Hospitality Hub assists folks in getting off streets, back on their feet [The Commercial Appeal, Memphis, Tenn.]

May 27--Isiah Servance, 46, came here in December seeking construction work after he lost his lawn-service job in Charleston, S.C. After weeks of searching, he ended up eating at a church soup kitchen and sleeping behind a building on a bitterly cold night wrapped in a blanket he found on the street.

But Servance is lucky. After two nights on the street, he found a place to stay and later a job through a new service that finds jobs for the homeless. Since March, he has worked for the Memphis Cook Convention Center setting up chairs and tables for meetings and conventions. It pays just slightly more than minimum wage, but it's a foothold.

The job came through Hospitality Hub, a nonprofit organization founded three years ago by The Downtown Church Association. The churches, overwhelmed with pleas for help from transients and the homeless, created the small suite of offices at 146 Jefferson with a cheery name that has become the first stop for many folks desperately in trouble.

Folks who come there may have a drug or alcohol problem or suffer mental illness or be victims of domestic violence, said Beatrice Kemmons, executive director. Many, like Servance, have simply lost jobs. They may be on the streets or in emergency shelters or nearing the end of transitional housing assistance.

They are seldom the panhandlers seen

Downtown and in Midtown, she said, many of whom have a place to stay, but work the streets to feed addictions.

Last year the agency aided more than 900 people and has helped 400 more so far this year, said Kemmons.

Among them is Madelene Lundy, 46, who had worked as a housekeeper, a waitress, a lab technician and in a warehouse before her addiction to crack cocaine caught up with her. She lost her job, had to tap relatives for food, and ended up living hand to mouth in a manner of which she wasn't proud. She reached out for help when, "I was not liking nothin' about me," she said. "Like I was a walking dead person."

Hospitality Hub prides itself on treating people respectfully. Folks get coffee, tea and magazines, a clergyman usually greets them, and they are given one-on-one counseling with a trained volunteer. The agency has two full-time staffers and one part-time director of a drug and alcohol counseling program. It tries to keep the homeless person with the same counselor.

Usually the first step is to help people get birth certificates and photo ID, required for everything from getting into shelters to getting a job. Then it helps people link to emergency shelters, drug and alcohol treatment, mental health centers, veterans and disability benefits and other resources. It has a little money to help people, perhaps trying to reach family or a job, purchase bus tickets. It provides access to computers and phones for local and long-distance calls, a locker for three months and a mailing address.

Some of the services, such as establishing ID, are hard to find elsewhere in the city, said Kemmons, who previously worked as a senior director for the Downtown Memphis Ministry, which operated the former Calvary Street Ministry Drop-In Center.

In April, the agency added a once-a-month legal clinic provided by Baker Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz, in which lawyers address issues, from DUIs to child support, that may be holding homeless people back.

The jobs program, begun in January, gives participants a list of jobs to check on and requires them to document their search for two weeks. If they don't find work, Hospitality Hub will help them create resumes.

Associate director David Figiel paves the way on job interviews by talking to companies with whom the Hub has relationships, introducing the applicant and explaining his or her background. If the interview doesn't go well, he finds out what the applicant can do to make a better impression.

So far, the Hub has placed 13 people, all of whom worked successfully except for one, who worked for three weeks, then showed up drunk. He has not returned to the agency.

Participating employers include Memphis Cook Convention Center, Amnesty Professional Service, a janitorial and lawn care company, and ServiceMaster Facilities Maintenance. More are needed.

"We try not to just employ people, but to train them so they can keep moving up, either at Cook or another place," said Pierre Landaiche, general manager of the convention center, and a board member of Hospitality Hub. "Any community owes it to itself to try to help these folks get off the street and lead productive lives, because they don't want to be there."

Servance, who served in communications in the Air Force and has a certificate in electrical work from a community college, spent part of his time on the streets sleeping in a chair in crowded tents set up Downtown to get the homeless out of the cold. He was later given shelter by Youth United with Senior Citizens, a nonprofit group, where he lives now and does odd jobs and cleanup work.

Lundy found her way to Grace House, a rehabilitation home for women, which helped her face what was going on inside. Hospitality Hub helped her find work cleaning offices with ServiceMaster. Lundy, a stylishly dressed woman with long, polished nails, has been drug free for six months. "You learn to believe you are somebody again," she said.

Servance would like to run an insurance business one day, a field in which he once worked.

Lundy wants to train as a nurses' assistant and perhaps eventually become a social worker "helping people just like myself," she said.

Lundy fights back tears when she remembers how she once lived, but says that's OK. "You have to keep the memories green," she said. "They keep you from going back."

-- Barbara Bradley: 529-2370

More information

Hospitality Hub, at 146 Jefferson, helps the homeless by linking them to resources and providing services that lately include helping them find jobs. It is open Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 1 to 4 p.m. Phone 522-1808

"Any community owes it to itself to try to help these folks get off the street and lead productive lives, because they don't want to be there."

Pierre Landaiche

Board member, Hospitality Hub

To see more of The Commercial Appeal or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.commercialappeal.com.

Copyright (c) 2010, The Commercial Appeal, Memphis, Tenn.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.