According to the San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo announced the program in partnership with Goodwill and Downtown Streets Team in late October. The initiative will employ 25 residents to pick up trash at 40 “hotspots” around the city. The employees will be paid $15 an hour, and will work four to five hours a day.
The program will officially start some time in November. If the program is successful, the mayor said his office would consider expanding the program to more participants.
“As we’ve seen the trash and debris coming from homeless encampments mount, too often our homeless residents are dismissed simply as ‘the problem’,” said Mayor Sam Liccardo in a press release obtained by the San Francisco Chronicle. “We intend to show that our work-ready homeless residents can become, and want to become, part of ‘the solution’-both for themselves, and for our community.”