VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY
WEBCAST
GARY SHAHEEN
AUGUST 15, 2005
1:00 P.M. CST 
CAPTIONING PROVIDED BY:  	CAPTION FIRST, INC.	   
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GARY SHAHEEN:  Hello, everyone.  Welcome to today's presentation 
on increasing employment for people with psychiatric disability 
who are homeless.  I am Gary Shaheen. Let me start off the 
session by saying that I have been involved in this field for 
about 26 years.  Back when I started unemployment among 
people with psychiatric disabilities including those that were 
homeless, the [rate] was roughly 85-90%.  Those of you in the audience
might ask yourself the question, "So what is it today?" Well, the 
answer is almost the same.  
	With all of the evidence-based practices, with the 
promising practices, with what we've known about increasing 
employment for folks with disabilities, we've not made great 
strides in that area.
	The first point I would like to mention is this, if 
we're ever going to increase employment and reduce homelessness 
among people with psychiatric disabilities, we need to take 
another look at the issue.  We need to figure out a different 
way to do it, a better way to do it. I believe that we need 
to have partners at the table that can help us accomplish those 
goals.
	The first question that I have for you is,"Who in the 
audience might feel that addressing homelessness, that 
addressing employment for people with psychiatric disabilities 
is a job of the mental health system alone?"
	My guess is that probably most of you might say that 
it's not the job of the mental health system alone. You 
would be right.
	The job is really a community job.  A job that involves 
members from the Department of Labor. It should involve your 
local faith and community-based organizations, working in 
partnership with mental health, substance abuse authorities and 
homeless services providers.  The types of partnerships that 
we're talking about are contained in a document that was put out 
just about a year or so ago.  It was by the U.S. Department of 
health substance abuse administration. It's called, "Work is 
A Priority." You can download that from the U.S. Department of 
Health, and that contains a lot of information on the 
partnerships that could potentially increase the amount of 
employment that folks with psychiatric disabilities who are 
homeless have an opportunity to have in your community.
	This whole issue of whose job is it anyway really 
needs to be taken on by communities as the point of entry that 
it's issued.  If we're going to make a difference, then we 
have to realize that drug abuse and mental health is related to 
housing is related to healthcare and joblessness. It's all 
related to poverty.
	Again, you think about folks that you are working 
with in your community who have disabilities who are homeless, 
they have one thing in common, they're all poor.  As I said 
earlier, the job of the mental health system or any of these 
other systems acting alone to address poverty is not really the 
case.  We all must work together in that area.
	Let me ask a couple of questions, along with a story 
that I will share with you.  Some years ago I was doing work in 
a large city.  There was an article, and the article was 
called "Homeless for the Holidays." It was featured in that 
article a whole number of folks that were homeless, and they had 
interviews with these folks. They asked them a whole series 
of questions.  I did a composite of one of these folks, and 
I would like to share a little bit about that person with you.  
We'll call this person "RJ." RJ says that he has been 
homeless for five years.  He has schizophrenia.  He has been 
drug addicted since the age of 6.  He doesn't know where he will 
sleep tonight. 
He doesn't like shelters.  He says that people rob you and beat 
you and the staff don't treat with you respect.  But he also 
says that he is an inventor with an awful lot of inventions.  
He says that he has an invention to help buses run on cooking 
oil instead of gas, and he also knows how to stop planes from 
falling out of the sky.  They asked RJ, what should we be 
doing differently?  RJ said a couple of things.  He says the 
city doesn't spend enough money on us.  If they can build a 
new convention center, they should give us money to help us to 
get jobs.  My question to you is this,  is RJ ready to work?  
Those of you out there who are job developers might say, you 
know, in fact, he has got a lot of issues. 
He probably is still struggling with his substance abuse.   
This thing about inventions might be his symptoms 
talking.  We don't know.
	He's not ready to go to that job at the local Wal-
Mart or RadioShack or any of those places that we've spent so 
long trying to develop jobs with.  Well, in fact, if you take a 
really good close look at RJ, and you take a look at the types 
of skills that he has gained through survival, you might come up 
with a different understanding.
	The understanding might go something like this,
What are the skills that RJ has gathered through his survival?  
What are the types of capacities, the kinds of strengths that he 
has gained working through the process of recovery?  What 
did it take to really live on the streets for the period of time 
that RJ has lived on the streets?
	Well, I think that we would all agree that he probably 
has got some creativity, and certainly resilience.  He has 
strength.  [He] might even have insight when he talks about 
having schizophrenia and being drug addicted since the age of 6.  
He is getting his information about the city and the 
papers, and what they should be doing with him and for him from 
some place.  He has got some sort of presence of an 
orientation to what the city is doing, and he has some thoughts 
in that area.
	For RJ and folks like him, it's important that we 
look below surface, below what we see.  If you were to say to 
RJ, "Well, you know what?  You are interested in talking about 
work. We do have a vocational program, and if you can show 
us that you can attend groups, and you can deal with your 
substance abuse issues, and you can get yourself clean and sober 
and agree to mental health treatment, then maybe we can talk 
about work."
	We all know from past experience that what's going 
to happen is that RJ is going to leave.  He has heard all of 
that before.  [We] are not going to be able to catch him, to hook 
him, to gather the information that you need to really allow you 
to work with him in a better way if you don't respond to his 
immediate area of interest.
	My point is this, if RJ is interested in working, or 
has a glimmer of the idea that he is interested in work, we have 
to respond to what he needs.  We have to respond with a standing 
offer of work, and we need to redefine what we mean by "job 
ready."
	He might not be ready for a job at RadioShack.  He 
probably is not ready for that job at Wal-Mart.  But he might be 
ready to work 15 minutes a day.  He might be able to work a half 
an hour a day every other day.  With those types of skills 
and those types of opportunities, perhaps working with him in a 
close relationship he can build a trust. They can build a trust, 
the practitioner and RJ, to allow a further conversation around 
the area of work.  That leads me to my next point.
	We have to also redefine what we mean by "work." Now, 
work may not always be a 9:00-to-5:00 job for some folks it may 
be a 15-minute-a-day job for two weeks at the earliest stages of 
the engagement.  We have to respond in flexible ways, and we 
have to meet him where he is with these types of flexible 
services.  That means that job developers working with folks 
like RJ would not be office-bound.  Their office is the park 
bench.  It's under the bridge.  It's in the streets.  It's 
wherever RJ is, to have a conversation around the importance of 
work when the time is right.  Not every moment is an employment 
moment, that's for sure.  But if RJ is interested in talking about 
work, then we have to respond to the area of need to establish 
that trust. 
	[We would] recognize those skills and the strengths that he 
gained through survival.  Celebrate the successes. If he has 
come back a second day, that's a success.  Use every 
opportunity to foster hope and motivation to change.  
	What about motivation?  Some of us may say, or many 
practitioners might say that, you know, he's not shown up for 
work the second day, or he's not made his appointment with his 
case manager. He's not motivated.  But we understand that 
motivation is a state and not a trait. It can be influenced by 
services. We have to work with folks who are homeless to 
help them transition from the life on the street to a place of 
their own, and a job of their own, according to the pace that 
they need to set.  Ambivalence is good.  If you look at the 
slide with RJ again, you will see that he is talking a little bit 
about work.  He has got a thought there that perhaps if the city 
can spend more money, maybe they can help him get a job.  That 
to me says ambivalence.  That he is beginning to say, "Well, 
maybe this idea of work is okay." We have to work with him 
to help nurture that.
	Resistance is not a force to be overcome.  Folks have 
been resistant to services as a matter of survival. We have 
to work around that in a very assiduous case management way.  
We have to focus on them as an ally and not an adversary.
	The condition of homelessness is a many-year 
process.  Working with folks takes a long period of time to 
help get them to the point where they can accept services.  
Some of the principles for to you consider are that recovery, 
change, and growth are intrinsic to being human. We're all 
in recovery from something or other in our lives.   
People who have suffered many losses, like folks who are 
homeless, may have also relinquished the hope to survive.
	What is it going to take to help folks like RJ?  
Well, it's going to take understanding that they're facing 
challenges at three levels.  There are a whole host of personal 
challenges, things like mobility. If you are a job developer, 
and you are trying to help them to connect with an employer, 
they're out of a shelter at 8:00 in the morning, and perhaps 
don't have access to a phone until another 5, 6, 8 hours later.  
Mobility is a real issue.  The lifestyle of homelessness, 
the condition of homelessness, the ruthlessness, the physical 
impact, they all make a whole host of personal challenges that 
people need to overcome.  Programming themselves is challenging.
As long as we look at support approaches, a VR type approach 
perhaps for folks at this earliest stages, may not be as 
effective as we would like. 
Frankly there are pieces I've heard program folks talk about 
when they talk about their challenges. They talk about a 
paradigm paralysis.  Staff may not feel that people 
who are homeless, have the capability, the interest, the 
experience, the where with all to commit to work.  There are a 
whole host of program challenges, and we'll talk more about that 
later in the broadcast.  If that wasn't enough, there's a whole 
host of systems challenges.  Folks like RJ are served by 
multiple systems, the homeless system, mental health system, and 
the substance abuse system.  If they're involved at all with 
employment, they have an employment provider and the 
shelter system, and so on.
	The big challenge for RJ is on all three levels.   
For us to be successful, we need to have an understanding of how 
those three interact, and how to deal with them.  
	Here is an example for you.  In Los Angeles in the 
skid row area, there is a program called LAMP Village.  It's a 
drop-in crisis center.  They operate a number of enterprises 
that allow people like RJ to come in and do some work for a 
little bit a day while they work with them, establish trust, and 
get them involved in other treatment and supportive services.
	They operate a shelter, and they do a number of 
contracts for the city giving them the opportunity to involve 
people in work.  
	They also commit to hiring consumers in their 
organization, and most of their staff are consumers of mental 
health services.  This is just one example. There are many programs 
throughout the country like LAMP Village that are having success 
at this very early stage of engagement around work.
	Here is another example for you.  You'll find on the website, 
more complete discussion and also examples in each one of these 
categories.  But what I would like to share with you now is a 
concept that we call a no wrong door.  As you are thinking about
employment services that are flexible for folks who are homeless, 
you might think about those types of services at the very early stage.
That's up in the top of your screen, to help develop motivation and 
awareness.  That might mean having job postings in your shelter, or 
having speakers in your drop-in center to talk about employment.   
The idea is not necessarily to give people jobs right at 
the earliest stage, but it's to build motivation and appetite 
for work.
	At the earliest stages think about what you can 
do working with your homeless services system to make sure that 
work is a priority and people get the idea that perhaps maybe 
work can be in their future.
	After that might come some sort of an orientation to an 
employment service.  If I am interested in that, after I've 
heard another consumer talk about, what it took and the 
fears that they overcame to get a job and to keep a job,  
some orientation to a program, getting some skills, an interest 
assessment [develops] very rapidly.  All of the information that we're 
getting now, all of the evidence, is pointing to the need to have 
rapid access to work.  We used to think that people needed 
to go through a lot of pre-vocational this and that.  What we're 
finding is that "pre" means absolutely never.  People need to 
have rapid attachment to work.  That's why we offer a couple of 
options.
	For those folks who just want to get directly into work, there's 
a whole series of fast-track options directly into supported 
employment positions, working with folks after that initial 
quick assessment, and an idea of what they would like to do to 
get them into a competitive job at a very part-time basis, or 
perhaps on up to full-time.  Some people may want to spend a 
little bit longer time, figuring out what it is that 
they want to do, and taking a slower entry ramp to work.  You 
should have a number of discovery options.  These could be a 
little bit longer assessment.  This could be involvement in some 
transitional types of work, some social purpose ventures type of 
work, but the kind of thing that can build exposure and 
experience to work and help people to develop the self-esteem 
that they need and the confidence to go ahead and enter into 
the mainstream workforce. 
	The most important part of this slide is that big arrow 
right in the middle, and that means that it's not a either/or.  
People should have the option of cycling back and forth and 
spending time in each as they desire.  You are going to hear 
throughout this broadcast the term "customization." This is 
a good example of that.  People need to have approaches that are 
customized to where they are, at a particular period of time, 
and that they're in the driver's seat, as to the type of 
employment that they choose.  
	The other piece of evidence that we're understanding now 
is that ongoing assessment, ongoing follow-along with job coaches, 
with case management staff, after people have been placed is absolutely
critical.  That needs to occur throughout the process.  
	The end result is that folks should have customized 
placement, replacement, and replacement, and replacement for as 
long as it takes, and continuous assessment advancement 
services.
	Back to something earlier that I had said is that this 
is fundamentally an issue of poverty.  If we are content 
to enrolling folks into low-entry-level jobs, and 
keeping them there, they're not going to address the issues of 
poverty that people are struggling with. We have to also 
be as concerned with advancement opportunities as part of this 
whole plan.
	What are these standing offers of work?  What are the 
types of discovery options that people might have an opportunity 
to get folks like RJ?  Things like low-impact jobs.  Working 
with, your business improvement district to get 
contracts for services in the community, in the downtowns.  Many 
homeless services agencies have worked with downtown improvement 
districts and janitorial services, flexible contracts that can 
get people involved in some early discovery around work.  Jobs 
owned by the agency.  If you look inside of your agency, think 
of the types of jobs that you hire into.  Think about who is at 
your front desk, who is cleaning your building.  
If you are a supportive housing provider and you have 
properties, who is doing the lawn care and the snow removal and 
so on? Every moment should be an opportunity to open up potential 
job opportunities for folks to give them a leg up, and a way 
back into the work system, and have opportunities to build 
self-esteem, hope, and trust.  

What I would like to do is segue into some the 
approaches that are being used out in the field right now that 
you might be familiar with, but perhaps not.  I'll go through 
these fairly quickly.  The assertive community treatment 
approach, or program for assertive community treatment pact is 
an integrated services design.  It includes an employment 
specialist.  These integrative services teams are working 
with folks who are homeless with disabilities, and wrapping 
around services with them that include social work, and access 
to treatment, and an employment specialist that can help them do 
a rapid assessment and a rapid access to work as a way of 
getting folks back into the mainstream.
	It also involves continual follow-along reports, and 
reassessment.  If you have an apt team in your area, the 
question that I would ask is, how well are they including 
employment right now in their services team?  What are their 
challenges?  How can they best increase employment for folks with 
psychiatric disabilities who are homeless as a member of that 
service structure?  
	The next option, supportive employment has been with us 
for quite awhile.  But it's now being written up as part of the 
substance abuse and mental health newest resource kit, one of 
the newer resource kits.
	This is an approach that, again, calls for rapid 
access to employment, working with employment specialist to 
match job seekers' needs and skills with their preferences, and 
what jobs are available in the market.  But similar to the other 
approaches that I am talking about, it includes support to both 
employee and employer to make sure that the job can be retained 
and that the person has opportunities for growth and 
advancement.  
	Another approach are called social purpose ventures, or 
social enterprises.  A little bit later on I'll add to our 
website some resources that you can download for agencies 
that are doing well in this area.  But basically many agencies 
throughout the country have decided that they needed to have 
rapid access to jobs for folks, non-sheltered work jobs, but 
jobs that pay a good wage but has built-in flexibilities that 
are agency-owned businesses.  Many agencies have started some 
of these small businesses that affirmatively employ people.  
The advantage here is that the agency owns these jobs.  You 
will see throughout the country whole hosts of businesses, 
construction companies, or delis. In California, there's an agency 
called Rubicon. Rubicon has a catering business and does baked 
goods under contract. 
Any opportunity to provide employment for folks in agency-owned 
businesses is taking advantage of it.  However, 
they do have quite a few disadvantages.  First of all, they're 
high risk.  To do any of these types of things, you need to have 
a good business plan just like any other business.   
While they could be important as part of your 
strategy, I wouldn't put all of your eggs in one basket.  
	The term "customization" is a fairly new one.  
Customized employment is one of the newer approaches.  The 
interesting thing about customized employment is that it's not 
an approach that is being marketed through or promoted 
necessarily by the mental health services system.  That comes 
out of the Department of Labor.  Again, back to some of my 
earlier comments, if we're ever going to make an increase in 
people working, and to make gains against poverty, then we need 
to involve the mainstream service system.  This new 
Department of Labor approach builds upon supported employment 
and job accommodations, and individualizes the employment 
relationship between the job seeker and the employer to meet the 
needs of both.  They offer a whole number of somewhat new 
approaches that we could use, and new tools. 

	Things like discovery, saying, "What are 
your core gifts?  What are your strengths?  How does that match 
what an employer might need?  How can you best market yourself 
from a core base of strengths and gifts to get the job that you 
might want?"
All of the way through negotiation.  Things like job carving, 
working with an employer to create a new job within 
that organization that could meet both their needs and the job 
seeker's needs.  Having a plan for employer marketing that 
really promotes the idea that it's a win/win situation.   
Customized employment is important for a couple of reasons -- 
actually for three now that I think of it.  First it comes out 
of the Department of Labor system.  As such, it is a new 
entry to overall design.  Second is that it reaffirms the value 
of person-centered planning, and provides tools and supports for 
that.  Third, it's also being recognized through part of 
the substance abuse and mental health administration's new 
action agenda as important approach for working with people with 
psychiatric disabilities.
	Part of the customized strategy is helping people to 
become self-employed, and it's absolutely true that many of the 
folks that we're working with who are homeless probably are 
entrepreneurs themselves.  They've spent a long time on the 
street caring for themselves, fending for themselves, finding 
some way of making income as a entrepreneur of some sort.  The 
supported self-employment that we're talking about now is a bit 
more structured than that.  Helping people to develop jobs in 
the mainstream economy.  Consumer-owned and on rated businesses.
	The advantage here is that the consumer owns the job.  
It's a form of self-reliance and independence, and it also 
promotes a role shift.  We know that folks who have been in the 
mental health system for a long time tend to see themselves as 
primarily a consumer of services.  If you think about it, they 
get their employment services, their housing services, and some 
of their socialization services all through the mental health 
system.  When you own your own business on Main Street, that
is a identity other than that of being a mental health consumer.
It's a very important role shift for folks.  The disadvantages, 
similar to those in social purpose ventures, that they're high risk.
	It's very true that in this country probably 75% of 
businesses fail, but probably 75% of those failed because they 
don't have a business plan.  If you are going to help folks 
using the customized option of self-employment, you need to also 
help them to develop a good business plan and support services 
strategy.
	What about choosing and getting a job?  What kind of 
tools must you have in your basket of tricks, so to speak?  
First is understanding the job choices is as much a process as 
an outcome.  It takes a while to develop preferences, and 
to rebuild the experiences that people have had in their lives 
to arrive at a good job choice.
	But along with that take people's desires seriously.  In 
my mind, there's no such thing as an inappropriate job goal.  
You need to work with folks, and understand not only what job 
they're interested in having, but why they want that job.  
What are their values?  What are their criteria around that 
particular choice?  Work with them to understand where those 
jobs might exist in the community, what kind of skills and supports 
that they may need to have and also look at alternatives.  
Perhaps a person, for instance, who might say, "Well, you know what?  
I would like to be a psychiatrist." That person has no degree 
in psychiatry, has perhaps been in and out of homelessness for 
long periods of time, perhaps spending some time with the person 
to help understand what are the criteria? 
What are your own personal preferences in terms of the type of 
work that you like that lead you to the job choice of 
psychiatrist?  Then where do those types of criteria also 
show up in your community and other jobs that might be 
alternatives, or perhaps better matches for what you would like?
	These values and strengths and gifts that I talked 
about as part of the discovery process is absolutely essential.  
Let me add one more thing.  The process of identifying 
values, strengths, and gifts changes over time and should be 
ongoing.  Even after a person has been placed in a job, the 
part of the follow-along should be how that person's values and 
choices might be changing so that you can help them advance or 
transition to another type of a job if that's needed.
	Then something around identifying preferences in 
terms of the types of work, the location, the hours, and the 
scale that people might want.  In your early part of the 
assessment process, and even ongoing, working with folks around 
the types of work that they want, and the location. How long it 
might take for them to get to a job? What is the longest that 
they would like to spend on a bus getting from one place to 
another?  They're important pieces of information that 
both of you should have.
	Explore all of those possible work environments, 
including job listings.  But understand that friends, family, 
staff, peers might have valuable information to share that might 
lead to a job.  I can't stress enough the value of having peer 
support, and peer support staff as part of this process. 
Show how other folks who are thinking about going back to work 
that other people have made it, and begin to share some job 
leads that they might have. It builds that sense of trust, builds 
that sense of information, and helps people to move along on the 
path of employment.
	Help people to make informed choices.  Ask the 
questions, and have them ask these questions:  Why this job?  
Why now?  What's important for me in that job?  Help them to 
define the support services that they need both on and off the 
job. Above all, well perhaps not above all, but along 
with that, [is] benefits planning.  Early on when you are talking 
with folks, make sure that benefits planning is part of that 
process.  As they're getting a promotion, as you are talking 
with them around job retention, and about strategies for keeping 
the job, include conversations how your benefits might be 
affected, Social Security, SSD benefits might be affected by 
increased wages from work.
	Let me share with you a few other pieces about this 
retention issue.  It's really the hardest part of our job.  So 
that helping fill and retain jobs, keeping the jobs, and advance in 
jobs is an extremely important part of the process.  The 
transition from homelessness takes a long time.  Even the 
ones that have gone through support services and have gotten a job,
there are still the scars, and the impact of having a life of 
homelessness that shows up.
	Here a few tips for you.  Understand that relapses 
and job losses are not failures but are learning opportunities.  
That thing that we talked about a little earlier on, the 
issue of recovery, and how we are all are faced by issues of 
recovery every so often.  Understand that growth and role 
recovery is not always linear.  That people may have good period 
and bad periods.  Recognize achievement, and manage for the 
times that they may need extra support.
[We need to prepare] for job transition, and advancement.  Some of 
the things that may get in the way of job transition might be 
the issue of benefits, for instance.  If a person has a 
success, and they get a raise.  Well, you know, that might 
affect their benefits, and they may not be so interested in 
getting that raise even though they've earned it, leading to 
some stress in their lives, and perhaps jeopardizing their job.  
Benefits review is an ongoing part of that follow-along plan.  
	What about some of the triggers that could affect 
retention?  Well, if you look quickly down this list, you might 
think that these are fairly positive things.  We would all want 
to have more money and more friendships and new routines perhaps 
in our lives, and a new lifestyle and so on.  But for some folks 
these might be very difficult things to deal with.
	Having money might mean that now that I am back in my 
neighborhood and my friends are there and they know that I am 
working, I have additional pressure on me because I have money 
and all of a sudden you have a whole host of new are a old 
friends that are making demands on that.  
	Having money for a person recovering from a substance 
abuse issue without the right types of support might mean that 
there is an additional temptation to go back to using.  
That's another thing that we often hear from both consumers and 
providers that have to be dealt with.  The issue of new 
friendships.  You know, if I had been on the street for a while, 
or mental health programs for a while and I developed a series 
of friends from my peers, and then having new friends at the 
office may be something that would be hard to deal with.
	People often can do very well at the skills part of the 
job but have a difficulty surviving on break where people are 
talking about their new home, their children, their vacation. 
A person coming out of the mental health system is used to 
talking perhaps about their psychiatric disability, might 
have some difficulties in terms of engaging folks.
	Working with folks is part of the follow-along 
process not only to help them to understand what it takes to be 
successful on the job, but what it takes to work with co-workers 
in a friendly and collegial way is some area of support that 
people might need.  All the way along with new routines and 
lifestyles.  Sometimes we hear this issue of a threat of 
success.  I've often heard it that, Gary for 
instance, did so well. We took so long, and he finally got the 
job he always wanted, and then what happened?  Well, he 
sabotaged it.  Well, Gary probably didn't sabotage it. But, 
often times we hear folks say, "Well, I've wanted this for so 
long in my life, that it's something that I am really devoted a 
lot of my time to, and now I am so fearful of losing it, it can 
also become a self-fulfilling prophecy."
	Working with folks in this follow-along way to 
understand the impact of success is often an important piece 
that we need to consider.  
	Let me talk a little bit about one of the newer 
projects that's come out this is actually fairly new, the last 
couple of years. ECH is a collaboration between the Office of 
Disability Employment Policy, HUD, Employment and Training 
Administration and Vets to end chronic homelessness through 
housing and jobs.  These demonstration 
projects are in five cities throughout the country, in Los 
Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Oregon, Indianapolis, and 
Boston.  Their objective is to provide jobs and housing for 297 
people who are chronically homeless.  The advantage of this 
project is that it links the housing first and a work first 
option in a powerful way to pull people from the streets into a 
place of their own with a job of their own, and help give people 
stability and hope in their lifestyles, and the cycle of 
homelessness and despair.
	These projects are pretty new, as I said.  But we've 
recently completed an initial survey to get an understanding of 
how well they're doing.  Here are a few statistics that we 
can share with you.  When you begin to take flexible approaches 
to work, working with a mainstream workforce system, I should 
add that these projects are led not by the mental health 
system, not by the homeless services system, but by the 
Department of Labor systems.  These are projects that are led 
by the One-Stop Career Centers, who have gathered together 
partners from the homeless and mental health service systems.
	What have they done so far?  What's important in 
these projects?  Well, employment rate.  Number placed in 
housing.  Number who are entering employment is approximately 
31%.  Thirty one percent [31%] of the folks who have been placed in housing have 
gotten some sort of employment.  That compares extremely 
favorably with statistics that I've talked to you about earlier.  
161 folks have accessed One-Stop services.  Again, folks who 
have come out of chronic homelessness, getting a place to stay 
are now getting exposure to One-Stop core and intensive 
services, 161 folks so far.  Then we're also beginning to 
see some innovations.  In Los Angeles, for instance, they're 
beginning to implement a One-Stop satellite right in a shelter, 
and to engage people early on, and what is a One-Stop? 
What kind of services you can get from a One-Stop?  Even as 
they're transitioning from shelters into a place of their own.  
	A new goal-setting strategy based on discovery 
principles is being piloted in Portland, Oregon.  They're using 
a great process of teaming up folks to help teaming up consumers 
with consumers to help develop almost the buddy system for 
discovery, using essentially non-written types of tools, in ways 
that seem to work with folks.
	Another side is partnering with providers to do a mobile 
One-Stop that goes right down into the homeless services system.
	A number of innovations in these projects I think are 
going to be important. We should keep our eye open
and study as we're moving along.
	But perhaps the most important is that these are 
partnerships to end chronic homelessness that involve a number 
of partners.  It's not only labor and homeless services 
providers and the VR system and the mental health system, but in 
many cases with departments of economic development, and getting 
this issue up on their ending chronic homelessness plans, and 
it's part of their local continuum of care strategy are all new 
approaches to trying to deal with some of the services 
fragmentation that I talked about earlier.  
	Here is a brief overview of what it might take were I 
to walk into your program and to do an assessment 
of what it might take to help you increase employment for people 
with psychiatric disabilities who are homeless. Here are some of 
the things that I would look for, and more complete 
explanations, by the way, are on the website.
	I would look first at what is the culture in your 
agency around addressing employment?  When I walk into your 
front door, there are job postings.  Are there staff available 
to talk to folks around employment?  Is employment part of your 
mission statement?  Does staff endorse the possibility of 
employment for folks who in the past might have been termed "not 
job-ready?"
Then do you have capacity?  I would look for your operations 
manual.  Are there program guidelines?  Do you have satisfaction 
surveys on employment?  Do you and your staff have job descriptions 
as employment specialists?  Are you using an integrated services 
team?  These are the nuts and bolts, these are the 
infrastructure around bringing your mission into market, if you 
would.
	Then I would look at the issue of opportunity.   
Opportunity is really growth.  Growth means how well are you 
having partnerships?  How well are you doing partnerships with 
other service providers?  How well are you working with your 
local One-Stop to increase access and use of their services?  
Are your disability program navigators who are in your One-Stops 
conversant around employment issues for folks who are homeless?  
Are they out there helping to develop new partnerships in 
your community?
	On the right side, a couple of quick bullets.  For 
people it might also be the same thing.  As we look at issues 
of culture and mission, we hoped that people had developed their 
own internal culture around employment, things like hope for the 
future. As we look at capacity, the nuts and bolts, and the 
infrastructure, we look to help people to develop the skills 
that they need for employment.  Again,  more examples are 
on your website.
	On the issue of partnerships, one of our more 
important partnerships are those with our state vocational rehab 
agencies but there are some challenges.  But there are also some 
best practices being promoted now that we are addressing these 
challenges.  Here are a few of them.  The time limited 
nature of VR services.  When we know that folks need awful long 
time to cycle through a number of jobs in order to get to a 
place that they want.
	There are incentives for VR case closures, the 90-day 
rule, the status 26, make it somewhat difficult for VR 
counselors in many cases to get to the place that they need to 
work with folks with complex issues like psychiatric co-
occurring and homelessness issues.
	Staff training issues.  To be fair to VR folks, they 
need to be expert in a whole range of disabilities, and having 
funding limitations and reductions all the time.  The purpose 
of these next two slides is that to say that VR is an extremely 
important partner for us.  But we also have to understand that 
VR services may not be for everybody all the time we have to 
work with our VRs to help them use our services for folks in 
very flexible ways.  Here are some of the newer approaches 
that are coming out throughout the country.  Cross train 
where VR counselors and mental health counselors attend training
sessions to come up to speed on what each system does and can do to
serve this group of folks.
	Improving collaborations.  Co-locating counselors in 
mental health programs or maybe even at a shelter.  Having a 
counselor come to visit a shelter and do a presentation on VR 
services at a shelter.  People are beginning to think about 
the issue of work.
	Enhancing their assessments by including concepts of 
recovery. Understanding, as I said earlier that recovery 
takes a long period of time and it should be an on-going assessment.
	A couple of more pieces, and then we want to save time in 
this broadcast for questions.  Other important partnerships, 
business improvement districts.  If you walk down your street 
you will see perhaps new awnings, or new trees, and the business 
area looks spruced up and accommodating, and it's most likely 
your business improve the district.  Putting money on the table 
to help beautify their streets.  Well, they've also come to 
realize that homelessness is their issue.  Throughout the 
country with the support of the international downtown 
organization, and you can see their website is there, business 
improvement districts are beginning to come together to work 
with homeless services providers to provide funding and to make 
the issue of addressing homelessness a community problem.
	As we end this broadcast, I would like to ask you a 
few questions.  Is RJ likely to appear at your One-Stop?  Are 
you prepared to serve him?
	How are you involving consumer leaders in employment 
program development?  
We cannot do this alone.  We need to involve consumers on staff. 
We need to involve consumers in program development. We need to 
get their perspective, folks who have had the personal experience
of coming out of homelessness and recovery. What will it take to 
make sure that our programs are truly accommodating for folks with 
disabilities who are homelessness?
	What program adaptations must you consider to meet the 
employment needs of people who are homeless?  If you put all 
of your eggs into job development in the mainstream labor 
economy with a standard of 20-40 hour as week, and that's all 
that you have to offer folks, there are going to be a whole 
number of folks that need perhaps a bit more flexible options.  
You should partner with other providers, and/or think about 
flexibilities in your services.  What skills must your staff 
know to provide and support employment?  
	At the systems level, ask yourself the question, who are 
your local partners?  How do you enlist them to help increase 
employment of people with disabilities who are homeless?  
Then, what does each partner bring to the table to help meet 
those outcomes?  
	For instance, faith and community-based organizations 
have been addressing poverty in this country for a long period 
of time.  They're probably doing some work in this area.  
You as an employment program provider might want to link up with 
those folks and figure out how you can do this better together.
	What challenges do you have in this area?  Are you going 
to develop these partnerships?  What do other stake holders 
think about the issue of addressing homelessness? This should be 
part of your discovery process when you develop these partnerships.
	Then what training, technical assistance, and 
support would you need?  Virginia Commonwealth, and NCWD, and 
our technical assistance center, Cheta for ending chronic 
homelessness, are three sources of support at the program level 
for a project.  But we should all develop a good index,  
of the types of individual program and systems-level 
training and support that need to be provided to help you do a 
better job at this.
	Here are a couple more resources for you.  One is on the 
VR method.  Innovative methods for providing VR services.  It's 
a very nice document. On the website there is a 
downloadable version that you can get.  That will discuss the 
issues of VR a little bit better for you.
	Then there recently has been a new study put out 
entitled "Serving the Homeless Through the One-Stop System."  
They've examined a number of One-Stops having success involving 
partner and builders of services for homeless.
	With that, here are parting words for you.  What's it 
going to take?  What's it going to take to reduce chronic 
homelessness, and to become productive and contributing members 
of their community?  I believe that it will take belief and 
motivation.  It will take skills and resources and support.  
It's also going to take resilience on our part and creativity 
altogether that equals the same characteristics that we see in 
RJ, and many people that we're trying to serve.
	With that, good luck, the lines are open now for 
questions.  Thank you very much.  
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