Opportunity Lost? Maximizing Large Federal Funds to Support Opportunity Youth

“This research report…look[s] at four major federal funding streams that can help opportunity youth, from the unique perspective of the community organizations that do this work….The complexities in use of these resources not only happens at the federal level – most of these funding streams also pass through a level of state and/or local rulemaking and processes, which can add more complexity.

 

The four federal funding streams this paper focuses on are:

 

• WIOA (Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act) - U.S. Departments of Labor & Education: youth and adult workforce oriented programs – including education.

 

• TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) - U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: broad support for needy families, including education and work.

 

• SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) Education & Training - U.S. Department of Agriculture: education and training for ‘food stamp’ recipients.

 

• Federal Pell Grants - U.S. Department of Education: college tuition support for low income students” (p.1).

 

“This report sets out to better understand the largest ‘mainstream’ federal funding resources that can be focused on young adult education and employment needs, and better understand, from a service provider’s perspective, the extent to which these resources can be used to address the needs of opportunity youth in the US.

 

The question [the authors] seek to answer is: Why aren’t these large sustained public funding streams leading to opportunity youth success at a greater scale?

 

To answer this question, [the authors] attempt to answer these leading questions:

 

• What kinds of supports do opportunity youth most frequently need to be successful?

 

• What are the existing major, mainstream public funding resources that can be used for opportunity youth?

 

• What are the challenges to utilizing these funding streams…?” (p.6-7)

 

• How can those challenges be addressed?” (p.7).

 

The authors summarize challenges and components of interest to opportunity youth providers for each of the four funding streams using information collected from discussions with direct service providers (p.1-2), opportunity youth (p.13-14), and other reports (p.5).

 

(Abstractor: Author and Website Staff)

Service providers report the following challenges in serving opportunity youth for each funding stream: “[that] it’s hard to use WIOA for housing costs; it can be challenging to transfer a young person from WIOA Youth to WIOA Adult programs when they hit the age threshold; and there are restrictions on types of postsecondary credential types that WIOA funding can support” (p.14). Reported restrictions for TANF include “60 months maximum [for] lifetime benefits…[and that] recipients must work within 2 years” (p.15). SNAP Education & Training include the “‘50%’ requirement (1:1 match with other funding sources) to draw down funds; [that the] reimbursement process is daunting for [community-based organizations]; [that it] only covers employment and/or education costs; [and that there are] no barrier reduction supports. Reportedly, most states do not fully ‘pull down’ this resource, and funds go unclaimed each year” (p.15). “Pell is disbursed by higher education institutions…[and that] there is a lifetime limit to the amount you can receive (which frequently is not enough to complete a degree)” (p.16). The authors “recommend the following next steps be taken – by community organizations, by local collaboratives focused on opportunity youth, by governmental agencies at all levels – to further build all our efforts towards a better functioning ‘system’ to support young people: 1. Create a set of resources to help local opportunity youth collaboratives and providers understand and use these federal resources to an increased degree. 2. Continue, and continue learning from, the federal Performance Partnership Pilots, which allow for blending and braiding of funds, and study the effects of more kinds of waivers at all levels (federal, state and local). 3. Support local community cross-sector planning for the removal of any local barriers to maximizing existing funds. 4. Surface and make available more data regarding which federal funds are being used for opportunity youth within each community. 5. Advocate for changes to policies and regulations at all levels of government which restrict the efficacy of public funds meant to support opportunity youth. 6. Develop complimentary state-level opportunity youth funding strategies that can fill gaps in the federal funds structure” (p.3-4). (Abstractor: Author and Website Staff)

• Last Updated:
• Created:
• Resource Publication Date: 2017
• Author(s): Thompson, Ken.
• Organizational Author(s): The Aspen Institute Forum for Community Solutions
• Funding Source: Funding source not identified
• Resource Availability: Publicly available
• Posted by: Wesley Peterson
• Posted in: Workforce System Strategies