ANALYSIS:
H.O.P.E. in Miami-Dade, Inc. (HOPE) is a non-profit agency that has been working to end homelessness in our City since 2003. The organization has participated in a variety of efforts to reduce homelessness including:
* Offering meals and clothes to homeless persons during targeted outreach events at Miami Beach Community Church
* Providing support services including haircuts, medical care and vision services to homeless seeking work
* Conducting outreach to engage the homeless in accepting shelter services
* Providing employment training for those homeless seeking to leave the streets and the provision of work and interview attire
HOPE partners with CareerSource South Florida – Miami Beach Center (CareerSource) to help homeless persons in shelter obtain permanent employment. CareerSource is a federally-funded agency that helps people find employment training and work. In the course of this work, HOPE and CareerSource staff identified the need to get more businesses and residents involved in addressing homelessness in our City. They met with Commissioner Gongora to discuss the creation of a Homeless Walk-a-Thon event as a way to raise funds to employ more homeless persons while also raising awareness of homelessness in our City and ways that residents can help.
HOPE and CareerSource would like to hold an event in the City to raise awareness of homelessness and raise funds and volunteers to support efforts to end homelessness. Their idea is to hold a walk from Collins Park south along the beach to Lummus Park. Walkers would seek pledges to raise funds to sponsor homeless persons through HOPE’s employment training program. HOPE’s program provides participants work clothes, interview clothes and a paid internship conducting outreach to the City’s homeless. Through this program, people who are formerly homeless learn about community resources, become comfortable interviewing others and use their experience to convince others to accept help. More importantly, the program has demonstrated success in helping participants obtain permanent employment after their 32-hour training period is complete. Once at Lummus Park, walkers and visitors may visit various homeless services providers and sign up as volunteer or commit donations to the cause such as interview clothing for adult men and women.
The proposed walk-a-thon would seek walkers who would raise funds through pledges to sponsor more employment opportunities for homeless persons to be served by HOPE. In addition, the event would feature donation and volunteer registration for a variety of non-profit agencies in our community working to end homelessness including:
- The Salvation Army
- Miami Rescue Mission
- Camillus House
- Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust
- Douglas Gardens Community Mental Health Center
For those people who would prefer to conduct outreach instead of walking that day, HOPE will partner with the City’s Homeless Outreach Team and Police Department to conduct street outreach to engage the homeless.
HOPE and CareerSource would like the event to take place in the fall of 2019 to enable the time to promote and plan the event thoughtfully with local community agencies and the City. The goal is to have 400 walkers and 40 people conducting outreach and raise enough funds to sponsor 50 people through the employment training program.
HOPE and CareerSource are looking for City sponsorship of the event through:
- Waving special event fees
- Providing use of Collins Park and South Pointe Park for event activities
- Police assistance to hold traffic when walkers cross Collins Avenue to the Beach and monitor walkers
- Homeless Outreach Team assistance to help supervise volunteers conducting street outreach
- Promotion of the event through the City’s Marketing and Communications Department