Thanks to the teenager Kevin Barber, who lives in the city of San Diego, California, homeless people were able to feel themselves necessary and useful to society. The young man suggested engaging them in city improvement work.
Kevin Barber Initiative
In one of the films, the young man saw a story about a charity working in the city of Albuquerque, New Mexico. She is engaged in attracting homeless residents to cleaning city streets, thereby providing them with the opportunity to earn a little money. Kevin decided to use their experience in his own city. Indeed, according to statistics, San Diego ranks fourth in the country in terms of the number of homeless people.
The first to support Kevin was his mother. She works as an ambulance doctor and is often confronted with a homeless population. According to Carolyn Barber, these people are deprived of the most basic conditions for a normal life.
Mother and son decided to turn to the city leadership to be allowed to launch a special program for the socialization of the dysfunctional part of the urban population.
Program
The program proposed by Kevin is quite simple. It includes two main points.
- On certain days of the week, the van travels around the city, gathering homeless people who are interested in the opportunity to work. They will be engaged in collecting garbage, cleaning streets, weeding weeds, and other simple work.
- At the end of the working day, homeless residents of San Diego will be paid a cash reward. They can also get temporary shelter in tent towns specially equipped for people who do not have their own homes.
Such a program also gives homeless people the opportunity to receive the necessary social services. In addition, their work is a great help for the urban economy. It turns out that the idea of an ordinary teenager was able to give these people confidence in the future.
City support
City officials supported the initiative of Kevin Barber and his mother. According to Scott Sherman, a member of the city council, the homeless population, taking part in clean-up work in the city, greatly eases the burden on the San Diego Sanitary Department.
In addition, people who are away from city life now have the opportunity to make their city cleaner and more comfortable with their own hands.
As the experience of young Kevin Barber shows, even if you are too young, this will not prevent you from trying to change something in the society in which you live.