Nine months ago, James had not used a computer as an adult. He taught himself TypeScript, PostgreSQL, and HMIS data modeling, and built the production platform behind RISE — including its database schema, regulatory enforcement, and full caseworker workflow. Before Einharjer, he was a client of the same homelessness-services system the company is now built to make accountable.
james@einharjer.orgAmber co-founded Einharjer to apply hard-won operational experience to the infrastructure side of public-service delivery. Her work covers government-relations strategy, capability development, and the procurement-readiness work that turns a small LLC into a credible vendor.
amber@einharjer.orgBoth founders have lived experience navigating homelessness and the long climb out of the social-services net. That climb took years — not because the help was not there. The programs exist. The funding is appropriated. The services are real.
We got out because we had the determination to keep showing up at every door until one of them opened, and the time to figure out which doors led to which problems. Most people in need of that help do not have years to give to a fragmented intake process.
The original plan was direct outreach in Long Beach. We pivoted when we discovered that California municipal procurement, including Long Beach's, typically requires bidders to hold 25% of a proposal's projected budget in available cash before they can submit. We did not, and could not. The single financial-stability requirement that screened us out of the work we originally intended to do is exactly the kind of structural exclusion RISE's Civic Performance Dashboard is built to make visible.
RISE is the system we wished had existed when we needed it.
Einharjer Innovative Solutions builds technology for the public good — and runs as a working business that pays its people, ships its products, and earns its place in the procurement pipeline of the cities it serves.
We do not believe in the false binary between mission and viability. The mission is the product. The viability is how the mission survives the next ten years.