Our Programs

The Women's Empowerment Program

Women's Empowerment is a non-profit that works with homeless women to help them build the skills they need to go back to work and maintain stable housing. In order to make our program accessible to homeless women, we begin by addressing their basic needs. First, we provide daycare so moms don't have to worry about where to send their kids while they attend class. Second, we provide transportation assistance to alleviate obstacles that prevent women from succeeding. Third, we are physically located across the street from Loaves and Fishes, where the women can receive a free, hot breakfast. This enables women to come to class ready to focus.

 

The primary focus of our class is on building and sharpening job-readiness skills: writing a resume, computer training, mock interviews, communication skills, and more. However, we know that a sustainable solution will only come about through a broad range of efforts. Our holistic program focuses on the multi-faceted causes of homelessness in an effort to break the cycle of poverty. Eighty-eight percent of the women in our program have experienced domestic violence, so we provide counseling and facilitate a support group. We also offer anger management counseling, addiction recovery assistance, and a social worker who works one-on-one with each woman to address her specific needs. Because we want women to succeed once they do find work, we offer parenting, fitness, and nutrition classes. 

 

 

The homeless population experiences an alarming rate of unmet health needs. At Women's Empowerment, eighty-eight percent of women have experienced family violence, sixty-nine percent struggle with drug and alcohol recovery, fifty-nine percent have mental health diagnoses, and forty-five percent have no health insurance. Other health-related problems include clinical depression, hypertension, high blood pressure, asthma, diabetes, cancer, and more. In our program, women receive health education on topics including: women's health, nutrition, smoking cessation, and relapse prevention. We offer access to healthcare including eye exams, dental visits, access to care from a private physician, child development assessments, yoga, fitness, and more.

 

 

This holistic combination helps women succeed. You can read stories of the women who have taken this journey, and find out where they are now. 

WE (Women's Empowerment) Works!

To ensure sustainable results, Women's Empowerment proactively offers ongoing support to women who have completed our program. 

Responding to the growing needs of our clients, we launched a new class for former students who are still looking for a job. These students have completed our original eight-week class and established themselves in stable housing, but they still need ongoing support. The WE Works! program provides advanced job training and job placement, and focuses intensively on financial literacy. We've added a financial literacy component to the curriculum because it is critical that the women who have worked so hard to rise above the poverty line learn to continue to make sound financial decisions that move their households towards self-sufficiency. Working towards these goals, WE Works! students meet twice a week to submit applications, practice typing, complete Microsoft Office trainings, and workshop about budgeting. 

 

 

Receptionist Training

Graduates of our program who are looking to practice the tools they learned in class can commit to a three-month receptionist-training program. For 10 - 20 hours each week, they receive hands-on workplace training, enhancing their customer service skills, using a multi-line phone system, filing, completing data entry, taking messages, and practicing other administrative duties. They receive weekly feedback, transportation assistance, and a reference letter upon completion of their volunteer commitment. The program has been very successful with 50% of participants securing jobs.