Referring Residents to Their Dreams
To celebrate NYCHA’s Office of Resident Economic Empowerment & Sustainability reaching the milestone of 20,000 residents connected to valuable economic services, The NYCHA Journal is highlighting how residents can work with REES to plan their goals and achieve their dreams. (REES Milestone: 20,000 Resident Referrals to Jobs, Trainings, & More!)
REES Assessment Specialist Michael Jacocks loves his job. He works with NYCHA residents to connect them to partner organizations providing education, training, employment, and entrepreneurial services. From the time he was a child growing up in Jefferson Houses, he always knew he wanted to do something to help people.
“I read a United Nations report on an experiment conducted in developing nations where someone went to pluck the best people in the villages and send them to university, so they could come back and help their villages.” Though he’s no longer a NYCHA resident, he said he was inspired to come back to his village to help “and that’s where I found my purpose.”
As part of his job, Mr. Jacocks conducts presentations to inform residents about the resources available. Next, he schedules one-on-one time with residents to learn about their goals.
“We engage them in a process of developing a plan to achieve their goals, whether they want to get a high school equivalency, go to college, enter a training program, look for employment, start a business, or buy their own home,” Mr. Jacocks said. “Once they participate in our presentation, they can make an informed decision of what direction they want to go in. Then we select a partner organization based on their geographic zone.”
Residents receive an email or text after they’ve been referred to an organization and, simultaneously, the partner organization receives a message alerting them that a resident is interested in their services and that they should contact that resident within 48 hours. “Each of us see a part of the puzzle and we collaborate to ultimately help a person improve their quality of life,” Mr. Jacocks said.
Working with an Assessment Specialist is just one way residents can be connected to organizations that can help them reach their economic goals. However, there are multiple ways residents can learn more: by speaking to Housing Assistants or Zone Coordinators, by calling the REES Hotline at 718-289-8100, or by logging on to NYCHA’s Self-Service Portal.
Mr. Jacocks has made over 1,700 referrals. He lets the residents he works with know that the door is always open if they want to come back to work on another aspect of their growth, get more education or training, or work with another partner organization. “Being able to work for an organization that has so many resources and to be able to help people achieve their goals and improve their quality of life is great.”
One of the many people Mr. Jacocks assisted is Rosita Rivera, a former resident of Breukelen Houses. She read about how NYCHA could assist her finding a job in the NYCHA Journal and attended an orientation with Mr. Jacocks. He worked with her on finding a placement. She was hired by a company doing elevator modernization at NYCHA developments through Section 3 – a Housing and Urban Development provision that requires preference to be given to public housing and/or very low-income residents for jobs and economic opportunities generated by federal assistance. This placement ended up being long-term: she has been with the company for 12 years. Thanks to this placement, she was also able to move out of NYCHA.
“Mr. Jacocks is an awesome person and I’ve maintained a relationship with him throughout these years,” Ms. Rivera said. “He cares about what he does, and he really cares about helping people. ”
Visit OpportunityNYCHA – REES or call the REES Hotline at 718-289-8100 to learn more and sign up for an information session.