A 32-year-old waitress in Hollywood, Florida is on the move once again. This time she is organizing a massive jobs initiative that calls for big businesses to offer employment opportunities to the communities that have supported their success. Denny’s Restaurants has taken the lead by partnering with The Rebuild Your Life Project, Patterson’s empowerment outreach for women.

“I hope that other American big businesses decide to partner with The Rebuild Your Life Project,” Patterson said. “This is a great way for big businesses to attract the type of employees that really want to contribute their skills and it helps to debunk the myth that large corporations do not care about the very people who have helped them to achieve their level of success.”

In April 2011, Patterson, the creator of The Rebuild Your Life Project, an empowerment outreach aimed to teach women to overcome their fear of failure, gave away everything that she owned and moved out of her apartment, becoming homeless on purpose in the city of Hollywood, Florida. Patterson aimed to show women what their biggest fear looked like and teach them how to survive it by watching her do it.

During the 4 months that Patterson was homeless from April 2011 through August 2011, she made a call to action to 30 businesses to participate in a job fair for homeless women and women in distress to help women rebuild their lives.

Patterson organized and executed The Rebuild Your Life Job Fair, raised money through her tips and wages to offer a $650 rental assistance grant to a woman in need, while teaching mental strategies for successfully navigating the obstacles women face when trying to rebuild their lives. She managed to document the entire journey into and out of homelessness in video on her YouTube channel.

After securing a job as a waitress at Denny’s Restaurant, Patterson partnered with the international corporation to hold a mass hiring event in South Florida. On December 20, 2011 more than 100 unemployed residents from Miami-Dade and Broward counties participated in open interviews for the 14 participating corporate owned Denny’s restaurants that partnered with Patterson in support of The Rebuild Your Life Project.

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Individuals who have been homeless are staffing a “homeless hub” launched by two non-profit agencies (along with other health care and social service providers) with the support of the Philadelphia Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disability Services (DBHIDS). The Hub of Hope, in a Suburban Station concourse storefront, serves homeless individuals who have been reluctant to make use of services.

The Mental Health Association of Southeastern Pennsylvania (MHASP) worked with Project H.O.M.E. to create and staff the storefront office, which was launched on January 3 and will be open until April.

“We were approached by DBH to come up with creative ways to do better on behalf of the people who had been living in the concourse,” said Michael Brody, MHASP’s director of Service Operations. MHASP interviewed some 20 formerly homeless individuals and “one of the things that came out in these focus groups was people who were formerly homeless talking about how helpful it was to receive help from people who had had similar experiences,” Brody said.

The majority of MHASP staff members are in recovery from serious mental health conditions, including some staffers who have been homeless. “What we’re bringing to this project is employing three recovery coaches who are Certified Peer Specialists” – individuals in recovery who have been trained to help others work toward recovery – “to do outreach to and follow up with people who make use of the Hub of Hope,” Brody said.

The recovery coaches are working with the Student-Run Emergency Housing Unit of Philadelphia (SREHUP) and with the Project H.O.M.E. housing coordinator, and play a major role in ensuring that people who come to the Hub are welcomed, Brody said.

“Peer support staff are working to build trust and relationships with people entering the Hub, and ensuring they are getting connected,” said MHASP outreach advocate Johnathan Evans, himself formerly homeless, who supervises the recovery coaches. “They are helping to walk people through the process of having their medical and psychiatric needs met.”

“People are coming in on a daily basis and really making use of this added service,” Evans noted. At this writing, 95 individuals have already been served. “The certified peer specialist team has been welcoming people into the Hub and reaching out to them in the concourse.

They are introducing them to representatives of the Behavioral Health Special Initiative [which provides assessments, referrals and funding support for persons who are uninsured or underinsured with substance abuse problems] and walking them over to Mary Howard Health Center.”

The Hub is open from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. and from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. M-F. “People we encounter in the evening will be given an appointment to come in the morning to link with a recovery coach,” Brody continued. “The recovery coach will be doing outreach to find those folks to bring them back to get them linked with services.” MHASP will also offer psychiatric services one evening a week.

“It has been a wonderful collaboration with Project H.O.M.E. and a number of other homeless service providers,” Brody said, “and we appreciate the support of the Department of Behavioral Health.”

Marcella Maguire, Ph.D., director of DBH Homeless Services, said that DBH welcomes what MHASP brings to the table. “DBH is excited to have MHASP bring its peer outreach services to persons who have severe mental illnesses and are experiencing homelessness. The City has been successful in helping hundreds leave homelessness, but we know that a small group remains on the street despite our best efforts.

MHASP has always been committed to trying new models to assist those most in need, and we hope that this novel use of Certified Peer Specialists will assist many more in leaving homelessness and engaging more fully in their recovery.”

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