Paid Transitional Work Works
The Doe Fund's mission is to develop and implement cost-effective, holistic programs that meet the needs of a diverse population working to break the cycles of homelessness, addiction, and criminal recidivism. All of The Doe Fund's programs and innovative business ventures help homeless and formerly incarcerated individuals achieve permanent self-sufficiency.
About You
Section 1: You
First Name
Daniel
Last Name
Monaco
Website URL
Organization
Country
United States, NY
Section 2: Your Organization
Organization Name
The Doe Fund
Organization Website
Organization Phone
646-672-4255
Organization Address
232 East 84th Street
Is your organization a
Non‐profit/NGO/citizen sector organization
Organization Country
United States, NY
Your idea
Name Your Project
Paid Transitional Work Works
Country and state your work focuses on
United States, NY
Describe Your Idea
The Doe Fund's mission is to develop and implement cost-effective, holistic programs that meet the needs of a diverse population working to break the cycles of homelessness, addiction, and criminal recidivism. All of The Doe Fund's programs and innovative business ventures help homeless and formerly incarcerated individuals achieve permanent self-sufficiency.
Website URL
Innovation
What makes your idea unique?
Through innovative programs, The Doe Fund has been successfully addressing the underlying causes of homelessness and criminal recidivism for the past two decades, empowering individuals with significant obstacles to lead dignified, productive lives. Our work and training program, Ready, Willing & Able, is based on the premise that with paid work and comprehensive support services, lives can be rebuilt. RWA supports trainees at every step in their journeys, and our social enterprises not only offer training and jobs, but improve communities and the environment, and provide useful services for businesses. Nearly 4,000 trainees have graduated RWA, achieving full-time employment, independent housing, and sobriety.
There is quite simply no other organization or program which combines transitional and transformative opportunities for individuals with direct benefit for the communities in which they work.
Do you have a patent for this idea?
Impact
This Entry is about (Issues)
What impact have you had?
Through innovative programs, The Doe Fund has been successfully addressing the underlying causes of homelessness and criminal recidivism for the past two decades, empowering individuals with significant obstacles to lead dignified, productive lives. Our work and training program, Ready, Willing & Able, is based on the premise that with paid work and comprehensive support services, lives can be rebuilt. RWA supports trainees at every step in their journeys, and our social enterprises not only offer training and jobs, but improve communities and the environment, and provide useful services for businesses. Nearly 4,000 trainees have graduated RWA, achieving full-time employment, independent housing, and sobriety. Through supportive and affordable housing programs, we provide nearly 246 units of housing.
Problem
The repercussions of homelessness and criminal recidivism continue to devastate not only individuals, but also entire communities. Economically disenfranchised, individuals are unable to provide emotional support, become positive role models for their children, and pay child support. Without parental involvement, children are more likely to perform poorly at school and develop criminal records. Moreover, the greater community suffers from the physical, psychological, and economic effects of crime. Unemployed homeless and formerly incarcerated individuals drive up shelter and criminal justice system costs, placing greater burdens on taxpayers and diverting funds from social and educational programs.
Actions
Through RWA (discussed above), we seek to:
Enable 50% or more trainees to graduate and become permanently employed, drug-free, and independently housed during the grant period.
Reduce criminal recidivism and demonstrate a one-year recidivism rate of 10% (the national average is 44%) among trainees entering the program following release from prison.
Become a national model for combating homelessness and criminal recidivism.
Advocate for homeless and formerly incarcerated people, changing public perceptions, demonstrating that these individuals can be self-sufficient, and working to secure increased government and private funding for comprehensive programs that provide employment, housing, and integrated support services.
Help communities become cleaner and safer through our social enterprises
Results
End the devastating cycles of homelessness, incarceration, and addiction for more and more individuals.
What will it take for your project to be successful over the next three years? Please address each year separately, if possible.
Our program is well established, but in order for it to continue and expand its successes, it requires three primary inputs:
1) Funding
2) Public Support (in the form of both donations and stakeholder buy-in)
3) Broader awareness among media, policymakers, and non-NYC populations.
What would prevent your project from being a success?
Lack of funding and public support.
How many people will your project serve annually?
1001‐10,000
What is the average monthly household income in your target community, in US Dollars?
Less than $50
Does your project seek to have an impact on public policy?
Yes
Sustainability
What stage is your project in?
Operating for more than 5 years
In what country?
United States, NY
Is your initiative connected to an established organization?
Yes
If yes, provide organization name.
The Doe Fund
How long has this organization been operating?
Less than a year
Does your organization have a Board of Directors or an Advisory Board?
Yes
Does your organization have any non-monetary partnerships with NGOs?
No
Does your organization have any non-monetary partnerships with businesses?
No
Does your organization have any non-monetary partnerships with government?
No
Please tell us more about how these partnerships are critical to the success of your innovation.
N/A
What are the three most important actions needed to grow your initiative or organization?
1) Increase national awareness.
2) Increase funding so that we can expand into other cities.
3) National advocacy for the expansion of work programs and the reduction of barriers to employment for the formerly homeless and formerly incarcerated.
The Story
What was the defining moment that led you to this innovation?
The Doe Fund’s beginnings still resonate throughout the beautiful interior of Grand Central Terminal: its doors, through which hundreds and thousands of homeless people passed in the mid 1980s; its floor, where these same people congregated; and its benches, upon one of which a woman known only as “Mama” died.
During that time, George T. McDonald began volunteering to feed the hundreds of homeless people who were living in Grand Central Terminal. For 700 consecutive nights, he came bearing sandwiches, fruit, milk, and questions. George was determined to find a way to help the homeless of New York, whose numbers were increasing every day.
The answer came from the people themselves. Time and again they told him that, while they appreciated the food, what they really needed and wanted was “a room and a job to pay for it.”
Among these people was an elderly woman who spoke little English and was known only as “Mama.” Gentle and kind, she was loved by all, including George McDonald.
On Christmas Eve, 1985, he gave her an early Christmas gift—a warm purple scarf. When he returned on Christmas Morning, he found the scarf crumpled beside Mama, who lay dead on a bench.
Driven from the Terminal by transit police the night before, she had slept on a subway grate, crawled back into the Terminal when it reopened, and succumbed to the elements and the circumstances of her life.
George founded The Doe Fund in her memory. Its renowned and beloved Ready, Willing & Able program has provided paid work opportunities to thousands of homeless people, allowing them to rebuild their lives, find the rooms and apartments they wanted, and return to their families as productive, contributing members of society.
Mama did not die in vain. She was the spark that lit the first candle of hope for homeless people. May she rest in peace knowing the good that she inspires every day.
Tell us about the social innovator behind this idea.
Doe Fund Founder and President George McDonald first began to develop the idea for Ready, Willing & Able more than fifteen years ago, when New York City's homeless crisis was starting to peak. George, then a private sector executive, found himself unable to ignore the dramatic proliferation of homeless people in the city. His utter unwillingness to turn a blind eye to the problem was fueled largely, he believes, by his upbringing in the Catholic Church and education in Catholic schools. The nuns had taught him "that other people's miseries are your miseries," and that those with gifts and advantages have an obligation to help those without. He volunteered for 700 consecutive nights distributing sandwiches to homeless people in and around Grand Central Terminal, hearing their stories and gaining their trust.
So immersed did he eventually become in the plight of the homeless that he decided to leave his lucrative career and devote himself full-time to drawing public attention to the homeless problem. He raised his voice at government hearings and press conferences. He brought reporters to Grand Central to meet his homeless acquaintances and continually pressed them to cover the issue. He raised money to provide direct cash assistance to homeless individuals he had come to know for medicine, clothing, a room for a night, and other emergency needs.
George set out to prove that a formerly homeless person could create a viable existence if he were able to obtain even a minimum wage low skill job, rent an affordable room and stay off drugs. He already saw the fallacy that minimum wage work was a "dead end." He believed that a job, any job, builds dignity and confidence and leads to better opportunities. He began to live his life as a kind of social experiment by getting a job as a law firm mailroom clerk at minimum wage and renting a room in a single room occupancy (SRO) building.
In 1985 a homeless woman George had known and fed in Grand Central froze to death on Christmas Eve after being forcibly ejected from the terminal. George and her fellow homeless inhabitants of the terminal had known her only as "Mama." The tragic event prompted George to form and incorporate an organization that would, through innovative and holistic programs, "empower homeless men and women to achieve lives of self-sufficiency." It would be named The Doe Fund in honor of Mama.
How did you first hear about Changemakers?
Email from Changemakers
If through another, please provide the name of the organization or company
50 words or fewer
 | 113 weeks agoAlexis Ditkowsky said: Hi Daniel, You mentioned that one of Ready, Willing & Able's challenges is securing funding and public support. What strategies is The ... about this Competition Entry. - read more > |
| 118 weeks agoDaniel Monaco submitted this idea. |
