Praise the Lord and Pass the Application
“You need to talk to God first,” Jayne Jackson, ERC’s executive director, told the dozen people attending the orientation. She encouraged them, including Brown, who’d been raised Catholic, to attend Saint Sabina Church nearby.
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The idea for ERC began with Pfleger, who’s best known for his protests against ghetto billboards advertising cigarettes and alcohol, stores that sell drug paraphernalia and liquor to minors, and Jerry Springer. He takes credit for forcing Channel 32 to edit out fights on Jerry Springer, and he’s behind the move in the City Council to prosecute guests who get into brawls on the show.
After two decades at Saint Sabina, Pfleger has made finding and creating work for people his parish’s number one priority. “It’s one thing for us to talk about homelessness, crime, or gangs, but to correct those ills we must have jobs,” he says. Last summer he persuaded his parish council to come up with $45,000 to start ERC. Terry Peterson, 17th Ward alderman and onetime executive assistant to Mayor Daley, got the city to contribute $100,000.
Clients’ sins are addressed at ERC as well. Job seekers with drinking or drug habits are directed to rehab programs. People with felony convictions are advised to be open about their record with prospective employers, since a background check would undoubtedly unearth convictions anyway.
The city’s funding of ERC came through the Mayor’s Office of Workforce Development, which also runs five “one-stop career centers,” job-search offices that are jointly funded by the city, the city colleges, and the Illinois Department of Employment Security. MOWD commissioner Jackie Edens says the city frequently cooperates with churches in delivering services, pointing to a long-standing involvement in church-run homeless shelters, but she says the partnership with ERC is a first. She thinks it’s a good idea. “What we’re looking for is working with anchors across the city, and Saint Sabina is that. A church or a community group can catalyze the movement in a neighborhood.”
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Dan Machnik.
