Back for its eighth year, The Coalition for the Homeless’ annual Jobs, Training Opportunities and Educational Fair expects to see more vendors and attendees than ever before, accounting for over 50 employers from all different industries and hundreds of job-seekers. Linda Fields, Director of Employment and Training at the Coalition, stated there will be a considerable variety in the types of potential employers, jobs and industries represented at the event, which aims to offer economic and employment opportunity to past, current and potentially homeless individuals. The fair also serves to help organizations fill gaps in employment and improve their workforce and workplace culture.
The conversation around breaking the cycle of homelessness has recently turned toward the availability of employment for people experiencing poverty. The Recent collaborative effort between the D.C. Interagency Council on Homelessness (ICH) and the Workforce Investment Council (WIC) on the implementation of the Workforce Innovation Opportunities Act (WIOA) has resulted in a number of policy changes aimed at making job opportunities more accessible to the homeless. These include efforts to educate and prepare the homeless for the work place and connect them with a number of opportunities and means of seeking employment. Changes to existing policies as well as the creation of new legislation continue to change the intersectional landscapes of employment and poverty in D.C. Final rules on these changes became available to the public on June 30, 2016, and changes will take effect by October 18 of this year. According to the official WIOA website, these will include improvements to code surrounding the support of the disabled and elderly unemployed, impoverished, and homeless, which will take effect on Sept. 19.
This year’s job fair will be on September 22 from 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and takes place in the Town Hall Education Arts Recreation Campus, located at 1901 Mississippi Avenue, S.E. The event is free and offers free parking. Metro transportation to the site can be found at Metro-Southern Ave. Station, Congress Heights Station. The W2 and the W3 bus can be boarded at the Anacostia Metro or the Congress Heights Metro Station.
