Homeless Minnesotans hired to clean Metro Transit light rail stations in St. Paul

With gray skies hinting at rain, more than a half-dozen people set out last Monday morning in St. Paul, wearing purple vests and donning trash buckets and pincher tools.

Most were homeless, or recently without shelter. They had instructions to clear out litter from several Green Line light rail stations and bus stops throughout the capital city.

They earn weekly paychecks working for the St. Paul nonprofit Listening House under a pilot program launched earlier this year called Work Now. At first, cleanup teams fanned out in St. Paul, picking up trash in sidewalks, skyways and parks, and shoveling snow during the winter.

Now, the program has been expanded to include picking up litter at Metro Transit Green Line stations in St. Paul, including the Robert Street, Capitol/Rice Street, Western Avenue, Dale Street, Victoria Street, Hamline Avenue and Snelling Avenue stations.

"It puts money in the pockets of people who need it and it helps make the city a little cleaner," said Molly Jalma, Listening House's executive director. "It's a very practical solution."

Crews also clean A Line arterial bus rapid transit stops at Snelling and University avenues and bus stops near Listening House's new headquarters at East 7th Street and Lafayette Road (formerly Red's Savoy Pizza).

For Metro Transit, the cleanup crews are part of a broader plan to make public transportation more welcoming, especially after ridership plunged during the pandemic. Cleaner stations, stops, buses and trains were incorporated into the agency's Safety and Security Action Plan, designed to make passengers feel safer as more people return to the office.

"Everyone who travels and works on our system deserves to have an experience that is consistently safe, clean and welcoming," Metro Transit General Manager Lesley Kandaras said.

The program is funded by a $750,000 grant from the federal American Rescue Plan Act, a $1.9 trillion stimulus package that was signed into law by President Joe Biden in 2021. Ramsey County and St. Paul coordinate the program and Listening House, a day shelter, runs it.

The cleaners make $20 an hour, with each shift lasting five hours Monday through Thursday. Metro Transit also gives Work Now employees a free transit pass with unlimited rides. About 80 people have been hired so far.

"If you're work ready, it means you're housing ready," St. Paul Deputy Mayor Jaime Tincher said.

Before cleaners are hired, they undergo a background check and Listening House staff help them secure needed identification, such as a birth certificate or a Social Security card, and other vital documents that may have gone missing over the years.

The background checks often help highlight and potentially remedy issues that could deter clients from renting or qualifying for housing. And a steady job, with references, also helps employees get other jobs. In some cases, the program has helped people get off public assistance, Jalma said.

"Work is a part of recovery; work can be healing," she added. "Work can be such a stabilizing force in someone's life."

Karie Andrews, who has been working in the Work Now program for four months, said the weekly paycheck helps pay her rent on her new apartment after stints of homelessness over the years. Andrews, 35, said it has been difficult securing employment because she has a felony on her record stemming from a domestic incident in her 20s.

"It's been hard for me to get a job, but I like this one because we move around a lot," she said, adding that transit passengers often thank the crews for their work and local businesses have handed out sandwiches in gratitude.

Jalma said the federal funding will run out by September 2025, and she's hopeful public and private entities will step up to keep it going. Listening House's costs to administer the program and pay Work Now workers amount to $45,000 a month.

Kandaras said public transit is a "community asset and and we strongly believe others should be invited to join us in this work."

Metro Transit has partnered with other community-based organizations to focus on transit issues, such as substance abuse and homelessness, through its Transit Service Intervention Project. A new partnership with the St. Paul Downtown Alliance will bring the agency's safety ambassadors to downtown stations beginning next year.

The partnership with Listening House "is one of the many ways we're working collaboratively with the communities we serve, and a clear illustration of our mission to not only connect people but to strengthen communities and improve lives," Kandaras said.

Larry Smith, a retired U.S. Army veteran, met his colleagues at Listening House before his shift began Monday morning. Smith, who lives in temporary housing at Union Gospel Mission in St. Paul, said the job "helps supplement my income and it's helping out the city and making it look better.

"We get a clean town," he said.