The Homeless Coalition presents Getting Ahead, a program that supports people in poverty as they develop their own plan for stability. It embeds the concepts of Bridges Out of Poverty into a co-created format with trained facilitators in a powerful 14-week curriculum. The Getting Ahead class shows participants how to use the hidden rules of class to build up financial, emotional, social, and other resources. Understanding the hidden rules of the middle class and wealth, and choosing to use them, can open doors to new relationships, new jobs, and higher resources. They develop a series of mental models to examine their own lives and create new future stories. In 14 sessions, participants explore the impact that poverty has had on them, investigate economic realities, complete a self-assessment of their own resources and make plans to build them, and develop a mental model of community prosperity.
Since the beginning of this program the Bridges out of Poverty has had over 250 graduates complete the program successfully. With Rapid Rehousing Financial Assistance the Homeless Coalition has rehoused over 106 households. We have seen the success of this program through the motivation and the changes in the lives we serve.