Get in the van

A Better Way fights job insecurity while beautifying Tulsa

Finding work is hard. It can be next to impossible for people who have experienced homelessness.

Meet Nora Billie. She moved in with her mom after losing her job to a panic attack and her house to a fire. Billie also suffers from several mental illnesses, complicating the already-difficult task of finding and maintaining a job.

Still, she hasn’t given up looking for steady work.

On a recent chilly Wednesday morning, Billie was up before the sun to get in line around 7 a.m. with the other participants waiting on a bright green van at Denver House on W. 17th Place. She was among a group of people taking part in A Better Way, a program designed to give those experiencing homelessness and job insecurity a chance to earn money for a day’s work.

After pick-up, the participants are transported to parks throughout Tulsa to pick up trash and lay down mulch. Today’s route picks up at Denver House, but the van does a roving outreach on Mondays and Fridays, with stops at various locations around town with a high density of people experiencing homelessness. The van fits eight people, meaning there’s often a waiting list.

The program recently celebrated its first year, helping more than 800 people get the chance to earn money by beautifying Tulsa. That number obliterated officials’ initial goal of reaching 200 people, according to program director Kellie Wilson.

A Better Way—a collaboration between the Mental Health Association Oklahoma, the City of Tulsa, and Tulsa Area United Way—was inspired by a similar program in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

“We’ve patterned the program mostly after what they’re doing, but we tweaked it for what works for us, so it’s a little bit different,” Wilson said.

One difference is the resource level. Instead of providing an overnight shelter or a day center, the Tulsa program partners with local nonprofits, including the Day Center for the Homeless, Salvation Army, Iron Gate and Community Service Council, and others to meet those needs.

Around 11:30 a.m. on Nora Billie’s work day, participants gather for lunch from T-Town Tacos, a Youth Services initiative staffed by clients who have gone through the Community Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma’s Culinary Trade Program. While Better Way workers happily nosh on pork carnitas and chicken fajita tacos, a service navigator and employment specialist talks about the type of services offered through the program.

“Her whole focus is helping to overcome the barriers to getting jobs, and that is things like transportation, housing, untreated mental illness, physical illness, addictions, not having an ID,” Wilson said. “There’s just all sorts of things that make it very difficult for someone to get a job and keep a job.”

Participants usually work about six hours each day before returning to the Denver House, where they are paid $65 for their work. At that time, the participants can enroll in the program to meet with the service navigator and employment specialist and get on a path to employment, if that’s what they are seeking.

“The need is much greater than we originally thought it would be,” Wilson said. “Since we know there are so many people who want to participate, we try to limit it to one time so everyone gets a shot on the van and getting introduced to the program.”

This is different than the Albuquerque model, which allows participants to take part many times.

“Either model, I think, is good … but right now we’re trying to get everyone the opportunity to work on the van,” she said.

Wilson has learned a lot during this first year, especially when it comes to collaborative partnerships—something she has found essential to engaging participants quickly. “When we first started the program, we didn’t realize there would be so many people engaging in it and so we were kind of overwhelmed with everyone making appointments to get access to the case manager of employment services,” she said, adding that some people had to wait a week or two to get access.

“And when you’re living on the streets, a week might as well be a year,” she said.

Today, the program’s employees try to see the participants within 24 hours.

A report conducted by the organization showed 28 percent of participants enrolled in the program’s services, and 68 participants found permanent employment during the first year. The report notes that 15 participants found stable housing, below the program’s initial goal of 25 percent of program participants.

“We find out what they’ve done in the past, what they like to do, their skills—also, what they don’t want to do,” said Ron Harmon, the Better Way employment specialist who works with participants interested in re-
joining the workforce.

Harmon tries to maintain a relationship with the program participants once they find steady work, and makes sure they are overcoming challenges like keeping a working phone, finding reliable transportation, and finding a place to live.

With this kind of ground-level support from A Better Way, programs participants like Robert Sheahart hope the program leads to long-term employment.

“I’m just trying to get myself up off the streets and work every day,” he said.