L.A.’s Chrysalis Helps the Homeless Break Through the Job Barrier

Jul 16, 2012

Kari Neighbors: I was living from day to day on the streets, putting myself in high-risk situations, I kinda got tired of going in and out; whether it was jail, or a hospital.

SUPER: Mark Loranger, CEO & President, Chrysalis

Mark Loranger: Crysalis is a non-profit agency that helps the homeless and those in poverty find employment and get on the path to self-sufficiency.

SUPER: Kari Neighbors, Counselor, Chrysalis

Kari Neighbors: They said that I would learn how to operate a computer, and post a resume, and I was like ‘Are you kidding me? A job on a computer?’

Mark Loranger: We’re all about removing the barriers that our clients have to finding employment. We do that through the classes and curriculum that deal with the soft skills that our clients are lacking. It could be things like interviewing skills, or being able to put together a resume, or conduct a job search on the web.

Kari Neighbors: I felt like I had the support of the whole organization. If my case monitor wasn’t available I was still able to be helped.

Mark Loranger: We have a tradition here at Chrysalis that when someone gets a job, they ring the ‘Success Bell’ in our lobby. Everything stops, doesn’t matter who you are, or what you’re doing, we gather around the client and they tell their personal story.

Brett Robinson: Well, I landed the job, full-time, forty hours a week…

Kari Neighbors: When I did ring the bell, it was very overwhelming. The support that I got, people came from everywhere.

V/O (Mark Loranger): It’s almost a spiritual opportunity for them to get that affirmation and the self-confidence that, ‘I did something. I did something really important’ and that’s gonna serve as a great foundation for them as they go on to other things in their life.

Kari Neighbors: Today, I am so encouraged. It became about giving back. I am now a case monitor, every day that I go to this job, I know that something good is gonna come out of it.

Mark Loranger: The work that we do here at Chrysalis is not done in isolation, and the support from Bank of America not only helps us, but it helps us help the entire community.

SUPER: Garrett Gin, SVP CSR Market Manager, Bank of America

Garrett Gin: We invest financially through grants, through our philanthropic work; we also invest sort of the human capital. We’ve had people serve in leadership roles, we’ve also had many employees who’ve been volunteers. And we’ve done job-training interviews. Resume writing. We live and we work here. These communities are important to us.

Kari Neighbors: Chrysalis believed in the possibilities when I believed in the limitations.

Mark Loranger: It’s not about a paycheck, it’s not about the job. It’s about putting the rest of your life together, and be able to hold your head high and have the personal dignity and respect from your peers and your family.

Kari Neighbors: I’ve surrounded myself around people who were really really believing in me, you know? And today I believe in me.

Skid Row, located in downtown Los Angeles, has long been synonymous with homelessness and poverty. It was to this community that John Dillon, 22 years old, arrived to work in the neighborhood to provide direct services to the homeless population. In 1984, he founded nonprofit Chrysalis as a distribution center for food and clothing, serving men and women who were living on the streets.

As the agency grew, it became clear that longer-term solutions were needed to eradicate poverty and homelessness. Chrysalis developed an effective and nationally recognized program built on the foundation of securing jobs. Offering its clients “a hand up and not a hand-out,” Chrysalis helps them with every aspect of a job search— computer training and job retention skills as well as the “soft skills” of resume writing, job search, and interviewing.

Since 2005, Bank of America has been a supporter of the organization’s programs, providing philanthropic support through grants, leadership on the Chrysalis board, and thousands of volunteer hours from employees who work directly with Chrysalis clients to help them get job-ready.

According to Mark Loranger, Chrysalis’ President and CEO, “The support from Bank of America not only helps us but helps us help the entire community.” Says Garrett Gin, a global marketing and corporate affairs executive at the bank, “While Los Angeles is known as a creative epicenter of design and fashion, unfortunately it’s also known as the homeless capital of the U.S. Chrysalis is acting to stem the tide of homelessness, doing the hard work of helping these men and women reenter the mainstream. Working with Chrysalis, we really get to see the impact that their programs, and our time and efforts, are making on individual families, households and communities.”

Since the downturn, the need for job training is particularly acute, with 60% more people seeking their services last year at their three centers in downtown L.A., Santa Monica and the Pacoima area of the San Fernando Valley. Chrysalis’ job-readiness classes and intensive individual mentoring help 400 clients a day get the skills they need to crack the job market. And for the hardest-to-employ, there is Chrysalis Enterprises, a temporary jobs program that gives clients real-world skills in a transitional setting.

Chrysalis’ impressive results have come in two areas—high employment rates and low-cost services. Last year, over 1700 clients were successfully employed. And the average cost of the program is $2000 per client, a fraction of the cost of similar government-sponsored employment programs.

Chrysalis has a longtime tradition that marks their success. Whenever a client gets a job, he or she rings a bell in the lobby and tells the story. Says Loranger, “The affirmation and self-confidence they get from doing that is a great foundation for the next step of having a job.”

Join the conversation: Learn how we’re working to help strengthen communities on the Bank of America Facebook page.

L.A.’s Chrysalis Helps the Homeless Break Through the Job Barrier

Website Ad Practices