sevenformerly homeless women with various disabilities. The Community Outreach Ambassadors, as they arecalled, are graduates of an 8-week employment skills training program run by Women’s Empowerment.Women’s Empowerment is a non-profit that works with homeless women to help them build the skills they need to go back to work and maintain stable housing. The California Department of Rehabilitationhas also been working in collaboration with Paratransit and Women’s Empowerment to provide vocationalrehabilitation services to the women.

“This program has successfully put seven women back to work,” said Lisa Culp, Executive Director ofWomen’s Empowerment. “It’s a great example of how effective partnerships can lead to successfulemployment outcomes for homeless people.”

The Community Outreach Ambassadors provided input about the route and began to compile resourcesfrom a variety of employment services agencies to include on the vans. They began their vehicle operationstraining in August and by the end of October they will have logged nearly 330 training hours both in classand behind the wheel.

“I’m glad to be involved in something that allows me to give back to the community” said SharnieceMonroe, a Wheels to Work Community Outreach Ambassador. “We understand what people out thereare going through and what they need to take that first step to get out of homelessness. For many, Wheelsto Work will be a bridge to that first step.”

A press conference and light reception to introduce Wheels to Work has been scheduled for October 12th at 10 a.m. at the Volunteers of America Family Center located at 470 Bannon Street.

###

Paratransit’s Mobility Training and Job Search Shuttle Service, “Wheels to Work” is a collaborationbetween Paratransit, Women’s Empowerment, Sacramento Steps Forward the Sacramento HousingAlliance, the Department of Human Assistance and the California Department of Rehabilitation. To learnmore visit: www.paratransit.org/wheels-to-work.

Paratransit, Inc.

P.O. Box 231100

Sacramento, CA 95823(916) 429-2009 x 7229

www.paratransit.org/wheels-to-work

Folsom Sued Again for Failing to Provide Workforce Housing

The Sacramento Housing Alliance (SHA), filed suit in Sacramento Superior Court challenging the City of Folsom’s repeal of  its “affordable housing ordinance” and its failure to implement several other workforce housing programs in the “Housing Element” of the City’s General Plan.  The City’s Housing Element designates the affordable housing ordinance as the City’s primary method of ensuring that housing that is affordable to low and moderate income families is available to meet the City’s needs.  SHA is asking the Court to order the City to comply with the law and to stop approval of new development until the City complies with its housing commitments under state law.

Every five years each city and county must adopt a housing element– a plan to meet the housing needs of the people in their community.  The housing element must address the needs of people at all economic levels.  The City’s Housing Element is a commitment to the people of Folsom and a commitment that they will do their fair share to build housing in the region and the state.

“Folsom has many service and retail jobs and few places for those workers to live.  Folsom needs to promote housing for all of its residents and not just the well-off,” said Shamus Roller, Executive Director of the Sacramento Housing Alliance.

This is the second time in the last 15 years that Folsom has been called to task for ignoring its obligations under the law.  In 2001, the Sacramento Superior Court in a similar action, halted all development in Folsom because the City ignored its obligation to build workforce housing for 9 years.  That lawsuit led to the adoption of an affordable housing ordinance and other commitments to improve the conditions for the development of workforce housing.  Last month the Folsom City Council repealed that affordable housing component of their plan and offered nothing in replacement.

In addition to repealing their affordable housing ordinance, Folsom has failed to meet the goals of at least 15 other programs they committed to in their Housing Element, including ensuring proper zoning for emergency shelters and group homes for residents with disabilities.

“We thought that Folsom’s leaders had learned their lesson, that their obligations under state law are real, and that it is not permissible to exclude housing for working people from their City,” said Sarah Ropelato, staff attorney with Legal Services of Northern California, counsel for SHA on the suit.  “We will ask the court to order Folsom to comply with the laws with which other cities comply.”

“Folsom once again has let down its workforce and its neighboring communities,” said Michael Rawson of the California Affordable Housing Law Project, co-counsel on the case.   “We hope the City will step up, accept its responsibility and reinstate its affordable housing program, “

What’s next?

A bill to reform redevelopment agencies, SB 450 (Lowenthal) passed the Senate’s Transportation and Housing Committee this week.  It will be heard next in Appropriations sometime before the end of May.  Also, Assembly democrats are discussing a measure that allows redevelopment agencies to voluntarily pass through more of their revenues to local schools and to reform the rules for spending their housing and non-housing funds.  Housing advocates will continue to be a involved in the discussions about redevelopment housing funds.

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