A Dallas startup connects jobs with people traditionally overlooked in the job market.
DALLAS – If you take a close look at downtown Dallas, what do you see:
We can assume that people who live on the streets do not want to work.
But if we listen, we might learn that they do.
When Cody Merrill was living in California as a software designer, he began to listen.
“Every time I walked down the street I was amazed at how inappropriately society was dealing with homelessness,” he said.
“I just said something to myself – take courage and talk to them. Interact with people in very different circumstances. “
The conversations were predictable.
He says he kept hearing: “If you look like me, if you smell like me … nobody wants to hire you when you’re homeless.”
Empathy began to fuel Merrill’s entrepreneurship, and an idea for a software solution – a way to turn problems into opportunities – was born.
The SMU graduate moved back to Dallas to begin finding partners and funders.
Merrill knew it would be difficult to convince a private company to hire someone right out of jail or right out of jail.
And in his conversations with men and women on the street, he knew that they wanted and needed a paycheck straight away.
Service jobs came to mind.
“Community gardens need to be tended. Parks need cleaning. Trees have to be planted, ”he says.
So Merrill designed and launched Socialwyze, an app that connects work that needs to be done with people who need work.
Clerks at local homeless shelters, sober homes, and prison reintegration programs are now helping clients use the app to find a job.
“They know exactly who is ready to take advantage of a job opportunity, who can appreciate it, and who wants to take responsibility,” said Merrill.
Restorative Farms, an urban community garden next to a DART station in south Dallas, is one of the locations where workers can be found through Socialwyze.
“Socialwyze can bridge the gap between the undesirable and the wanted,” said Tyrone Day, manager of Restorative Farms.
Charles Spencer is a reliable Restorative Farms employee – he’s on site at least six days a week and often opens and closes the farm.
It’s a huge responsibility, but Spencer appreciates the opportunity after spending time in jail selling drugs.
“It feels good to be around a lot of people instead of being locked in,” said Spencer. “Work keeps me free.”
Spencer’s past could be seen as a problem, but Dallas-based developer and philanthropist Trammel Crow sees a possibility.
His Earth-X fund chose Socialwyze for its first entrepreneur-in-residence program.
Donations to the Earth X Fund pay the wages of people who find work through Socialwyze.
“Taking these people and giving them the job and then the pride they have and the digitality they gain is tangible,” said Crow.
Day knows how important it is to give people a first step towards a second chance.
“I was one of those wrongly convicted in Dallas. I also spent 26 years in prison, ”he said.
He will always choose to see opportunities rather than problems.
Merrill hopes other cities in America will too.
“We want to be able to scale this in every community. We want to be able to help [communities] Save money while solving critical employment, nutrition, housing, environmental and other issues, ”he said.
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https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/local/dallas-based-app-connects-homeless-job-seekers-with-work/287-b1cec237-bdc6-4696-bd0c-1bdee657c887
