Vancouver Downtown Eastside / For every dollar spent to employ a resident, society benefited by $3.32

Two years ago, Paul Goeujon worked odd jobs while living in the Downtown Eastside, where poverty, drug use and crime make it difficult for residents to find and keep decent employment.

Today, he is employed full time as a maintenance manager with Atira Property Management, which hires Downtown Eastside residents to work in the company’s buildings.

It was the break that Goeujon, 52, needed after struggling to find reliable work during the two decades he lived in the impoverished neighbourhood.

“You are sort of discriminated against when you do have an address that is in this area. (Employers) kind of lump you into their own stereotypes,” he said.

A report released Tuesday by accounting firm Ernst and Young concludes Goeujon’s job does more than give him a step up in life: it also benefits taxpayers. The report, commissioned by Atira, found that for every dollar spent to employ a Downtown Eastside resident, society benefited by $3.32.

Like Goeujon, 93 per cent of the 242 workers in Atira’s 16 single-room, lowincome buildings are from the Downtown Eastside.

Ernst and Young calculated the socalled social return on investment (SROI) of Atira hiring 105 new workers in the 2012-13 fiscal year who were either underemployed, on government assistance, and/or lived in a singleroom building.

An SROI determines the value of an investment beyond its base price; it measures the extent of change for all stakeholders, which in this case were Atira, the new workers, governments, and the Downtown Eastside community.

Ernst and Young analyzed: Atira’s cost for the salaries; Taxes paid by new workers; Workers’ increased spending power; Other quantitative benefits such as workers’ reduced reliance on welfare, shelters, and food banks, as well as lower criminal justice and health costs.

Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor. Read the whole story at 

via Jobs reap benefits for hires, taxpayers.