Clean slate

For a work crew of homeless people from Brockton, antigraffiti effort is a chance to boost pride and skills

B ROCKTON - Freddy Calderon really didn't have much of a choice about how he spent the day, but he didn't mind. His assigned task - remove a year's worth of graffiti from the outside wall of the Shivam Variety convenience store - had its own rewards.

"The way I see it, I'm doing my part," said Calderon, whose 37 years have brought him from selling crack on the street, to jail, to the convenience store with a bucket of fresh paint.

"When you see it with all the graffiti off, you feel good inside, because you know you've done something."

Calderon, who is homeless, was doing something not just for the neighborhood, but for himself.

He is one of more than 20 homeless people from Brockton participating in a Work Express program that, at the moment, is taking aim at the city's graffiti taggers. In the process, Calderon and his co-workers are gaining valuable skills and community pride.

This work crew is nothing like chain gangs of the past; nor is it, like earlier programs, limited to cleaning up businesses that are willing to participate in a charitable cause. Rather, it is part of a broader approach that includes education and job training, as it takes aim at two of Brockton's growing ailments: chronic homelessness and vandalism by graffiti.

Work Express, run by the Father Bills & MainSpring homeless shelter, has a contract with the Police Department to remove the graffiti from buildings and sidewalks. The effort is funded in part by a $650,000 state grant to help combat gang violence.

Graffiti has become a significant problem in Brockton. On one recent evening, taggers covered a police mobile command unit. Police have seen gang members use their tagging to spread messages or threats or to claim turf. In other cases, it may be simple vandalism. Nonetheless, it's an eyesore for residents and a city trying to escape its gritty image.

"This is graffiti that is so negative to the community, and property owners," Police Chief William Conlon said. Imagine the plight of a business owner, he said, whose walls are tagged regularly - making patrons uncomfortable, possibly even afraid, to go there. In one case, a local florist was hit twice within one week.

At Shivam Variety, manager Bobby Patel said he has tried to clean up the wall, only to see the graffiti painted again the next morning.

"People don't come inside, thinking the store is bad," he said. "I'm trying to clean it up, because it's not good for the business, it's not good for customers . . . it's not good for the city."

Tom Washington, the program coordinator from Father Bills & MainSpring, said that the graffiti contract has given the people in the Work Express program a job they can appreciate.

Workers leave the shelter in the morning with shirts labeled "Brockton - City of Champions - Work Express" and head to different sites. One recent morning, after painting over the graffiti on the wall of Shivam Variety at Dover and Main streets, they moved up a block to Warren Avenue. There they used a solution called Taginator to remove tagging on the wall of a business and on a sidewalk. Someone had left a tag that read, "R.I.P. Derrick Wilson," in reference to a 26-year-old who was shot and killed on the street a year ago.

The job can seem never ending, Washington said, as one tag can go up just as quickly as one is covered. But, he said, "If they come back and do it again, we'll do it again, because we're stronger than they are."

The Work Express participants are people who were once chronically homeless, and sought emergency help at the shelter on Main Street. Some had drug or alcohol problems. Others have mental illnesses. But all have proven that they want to improve themselves, Washington said. If not, they wouldn't be in the program.

Workers receive a $120 stipend every two weeks for what amounts to a full-time commitment, once the education and job training programs are included. Such programs have been encouraged under the city's recently released 10-Year Plan to End Homelessness as a way of teaching people social and life skills to keep them off the streets.

"These are guys who are coming into the shelter, and we're trying to get them back into the mainstream of life," Washington said. "This is not a job. This is a program that teaches you how to get skills."

Participants include Calderon and John Cipriano, who says he came here 30 years ago and became a union painter before he abused alcohol and drugs. He lived on the street and in abandoned homes. It was only six months ago, at age 49, that he sought help from the shelter.

"It was the most beautiful decision I've ever made in my life," he said, with a strong accent that reveals his Cape Verdean roots.

He never thought he'd be painting over graffiti on random walls throughout the city. But he enjoys it. He just enjoys working, he said. And he's tired of seeing the vandalism, done by taggers who think it is art.

"Look at that; that don't look nice, man," he said, motioning toward a bit of the graffiti he was removing.

He was not the only one who appreciated the effort.

Nearby, Mike Alden, a homeowner on Dover Street, watched approvingly. He did not know the two workers were homeless men. All he knew was that the view from his front door was improving as they worked.

"It was an eyesore," he said of the disappearing graffiti. "It looks pretty good right now."

Milton J. Valencia can be reached at valencia@globe.com.