Breaktime

Breaktime is at a pivotal inflection point where we have proven out a model that works and now need the support to help bring it to scale. The Massachusetts state legislature and the US Department of Labor have both expressed strong interest in Breaktime’s model of purposeful transitional employment; we just need to demonstrate that this model is replicable to be able to unleash large streams of government funding that will bring our model to scale. In fact, State Senator Cyr has filed legislation to enshrine our initiative in the state budget, and legislators are looking for evidence of our model’s efficacy in their communities to support this budget amendment. This is why we are seeking the support and funding of the Elevate Prize. The catalytic funding of this prize would enable Breaktime to bring our model to other parts of Massachusetts in 2022 and demonstrate the power and potential of our model to key government stakeholders. Overall, an investment in Breaktime’s work today will not only transform the lives of hundreds of young adults experiencing homelessness in the short term, but it will also revolutionize our ability to create long-term, systems-level change and end young adult homelessness.

I am a young, emerging nonprofit leader with a deep, infectious passion for ending young adult homelessness while strengthening our nonprofit sector. I got my start in public service as Westborough's Project 351 Ambassador in 2013; I served as Chairman of the Governor's Statewide Youth Council; and most recently, I was a Cheng Social Innovation Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School. These purposeful work opportunities have changed my life time and again, so I believe that every young person should feel empowered to create change in their communities. Through Breaktime, I am working with my peers experiencing homelessness to empower young adults experiencing homelessness to build sustainability in their lives while building resilience in their communities. My vision is that, one day, every young person in America will have access to a job that is life-sustaining, skill-building, and empowering. Purposeful work should not just be a privilege exclusive to those who can afford its opportunity cost; rather, we as a nation need to invest in opportunities for our young people to do transformative work while building transferable job skills. Through this “double impact” strategy we can end hunger, strengthen community health, and bolster the nonprofit sector while ending young adult homelessness.

According to the University of Chicago, one in 10 young people (ages 18-25) experience some form of homelessness in a given year. With every day that passes, the likelihood of future homelessness for these young adults increases by 2%.  Based on research from the National Coalition to End Homelessness, 89% of these young adults identify as BIPOC (black, indigenous, or people of color), and 40% of them are LGBTQ+. To solve this crisis, a report from Chapin Hall states that “case management and ad hoc supports like food or clothing donations just aren’t enough.” Young people need work opportunities that will help launch a sustainable career.

Breaktime is addressing this challenge by recruiting young adults from other nonprofits that provide traditional case management and ad hoc supports; empowering our Associates with a two-week “launchpad” training program focused on professional development and personal empowerment; and then co-funding the wages for each Associate to work at another nonprofit for three months. We pay a living wage and provide a matched savings stipend so that every Associates leaves Breaktime with $1,000 in savings. Ultimately, Breaktime achieves double impact by preventing long-term chronic homelessness and empowering young adults to become changemakers.

Breaktime has created the model of purposeful transitional employment as a solution to young adult homelessness and the chronic understaffing of our nonprofit sector. Traditionally, we think of housing stock and shelter as the most critical components to ending homelessness; however, according to recent research from the Yale Law Journal, stable employment is actually the largest barrier to achieving stable housing, especially for young people. Concurrently, we have a nonprofit sector that lacks a workforce large enough to solve our society’s largest challenges--hunger, homelessness, health inequities, etc. At Breaktime, we see the solution to these dual challenges as simple: Let’s employ and empower young adults experiencing homelessness to support the work of nonprofits in their communities while developing transferable job skills, building financial security, and augmenting their own sense of self-efficacy. Through this multifaceted strategy, we are creating new, empowering job opportunities in the nonprofit sector, empowering young adults experiencing homelessness to realize their own power and potential, and equipping young adults with the skills and financial resources they need to succeed in the long term. We are disrupting the traditional silos of nonprofit work and demonstrating how workforce development, homelessness, hunger, nonprofit sector capacity, etc. are all interconnected.

To track our impact on our Associates, we use a set of evidence-based evaluation tools developed in collaboration with Harvard Business School to track three categories of impact:

1. Engaged: We want to ensure that Associates are engaged throughout our program and engaged in employment or education after Breaktime. To this end, we measure program retention rates (our goal is 80%) and use surveys to track the percent of alumni who are employed or enrolled in education after graduating from our program (our goal is 100%). 

2. Equipped: We work to ensure our Associates are “Equipped” with transferable job skills, and we aim to have every Associate leave Breaktime with $1,000+ in savings, a credit score above 660, and enough income to sustain stable housing.

3. Empowered: Through the Youth Thrive Survey developed by the Center for the Study of Social Policy, we evaluate five key areas of social and emotional wellbeing and aim to have Associates improve in all five.

To evaluate our broader impact on the community, we require our nonprofit employment partners to fill out a monthly report capturing the ways in which having Breaktime Associates on their team augmented their organization’s impact (number of additional individuals served, etc.).