Janatorial program gives homeless men a chance

By Sarah Crump, Cleveland Plain Dealer
(reprinted from The Plain Dealer)

(Sept. 2007) What's the difference between a homeless man and a man with a place to live? A good enough job to pay the rent.

But if he has problems with drugs or alcohol or has been in trouble with the law, who's going to hire him?

Maybe someone who needs a well-trained janitor.

The 11 men seated around a table at Y-Haven, a residential recovery program for homeless men, hope that a new class will help them find cleaning jobs. They shoot back the facts they've learned to Mike Shomo, who drills them on how many coats of finisher and sealer it takes to protect well-trafficked linoleum -- 15.

"The more coats, the what," coaches Shomo, a Mr. Clean look-alike with shorn head and broad physique. "The higher the shine," his class finishes.

Shomo, an enthusiastic former hospital-cleaning supervisor, is an evangelist of spotlessness. According to the inch-thick manual about housekeeping techniques that Shomo wrote for his Y-Haven classes, cleaning might be a dirty job, but it's a high calling. Janitors get their name from Janus, the Roman god of the entrances and exits of sunrise and sunset.

The profession also pays. Starting housekeepers make about $7.50 an hour, but floor techs with the type of training Y-Haven provides can make as much as $15 an hour, says Shomo, who once had his own cleaning business.

This is the second batch of Y-Haven men he has guided through damp mopping and waste removal at the inner-city Cleveland program. Now there is a waiting list among residents for the 10-week classes, which is financed by a three-year, $50,000-a-year gift from KeyBank and $40,000 from Cuyahoga County.

Three men from the first class are now working at area YMCAs, which has propelled sign-ups for daily five-hour lessons that include wood-floor stripping, carpet cleaning, high-pressure surface washing and a 14-step toilet bowl-cleaning procedure.

Half the class is lecture, and half is hands-on with state-of-the-art microfiber mops and lightweight floor buffers. The hallways glimmer at Y-Haven, located in the Carl B. Stokes Social Service Mall at 6001 Woodland Ave.

"Miss Ada," as the students address instructor Ada Worley, steps in to show how to wash a wall in seconds with vigorous sweeps of a slender mop. There are weekly tests and a final exam. In December, U.S. Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones spoke at the graduation of the first class of janitors.

The janitor program needs commercial cleaning contracts to become self-supporting, said Chip Joseph, Y-Haven executive director. He has bought a van to carry the "Green Team," to and from jobs that pay minimum wage. The team is named for the environmentally safe products it uses.

The Green Team is also a clean team in more than just scouring power. Y-Haven residents can't apply for the janitor course until they have completed four months of intensive substance-abuse and mental-health therapy. By the time they finish classes, students have been sober more than six months. While at Y-Haven, where they can stay up to two years, men are required to attend sobriety meetings at least five times a week.

And if you think there isn't much to learn about cleaning, just watch guys like Dwight McKenzie while he takes a turn running a buffer in a hallway. It takes a lot of skill to maneuver the pricey machine over floors that would cost thousands to replace if ruined.

"Cleaning is an art," said Shomo.

For McKenzie, 53, the chance to clean is a dream job. He lived in his car before finding Y-Haven.

"I went all the way to the bottom until I got tired of living the way I was living," said McKenzie, a grandfather and a former heroin and crack cocaine user. "This has given me a new foundation, a start over.

"I'm in it to win."