Madison Aument
With 91.9 KVCR News, I'm Madison Aument. This is Economics IE, where I speak to people who have their finger on the pulse of the Inland Empire to take the temperature of the region’s economic situation. For today’s episode, I spoke with Evan Sanford, who is the executive director of the Redlands Chamber of Commerce. Can you just talk about the goal of the Redlands Chamber of Commerce?
Evan Sanford
Absolutely. So our mission here at the Redlands Chamber is very simple. It's workforce, economic and leadership development. This really encapsulates all of the initiatives that we have here to try and support the business community.
Madison Aument
Can you talk about the Workforce Development Program?
Evan Sanford
So workforce development, to us, refers to two different grants that we're operating into right now. So one is with the County of San Bernardino, and one is with the city of Redlands. We'll start with the county first. So that has an expectation of 100 placements per year in the third district of the county. So we are charged in any manner to get that done. So we've hired somebody specifically focused on doing that. We're holding those job and career and resource fairs, and we've also launched a new job portal on our website that allows us to reach even more people… bring them into our orbit, and that's really exciting. The other part is the other contract, and that's with the city of Redlands to attack the homeless issue in our community, and that program for us… we're calling New Beginnings. So on that job portal, we also have the ability for those no longer living on the street, they have a permanent address. We are charged with the employment aspect of this plan, so we help them get a free phone, email address, resume building, mock interviewing… but we're going to do everything that we can to get them the best chance that they have. And our charge is 50 placements over the next two and a half years. We've had 37 people referred to us in the last two months, and we have placed three people in jobs. So I take that as a win. I think that helps a lot of people, and it's really encouraging, and it's a game plan for the future.
Madison Aument
Can you talk about the specifics of the New Beginnings program, like how you're getting connected with people, etc?
Evan Sanford
We have partnerships with other community organizations. Our housing partner is Family Service. So the way this works is there's a city outreach team that will find homeless people in our community, maybe from the homeless point-in-time count or referrals from the community. They will then connect them with the Family Services Association, who can give them room and board vouchers, hotel [or] motel vouchers, so that they're no longer on the street. Once that happens, they are able to take advantage of the services that Family Services has. That includes transportation vouchers and other things like that. Then they're referred to us, and then we take them in and provide them with a free phone, email address, anything that we can do… mock interview, resume building to lead them to a successful interview with an organization. Then we are also, at the same time, connecting with businesses that might take a chance on giving these people a second chance. So that's a challenge for us, but it's something that obviously we're committed to. We're really excited about it, since we already are seeing some success.
Madison Aument
Thank you for your time, Evan.
Evan Sanford
Happy to help.
Madison Aument
Join us again next Monday for Economics IE. You can find this segment and others on our website, at kvcrnews.org/econie. Support for this segment comes from the Nowak Family. For KVCR News, I'm Madison Aument.