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State Funds Jobs Program For Massachusetts Homeless

Friends of the Homeless Resource Center
WAMC
Friends of the Homeless Resource Center

The Patrick Administration has announced $1 million in grants for a jobs program for the homeless, with $250,000 going to western Massachusetts.

The state funding will allow the continuation of a pilot program that launched last year with a $1 million donation from the Fireman Charitable Foundation.  The Secure Jobs Connect  program is a collaboration of public, private, and non-profits sectors including social service agencies, community colleges and businesses. The state’s top housing official Aaron Gornstein said western Massachusetts did an outstanding job in the first year of the program.

"They are really moving forward on actually placing families into real jobs, increasing their incomes and that helps with stable housing."

350 people got jobs in the first year of the program with the average hourly wage rate at $10.20.

The record-setting tenure of Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno. The 2011 tornado and its recovery that remade the largest city in Western Massachusetts. The fallout from the deadly COVID outbreak at the Holyoke Soldiers Home. Those are just a few of the thousands and thousands of stories WAMC’s Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief Paul Tuthill has covered for WAMC in his nearly 17 years with the station.