Field Learning and Technical Assistance

Background

In Illinois, The Office to Prevent and End Homelessness (OPEH) is partnering with the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO) to demonstrate how targeted workforce readiness and Employment Navigation supports can help people experiencing homelessness and people in Rapid Rehousing programs can increase wages and employment.

This initiative is creating formal partnerships and programming across Homeless Continuum of Care (CoC) and Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) lead agencies and partners.

This is a first-ever initiative in Illinois to invest in cross-systems programming and systems change to support the employment needs of people experiencing homelessness.

Community of Practice

Aligned with our systems change pillar and intentionality to co-create solutions with and alongside our partners, The Intersect supports the Community of Practice for this initiative. The purpose of the Community of Practice and our engagement is to:

• Foster cohesion and collaboration across partner communities to share practices, align program design and procedures, and collectively identify strengths and challenges.
• Identify supplementary data collection to better inform outcomes and outputs over time, including worker-centered data collection opportunities.

Through this initiative we seek to:

• Create a replicable program model that can be scaled in other Illinois
  communities.
• Produce public updates on program goals, achievements, and system-level gaps.