By Mark Kreidler / Capital & Main
John Clement’s movement toward critical mass began in 2022. Released from federal lockup in Los Angeles after a probation violation, Clement got into a job training program, and he subsequently enrolled at Long Beach City College with hopes of becoming a personal trainer. He had a vision of a better life.
He also was in danger of becoming homeless.
Clement couldn’t afford an apartment in the Long Beach area, where studios routinely cost more than $1,500, and a sober-living arrangement was ending. A former addict, he was trying to turn his life around, but without enough income to afford a place to live, his odds would become dramatically longer.
And all of that made Clement, 47, a prime candidate for a pilot program that carried a lofty title, the Realization Project, and an incredibly specific goal: keeping people like him afloat while tracking them into jobs that pay enough to live an actual life.
That is: preventing homelessness before it starts.
“That was amazing,” said Clement, who is now studying for a degree in kinesiology with the goal of opening a strength and conditioning business. “The support that I got, the ways they helped me — I get emotional talking about it.”
The project threw Clement a lifeline when he needed one. Over the course of an academic year at Long Beach City College, it provided him with a short-term living arrangement in group housing, then a $700 monthly stipend to help cover rent. It gave Clement access to things like a laptop and Wi-Fi, basic necessities for both college and job searches, and emotional and career counseling. Today, Clement works multiple jobs in addition to attending classes, and as the house manager in a sober-living facility he pays no rent.
“This was a new process for me, to have people looking out for me and cheering me on,” he said. “I never got that from my own family.”
Clement’s story represents a distinct point on the long arc of efforts to fight the crisis of housing insecurity in California. It’s a battle destined to continue, as the state now counts at least 181,000 homeless and millions more squeezed by severe burdens in housing costs.
Among the 42 adults who participated in the Realization Project from 2020 to 2022, some 95% had stable housing after they left the program.
Understandably, many government-administered programs focus almost exclusively on building either short- or longer-term shelter. But to the architects of the Realization Project, income — job-related income, in the end — is the whole ballgame.
“What the project did was to provide a lot of support with the constant goal in mind of ‘This is going to end up with you in a job and getting a decent income,’” said Daniel Flaming, president of the Los Angeles–based Economic Roundtable, which launched the program.
The results were impressive, and they should lead to more conversation around the approach. Among the 42 enrolled adults from Long Beach City College who participated from 2020 to 2022, some 95% had stable housing after they left the project, according to Flaming’s organization. All had previously been identified as at risk of becoming persistently homeless.
The participants’ employment rate was 41% higher after completing the project than when they entered, going from 27 employed to 38. Among those who already had jobs, the share of those earning more than $20 an hour doubled, and overall “their post-project wages were considerably higher than their pre-project wages,” Flaming said.
The cost of the project’s whole-person approach, which provided an array of social services, job resources and financial help under a single umbrella for one academic year, was $17,150 per enrollee. That is virtually the same as a year of estimated public costs for people with similar demographics who didn’t receive the project’s help, according to an Economic Roundtable report on the program.
The difference: Those who were not in the program were likely to continue needing public assistance.
“That amount for one year is more than your usual job training slot,” Flaming said. “But it’s a whole lot less than a $600,000 subsidy to build a housing unit.”
The figure bears note. Estimates of the funds required to build a single unit of affordable housing in California — say, one apartment inside a building — routinely run north of $600,000. Two years ago, a Los Angeles Times report found that among seven affordable housing projects being built in Northern California, the average cost was more than $1 million per apartment. And the process takes years to complete.
“People need jobs, but it’s never as simple as that — they’re often dealing with any number of factors that can undermine their situation.”
~ Seth Pickens, director, Realization Project
The Realization Project focused instead on driving people toward a steady income stream that would sustain them and essentially remove them from public subsidy. It began by identifying people who were at risk for becoming homeless, using a predictive screening tool drawn from 43 questions about a person’s attributes and history.
“These are things like your job history, how much you make, what’s the most you ever made, your race, mental health history, drug history, incarceration history,” said Seth Pickens, the project’s director. “Based on this data, the tool will indicate the likelihood of a person falling into persistent homelessness.”
The project was centered at the Long Beach school, meaning it was enrolling adults who were already students, an indication that they wanted to get to a better place financially and socially. But to the project’s managers, that was the point: Research indicates that the majority of unhoused people in Los Angeles County try to earn money, whether through a traditional job or something like recycling. What they often lack is a secure foundation from which to operate, as well as assistance in job hunting.
“The project is rooted in a capability model, the belief that if people can actually learn better and learn new skills, they’ll perform better in whatever realm they’re in,” Pickens said. “People need jobs, but it’s never as simple as that — they’re often dealing with any number of factors that can undermine their situation.”
Bibiana Chatman was one of those identified. After splitting with her partner and reducing her work hours because she couldn’t afford child care two years ago, Chatman, 39, found that her rent was twice what she was earning. She was told about the Realization Project from a fellow student at Long Beach City College, where she’d enrolled to study nursing.
With a monthly stipend of roughly $600 from the project, Chatman and her children were able to stay in their Long Beach rental. Chatman also used the project’s resources to find better-paying work as an office assistant at the college, and she’s headed for Cal State Dominguez Hills’ nursing program later this year.
“Without the help, I probably would have ended up in a shelter,” she said.
The program used rent assistance or placement in a housing site as a starting point, not a solution. It stayed within a $500–$700 monthly stipend range, enough to significantly help with rent but not so much that participants would fall off a financial cliff when their time in the project ended.
“I did need help with rent and things like writing a job letter, but also moral support.”
~ Catherine Noiboonsook, Realization Project participant
Its array of services included mental health counseling, career training, provision of basic needs and what the project described as “holistic socioemotional and moral support.” The ultimate goal was upward employment.
“A lot of people going to community college are both aspiring and struggling,” Flaming said. “A lot of them are housing insecure, and a pretty good chunk of them are homeless. It is fertile ground for finding people who want a decent job but are having a tough time making it.”
Flaming said he originally partnered with the State Building and Construction Trades Council of California, thinking the union-affiliated group could channel the project’s students into construction apprenticeships. That happened, but on a more limited scale than first imagined after the arrival of COVID-19 in 2020 halted many construction projects.
Instead, the program followed its enrollees’ interests and filled in the cracks wherever it could. Its support included case management, skill development and significant ongoing human interaction with the program’s workers — friendship, basically.
“I did need help with rent and things like writing a job letter, but also moral support,” said Catherine Noiboonsook, 43, a steamfitter-pipefitter apprentice who came to the project in its first year. The rent assistance she received allowed Noiboonsook to stay in her San Pedro apartment and avoid the homelessness she’d experienced for three years prior. She has been conditionally accepted to three universities to pursue a bachelor’s in construction management.
With such stories in hand, Flaming and Pickens are fanning out across Los Angeles County, visiting with city council members and supervisors’ offices, trying to start a dialogue. The pitch is pretty simple: The program works, and it’s cheaper and faster than waiting for public housing to catch up with the growing numbers of homeless and home-insecure Californians.
“There’s definitely interest, and this can definitely happen at a local level,” Flaming said. “The pieces you need to put this together are under local control.”
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Mark Kreidler
Mark Kreidler is a California-based writer and broadcaster, and the author of three books, including Four Days to Glory.