Homeless People Cleaning Up Lexington Work Harder Than Governor I Got Mine Fuck You

Another entry for the "Poor People Do All the Real Work" file.

Tom Eblen at the Herald:

When I climbed in the Panhandler Jobs Van for one of its twice-weekly runs, two men and a woman were already in the back seat, eager to earn $45 and an $8 fast-food lunch for five hours of picking up trash along the roadside.

As we rolled down Main Street toward the day’s job site along South Broadway and Harrodsburg Road, driver Jarrod Jones stopped twice when he saw panhandlers. Four more men and two women squeezed into the van.

At the corner of South Broadway and West Maxwell Street, several men folded their signs when they saw the van coming. Jones slowed, but didn’t stop. 

 “We don’t have any room left,” he yelled. “Sorry.”

When Mayor Jim Gray announced the Jobs Van program in April, I was skeptical. I doubted many of the dozens of men and women who started begging on street corners after the Kentucky Supreme Court struck down Lexington’s panhandling ordinance in February would stop “flying signs” if offered work. 

I wasn’t the only one.

“I didn’t think this would work,” said Steve Polston, a retired corporate turnaround specialist with a Harvard MBA who organized the Jobs Van program in his volunteer role as board chair of the non-profit New Life Day Center.

“Honestly, I didn’t expect hardly anybody to work,” said Jones, a former Lexington Police officer Polston hired last spring to drive the van and manage the work crews with help from former boxer Charles Jones.

“It’s proved me wrong,” he added. “I've had maybe four or five people turn me down. From the beginning, we’ve had so many people that want to do it, but we don’t have the room and have to turn them away.”

SNIP

 So far, Gray is impressed with the results in Lexington.

“There’s a perception that people who are panhandling want to do it,” said Gray, who also spent a morning with a work crew. “All you have to do is talk to people on the van. They don’t want to (panhandle). But they have challenges.”

SNIP

The men and women I met on the Jobs Van said it has been a godsend.

Errol Gill, 52, came to Lexington from Detroit four years ago. He said he has worked as a handyman and dishwasher. He sleeps where he can. The night before we talked, he said he slept in Cheapside Park.

“What we’re doing now is a blessing; it really is,” Gill said. “I don’t want to be out here no more on the streets. I’m too old for this.”

Steven “Hillbilly” Dykes, 54, feels the same way. He has lived on and off Lexington’s streets since the 1980s. “People want to work,” he said. “I think they ought to run this van more than two days a week.”

Dykes has battled alcoholism and served time for manslaughter in the 2008 death of another homeless man. 

“I was one of the officers that arrested Hillbilly,” Jarrod Jones said. “And now he’s by far my hardest worker.”

I'll pay the $45 and lunch for Gov. Bevin to do that job for just one day.  I bet he doesn't last an hour.

ead more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/tom-eblen/article173302211.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/tom-eblen/article173302211.html#storylink=cpy

SNIP
Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/tom-eblen/article173302211.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/tom-eblen/article173302211.html#storylink=cpy“We don’t have any room left,” he yelled. “Sorry.”When Mayor Jim Gray announced the Jobs Van program in April, I was skeptical. I doubted many of the dozens of men and women who started begging on street corners after the Kentucky Supreme Court struck down Lexington’s panhandling ordinance in February would stop “flying signs” if offered work.

I wasn’t the only one.
“I didn’t think this would work,” said Steve Polston, a retired corporate turnaround specialist with a Harvard MBA who organized the Jobs Van program in his volunteer role as board chair of the non-profit New Life Day Center.
“Honestly, I didn’t expect hardly anybody to work,” said Jones, a former Lexington Police officer Polston hired last spring to drive the van and manage the work crews with help from former boxer Charles Jones.
“It’s proved me wrong,” he added. “I've had maybe four or five people turn me down. From the beginning, we’ve had so many people that want to do it, but we don’t have the room and have to turn them away.”

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/tom-eblen/article173302211.html#storylink=cpyWhen Mayor Jim Gray announced the Jobs Van program in April, I was skeptical. I doubted many of the dozens of men and women who started begging on street corners after the Kentucky Supreme Court struck down Lexington’s panhandling ordinance in February would stop “flying signs” if offered work.

I wasn’t the only one.
“I didn’t think this would work,” said Steve Polston, a retired corporate turnaround specialist with a Harvard MBA who organized the Jobs Van program in his volunteer role as board chair of the non-profit New Life Day Center.
“Honestly, I didn’t expect hardly anybody to work,” said Jones, a former Lexington Police officer Polston hired last spring to drive the van and manage the work crews with help from former boxer Charles Jones.
“It’s proved me wrong,” he added. “I've had maybe four or five people turn me down. From the beginning, we’ve had so many people that want to do it, but we don’t have the room and have to turn them away.”

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/tom-eblen/article173302211.html#storylink=cpyWhen Mayor Jim Gray announced the Jobs Van program in April, I was skeptical. I doubted many of the dozens of men and women who started begging on street corners after the Kentucky Supreme Court struck down Lexington’s panhandling ordinance in February would stop “flying signs” if offered work.

I wasn’t the only one.
“I didn’t think this would work,” said Steve Polston, a retired corporate turnaround specialist with a Harvard MBA who organized the Jobs Van program in his volunteer role as board chair of the non-profit New Life Day Center.
“Honestly, I didn’t expect hardly anybody to work,” said Jones, a former Lexington Police officer Polston hired last spring to drive the van and manage the work crews with help from former boxer Charles Jones.
“It’s proved me wrong,” he added. “I've had maybe four or five people turn me down. From the beginning, we’ve had so many people that want to do it, but we don’t have the room and have to turn them away.”

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/tom-eblen/article173302211.html#storylink=cpy