IN THIS POST

It’s quiet at 6AM in Los Angeles’s Chinatown, apart from a huddle of work vans parked outside of the Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO). As the sun rises, dozens of transitional employees come from near and far to don hard hats, pile into work vans, and remove litter from public roadways under the Southern California sun.

Thousands of Angelenos drive past Back 2 Work (B2W) crews every day, without even registering those bobbing orange hard hats on the side of the road. And until I started working with the program, I was one of the uninformed!

Recently, I was privileged to tag along with one of the nearly 100 Back 2 Work crews operating across 39 counties in California. Back 2 Work is an innovative public/private partnership that subsidizes work for individuals employed through employment social enterprises (ESEs). The program is administered by the Butte County Office of Education. Many of the B2W crewmembers are justice impacted or have experienced homelessness. An impressive 72% of program graduates are successfully placed in long-term employment, education, or further programming.

When I arrived at the crew launch, bleary-eyed and under-caffeinated, I was met by a grinning group of crew supervisors — most of whom are former B2W participants. If there is a group of workers more cheerful to be up before the sun to perform manual labor, I’d like to meet them! Site supervisors take deep pride in their work and the investment they make every day into the participants on their crews.

As the teams deployed across the city, I followed one of the vans out to a Caltrans yard in Hollywood. Caltrans yards are little pockets of land tucked in the nooks and crannies of land around the freeway; blink and you’ll miss them. That’s where I met Robert, the Caltrans maintenance supervisor who greets perfect strangers with a smile and a hug.

“We cannot get it done without them,” Robert said, as he gestured toward the CEO work van. “There is always more work to do.” And it’s true. The B2W model is a shining example of mutually beneficial public investment into ESEs. It is far more efficient for Caltrans to outsource a portion of their roadway cleanup work to ESEs than to fully staff this project with full-time employees. Last year, B2W crews removed enough litter to fill 89 Olympic-sized pools to the brim.

For the nearly 1000 B2W participants who have graduated the program, the program represents far more than a temporary gig. Participants who earn income through B2W are qualified for food assistance and medical care, and the program provides career coaching and life skills development. This kind of support helps participants make progress on the path to economic power.

What could it look like if more jurisdictions opted in to this model of public investment into untapped talent? What opportunities in your state, city, or neighborhood are waiting to be unlocked? B2W started as an idea and has grown into a shining example of what’s possible when government and ESEs work together to reach a common goal.

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