Millard
"Mitty" Owens brings over twenty years of experience in community development
and capacity building for under-served communities. He devoted his early career
to community organizing, affordable housing, and micro-enterprise development. These experiences informed his subsequent
work as a program officer at the Ford Foundation where he advanced new,
innovative approaches - domestically and internationally - to combating poverty through financial asset
development. Transforming these ideas
into local government initiatives was his focus as the Senior Deputy Director
of NYC's Office of Financial Empowerment.
Mitty also designed and taught a course on public policy and wealth
formation as an adjunct professor at New York University's Wagner School of
Public Service.
Mitty has
served on the Board of Directors for several national and local economic development
and social justice organizations including the Fifth Avenue Committee,
Grassroots Leadership, Global Exchange, and the Yale Dwight Hall Center for
Public Service and Social Justice. In these capacities he led an array of
strategic planning, fundraising and organizational development efforts.
"Mitty is
a great fit at this stage of The HOPE Program's growth and development," said Board Chair
Barbara Lupo. "He is committed to further strengthening and expanding HOPE's award-winning work - training,
educating, placing, and supporting our students to achieve their full potential
in the workforce and contribute meaningfully to society. Furthermore, Mitty is
excited about leveraging our research, education, and policy work to influence New York City's workforce system and the
structural barriers faced by our students."
Mitty is
a native of Brooklyn and graduate of Yale University.
He has traveled extensively overseas and lived in Zimbabwe.
He has been awarded several fellowships, including the W.K. Kellogg
National Leadership Fellowship through which he founded a program promoting the intersection
of art, culture and social change.
At HOPE, we work to end the cycle of generational poverty and to help program participants become economically self-sufficient. Graduates become employed so that they can support themselves and their families.
Research
Turning HOPE into Opportunity, Volume II,
continues where Volume I left off by studying the characteristics and outcomes
of clients who enrolled in The HOPE Program
between 2006 and 2007.
Factors that most affected outcomes
were gender, education and literacy level.
Because gender played a role in
almost all outcomes, the report looked at men and women separately and found
that education, literacy, job history, total number of employment barriers and age
affected outcomes more for women than for men.
Read more >
The HOPE Program
One Smith Street
Brooklyn, New York 11201-5111