History of Moab Solutions' Work with the Homeless
We started working with the homeless, alcoholics, substance abusers, and others in need in 2008 when we literally stumbled over their camps along the in-town parkway system while doing recycle/cleanups for Friends of the Parkway. Prior to that, our main focus was on zero-waste advocacy, free recycling installations and maintenance, and massive cleanups along trails, in creeks, and on highways and byways.
We felt a strong need to find out why the homeless were there, so beginning that year, we worked hard to get to know the homeless population, understand how they got where they were, and devised methods to help them help themselves. We wanted to create an environment that would help them want to make a change. With a grant from the Carl George Bjorkman Foundation, we were able to expand a fledgling program called Parkway Partners: a weekly meet up with the homeless where they would bring all their trash out of the camps for disposal and all the recycling to the Moab Solutions' truck, where they learned to sort it into categories for delivery to the center. The simple act of walking around their camps, cleaning up the mess, and seeing that things got recycled was the beginning of community-wide involvement and led to the creation of many other programs to help those in most dire need.
Since those early days we have sent 24 people to rehab, cleaned up the entire parkway and got people into housing, did green job training so the men and women could earn part of their rent while doing beneficial work, like quiet lawn care (using only hand tools) and sorting recycling for processing at the Community Recycle Center. Cleanups on the parkway and other areas around town is ongoing.
One of the most important things we did was bring the plight of the homeless into the public eye. We took creek dwellers to city and county council meetings, explained what we were doing in newspaper stories that appeared in the Times-Independent, put a face on the homeless and expanded the circle of caring into the community because we believe it takes a community working together to ease the suffering within it. The most important partnerships have been with the Moab City Police, the Grand County Sheriff's Office and the courts. It costs the community a lot of money to keep dealing with the same people and issues. By improving things for the homeless, we are saving the community money and making things more peaceful and humane for everybody.
Please click here to read about some of the homeless people we have helped over the years, and those who have passed on.
We started working with the homeless, alcoholics, substance abusers, and others in need in 2008 when we literally stumbled over their camps along the in-town parkway system while doing recycle/cleanups for Friends of the Parkway. Prior to that, our main focus was on zero-waste advocacy, free recycling installations and maintenance, and massive cleanups along trails, in creeks, and on highways and byways.
We felt a strong need to find out why the homeless were there, so beginning that year, we worked hard to get to know the homeless population, understand how they got where they were, and devised methods to help them help themselves. We wanted to create an environment that would help them want to make a change. With a grant from the Carl George Bjorkman Foundation, we were able to expand a fledgling program called Parkway Partners: a weekly meet up with the homeless where they would bring all their trash out of the camps for disposal and all the recycling to the Moab Solutions' truck, where they learned to sort it into categories for delivery to the center. The simple act of walking around their camps, cleaning up the mess, and seeing that things got recycled was the beginning of community-wide involvement and led to the creation of many other programs to help those in most dire need.
Since those early days we have sent 24 people to rehab, cleaned up the entire parkway and got people into housing, did green job training so the men and women could earn part of their rent while doing beneficial work, like quiet lawn care (using only hand tools) and sorting recycling for processing at the Community Recycle Center. Cleanups on the parkway and other areas around town is ongoing.
One of the most important things we did was bring the plight of the homeless into the public eye. We took creek dwellers to city and county council meetings, explained what we were doing in newspaper stories that appeared in the Times-Independent, put a face on the homeless and expanded the circle of caring into the community because we believe it takes a community working together to ease the suffering within it. The most important partnerships have been with the Moab City Police, the Grand County Sheriff's Office and the courts. It costs the community a lot of money to keep dealing with the same people and issues. By improving things for the homeless, we are saving the community money and making things more peaceful and humane for everybody.
Please click here to read about some of the homeless people we have helped over the years, and those who have passed on.
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