Street Outreach Workers Program Launched

As part of a mayoral initiative kicked off Monday, ​“Picasso” and Icon Omowale (pictured, left to right) will soon be hitting the streets, reaching out to 200 kids who the city has pegged as the source of ​“municipal havoc.”

The men work for the Street Outreach Workers program, a key part of the mayor’s youth initiative that was kicked off at a press conference Monday.

Their charm and obvious delight in being part of this hopeful initiative should not conceal the fact that both have done serious prison time for drugs, robbery, and firearms violations, if not all three, and both have also turned these lives around. Having such street ​“cred” as well as being models of transformation are exactly what all members of the team share, and a sine-qua-non, according to all participants, for its success.

Born a year and a half ago in the aftermath of discussions about an ultimately abandoned notion of a curfew to curb teen violence, the program is being administered by the New Haven Family Alliance (NHFA), where six out of eight members of the team gathered with the mayor, Chief of Police Ortiz, Barbara Tinney, NHFA’s executive director, and numerous alders and city officials.

“A juxtaposition — ” Mayor John DeStefano began his remarks, ​“We just graduated nearly one thousand great New Haven kids from high school. And they’re doing great. The 5 percent that are causing the municipal havoc are the kids the Street Outreach Workers Program is going to address.

“Let’s look at the facts. They’re primarily African-American, many are already in post-parole situations, and many are very young and have access to guns. In our city there are maybe 200 people like this, disconnected from resources, kids no one is talking to. These workers are going to reach them and bring them in touch with resources. We’re going to keep on doing all the other things that are important,” he went on , ​“increasing beat patrols, recruiting for more cops, and strengthening mid-level management in the NHPD. The measure of success of this program will be to identify and help those kids, in the five or ten per cent who are at risk of hurting themselves and others before it happens.”

The NHFA won the contract according to the mayor in response to an RFP, a public bidding process. Why the NHFA? Because in part, according to Barbara Tinney (shown here with Street Outreach Worker supervisor Tyrone Weston), whose 16-year-old organization is the home of the Male Involvement Network, a focal point for the Brotherhood Summit, and many other outreach efforts, ​“We already know many of these families.

“They have the same needs of the 95 percent the mayor referred to. Only they are profoundly disconnected. They are, alas, the ​‘throwaway kids’ that no one is reaching or helping. But these workers are going to show them there are other choices they can make, and put them in touch with resources so they do.”

Having those resources available is apparently one of the reasons the budget of the program has grown from the $400,000, originally discussed in aldermanic negotiations, to $613,000. Bitsie Clark, the downtown alderwomen who assembled the $400,00 from private sources, which was an aldermanic imperative for passage — including United Way, Yale, New Alliance Foundation, Empower New Haven, The Greater New Haven Community Foundation, Casey Services, and others — was proud and delighted. The additional $200,000 was contributed by the state when the mayor and chief of police appealed to the governor.

The mayor said the fundraising was successful because everyone saw the need. Clark confirmed this. ​“In the aftermath of the curfew when I assembled potential donors, I didn’t ask them for money. I asked what they were doing for these kids the mayor has been talking about. On their own they all realized they were helping the 95 percent of New Haven kids with their programs. It dawned on them, especially Will Ginsberg at the foundation, that this outreach to the 5 percent was absolutely essential, but no one was doing it. Those kids were being left to the police and the city to cope with.”

Well, no longer. When this street outreach worker, 30-year-old New Haven native Anthony Ward (shown here seated with the mayor) goes out into Newhalville or Kensington-Dwight, he’s determined to be a friend, a model, a father figure, and connector to other services, whatever’s needed. ​“I’m going to be available twenty-four-seven, I’m going to be a hugger with everyone on my caseload. Believe me I know. I used to have the mindset of some of these kids. But I know that ​‘you can’t beat the streets.’ You’ll up incarcerated, or in heaven. I’d rather take these kids to a show, to a ball game, get to know them, get them a job, show they can go to college.”

That just might be possible because of the additional funds. According to Che Dawson, whom the mayor referred a reporter to as to the disposition of the additional $200,000, ​“a lot is going to provide health benefits, which we had not figured in the beginning to be so costly. Then we wanted to make real jobs for the workers, so the hourly pay is up ten to fifteen per cent. Plus, when the workers connect with kids and offer child care or transportation or job training, or a chance to go to see a Broadway show or the Apollo, those resources will be there.”

According to Reverend Donald Morris (center), who is deeply involved already in the street tours of the Brotherhood Summit and other attempts to reach out to disconnected young men in the inner city, ​“an important part of the ​‘cred’ is that when you say you are going to deliver something, you do so. If you say you will do it and you don’t, the trust is gone. And no amount of love or compassion is going to replace not doing what you say you’re going to do. What’s also lacking is communication, and these workers will do that for us. There will be a lot of difference. It might not happen over night, because the problem didn’t develop overnight, but there will be positive change. There already is.”

Morris knows a lot of the men, and the reaching out is often close to home. Omowale, the young street outreach worker at the top of the story, is his nephew, who is 24 years old and was jailed for six years, beginning when he was eighteen, for drugs and other offenses. ​“I was one of the worst kids you could know,” he told a reporter. His own life turned around when his best friend was shot in the head and killed. He’s committed now to reaching out, and changing lives. ​“This job is absolutely perfect for me.”

Another key part of the program’s concept is that troubled kids see the workers as distinct from city hall and from the police department. ​“How were they going to ensure that and also not have their worked undermined by the pervasive don’t‑snitch attitude?” asked former alderwoman Shirley Ellis, now vice president of the board of the local chapter of the NAACP (shown here on left with Alderwoman Katrina Jones).

“All of us,” replied Tyrone Weston, the supervisor of the current six workers (two slots are still being filled), ​“have a past, and the kids on the street know it. They know we don’t run to the police. We don’t mind the police. We love the city and want to show the kids there is a different way to be, a different light to walk in That’s not how it works. Our job is to go out in the neighborhoods. And do that, and we will.”

In addition to Weston, Ward, and Omale, other street outreach workers’ cred includes that of Cousin Twiz, (not pictured), who has a local radio show and is well known in town. Picasso, like Ward, Weston, and others, have independently been involved in reaching out to kids. He believes current rap music has a terrible and under-appreciated negative influence on kids in the inner city. His cred is in part in his ongoing non profit business, CT Heavyweights, which brings kids to the studio and allows them to record songs, tunes with better values. He intends to build, in part, his caseload around this program.

The job will be intensive, according to Tinney and others, with rotating schedules beginning around 2:30 p.m. when school lets out. The workers will also be available to the young people they assemble on their caseloads, by neighborhood, 24/7. ​“That might be why we’re having a little trouble recruiting women,” she said. ​“We offered a position to a young Hispanic woman, but her husband said No. He was concerned it’s not a nine to five job.”

Identifying the at risk kids is starting immediately, as is training being provided by these young men from the Institute for the Study and Practice of Non-Violence, the Providence-based organization whose street outreach program there (and in Boston) is the model for New Haven’s. Ajay Benton, on the left, and Sal Monteiro have been workers in Providence’s program for five and two years respectively. In 2005 there were 22 homicides in Providence, in 2006 22, this year two.

Was the street outreach program in Providence really responsible for all that, and could we in New Haven look forward to similar results? ​“We play a big part,” said Benton. ​“We build relationships with kids who have no one taking care of them. They show up in court and no one’s there to advocate for them. So I do. They’re all crying out for help. I worked recently with a kid in a gang. We have gang issues lately in Providence. This kid was the shooter in the gang. Now he’s getting training in Job Corps, in something he’s excited about. It’s transformed him.”

“It’s very frustrating, but also very satisfying. Somebody commits a murder, it makes the newspaper. But five kids don’t, and it doesn’t make the paper. A girl who had been in real trouble turned her life around recently, and graduated from Hope High School. She sang a song at graduation and dedicated it to us. That was something.”

The Providence-based program began with three workers and now has thirteen.

Will New Haven’s team be as successful? The atmosphere at the launch was better than hopeful. Not only did Icon Omowale, the youngest, at 24, of the workers, think being a street outreach worker the perfect job for him (he used to run with ​“E.J.,” the seventeen-year-old currently in hiding from the police for the hit-and-run at Chatham and Maltby on Friday and says he always knew that he would sell a lot of drugs and maybe kill someone), but the entire street outreach worker team was, in Omowale’s view, perfect too. ​“This really is a dream team. Absolutely.”

According to Tinney, the workers are being assigned various neighborhoods and will be beginning to fan out and to develop their case loads immediately. Funding is in place thus far for one year. Anyone interested in learning more about the program or applying for available positions — in addition to streed cred you need a minimum of a high school diploma or GED — should call Street Outreach Worker supervisor Tyrone Weston at 786‑5970, extension 316.