They’ll be cleaning up Brooklyn streets as they clean up their lives.
Six workers from the Doe Fund — a transitional work-training program for former prisoners and the formerly homeless — will sweep commercial corridors in Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights, and Bensonhurst for the next 26 weeks.
The rubbish wranglers are part of a larger sanitation initiative that Councilman Vincent Gentile (D–Bay Ridge) announced on Sept. 5. The aim is to take the strain off of mom-and-pop shops that are sometimes unfairly handed sanitation violations, local business leaders said.
“Diligent business owners clean their sidewalks and often get fined for trash that’s not theirs,” said Carlo Scissura, president of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce and a Bensonhurst resident. “With the Doe Fund making streets cleaner, businesses will see a reduction in fines.”
The Doe Fund matches the city’s former inmates and homeless people with jobs and career training. Workers log 36 or more hours a week and earn a $8.20-per-hour, tax-free stipend, said spokesman Alexander Horwitz. After a couple months of custodial work, individuals get training for “recession-proof” careers in pest control, green building management, back-office work, and food service, he said.
The councilman is paying for the Doe Fund cleanup with $68,000 in taxpayer money from a Council initiative called NYC Cleanup, and he is splitting the cost of work on 18th Avenue with Councilman Mark Treyger (D–Coney Island).
Gentile has also allocated $61,000 from his discretionary budget to the Sanitation Department to double trash-can pickup on major thoroughfares in his district.
The additional trash collection will go a long way to cleaner streets in southern Brooklyn, said Sanitation spokesman Ignazio Terranova, but he cautioned that there is no silver bullet.
“Garbage will always attract more garbage,” he said. “But this will make things a lot cleaner.”
The Doe workers will clean:
• Third Avenue between 69th and 88th streets weekly
• 13th Avenue between 68th and 79th streets twice weekly
• 18th Avenue between 68th and 86th streets twice weekly
The Sanitation Department will empty public trash bins twice a day, four times a week on:
• Third Avenue between 69th and 101st streets
• Fifth Avenue between 68th and 86th streets
• Bay Ridge Avenue between Ridge Boulevard and Fifth Avenue
• 13th Avenue between 65th and 79th streets
• 18th Avenue between 81st and 86th streets
