Employment success and housing stability go hand in hand. Although the public workforce and homeless service systems both serve homeless and unstably housed jobseekers, these systems work in silos in many communities. Collaboration is critical for these two systems to achieve their interrelated goals.

Heartland Alliance’s webinar series, Strategies for Workforce and Housing Systems Collaboration, shines a light on strategies communities can use to bridge the gap between systems and ensure equitable pathways to employment and income needed for housing stability.

One promising systems collaboration strategy is cross-system data sharing. Our second webinar of the series, Data Sharing: A Strategy for Housing and Workforce Systems Collaboration, will provide an overview of data sharing, how Chicago and Detroit have operationalized this strategy, and how it can be used to better understand and meet the needs of workforce and homeless service populations in your community.

Data sharing allows systems to gain important information such as how many people make up their shared service population, what kinds of services these individuals want, need, and receive from each system, and where there may be untapped opportunities for partnerships or gaps that could best be addressed collaboratively. The webinar will feature on-the-ground perspectives of systems leaders from Chicago and Detroit who have implemented data-sharing strategies across systems in their communities.

PANELISTS:
- Scott Jackson, CAM System Coordinator at Southwest Solutions
- Jennifer Erb-Downward, Senior Research Associate at Poverty Solutions at University of Michigan
- Kevin Naud, Workforce Strategy Analyst at Detroit at Work
- Nancy Phillips, Chief Program Officer at Inspiration Corporation and a co-chair of the Employment Task Force at AllChicago
- Dena Al-Khatib, Career Connect Administrator at Chicago Cook Workforce Partnership
- Lisa Bly-Jones, CEO of Chicago Jobs Council