The Doe Fund

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The Doe Fund is a non-profit organization that provides job-training and work opportunities, housing assistance, advocacy, and support for homeless and unemployed people in New York City.

[edit] History

The Doe Fund was founded in 1985 by George McDonald. The Doe Fund's mission is to help New York City's homeless obtain housing and employment. McDonald and his wife, Harriet Karr-McDonald, developed projects based on their belief that most homeless men and women want to change their lives, and, if given the opportunity to work, will seize it. With this mantra, they developed projects that put sobriety and employment as the foundations to self-respect and personal responsibility.

In 1990, the McDonalds won two separate contracts from the city: one, a work contract to renovate low-income housing; the second, a contract to purchase and renovate an abandoned building on Gates Avenue in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, where program participants would live. To attract participants, the McDonalds canvassed Grand Central Station, inviting homeless men who were willing to stop using drugs and alcohol and willing to work to the Church of St. Agnes the following Saturday morning. Hundreds of men showed up.

The work project was called Ready, Willing & Able (RWA), and it outperformed the requirements of the city contract. By 1994, RWA had helped 90 men get full-time private-sector jobs and move into their own apartments. That same year, however, a change in city housing policy slashed the Doe Fund's work contract by more than 60%.

RWA redirected the efforts of its workforce of trainees to address the growing problem of litter in New York City streets. The men were given uniforms with American flags sewn on the sleeves and started working on East 86th Street. Neighborhood residents, as a result, helped the group find financial support in the form of private donations. RWA subsequently expanded its operation to cover 25 miles of city streets.

The Doe Fund has won awards for its successful work and innovative approaches.^[1] In addition to its projects in New York, the Doe Fund has inspired or partnered with similar work projects in other cities.^[2] It has received multiple grants from the Carnegie Corporation, which has supported more than 550 New York City arts and social service institutions since its inception in 2002, and which was made possible through a donation by New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg.^[3]