Hard Work and Other Perks : Mayor Calls Conservation Corps a Model for National Service

Jaime Gonzalez, looking strait-laced and official in his blue uniform, moves down the boulevard sweeping up candy wrappers, papers cups and cigarette butts, keeping the sidewalks clean for customers of the trendy restaurants and shops in downtown Long Beach.

Tall, slender and 21, Gonzalez used to hang out with a gang. On his hand is a tiny tattoo he acquired during a jail stay.

“This is probably the longest I’ve held down a job,” said Gonzalez, who started last November. “I got tired of being on the streets, tired of being in jail.”

Gonzalez is a member of the Long Beach Conservation Corps, a nonprofit organization that offers a one-year program of hard work and minimum wages to young adults who would have trouble finding a job elsewhere. Many of the corps members are high school dropouts. Some ran with gangs or tagging crews. Some have had run-ins with the law.

Now in its fourth year, the corps has grown from 15 workers in 1989 to more than 50, and there are hopes for further expansion.

While in Washington last month, Mayor Ernie Kell submitted a proposal to the Clinton Administration to expand the corps to 500. The proposal is pending.

Kell figures the corps would fit in perfectly with the national service program that President Clinton has proposed to combat unemployment and urban blight.

The Long Beach Conservation Corps employs 53 young adults--24 Latinos, 16 African-Americans, eight Anglos, four Asians and an American Indian. Six are women.

The corps’ members do “rough, messy, smelly work,” as one official put it.

They sweep the sidewalks, clip the shrubs and weed planters downtown and along 2nd Street in Belmont Shore. They paint over graffiti and plant trees. They use nets to fish garbage out of the harbor and pick up refuse and prune plants along freeways.

The corps operates on about $1.5 million a year, including contracts with the city and Southern California Edison Co. and a grant of nearly $600,000 from the state Department of Conservation.

The corps also has a recycling program that collects bottles, cans and paper from 75 locations, ranging from City Hall to businesses in Belmont Shore.

Most corps members earn $4.35 an hour. More experienced crew leaders can earn as much as $6 an hour. And they learn basic job skills.

“It teaches them that you need to go to work every day, be on time and work hard wherever you go,” Executive Director Mike Bassett said. “That will provide opportunities for them.”

The corps drums discipline into its members. At 7:15 a.m., the day begins with exercise.

Repeated tardiness, or a violation of other corps rules, might be punished with a day’s suspension without pay or even dismissal. As a result, about 15% of the 200 who have joined the corps since 1989 have dropped out or been fired for reasons ranging from insubordination to drug use, officials said.

Armando Presa, who leads a crew that picks up bottles and other recyclables, said he was sent home twice for arriving at work late. Presa initially considered quitting because of the strictness and the hard work, but he stayed after some heart-to-heart talks with his supervisor.

“They said, ‘Worry about your life; worry about your future,’ ” said Presa, 26.

Education is stressed as well. Corps members are required to participate in basic skills classes taught by corps staff members or be enrolled in adult school or college.

Education Director Heather J. Long tries to get corps members to think seriously about the future. On a recent morning, Long asked corps members to fill out questionnaires about their goals.

“I don’t have no goals,” quipped one member. “My goal is to be . . . Tony Montana,” joked another, referring to the drug lord in the 1983 film “Scarface.”

“For some of our corps members, just coming to work and staying out of trouble is a goal,” Long said.

Gonzalez, the downtown sidewalk sweeper, wants to go to trade school to be a plumber.

After dropping out of Wilson High School in the 10th grade--”School was always hard for me”--Gonzalez landed odd jobs but was unable to hold them. He drew comfort from his friends, many of whom were gang members and made money dealing drugs. Gonzalez, who has a 4-year-old son, said he recently served time in jail for possession of PCP.

Now he says he shuns the street life and finds strength in his fellow corps members. He is grateful for the Conservation Corps, even though the pay is low, the work is hard and supervisors can be harsh at times.

“We’re learning responsibility,” Gonzalez said. “We’re old enough, but we’re like kids. We’re not used to working so much. A lot of us come in with attitudes.”

The corps’ clients say they are happy with the work.

“We’ve seen a tremendous improvement in the overall look of the downtown area,” said Manny Jones, executive director of the Downtown Long Beach Associates, a 1,200-member business association that is paying the corps $5,000 this year. “We’re virtually graffiti-free and our sidewalks are clean.”

Despite good reviews, some corps members have a hard time finding work once they graduate from the program.

Companies that contract for corps services seldom hire the workers when they finish the program.

“That’s our biggest bridge to cross,” Long said. “Our wish is that more private industry and public agencies would employ our members.”

Corps officials have not closely tracked those who have passed through the program. But of the 15 members who graduated last February, three secured permanent jobs with the city of Long Beach, two have been hired for a second year of service with the corps, one is an intern at a local manufacturing company, three are full-time students and six are unemployed, Long said.

Louie Barragan, a 20-year-old recent graduate still looking for work, has applied at a Cerritos electronics firm, a Signal Hill warehouse and a Long Beach hotel.

“Hopefully I’ll get a job,” said Barragan, who lives with his girlfriend at his parents’ home. “I have a baby on the way. It’s hard without a job.”