Clean break
A Portland program gives the unhoused a broom, a wage and a way back
Jennifer Richardson, Baton Rouge's anti-litter superhero, tells of the day a homeless man helped her clean up an intersection. By the time the corner was clean, she says, he had found something he hadn't gone looking for: joy.
Portland, Oregon, has turned that moment into a program.
The city helps fund GLITTER, and it pays people who have experienced homelessness to clean streets and sidewalks. Crews also gather "microdebris," small and sometimes hazardous bits of trash that would otherwise ride the rain into storm drains, streams and rivers.
Ground Score Association, a nonprofit, runs the program. The jobs are low-barrier: no one is turned away for lacking a home, an ID or a résumé.
More than 70% of workers who were unsheltered when they joined have since found housing, Ground Score says.
"What GLITTER does is to give people hope, and make them feel like they're not forgotten," program manager Angela McGuire told the city.
A recent national award will help Portland expand the work. Mayor Keith Wilson put it plainly: a city can care for its land and its neighbors at the same time.
