Federal Opportunities for Training Program
Exhibit 2:
Program Quality and Feasibility
Introduction
The Public Housing Authority (PHA) and its Tenant Council have developed an exciting proposal for assisted housing in the City which will combine the advantageous features of constructing a housing project while at the same time providing services to extraordinarily disadvantaged members of the community, providing low-income homeownership, and producing a sustaining perpetual OTP through revolving sale proceeds.
The PHA and TC anticipate that the OTP proposed through this planning grant will be able to provide an essential and primary program for young disadvantaged men and women, residents of the PHA's public housing developments, and the community at large.
Through this uniquely sustaining OTP, the young people participating in the program would rehabilitate a house which would be sold to an eligible low-income public housing resident household through a lottery system. The sale proceeds would produce perpetually reproducing financing to rehabilitate and sell additional houses to low-income public housing resident households through the OTP.
• this proposed OTP is a sustaining empowerment Project for disadvantaged young people, public housing residents and the community. Put simply, the PHA's 199X OTP Motto is: Education and employment = empowerment.
• this OTP will empower itself as a sustaining program, empower disadvantaged young people to sustaining individuals, empower public housing residents to sustaining homeowners, and empowers the community by rehabilitating and sustaining its dilapidated housing stock.
The PHA is already well into the planning and implementation of its OTP with the January, 199X implementation of a State General Education Diploma (GED) at City Towers, one of its developments, and the implementation of a state-of-the-art Computer Lab and Computer Literacy training program at another of its developments, City Gardens.
The PHA and TC are experts at delivering youth empowerment programs. The experience provided by the dedicated, trained and hardworking staff and resident volunteers to deliver youth programs is truly imposing considering this the size of this public housing authority, with just 1000 units and about 4,000 residents.
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This proposed OTP Planning grant will provide necessary funds to:
*hire an expert professional, a highly educated social worker, educator and program administrator for youth and youth-related programs. The proposed OTP organizer was singularly recommended by the PHA and TC to plan, develop and implement the OTP. This candidate has a successful history with the PHA and TC having planned, developed and implemented the PHA's summer youth program, a resounding success. (resume attached)
*organize a Youth Advisory and Policy Committee, young people elected by the tenant associations, TC and recommended by the PHA Board of Directors. They will meet regularly with the OTP organizer to help design the program and make decisions on the activities and components of the program. These young advisors, between the ages of 16 and 24, will be low-income or from low-income households. Some will be in school or employed, and some will not. The Youth Advisory and Policy Board will be paid stipends for their activities with OTP funds.
*develop a broad-based community support, and network of participating party organizations representing housing, youth, employment and training, churches, counseling and social services, educators and public officials, and to develop a skilled nucleolus of adult advisors and planners who will bring support and additional resources to the OTP;
*conduct feasibility and need determinations, and outreach, recruitment and selection activities critical to the success of the program. The PHA knows it is essential to reach, recruit and select those men and women who are most in need of the resources offered;
*select and organize a OTP training facility on the PHA campus suitable for job training for 25 construction trainees. The site selected will also be suitable for the implementation of related program alternative educational, leadership development, counseling and social services;
*secure site control of the PHA's OTP housing site, pay for professional structural and environmental inspections, preliminary plans and specifications, cost estimates, and customary predevelopment activities related to rehabilitation.
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Outreach, Recruitment and Selection Activities
Because this application is for a OTP Planning Grant, before the actual participant outreach, recruitment and selection activities can occur, it is necessary to make a plan for these activities. In this section, the PHA will discuss its proposal to plan for these implementation activities through an outreach, recruitment and selection plan to develop its OTP.
The first step proposed is to hire an expert professional, a highly educated social worker, educator and program administrator for youth and youth-related programs. The proposed OTP organizer was singularly recommended by the PHA and TC to plan, develop and implement the OTP. This candidate planned, developed and implemented the PHA's summer youth program, a resounding success.
The PHA will provide offices and related support services for the OTP Organizer (OTPO). Therefore, there will be no additional costs, save the OTPO's salary and fringe benefits, to the OTP for typical organizational costs of a start-up organization.
Once the OTPO is hired, the OTPO will organize a youth advisory and policy committee, young people elected by the tenant associations, TC and recommended by the PHA Board of Directors. They will meet regularly with the OTP organizer to help design the program and make decisions on the activities and components of the program. These young advisors, between the ages of 16 and 24, will be low-income or from low-income households. Some will be in school or employed, and some will not. The young people serving on the advisory committee will receive stipends for their activities from OTP funds.
The input of these young advisors at the design level will make the program much closer to what young people need. The OTP planners need the good advice of these youth.
The OTPO and Training Program Advisory Committee (TPAC) will develop a broad-based community support network of organizations representing housing, youth, employment and training, churches, counseling and social services, educators and public officials. This skilled nucleolus of adult advisors and planners will bring support and additional resources to the OTP. The OTPO candidate, the PHA and TC, collectively are fully aware of the resources available in the community. These resources will be canvassed, nurtured and developed, and others created where none exist.
this outreach and recruitment activity will also act as a fund-raising project. Implementation of this proposed OTP will require sufficient funding to ensure its success. While the PHA plans to apply for a 199X OTP Implementation Grant, it faces the reality that there may not be sufficient funds to finance the implementation of this program, in whole, with OTP funds. The fund-raising goal will be to raise at least a 50% match of funding and in-kind services for the program. Once the program is implemented, and the house which the young people will build through the program is sold, the program should have enough funds to finance the majority of the development costs the next year's house. While funds for soft program services, such as trainers and administrators, will still be needed, the hard costs for rehabilitation should be sustained through the on-going sales of the homes.
During the planning stage, the PHA will develop goals and objectives for the educational, job training and leadership development components of the OTP, as well as ancillary services and activities specific to the needs of the young people to be served by the program.
The OTPO will work especially closely with the County Youth Resource Partnership (YRP) which, since 198X, has operated a year-round program with federal funding under the Job Training Partnership Act (JPTA). JPTA serves a similar population as OTP, and provides consultant services to these disadvantaged youth, assist them in staying in school or participate in other educational activities, and work in the community doing service projects as part of the Community Job Training Partnership Corp. Work projects include installing playground equipment, providing services to the homeless, working in state and county parks planting trees, cutting trails and creating wildlife sanctuaries. JPTA also works in cooperation with the PHA, and our youths have participated in their Summer Youth employment and Training Program.
The OTPO will also work closely with Scenic River Housing, Inc. (SRH), a state-sponsored neighborhood preservation company, which has been extremely active in the field of low-income and homeless housing development and related services in the City for 10 years.
SRH has expertise in developing and managing single room occupancy, shelter facilities, rental and homeownership housing. It counsels, trains and prepares first-time low-income homebuyers for homeownership. The PHA envisions that the OTP planners will consider working with HRH to develop a home-ownership training plan for the PHA resident-homebuyer. SRH will also be able to provide valuable technical assistance in the field of housing development and rehabilitation of single-family homeownership housing, a new activity for the PHA.
The OTPO, and one or more of the TPAC members, will attend one of OTP USA's annual national workshops in OTP Leadership Training, usually held in the Winter and Spring. This is an intensive, hands-on workshop about the theory and practice of the OTP architect's approach to leadership development.
The OTPO, and one or more of the TPAC members, will make several in-state trips to meet with other successful OTP administrators, the Big City Housing Authority and one other OTP in progress in a smaller city in the State. This will assist the OTPO and TPAC develop this OTP based upon the results of the trials and errors of others who have already passed the program planning process, and have successfully implemented OTPs.
Educational and Job Training Services and Activities
Educational
This PHA will provide the basic educational services for the OTP participants through its on-campus GED program, located at our City Towers housing development. The PHA-sponsored GED program for public housing residents was organized and is operated under the guidance of the TC. Instruction is provided by the Valley Community College. The program was started in January, 199X. The basic GED program includes mathematics, reading, writing and speech development programs.
During the OTP planning process, coordination will occur between the program planners, the PHA, TC and Valley Community College to design the OTP in a manner compatible with the GED program, to determine the extent of the program and decide if these educational services should be augmented with enhanced educational services and special education programs for those participants with special needs. Such issues as providing tutorial assistance will be determined. Further, a relationship will be established between the GED program providers and OTP administrators to ensure that the OTP includes a coordinated plan for close communication regarding such issues as attendance, class participation and evaluation. In this way, the OTP's educational component will be developed in concert with the rest of the program activities.
The Tenants Association has just completed installing and organizing a state-of-the-art computer lab at the community room at the City Gardens public housing development. This project, organized under the direction of another of our local colleges also includes Computer Literacy training. Including Computer Literacy as one of the OTP educational activities is high on the program planners list. It is absolute reality in the 1990's that employable skills for both youth and adults include computer literacy at some level.
Together with the counseling and social services described in Exhibit 2 B 4 and in cooperation with the Leadership Training activities discussed in Exhibit 2 B 5, the OTPO, PHA and TC will determine the need for, and develop, alternative education programs to enhance the basic GED program. The PHA recommends including Computer Literacy as one of the OTP educational activities. One of its tenant association's has developed a state of the art computer center at its development's community center and sponsors evening computer literacy training. Utilizing this facility may be appropriate as an enhanced educational component for the young people in the OTP.
Other ideas include driver's education, martial arts, sports and exercise programs, and a series of lectures and roundtable discussions on social issues appropriate to the group, such as drugs, aids, unwanted pregnancy, human communication, poverty, racial prejudice, authority figures, obtaining a college education or other skilled training, and other peer-related issues. These group meetings could include community leaders and service providers, or films, field trips and other learning enhancements. The facilitator for these alternative programs will also be determined in the planning stage of the OTP.
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Job Training
Because it is assumed that most of the funds needed to implement this OTP will be used for job training and experience, within the various construction trades, as they train for and rehabilitate the house proposed under this OTP, the program planners will devote a great deal of energy to developing this stage of the program. It is estimated that between 20 to 25 young people will be served in the initial one-year program.
The OTP job training program will be developed with the advice of an expert in apprenticeship training from one or more of the construction unions, and in connection with the State's Occupational Education Program (SOEP). These expert educators and tradespeople will be consulted to provide assistance in developing specific program modules to teach job-related skills.
In addition, the OTP planners will develop an on-site housing rehabilitation program for the participants in concert with these professionals in the field of construction and construction education. Because the SOEP involves student field-work, these educators will be able to assist in developing a safe, productive and valuable on-site work program for the OTP trainees.
Further, initial discussions with the unions have revealed an interest in providing skilled union tradespeople as OTP instructors, at no salary except for the cost of insurance.
These, and other ideas and recommendations, will be researched and examined in detail during the planning process. Such issues as Federal and State Wage Rate requirements will have to be resolved before determining whether the PHA may legally accept the gratuitous assistance of union workers on the OTP construction site.
The PHA has ongoing relationships with faculty at various colleges and universities in the City's metropolitan area as well as relationships with various other secondary vocational and technical schools, as well as the SOEP . It also has long-standing relationships with the construction unions in the area.
During the planning phase of the OTP all of the joint boards as well as the unions of the construction industry will be contacted for exact information concerning their apprenticeship programs. The PHA and TC with the OTPO will search for an appropriate job-training program instructor during the planning process. The ideal candidate will be fully-experienced in apprenticeship programs for the building trades. Through the PHA's assistance with its contacts with the various unions and educational directors of the unions, the PHA should provide the OTPO with the contacts necessary to facilitate the transition between the OTP and construction industry.
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Leadership Development Activities
In addition to hiring a OTP Organizer (OTPO) who fully agrees with the PHA's goals and objectives for the program. The OTPO must especially share the PHA's advocacy for "customer"-involvient in PHA-sponsored program planning and implementation. The PHA has more than 30 years of experience developing, owning and managing low-income housing, and resident programs. The residents of PHA-owned developments are the PHA's partners in all activities related to the housing and the people who live in them.
Once the OTPO is hired, his or her first job will be to organize a training program advisory and policy committee, young people elected by the tenant associations, TC and recommended by the PHA Board of Directors. They will meet regularly with the OTPO to help design the program and make decisions on the activities and components of the program. These young advisors, between the ages of 16 and 24, will be low-income or from low-income households. Some will be in school or employed, and some will not. The young people serving on the advisory committee will receive monthly stipends of $50.00 per month for their TPAC service and activities for the 18 months they will serve as the OTP Advisory Committee during the planning stage. These stipends will be paid from OTP funds.
The input of these young advisors at the design level will make the program much closer to what young people need. The OTP planners need the good advice of these youth.
During the planning stage, the PHA will develop goals and objectives for the educational, job training and leadership development components of the OTP, as well as ancillary services and activities specific to the needs of the young people to be served by the program.
The OTPO, and one or more of the TPAC members, will attend one of OTP's annual national workshops in Leadership Training, usually held in the Winter and Spring. This is an intensive, hands-on workshop about the theory and practice of the OTP architect's approach to leadership development.
The OTPO, and one or more of the TPAC members, will make several in-state trips to meet with other successful OTP administrators, the Big City Housing Authority and one other OTP in progress in a smaller city in the State. This will assist the OTPO and TPAC develop this OTP based upon the results of the trials and errors of others who have already passed the program planning process, and have successfully implemented OTPs.
The PHA will consult in-depth with the OTP staff regarding how to make leadership development work effectively at the construction site. The PHA will also recommend the OTPO consider including OTP as staff trainers at the beginning of the implementation stage of the program.
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Leadership Training Activities
Together with the counseling and social services described in Exhibit 2 B 4 and in cooperation with the Leadership Training activities discussed in Exhibit 2 B 5, the OTPO, PHA and TC will determine the need for, and develop, alternative education programs to enhance the basic GED program. The PHA strongly recommends including Computer Literacy as one of the OTP educational activities. One of its tenant association's has developed a state of the art computer center at its development's community center and sponsors evening computer literacy training. Utilizing this facility may be appropriate as an enhanced educational component for the young people in the OTP.
Other ideas include driver's education, martial arts, sports and exercise programs, and a series of lectures and roundtable discussions on social issues appropriate to the group, such as drugs, aids, unwanted pregnancy, human communication, poverty, racial prejudice, authority figures, obtaining a college education or other skilled training, and other peer-related issues. These group meetings could include community leaders and service providers, or films, field trips and other learning enhancements. The facilitator for these alternative programs will also be determined in the planning stage of the OTP.
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Counseling and Support Services
During the planning stage of the PHA's OTP, the OTPO and Training Program Advisory Committee (TPAC) will develop a broad-based community support network of organizations representing housing, youth, employment and training, churches, counseling and social services, educators and public officials.
This skilled nucleolus of adult advisors and planners will bring support and additional resources to the OTP. The OTPO candidate, the PHA and TC, collectively are fully aware of the resources available in the community. These resources will be canvassed, nurtured and developed, and others created where none exist.
During this networking task, the OTPO will seek out especially skilled consultants in the field of social work with specialties in disadvantaged young people with multiple social and educational problems. These specialists will be critical in planning for the counseling and support services needs of the young people. These specialists will be called upon to assist in planning the pre-selection screening process as well as initial testing, interviews and consultations which the applicants for the PHA's OTP will undergo in order to be accepted into the program.
The PHA's goals for its OTP program center around empowerment. It, therefore, proposes to outreach for, find and recruit the most "at-risk" and seriously disadvantaged candidates for the program. While on the face of it, this is just as it should be, on the other hand, the PHA is very much aware that these young people will be working on a project which requires discipline, team participation and the ability to follow the direction of authority figures in a potentially dangerous environment to themselves and others. So, a balance must be created to enable the PHA to select candidates with the greatest need but who will be able to participate in a meaningful, productive and safe way throughout the program term and in all of its activities.
The consultant social worker will provide invaluable assistance in this area, and be able to assist in providing resources to refer candidates not suitable for the program due to serious nature of their problems and the need for a more intense, or different, intervention method to help them overcome their problems. The social worker will also bring to the program a network of resources and support services which the program can utilize for the young people in the program.
The PHA envisions that the training, leadership, counseling and support services will act as one correlated OTP component, and the staff and/or consultants planning, organizing and implementing this component will have a hand in directing the overall program. Approaches to the educational program such as alternative educational services and work team structure will be planned with their direction and input.
It is hoped that the OTPO and TPAC, with the help of the PHA and TC, will be able to raise sufficient funds through the OTP fund-raising activities undertaken during the planning stage of the program to pay for the consultant costs of this critically-needed social worker during the implementation stage.
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Coordination
During the planning processes for the PHA's OTP coordination is the password to producing a successful program which, when implemented, could be cited as a OTP national model. Coordination activities planned include, but are not limited to:
*Planning to hire a skilled, experienced youth program administrator and developer, a social worker, with a special background in assisting disadvantaged youth who is the unqualified choice of the PHA and TC;
*Planning and organizing the OTP Advisory Committee, a group of young people nominated by their peers, tenant leaders and PHA officials, to act as a OTP policy and procedural matters throughout the planning and implementation processes;
*Planning, outreaching for, and recruiting, a network of community service providers to act as a nucleolus of available technical assistance, and as program funding providers;
*Attending and participating in OTP's national workshops and inviting staff to train the PHA's OTP trainers;
*Planning site visits to at least two successfully operating OTPs in the state;
*Working with the unions and SOEP to produce effective and useful classroom training and a well-and-safely-run on-site program which completes the housing project and trains the young people to be effective, employed, members of the community;
*Ensuring a qualified social worker plays a key role in the overall fabric of the OTP;
*Planning to tie the OTP Educational track to the PHA/TC-sponsored GED program;
*Planning for enhanced educational services and social services needed by the young people; *Planning to obtain vacant publicly-owned housing sites to restore and return to the benefit of the local economy;
*Planning the housing development predevelopment tasks in a careful and professional manner to ensure the property selected is structurally and environmentally safe, the plans and costs are reasonable and deliverable by the trainees;
*Planning to upgrade neighborhoods by restoring dilapidated and deteriorated vacant eyesore properties to the condition of their neighboring home sites;
*planning a program which provides desired homeownership housing for public housing resident households;
*Planning for the future by ensuring that a portion of the OTP proceeds are recycled through the sale of the OTP house to help finance the rehabilitation of additional OTP houses.
In short, the PHA's proposed OTP is well planned and coordinated.
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Job Placement and Post-Graduation Follow-Up
This section is not required for a OTP Planning Grant application.
Housing Sites
The site of the housing project will be a two or three bedroom single-family house within the City which is vacant and dilapidated but structurally sound with no insurmountable environmental issues. Optimally, the site will be publicly owned to ensure the return of a productive real property to the community's economic base once it is rehabilitated and sold.
The PHA plans to coordinate the selection of its OTP training facility with the selection of the OTP house. Its public housing developments are scattered throughout portions of the city, making it likely that it will be possible to locate the training facility near the housing construction site.
TC members have identified several possible housing construction sites, all typical two and three bedroom two story homes built in the 1930's and 1940's. At this juncture it has not been determined who owns the houses or the conditions for acquisition. The PHA is aware that there are a number of HUD-owned (FHA foreclosures) vacant houses within the city limits, and the possibility of acquiring a vacant Federal Government-owned house will be explored during the site selection process.
The PHA will have its building inspector, as well as consultant architect and engineer, if necessary, thoroughly inspect the housing site prior to entering into preliminary site control. Preliminary plans and specifications will be prepared, as well as cost estimates for the rehabilitation of the housing site. All predevelopment activities will occur up to the point of actually acquiring the site or improving it. All predevelopment activities will be dependent upon the PHA securing a OTP Implementation grant in 199X.
The work that will be planned for the construction site will be determined on an individual basis considering the condition of each of the house and grounds, as recommended by the architectural and engineering study. It is anticipated that bath and kitchen remodeling will take place along with electrical, plumbing and heating upgrades so as to bring the property into line with current housing standards.
The proposed work schedule will be coordinated with the time in which the training is being administered. The OTP trainees will be actively engaged in learning the relevant construction trades on the site.
The PHA will own the housing construction site during construction. Once completed, it will be sold to an eligible public housing resident household through a lottery system. The initial plans for the homebuyer eligibility, outreach, screening, and selection processes will be accomplished during the OTP's planning stage by the PHA, in coordination with the OTPO, and finalized during the construction phase of the program's implementation stage.
The PHA will select, through a competitive selection process, consultant architects, engineers and other legal and fiscal professionals necessary to complete the housing site predevelopment processes during the planning stage.
To Sample Grant Application No. 2, Exhibit 3 |
