Scott Adkins walks the shores of Audrey McCall Beach as he has for many months picking up trash. He said he finds “All sorts of stuff… shoes, clothing, jewelry lots of broken glass and cigarette butts.”
Scott has been houseless for the last two years. He’s found a sense of purpose in part by keeping the beach clean. “If this stops somebody from coming down here it would break my heart,” he said.
He’s a different face of the houseless community, working now in coordination with Ground Score, a non-profit organizing groups of can and bottle collectors, dumpster divers and other low-
income individuals who reuse and recycle as a means of survival. The group now pays Scott $15 an hour to clean up public spaces inundated with trash.
“The fact is, I don’t leave anything,” Scott explained. “I pick up everything, everywhere I go. It’s just something that I do. I don’t like our city trashy. I’m a member of the city and the community and my name is Scott and I’m going to be here and I’m grateful.”
Barbie Weber of Ground Score said employing homeless people to pick up the city is good for everybody and it might well help eliminate negative stereotypes people associate with homelessness.
“We naturally pick up trash we don’t like to see a bunch of trash spread around and then we get blamed for it,” Barbie said. “So a lot of people in our community have already been doing what we’re talking about.”
It’s a new program working now to clean beaches and other public spaces and get paid in the process.
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