With homelessness numbers at a staggering high across the country, one city in America has been employing new strategies to help their homeless population get off the street, and find work.
Homelessness is a problem affecting countless cities across America.
It is not only America which is struggling to lower the number of homeless people, many countries including the likes of Great Britain also experiencing increases in the amount of people living rough on the streets of their cities.
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However, the city of Denver has been trying to implement new measures to help lower the amount of homeless people on their streets.
Denver aims to combat rising numbers of homeless going into 2020.
In 2019, the city of Denver Colorado, experienced an 8.2% increase in the number of homeless people in its metropolitan areas from 2018, according to ABC Denver .
However, the Denver Day Works initiative hopes to lower numbers by providing work for homeless people.
One of the areas Denver Day Works offers work in is shoveling snow.
The initiative also tries to help the homeless by offering pairing them with other jobs suitable to their experience including larger landscaping jobs and other service work.
According to The Denver Post , the initiative has already been proven to be able to find over 100 people jobs, with some of the people finding full-term employment.
One man detailled how the initiative had helped restore his pride.
Jeffrey Maes, 57, ended up becoming homeless in his 50s, and after four years of living on the streets, the Denver Day Works helped provide him with some work retrofitting lights at the city’s library.
“When you take a good person [who’s] down, broken, discouraged, and you give them an opportunity to be proud of their self — to stand up and do something for their self — that’s one of the greatest gifts anybody can give to anybody. And, for that, I’d like to say thank you,” Maes told the Denver Post.
The hope is to expand the project in 2020.
Starting in 2016, the Denver Day Works program has been running for three years now. And, since it’s inception, around 360 people have become involved in the employment opportunities around the city.
The aim is to increase the amazing work done by the program.
There are now countless success stories from the program.
Denver Day Works has apparently helped over 170 people to secure job placements outside of the program; and, in addition to that, around 40 people have received support which has lead to securing housing, spokesman Marcus Ritosa told Colorado Politics .
Apparently, one of the main struggles these people face is adapting to the new routine.
Tragically, in some instances, the people helped by the initiative do not stay in the new positions that they have secured.
“One of the things that we learned was how difficult it is for folks to transition from being homeless to […] being expected to be at work five days a week, when you may not even have a place to put your stuff every day,” explained associate professor at CU Denver, Danielle Varda.
Hopefully, the city will continue to try and help those in need.
With Colorado set to receive $31.8 million to combat homelessness across the state, the number of homeless across Colorado will hopefully begin to decrease. However, due to the amount of people in need, there is an immense amount of work that is required to be done.
Even though there is lots that needs to be done to help the homeless, every little bit you can do makes a huge difference to someone’s life.
h/t: Switfy & Colorado Politics
