Thursday 10th October 2024
This is a difficult post to start writing as there was such a lot to take in and think about, but also I can’t make the opening any better than they say it themselves on their website –
“At Better Futures Minnesota, we are more than a nonprofit providing a single service. We are a workforce development program working to build healthy communities for more Minnesotans by operating at the intersection of racial, social, economic, and environmental justice”
I met Alex Baldwin, The Waste Diversion Manager, at the Better Futures 17,000 sq ft depot in Minneapolis where they run their workforce programme and resale operation. Everything they take comes through this depot before being sorted for reuse or recycling. 95% of that is from their deconstruction contracts and just 5% from personal donation.
Currently, their main operation is being commissioned to deconstruct houses, salvage as much as they can for reuse and resell to encourage more sustainable housebuilding and renovation.
Underpinning all of this, and core to their mission, is to support men coming out of prison, offering employment and skills and a chance of a new life.
Services
The organisation offers a number of services - kerbside pickup of bulky items (via contract with the city of Bloomington where they get donation calls, screen and collect directly from the householder), appliance recycling, property maintenance (grass cutting) and a janitorial service. They service 2 small sites on household recycling centres too. Their main source of material and income now though is their deconstruction service. This was added on later as means to bring additional materials in but mostly to provide additional experience and skills for the men they work with.
Much like Furnish (blog on this here) they started by accepting donations but then turned to seeking out materials. Why wait around for something to come to you, when you could carve out exactly the situation you want that suits YOU?
Their warehouse is open to the public and offers just about everything house related – wood and tiles to appliances and furniture. Open Mon-Fri 7am 0 3pm its focussed on people with a project looking to source items at lower cost, or better grade wood than they can afford new for example.
Just before covid they created a makers space for people looking to use tools for a project or gain skills – just another way of stimulating the creative DIY market and give confidence to people to buy used and make themselves.
We spoke about premises and how it can affect a business model – they currently rent their space and interestingly they say this is why they keep their prices low, to help the throughput of items and generate a constant stream in income to pay the rent. They feel that other similar organisations they know who own their building, have the luxury of holding on to bigger items for longer at a higher price because they don’t have that overhead. I have a mixed view on that but it’s an interesting perspective. I think the low prices also has to do with their size as the other places they mention in that category are 100,000 sq ft.
60% of their income comes from their service contracts and sales, and 40% through grants.
Deconstruction
I got to visit one of their deconstruction sites which was nearing completion. In some cases, they are only involved in stripping out appliances and other features, but in this case, they were responsible for taking down the whole house too.
I almost didn’t find it on the street as it was SO neat and tidy. The operation was down to a fine art and it was absolutely amazing to see what could be done and just how much was salvageable for reuse. It seems insane that anything would ever be knocked down and landfilled. Deconstructing and rebuilding is pretty common in the US. People often buy plots of land that happen to have a house on it, rather than buying a house that comes with a plot of land.
This 4000sq ft house would take 5 men 30 days to take down. Yes, it’s a longer operation than a demolition, and possibly more expensive, but the amount of added benefit makes it absolutely worth doing. An environmental report is produced for every site, although interestingly it doesn’t include any of those other people or local economy benefits.
They rely on people choosing to do this. In the main, people do it for the environmental reasons and tax breaks, but a lot of times they don't even take the tax benefit – they just know it’s the right thing to do. It tends to happen on big projects where the added cost in incidental to the overall project.
Workforce programme
They offer a 12-month employment programme to men coming out of prison. It provides them with a job, and on the job training - they will gain around 12 certifications before they leave.
However, the programme is much more than that, it offers stable employment which in turn brings stable housing and a chance to build a life and reputable chunk of work and experience on their CV. This experience is a jumping point for other jobs and a new life. In addition, they offer life coaching, a peer group of support, help with voter registration, budgeting classes, and more. Whatever they need help with they can ask for whether it be with public transport or paying bills. 100% of participants reconnect with their families and Beter Futures helps to facilitate that. Ultimately, they offer a safe space to build trust with others and one of the participants I spoke to talked of the huge importance of the act of learning to ask for help.
Every morning starts with reciting their creed and a check in on how everyone is doing. If someone isn’t doing good, they get a different job for the day and offered help with whatever problem they are facing – it’s a people first approach.
Impact
The recidivism rate in the United States is high, with 82% of people released from state prison being rearrested within 10 years. Within one year, 43% of people are rearrested.
The rate with men coming through Better Futures is just 8%, and in some years has been 2%.
The impact of what they achieve here is really overwhelming and was the basis of a lot of discussion with friends of mine that live in the city afterwards. They hadn’t heard of the organisation. This has been a common theme of my trip so far – so much great stuff happening on people’s doorsteps, but it takes someone googling from Scotland to bring it to their attention. The same is true in Scotland though.
Unsurprisingly, although the programme is voluntary, it currently has a waiting list. Despite the HUGE impact the programme has on the criminal justice system, no income comes from there. The organisation received some grants (bid for) for the workforce development element of what they do, but nothing directly related to their astounding work in reducing the rate of re-offense (other than a small amount per person for PPE as I understood it).
Their work is truly inspirational.
More pictures and videos in this album on my flickr page
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