Hand Up Partners Assessment after 7 Months 12/5/23

Culliton Park –Started 4/26/23 Major changes in park cleanliness, right away, due to Michelle’s attitude and assertiveness which resulted in an organized encampment and a usable park.

That led to communication and cooperation with neighborhood residents, park users, SoWe and the Parks maintenance team. Which led to bathrooms being made available, more communication, socializing between housed and unhoused park users, which led to many professional and nonprofessionals supplying help and outreach services of all kinds to many, with very productive and continuous results.

Many of the parks’ residents have been used to clean other parks across the city and have excelled and taken pride in their work.  Most have since taken shelter at the mission; Anna went on to fulltime work and housing. Tony, now has a part time job. They support each other for the most part between occasional feuds.

They have proven that they are eager and capable of work, and earning money. They would do more if there was more and that would be better for everyone. Not everyone can do a fulltime job but more time and energy expelled would lead to more successes in their lives and less time for the negativities that come with being homeless and having nothing to do.

Having someone to run this that has more time to work with them on a personal level and more resources to offer would be extremely productive to each individual and the program as a whole.

Group Clean ups out of Culliton Park have been expanding each time and proved that there are many people that have the time and energy to do productive work in the community that probably just need a place to start and could be trained and guided into full or parttime consistent work if available. Presently we have 4 daily cleaners that live or meet at Culliton Park, and around 17 show up for our group clean ups. These daily cleaners walk to their parks (Reservoir, Musser & Brandon) with their cleaning tools in hand. Michelle cleans Culliton and 3 blocks of S. Water St.

Linear Park started 4/26/23 – James has been doing a remarkable Job on this park since April. I can tell if he’s been there already by not being able to find even a cigarette butt on the ground of the whole park. James suffers from mental health problems but since taking on cleaning the park seems healthier than I’ve seen in him in my 8 years of serving him on the streets.

Binn’s Park started 4/16/23 - has been the most challenging area to manage and keep clean until lately. When construction was going on in the park and all of the residents and non-residents were forced to co-habitat on the Chestnut St. side of the park, the trash was relentless, Red was the first cleaner and did a great job but would get frustrated. And felt the disrespect of the continuous trashers, I couldn’t be there long enough to train people not to trash it. Red ended up in jail for P.V. mostly for homeless fines and altercations from living on the street, in mid-July.

    Shortly after, we put Luis to work, he took a while to get dialed in but then did a great job and landed a full-time job within a month. Ernest took over and did a great job and also found full time employment within a few weeks. A week of trying others that begged for the job but with addictions and mental health issues, couldn’t keep up with the constant trash of that area, when I sought out Dave, who has been a god-send to this project and the area ever since.

Not only does Dave take great pride in cleaning the area, he checks on the porta -potties and cleans when needed. He has a way of managing the other residents, who have spread out to the interior of the park and clean their own areas in the morning, He let’s me know of the needs of my peeps, and is happy to store and give out blankets as needed. He is a liaison to the police and security. And if the city and county don’t chase everyone around, we have a good shot of managing our residents where they are in a semi -organized humane manner. Thanks to Dave!