Hope program is an initiative by a private body to provide support and assistance to low-income household individuals so they can live on their own without any dependency and gain self-confidence and self-assurance.
Hope program has been popular among the lower per capita income citizens of the United States of America and depend upon it largely but often misunderstand the services offered to them. Poverty-stricken individuals need to know what the hope program is in detail so that they can get assistance whenever they require it.
Let’s learn together in detail what is the hope program and how it caters to the masses from the low-income societal group of New York:
This guide includes:
What is the hope program?
Hope program is an intensive job training program that is aimed at placing deprived adults in jobs paying $7.15-12/hr. The main purpose of this program is to assist the most disadvantaged individuals to be able to stand on their own feet and pay their housing expenses and get themselves jobs.
The hope program is a non-government-based program that aims towards improving the life quality of the individuals belonging to the low-income or disadvantaged social groups.
Hope emphasizes individuals who live in the food pantries, shelter places, drug rehabilitation centers, and even the agencies which solely work for social service.
It is the job of the Hope representatives to find and work on those individuals from these areas who are least likely to become self-supporting on their own.
The Hope program aims to improve the mental and financial condition of individuals by eradicating monetary issues such as house rent, jobs, etc.
When was the hope program started?
The hope program was started in 1984 by Deborah MacFarlane-Antoine in Manhattan. At the time of putting the foundation of this organization, Deborah was a Ph.D. student at the University of Columbia. She was a victim of the vicious circle of poverty and was working as a soup kitchen volunteer when she was struck with the idea to help others break this poverty cycle and work for themselves.
Deborah started with just 8 individuals at the beginning and after training them she managed to acquire jobs for all 8 individuals. But sadly enough, all eight individuals ended back to their prior training settings within six months of employment recruitment.
This fueled her up and she took it as a challenge to introduce more intense and rigorous training which will motivate the individuals enough to stay at the job and create a new identity for themselves.
She used all her knowledge gained from the education to derive such a program that will aid the poverty-stricken individuals who are considered a burden on society due to their bad decisions in life.
The hope program organization
Hope is a relatively smaller organization compared to other organizations which are working in a similar dimension and on the same targeted audience. The organization is doing well and achieving its milestones as the financial situation as well as the structural pattern of the organization are very reasonable.
The size of the organization: hope’s training program comprises 19 members at the moment who all work full time. There are additional counselors which give out sessions and assistance to the individuals during the 12-week training programs. The overall yearly expense of the firm is $1.5 million.
The core focus of the organization is to give out job training sessions and programs to the selected individuals. The hope organization has all the potential to grow into an organization to work across America. Currently, it is working only in New York.
The 9 board members are all differently placed as they all are from the profit sector of the economy as well as the social service providing organizations.
Almost all the members have a background in psychology whether in education or work experience. Therefore, it makes it easier for the board members to handle the individuals if they show aggressive behavior anywhere during the intensive training program.
The revenue and expenses of the organization are very neatly balanced and both are growing at an average speed. The revenue and expenses are very consistent which makes the hope organization all the more scalable to be expanded to other states.
Most of the revenue generation comes from different grants from non-governmental organizations, foundations, and other individuals. A small portion of revenue is also generated from government-backed agencies.
Even though grants are not considered a reliable source of revenue, consistency, in this case, makes them reliable.
The strong evaluation of the candidates to be recruited in the rigorous training program has become one of the strongest key points of the hope program.
The candidates who pay back the training program by attaining a job and working hard to sustain it have made the hope training program a reliable name in low-income households.
Who does the Hope program serve?
The hope program has a set of requirements for working with selected individuals. The requirements are:
- The person should be above 18 years and an alcohol/drug-free citizen of the USA
- He should not have any persisting or severe mental illness
- He must have a legal permit to work anywhere in the United States of America.
According to a statement made by the Hope program, every year almost 81% of the applicants are selected for the prestigious training program. Hope is a sigh of relief for a lot of people who have self barriers that create illusions in overcoming their fears of becoming self-sufficient and self-supporting.
Currently, the hope program is emphasizing on following demographic characteristics before selecting the applicants for the training program:
- Very low-income Mostly those people are selected who are living on public assistance and almost 75% of their income comprises the earnings from social service and other programs. This largely means that the individuals must be living below the poverty line.
- About 50% of the chosen people have HS or GED degrees
- People living in shelter homes or halfway houses cut easily
- Previous history of substance abuse. The applying clients must prove that they are clean while enrolling in the hope program.
- A past conviction can also trigger the hope authority to select you for their training program.
How does the program hope to train?
The training program of hope is extremely intensive compared to the other programs which are offered to the same low-income household individuals.
The training program includes counseling sessions along with full training and can last up to 12 weeks of rigorous work.
The hope program has an approved panel of counselors who are readily available to resolve the personal issues of the clients as well as work them to consider starting working again on their own.
According to the program, the enlisted clients of the training program have to:
- Intake the debriefing sessions from the coordinator on their non-working lifestyle. They will be given sessions on child care, self-support, medical and housing expenses as well as the legal needs as a rightful citizen of America.
- The enrolled individuals have to give an undertaking that they will complete the 12 weeks long training from the hope program and will not quit in between. The training program will run for 12 straight weeks which will be 8 hours every day. The main intent of such tough timing is to make the individuals accustomed to the high demands of a working environment.
- The training will include basic job requirements such as problem-solving attitude, time management, and interpersonal official and informal relationships.
- The training also trains the individuals in upgrading their job searching skills such as confidence while giving an interview, and resume writing, and gives them a concise insight into financial and monetary literacy.
- An internship is offered after the hope training program has ended. The individuals are subjected to shuffle themselves between the hope training program and the internship.
- The individuals are supposed to intern at the said organizations for straight three afternoons every week. There are more than 250 organizations registered with the hope program which take the hope students as their interns.
- The main objective of the internship program is to make the student become self-confident as well as make them self-sufficient to identify and solve job or work-related obstacles on their own which had been preventing them from getting a full-time job. Mostly, the trained individuals are placed on clerical office work so that they can start working with considerably easier job requirements. They are also placed in healthcare avenues, food and beverages outlets, child care as well as training business units.
What is the performance of the hope program?
The Hope program has been around for many years and has been leading the field of assisting the disadvantaged population of the United States of America. It is very important to know how hope programs make a difference in society and if the 12-week training program yields any fruit or if the trained individuals go back to their old habits of drug abuse, wasting time, or crime.
According to the reports, the hope program serves almost 200 people per year with an estimated budget of almost $1.5 million. It is said that if the funding is consistent and increased, the hope training program can serve more disadvantaged individuals annually.
A rough estimate suggests that almost $8500 is spent on one person which makes roughly about 30% of the individuals who later on secure full-time jobs.
The successfully trained individuals start earning $8 per house and get to almost $20 per hour as per the skills earned by the training sessions.
30% of the hope trained individuals land sustainable jobs:
Hope program has been consistent in providing jobs to its trained individuals since its inaugural time. The consistency rate of getting people to graduate after the training program is about 60 whereas more than 75% of the hope trained individuals find themselves graduating from universities b becoming responsible citizens of society.
30% of the trained individuals from the hope training program land themselves a job and they also keep their jobs for almost a year. This data is very encouraging and it is requested overall for the respective authorities to increase the enrollment as well as the funds as there is a lot of potential for this training program to grow.
Almost 70% of the individuals retain their jobs for more than a year and most of them get sustainable jobs after thorough counseling and rigorous training sessions.
Half of the placed individuals set themselves up as responsible citizens:
Half of the graduated hope program individuals move upward in society by attaining more worthy jobs. The hope program trained individuals to start earning $8 per house and it is often witnessed that many even go all the way to earn $20 per hour. They find themselves good jobs which are self-sufficient as well as future secure.
The individuals who are recruited for internships in different organizations often get upgraded as an employee of the firm. It is often noticed that the clerical office workers who start an internship, land themselves clerical jobs in the offices as well as get employment in the sectors of child care, food services, health care, and trading organizations.
These individuals start their internship and employment with very low wages but their diligence and determination win them their much-needed work in the organizations.
The organizations where the hope training program individuals are placed are the ones that require low technical work and skills b but on the same side, it also aids these individuals as these jobs do not require further education. These jobs are like the first step towards financial independence as well as a clear path to start earning for yourself.
The success rate of the organization
Approximately $25000 is spent on each applicant per training program of 12 weeks from training him till the time he is successfully recruited by any of the panel companies.
New York City is one of the financial hubs of the world and is always on the lookout to hire people. what can be a better choice than to recruit a resident of New York who has been trained to work hard and wants to test his skills and newly acquired self-confidence,
Hope has recently claimed that almost 73% of its trained applicants lend a job for themselves and even sustain their jobs. This is a bit hard to believe as a lot of organizations are working on the same premises as the hope program and their success rate is way lower than what the hope program claims.
For instance, another popular organization CCCS trains and serves individuals belonging to the same societal strand but their result of guaranteed employment for their applicants does not surpass 30%, and the candidate who does sustain their jobs for almost 12 months, that percentage is a mere 5%.
Another government-backed program called employment services and placement program also trains people belonging to the poverty-stricken population to have a successful employment result for their candidates of just 5% and most of their trained applicants do not stay on a job for more than 6 months and revert to their old activities before joining the training session.
According to the analyst, this stark difference between the hope program and other training programs is the program instead of the targeted population.
The employment services and placement program and the CCCS require the applicants to undergo a job placement program which is a mandatory procedure to receive further public assistance in recruitment and hiring.
On the other hand, hope does require its applicants to undergo a job placement program but makes it so interactive that the participants opt for the program as per their own choice.
Another important factor that contributes to the success of the hope program is the motivation behind making the applicant empowered on their own. The counselors motivate the undertraining candidates that no job is big or small and at times it is very important to start from zero. They motivate the applicants to do the low-skill jobs as beginners to attain success later in life.
The investments and budget of $1.5 million annually:
Hope started as a small organization and has grown big in recent years. A program that initially served just 100 people a year has now outreached to many deserving candidates per year with countless success stories under their belt.
The hope organization spends more than $1.5 million per year on the size of the training program and the recruiting applicants keep on getting bigger and bigger.
The Hope program is a success story when it comes to expansion. It expanded itself on a large scale in the past decade and has become one of the most sought-after institutes when it comes to serving and training the neglected sector of society.
According to a rough estimate, almost $8500 is spent on each applicant enrolled for one training session. Most of them sustain their recruitment.
How to apply for a hope program?
It is very easy to apply for Hope plans. All information regarding the program is directly available on the website www.thehopeprogram.org.
Due to the ongoing pandemic, facilities for virtual meetings and interviews are also available. It is advisable to attend one of the information sessions organized by the hope program to understand what is the hope program? The dedicated speaker will discuss at great length how the hope program can be a life-changer for somebody who belongs to the lower-income side of society.
The hope program was devised to assist the people who have shot faith and confidence in themselves. Once you have attended the information session which is conducted twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The information session can also be joined through virtual settings.
You can always visit the Brooklyn or the Bronx office to have a one on one discussion with one of the hope representatives at the official site.
A registration form is available on the website and people are asked to fill them out and submit it before going for a one on one meeting session with one of the representatives at the official site.
One of the best factors which instigate a person to join the training program is that no high school equivalency document or diploma is required to get registered for this training program.
Certain specific programs are offered by the organization that may require certain benchmark education but for the general training program, no specific education criteria are mentioned or asked.
Conclusion
The Hope program is one of the best programs offered in the United States of America. It is one of the most sought-after organizations in the country which is working on improving the mental credibility of American citizens as well as their financial situation by offering intense training.
It works for the self-evaluation of responsible individuals as well as improving the documentary assets of a person so that he can work shortly and is easily recruited by the organizations available on the panel of the hope organization.
Hope is recommended to the individuals belonging to the disadvantaged population of America, to go and get themselves skilled and start earning to support themselves and their families like responsible citizens of the country.
Hope is also recommended to all the donors who are looking for organizations that are beneficial to the poverty-stricken population. The donors can help the Hope organization in achieving their goals of helping out the disadvantaged citizens of the United States of America by offering them training sessions as well as low-income jobs just to boost their confidence.