The Fairmount Initiative Quarterly Progress Report: People and Places: Understanding the Processes, Outcomes and Impacts of Interventions of the Fairmount Corridor

The Boston Foundation has contracted with the Center for Social Policy as an analytical and evaluation partner for a five year period, December 1, 2010 to November 30, 2015, to maximize effectiveness and create alignment among its people and place based efforts in Boston’s Fairmount commuter rail corridor. The geographic area, encompassing Fairmount neighborhoods which are home to approximately 88,000 residents, extends for 9.2 miles from the Newmarket Transit Station in the north to the Readville Transit Station in the south. The detail to follow in this report provides an overview of each of the four initiatives, its progress over the past quarter, from July 1, 2011 through September 30, 2011, as well as the Center’s completed and upcoming evaluative and analytical work. The LONG TERM GOALS, as delineated in The Boston Foundation’s Outcome plan with the Center for Social Policy, provide a structure for the content to follow

Transnational Social-Change Network Learning. Introduction: Shared Responsibility, Collective Reflection. Boston–Haifa Learning Exchange Network

This LEN project has emerged as both experiential and active. The in-person learning exchange seminars, which since the project’s inception have been taking place once a year in Haifa, Israel, and once a year in Boston, Massachusetts, were planned and facilitated jointly by the NGO partners as well as by outside trainers. Dedicated staff time and collaborative, generous attitudes on the part of planners in both cities have been essential for power sharing, efficiency, and thoroughness in the planning processes. Preparation has been extensive, requiring the core planning team, a Haifa–Boston mix, to use conference calls and e-mail communications, months ahead of time, for developing the substantive content for the in-person seminars and for coordinating the logistics, resources, recruitment, travel, and a myriad of other practical and substantive dimensions of these encounters. Especially for Bostonians visiting Israel and Haifa for the first time, an immersion in the complex cultural, religious, social, economic, historical, and political contexts of the country has proven to be of great significance. Bostonian learning exchange cohorts experience such an Israeli immersion through a multiday guided tour of the country prior to meeting their learning partners in Haifa. A less intensive tour/immersion takes place for Haifa partners when they come to Boston

Left Behind: The Persistence of Poverty Through the 1990s

The Commonwealth’s economic growth over the past decade has led to more jobs and an increasing median income, but the rising tide has not lifted the boats at the bottom. The bottom 20 percent of the Commonwealth’s families with children have not found relief. Growth in earnings has been almost completely offset by the loss of public support, which in turn has strained the private sector’s emergency support system. Poverty rates for families have dropped only slightly, child poverty rates and the percentage of families who are very poor have increased, and the need for emergency housing and food services has grown. Safety nets for the poor have unraveled

Foreword

Interspersed throughout this issue are Voices of Community Action — the voices of executive directors, board members, and staff. Some are personal reflections; others describe their work or tell of the struggles of those who live with poverty. All speak to the commitment of service and change, to personal development and growth, and to the worth of their work. Their stories are 10 matched in the testimony of those who have received services or participated in community action programs. All of these stories bear witness to the importance of what happens on the front lines among leaders, board members, staff, and participants in community action agencies as they work to improve the quality of life for families and communities. Much can be learned from the forty-year experience of community action and the social, economic, and political environment of those years, and we hope that this volume provides some insights as we move forward together in our commitment to social change

Building Knowledge and Power with The Third Sector in Haifa Israel: A Report of the Learning Exchange Research Project

A Report of the Learning Exchange Research Project. This report presents a model of Participatory Action Research (PAR) focused on the development of the third sector in Israel. The PAR methodology, combined with a learning exchange, intentional reflection, and community building opportunities, was used as a tool for enhancing Haifa Non-Governmental Organizations’ (NGO) capacities. The report describes the practical and conceptual impacts of this model\u27s application in a pilot trial and discusses its possible use and importance for future participatory research and NGO capacity building work

Partners in Prevention: Community-Wide Homelessness Prevention in Massachusetts and the United States

Examines six community initiatives to prevent homelessness involving cross-organizational resource-sharing, policies, and interventions. Looks at each program's strategy, organization, interventions, and approaches to partnerships, outcomes, and funding

IMPACT – Information Management, Public Access, Community Transformation: Year One Evaluation Report, September 1, 2000 through August 31, 2001

The goals of the IMPACT project are “to improve access to and delivery of human services for low-income residents, strengthen community planning and resource allocation, and enhance understanding of how data on homelessness can be gathered and aggregated on local and national levels to accurately capture the scope of the problem and the effectiveness of efforts to ameliorate it.” The first year of the IMPACT project was one of infrastructure development in a broad sense. It involved primarily the development and modification of innovative information technology tools as well as the identification, selection and deployment of other information systems designed specifically to address the project’s goals. This year was also characterized by the creation of relationships, agreements and the execution of group decisions that allowed the network of service providers and other community partners to participate in this development. The community partners include representatives from community-based non-profit organizations, public sector agencies and a private for-profit partner

Surviving Against the Odds: Families’ Journeys off Welfare and out of Homelessness

Homeless families face complex challenges when making the transition from welfare to the workforce. By focusing on the experiences of homeless families participating in a Boston-based welfare-to-work program, the multimethod, longitudinal study described in this article explored factors contributing to more successful transitions as well as barriers faced by families having a harder time making the transition. Nearly 90 percent of the families that were studied left a shelter with a housing subsidy and retained it 6 to 12 months later. Successful employment outcomes after exiting a shelter were more evident for families whose head of household was older, two-parent households, families that had lived in their own residence before shelter entry, families that had lived in a shelter for shorter periods of time, and families that had employment income at shelter exit. Although income levels in Massachusetts were approximately twice as high for families in the workforce, income levels for most families did not meet their basic needs. Therefore, housing assistance was essential and allowed families to use their limited resources to pay for food and other basic necessities. The article describes the struggles of these families. The article’s policy recommendations focus on the link between adequate household income and housing stability, the centrality of housing assistance, the need for additional low-cost housing options, the resolution of contradictory and counterproductive emergency assistance strategies, the link between educational and job-training services and employment opportunities, and the expansion of state and federal income-support policies

A Snapshot of Individuals and Families Accessing Boston\u27s Emergency Homeless Shelters, 1997

This document summarizes key findings from a survey conducted on March 19, 1997 with 338 homeless individuals and 94 families sheltered or served by 33 of 40 shelter programs in the City of Boston. The data presented in this report were collected at one point in time. Point in time data results in an overrepresentation of the longer term homeless, and offers limited insight regarding the structural dynamics underlying movement from homelessness to residential stability (Culhane, Lee, Wachter, 1996; White, 1996). However, it does provide a snapshot of the men, women, and children who were spending the night in a Boston shelter in March 1997. This research was planned to include all of the programs serving homeless adults and families in the City of Boston, with an emphasis on those providing emergency shelter. The programs serving homeless individuals who participated in the study included 13 emergency shelters and three transitional programs, with a combined capacity to serve over 2100 individuals on any given night. The programs serving homeless families who participated in the study included: eight congregate family shelters; four scattered site shelters; four programs serving women and families escaping domestic violence; and one specialized assessment/intake center. These programs have a combined capacity to serve over 240 heads of households and their children (over 1000 family members) on any given night