2-1-1 On the Go helps to fill a void

By: Daniel Howes, Detroit News

DETROIT -- If you see a funky looking yellow-and-white Chevy Cobalt around a city park, its trunk open with one guy typing on a laptop and another talking to a homeless person, it's just John Azoni and Nick Monterosso doing some good.

They are United Way 2-1-1 On the Go, an innovative pilot project funded by $186,000 from Detroit-based corporations that aims to help guide some of the city's estimated 18,000 homeless off the streets and into permanent housing and full-time employment.

"We're filling a void," says Monterosso, 24, an Oakland University political science grad. Which is this: Funding for many of Detroit's social service agencies, swamped with clients, often is tied to tight requirements detailing whom they can help and how. But not 2-1-1.

It's all about bridging the gaps, about listening to the issues facing each client and then steering them to the right point in the bureaucratic maze of government offices and nonprofit agencies where they can get the help they need.

'If I can get a job ...'

Take Norman Kingston, 41. He wandered up to Azoni at Cass Park and started telling his story: Got out of prison in January. Best friend was killed. Had a drug problem but has been clean for 46 days. Has three kids, 14, 12 and 10 "but I'm not doing anything," he tells Azoni as Monterosso types his answers into the military-grade laptop.

"I had no place to stay. The Michigan Department of Corrections placed me somewhere. Basically I'm homeless. I want to go back to school," Kingston says, in "peer counseling. If I can get a job, I know the rest."

They give him a referral, an appointment to meet, at 9:30 a.m. last Friday, with Goodwill Industries of Greater Detroit. Last year, Goodwill placed 1,500 Detroiters in full-time jobs at an average wage of $10.48 an hour, an estimated $30 million stimulus to the local economy. Kingston didn't show up, according to the agency, but others have.

"So far, so good," Goodwill President Lorna Utley says of the 2-1-1 pilot program. "It's not huge numbers. We're certainly glad to be part of the process" -- monumental as it can be in Detroit, the poorest major city in America with the nation's lowest high school graduation rate.
The newest need: Lockers

To be homeless, the 2-1-1 crew explains, is to be stuck. Without a permanent address, you can't apply for food stamps, can't apply for most jobs. The United Way-backed effort helps folks get IDs; gives them a physical mailbox donated by UPS and installed at the Detroit Rescue Mission; offers calling cards donated by AT&T; and, when possible, provides bus passes so folks can get to work.

Their newest need: Lockable lockers that can be assigned to people in the 2-1-1 On the Go program so they can secure "anything that can be sold," Azoni says. That includes clothes, a tent, a cook-stove or the debit-style food-stamp cards that frequently disappear in homeless shelters.

"The focus is to remove barriers and put people back to work," says Cindy Pasky, CEO of Strategic Staffing Solutions Inc. and a driving force behind the 2-1-1 On the Go initiative. "The guys were telling me that in the last couple of weeks they put nine people in jobs -- and those are people they say can't be put in jobs."

That's better than the alternative. Monterosso and Azoni are employees doing jobs far removed from their academic pursuits of poli-sci and, for Azoni, the painting he pursued at the College for Creative Studies.

"It's different from day to day," Azoni says. "I talked to a guy recently who has his masters' degree and he's homeless. We've had some clients who have never been in this situation before."

Daniel Howes' column runs Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. He can be reached at (313) 222-2106, dchowes@detnews.com or detnews.com/howes.