Have you ever thought about what you would do if you didn’t have reliable transportation? Would you be able to keep your current job? What if the closest affordable housing was 20+ miles from your place of work, or you were struggling to provide enough food for your family due to childcare expenses?
Transportation. Housing. Food security. Childcare. These are all basic needs that determine a family’s baseline of stability.
Without these needs met, it’s impossible for someone to achieve long-term security and financial freedom. Steps forward—toward a better job, toward additional education—will be compromised by other obstacles. These stressors demand attention and require additional daily decision-making that ultimately hinders a family’s ability to plan for the future. The needs of today block the progress of tomorrow.
Achieving Stability
The Resource Stability Pathway focuses on finding solutions to these unmet needs so that clients can then turn their energy toward long-term goals and sustain their progress. Many of our case management programs work to help clients find, access and leverage available support services to secure the assets they need for baseline stability.
How It Works
Our Refugee Services programs are a great example of the Resource Stability Pathway. Refugees arrive in our community and face the challenge of understanding and navigating a completely new system of services and institutions. We help connect refugees to the resources they need for a safe and successful transition to a new home.
Our long-term case management programs, Padua and Working Family Services, also help address barriers related to resource stability in order to help a family achieve stable employment and ultimately work toward long-term financial prosperity. Resource Stability runs parallel to several of the other pathways, providing the bedrock upon which all other progress is built.
The Importance of Community Supports
In many ways, a family’s resource stability is only as strong as our community-wide support system is. Without basic provisions such as affordable housing options, robust public transportation, or accessible healthcare, families are often left with a weak foundation and few supports to lean on in times of trouble. Building a healthier system of resource stability will also require advocating for more robust public safety nets and public goods within our community.
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