Alice Tousignant is the Executive Director of Virginia Supportive Housing. She holds a Masters degree in Social Work Administration from Virginia Commonwealth University and a Bachelor's degree in Sociology from the University of Rhode Island. Alice has over 30 years of experience in the fields of housing, homelessness and social services. She is the past Director of the Virginia Housing Coalition and the Associate Director of the Division of Housing at the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development. She is a founder and past President of Emergency Shelter, Inc. and past President of the Richmond Community Development Alliance. She is a graduate of Harvard's NeighborWorks Achieving Excellence in Community Development Leadership program, and a recipient of the Fourth Annual Virginia S. Peters Housing Award. Alice currently serves on the Board of Area Congregations Together in Service (ACTS) and is the Board Chair of the Virginia Collation to End Homelessness.
Archive for August 2009
It’s rough out there
August 5th, 2009
Last week I got a call from a friend who has just become the latest victim of the economic crisis. The business she had worked for abruptly closed its doors leaving hundreds of people without jobs. With one out of ten people unemployed here in Richmond and in South Hampton Roads, it’s rough out there.
But my friend has a college degree, lots of marketable skills and a great work history. Since her husband works, she also won’t be hurt too severely if she has to collect unemployment for awhile.
It could be worse. What if she hadn’t graduated college or even high school? What if she lacked marketable skills and a solid work history? What if she had a history of homelessness, possibly a criminal background and bad or no credit? “Rough” wouldn’t begin to describe her chances of finding a job.
If you were an employer looking for employees, would you hire someone like my friend, or would you hire someone who has none of her favorable attributes? What is happening right now is that people who are homeless, or those who are stably housed but living on the edge, are getting pushed out of the very low end jobs they normally are able to find.
We are seeing this with individuals and families that live in Virginia Supportive Housing properties. A few VSH residents had steady jobs at restaurants, but business slowed down and they lost their jobs. Another resident’s time was cut from thirty-two hours a week to just six. She was told, “There are just too many people competing for work.”
We have many residents looking to work any type of job. If they are lucky enough to find something, it may be only a few hours a week; not even enough to pay our minimum rent of $50 per month, especially after paying bus fare to get there and back. Those “odd jobs” our folks used to find, such as detailing cars or doing minor home repairs, are no longer available. When is the last time you saw a line outside a day labor place?
Our goal is to keep people stably housed, which is very difficult these days. Our support services staff spends much of their time helping our residents scrape up enough money to pay rent by going to congregations or asking for help at crisis assistance programs like ACTS, Salvation Army, and the Homeless Prevention Program in Norfolk. We even have several residents giving blood every week to make ends meet!
We are hoping that the economy will turn around soon and that the Stimulus funding is distributed quickly. In the meantime, we continue to rely on the generosity of the public to help keep our residents stably housed. It’s rough out there, especially for those at the bottom.
