Henry Buhl
07/01/2005
In the late 1980s, I was working in New York’s Soho neighborhood as it rapidly changed from an area devoted to art galleries into a shopping destination. An influx of tourists followed, and with them came an abundance of trash that the city was unable to dispose of quickly. A local real estate developer hired a street sweeper for our block, but soon fired him. I stepped in to look for a new sweeper on behalf of the retail stores on my street.
I contacted a social service organization called Bowery Residents’ Committee (BRC) and met with its director, Eric Roth. He spent hours explaining BRC’s programs, consisting of eight shelters, a senior citizens center, a psychiatric clinic and a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center. I asked if one of BRC’s homeless men would qualify to sweep a street in Soho; if he performed well, we could recommend him for a private sector job. Roth threw up his hands and shouted, “Hallelujah! You could be my savior.” He explained that it cost BRC $30,000 to $40,000 to rehabilitate just one homeless addict. But at the end of their rehabilitation, no one would hire them because most of them had been previously incarcerated.
Within a month, I formed a nonprofit organization, the SoHo Partnership. We ordered uniforms, garbage pails and brooms and were in business with one homeless man sweeping one long block. In three months we had eight workers—their salaries paid by local businesses—and my assistant and I were working around the clock to supervise our homeless clients.
By 1995 we had formed an umbrella organization, the Association of Community Employment Programs for the Homeless (ACE) with its operating subsidiaries: SoHo Partnership and TriBeCa Partnership in New York and SoMa Partnership in San Francisco. Our partnerships are 98 percent privately funded, allowing us to give what we believe is better career training and aftercare than publicly funded homeless recovery programs. We teach our workers responsibility by ensuring that they maintain the streets of the neighborhood. We instruct them in interpersonal and social skills, drafting resumes and job interviewing.
Each of our clients attends 24 different classes during the six-month program. While training, they maintain our streets five days a week and receive a stipend above minimum wage. Eighty-five cents of their hourly pay is deposited in a fee-free savings account, so that when they are ready to move into their own apartments they will have enough for a deposit.
Back in the Fold
After our clients have worked successfully within the
program for a minimum of six months and obtained a job, they graduate. However,
that is not the last we see of them. We offer an aftercare program, which we
believe is unique in the homeless recovery area. We suggest to our graduates
that they return to see us twice a month to attend a discussion group where they
can address current problems and meet with other clients and graduates socially.
We also hope that their attendance at these meetings will entice them to mentor
someone new to the program. They thus become essential members of a community,
which is important for men and women who have been incarcerated for many years
and feel locked outside of society.
To remain independent of public funding,
we work hard to raise money, primarily raising funds in the communities where
our partnerships operate. Retail businesses, restaurants, banks, hotels and
other businesses are the chief contributors, with local residents chipping in.
Raising this money requires that our staff members go door to door to explain
our mission of clearing sidewalks, removing graffiti, caring for trees and
removing snow. More than 70 percent of the people we approach contribute toward
our annual budget of roughly $1.1 million.
We have graduated about 600 men
and women over the years. We gauge our success by the number of our former
clients who remain in their jobs. Before 9/11, 86 percent of our graduates held
their jobs for a year and a half or longer. This figure fell to less than 40
percent after 9/11, but has rebounded to just above 70 percent. We do not
believe these numbers have been attained by other homeless training
organizations that move their clients out to the workforce, as opposed to hiring
them for their own staffs.
Henry Buhl is the founder of the Association of Community Employment Programs for the Homeless and its subsidiaries.