A new program for training workers for stray service is struggling to live

From Marisa Kendall and Adam EchelmanCalmness

This story was originally published by CalmattersS Register about their ballots.

With more than 187,000 people Sleeping on the streets of California and in their shelters, the state -owned homeless service industry is struggling to hire enough qualified workers to help them.

Last year, Santa Monica’s College set about correcting this: she announced the first of her kind program for colleges in Community aimed at training the next generation of the next generation Homeless Services WorkersS But the program has fallen victim to many of the same challenges that have long made progress in homelessness in California, including unreliable fundingHigh rates of tingling and political turmoil.

It is not really clear whether the program needed will continue.

“We know that the added value when someone is adequately trained before being located,” says Vanessa Rios, a senior adviser on the development of the workforce with the Los Angeles homeless service service, which funds the College Community Program. “This would be a service for our system if we do not finance and support this effort. From where the dollars come from (they will come), I do not know.”

This is the front line in which employees interact face-to-face with customers who are not unwanted, are often the most difficult for agencies to fill or fill up. This includes information in camps, homeless staff shelters and work as a manager of cases that is trying to find a permanent home for clients.

More than 8,000 people worked in the Homeless Services sector in Los Angeles County in 2022, Report to the consulting firm KPMG and United Way of Greater Los Angeles foundS But the county still had more than 1,300 open positions and will need more than 2,200 workers on top – so, over 11,500 – to meet the needs of Los Angeles County’s homeless population.

Even compared to other major cities in the US such as Atlanta, Chicago or Houston, workers for homeless services in Los Angeles have a higher rate of turnover, according to recent KPMG reportS

This is a problem throughout the country. Most non -profit organizations that provide homeless services in California cannot help anyone who is asking, partly because they are fighting for recruitment and staff retention, according to 2024. exploration from the UC Berkeley Terner Housing Center.

The new college community program had to fill these holes, giving students the specific skills they need to succeed in homeless services. But against the backdrop of the many years of uncertainty of the state budget and questions about the services of the homeless in the region, RIE could not say whether her team would be able to fund another round of students at Santa Monica College.

The Housing, Assistance and Prevention Fund initially supported the program by approximately $ 750,000. This fund is the main source of flexible money that cities and cities in California use to combat homelessness. After $ 750,000 has expired, it is unclear if it will be renewed. Governor Gavin Newsom’s budgetIssued in January does not include new money for homes, help and prevention of homeless, although the legislature can still add some.

This uncertainty is a major problem. Years, non -profit organizations., cities and counties They said that the lack of constant state funding made it difficult for their ability to fight homelessness. While Newsom poured billions into the cause, it was largely in one-off gratuitous funds-not predictable, continuous funding, which service providers say they need to plan long-term programs.

At the same time, the agency that funds the community program is in crisis. The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority – a joint agency of the city and LA – has almost never come. Earlier this month the advice of Supervisory Authorities of the La County voted for pull your money Outside the joint agency after a Audit to his work. Three days later the agency’s head said he would resignationS The city is now given Pulling out and out.

“We hope that we are able to provide funding in the future,” said Patricia Ramos, Dean on academic issues for Santa Monica College. “But nothing is guaranteed.”

RIES said her team was looking for additional money to support the college program, including state and philanthropic partners. If the college community program continues, it will not accept another class of students until the spring of 2026.

“Can I do this?”

When Tamera Simpson saw an advertisement on LinkedIn for the Santa Monica College Program, she thinks it is “too good to be true.”

Growing up, her grandmother, a substance advisor, will take Simpson at her childhood home in Pasadena and travel to Skid Row in the center of Los Angeles, where they will serve food for homeless people on Thanksgiving.

“The women in my family, they have always been service -oriented,” she said.

Simpson works as a nanny in the rich Los Felis neighborhood near the center of Los Angeles, but said her goal was to eventually work in the homeless services.

She was one of about 70 people who applied for admission to the introductory program for Santa Monika College Homelessness Services and one of only 27 students who were ultimately selected, said Stephen Sea, who runs the program. Students take numerous courses for a period of two semesters, where they learn about the history of services for homeless, effective practices to support homeless customers and even strategies to avoid burning. The program ends with a paid internship for a non -profit purpose or an agency in Los Angeles County.

Only about half of the students are left, said Seki – a rate of tingling “much higher than we initially expected.”

The students were dropped for various reasons, he said. One student lost housing while other students struggled to the trip to a class, which included personal meetings on Wednesday.

On Wednesday morning, Simpson began working at the nanny at 7am. Then, at about 8am, she started the hourly driving to Santa Monica. If the traffic is bad, it can take up to an hour and a half. After class, shortly after noon, she returns to Los Feliz and worked for another five hours as a nanny.

“I really wonder,” Can I do this? “She said. “But there is so much value in this program, this experience. I don’t think I would change anything if I could.”

After graduating in June, she will face the labor market, filled with her own challenges. Entrance position position in LA -based non -profit services, such as people’s concern, usually pays between $ 21 and $ 25 an hour, said CEO John Maceri. Simpson said he did about twice as much work as a nanny.

“LA is an expensive place to live,” Maceri said. “It’s hard to survive.”

“This sector does not pay the salaries unless you are in the senior management,” says Selina Alvarez, CEO of Housing Works. She helped to create the program of Santa Monica College and teaches a class there. “We need to do better than (workers). They are the first responding. They do not even have access to support for mental health, given that they are experiencing and witnessing a huge amount of human suffering daily.”

Alvarez said that between 10 and 15 out of 73 jobs in her organization are vacancies.

In the concern of the people who will host two students from Santa Monica College as trainees, about 85 jobs are open – about 10% of their total positions. After the trainees finished the program, Maceri said his organization would be happy to hire them.

“The quality of work is as good as the quality of the people who do the job,” he said. “And we need more people in the workforce to respond to homelessness.”

Hard work

Low pay is not the only thing that causes people to be careful to jump in a career in homeless services. The work is extremely exhausting and difficult. Burning is common. The lack of resources worsens everything worse. Workers can try their best to help someone, but if there are no shelter or home beds available, they can’t do much. This can be very disappointing, Maceri said.

“Sometimes people have a fantasy what the job is, and then they enter it and realize,” Oh, that’s different from what I thought, “he said. “I think most people want to help, but the intensity of the work every day is a lot to deal with.”

The lack of adequate training makes it even more difficult as workers may not know how to respond to the specific challenges they meet in the field. Alvarez gave an example of a new hired deed manager in her organization: The manager of the cases went to the client’s house to take the client for a psychiatric meeting. Before leaving, the customer injects them with an unknown substance. The big heart manager did not know what the client had injected, but took them to his meeting, which could end that the client became aggressive or even an overdose in the work worker’s car, Alvarez said.

Existing degree programs do not train workers about the realities of what they will face in the field, such as navigating the bureaucracy of hospitals and nursing homes, or how to unite a homeless man with the family, Rios said.

The program also tries to prepare the students for burning by providing advisers who examine the students after they go out to the field and teach them techniques to deal with what they see.

But there are some insoluble problems that this training program cannot resolve.

For social workers who have a master’s degree, it is more common to work as a therapist in private practice. Even other low -paid industries, such as the well -being of children, offer special grants or scholarships. In Los Angeles, the county’s decision to dig the body of homeless service services in Los Angeles makes it difficult to get even more graduates to imagine this industry as a stable choice of careers.

Still, as a current student, Simpson hopes that the college college program will continue.

“As an opening cohort, there will be wrong steps. We are essentially guinea pigs,” she said. “At its core, it’s an incredible opportunity.”

She said she was well aware of the reduction of pay, which may require initial work in the homeless services and that she was ready to keep her position as a full -time nanny, as long as it was necessary to find another job.

Given the number of job vacancies, it is unlikely that she will wait a very long time.

This article was Originally Published on CalMatters and was reissued under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Noderivatives License.