From lost to found
Lives are rebuilt in Central City Concern's Clean Start Program
This is the third and final installment of a Northwest Examiner series Holders of Hope recognizing frontline workers helping people on the streets get healthy and housed. It is inglorious work. But meaning and purpose are often found at the intersection of hope and despair.
Laura Brown was in her early 40s and ready to throw it all away.
It was 2010 and she had come through drug treatment, gotten her son back in her life and was working on being Grandma to his young son. But the only job she could get with felonies on her record was pushing a barrel for Central City Concern’s Clean and Safe Program.
She was up before dawn, in all manner of weather, picking up spent needles, feces and garbage on the streets of downtown Portland as part of this program funded by the Portland Metropolitan Chamber to get after the messes that accompany chronic homelessness.
On a cold rainy morning, sweeping up cigarette butts around the Pioneer Courthouse, all she could think about was cashing her next paycheck and getting high.
Staying the course
Focused on her broom that morning, Brown didn’t see the woman until she heard her steps slow and looked up.
The woman was close to Brown’s age. Smartly dressed. Hurrying to work. But she looked Brown in the eyes.
“Thank you,” she said.
The act of kindness was fleeting but powerful. For the first time in forever, Brown felt seen. And it changed her.
She stayed clean and kept pushing the barrel. Showed up every day. Then she got asked to train others. She kept moving up the ranks. She became a supervisor, then assistant manager and then business manager.
Along the way, she also made changes.
The work culture in the Central City Concern garage at Southwest 15th and Alder was pretty much guys and a few gals keeping to themselves. So when Brown moved into a supervisor office, she installed a coffee maker, filled a candy dish and left her door open.
Soon she was greeting crew members, hearing their stories, building relationships one paper cup of coffee at a time.
Taking a leap
Justin Wnuck was living on his dealer’s property outside Medford, years into a monster IV heroin habit, when a psychosis took hold that he could not shake.
Careening on foot along country roads, ducking behind bushes, he was certain a guy in a red truck with an AK-47 was coming to get him. Convinced that a helicopter overhead had its sites trained on him. Imagined the 5 o’clock news with everyone he had ever known telling the reporter that this wasn’t the guy they knew.
So when he reached the bridge, he resolved to end it all. In a moment of clarity, he decided against traumatizing a driver by jumping in front of their car. Instead, he turned and leaped off the bridge into the rushing Rogue River.
He hit the water. Hard. And he realized: he was not dead.
In fact, his life had just begun.
An ambulance ride led to 72 hours in the psych ward and then to an opportunity: a local safe house where he could detox. Thinking more clearly then, he started calling treatment programs. He wanted out of the Rogue Valley. He chose Coda in Gresham, using his Oregon Health Plan coverage. But getting a job after getting clean was another matter.
All he could land were temp jobs until he found the janitor trainee position at Central City Concern, pushing the barrel downtown. It was March 2021. He was 37 years old.
“I was very relieved that I would get consistent hours. At the same time, I’m 37 and I’m out here cleaning up feces. Where did my life go?” Wnuck said. “But to help clean up the city and do a service, it gave me a sense of relief and purpose. It allowed me to pay my rent and be self-sufficient for the first time in my life.”
Paying it forward
Laura Brown saw something in Justin Wnuck early on.
Not only was Wnuck always at work, always on time, she learned that he walked more than a mile to the bus to make his Sunday morning shift. He was eager and open, thorough and focused.
When Wnuck had to go back to Jackson County to testify against his dealer for murdering his own wife and stepdaughter, Central City Concern rallied around him. Brown talked with Wnuck by phone every day he was down there. When Wnuck rebuilt his relationship with his son, now 14, she was there to cheer him on.
Brown helped promote Wnuck up the line–from pushing the barrel to training others to riding the tricycles equipped with pressure washers to becoming the program’s first dispatcher as the program grew, changing its name to Clean Start and now accepting multiple contracts.
Now Wnuck supervises the crew on the new contract with the city’s Portland Environmental Management office. Fifteen new positions. Fifteen more people with a chance at a clean start. With this contract, the crews are now cleaning in the Pearl and the Stadium neighborhoods.
He leads like his mentor, Laura Brown.
“I’m not the type who will get upset or raise my voice–would rather talk things out,” Wnuck says. “I like to be as present as I can for my team, just try to be there for them in whatever capacity they need me to be.”
Pausing in gratitude
At 6:45 a.m. on a drizzly Friday, a passel of beefy guys and one gal settle into folding chairs in one corner of the Central City Concern Alder Street Garage. Wnuck and Brown stand up front.
“Had a supervisors meeting yesterday,” Wnuck starts out. “Everyone’s really happy with your work, so I appreciate that.”
He reviews a few route changes and areas that the city wants them to focus on more. Then he looks around at the crew.
“So, does anyone want to say what they’re grateful for?”
A close-shaved guy with a linebacker build raises his hand.
“I’m grateful for my recovery,” Kevin Lytsell says. “I’ve got 22 months today.”
“Twenty-two today?” Wnuck says. “Wow. That’s great.”
The crew applauds.
“Congratulations,” Brown says.
Learn more about the Central City Concern Clean Start Program: https://centralcityconcern.org/jobs-location/clean-start/
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Thank you, Paul.
Thank you, Marilyn. Lived experience is such a powerful reservoir of solutions.