WEBINAR| Asset-Mapping: A Strategy for Housing and Workforce Systems Collaboration
Employment success and housing stability go hand in hand. Although the public workforce and homeless service systems both serve homeless and unstably housed jobseekers, these systems often work in silos. Heartland Alliance works with communities across the country through its Pathways Forward Challenge, supported by the Oak Foundation and the Melville Charitable Trust, to identify and enhance systems strategies that advance equitable pathways to employment for people experiencing homelessness.
Learning from their work in the field, Heartland Alliance presents its Strategies for Workforce and Housing Systems Collaboration webinar series, which shines a light on strategies communities can use to bridge the gap between systems.
In the first session of the series, Asset-Mapping: A Strategy for Housing and Workforce Systems Collaboration, systems leaders provided on-the-ground perspectives on implementing asset-mapping strategies in their communities and how it helped strengthen connections between workforce and homeless service systems.
Asset-mapping is a process that involves gathering information about available resources in a community in order to shape decisions and plans for improving access to services. It can help communities identify potential gaps, underutilized services, and untapped partnership opportunities in order to improve processes to ensure that people receive the services they need.
Vanessa Samuelson, Director of Learning and Reporting at the McGregor Fund, shared their experiences with asset-mapping in Detroit, which began as a way to learn about Detroit’s workforce systems and opportunities to better support jobseekers facing multiple barriers to work. She went through the research project’s background, processes, results, and learnings, as well as reflections on what went well and how the project contributed to deepening connections between workforce and homeless services.
Vanessa reflected that a lot of the value from this work came not from the final report, but from what was gained and built in the process along the way. An emphasis on the intent to learn, rather than the final product itself, helped in building relationships and more fully capturing the lay of the land. Focusing on a specific population and responding to difficulties in serving job seekers helped identify shared interest and illuminated the need for cross-systems work.
Dara Papel Weinger, Senior Program Manager at the Corporation for Supportive Housing (CSH) and Irene Vidyanti, Senior Data Scientist at the County of Los Angeles Chief Information Office shared their experiences with asset-mapping, undertaken to coordinate housing and employment service delivery in regional communities within Los Angeles County. They detailed the steps taken to develop process and network maps, as well as to design streamlined referral network models. They also discussed takeaways, lessons learned, and next steps to reach their systems integration goals.
One lesson learned from this project was to implement a community-driven approach to make sure stakeholders understand how their contributions to the asset-mapping process will ultimately help to improve processes and access for the people they serve. Another lesson learned was to include staff from different levels within organizations so that all perspectives on what is really going on on-the-ground are incorporated.
In the Q&A session, the panelists recommended strategies and resources needed for others to begin asset-mapping processes within their own communities.
Further Resources
Asset Mapping in Los Angeles County | Case Study
Los Angeles County’s Employment & Homelessness Taskforce and Heartland Alliance outline the steps of L.A. County’s asset-mapping process for South Los Angeles and San Gabriel Valley. This resource hopes to provide communities with an example of potential steps and resources to consider as they develop their own process.
Supporting Job Seekers Facing Multiple Barriers to Work | Full Report
McGregor Fund and the Workforce Intelligence Network for Southeast Michigan present key considerations to support job seekers facing multiple barriers to work from research, funding, provider insights, and referral patterns in Detroit.
Heartland Alliance Field Building Resources
Heartland Alliance’s Field Building Team works with communities across the country to develop and implement employment programs, serve populations including homeless jobseekers facing chronic unemployment, and create policy and systems change.
Connect with Heartland Alliance’s field building experts to learn more about their work or if you are interested in receiving technical assistance, training, or other supports.
Check out the webinar, and additional resources to learn more about systems collaboration strategies to better serve job seekers experiencing homelessness.
