Chapman Partnership

Symeria Hudson is President & CEO of Chapman Partnership, an impact leader in addressing homelessness. In January 2019, Hudson brought to Chapman over 25 years of experience as a corporate executive where she drove product innovations for top medical technology and healthcare companies from the U.S. to Europe. Her transition from for profit to nonprofit was marked in part by the love and loss of her Uncle Billy. Her mother’s brother, Uncle Billy died of complications from living on the streets. Hudson, a child of the projects in Huntsville, Alabama, used this early experience to promote a sense of commitment to hard work and service. A graduate of Harvard, Hudson today brings a wealth of experience in medical technology, innovation and extensive leadership across sectors to transform Chapman Partnership’s social impact from early childhood development to career under the Social Enterprise Academy (SEA). Within SEA, initiatives are being launched across Chapman’s programmatic platform using the foundation of education and empowerment as key to changing the upward trajectory of a highly vulnerable population. Elevate Prize funding will be dedicated to the Workforce Trades Program (WTP), scaling content (construction and healthcare) to support 375 graduates over the next three years.

While Chapman is celebrating 25 years of impact in rehousing our homeless, reporting an 85% successful outplacement rate and credited with reducing Miami-Dade County’s/MDC unsheltered homeless from 8,000+ in 1990 to 1,020 today, Hudson’s vision is to elevate Chapman’s recognition as a leading humanitarian effort aimed at increasing economic opportunity, tackling an acute driver of income inequality: education and employment. Within her first six months at Chapman, SEA was conceived as a business model to address the systemic issue of poverty across Chapman’s demographic footprint. WTP was launched in February 2021 at the onset of the pandemic. Through Hudson’s business acumen, WTP partners with Florida International University/FIU having graduated 26 homeless residents in a 15-week construction apprenticeship to date, despite FIU’s pandemic-related closure April-November 2021. A 15-week Certified Nursing Assistant’s/CNA apprenticeship will launch Summer 2021.

 We might not ever end homelessness, but Chapman is proof that we can end people living on the streets of our communities. By accelerating programmatic growth with replication potential in communities nationwide that are dealing with homelessness, Hudson envisions revenues akin to a for-profit venture, using her corporate mentality coupled with compassion to move the needle on social injustice in the field of homeless services.

Chapman operates two, one-stop Homeless Assistance Centers servicing MDC’s 36 municipalities covering 2,000+ square miles. As this community’s primary provider of emergency housing, annually 3,500 men, women and children (800 nightly) are provided shelter and a comprehensive suite of programs and stabilizing services designed to ameliorate the cyclical nature of homelessness. Case management is the tool through which behavioral health and social service supports are accessed. As clients enter Chapman, an individualized, client-focused service plan is developed addressing the complex issues contributing to their homelessness. The plan fosters linkages to 150+ program partners (governmental and social service/community/faith-based) offering access to onsite, free health care (medical, dental and psychiatric services); benefits which are critical to housing stability (i.e., Temporary Aid for Needy Families-TANF, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program-SNAP/food stamps, Social Security Disability Income-SSDI, Supplemental Security Income-SSI, etc.); public transportation vouchers; Early Headstart, Headstart, afterschool and summer programming for children of all ages; paid internships for older youth; job development and training for adults; short-term rental subsidies; and 12 months of follow-up case management post outplacement to ensure continuance of stable housing (facilitated through the CHAP App, a proprietary technological platform based on telehealth practices that engages Chapman residents throughout the E-Care continuum).

SEA is unlike other approaches addressing social inequality for two reasons: 1) it is intentionally designed to break the cycle of poverty through an “early childhood development to career” philosophy that reshapes lives during the initial episode of homelessness; and 2) it marries for-profit and nonprofit experience with out-of-the-box solutions and forward-thinking approaches to address the root cause of homelessness (poverty) through education and empowerment.

 For children, SEA focuses on financial literacy and social/emotional learning. Residents age 14-21 participate in paid internships as their entrée into learning soft/hard job skills. For adults, SEA improves their likelihood of success in a COVID-19 challenging job market by training the unemployed/unskilled in 15-week apprenticeships focusing on high-demand industries; upon graduation enrollees earn nationally recognized certifications and are placed in living wage jobs ($15/hour and above), with ample opportunities for growth.

In today’s unstable economy, MDC has experienced a tremendous shortage in qualified construction and healthcare job applicants (the focus of apprenticeship offerings in WTP). These shortages only amplified as a result of the pandemic and are anticipated to increase in the months and years ahead.

Embedded in SEA is Chapman’s holistic wrap-around model coupled with follow-up case management to ensure housing stability.

Homelessness plagues communities throughout the U.S. and beyond. Global health challenges like COVID-19 only amplify the need to help low-income individuals participate more fully in an equitable society. 

At Chapman, we are addressing an individual’s basic right to housing and augmenting opportunities for equitable access to education and workforce development training, while restoring the dignity and respect of men, women and children experiencing homelessness. With the vast majority of Chapman’s adult intakes identified as unemployed, we annually secure employment for over 1,200 residents. Linking employment with stable housing, 846 residents secured employment in 2021, despite the pandemic, and 1,372 households were successfully outplaced. For children, we couple social-emotional learning with financial literacy as foundational to addressing systemic poverty.

Operationally and programmatically, Chapman’s benefits generate a significant social capital return on investment/ROI to MDC. A March 2021 Washington Economics Group Study cites Chapman’s total economic impact on the local economy at $350 million annually. Most of the impact occurs due to successful outcomes in programs for adults and children, comprising 90% of its total economic impact. Chapman’s programmatic investments particularly related to education and workforce development resulted in an 83% increase in economic as compared to the Study conducted in 2016.