3 step pathway to stable homes

While many social programs help address specific problems for focused sets of people, they often fail to integrate with other programs addressing the myriad of problems people face.

In poverty, families often cannot secure affordable housing, they fall behind on rent, move frequently and uproot children during important developmental years in their lives. This insecurity can lead to homelessness, sickness, and long-term mental-health issues for parents and children alike.

So what can be done?

Ana Poblacion, of Children’s HealthWatch indicates that while individual state programs exist to ramp up housing production and provide tax credits and childcare subsidies, families and taxpayers need a more comprehensive strategy.

The organization recently released a report that outlines 3 tactics aimed at achieving long-term success in providing family stability with housing.

Existing policies need to work in concert to help families, the report suggests. When policies aren’t in sync, they can cause unintended consequences for families struggling to stay above water.

One example is that to maintain a childcare subsidy, parents must pay a childcare copayment, which can stress their budgets even with a sliding scale. Many families also experience the “cliff effect,” wherein an individual’s or family’s income goes up and results in the loss of the childcare subsidy — but the rise in wages is eclipsed by the lost benefit.

“Our policies should not be designed to create a trapdoor,” said Renee Boynton-Jarrett, MD, ScD, a BMC pediatrician and founder of the Vital Village Network, who moderated a panel discussion at the event.

The Boston Foundation-hosted Pathways to Stable Homes release event offered multiple-policy solutions for improving housing security and ensuring families have the resources to meet their basic needs.

HealthWatch conducted listening sessions with diverse stakeholders, followed by simulation modeling with a healthcare cost analysis. The resulting report, “Pathways to Stable Homes,” recommends three policies.

1. Expand childcare access. Expand affordable childcare access by eliminating the subsidy wait list, capping copay fees to no more than 7% of family income — the standard recommended by the Department of Health and Human Services — and eliminating the copay altogether for families with incomes below the federal poverty line (FPL).

2. Increase state matching of EITC. Increase the state match for the federal Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) to 50% from the current level of 30%. The EITC is an effective way of supplementing the earnings of low-income working families and has been linked to improved infant and maternal health.

3. Create a rental arrears program to prevent eviction. Expand the state’s Residential Assistance for Families in Transition (RAFT) program to include a rental-arrears program to help vulnerable families avoid eviction if they fall on hard times or face emergency expenses.

Estimated outcomes and savings

The report outlines scenarios for two types of families living in four sample Massachusetts counties, which show how the policies could reduce or erase the gap between families’ incomes and their housing and childcare costs while also providing the state a hefty return on investment in avoided healthcare costs.

For a two-parent family of four with income of about $49,000 (or 200% of FPL), the research’s simulation shows that the proposed policies could erase the gap for a family in Worcester County and significantly narrow it in Suffolk County, which includes the high-rent market of Boston.

For the four sample counties together, the state would save an estimated $650,000 annually in avoidable healthcare costs. In the scenario of a single-parent family of three earning 130 percent of FPL, the potential savings amount to at least $1.4 million.

“This is because housing instability increases mothers’ odds of experiencing depressive symptoms, children’s odds of hospitalizations, and children’s and caregivers’ odds of being in fair or poor health,” Poblacion explained.

At the Boston Foundation event, State Representative Marjorie Decker spoke of growing up in poverty and has expressed support for the HealthWatch recommendations.

“We all need people to be fulfilling [families’] potential,” she said. “I think this report really highlights the need for a multi-pronged approach to not only help people survive, but thrive — and it’s doable.”

GDP vs. Property Value

When organizations talk about creating a “social return on investment,” it often comes in the form of improving GDP of a given area. But what is this really? By definition, gross domestic product is the total market for goods produced within a government’s borders — an overall proxy measure for the success of an economy.

It’s impressive and all, and we can all readily cite impressive GDP growth targets we’d like our country to achieve. But what does it actually mean for the city or state investing in social programs?

The main source of revenue for most municipalities is property tax. And this is influenced by two key drivers: property tax rate and property tax base.

Absent increasing tax rates, a city can devise strategies to increase its tax base, by either bringing in more tax-paying properties, or increasing the taxable value of its current grand list. And here we have our best opportunity to tie social ROI into something tangible for cities — correlating GDP with median property value.

An article by Asian Green Real Estate takes a look at this, examining this relationship across major regions across the world. Accordingly, over the past 45 years, median property values correlate by as much as 95% with GDP. Assuming even half this, gives us a conservative estimate to real social returns on investment that can be expected with many different social and nonprofit programs.

For residential real estate, the basic logic behind the co-integration of GDP growth and real estate capital returns arises from the fact that income has to be accumulated to buy a home. Income, in turn, can be directly derived from GDP with only a few adjustments. Studies in Asia, Europe, and the US reveal that median home prices correlate by as much as 60% to 95% with GDP per capita. In the long run the growth trends of both cycles typically correspond to each other. However, high correlation between GDP and real estate prices might not be given at all points in time. The prevalent real estate cycles do not always mirror GDP cycles, but often follow their own pattern. In the short and medium term real estate dynamics are not just driven by a country’s prosperity and depend on other determinants. These are, for example, urbanization rates, construction activity and demographical changes which all influence supply and demand temporarily.

For commercial real estate, the logic is similar, but investors of commercial buildings – unlike homebuyers – typically evaluate investment properties with respect to their expected income and, therefore, commercial property prices experience a different cyclicality. In general, for investment property the price is a function of current income (cap rate), expected income, opportunity cost (discount factor) and capital value growth expectancy. However, it can be argued that all of these are again highly affected by GDP, albeit in a slightly different way, because economic growth drives demand for commercial spaces.

In sum, GDP can act as reasonable estimator for the progression of residential and commercial real estate markets. Figure 3 exhibits the nominal GDP per capita history as well as the mean residential real estate prices in nominal terms for Switzerland, Germany, the United States, and the United Kingdom. All indices cover the years from 1970 to 2015. The data was collected from central national banks.

Work training and job placement done right

Workforce development programs are a critical aspect of social services provided to a city’s population. For those out of work, it helps provide tools and techniques to learn new skills, train for employment and find careers. It helps get people on their feet.

But many programs do it wrong.

For your city or state to get its work training and placement done right, you want to maximize potential in candidates. Lower unemployment, higher salaries, and more fulfilled citizens help to lower crime, increase tax revenues, and ensure a more productive voting population for years to come.

Nonprofit organization Generation offers up six lessons for agencies looking to successfully implement workforce training and placement programs:

1. Return on Investment (ROI) Is Essential, but It’s Not Everything

According to one survey, fewer than 10 percent of CEOs know the ROI of their recruitment and training efforts. In a sense, that is not surprising. No spreadsheet has a cell that details the full cost of workforce development—including time spent interviewing and overtime costs due to an insufficient workforce.

From the start, Generation sought to create that cell, tallying employer ROI in the form of reduced recruitment and training costs, productivity and quality outcomes, retention, and speed to promotion to produce a number that employers could understand. Our analysis of one company in dire need of technicians, for example, found that hiring cost an average $6,000 per person. Using an online ROI Estimator we devised—which determines value lost due to turnover or poor productivity, adjusted to salary and company size, and then compared to the performance of Generation graduates—we determined we could cut that in half.

However, in our experience, demonstrating ROI is not enough to get employers to buy in. Before they will commit, most employers also need to answer at least one of the following questions in the affirmative: First, have they tried, and failed, to crack this nut before? Desperation is, frankly, useful. Second, is the company leadership committed to the communities in which they operate? Those who see skilling and re-skilling as an issue larger than their own company are more willing to experiment. And last, are they willing to embed a new program inside their own recruitment and training programs? This gives companies a sense of control and ownership.

2. Industry Context Shapes Employers’ Willingness to Experiment with Training, Re-Skilling, and Hiring

In our work with some 2,400 employers, we have found that companies facing worker scarcity—such as technology or high-end manufacturers—are quicker to sign up for our program than companies dealing with high turnover.

In Spain, employers in robotics process automation were desperate for talent and engaged Generation to help create supply. While conventional wisdom dictated that workers in the robotics field need technical backgrounds, we found that with the right training, liberal arts graduates can succeed—in fact, they comprise 70 percent of our robotics graduates. Because the company’s need was urgent, it was more willing to try a nontraditional approach, especially given its limited risk—a significant proportion of Generation’s fee is based on workplace performance.

Companies in sectors where the major problem is not scarcity, but turnover, generally take more convincing. Though we do our best to demonstrate the economic benefits of higher retention, companies have to see our graduates at three months, and then at six months and beyond, to believe that recruiting and training differently can bring superior outcomes.

It’s worth noting that in either case—high scarcity or high turnover—making costs visible and establishing the right performance metrics takes work. Employers have to share 15 different data points, and then Generation has to follow graduates on the job to establish a track record. But it is worth the effort—these measurements make the case for training and placement clear.

3. Measure Value, Not Just Cost

Many programs and funders focus on inputs, such as spending, rather than outputs, such as students’ long-term outcomes. As a result, they don’t know if they are delivering value for money.

To fill this gap, we created a new metric called cost per employed day (CPED), which clarifies outcomes in the form of long-term results. Here’s an example. Program X serves 1,000 students at a cost of $1,000 each, or $1 million total. Five hundred are placed into work, and they stay employed for an average of 60 days in the first six months. That adds up to 30,000 days on the job, or $33 per employed day. Program Y, on the other hand, has an up-front cost of $2,000 per student, but a placement rate of 80 percent, and graduates stay on the job for an average of 120 days within the first six months. That comes out to 96,000 working days, or $21 per employed day. Clearly, Program Y provides more value, even though it is more expensive. At Generation, the CPED figure varies depending on the market and profession, ranging from about $3 in Kenya to $31 in Spain—much less than comparable programs.

Read the final 3 tactics here.

09/16/201804/04/2019

How Business Structures Worsen Inequality

Income and wealth inequality continue to increase around the world. And though our economies continue to generate enormous wealth, it is increasingly channeled to the richest 1 percent.

A quote from Social Enterprise UK:

Since the turn of the century, the poorest half of the world’s population has received just 1 percent of the total increase in global wealth. Meanwhile, half the new wealth has gone to the richest 1 percent. As a result, the richest 8 people now own as much wealth as the poorest half of the world. Something is not quite right in how we have structured our economies.

This has not only meant entrenching global poverty (according to World Bank projections) but also rising political and economic instability. Inequality creates conditions in which crime and corruption thrive. In more unequal societies, rich and poor alike have shorter lives, and live with a greater threat of violence and insecurity. Rising inequality is a problem for us all.

Business structure as a cause of inequality

There are many drivers of income and wealth inequality, but among the most underrated might be business structure.

The business world is diverse, but in most countries it is dominated by businesses that exist primarily to grow the capital of their investors. This is especially the case for larger companies. Profit [maximization] does have incidental positive impacts: it drives investment and leads to innovation.

But it also means that business is geared to extract as much value as possible, and distribute this value proportionately to people based on the capital they have to invest. In a world where unequal distribution of capital is the key driver of inequality (according to the World Inequality Report), this essentially supercharges business to drive up inequality. While anyone can be a shareholder (through a pension fund for instance), if economic spoils are shared according to the size of capital people had to begin with, we give a growing share of the pie to the people who have the most to invest.

Laws, financial markets and industry policies have made this the dominant model in many countries. But it contains a fatal design flaw if we don’t want to see spiraling inequality.

Image source: Oxfam GB

It is true that on a simplified basis, each person’s share in a company grows at the same rate. So a person owning 10% of a firm vs. a person owning 90% of the same firm can expect their rates of return to be the same. At the end of any period of time, each person will still own his same percentage.

But the nominal difference in each person’s value is what changes dramatically. Assuming this same scenario and a 5% annual growth rate in a company starting with a value of $1,000,000, the first person will grow his share from $100,000 to $162,889 over 10 years. The second person grows his $900,000 to $1,466,005 over the same period.

The split by year 10 is still 10%/90% for the two investors. But the second person can now buy 3 times more goods he was able to in year 1, compared to the first person who can now buy 0.34 times more goods (assuming 2% inflation).

It is clear when you look at the numbers that everyone can own shares in public enterprise. But the nominal growth owed to differences in ownership percentages creates a massive equality gap in terms of real dollars.

So why is this bad for the economy?

In the example above, the presumably affluent executive owning 90% of the entity clearly takes a strong majority of the gains from that company’s productivity.

A person who views this as unfair might be less motivated to work, decreasing productivity. As Wallace Hopp says in The Conversation:

The demotivating impact of income inequality occurs when workers see the gains of productivity going almost entirely to executives.

Since 1973, productivity has increased by over 73 percent, while (inflation-adjusted) hourly worker pay has risen by only about 11 percent and CEO compensation has soared by 1,000 percent.

Who can blame people for being reluctant to work harder when they know the proceeds will go to someone else? Extensive behavioral research has shown that people will forego personal gain to prevent outcomes they perceive as unfair. In work settings, this leads to demotivated workers working below their potential, even when it leads to smaller raises or bonuses. The result is reduced productivity, lower quality and less creativity, all of which undermine corporate profit and economic growth.

Any gains in productivity are distributed disproportionately to owners. And as a result, these gains (which are converted to cash) are spent much less quickly than had they been distributed to the workers and lower-percent owners.

Another way inequality affects the economy is by reducing the velocity of money by shifting cash to people who spend it more slowly. Working-class people who are stretching to make ends meet spend their income quickly – usually pretty much all of it – while wealthy people whose resources exceed their immediate needs tend to save substantial portions of their income.

Consequently, whenever a company takes a dollar out of the hands of a worker and puts it into the hands of an executive or investor, the number of times that dollar will be spent in the economy is reduced. The result is less business for capitalists and less employment for workers.

How can we tackle economic inequality?

Society cannot simply redistribute ownership in all enterprises to the masses to solve this problem. Ownership represents the risk of capital, that someone takes on, to potentially earn a higher return than could be had by keeping his cash in the bank.

Dissolving ownership and spreading it evenly across all workers would provide no incentive for anyone to accumulate wealth and invest in new businesses, ideas, or programs. Innovation would stall and productivity would decline.

There needs to be some sort of balance between distribution of upside in economic scenarios (addressing the bottom of business structure) with incentivizing good ideas and innovative collaboration (addressing the top).

If we look at the top of the business structure to fix inequality

One option is to implement more progressive tax systems. Because top marginal tax rates have a very strong impact on pre- and post-tax income inequality, this is one obvious step that can be taken.

Source: AccurateTax.com

Progressive tax rates contribute to the reduction of post-tax income inequality at the top of the distribution via their highest marginal tax rates. Indeed, if an individual earns $2 million and if the top marginal tax rate is 50% above one million dollars, this individual will net out only $500,000 on the second million. If the top marginal tax rate is 80% above one million dollars, then the earner will net out only $200,000 on the second million. The reduction of inequality can be further enhanced if the public spending funded by this tax revenue is aimed at fostering economic growth.

One often-neglected role of top marginal tax rates is their ability to reduce pre-tax income inequality. This can occur via two channels. The most obvious one is that when top marginal income tax rates are high, top earners have less money to save and accumulate wealth, and therefore potentially less income from capital next year.

Another way to understand the impact on top income tax rates on income inequality is to focus on rich individuals’ bargaining incentives. When top marginal tax rates are low, top earners have high incentives to bargain for compensation increases – for instance, by putting a lot of energy into nominating the right people to the compensation committees who decide on pay packages. Alternatively, high top marginal tax rates tend to discourage such bargaining efforts. Reductions in top tax rates can thus drive upwards not only post-tax income inequality but pre-tax inequality, as well.

Top tax rates in the U.S. and U.K. reached 90% in the era between 1940 and 1970. And this did not appear to harm growth in these countries. Interestingly, all rich countries have grown at roughly the same pace over the past 50 years, despite vastly different approaches to income taxation.

Relationship between effective marginal tax rate on capital income and economic growth, 1954-2006

Source: EPI

Furthermore, changes in top marginal tax rates and top income shares in rich countries since the 1970s suggest the following:

– That top tax rates play a key role in moderating pre-tax top incomes

– That there was no significant impact on growth

The simplified answer would seem to say there is opportunity to employ a more progressive tax system to address income inequality due to business structure.

If we look at the bottom of the business structure to fix inequality

Another way would be finding a way to provide more equal access to education and good-paying jobs.

The United States has mobility levels lower than other countries. Fewer than eight Americans born in the 20% poorest families will eventually rise to the top 20% of earners as adults. This compares to 12 in Denmark and 13 in Canada. Similarly, only 30% of children born in the bottom 10% income bracket will go to college. This compares to 90% of those born in the top 10% income bracket.

Source: Statista

In the case of the United States, strong geographic inequalities also interact with educational inequalities. In geographical areas with the highest mobility, a child born in a family from the bottom 20% of the income distribution has a 10% to 12% chance of reaching the top 20% as an adult (that is about as much as in the highly mobile countries of Canada or Denmark).

Examples of highly mobile places include the San Francisco Bay and Salt Lake City in Utah. In areas with low intergenerational mobility, a child born in a family from the bottom 20% of the income distribution has only a 4% to 5% chance of reaching the top 20% as an adult. No advanced economy for which we have data has such low rates of intergenerational mobility. Cities in the US south (such as Atlanta) or the US rust belt (such as Indianapolis and Cincinnati) typically have such low mobility rates.

Income inequality at the local level, school quality, social capital, and family structure are also important factors. Higher income inequality among the poorest 99% of individuals is associated with lower mobility. Meanwhile, a larger middle class stimulates upwards mobility. Higher public school expenditures per student along with lower class sizes significantly increase social mobility. Higher social capital also favors mobility (for example, areas with high involvement in community organizations).

Finally, family structure is also a key determinant; upward mobility is substantially lower in areas where the fraction of children living in single-parent households, or the share of divorced parents, or the share of non-married adults is higher.

If social and geographical reasons explain the disproportion of children attending college, then the solution would involve making higher education more accessible to those currently missing out. Channeling more funds into primary education systems would strengthen a child’s chances of going to college. Establishing accredited online or local universities that are subsidized by similar funds would help attract those who don’t think college is an option thanks to their social upbringing.

To enable these outcomes, you first need to ensure more people can get into college—the problem of improving primary and secondary education. You then need to ensure students climb to higher income brackets as a result—the problem of improving higher education efficiency.

If funding can be obtained to make all educational institutions as efficient as the highest 10% in terms of social mobility, then mobility in the United States would be perfect. Children’s outcomes would be completely independent and unrelated to their parents.

Conclusion

The business environment is inherently biased toward accumulating wealth among the few and increasing inequality among the haves and have nots.

As a result, workers (rather than owners) become less motivated to work. This leads to lower productivity, quality and creativity, all of which undermine corporate profit and economic growth.

Additionally, as gains are distributed disproportionately to owners, these gains when converted to cash, are spent much less quickly than had they been distributed to the workers and lower-percent owners.

This is a problem that can be tackled several different ways, two of which approach it from opposite ends of the spectrum:

From the top – via progressive tax reform and more equal distribution of income.

From the bottom – via greater access to education and career opportunities.

By progressively taxing economic gains, income is effectively more evenly distributed between owners and workers, creating more opportunity for innovation and investment into new ideas that would spur growth.

By providing greater access to education and career opportunities, you channel the largest resource in a country – its labor pool – into areas that are growing and profitable and away from areas that are depressed and low paying. Similarly, this solution would ensure more economic gains are put in the pockets of lower class workers which leads to investment, innovation and so on.

Source: International Monetary Fund

Whatever we do, it is likely we can’t overhaul the entire business environment. But we can address some of the context within which it operates. Our economy is one that incentivizes wealth creation and innovation, and to remove this incentive would have dramatic impacts on productivity and growth. If we can instead improve the foundation on which this is all nurtured, we have a better chance of continuing to improve economic conditions while shrinking the gap between the rich and the poor.

Note: The quotes for both solutions presented above are from the World Inequality Lab’s World Inequality Report 2018.

Wet houses: an answer to homelessness?

Seattle facility 1811 Eastlake provides an alternative approach to battling homelessness. It provides “wet houses,” which are supervised facilities that let chronically homeless alcoholics drink on premises. The logic is that by allowing individuals to continue to consume alcohol under their roof, they provide the stability that other stricter facilities don’t, which in turn provide people the opportunity to turn their whole lives around.

It is “permanent housing, not transitional,” said Greg Jensen, who works with Seattle’s Downtown Emergency Service Center, which opened 1811 Eastlake in 2005. “Homeless people living with addiction problems move in and stay as long as they need or want.”

That promise of unconditional “housing first” allows residents to stabilize. A 2013 study found that only 23 percent of residents returned to the streets during the two years after they moved into 1811 Eastlake.

“It didn’t matter how much a person was drinking; they were able to retain housing,” said study author Susan Collins, a clinical psychologist and assistant research professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington. “And this was a group of folks for whom a lot of people, experts even, said they just couldn’t, they would burn through housing. … And we found that to be patently not true.”

Research shows that average consumption among residents drops 8% in three months. This could be a longer-term approach to a chronically difficult problem to solve in homelessness. By treating individuals like real people who have problems, they can mobilize one inconsistent aspect of their lives (housing) in order to set a foundation for additional improvement.

Time will tell whether or not more facilities across the country follow this model, but it certainly looks promising.

09/10/201702/17/2020

Fed 40: A Mobile App Feeding the Hungry

Feeding Children Everywhere (FCE), a nonprofit organization based in Florida was started after the devastating 2010 earthquake in Haiti, with the goal of providing meals to hungry people. Since its inception, hundreds of thousands of volunteers have helped provide healthy meals to people in 49 countries around the world.

The organization’s latest project, Fed 40, was launched in November 2016 in the form of a mobile app. At its core, the app allows users living in designated low-income areas to request 40 healthy meals delivered to their doorstep in one day at no charge.

After starting in Florida, Fed 40 has since expanded to Texas, Oklahoma, and Connecticut, and plans to scale nationwide by 2018. Started with a $2,600 donation from the community of Ellington Congregational Church, the program was opened to CT residents.

How it works
Previous projects saw FCE working its extensive volunteer base by hosting events that gather individuals who collectively mix, measure and package four basic ingredients of a red lentil jambalaya meal. Meant to be cost-effective, healthy, and easy-to-travel, these meals are an efficient way to deliver a large quantity of meals with a limited amount of resources. The Fed 40 app will allow residents who are hungry in the United States simply click a button and have 40 meals delivered to their residence within a day.

Organization milestones reached

FCE’s mission
“We are committed to providing healthy meals to those in need. Our delicious Red Lentil Jambalaya is all-natural, non-GMO, gluten-free and vegan. We source our plant-based ingredients from farms right here in the United States.

We are committed to sustainability. Creating a hunger-free world will be possible if we have an awareness of our impact on the world around us. We have implemented sustainability goals to reduce our carbon footprint and to eliminate the utilization of harmful plastics. This commitment also includes helping to create self-sufficient and sustainable communities through our program areas.

We are committed to making your contribution truly matter! Financial efficiency and meaningful impact are the pillars of our commitment. We believe that financial transparency combined with a high-energy, tangible impact volunteer experience is the key to a contribution that makes a meaningful difference.”

Additional info
Click here to donate to Feeding Children Everywhere.

See this article from the New Haven Register (Kathleen Schassler, May 9th) for more information about this program.

08/23/201701/10/2018

Sky Footwear: Sparking Encouragement and Hope for the Homeless

Keaton Hendricks, a 23-year old business student, took a class assignment of coming up with a Shark Tank inspired pitch and created a business that not only makes money, but helps those in need. Sky Footwear is a for-profit company that sells socks in a buy-one-donate-one process, with every donated pair of socks going directly to local homeless shelters.

Hendricks paired the growing trend in sock fashion—you see everyone from professional athletes to powerful business men sporting different colored socks these days—with the constant need for socks among homeless shelters—a need he learned first-hand while volunteering at a low-barrier homeless shelter in Indiana. Hendricks says of the matter:

“I realized that many of these people who had nothing were thankful for anything. I was repeatedly amazed at the thankfulness that the individuals at the shelters showed for the simple things that I take for granted everyday.”

With socks being the number one item requested of most homeless shelters, it seemed like an easy alignment of social and financial motivations.

How it works
Customers search the user-friendly website for either individual or packs of socks. They come in all different styles and colors, and the customer has the opportunity to mix and match as needed. Sky Footwear is committed to donating one pair of socks to various homeless shelters for each pair purchased by a customer.

Socks and packages are priced from $10 to $125; customers have the ability to subscribe to a monthly sock box.

Impact to date
The concept for Sky Footwear was created in 2015, and since then the company has donated to 12 shelters.

Current initiative
In the month of August 2017, Sky Footwear is committed to donating to Hartford Rescue Mission. Hendricks estimates the final donation to be over 400 pairs of socks, and he urges you to sign into the site and buy a pair today to help join this cause.

Sky Footwear’s vision
“It is our vision that those who wish to make a difference can use Sky Footwear to both make that difference and look pretty stylish in the process as well. You never know what a small act of kindness can communicate. You never know what could spark a change in someone’s life. Who knows, a pair of socks might be just what they need.”

Additional info
Click here to visit Sky Footwear.

Click here to visit Hartford Rescue Mission.

Note: The quote and vision statement written above come from Sky Footwear’s website.