Downtown Streets Team Awarded $1.8 Million by the California Community Reinvestment Program
Grant Funds Will Support Program Activity in 17 Northern and Central California Communities
Downtown Streets Team (DST) has been awarded $1.8 million in support of its mission of fighting homelessness through the dignity of work and the power of community by the California Community Reinvestment Grant Program (CalCRG). Grant funds will strengthen the organization’s two programs throughout the Greater Bay Area and Central California over a three-year period. DST operates Streets Team Volunteers, a program at work in 17 communities that helps unhoused individuals achieve self-sufficiency by providing trauma-informed case management and a regular meaningful volunteer activity that develops employment soft skills and encourages community reintegration. DST also operates Streets Team Enterprises, an employment social enterprise that helps unhoused adults, as well as formerly incarcerated individuals and individuals in recovery programs, reenter the mainstream workforce via paid transitional jobs.
The CalCRG Program is funded by cannabis excise and cultivation taxes with the purpose of reinvesting in communities that were disproportionately affected by state and federal criminal justice policies during the decades-long War on Drugs. The grant supports community-based organizations like DST, which provides job placement services, system navigation services, and reentry services. “Many of our unhoused clients face barriers that originate from contact with the criminal justice system. Our staff helps them move beyond these roadblocks to get them closer to self-sufficiency, which for many of our clients means sustaining employment. Year after year, our clients report fewer encounters with the criminal justice system thanks to their participation in our programs,” said Chris Richardson, Chief Program Officer at DST. “This grant will not only help ensure that this work continues, but also increase our capacity to keep graduates of the Streets Team Volunteer program employed for longer as well as increase the number of clients we can support in our employment social enterprise.”
Activities described in this press release were supported in whole or part by the California Community Reinvestment Grants program within the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development. For a full list of 2023 CalCRG grantees, please visit https://business.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/CalCRG-Program-Grantee-List-5-2023.pdf.
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About Downtown Streets Team
Downtown Streets Team (DST) is fighting homelessness through the dignity of work and the power of community. Our Streets Team Volunteers program builds Teams that restore dignity, inspire hope, and provide a pathway to recover from homelessness. Team Members are unhoused neighbors or those at risk of experiencing homelessness. They receive access to case management, system navigation, and employment placement services from trained DST Case Managers and Employment Specialists. Teams engage in community beautification and clean-up projects that help challenge common negative perceptions of homelessness. DST’s employment social enterprise Streets Team Enterprises helps unhoused individuals attain sustaining employment by providing training, case management and a transitional wage-earning job. For more information about these programs, visit https://www.streetsteam.org/.
Streets Team Enterprise employees at work as part of DST’s partnership with the CalTrans Back-2-Work Program