Establishing an evaluation tool for the community support for work componenet of Jobs Plus

New York City public housing residents experience high levels of poverty and unemployment. Administered by NYC’s Human Resources Administration (HRA), Jobs-Plus is a place-based employment program designed to tackle this issue. Jobs-Plus offers job training, increases awareness of financial incentives, and utilizes Community Support for Work (CSW) strategies. CSW supports job preparation and retention for Jobs-Plus participants with activities beyond standard workforce development programming, including strengthening the social ties among public housing residents and connecting residents to other community stakeholders. HRA engaged a Capstone team to help measure CSW’s effectiveness. The team examined best practices, conducted site visits, and interviewed stakeholders, all of which informed a newly developed tool to help HRA evaluate CSW’s effectiveness in advancing the goals of the Jobs-Plus Program.