RENO, Nev. — Katie graduated from the Reno Housing Authority’s Family Self Sufficiency Program, complete with a check worth nearly $10,000. Katie became an RHA client after spending time with Step 2, a local non-profit substance abuse treatment center.
She and her young daughter lived in Hawk View public housing. She was working, active in her church and going to school when a setback punched her in the gut. “I quit college, I lived off welfare and things weren’t looking good for me. I thought about relapsing. I had nothing good going on,” Katie said.
She received a flyer on her front door, though, for a program sponsored by Opportunity Alliance and hosted by RHA. It was called Getting Ahead and it coincided with a similar RHA program for residents. Through the RHA program, Katie learned she could also establish an escrow account to build wealth. She could bank money without even thinking about it, get back to work and remain in public housing. Katie was intrigued.
“The speakers who led us through the meetings each week helped me set small, obtainable goals.” The Getting Ahead program coached participants through financial literacy and money management, while the RHA program focused on parenting, and time and stress management. It also included case management services and referrals to other community agencies as needed.
“I went every week and slowly I pulled myself up,” Katie said. “I started working graveyards at the women’s shelter, for Volunteers for America. A woman from my church watched my daughter so I could work at night and get into the certificate program through the National School of Dental Assisting.” And all that time, she was banking money in her RHA escrow account. Things were looking up.
Katie graduated from both programs, received the dental assistant certification and started working at a local dental office. Now she’s making another big leap. She’s moving out of public housing altogether, cashing out her escrow account and starting a new job, back at Step 2. She’s becoming a resident manager at the Step 2 transitional living cottages. “I’m helping women who are where I was five years ago. I’m overwhelmed with gratitude and I feel like an inspiration,” she said.
The RHA’s Workforce Development program is a lifeline for clients who want to get ahead. It’s a program that helps teach financial literacy, career exploration, stress management, resume writing, public speaking and other life skills.
The RHA program helps clients set small goals along the way, all contributing to the larger goals of education, self sufficiency, and ultimately moving off the RHA rolls. It’s a five-year program, but motivated students like Katie can graduate early. There are also similar programs for school-aged residents.
The program has seen some changes in the past few years, but RHA Executive Director Amy Jones says it’s a worthwhile premise. “We currently have about 75 participants enrolled in these self sufficiency programs. We love watching them grow and progress, ultimately taking charge of their own futures.”
The escrow money is all theirs to use as a down payment on a house (two recent graduates did this), to pay off debt, buy a car, or save for their futures. Katie says building the escrow account helped her save money several ways, and when her grandmother died, she had built her own savings enough to fly to the funeral. “There’s no way I would ever have been able to do that without the money management courses I took,” she said.
The workforce development programs are a direct result of the RHA’s Moving to Work designation, and is one of only 39 housing authorities across the county participating in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development MTW program.
MTW allows agencies to propose and test innovative, locally-designed approaches to administering housing programs and self-sufficiency strategies. Using MTW flexibility, RHA proposes and implements alternatives to certain federal regulations with three primary objectives including greater cost-effectiveness in federal expenditures, incentives to families to become economically self-sufficient and increasing housing choices for low-income families.
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About: Predominantly federally funded, the Reno Housing Authority provides affordable housing for qualifying residents of Reno, Sparks and Washoe County. We provide a place to call home for more than 4,000 families through Housing Choice Vouchers, public housing and affordable market-rate properties. We’ve helped people afford to live in northern Nevada for 75 years.
Contact: April Conway, APR
775.842.0753
