Poverty deprives people of their dignity and compromises their ability to meet their most basic needs and it limits choices and restricts opportunity. Heartland Alliance believes that attaining economic security is a human right.  That's why we strive to help people living in poverty build the skills and gain the tools to improve their well-being and enjoy the success of reaching their goals.  Our work includes:

Asset Building and Financial Education:

In Illinois, more than 40 percent of households do not have an interest bearing checking, savings or money market account and about 15 percent have zero or negative net worth, which means they have no personal safety net. Lack of financial education leaves low-income people vulnerable to payday loan scams, currency exchange user fees, and subprime lenders. Heartland Alliance offers an array of financial literacy workshops and several programs that help program participants build assets and work toward a financial goal.

Job Training and Workforce Development:

Finding and keeping a job is often a struggle for someone who has a history of mental illness, substance use, or domestic violence, has never worked before, or spent time in prison. Heartland Alliance is an expert in workforce development programs, including a transitional jobs program, aimed at those hardest-to-employ groups.

Emergency Financial Assistance:

When a low-income family experiences a financial crisis—a job loss or illness, a death or disability, a fire or other disaster—it can lead to homelessness. Heartland Alliance oversees a program that can provide financial assistance to families in danger of becoming homeless because of a one-time crisis.

Refugee Resettlement and Skills Training:

Heartland Alliance has resettled more than 15,000 refugees since 1975. Few vocational programs in the Chicago area had been responsive to refugees' limited English proficiency or their need to become financially self-sufficient within months of their arrival to meet government rules. That's why Heartland Alliance created specialized programs that give refugees the vocabulary and technical skills they need for work in three industries, hospitality, landscape maintenance, and food service.

Economic Security Policy Analysis & Advocacy:

The notion of the American dream is based on the shared value of economic security - that hard work should be rewarded and that everyone should have the opportunity to provide for his or her family and live in dignity. Armed with the knowledge we gain from interaction with thousands of program participants in workforce development, asset building, and other programs, we develop and advance proven policy solutions that create economic opportunity for all.  Read more about our public policy successes in the arena of economic security.

Signature Economic Security Programs

Heartland Alliance operates several programs that address economic security, serving a wide variety of populations. Read more about some of our signature programs.