Project Place trains homeless and low-income

On the reception desk on the second floor of 1145 Washington St. in Boston sits a bell. A note beside it reads “Ring once for assistance.”

This first greeting is an apt one for Project Place, a training center for homeless and low-income individuals to find jobs and housing.

Staff and graduates of the program say help comes to those who take the initiative and help themselves.

Project Place is this year’s Boston Homes’ Gifts of Hope charity.

When Sally Rivera Jennings rang that bell at Project Place in July 2008, she had been a drug addict for 17 years and had been locked up numerous times.

She’d landed in one of the several treatment programs that send clients to Project Place.

“I came in here pretty numb and still in shock,” Jennings said in a conference room at the Project Place building late in November. “Withdrawal was pretty bad in my case.”

Professionally dressed, well spoken and assertive, Jennings painted a picture of herself as withdrawn and inhibited during the time of her referral.

She was afraid to speak to anyone who looked too intelligent for fear that she would seem stupid, she said.

Three years since she graduated from the program, Jennings is employed at Panera Bread and training to become a manager.

She has her own apartment in the Fenway and recently completed her GED.

Those were her goals when she started the program, and she achieved others along the way: re-establishing her relationship with her daughter, becoming baptized and quitting smoking.

Now she is helping her two-year-old grandson learn numbers and letters.

“I’m very proud of him,” she said.

What Project Place gave her was confidence, self-esteem and support. Even after she graduated, her case manager kept in touch for years, checking on her progress.

Marcie Laden, director of development for Project Place, said maintaining support systems with clients is important. For each graduate, a case manager keeps contact for two years.

Some people, such as Jennings, are success stories. Others, particularly since the economy took a downward turn, have more difficulty. The point for each client is to move him or her in the direction of independence.

“For us, we know that just getting a job or starting school, it’s not the end; it’s the beginning,” said Jennings.

Started in 1967, Project Place began in response to homeless and addicted youth on the Cambridge Common and in Harvard Square. A group of seminarian students came together to do crisis intervention. They had a van to pick up the young people and a place with hot meals and mattresses on the floor to sleep.

By the late 1970s, the homeless population changed. No longer were they children and teens; there was a growing number of adults with adult problems.

Project Place shifted its focus to offering job and housing help and counseling.

Talking to clients a few years into the adult program, Project Place staff learned that the people they served, for the most part, wanted to get back on their feet and earn their way off of the street. Again Project Place evolved, this time focusing on teaching job skills.

But clients required more than vocational training or updating skills. Many of them had no idea how to present themselves for an interview, compose a résumé, write a cover letter or even had the discipline to show up every day on time.

“When people come in, they say, ‘I want to go to work,’ but they may not be ready to go to work,” Laden said. “They may have recovery issues or may not know what it means to go to work. They want a paycheck, but may not understand they have to come in and work five days a week.”

To this day, Project Place’s most popular program is its Employment and Work Training Program, a 90-day course covering topics ranging from job searching to providing customer service. The organization also offers housing assistance programs and even manages 14 units of affordable housing on the top floors of its headquarters.

Some clients require less assistance, and come in for a one-day course or for employment counseling sessions. Others require more. For them, Project Place owns three small businesses and hires graduates of the work-training course for six-month temporary positions.

In these positions, clients supervised by Project Place staff are further encouraged to grow in a real work environment. The businesses consist of a janitorial service called Clean Corners, a catering business called HomePlate and a vending machine service business called Project Pepsi.

Of the 325 people served directly through Project Place programs in 2010, 188 were in the Employment and Work Training Program and 60 were employed with the businesses. Other programs, a community re-entry program for recently incarcerated women and a transitional housing program, also for women, had 37 and 40 participants respectively.

Project Place also served 250 graduates from the program with employment counseling, computer assistance and educational support.

“People who are homeless often have a lot of complex issues,” Laden said. “We have to be able to meet them where they are at, not have them fit our timeline.”

Sean Pierce, job training and education manager for Project Place, joined the staff after working in Boston and Medford public schools as a special education teacher.

The public school system burned him out, and he was looking for another way to use his background in education. Project Place hired him in 2007.

Unlike in the public school system, where Pierce said students deemed “problem children” were pushed to the periphery, Project Place gives instructors support and freedom to provide individualized education for all clients.

Enthusiastic and with an engaging manner, Pierce coordinates the curriculum for the 90-day job-training course. On a Friday morning in November, his background as a special educator and a football and hockey coach was evident as he helped clients with their job search and provided encouragement in Project Place’s computer lab on the building’s third floor.

“Sometimes, it’s the little battles,” Pierce said of the satisfaction his job brings him. “When you see someone able to save a document on a flash drive and do it completely independently.”

The class consists of three month-long parts. The first month focuses on résumé and cover letter writing, the second month deals with customer service and the third month – which Pierce teaches – ties it together with teaching job-search skills.

The program doesn’t work for everyone – there’s no 100 percent guarantee – but Pierce said he finds that most clients who don’t succeed choose not to.

“For the most part, the people in our classes, they want to be here; they are motivated,” Pierce said. “Our job as educators is to capture that and use it.”

Sharika Rhodes and Vanessa Charity, 19 and 52 respectively, both enrolled in the 90-day job-training course. Although they came from different situations and life stages, both sought similar outcomes. They wanted to get back on their feet and live independently.

Charity, who graduated from the program months earlier, continues to use Project Place’s computer lab and other employment counseling services every day. She is enrolled in a course to get her GED and is using the Project Place computers to learn PowerPoint and Excel. Eventually, she wants to go to school and work in medical billing and coding.

Rhodes also wants to go into the medical field, but as a nurse or medical assistant. She has a 7-month-old daughter and had been living with her mother in a homeless shelter, but by November she had almost finished the job-training course and had already secured a job interview. Eventually Rhodes wants to go back to school; for now she simply wants a job.

“I’m not just sitting at home and waiting for things to come; I’m putting in the work,” Rhodes said.

The customer service section of the course was among the most valuable to Charity. Taking trips to local stores and judging their customer service was eye-opening, she said.

“I’ve learned how to talk to people and respect their wishes,” Charity said. “Even though the customer is wrong, you still have to be nice.”

Rhodes, who sometimes has trouble managing her anger, was helped by her case manager to keep her emotions under control, she said.

“They help you with everything, and if they can’t help you, they refer you to someone else,” Rhodes said.

Both Charity and Rhodes found the program strict in terms of having to be in class on time and dressing appropriately, but they said they appreciated the austere environment because it was preparing them for jobs in the outside world.

“The help is here and the help is beautiful,” Charity said.

Pierce said that Charity and Rhodes have taken advantage of what the program offers.

“We always talk about those types of individuals being the most successful, the ones who are not afraid to ask for help and not afraid to roll their sleeves up and work hard,” Pierce said.

For Sally Rivera Jennings, who graduated from the program in 2008, her advice to those struggling with employment and housing issues is to try Project Place.

“Come scared, come nervous, come hungry, but give yourself a chance and give them a chance to show you something that’s going to be good for you,” she said.

How you can help

More information about Project Place is available at www.projectplace.org. Donations can be mailed to Development Office, Project Place, 1145 Washington St., Boston, MA 02118.

Visit Project Place’s website to donate online and to learn about volunteer opportunities.