In jobs, homeless strive for a cleaner city

	Photo by Bill Green Randy Lancon, jobs coach, left, and Michael Kidd use a sidewalk scrubber to remove dirt from the sidewalks Friday in the first block of South Market Street.

One step at a time, power-washing gunk from sidewalks could put Michael Kidd and Herb Decker back on the path to success.

Both men, who have been homeless and were unemployed, are working three days a week and living in Frederick Community Action Agency housing.

"It feels great," Kidd said after steaming gum from the sidewalk along South Market Street.

He calls the black spots they remove "Dalmatians."

Clear sidewalks and the noisy power washer attract notice from grateful passers-by. Decker and Kidd said shopkeepers and pedestrians offer thanks and the occasional cup of coffee.

"We get a lot of compliments," Kidd said.

Decker was laid off recently from a job and was homeless for several years before that. Kidd has been out of work and homeless for eight years. Decker, Kidd and four others have been or will be hired in the Green Jobs Program for permanent part-time employment.

"This is a great opportunity," Decker said, "to make my own way."

They will spend the next year cleaning Carroll Creek, parks and sidewalks for $10 an hour, said Mike Spurrier, Frederick Community Action Agency director.

The agency is administering a $50,000 grant from the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development for the program. Friends for Neighborhood Progress, the nonprofit that works with the agency, paid $12,000 for the power washer, Spurrier said.

Spurrier said clients with whom his agency worked have been on the job for several weeks, wearing their Green Jobs T-shirt uniform.

A life on the street is different from one in a shelter with regular meals, and recovering from substance abuse or mental illness, Spurrier said. Add a job to that and the change can be overwhelming, so the program includes supervision and coaching, psychological help and psychiatric care as needed, he said.

Participants learn and review basic job skills, address critical issues such as substance abuse that have prevented their regular employment, and they work with a case manager to stabilize their lives, Spurrier said.

Some of the men have been more ready and independent in their work than others, he said. The stress proved too much for one, who is still receiving agency services but will be replaced by someone else in the jobs program, he said.

The main concern Spurrier said he had about the new opportunity facing the men has not come true: No one has used their pay to fall back into bad habits.

"That hasn't happened," he said.

Randy Lancon, job coach, supervises the work. He said the city and the employees are benefiting from the results and the positive feedback. The Green Jobs employees are sweeping sidewalks, removing algae from Carroll Creek and may do some planting.

Their work tackles some jobs that the city has not had money to do, in areas where property owners have said homeless people tend to stay. Kara Norman, Downtown Frederick Partnership director, appreciated the program's solutions.

"As an organization, we have long been dreaming of a way to achieve additional clean ups in downtown Frederick," she said in an email. "This program is an even better win-win as it also employs formerly homeless persons."

Program partners include the city, Downtown Frederick Partnership, Frederick Police Department and On Our Own of Frederick County. Spurrier hopes the grant will be renewed so that new and remaining clients can continue to strive for full, independent employment.

His agency will be able to offer a work history and reference that the clients would have little way to get otherwise.

"I'm hoping this leads to something more," Kidd said.

Source: http://www.fredericknewspost.com/sections/news/display.htm?storyid=140130

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