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When most people would rather be inside a heated home, hands cupped around a warm beverage, a group of men and women brave the elements, sweeping South Philly streets and cleaning up vacant lots.
As the third section of the city to get this program, after years in North Philly and Frankford, these nonviolent criminal offenders from the Managing Director’s Office of Community Service Program are required to perform community service as part of their sentence. The project encompasses Front to 15th streets and Washington to Oregon avenues, 1st District Councilman Frank DiCicco announced at a news conference late last month.
"Streets down here just aren’t maintained the way they used to be," DiCicco said. "This is just an opportunity for us to do some general maintenance. It doesn’t cost us any money because these people were found guilty of summary offenses — not violent crimes. It’s part of their community service. It’s a benefit putting these people to work for the betterment of our communities."
Graffiti and drunken driving are some of the offenses for which the offenders have received community service, Community Service Program supervisor and South Philly resident Joe Messina said. An involved boss, Messina isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty to beautify his neighborhood, helping in the cleanup while overseeing the workers from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tuesday to Saturday.
"I was thrilled," Messina said about learning the program was coming south. "I’m right here, born and raised. I get to clean up my area. It’s a blessing. It’s about time South Philly got it."
The project was born out of a discussion in the fall between DiCicco and Deputy Managing Director Tom Conway about street maintenance.
Conway works closely with council members and oversees eight city programs, including the Anti-Graffiti Network, in which DiCicco is heavily involved, the deputy director said.
"I have friends and family in the area and one of the main things I’ve heard about South Philly is the litter," Conway said. Familiar with Conway’s involvement in the Community Life Improvement Program (CLIP), funded by Mayor John Street’s Neighborhood Transformation Initiative and a collaboration with the Managing Director’s Office designed to address quality-of-life issues, DiCicco accepted the deputy director’s offer to bring the program south.
Wearing city-issued, orange-reflector vests and heavy-duty gloves, the group arrives for the task at hand in 15 passenger vans that leave from the CLIP office in North Philly. The number of workers varies daily from three to 20, depending on the hours of community service a person is required to perform, Messina said.
With brooms and trash bags, the offenders work on beautifying the area. Leaf blowers, hedgers, rakes, weed whackers and shovels are on hand if needed, with Messina operating any electrical equipment.
In an effort to educate residents on keeping neighborhoods litter-free, workers also deliver Neighborhood Transformation Initiative pamphlets to homes listing the proper times to put out trash, rules for recycling and picking up after dogs, as well as phone numbers and agencies to call for graffiti removal, sewer-inlet cleaning, trash enforcement and abandoned autos.
"Our whole goal here is to clean up the streets and educate people on the laws, and if they don’t follow the laws, we will enforce the sanitation codes," Conway said.
In a few weeks, when the offenders are done cleaning the third and final grid of streets in the project, Streets Department Sweeps Enforcement employees will aggressively begin issuing code violations to residents who ignore trash and litter laws, such as putting garbage out earlier than 7 p.m. the night before pick-up, the deputy managing director said.
The first grid of the project — Front to 15th and Dickinson to Washington — began Jan. 24 and was completed Feb. 9 with 250 bags of trash collected, Conway said.
Currently under way, the second leg covers Dickinson to Snyder Avenue and Front to 15th. The third portion, which will commence after the second, is Snyder to Oregon and Front to 15th. Judging by how long the first grid took, Conway expects the final two to last a little more than two weeks each.
Living in the first grid, Steve Pakech of Second and Federal streets saw the group at work and thinks the program a terrific use of human resources. "To keep [streets] clean? Why not? I think it’s a great thing. They should bring them back," he said.
While menus and fliers still litter his area on a daily basis, Pakech has noticed the streets are tidier from the recent effort.
Others, like Fred Bohlander of the 700 block of Earp Street, haven’t noticed a change but still are impressed with the program. "It’s a great idea. If they make an offense against the community, they can pay it back by cleaning up the community. Who likes trash?" Bohlander said.
Based on positive community response, DiCicco wants to expand the program to other parts of his district. "I think this is a good use of [offenders’] time. It’s not only providing a service to the community at no cost, but maybe it inspires these people not to commit these crimes in the future," he said.
Messina believes the program is helping offenders stay on the right track. "They don’t want to come back, especially when it’s cold and they’re in a nasty alley," he said. "They want to do their time and they don’t want to come back. They want to walk a straight line."
