{
  "id": 258281508,
  "title": "Instead of driving past signs asking for help, Albuquerque offered a van, fair pay, and a fresh start. A simple day's work gave hundreds of people dignity, purpose, and a real path toward a better tomorrow.",
  "link": "https://humanity.quora.com/Instead-of-driving-past-signs-asking-for-help-Albuquerque-offered-a-van-fair-pay-and-a-fresh-start-A-simple-days-wo",
  "text": "In July 2015, Richard Berry, the mayor of Albuquerque, was driving back to City Hall from lunch when he saw a man on a street corner holding a cardboard sign. It read, “Want a Job. Anything Helps.” Berry went to his staff and said the city should take that man at his word.\nBy September, the city had pulled an old Dodge van from its motor pool, put new tires on it, and wrapped it with the words There’s a Better Way. St. Martin’s Hospitality Center, Albuquerque’s largest homeless shelter, ran the program. Two mornings a week, a driver named Will Cole took the van to the street corners where people were asking for money.\nOn one windy March morning in 2016, people stood outside St. Martin’s waiting for Cole and his van. At each stop he got out and fist-bumped everyone who climbed in. He told them “good morning, ma’am” or “sir,” and he loaded their bags into the back himself.\nOne man he stopped for was Fidel, who said he was from Cuba. Cole asked if he wanted to work that day. Then he told Fidel he looked cold. Fidel said he had slept in the street the night before. Cole asked if that was every night, and Fidel said yes. Fidel got in the van.\nThe crews picked up litter and pulled weeds for the city’s Solid Waste Management Department. The shift lasted five hours. Workers got breakfast and lunch, and at lunchtime staff from city behavioral health departments came out to talk with them. Each person was paid $9 an hour in cash, which came to $45. The state minimum wage was $7.50. Berry said it was hard work, with shovels and rakes in the hot sun. A worker named John told PBS the job gave him “a sense of accomplishment,” and he wished it ran more days. Cole said that if he owned a business, he would hire many of these people in a second.\nAt the end of the day, the van took everyone back to St. Martin’s. Staff there helped with housing, job searches and health care. Kellie Tillerson of St. Martin’s said many workers had not known those services existed. One man who had just left prison came back the next day. St. Martin’s signed him up for its day labor program, told him about behavioral health services, and began helping him get an ID.\nAfter three years, the city counted 6,666 one-day jobs held by 1,575 workers. Seventy-six of them had found permanent work. Seattle started a program modeled on Albuquerque’s. The city ended the original program in 2020, and a new version called Better Way Forward began in 2024.\nIn May 2016, KRQE rode along on one of the van’s mornings. Thomas Trusley, 68, said he had been a shop mechanic until a layoff left him homeless a year and a half earlier. His first goal was permanent work. With that day’s pay, he planned to buy shaving gear and cologne so he would look presentable. He had no jacket, but he had a clean shirt, and he called it his “Sunday dos.”",
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  "created_at": "2026-11-01T05:21:51Z",
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