City Jobs Program Celebrates 3 Years Of Opportunity For Homeless

FAIRFAX CITY, VA — On select weekday mornings, Fairfax City residents may see workers in neon vests cleaning up debris from parks and other maintenance tasks. Those aren't just workers simply conducting routine maintenance to earn a paycheck. The workers are people battling homelessness who earn opportunity and dignity along with their paycheck.

The City Jobs program celebrated its third anniversary Tuesday as a partnership between the City of Fairfax and the Lamb Center, a daytime center for the homeless. The Lamb Center recruits its guests for the City Jobs program, while the city allocates funding and assigns tasks through the Department of Parks and Recreation. Workers are paid $10 an hour for work twice a week between 8 a.m. and 12 p.m. The ultimate goal is to help workers achieve permanent employment opportunities in conjunction with securing housing.

The program launched in November 2018 as a pilot program and ultimately became permanent. Workers conduct tasks such as leaf removal, snow removal, landscaping, and even holiday decorating under the direction of Parks and Recreation and Lamb Center staff.

Alan Pratt is one of the City Jobs workers and part of the original group that started in November 2018. Pratt has been in Virginia since 2005 to find a better life. He has gotten along staying with other people or getting on waiting lists for housing. But he struggled to settle down as he met people online and traveled to see him, sometimes missing out on getting called for housing.

Although he still has an interest in traveling, he's "just starting to settle down." His continued work with City Jobs keeps him going.

"For me, it's just, the money helps," Pratt told Patch. "It gives me the ability to move around. It gives me the ability to do things."

The reason the City Jobs program works for people like Pratt is that it meets them where they are with the goal of empowering them to become ready for employment. While Pratt has struggled with medical issues such as heart problems, diabetes and kidney problems, he has been comfortable staying in the program.

"I just do the best that I can and pace myself," said Pratt.

Pratt most recently secured housing in March 2020 but would like to see local governments do more to provide stabilization to people like him.

Another City Jobs participant, Peter Muschetta, has been with the program since April. Although he is now homeless and living in a tent, he has been going to the Lamb Center since April for essentials such as clothes, a hot shower, blankets and other supplies he can use on the streets.

Muschetta has been homeless since he was 16 or 17 and is now 29. The trouble first began when he was moved into foster care and away from his grandparents. That led to him getting incarcerated after a fight at a group home.

"I am a family man. When they took me from my grandparents, I just lost it," Muschetta told Patch.

Nowadays, he can keep up with his medical needs thanks to the Lamb Center.

Even at night when he's out on his own, Muschetta says he can smile because of the blankets and other items the Lamb Center provides when he needs them. Even beyond the physical necessities, the center also gives him encouragement to keep going. Despite still living in a tent, he feels "grateful" and "blessed" for the support he's gotten since first visiting the Lamb Center.

"They keep me out of harm's way. They keep me out of trouble," he said.

On the City Jobs team, he has fun with his work, with one of the perks being wildlife sightings. In terms of job searches, he used to get frustrated when job interviews didn't go so well. Now he takes a more positive outlook. He has another job in addition to his City Jobs work and has a lead on employment at a local trash and recycling center.

The early success of the program convinced Fairfax County to start a similar program called Operation Stream Shield. Launched in February 2019, the program provides part-time work to guests of the Eleanor U. Kennedy Community Shelter, Bailey’s Crossroads Community Shelter, Embry Rucker Shelter and the Lamb Center to remove litter and invasive plants around streams. The program became permanent in 2020 and is coordinated by the county's Department of Public Works and Environmental Services and the Office to Prevent and End Homelessness.

The workers not only have dignity in working but also knowing their work benefits the community. Evan Reyle, who oversees the program for the Lamb Center, told the workers in 2021 alone they've collected 1,574 bags of trash and 166 bags of weeds and invasive plants, along with performing other tasks as needed. Their work in 2021 has included weeding on 21 occasions, hedge cutting on 11 occasions, grading soil on seven occasions, mulching on six occasions, landscaping on five occasions, baseball field preparations on four occasions, and removing Christmas decorations. After Thanksgiving, Pratt expects they will be putting up decorations again for the holiday season.

Since the program began in 2018, some workers have moved on to job opportunities. But there won't be any gap in worker availability; the program's popularity means there's a waiting list of Lamb Center guests eager for their own opportunity.

For more information, visit the Lamb Center's City Jobs program web page.