Two-flat, And Workers Maintaining It, Get Second Chance
John O'Neill
Published: octubre 6, 2009
The building at 7721 S. Carpenter St. had been vacant for months. The lawn and bushes were overgrown. Some boards had been pried from the windows. Vagrants had moved in. Mildewed carpets and garbage were strewn out back.
All that changed one recent morning, thanks to Cleanslate Property Services.
7721 S. Carpenter
Photos by Eric Young Smith
In just about an hour, five Cleanslate employee, some in distinctive neon-yellow Cleanslate shirts, spruced up the outside of the brick two-flat. Five rooms’ worth of stained carpets were hoisted on a trailer, along with half a dozen plastic bags of trash and debris. The yard was raked and mowed. New boards were placed on three windows, and others were secured. They even did a little recruiting.
Natalia Wright, a quality-control supervisor for Cleanslate, was at the site, taking before-and-after photos to show what work had been done. She said while workers were cleaning up the place, a neighbor came over to thank them – and ask if they had any jobs.
The neighbor could certainly do worse than to land with Cleanslate, an initiative of The Cara Program. Cara, founded in 1991, helps people affected by homelessness and poverty. That includes Rosalinda Lewis, who has worked for Cleanslate for 10 months after a three-month internship. She found Cleanslate through Forever Free, a recovery home where she went to kick a drug habit.
“I decided to change my life,” said Lewis, who has three children – 14- and 11-year-old girls and a 10-year-old boy. “Now, I’ve got an apartment and a job.”
Arthur Chaderjian, a Cleanslate worker, cuts grass at 7721 S. Carpenter.
Cara has started a joint venture, Cleanslate Property Services, with Mercy Housing. That venture was started specifically in response to the growing foreclosure problem. While Cleanslate focuses on cleaning up parks, vacant lots, sidewalks and public gardens, Cleanslate Property Services, the new venture, will focus on securing and maintaining the outside of vacant properties being acquired through the Chicago Neighborhood Stabilization Program.
That city program, being overseen by Mercy, uses federal money to acquire properties and attract developers. The idea is to focus on areas where saving a few key properties can make a big difference.
The two-flat on Carpenter, for instance, is the only boarded-up property on the block. Keeping it in good repair can prevent the domino effect that might result if it were allowed to become a haven for vagrants or vandals. In this case, that hadn’t happened yet. The neighbor “said he was having more of a problem with raccoons than with squatters,” Wright said.
Natalia Wright removes debris.
Cleanslate Property Services hopes to have about 100 employees trained by the end of 2010, and hopesto work on about 650 homes in that same time period. Those employees will include some residents of the affected areas, as well as some Mercy Housing residents, some ex-offenders and some who are recovering from drug abuse, poverty or homelessness.
Arthur Chaderjian, who also was at the Carpenter property, has been with Cleanslate about 18 months. His extensive background in landscaping, he said, didn’t exactly help him find a job with his felony background, he said. But Cara did.
“It’s done so much for me,” he said, adding that he hopes to be a manager with Cleanslate some day.
Teams from Cleanslate Property Services first visit properties to assess their exact condition, then return later to perform the actual cleanup, said Scott Iurillo, director of REO maintenance and training for Mercy Housing. In the case of the two-flat on Carpenter, that turnaround was about a week.
The Cleanslate crew at 7721 S. Carpenter
“The neighbor couldn’t believe how fast we came back out here,” said Wright.
Iurillo, who was on site with the Cleanslate team, said the house “already had been pretty well stripped” of fixtures inside, but was structurally sound, and ready for its next life.
Yes, the brick two-flat at 7721 S. Carpenter St. may have seen better days. But thanks to Cleanslate Property Services and the Neighborhood Stabilization Program, it will again.
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