COLUMN: Here's something new we could try to help our homeless neighbors

As complicated a problem as homelessness is, Susan Schiller has a pretty simple idea about how to solve it. “If our moms had jobs, they wouldn’t be homeless,” said Schiller, the executive director of Bethany House Services, which operates shelters and housing for families experiencing homelessness. “On a very simplistic level, I think there’s a lot of truth to that.” It’s a truth that organizations in Connecticut are putting to the test through a pilot program called Secure Jobs Connecticut. Modeled after a similar program in Massachusetts, Secure Jobs Connecticut aims to make it easier for parents to get decent jobs as they make their way out of homelessness. I heard about the program through Design Impact, a nonprofit based downtown that uses design strategies to address social problems. The Melville Charitable Trust hired Design Impact to help the people involved in the program figure out ways to improve it.