Little Rock City in Arkansas definitely has one of the most unique methods of dealing with the problem of homelessness and garbage in their community. The results until now have been pretty amazing.
Thanks to their the Bridge to Work program that started in April this year, members of the homeless community are paid $9.25 per hour to clean up trash from the streets of the city and this is more than the federal minimum wage of $7.25.
Although it was initially planned to last for 6 months only, the Mayor Frank Scott Jr. Said that they managed to prolong it some more.
The program has been led by the Canvas Community Church and the city spent $80,000 for the purposes of the program for the first 6 months.
Amazing & Beneficial Program for all the Community
Pastor Paul Atkins of the Church explains that they’re so excited about this and they hope to keep up the good work going.
They want to keep moving onto the next step and pointed out that there’s a long list of obstacles that people go through when they’re transferring from homelessness to full-time work life.
The steps in between, notes Atkins, are numerous.
Atkins emphasizes that around 380 individuals have joined the work crews and some even joined more than once.
They helped clean 130 sites and filled 2056 bags with trash and spent 1821 hours of work as of the beginning of the program.
Tackling Homelessness Is Pivotal
Unfortunately, the pandemic has only caused a higher number of homeless people in the US. The US Council of Economic Advisers notes that as of September, 2019, more than half a million people go homeless in one night in the US.
Around 65 percent live in shelters and the other 35 percent are living on the streets, where there are no conditions whatsoever to live a normal life. These people sleep in parks, in abandoned buildings, in cars, parks, sidewalks, etc.
With this in mind, the members of the city council praised the results from the Bridge to Work’s first five month results and one of them, Capi Peck, called it ‘a win-win’ program.
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