Workers employed by nonprofit homeless services agencies in Los Angeles County often do not earn a living wage, creating stress for the workers and making it difficult to retain staff and provide services, according to a report released this week by the RAND Corporation.
According to the report, salaries are “particularly low” for frontline workers who reach out to the county’s 70,000 homeless, creating health concerns and housing insecurity among the very workers who face challenging working conditions.
“From the worker perspective, earning such low wages has material consequences, including stress and housing insecurity — they may worry about becoming unhoused themselves,” said Lisa Abraham in a prepared statement. Abraham is the study’s lead author and an associate economist at Santa Monica-based RAND, a think tank that has delved into the issue of homelessness for several years.
“These challenges make it hard for a worker to develop a career when they themselves may be struggling to make ends meet,” Abraham added.
People Assisting the Homeless (PATH), a statewide nonprofit that contracts with the City of Los Angeles, many other cities, Los Angeles County and L.A. Metro, has recognized the problem for years but says their hands are tied.
Government agencies use formulas for pay and staffing ratios that keep a lid on salaries for homeless outreach workers who are hired by nonprofits. “It is something all of us have known for awhile,” said Jennifer Hark Dietz, CEO of PATH. on Thursday, May 11. “Our sector has not kept up with the cost of affordable housing.”
According to RAND, more than 200 nonprofit organizations in L.A. County are involved in homeless response efforts, and roughly 8,000 people work in the sector. But difficulties in hiring social workers and other homeless outreach team members have curtailed the amount of services provided.
The study’s authors estimated that most frontline workers — and even some of in…
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