This is a view of the Cooper River Bridge, from our neighborhood - The East End.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Bridge from Columbus St.
This is a view of the Cooper River Bridge, from our neighborhood - The East End.
Temp Hires on the Rise
According to the American Staffing Association, the industry employed a daily average of about 2.5 million contract and temporary employees in the fourth quarter of 2008. That represented a drop of almost 20% from the fourth quarter of 2007. The staffing industry is hypercyclical; temp employees are the first to be let go and the first to be re-hired. For this reason, economists sometimes point to the staffing industry as a bellwether for the economy as a whole.
But with signs that the economy might be stirring, temp employment is on the rise. The Post and Courier recently published this piece on area white collar temporary employment agencies doing brisk business of late. (The NYTs put out a similar article a few months ago.) The workers are often new to temp work. They are individuals who have skills and experience but have been laid off from full-time jobs and are willing to take significant pay cuts because jobs are so scarce. The January unemployment figures indicate that at 12.6% South Carolina has the fourth highest unemployment rate in the nation. Those interviewed for the article attribute the rising demand for temporary office staff like receptionists to the fact that businesses are swinging back into gear but remain hesitant to (re)hire full-time employees.
The industry pros interviewed for the article insist that this isn’t a case where businesses are making permanent use of temp employees to keep them off the payroll and avoid paying for insurance and benefits. Whether that’s true or not for white collar temp positions, the practice is not uncommon among businesses using unskilled day laborers. We’ve seen instances where a day laborer has worked for nearly a year on the same jobsite, always as a temporary employee. He never received a raise, and, when the job finished, he was let go with little notice. This is what we mean when we say that day laborers have no job security.
But with signs that the economy might be stirring, temp employment is on the rise. The Post and Courier recently published this piece on area white collar temporary employment agencies doing brisk business of late. (The NYTs put out a similar article a few months ago.) The workers are often new to temp work. They are individuals who have skills and experience but have been laid off from full-time jobs and are willing to take significant pay cuts because jobs are so scarce. The January unemployment figures indicate that at 12.6% South Carolina has the fourth highest unemployment rate in the nation. Those interviewed for the article attribute the rising demand for temporary office staff like receptionists to the fact that businesses are swinging back into gear but remain hesitant to (re)hire full-time employees.
The industry pros interviewed for the article insist that this isn’t a case where businesses are making permanent use of temp employees to keep them off the payroll and avoid paying for insurance and benefits. Whether that’s true or not for white collar temp positions, the practice is not uncommon among businesses using unskilled day laborers. We’ve seen instances where a day laborer has worked for nearly a year on the same jobsite, always as a temporary employee. He never received a raise, and, when the job finished, he was let go with little notice. This is what we mean when we say that day laborers have no job security.
Monday, March 1, 2010
The Elevator Pitch
We just sent out 41 letters to local politicians, businesses, and philanthropists asking if they'd be willing to support In Every Story. In writing the letter, we imagined that we'd just stepped onto an elevator with our reader and only had a few floors to get across our message and why we needed him or her on board. Here it is. After you read it, leave us a comment to let us know how we did. We're going to send out more so you're feedback will be a huge help.
We’d like to tell you about In Every Story, an innovative social enterprise that helps homeless workers help themselves. In Every Story began when Charleston native and Furman graduate (’08) Derek Snook chose to move into the Star Gospel Mission, a transitional housing facility for formerly homeless men in downtown Charleston. Derek did this as an act of faith and in the hope of better understanding the perspective of the homeless.
Derek discovered that of the 3,000 members of this community who will go to bed tonight without a home, many already have jobs. They work as day laborers. Each morning, they rise before dawn and make their way to day labor agencies hoping to get the chance to support themselves. But low wages, agency fees, and severe job instability make it nearly impossible to become self-sufficient. No matter how hard they work, day labor does not break the cycle of homelessness.
From this conflict emerged In Every Story, a nonprofit temporary labor agency that demonstrates Christ-like initiative as it partners with the homeless and near-homeless on their paths towards self-sufficiency.
We offer consistent temporary employment, higher wages, savings programs, safety training, permanent employment services, and spiritual reinforcement. By investing into our employees as well as conducting extensive vetting and drug tests, we provide a quality of labor unmatched by for-profit day labor agencies.
Crisis Ministries spends $24,000 a year to house each of its homeless guests. By contrast, with $100,000 in start up funding, we can help twenty homeless workers attain self-sufficiency in our first year alone. And, because In Every Story will be fully self-sustaining, we will be able to serve countless workers in the years to come without any additional funding. It is too expensive not to invest in this endeavor.
Please contact Derek Snook and Peter DeMarco at (843) 327-8456 or ineverystory@gmail.com to discuss how you can partner with, support, and donate to this effort.
We’d like to tell you about In Every Story, an innovative social enterprise that helps homeless workers help themselves. In Every Story began when Charleston native and Furman graduate (’08) Derek Snook chose to move into the Star Gospel Mission, a transitional housing facility for formerly homeless men in downtown Charleston. Derek did this as an act of faith and in the hope of better understanding the perspective of the homeless.
Derek discovered that of the 3,000 members of this community who will go to bed tonight without a home, many already have jobs. They work as day laborers. Each morning, they rise before dawn and make their way to day labor agencies hoping to get the chance to support themselves. But low wages, agency fees, and severe job instability make it nearly impossible to become self-sufficient. No matter how hard they work, day labor does not break the cycle of homelessness.
From this conflict emerged In Every Story, a nonprofit temporary labor agency that demonstrates Christ-like initiative as it partners with the homeless and near-homeless on their paths towards self-sufficiency.
We offer consistent temporary employment, higher wages, savings programs, safety training, permanent employment services, and spiritual reinforcement. By investing into our employees as well as conducting extensive vetting and drug tests, we provide a quality of labor unmatched by for-profit day labor agencies.
Crisis Ministries spends $24,000 a year to house each of its homeless guests. By contrast, with $100,000 in start up funding, we can help twenty homeless workers attain self-sufficiency in our first year alone. And, because In Every Story will be fully self-sustaining, we will be able to serve countless workers in the years to come without any additional funding. It is too expensive not to invest in this endeavor.
Please contact Derek Snook and Peter DeMarco at (843) 327-8456 or ineverystory@gmail.com to discuss how you can partner with, support, and donate to this effort.
Monday, February 15, 2010
The Latest Jazz
The latest jazz is that Chris has turned into the snoring police. He says that every night Elliot doesn’t sleep on his side he’s going to kick him in the stomach. He vocalizes this, loudly, from behind a huge moustache, while on the other side of the dorm Mark II is interrogating me, asking if I’ve researched opiates, if my truck has rear wheel drive, if I’ve seen the big metal door in the parking garage at the library; if my information is censored the way his is, if I want to go out west with him, if I want to borrow his skis, if I’ve ever seen a bear tracking device. Meanwhile, Errol’s doing laundry, John is making lunch, Mark I is trying to sleep but Ed is playing the mandolin, which doesn’t really matter because of Chris and Eliot’s yelling, and I’m sitting on my bunk bed, bobbing along, trying to type. It’s a mess, to be honest, but one I wouldn’t trade for the world.
I moved into the Star Gospel Mission almost 8 months ago now, and I honestly still couldn’t give you a complete answer why, but through it all I’ve kept coming back to a few ideas:
1) Thoreau says, “Most men live lives of quiet desperation.” And again, “That if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.”
2) Donald Miller talks about conflict in our stories, how we have to have it, and how without it our lives don’t make sense. He says that nobody cries at the end of a movie about a guy who spends his whole life saving his money to drive off the lot in his brand new Volvo, testing his windshield wipers with a tear in his eye. Then he wonders aloud why, if nobody would care at the end of a movie like this, we keep insisting on living our lives this way.
3) St. Irenaeus says, “The glory of God is man fully alive.”
4) Christ, above all, tells us that “He comes to give us life, that we may have it to the full.”
Like I said, I honestly can’t tell you why I (or Pete) moved into the Mission. Even with In Every Story, even with the people I’ve met and grown to love, I waver between what God’s purposes are to what they could be to if I was ever concerned with his purposes at all. I sometimes think it’s some elaborate scheme, or that I’m learning some small lesson I need to know, or that none of it matters at all, that I just ate “bad burritos.” Other times, Pete and I both get the sense that at the ends of our lives we’ll look back on these moments now and realize that all the decisions we’ve ever made were directly affected by the ones we make now (This is partly because as time has passed, I believe we’ve both convinced ourselves that if we stick with it long enough In Every Story will work. It will, meaning it’s more up to whether we have what it takes to hold on or not than whether it is actually a good idea.).
When I think of life at the Mission in terms of goals and accomplishments, why I came here and maybe where I should be instead, I’m just not sure. I have these doubts. I wish I was in graduate school. Or that I had a real job. I compare myself to everybody else, and it makes me anxious and insecure.
But when, in the midst of it all, I keep coming back to these few ideas, I find faith, and the goals and reasons why I’m doing something or not doing something seem not to matter so much. Life, I believe with all my heart, is meant to be lived more like this. When it is, the restlessness I feel from a life of quiet desperation feels alleviated just a bit. When I do, I find when brushing my teeth, or talking to the guys, or climbing in bed, success in the most common of hours. When I take risks and add conflict to my life, I reap the rewards, and as St. Irenaeus said I would, I feel alive. Above all, as Christ promises, I yearn for a life to the fullest that he can give, and in turn I feel filled with faith, and hope, and purpose, and I get the sense that in spite of all that I’ve learned and all that’s happened and yet to come, the reason I can’t tell you why I moved into the Mission is that it still isn’t finished.
And that’s something I wouldn’t trade for the world.
I moved into the Star Gospel Mission almost 8 months ago now, and I honestly still couldn’t give you a complete answer why, but through it all I’ve kept coming back to a few ideas:
1) Thoreau says, “Most men live lives of quiet desperation.” And again, “That if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.”
2) Donald Miller talks about conflict in our stories, how we have to have it, and how without it our lives don’t make sense. He says that nobody cries at the end of a movie about a guy who spends his whole life saving his money to drive off the lot in his brand new Volvo, testing his windshield wipers with a tear in his eye. Then he wonders aloud why, if nobody would care at the end of a movie like this, we keep insisting on living our lives this way.
3) St. Irenaeus says, “The glory of God is man fully alive.”
4) Christ, above all, tells us that “He comes to give us life, that we may have it to the full.”
Like I said, I honestly can’t tell you why I (or Pete) moved into the Mission. Even with In Every Story, even with the people I’ve met and grown to love, I waver between what God’s purposes are to what they could be to if I was ever concerned with his purposes at all. I sometimes think it’s some elaborate scheme, or that I’m learning some small lesson I need to know, or that none of it matters at all, that I just ate “bad burritos.” Other times, Pete and I both get the sense that at the ends of our lives we’ll look back on these moments now and realize that all the decisions we’ve ever made were directly affected by the ones we make now (This is partly because as time has passed, I believe we’ve both convinced ourselves that if we stick with it long enough In Every Story will work. It will, meaning it’s more up to whether we have what it takes to hold on or not than whether it is actually a good idea.).
When I think of life at the Mission in terms of goals and accomplishments, why I came here and maybe where I should be instead, I’m just not sure. I have these doubts. I wish I was in graduate school. Or that I had a real job. I compare myself to everybody else, and it makes me anxious and insecure.
But when, in the midst of it all, I keep coming back to these few ideas, I find faith, and the goals and reasons why I’m doing something or not doing something seem not to matter so much. Life, I believe with all my heart, is meant to be lived more like this. When it is, the restlessness I feel from a life of quiet desperation feels alleviated just a bit. When I do, I find when brushing my teeth, or talking to the guys, or climbing in bed, success in the most common of hours. When I take risks and add conflict to my life, I reap the rewards, and as St. Irenaeus said I would, I feel alive. Above all, as Christ promises, I yearn for a life to the fullest that he can give, and in turn I feel filled with faith, and hope, and purpose, and I get the sense that in spite of all that I’ve learned and all that’s happened and yet to come, the reason I can’t tell you why I moved into the Mission is that it still isn’t finished.
And that’s something I wouldn’t trade for the world.
Monday, January 25, 2010
The Star Gospel Mission
One night, sitting out front of the mission, a bare-chested man came up and pointed to the banner above us. “Christian! Christian! Christian!” he yelled. He moved to the right, and yelled, “1904! 1904! 1904!” He repeated this process once more and then left. Those of us out front looked at each other and smiled, wondering what in the world he was talking about, but, in actuality, he pretty much summed it up.
The Star Gospel Mission has been serving the homeless and near-homeless of the city since 1904, making it the oldest Christian welfare organization in the city. It was founded by Obadiah Dugan, whose family operated the mission for three generations, 84 years, until 1986. Today, the mission is operated by only its fifth director, the Rev. William K. Christian III. The mission has survived its fair share of triumphs and struggles, the most damaging being hurricane Hugo in 1989, that destroyed the original building at 474 Meeting Street and the beach cottage and summer camp located on Sullivan’s Island. It was saved only when funds from a variety of sources began to pour in, and when the frontage property—that now sits directly on Meeting Street—was sold to pay for the new building, tucked behind the Sherwin Williams with a view of the Post and Courier building.
Today, if you showed up at the Star Gospel Mission looking for a place to stay, the first person you’d likely meet is Matthew, our cook, who would ask, “Can I help you?” and then direct you towards the Rev. The Rev, Pastor Christian, would shake your hand, look you in the eyes, and ask you to sit down. He’d ask who you are, where you came from, what your criminal record and background is. The Rev can size you up in just a few sentences. He’d explain the rules. Monday through Friday, you have to be out at 7:30 am and can’t come back until 4 pm. You have to be working. You have to be at the mandatory church service at 8 am Sunday mornings, and you can’t do drugs or drink. You have a weekly chore and have to take turns cleaning the kitchen and the dining room. It costs $90 a week—that covers your rent, your utilities, your dinners and coffee and a bagel in the morning.
Afterwards, Matthew will take you to the back, where there are 22 beds in 9 different cubicles, and give you the sheets to your bed. He’ll show you your locker, and tell you to keep your shoes in order. He’ll show you the showers, and tell you to wear flip flops, and as you walk out he’ll tell you to make sure you turn out the light. That’s pretty much it.
Of course, the richness of the experience is in the lives around you, in the conversations and idiosyncrasies of the men, in the struggles they experience and the stories they tell. Otherwise, it’s just a set of walls with some beds and chairs and a T.V., a kitchen and a bathroom, like where anybody else lives. But this is the Star Gospel Mission, where I live, a place that in the words of The Rev “gives guys a second lease on life,” “a hand up and not a hand out,” and “transforms hearts and lives for Jesus Christ.”
So that’s pretty much it, and has been since 1904.
The Star Gospel Mission has been serving the homeless and near-homeless of the city since 1904, making it the oldest Christian welfare organization in the city. It was founded by Obadiah Dugan, whose family operated the mission for three generations, 84 years, until 1986. Today, the mission is operated by only its fifth director, the Rev. William K. Christian III. The mission has survived its fair share of triumphs and struggles, the most damaging being hurricane Hugo in 1989, that destroyed the original building at 474 Meeting Street and the beach cottage and summer camp located on Sullivan’s Island. It was saved only when funds from a variety of sources began to pour in, and when the frontage property—that now sits directly on Meeting Street—was sold to pay for the new building, tucked behind the Sherwin Williams with a view of the Post and Courier building.
Today, if you showed up at the Star Gospel Mission looking for a place to stay, the first person you’d likely meet is Matthew, our cook, who would ask, “Can I help you?” and then direct you towards the Rev. The Rev, Pastor Christian, would shake your hand, look you in the eyes, and ask you to sit down. He’d ask who you are, where you came from, what your criminal record and background is. The Rev can size you up in just a few sentences. He’d explain the rules. Monday through Friday, you have to be out at 7:30 am and can’t come back until 4 pm. You have to be working. You have to be at the mandatory church service at 8 am Sunday mornings, and you can’t do drugs or drink. You have a weekly chore and have to take turns cleaning the kitchen and the dining room. It costs $90 a week—that covers your rent, your utilities, your dinners and coffee and a bagel in the morning.
Afterwards, Matthew will take you to the back, where there are 22 beds in 9 different cubicles, and give you the sheets to your bed. He’ll show you your locker, and tell you to keep your shoes in order. He’ll show you the showers, and tell you to wear flip flops, and as you walk out he’ll tell you to make sure you turn out the light. That’s pretty much it.
Of course, the richness of the experience is in the lives around you, in the conversations and idiosyncrasies of the men, in the struggles they experience and the stories they tell. Otherwise, it’s just a set of walls with some beds and chairs and a T.V., a kitchen and a bathroom, like where anybody else lives. But this is the Star Gospel Mission, where I live, a place that in the words of The Rev “gives guys a second lease on life,” “a hand up and not a hand out,” and “transforms hearts and lives for Jesus Christ.”
So that’s pretty much it, and has been since 1904.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Where we’re at
Psalm 140: 12—“I know that the Lord secures justice for the poor and upholds the cause of the needy.”
In Every Story is an officially sanctioned nonprofit in the state of South Carolina. We have been since September. The past few months have been spent researching, planning, and thinking. We’ve been determining costs, meeting with insurance agents, meeting with contractors, and meeting with businessmen who believe this is a plausible idea and who can guide us in the right direction. We’ve been talking with the guys at the Star Gospel Mission too, in the meantime helping with resumes and the things that we can do here and now, and making sure that In Every Story would be useful and beneficial to them.
At the end of November Pete went home for Thanksgiving and came down with malaria, which raised serious concern among the men at the mission who didn’t know Pete had spent the previous year in Africa and otherwise assumed he’d gotten it there, and then in December as Pete was spending time with his new fiancé home from the Peace Corps my grandfather was finally ending a long battle with an array of sicknesses that ended just before Christmas. So that’s that and now it’s the New Year.
Right now we’re in the stages of making a business plan to raise money from investors, and submitting our 501 (c) (3) so that our business will be tax exempt. It’s more or less the sink or swim part of what we’re trying to do, but once we do these things we should begin to know one way or the other, probably by the summer. I keep hearing that life is like this and life is like that, and a lot of these images are about not giving up, that if you’re in the middle of something and you don’t know where, and it’s dark, and you’re not even positive you’re going in the right direction, you’re best, really only option, is forwards, and if you insist on going forwards you’ll suddenly make it to the other side. It’s an idea I’m keen on holding on to for all of my life. So pray for us as we take these steps, begin to raise money, and then solicit business from contractors in the area. Pray that if it’s something that would help people who are homeless and near homeless and that would be beneficial to those who honestly are trying, that God makes it happen for those people.
In Every Story is an officially sanctioned nonprofit in the state of South Carolina. We have been since September. The past few months have been spent researching, planning, and thinking. We’ve been determining costs, meeting with insurance agents, meeting with contractors, and meeting with businessmen who believe this is a plausible idea and who can guide us in the right direction. We’ve been talking with the guys at the Star Gospel Mission too, in the meantime helping with resumes and the things that we can do here and now, and making sure that In Every Story would be useful and beneficial to them.
At the end of November Pete went home for Thanksgiving and came down with malaria, which raised serious concern among the men at the mission who didn’t know Pete had spent the previous year in Africa and otherwise assumed he’d gotten it there, and then in December as Pete was spending time with his new fiancé home from the Peace Corps my grandfather was finally ending a long battle with an array of sicknesses that ended just before Christmas. So that’s that and now it’s the New Year.
Right now we’re in the stages of making a business plan to raise money from investors, and submitting our 501 (c) (3) so that our business will be tax exempt. It’s more or less the sink or swim part of what we’re trying to do, but once we do these things we should begin to know one way or the other, probably by the summer. I keep hearing that life is like this and life is like that, and a lot of these images are about not giving up, that if you’re in the middle of something and you don’t know where, and it’s dark, and you’re not even positive you’re going in the right direction, you’re best, really only option, is forwards, and if you insist on going forwards you’ll suddenly make it to the other side. It’s an idea I’m keen on holding on to for all of my life. So pray for us as we take these steps, begin to raise money, and then solicit business from contractors in the area. Pray that if it’s something that would help people who are homeless and near homeless and that would be beneficial to those who honestly are trying, that God makes it happen for those people.
Friday, January 1, 2010
At the Fair
About two months ago, Derek and I visited a friend working day labor at the Coastal Carolina Fair. We put together this reflection.
Errol is 50 years old with a salt-and-pepper beard and calloused hands. Spasms in his hip and pains in his chest cause him to walk with a delicacy that belies an athletic wit. At dawn this morning he went to a day labor agency in the downtown and requested work. Tonight, he is at the Coastal Carolina Fair working on contract with that day labor agency. In a bright orange vest, he weaves his way between kids and couples and colored lights, sweeping up $4 lemonades and grease-stained napkins, the remnants of other people’s pleasant evenings.
His hip has gone numb. He is tired. But he wishes he could work longer. He arrived at the day labor agency at 6 AM and won’t return from the fair until midnight, but only five of those hours were on the clock. Five hours at minimum wage minus the standard $5.50 transportation fee won’t leave him with much to show for his day’s effort. Certainly not enough to treat himself to a lemonade. Certainly not enough to put even a little into savings. He’s trying, and he’s tired, but he’s no closer to escaping homelessness. He will go back to the day labor agency tomorrow. He may get work. He may get turned away.
The National Low Income Housing Coalition calculates that a full-time worker must earn $15.13 per hour in order to be able to afford the Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom Charleston apartment. A worker earning minimum wage would have to put in 92 hours per week every week of the year in order to afford that apartment.
Errol doesn’t want a two-bedroom apartment. He just wants a place of his own to lay his head, a place to continue his misguided devotion to the Yankees. And he wants to be paid fairly for what he does.
A local news station recently reported that over the past two years a day labor agency in this community has seen a 30% increase in the number of men coming to it in search of work. The men who find it there are almost always paid minimum wage.
What would a day labor agency look like if it were created from the perspective of homeless workers rather than profit margins? In Every Story, whose founders both voluntarily reside at Star Gospel Mission, is answering that question while helping homeless and near-homeless workers like Errol on their paths to self-sufficiency.
The fairgrounds look exceptionally clean tonight. Did you notice?
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