PATHWorks Newsletter: MARCH 2020
Success Story
- Employment - Asset Building - Finances - Community Events -
Overcoming Barriers - Housing Works Updates - Resources
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Congratulations Casey K.
Congratulations Casey for graduating the PATHWorks program! Casey joined PATHWorks in February of 2015. At that time, she was a single mom with 3 teenagers living at home. Casey wanted stability in her life and she wanted a home she could call her own. Casey made goals to be employed full-time and prepare for homeownership. Homeownership involves four pillars of financial strength: a strong credit score, low to no debt, adequate income, and savings for both a down payment and an emergency fund. Casey got to work right away and started taking the steps to improve her credit score. Once she saw the progress she was making, that motivated her to continue to track her credit and work on increasing it. Casey wrote a budget plan to pay down her debt and continued to make her payments. She disputed some items on her credit report and consolidated her student loans and signed up for the Public Service Student Loan Forgiveness Program, which she qualified for by working full-time at St. Charles. Casey also volunteers for Jefferson County as an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) and is certified in Electronic Medical Record (EMR).
Casey also participated in the VIDA (3:1 matched savings) program and graduated when she purchased a vehicle she needed for work in early 2018. A year later, Casey joined the VIDA program again to save for homeownership. At the same time, Casey applied for the Habitat for Humanity program and was accepted! She will be purchasing her home later this year. She will use the escrow she earned in the PATHWorks program and her VIDA savings for her closing costs and she will be releasing her Housing Choice Voucher. Casey also volunteers on the PATHWorks Program Coordinating Committee (PCC). The PCC is a group of community partners, PATHWorks Coordinators and participants who meet quarterly to advise the PATHWorks program and help coordinate services to reduce barriers for our clients. Casey plays a vital role in offering her voice to the needs of PATHWorks participants.
Casey has shown how setting a goal, putting in the hard work, and accessing community partners and their resources can lead to success. Well done Casey!
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Find Growth Opportunities at Work
Identifying growth opportunities at work is essential if you want to excel in your career. If you want to receive a raise or promotion, it is not enough to just do your job and do it well. You have to actively take steps to develop and grow. You have to move out of your comfort zone and take on new tasks to get noticed and showcase your full potential.
Read below for professional growth ideas.
- First, know your job description, roles and responsibilities and make sure that you are excelling in your position first before taking on new responsibilities.
- Look for opportunities at your job. If there are skills gaps, make a point to acquire and apply them.
- Attend trainings and read books to improve old skills and develop new ones.
- Find a mentor.
- Attend all office meetings and networking events you are invited to.
- Let your manager know you are interested in career growth. To help create the best steps, ask your manager questions like:
- What are the criteria for a promotion?
- What skills gaps do I have?
- What kinds of milestones do I need to hit?
- What kinds of projects do I need experience on?
- What are key habits that make someone successful in that role?
- Join committees in your office and if you have the opportunity to, join partner committees or become a board member.
Not all opportunities will be handed to you on a silver platter. You need to search opportunities and act on them. Set your professional bar high. What is your career goal? Are you doing everything you can to reach that goal? Make a plan and take the steps you need to find growth opportunities at work and grow your career.
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File 2020 Taxes for FREE
If you want to file your taxes for free on your own, there are several websites available online.
Free File is a program for taxpayers who earn $69,000 or less. Taxpayers who earned more than $69,000 and are comfortable preparing their own returns, can use
Free File Fillable Forms.
You can file both state and federal returns with
HR Block at no cost if your household earned $67,000 or less last year. Or you can file your taxes online with
TurboTax at no cost if:
- You qualify for the Earned Income Tax Credit; OR
- Your household earned $36,000 or less last year.
The IRS has several helpful resources on filing taxes, including a
tax appointment checklist
and the
steps we can all take now
to get ready to file our taxes. As families are filing their taxes and receiving large refunds, these refunds often provide an excellent opportunity to build or add to an emergency fund, pay down debt, or tend to other financial needs. With many resources available to families with low incomes, it is important to stay updated on the most current information.
The
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau blog
can be a valuable resource as the April 15th tax deadline approaches. Know that
T
he Tax Cuts and Jobs Act may affect your taxes.
Review the IRS
Publication 5307
,
Tax Reform Basics for Individuals and Families
, to learn about how the tax law may affect your tax return.
Keep in mind, if you are tempted to take out a refund advance or a refund anticipation loan by getting your refund sooner, be very careful. The fees associated with those tax products can cost you hundreds of dollars. Your refund is your money -- don't give it away. File your taxes as early as you can and ALL of your return will be in your hands before you know it.
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Managing your Emotional Health
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Challenges are a part of life, most you overcome easily, whereas others feel overwhelming and unmanageable. When you are feeling overwhelmed and stressed you can also feel alone and stuck. A bit of self-reflection can identify if those powerful emotions and feelings are holding you back from taking the steps you need to overcome challenges at hand. At times like this, it is important to get an outside perspective form a mentor or counselor.
Working with someone to process your feelings, identify triggers and provide tools to combat negative thinking or depression is the key to healthy living. There are many reasons people seek out counseling — grief, anxiety, depression, trauma, addiction, and relationships are among the most common. Regardless of the intensity, severity, and frequency of your challenges, no issue is too small or too big to benefit from talking with a professional. In fact, lots of successful people use counseling. Do a quick google search if you want to confirm this!
If you feel you would benefit from a new professional perspective, schedule a counseling session with a therapist.
- Contact your insurance to find a provider in your area that is accepting new patients and your insurance.
- Contact your county's Behavioral Health Department.
- Get free counseling from OSU-Cascades.
Whether you’re looking to cope with a specific mental health problem, manage your emotions better, or simply to feel more positive and energetic or get unstuck, there are plenty of ways to take control of your emotional health—starting today, make the call to feel better.
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Liberty Lodge Construction is Complete!
Construction for the Liberty Lodge development, located at 1620 SW Quartz Avenue in Redmond is complete! The development includes a two-story 8-plex with nicely equipped, 601 square foot, one-bedroom units. The development also includes a community room with a full kitchen, bathroom, and laundry. We anticipate the community room to be an active, supportive social gathering place for residents, friends, and collaborative community agency partners with both planned and spontaneous opportunities for positive interaction experiences. The community room will be a primary center for potluck dinners, crafts, movie nights, or general life skills training. In addition to the community room space, the large covered patio and green spaces allows for outdoor activities and bike storage.
The target population served by this project is persons with Intellectual/Developmental Disabilities (IDD). Residents will be IDD people who are largely capable of living independently with minimal to moderate outside support. Housing Works and a team of professionals from the Redmond Association for Successful Community Living (RASCL) will use a variety of assessment tools to generate individual service plans for life activities training and support mechanisms. RASCL will have a “service team” of parents and advocates for each individual tenant who will work together to construct services for each tenant.
Liberty Lodge apartments will be managed by EPIC Property Management, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Housing Works.
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2020 Waiting List Results
Housing Works received a total of 2,695 online applications for the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program Waiting List from January 13–17, 2020. Approximately 2,100 of those applications were received from local residents living in Crook, Deschutes and Jefferson Counties.
Current Applicants
- Click HERE To check your position on the waiting list.
- If your address, phone number, income and/or household composition changed, please update your information by clicking HERE.
- If you are selected off the waiting list for the HCV program, Housing Works will contact you directly.
Technical Assistance
- The email address used at registration is your login. You must have a valid email address in order to access your application.
- If you forgot your password, please select the “Forgot Password” option and follow the instructions.
- Keep your login and password somewhere safe and secure.
If you need additional assistance, call Housing Works at 541-923-1018.
The 2020 HCV Waiting List will remain active until December 31, 2020. At that time, all remaining 2020 applications will be removed from the waiting list. If your application was not selected, you will need to reapply next year.
The 2021 HCV Waiting List will be open from January 11-15, 2021.
We would like to thank all our community partners for making the 2020 Waiting List opening week a success. Without all your hard work, we would not be able to serve our communities. Thank you!
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