Mark Bustos’s day job? Styling hair at a salon in New York City. While he’s just as chic and fabulous as many people in his line of work, this 30 year old is more generous than most.
On Sundays, instead of going to brunch or lolling around Central Park, Bustos is flexing his talents and providing haircuts at no-cost for an unlikely clientele: the homeless.
Standing between so many people without homes and employment is the inability to look presentable for job interviews. Mark’s Instagram page showcases the difference that a professional grooming can make to someone’s appearance.
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As Bustos tells the Huffington Post, one client emphasized this exact fact. “After offering him a haircut and whatever food he wanted to eat, he didn’t have much to say throughout the whole process, until after I showed him what he looked like when I was done … The first thing he said to me was, ‘Do you know anyone that’s hiring?'”
Mark’s mission started back in May 2012 after returning home from the Philippines. While visiting relatives there, he rented a local barbershop chair and gave haircuts to impoverished children. He took the idea back home with him and hasn’t stopped since. He doesn’t discriminate by locale, either. He’s given gratis cuts to people in Jamaica, Costa Rica and Los Angeles.
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Fully conscience of his work’s altruism, he deliberately performs his cuts in wide-open public spaces to show everyone how simple it is to #BeAwesomeToSomebody — his personal hashtag — which he uses on all his Instagram photos.
Hopefully, Mark’s story will prompt more people to greet strangers and the less fortunate with the introduction he uses before every haircut, “I want to do something nice for you today.”
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Tag: Homeless
This Startup Uses Urban Relics to Serve Up Local Food
As more and more people get their news online, it’s not just newspapers and magazines that are going out of business. So is the ubiquitous newsstand.
But instead of bulldozing these small spaces or allowing them to become derelict, Chicago is allowing e.a.t. (which stands for education, agriculture and technology), an Illinois nonprofit dedicated to innovating local food systems, to convert its defunct newsstands into food kiosks.
The very first “e.a.t. spot” is a 45-square-foot healthy food option that opened this week in Chicago’s downtown Loop neighborhood — bringing local produce and grains to residents and workers in the Windy City five days a week. Partnering with the food delivery service Irv & Shelley’s Fresh Picks delivering food and Streetwise, a workforce development agency, four more healthy food stands are set to open in downtown Chicago before year’s end.
Chicago issued its very first Emerging Business License to the initiative, whose menu includes a tofu scramble wrap and an Asian kale salad with shitake mushrooms. The founder of e.a.t., Ken Waagner, says that the menu will probably change quarterly, and that he doesn’t “want too boutiquey food stands. We want it to be for everybody.”
Waagner also stressed the effort’s focus on sustainability. “We want to make it sustainable. Before we say we’re going to open eight, we want to make four work.”
And the good of these “e.a.t. spots” doesn’t end with serving healthy meals. According to DNAinfo, the kiosks are staffed with workers at risk of being homeless.
“It’s a neat social enterprise-meets-social experiment,” says Waagner. “That’s what it ultimately is, so we’ll see.”
In our opinion, bringing healthy food and jobs to those in need sounds like recipe for success.
The Small Colorado Coffee Shop With a Large Purpose
Non-profits and other charitable organizations aren’t the only workplaces that do good. When Seth and Kelly Kelley, co-founders of RedTail Coffee in Fort Collins, Colo. opened shop in May, they decided that their business could make a positive difference in the world.
The coffee shop is staffed by two trained baristas and one employee who is currently homeless, Think Progress reports. According to RedTail’s website, the company has partnered with Fort Collins Housing Authority, Hand Up, and the City of Fort Collins to provide job training, educational opportunities, and careers to the local homeless community.
In fact, RedTail Coffee’s new employees will be exclusively hired from their immediate vicinity, Red Tail Ponds, a new residential project being built for local homeless and low-income individuals.
A February study found that in just Fort Collins, the homeless population has grown to nearly 300 people, about 50 more from just last year.
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The Coloradan reports that the Kelleys got the idea for their shop after attending a “heated” neighborhood meeting earlier this year, where some people expressed their fears and negative stereotypes over the new housing project. Kelly hopes that her coffee shop will “break that barrier.”
Seth told Think Progress, “It challenges the idea that people who are homeless are lazy or just aren’t working hard enough.” In fact, RedTail’s current homeless employee (unnamed in the article) has to wait in line every morning to shower at the shelter just to get ready in time for his job.
“It takes a tremendous amount of work, way more than the average person, just to get out of homelessness,” Seth said.
But it’s clear that taking a chance on someone who society might not be considered “hireable” is paying off. Reports say that in the few months the shop has been opened, the company has already turned a profit.
“It’s been a big learning curve for us all,” admits Seth, “but we’ve grown through the process.”
DON’T MISS: A Solution to Outdoor Urban Living, by Homeless People for Homeless People
Meet the Artist Turning One Man’s Trash into Another Man’s Home
When we call to mind the living conditions of the homeless, the images aren’t pleasant. We think of street corners and having to face the harsh weather conditions of every season. And while this is reality for most of those without homes, one man in San Francisco is working to change all of this.
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San Francisco has more than 6,000 people without homes within its city borders. And, despite the existence of shelters and temporary and subsidized housing, more than half still reside on the streets.
That’s why artist Gregory Kloehn is working to reverse this trend through his Homeless Homes Project.
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When on the streets, homeless people have to carry all of their belongings with them, which can be cumbersome and difficult to protect. So, Kloehn is making mobile homes, which are safe and private.
With these residences, the homeless can now sleep, wash and store their belongings without worry. While the homes range in size and design, they have three main things in common: they’re small, mobile and made from someone’s trash.
That’s right, in order to gather the materials to build the homes, Kloehn goes dumpster diving. He uses anything — showers, storage, seating, bike reflectors, and washing machine windows — to make the perfect home.
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When designing the homes, Kloehn works to ensure that they are compact and flexible. Amenities include adaptability to rain or sun, as well as the ability to double as a vendor cart, allowing the resident to earn an income.
While creating a rent-free option for the homeless to help them avoid the high cost of living in San Francisco was a concern, Kloehn had another goal in mind. Ultimately, these homes are instilling pride and dignity in the homeless. With a place to call their own, the homeless no longer need to be embarrassed — a vital key in getting their lives back on track.
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Once This Woman Realized the Vast Number of Homeless, She Started Making Sandwiches
To make a sandwich, all you need are a few simple ingredients: two pieces of bread, some peanut butter and a little jelly. For Erin Dinan, though, that isn’t enough, so she’s added a fourth ingredient — compassion — making her sandwiches, and those made by volunteers at One Sandwich at a Time, not just sources of food — but rather, instruments of change.
Originally from the South, Dinan moved to New York City to study art and photography. One day while running through Grand Central Station, she was struck by her interaction with a homeless man who asked her for help. While many would have kept moving, Dinan gave half of her sandwich to the man without a second thought.
“It’s amazing because the look of gratitude on his face,” Dinan told Starting Good. “He was surprised and grateful that someone was helping him to make it to his next meal.”
It was that moment and the look on his face that inspired her. Going forth, she started packing extra sandwiches in her bag and distributing them to the homeless people on the streets. Sometimes, she would stop and talk with them, while other times she simply dropped it into their laps and kept moving.
From there, the movement spread as her friends and family encouraged her to start the nonprofit that now feeds thousands.
So how does one woman feed New York’s hungry and homeless?
Dinan has turned her small actions into a large scale 501(c)(3) charity. One Sandwich at a Time operates with the help of donations from food suppliers, such as local bakeries and Whole Foods, and local kitchen areas.
The charity hosts sandwich-making events, which businesses donate kitchen space for. The night before, Dinan will drop off all of the supplies and the following evening, volunteers will pour into the kitchen and start making sandwiches at the various stations.The events last for about two hours in the evening, and volunteers, equipped with hairnets and gloves, can stay for as long as they like. The next day, the sandwiches are packed into vans and brought to local shelters and food kitchens to be distributed.
“That’s why it’s grown because people are busy in city, and if they want to pop in and make one sandwich then go home, they have made a difference,” Dinan told Starting Good. “If someone stays for two hours and makes a hundred sandwiches, then they’ve made a huge difference.”
At Dinan’s first sandwich-making event, about 400 sandwiches were made. However, that’s a modest number compared to the 800 to 2,000 sandwiches made at her affairs now.
While One Sandwich at a Time continues to grow in New York City, Dinan hopes to expand the group into other cities, and maybe create chapters across the world.
“There is a deeper level of homelessness that we won’t understand,” Dinan told Starting Good. “So we open our hearts and show compassion, and show them that someone cares and maybe they will realize that they can get out of this.”
Who knew that opening your lunch box and sharing half a sandwich could make such a difference?
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When San Jose’s Homeless Work to Clean Up Their Community, They Receive Food, Housing, and Even Jobs
Now this is an idea that can potentially transform communities.
In San Jose, California, the homeless are being hired to clean the city streets in exchange for food, housing and job placement, the San Jose Mercury News reports.
This program comes from a novel partnership between Groundwerx, a group that provides cleaning services to downtown San Jose, and the Downtown Streets Team, a nonprofit that works to combat homelessness in Silicon Valley. According to KTVU, this is a new initiative for the north California city and is being tested for a year.
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Everyone wins with this approach since it helps reduce the city’s litter while providing much-needed assistance to people who are down on their luck. Although the program only launched earlier this month, the Mercury News reports that it’s already seen its share of success stories. Participants such as Chester Shattuck, 53, who helped clean San Jose’s downtown, was finally able to find housing after being on the streets for four years.
Not only that, but participants are also learning all-important job skills, too. Former high school peer counselor Marcellous McDonald told the publication that thanks to the regularity of his job as a trash collector and working with others who also want to get back on track, he was able to find his footing and secure employment with Levi’s Stadium, which is home to the San Francisco 49ers football team.
It’s initiatives like these that prove those without homes need a second chance. “People can be iffy about the homeless, and we are here to show that we don’t want to be homeless anymore,” McDonald said. “I might have lost my way, but I am getting there. Some people are slow to get back at it, some people pick up right where they left off.”
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Minnesota Looks to a Historic Structure to Help End Veteran Homelessness
First, the building served as a fort. Its second life? A Civil War induction station. Next, it was the Military Intelligence Service Language School during World War II, where soldiers learned Japanese. For its fourth incarnation, the fort was decommissioned and turned over to the Minnesota Historical Society and became a military museum. Now, the historic structure is being called to service once again — this time as housing for homeless veterans.
Fort Snelling, which sits at the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers, was built in the 1820s. To ready the structure for its new purpose, construction workers broke ground on May 29 to begin converting five of its historic buildings into 58 affordable housing units for homeless military veterans and their families — the CommonBond Veteran’s Housing.
Studios and one-, two-, and three-bedroom units are available. The complex will include medical and psychological health offices, job training services, and academic support. Residents will work with counselors to help get their lives back on track.
Collaboration between public and private groups, including United Health Group, the Home Depot Foundation, Neighborhood Works America, and many others raised the $17.2 million required for the project, which should be completed by spring 2015.
“I’m very proud of the progress that we have made. After years of hard work, Minnesota now has the lowest homeless rate for veterans in the country,” Senator Al Franken told Reg Chapman of CBS Minnesota. Minnesota has 320 homeless veterans, and state leaders have set a goal to end homelessness among veterans in the state by 2015.
Formerly homeless Marine Corps Vietnam veteran Jerry Readmond, who now serves as an advocate for homeless veterans, told Chapman, “We’re all trained in the military how to survive but when we come home we have to start surviving all over again.”
This new use of the old fort should make that quest for survival easier.
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Why Did This California Mayor Spend a Night in a Cardboard Box?
Up until about six months ago, Tim Barfield worked 60 hours a week at an asphalt company. But then the 49-year-old’s boss went bankrupt — leaving him penniless.
“Down to nothing. Now some of the people I used to know tell me I can’t come to their house,” Barfield continued. “They’re afraid I’m [going to] steal something.” he explained to FOX40.
Barfield is now among the 14,000 to 16,000 homeless in Stockton, California, living in an ad hoc community of clutter and makeshift shelters under the city’s I-5 freeway. Barfield remains unemployed and adding to his financial burden is the fact that his girlfriend, whom he is living with, is pregnant and expecting in just six months.
However, things may change for Barfield, who recently had the ear of an unlikely audience: Stockton’s mayor, Anthony Silva.
While spending a night among his city’s homeless, Mayor Silva listened to Barfield’s story.
What was the mayor doing spending the night outdoors? Trying to better understand the underserved residents of his city, he explained.
“It’s shocking and it’s absolutely awful,” Silva told the Record Net. “This is not a second- or third-world country. It’s Stockton, California, and it’s a shame that we, as a community, have let things get this bad.”
For his night outside, Silva constructed a cardboard shelter duct-taped together and tucked between a garbage can and a fence, where he spent the night with two pillows, a sleeping bag and a bottle of hand sanitizer.
Silva, who is teaming up with Christian organization Inner City Action to form the Homeless Commission, has unveiled a plan to create a resource center for homeless people to access computers and develop job training skills.
“I’m working with a couple developers who are interested in ponying up a little money, possibly buying a warehouse, and letting a nonprofit like Inner City Action slowly take it over so homeless folks can get job training skills,” Silva said. “If they have two arms and two legs and they’re capable of working and they want to work, we can get them those job training skills.”
MORE: Meet the Couple Who Dedicated Their Entire Life Fighting for the Homeless
The mayor also met with several other families about possibly forming a tent city.
“I’ve hit the bottom of the barrel and I didn’t know how I was [going to] climb out,” Silva said. “And that’s kind of how Stockton is right now with being bankrupt and not having enough jobs and a big homeless population.”
As for Barfield, his meeting with the mayor may yield a chance at another job. Silva told the Record Net he plans to help Barfield find work in construction.
While Stockton is certainly not the only city with a rising homeless population, recognizing it is an important step in finding a resolution and helping the unheard.
“We all need a chance,” said Barfield.
Meet the Couple Who Dedicated Their Entire Life Fighting for the Homeless
For decades, the 54-block stretch of downtown Los Angeles known as Skid Row has been home to the largest concentration of homeless people in the country. While much of the city’s population marches towards revitalizing the area, a seasoned couple has dedicated their lives to standing up for those left behind.
Jeff Dietrich, 68, and nearly 80-year-old Catherine Morris have spent their lives sticking up for L.A.’s most underserved community: The homeless. The two are often found at the Hippie Kitchen, a soup kitchen located on 6th Street, where the couple joins a team handing out 5,000 hot plates of food each week, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Despite their efforts to serve the poor, Dietrich and Morris have not always been popular. They’ve been arrested more than 40 times and have even faced criticism from within their own religious organization. Notorious for their range of protests — from rallying against nuclear arms and Army recruitment to the first Gulf War to the groundbreaking of a $200 million cathedral — Dietrich and Morris have also been perceived as preventing growth in one of the poorest areas in the city.
Indeed, Los Angeles is home one of the largest homeless populations in the country. According to a 2013 report from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), L.A. had the highest percentage — about 80 percent — of homeless people without shelter as well as the largest amount of chronically homeless, Politico reports. About 14,840 homeless people, many whom suffer from mental disorders to drug addiction, live in L.A. — 5,000 of which call Skid Row home.
“We’re known as the homeless enablers,” Dietrich told the Times. “Yes, we believe in enabling people living on the streets, people who’ve been discarded by society, so they can live with as much dignity as possible. I guess that’s right, homeless enablers is what we are.”
The two also championed an initiative to provide homeless people with shopping carts to serve as mobile storage. Despite public outcry from business owners downtown, a judge ruled that the carts could not be seized, which some considered detrimental to revitalization efforts.
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The pair first met while volunteering at the Hippie Kitchen as a part of the Catholic Worker, an organization that sprang from the Great Depression and created a movement of people living in poverty while helping society’s most vulnerable members.
Morris was on a year-long hiatus from her job as a principal at a posh Pasadena school while Dietrich was returning from a trip to Europe after he refused the Vietnam War draft. The two fell in love and Morris left the Sisters of the Holy Child Jesus to marry him in 1974.
Catholic Worker volunteers operated out of an old Victorian home, which can house up to 30 people at a time. It is kept scant to convey the sense of being poor, and Morris and Dietrich still reside there with just 12 workers — half of which are older than 50.
But the two are resolute to carry on their work despite a lack of successor. They don’t preach or ask for any federal aid and instead focus on what’s important: Helping the poor.
That attitude is inspirational to some like Father Tom Rausch, a Jesuit priest and professor at Loyola Marymount, who points out that their work aligns with Pope Francis’s vision for the future of their church.
“I think finally we have a pope in line with the Catholic Workers,” Rausch said. “If he were a simple priest living in Los Angeles, he’d be with them. Times have changed. There’s a sense that the work they are doing is validated by Francis, that he is saying the kinds of things they have been saying for years, and that has to feel very good to them.”
Watch The Magic Trick That’s Both Heartwarming and Baffling at the Same Time
Using magic to solve hunger sounds completely ridiculous, but a YouTube star is certainly making it look like it’s possible.
In the video below, Magician Rob Anderson walks around the streets of Las Vegas and asks homeless people to indulge in his magic trick involving an empty paper bag. At first, they look skeptical but after they agree to place an item of food into the bag, Anderson does whatever magic voodoo he does and — presto, chango! — several more packages of the same food appear. In fact, there’s so much food coming from the bag that they can’t even catch it all.
Anderson calls himself a professional magician who also makes light-hearted pranking videos, but as he says about his aim: “I make videos that make you feel good.”
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While solving hunger takes much more effort than a few shakes of a paper bag, it’s certainly joyous to see the faces of these people light up after seeing their stash of food multiply as if out of thin air.
Across this country, millions of people do not have money for food or a home. Solving this problem is a serious undertaking, and that’s why there’s also a need to bring joy — and yes, a little magic — to the world.