Homeless Picking Up Trash

Sonora, CA – Some of Sonora’s homeless are helping to clean up property in the city. The group Give Someone A Chance (GSAC) has worked out an agreement with Waste Management, the city and some of the homeless to help clean up encampments. Here is how it works. Waste Management brings a dumpster to the homeless encampment and those living there or other homeless volunteers help to pick up the trash. Today, four homeless men helped kick off the effort by pitching in at the Whitt-Mill property on Hospital Road.

Sonora City Councilwoman Connie Williams says, “We wanted to see how well this went today. We’ll determine what went well and what didn’t. We’ll then move to another site. Once we clean up the city private property sites we hope to go to Tuolumne County.”

Williams says the whole idea came about after a homeless man approached Hazel Mitchell of the GSAC to do the cleanup. Mitchell and her husband were recently given the go ahead by Tuolumne County to put up a shelter on Eagle Drive. (Click here for an earlier story on the shelter).