Building a Resident Steward Corps

From city-funded Resident Steward pilots to a new American service pathway—connecting americans who need safe places to stabilize with places and communities that need stewardship.

Saint Francis Challenge | 2026

Developing a Path from Homelessness to Stability

America needs more safe and structured places where people can exit street homelessness, recover from addiction, return from incarceration, and stabilize in community. Moving indoors is essential, but it is often only the beginning. People also need privacy and safety—including a private locking room where possible—and often need support with essential benefits, reliable routines, coaching, community connection, and time to rebuild the capacities required for lasting housing and economic stability and overall wellness.

At the same time, many adults stabilizing from homelessness and other crises have skills, interests, and a desire to contribute, even when they are not yet ready to obtain and successfully maintain conventional employment. Shelter and housing providers also need more capacity for resident engagement, co-living support, health and wellness activities, benefits retention, and community-building. SFC’s Resident Steward model connects those needs: creating structured opportunities for people to contribute where they live while building routine, purpose, skills, and a clearer path toward housing and economic stability. Rather than treating participation as hours to be completed for their own sake, the goal is to make those hours meaningful for the participant, the place where they are stabilizing, and the larger community. After multiple city-funded pilots, our ambition now is to build on what works and scale Resident Stewardship into a federally supported national service tradition: a Resident Steward Corps.

Saint Francis Challenge is not starting from zero. Since 2015, SFC has developed and tested Resident Steward approaches with people living in unsanctioned encampments, a city-sanctioned tent community, emergency and transitional shelter, transitional housing, and permanent supportive housing, while also researching supported outdoor shelter and cabin-village approaches. Through this work, SFC has built and tested practical infrastructure for assessment and selection, onboarding, shared agreements, values-based training, personalized activity planning, coaching, community stewardship, workforce and volunteer linkages, and participation tracking. We know the model can provide coordination, engagement, structure, and tracking for residents living in shelter and supported housing. The opportunity now is to fund, digitize, evaluate, and scale that infrastructure into a Resident Steward Corps—a service pathway that helps people stabilize and contribute while strengthening the places and communities they call home.

Participation Requirements Need an On-Ramp: ASAP!

Many adults living on the streets or in shelter, rehab, and supported housing sites must now complete 80 hours per month of work or qualifying activities to retain SNAP benefits, while separate Medicaid participation requirements are coming in 2027. Yet many people in early stabilization still face substantial barriers to obtaining—and especially maintaining—conventional employment. Investing heavily in job placement before someone can reliably manage schedules, transportation, health, workplace relationships, and follow-through can waste scarce resources and set both the participant and the workforce system up for failure.Resident Steward Corps proposes a more practical approach by putting participation infrastructure where people are already living and stabilizing. Onsite assessment, selection, onboarding, training, coaching, benefits support, activity coordination, and participation tracking can help residents complete meaningful volunteer, training, wellness, stewardship, and workforce-development activities. Their hours can support benefits retention while also strengthening the shelter, housing site, recovery community, or neighborhood where they live. Instead of completing hours simply to satisfy a mandate, participants can build routine, purpose, pride, skills, community connection, and a demonstrated record of what they can reliably contribute.

This is a pragmatic model of interdependence. Public investment provides the safety, benefits, and support people need to stabilize; participants contribute time and effort that strengthen their own lives and the places they call home. For some, Resident Stewardship can be a step toward conventional employment. For others, it can be a sustainable and valued form of participation while they continue building housing, economic, and personal stability. With coordinated national, state, and local funding, the model can meet the federal goal of greater participation while producing better outcomes for participants, providers, communities, and the public systems investing in them.

For someone stabilizing after homelessness, addiction, prolonged unemployment, trauma, incarceration, or another major disruption, getting and keeping a conventional job may still be several steps away—even when that person is fully capable of contributing.

That is the gap Resident Stewardship is designed to fill.

Rather than asking only, “Can we place this person in a job?” we can first ask:

Can this person consistently participate? What can they sustain? What are they good at? What gets in the way? What support helps them succeed? And what should their next step be?

A Resident Steward pathway can provide a structured pre-workforce on-ramp through training, community service, volunteering, recovery-supportive activities, creative production, skill-building, and other approved forms of participation. 

What We Have Already Learned

SFC has been developing Resident Steward approaches since the mid-2010s—beginning in large unsanctioned San Francisco encampments, continuing through the City-sanctioned Ojai Tent Town, and expanding into emergency shelter, transitional housing, and permanent supportive housing in Santa Fe. SFC has also studied and helped shape supported outdoor shelter and cabin-village approaches.

Across these settings, the core lesson has remained consistent: a safe physical place matters, but stability also depends on Belonging, Essential Needs, Shared Agreements, and Teamwork—what SFC calls B.E.S.T. Places.

The 2025–2026 City of Santa Fe Resident Steward pilot provided the clearest test of the model. Across four shelter and supported-housing sites, SFC surveyed 34 residents. Twenty-four expressed interest, 17 were invited to participate, 13 completed onboarding—and all 13 completed 80 hours of structured activities, generating 1,040 documented hours over the pilot period. Participants combined onsite and online training, self-directed and supervised stewardship, volunteering, workforce and education exploration, recovery participation, and other individualized activities.

Just as important, the pilot tested the infrastructure surrounding those hours: assessment and selection, onboarding, personalized participation plans, values-based curriculum, coaching, reminders, multiple activity pathways, workforce and volunteer linkages, and methods for tracking and verifying participation.

The finding was not simply that people could complete 80 hours. It was that people who were not initially “hours ready” could succeed when the right structure and support were available.

The goal is not to make people contribute hours for the sake of hours. The goal is to make the hours count.

Structured participation can help someone retain benefits, rebuild routines, demonstrate reliability, identify strengths and barriers, contribute to the place where they live, and determine whether the right next step is employment, education, training, recovery, continued Resident Steward participation, or another form of support.

The pilot also showed that this work cannot simply be added to already-stretched providers. Assessment, scheduling, coaching, supervision, benefits navigation, technology access, documentation, and activity coordination require real infrastructure and funding.

Building Out the Infrastructure

Our current phase focuses on building three connected tools to help implement Resident Steward programming.

SFC is not designing an app and hoping a program appears around it. The program came first. Technology can now help it scale.

1. Participation Tracking, Benefits Documentation, and Workforce Assessment

During the Santa Fe pilot, SFC verified participation through attendance, online learning records, quizzes, reflections, texts, photographs, completed projects, volunteer verification, and other documentation.

A digital Resident Steward Activity Tracker could turn those practices into one running record that shows:

  • hours completed, verified, awaiting verification, and remaining;

  • training, service, workforce, recovery, and education activities;

  • certifications and completed projects;

  • reliability, attendance, and demonstrated skills;

  • supports or accommodations needed; and

  • documentation that can be translated into benefits and workforce formats.

The same record can provide a practical assessment of workforce readiness based on what someone has actually demonstrated—not simply how they answer questions during an intake meeting.

The goal is to connect Resident Steward tracking with provider case-management, outreach, workforce, and benefits systems where possible, rather than creating another silo or asking staff and participants to enter the same information repeatedly.

The technology should reduce administrative burden, not add another layer of it.

2. Resident Steward Values + Co-Living Support

Resident Stewardship is not only about accumulating hours. How people participate and live together is the foundation of the Resident Steward model.

SFC's ten Resident Steward Values and B.E.S.T. Places framework have already been used in pilot curriculum and real co-living situations involving belonging, essential needs, boundaries, accountability, safety, conflict, repair, teamwork, and community impact.

The next phase is to make that tested curriculum easier to access in everyday life through an AI-supported Resident Steward Values tool.

A participant might bring a real situation to the tool:

My neighbor keeps doing this. I'm angry. How do I practice the Resident Steward Values without becoming a pushover?

The tool could help participants identify relevant values, think through boundaries and consequences, practice de-escalation, prepare for a difficult conversation, reflect on their own impact, and connect with related training.

This creates another layer of practical infrastructure for providers. Rather than expecting already-stretched case managers and shelter staff to personally coach every low-level co-living problem, residents can have access to values-based tools that reinforce the same language, expectations, and problem-solving framework being used across the Resident Steward program.

The tool would support—not replace—staff, behavioral-health care, emergency response, or case management.

3. Essential Needs Spending Account — ENSA

Participation is difficult to sustain when someone cannot keep a phone connected, afford transportation, buy appropriate clothing, access technology, take a class, cover an insurance payment, or save toward housing and other basic needs.

SFC's earlier pilots have already tested providing structured essential-needs support alongside participation. The next phase is to develop that approach into an Essential Needs Spending Account, or ENSA, with technology that makes support transparent, trackable, and easier to administer.

Depending on legal and program design, an ENSA could support approved needs such as:

  • housing and move-in costs;

  • transportation;

  • phone and internet service;

  • healthcare-related expenses;

  • food and clothing;

  • work supplies;

  • education, training, and certifications; and

  • other approved investments in stability.

For the next pilot, SFC is exploring a modest $250 monthly participation support for Resident Steward Trainees completing an approximately 80-hour monthly participation pathway, with support directed through an ENSA-style system where legally appropriate.

The longer-term model could also include optional paid service opportunities beyond the baseline participation pathway. A Resident Steward who wants and is able to take on more structured service could potentially participate for up to an additional 20 hours per week, compensated at the applicable local minimum or living wage and directed into an ENSA or another participant-controlled account where legally permissible.

That creates more than one lane:

20-hour pathway: A Resident Steward Trainee contributes approximately 80 hours per month while stabilizing, retaining benefits where eligible, building skills, and receiving structured support.

Up-to-40-hour pathway: Participants who want and can sustain additional responsibility may have opportunities for paid service beyond the baseline pathway, allowing them to meet current essential needs while also building resources for future stability.

Not everyone needs to move to 40 hours. A reliable 20-hour Resident Steward Trainee can remain a valued contributor. The purpose is to create opportunity for advancement without treating advancement as the only measure of success.

The wage, tax, benefits, labor-law, and account treatment of additional compensated hours will need to be resolved as this model is developed.

Reciprocity and Interdependence: Public Investment + Meaningful Contribution

Safe housing, SNAP, Medicaid, case management, behavioral-health care, transportation, workforce services, and program administration all cost money. Those investments are worthwhile because individual stability benefits the larger community.

The economic case is broader. A well-designed Resident Steward system may help:

  • Reduce benefit loss and administrative churn;

  • Avoid costly and poorly matched workforce placements;

  • Improve employment and housing retention;

  • Reduce duplicated provider and government work;

  • Strengthen shelter and housing environments; and

  • Make better use of existing public investments.

Those are outcomes the next pilots should measure rather than assume.

A Pathway, Not Just Meeting Requirements

Participating in Resident Steward Corps as a Trainee should be a valued role in its own right—not simply a temporary status someone must graduate out of.

For some participants, a flexible 20-hour-per-week structure may be the level they can reliably sustain while protecting their health, recovery, and housing. That contribution still matters.

Others may advance through a Resident Steward pathway:

Resident Steward Trainee → Resident Steward Facilitator → Resident Steward Coordinator → additional service, education, workforce, or leadership opportunities

Facilitators could help participants develop plans, coordinate activities, overcome technology and transportation barriers, practice values, verify participation, and connect with outside opportunities.

Coordinators could support facilitators across multiple sites, maintain training and technology systems, build partnerships, and coordinate with providers and public agencies.

These roles keep Resident Steward programming from becoming another unfunded responsibility for shelter and housing staff while also creating real advancement opportunities for participants.

Connecting Resident Stewardship to America’s National Service Tradition

The United States has a long tradition of connecting public service, training, and opportunity—from the Civilian Conservation Corps and Job Corps to Peace Corps and AmeriCorps.

Resident Stewardship asks how that tradition can respond to another urgent need: Americans seeking safe places to stabilize and contribute, and places in need of stewardship.

A future Resident Steward Corps could combine paid staff, Resident Stewards who advance into Facilitator and Coordinator roles, AmeriCorps State & National members, and AmeriCorps VISTA capacity-building positions.

AmeriCorps State & National members may serve through direct and indirect community service, while VISTA focuses on building sustainable organizational and community capacity. That could make State & National relevant to some service and facilitation roles, while VISTA may be well suited to developing systems, partnerships, training, technology, evaluation, and volunteer infrastructure.

The goal is not to create another separate workforce system. It is to connect housing, benefits, recovery, workforce development, community participation, and national service around a gap that none of those systems currently fills well on its own.

The Next Pilot: From Tested Model to Coordinated System

The next pilot should not simply repeat the question, “Can participants complete 80 hours?”

SFC has already shown that supported participants can.

The next pilot should test what it takes to make Resident Stewardship a coordinated, fundable, and replicable system:

  • a larger, multi-site Resident Steward cohort;

  • assessment, selection, onboarding, training, and coaching;

  • clear coordination with HCA, DWS, SNAP E&T, and providers regarding qualifying activities and exemptions;

  • digital participation tracking linked to benefits and workforce documentation;

  • the Resident Steward Values tool;

  • an ENSA prototype and legally appropriate participation support;

  • Facilitator and Coordinator staffing and advancement pathways; and

  • evaluation of benefits retention, workforce readiness, employment retention, provider workload, site functioning, participant stability, and public costs.

The central questions are practical:

What does it cost to make successful participation possible?

What support do different participants need?

Can better tracking reduce administrative burden and benefit interruptions?

Can real participation data improve workforce decisions?

Can Resident Steward programming strengthen the places where people stabilize?

And how can federal, state, local, housing, healthcare, workforce, philanthropic, and national-service funding be coordinated to meet those needs—rather than creating another mandate without the means to fulfill it?

The Longer-Term Vision: A Resident Steward Corps

The longer-term vision is a national service pathway for people emerging from homelessness, addiction, incarceration, family crisis, and other major life transitions.

Participants would have safe places to stabilize, essential benefits, personalized participation plans, values-based training, meaningful ways to contribute, and records showing what they can reliably sustain. Some would remain valued Resident Steward Trainees. Others would advance into paid service, facilitation, coordination, education, national service, conventional employment, or leadership.

The organizations serving them would have the staffing, technology, activity infrastructure, and funding needed to support participation rather than merely document failure.

That is the Resident Steward Corps SFC is working to build: A system connecting Americans in need of safe places to belong, stabilize, and contribute with places in need of stewardship—so public investment supports stronger people, stronger places, and a stronger country.

Help Build the Next Phase

Saint Francis Challenge is seeking shelter and housing providers, government agencies, workforce and benefits partners, technology developers, researchers, funders, national-service organizations, and community partners to help build and evaluate the next Resident Steward pilots.

Partner with us to make the hours count.