About Rising Together
Rising Together: Creating New Pathways to Employment for Youth and Young Adults Experiencing Homelessness is a coordinated effort among Boston’s lead agencies on youth homelessness to improve job outcomes for young people in need of stable housing. Funded by generous grants from the Heartland Alliance’s National Center on Employment and Homelessness as part of the Pathways Forward Challenge grant, and the Liberty Mutual Foundation, this three year initiative builds upon the work of Rising to the Challenge: Boston’s Plan to Prevent and End Youth and Young Adult Homelessness.
Our Mission: Rising Together is a community-driven, workforce development initiative that connects employers and service providers in Boston with youth and young adults at-risk of or experiencing homelessness in order to train, hire, retain, and advance the careers of these young Bostonians.
The Rising Together initiative brings together additional workforce development stakeholders into the conversation around youth homelessness to highlight employment solutions for our young people. This coordination of services is especially vital since meaningful and sustainable employment is key to housing stability and long-term success. Yet, less than half of 18–24 year-olds experiencing homelessness in Boston report active employment. The capacity building work of Rising Together has resulted in the development of tools and resources for working with youth experiencing homelessness and has been essential to building the foundation for ongoing collaboration between workforce development and housing service providers in the city of Boston.
Download the Rising Together fact sheet.
Steering committee
- Boston Private Industry Council, on behalf of the Opportunity Youth Collaborative
- Boston Youth Action Board
- Bridge Over Troubled Waters
- Mayor’s Office of Housing, City of Boston
- Boston Centers for Youth and Families, City of Boston
- Mayor’s Office of Workforce Development
- More Than Words
- St. Francis House
- United Way of Massachusetts Bay and Merrimack Valley
Learn more
Liberty Mutual Insurance Announces 19 Grants in $5 Million Effort to Address Youth Homelessness in Boston
Liberty Mutual press release, January 10, 2020
Boston is Awarded Grant to Improve Job Outcomes for Youth Experiencing Homelessness
OWD blog, June 26, 2019
$75,000 City of Boston Award Announced to Address Youth Homelessness
City of Boston press release, July 29, 2019
Advancing Employment, Equity, and an End to Homelessness: The Pathways Forward Challenge
United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, September 16, 2019
Questions?
Contact RisingTogether@Boston.gov to learn more.