SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA CAREERS / THE PATCHWORK OFFICE : Agencies Help Homeless Find a New Life in the Workplace

Two years ago, Glenn Lowery was living in a box near the Midnight Mission on Skid Row, commuting by bus each day to his minimum-wage job in an El Segundo cafeteria.

Today, Lowery maintains two part-time jobs, one in the Los Angeles Convention Center cafeteria and the other as a management trainee for a line of beauty products, while he lives with his mother and saves for an apartment of his own.

Lowery, 28, who also spent three months in jail for narcotics possession, credits his turnaround to Chrysalis, a nonprofit Downtown homeless assistance agency housed in what used to be a Mexican restaurant.

“It provided me the resources to get motivated,” he said.

Chrysalis, which was founded in 1984, is one of several local agencies dedicated to helping the homeless prepare themselves for employment. Last year, it found full-time employment for more than 400 clients, and has found jobs for more than 1,500 since 1991, according to Executive Director Mara Manus.

The agency, with 13 paid staff members and 13 full-time volunteers, offers clients a permanent address for mail, telephones for making job contacts and a 24-hour voice mail service for callbacks. It also offers career counseling, an IBM computer lab and videotaped mock interviews, as well as haircuts, hygiene kits and a wide selection of donated business attire.

“This isn’t a handout or placement service,” Manus said. Chrysalis clients are required to make 20 job contacts a week and check in with counselors at least once during that time.

“Our motto is self-sufficiency through employment,” she said. “It’s a bit like tough love; we’re willing to make a commitment only to those who are willing to make a commitment to themselves.”

In Chrysalis’ comfortable lobby, which resembles a somewhat scaled-back college placement center, a handful of people browse the help-wanted ads, while others set up interviews at the nearby phone bank. Posted on the walls are dates of the next WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3 classes.

In an adjoining area, the center’s program for temporary employment, Labor Connection, finds day labor and clerical work for homeless who aren’t ready for permanent jobs. The program includes Streetworks, a successful Downtown street maintenance project that will soon expand to Santa Monica, where Chrysalis opened a second office last October.

On May 17, Chrysalis will co-sponsor a job fair with the Weingart Center, a homeless residential and treatment facility located nearby in the former El Rey Hotel on South San Pedro Street.

According to Paul Tepper, Weingart’s director of programs and services, more than 300 homeless are expected to attend the daylong event, which will be held at employer-run outdoor booths set up in Weingart’s outdoor plaza area.

“We’re hoping to eliminate employers’ apprehensions, and aid them in forming different opinions of the people who live here,” said Tepper, who has so far signed on Broadway department stores and expects more than 40 employers to participate.

Before the job fair, clients will write resumes, be coached in interviewing skills and even get fashion make-overs--including haircuts and new clothes--all of which are regularly offered through Weingart’s employment services unit, which placed 76 people in full-time positions last year.

In addition to a permanent address and voice mail for those actively seeking employment, Weingart’s program offers career counseling and job referrals, courses in remedial math and reading, and group workshops to cope with the social aspects of job transition.

On the Westside, the St. Joseph Center in Venice offers a six-week Food Service Job Training program to homeless and low-income people. The course offers basic training in cooking terminology, safety procedures and hands-on practice in St. Joseph’s Bread and Cafe.

Graduates leave knowing how to make bread, pasta, soup, a few simple sauces and at least one entree, and they frequently go to work at fast-food chains. St. Joseph Executive Director Rhonda Meister said about half the graduates find jobs. Hana Grill, a Chinese takeout outlet at the Westside Pavilion mall, offers six-week internships to St. Joseph clients.

“Our aim is to reinforce skills and work with realistic, achievable goals,” Meister said. “We want people to get their foot in the door somewhere and use it as a stepping stone. We don’t expect--or want our clients to expect--that they’ll be self-sufficient all at once.”

In most cases, long-term self-sufficiency means developing skills that will ultimately provide what Irv Rabb called “a ladder for success.”

Rabb is coordinator of the federally funded Job Training Partnership Act program at the Abe Freeman Occupational Center, one of several Downtown Los Angeles schools--including Goodwill’s truck driver program, the Metro Skills Center and East L.A. Skills Center--that offer JTPA programs for homeless and low-income clients.

Abe Freeman offers 10- to 30-week classes in computer applications, carpentry, auto mechanics and welding. Rabb said two students who recently completed the welding course now earn more than $10 an hour.

Each program boasts of its successes. Former Chrysalis client Elaine Bryant found her computer class confidence-building, even though she doesn’t use the skills in her current position as a case manager at the Santa Monica shelter. She recently moved out of a Downtown hotel into her own apartment in Venice.

A St. Joseph graduate, Robert White, has been a chef at St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica for the last four years. Another Chrysalis client, Billy Shaw, kicked a crack cocaine habit and is now doing odd jobs around the agency until he can find something more permanent in the hotel industry.

And Lowery, who recently used his newly acquired WordPerfect skills to put together a resume, said he hopes to break through employers’ reluctance to hire a formerly homeless person in transition.

“When people think of Downtown, they think of Skid Row and dirty people,” he said. “All I can say is give us a chance. Most of us want to make it, too.”