Work Local, a program that pays homeless to clean up city, will expand coverage Downtown

A program that pays homeless people to clean up blight is expanding and adding Downtown as a focus area.

Work Local, launched by the nonprofit Hospitality Hub with city funding 15 months ago, will expand with help from the Downtown Memphis Commission and Memphis Convention & Visitors Bureau.

Beginning in early February, Work Local crews will handle trash and litter pickups Downtown on weekends, while continuing on weekdays to target blight across the city, as reported by callers to a 3-1-1 hotline.

Hospitality Hub will increase hourly wage to $10 from $9 for members of 10-person crews who work five-hour shifts and receive a hot meal afterward.

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Hospitality Hub is a provider of counseling, referrals and social services to the homeless, based at 82 North Second. Since November 2016, Work Local has paid 400 people to provide trash collection and other sanitation services and completed nearly 200 blight-reduction projects.

The program is intended to provide an alternative to panhandling while ridding the Downtown core of trash and blight.

“It provides a solution to each of two problems: Memphis has a lot of trash laying around, and Memphis has a lot of underemployment, unemployment and homeless people,” said Hospitality Hub strategy consultant Jarad Bingham.

“When expanded to five days, we feel the impact on the lives of our participants and our Downtown will be great and we are excited about what’s to come,” Bingham said.

During the first year, workers focused exclusively on responding to 3-1-1 blight calls, and the city picked up the $125,000 tab.

The city increased funding to $175,000 for the second year. The Downtown Memphis Commission will chip in $12,000 and the Memphis Convention & Visitors Bureau, $10,000, to pay workers to cover the Downtown area on Saturdays and Sundays.

A Work Local crew on Tuesday was cleaning up roadside litter on West Mitchell Road in southwest Memphis.

Program director Keynnon Mumphrey said crews are selected randomly from among 30 to 50 people who show up at the Hospitality Hub each morning. For most workers it’s a one-time thing.

“If I could work seven days a week, I could probably have 10 different people every day. Memphis has a lot of homeless people, and homeless people are very excited to work,” Mumphrey said.

There’s also no shortage of work to be done. “It’s a ton of 3-1-1 areas, alleys, streets. It’s a ton of roadside litter that needs to be cleaned up,” Mumphrey said.

Dwayne Watkins, 54, said he became homeless after his work as a painter slowed down. He spends his nights in homeless shelters but he has an application in for housing. He has worked on crews five times.

“It kind of helps me put a little change in my pocket, and it helps keep the City of Memphis clean, and it also helps giving back to the community and helping the homeless people out with a little work,” Watkins said.

Starting in February, Work Local’s Downtown coverage area will be outlined by Exchange on the north, G.E. Patterson on the south, Front Street on the west and Danny Thomas on the east.

Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland and others praised the program.

Strickland said, “We are really encouraged by the initial results of this initiative and agreed to help fund the expansion, but the program still needed other local partners. We are proud to see the Downtown Memphis Commission and CVB step up in support of this innovative initiative and the positive impact it has on our Downtown.”

Jennifer Oswalt, president of the Downtown commission, said, “We have witnessed the transformation this initiative has created in our Downtown. We are thrilled to put resources toward a program with such a strong dual focus – remediating blight and providing meaningful work to some of our most needy.”

CVB president Kevin Kane said, “The impact of this program is visible all across our Downtown. The efforts of Hospitality Hub support our mission of offering a welcoming environment to visitors who travel to Memphis from all around the world.”

Reach reporter Wayne Risher at (901) 529-2874 or wayne.risher@commercialappeal.com.