California job seekers found new careers with help from a rent relief program. Here’s how
The Sacramento Bee is exploring the future of work in California as the state recovers from the coronavirus pandemic. The series is supported by the Solutions Journalism Network, a nonprofit organization dedicated to rigorous and compelling reporting about responses to social problems.
Pandora Crowder over the last few months felt like she was jumping off a cliff as she prepared to take on a full-time job for the first time since 2007, moving to a position as a special projects coordinator for the Reinvent Stockton Foundation.
Her rising income made her ineligible for CalFresh food stamps. She had to figure out how to get to her office. She had to figure out how to care for her 9-year-old daughter. Her rent at Conway Homes, a 436-unit public housing development in south Stockton, is usually tied to her income — meaning the more she made, the more she had to pay in rent.
But she had one big thing going for her — she enrolled in a program that steadied her rent as she pursued full-time work. It saved her $700 to $800 a month, giving her freedom to replace her 21-year-old Ford Expedition and get on a path toward home ownership.
“I was living day-by-day because that was what I was used to doing,” Crowder, 44 and the president of the development’s resident council. Now, “I have enough in my savings to know that if something was to happen and I needed a decent amount of money right away, I’ll probably be okay.”
In Stockton, known as the city of the guaranteed income, another anti-poverty experiment has been under way since 2019.
Supported by a mix of local funds and money from the Housing and Urban Development Department, the Jobs-Plus initiative provides rent relief to public housing residents who enroll in a job training and placement program. The initiative has expanded to some 40 cities across the nation, from Conway Homes in Stockton to developments in Sacramento, Oakland and Los Angeles.
Those leading the initiative in different parts of the state said it has empowered hundreds of public housing residents to look for and find work. In Stockton alone, 128 people have found work as of January despite the pandemic hammering the state’s job market.
Past nationwide studies of the program have shown that it has increased income of its participants by as much as 32%. Employment rates have also gone up for the participants, some studies found.
And as the state’s job market recovers, the program could help not only those who have been out of work for a long time, but also those who lost their employment during the pandemic.
In Los Angeles’s Nickerson Gardens, for instance, Jobs-Plus is retraining some of its participants to work in healthcare or construction. That site is also helping over 30 residents who are interested in starting a business, said Britney Chine, who manages Jobs-Plus at Nickerson Gardens.
The pandemic “forced them to come into our four walls,” Chine said. “What we want to do is to build a career with them, not just working in dead-end job or two or three jobs.”
The program is not necessarily a ticket out of poverty. “You can’t program your way out of poverty anymore,” said Susan Popkin, a fellow at the Urban Institute who has been following the program. But the program and its effect on one’s income is tangible, she said.
“It’s a modest increase, (but) it’s a real increase. It matters.”
Providing rent relief
In typical public housing, 30% of one’s income goes to rent and utilities. That means a person with a full-time job paying $15 an hour would pay $780 toward rent and utilities every month.
Then, there are other costs. A person getting a new job may lose part of the state’s subsidy for childcare. Commuting costs also be significant, with a Californians spending an average of more than $275 a month on transportation according to Business Insider’s analysis of the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis data.
HUD’s Jobs-Plus initiative aims to help public housing residents make transitions to their new jobs by capping their rent at a rate they had before they found work. For some, that means paying as low as $25 a month for rent for as long as four years, which is how long the initiative typically goes for in a housing complex.
In many of the complexes, on-site staff also connect those in the initiative to training programs and job opportunities.
Oakland’s public housing agency, for instance, has partnered with Rising Sun Center for Opportunity, which trains people in skilled trade jobs ranging from plumbers to carpenters. After a 10 to 12-week training, the participants are placed in jobs or apprenticeships with starting wages ranging from $19 to $29 an hour, said Marlin Jeffreys, the center’s program manager.
In Stockton, a storage space next to Conway Homes’ office was converted into a Jobs-Plus center, where residents can come in to take classes and get access to computers.
Anita Renteria, a lead workforce development specialist at Stockton’s program, stresses the program doesn’t require people to work. But that’s why the program has been successful, she said. Having residents work toward a goal, whether it be finishing a job training program or getting a driver’s license, is often enough to have them think bigger, she said.
“We’re letting you set the rule. We’re not making you do anything,” she said. “Making those little baby steps, it opened up a door for them to see.”
What does the program mean for jobs and poverty?
So far, the program has seen some success in increasing its participants’ income and employment, according to studies.
A 2019 evaluation of a similar program in New York City, funded not by HUD but by the city, found that its members’ average quarterly earnings increased by 32%, or $497. Employment rates have also gone up by 12 percentage points for those joining the program.
A research organization MDRC is evaluating the program and expecting to publish a study later this year. A past study by the organization in 2005 found that participants earned $1,300 more annually than those who didn’t take part in the program. That increase in income continued even after the program had ended, the study found.
In Sacramento, out of 508 who enrolled in the program between 2015 and 2019, 313 found jobs including in solar energy through a partnership with GRID Alternatives, said La Shelle Dozier, executive director of the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency.
In Stockton, participants are going into healthcare as well as logistics; the area has one of the highest concentration of warehouse jobs in the nation, according to an analysis from the University of Pacific.
In Los Angeles, the program has led some participants to become public health workers, said Jennifer Thomas, the assistant director of strategic initiatives at the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles which runs the Nickerson Garden’s program.
The program has its limitations, some of which were exacerbated by the pandemic.
Thomas said not as many people have found employment as her organization had hoped for, with COVID-19 shutting down some job training programs.
The program’s messaging could also be confusing. Despite some sites advertising the program as providing “rent freeze,” that is not necessarily the case: An increase in non-job related income such as child support could lead to one’s rents going up.
Some sites also blew past HUD’s budget for the program, which meant ending the rent relief before their expected end date, MDRC’s 2019 study of the program’s implementation found.
And the money is just not there at the local level to keep the program going after the HUD’s grant runs out, Dozier said.
“I wish it was an on-going funding source,” she said. ““Long term, it pays much more benefit than what you put in.”
Finally, in California, there’s the issue of housing. With the cost of homes so high in the state, even those who saved up a lot from the program could find it difficult to move out of public housing.
“This is a good model for workforce development, but the thing I worry about is how do we get people to a point where they can rent an apartment and be able to be sustainable and we’re not there,” Popkin said.
Still, for Crowder, she’s celebrating what she has achieved thus far. Just days ago, she took her 9-year-old daughter to the beach for the first time.
“This is a feeling I want for everyone,” Crowder said. “I want everyone to feel this self-worth and pride.”
This story was originally published March 9, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
