“Our country has not experienced anything like the current upheaval in the workforce since the late Nineteenth and early 20th Centuries,” says Dr. Ira S. Wolfe, president of Success Performance Solutions and author on labor issues and workforce trends. Dr. Wolfe will keynote Saffron Strand’s Fifth Annual Homeless Workforce Conference, June 16-17 in Richmond, CA.
Chysandra Nair, Saffron Strand program manager, accepted the California Workforce Association’s Charlie Brown Workforce Professional of the Year Award at the CWA Spring Conference, April 23, 2014, in San Diego. In thanking CWA, Chysandra offered the following remarks… Thank you very much for this year’s Charlie Brown Award. I feel very honored to receive it and
At the annual conference of the California Workforce Association, April 22-24 in San Diego, Saffron Strand’s volunteer program director, Chysandra Nair, received the Outstanding Job Seeker Services Award as one of CWA’s three 2014 Charlie Brown Workforce Professionals of the Year. For the past five years, Chysandra has volunteered 20 hours per week as program
More workforce professionals are taking an interest in the methods Saffron Strand employs to get the homeless and others who are chronically unemployed back into the workforce. These best practices are part of the evolving Saffron Strand Model. The California Workforce Association invited Saffron Strand CEO Yvonne Nair to lead a workshop on “Breaking the
From what we know based on the Saffron Strand experience in Richmond, conventional transitional employment programs tend to pigeon-hole the worker as a landscape laborer, janitor, maintenance “gofer,” etc. Such programs confine the participant’s expectations to the bottom of the hierarchy of needs – food, shelter, and maybe a little “walking around money.” If a
Year-end highlights of Saffron Strand’s 2013 include outcomes from the Saffron Strand Center in Point Richmond. Here we work one-on-one with homeless members from Richmond and other Bay Area communities, getting them off the streets and back into the job market. Saffron Strand outcomes updated through the end of 2013: Since our founding in 2009,
In a ceremony Dec. 9, 2013, the City of Richmond, CA awarded Saffron Strand’s CEO, Yvonne Nair, the City’s 2012-2013 Human Rights Award in the category of Justice. Yvonne was among seven recipients of the Award, which included categories of Image, Education, and Special Award, in addition to Justice. “In Saffron Strand,” the Award organizers
When we improve the employability and long-term employment of the homeless and those at risk of homelessness, then we empower them to: Optimize their human potential through productive work; Make positive contributions to their families, communities, and society at large; and Reduce their dependence on public assistance, including subsidized housing, health care, and other services.
Here’s an inspiring story reported on Good Morning America: A software engineer working in New York City befriended a homeless man, trained him in computer coding, and ended up offering him a job. Software engineer Patrick McConlogue told ABC news that he walked past “a homeless guy” everyday on his way to work in lower
Saffron Strand’s 2013 Homeless Workforce Conference hosted the annual Jesse Curtis Awards for Reducing Homeless on June 18 in Richmond. The Awards are co-sponsored by the Office of the Mayor of the City of Richmond and Mayor Gayle McLaughlin presented the Awards. Jesse Curtis lived into her 90s and died in Richmond, homeless and alone.