What: A trash disposal and
street maintenance service that employs people in the social
services network
Who: Chris Martin of CleanScapes
Inc.
Where: Seattle
When: Started in 1997
chris martin lived in an area surrounded by missions, homeless
shelters and trash-filled alleys in the Pioneer Square section of
Seattle. It was there that he got the inspiration for his business.
Martin, 36, wanted to start a service that would not only help
clean up the area, but also employ the very people who needed jobs
the most: clients in Seattle's social services network.
"We try to hire employees [who] are what people might
describe as marginally employable people, people who might not
otherwise have a job," says Martin. "It's pretty
rewarding when you take someone who has been on the streets or in a
drug-treatment program and they [come] to work every day, clean,
drug-free, confident about their place in the world and confident
in their jobs."
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With $1,500 in start-up capital, Martin formed his business as a
for-profit enterprise. He based this decision on the advice of a
man who ran a Lutheran community center in the neighborhood.
"He said, 'You ought to be a for-profit company, because
when [your employees] go to apply for and work another job, it
would send a much stronger message,'" says Martin.
Armed with his good idea, Martin first had to sell it to local
private property owners in Seattle who expressed some interest in
his service. But Martin really lucked out when he contacted a
property owner who happened to own buildings on both sides of an
alley. He was the first to buy the CleanScapes service, and
additional clients soon followed suit. Today, CleanScapes has a
presence both in Seattle and San Francisco, with sales set to hit
$1.2 million this year.
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