Los Angeles recently started with an initiative aimed at improving public health, empowering the destitute, and advancing sanitation efforts in Skid Row, epicenter of the city’s homeless crisis.
Democratic Mayor Eric Gracetti announced on Monday regarding the formation of the Skid Row Clean team, which is a street cleaning program.
The program is targeting the 54-block area known for having rat-infested heaps of garbage, sidewalks lined with tent encampments, and a typhus outbreak.
The new project is said to employ about 24 homeless individuals who will help in picking up trash in the neighborhood.
Gracetti noted that the team members want to make a better life for themselves and the journey is about both cleaning the streets and lifting up the people who live there.
The workers have been hired and majorly trained by Urban Alchemy, the contracting organization and are not city employees.
They will be paid $15 or more for an hour. Last month, the minimum wage rate in L.A. for businesses with more than 25 employees was increased to $14.25.
Mayor lauded their training in litter abatement, and hazardous waste management while also highlighting their newly acquired skills like community engagement and conflict de-escalation.
A woman named Monique said that when she first started the job, the homeless would not let them pick up the trash.
Monique has been part of the team for three weeks. She said that as she communicated with them and started to pick around them, they began to trust the clean team.
A massive $20 million was directed from the L.A. state funds to improve the conditions in the Skid Row area. Approximately 4,757 homeless people currently live there.
This fall, the city has planned to upgrade their neighborhood’s cleanliness infrastructure, and increase the size of their personal care center that provides toilets, showers, and laundry machines for the residents.
The facility currently offers services to more than 500 homeless individuals.
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