Editorial: Is Pittsburgh serious about helping the recently jailed get back to work?

Sometimes the best solution is to try to kill two birds with one stone.

Pittsburgh City Council is doing that with a proposal to get work done while giving employment opportunities to people who have recently been in jail.

The proposal comes from Councilman Ricky Burgess and would partner with the Center for Employment Opportunities out of Buffalo, N.Y. The nonprofit operates programs in 12 states; Philadelphia and Harrisburg have about 450 people participating.

In Pittsburgh, the plan would be to put teams of five to seven transitional workers together to clear abandoned property and generally work on sprucing up the community. The workers would make $11 an hour — more than the state or federal minimum wage.

The council’s stone would hit the issue of finding people to do the jobs. That’s something employers all over the area are finding challenging, including government. School boards have struggled to find janitorial staff and even substitute teachers. PennDOT and municipalities have had problems locating seasonal workers such as snow plow drivers.

That single stone could provide a necessary boost to people who spent time in jail. Whether a brief stay or a longer one, a stint behind bars can make it hard to find any job. Some employers have a strict policy against hiring those with a criminal record. Others just don’t want to take a chance. Some people who have been arrested may have lost their jobs while awaiting a hearing, even though they have yet to be found guilty of anything.

In this instance, there’s even a third bird that stone could knock out — improving the city itself by making it a more beautiful place. This can prompt people to take pride in their community and encourage business and development.

But Council President Theresa Kail-Smith wasn’t wrong with her critique.

“If we really want to give people a chance, let’s just do it,” she said, suggesting that going through an out-of-state nonprofit wasn’t necessary.

Pittsburgh itself is one of those employers that can make it hard to keep working. Despite the city decriminalizing marijuana, and despite the state making it legal for people to use it for medicinal purposes, a failed drug test can lose someone their city job.

The council unanimously voted for the project in a preliminary vote but is expected to give final approval Wednesday. Center for Employment Opportunity already has announced the agreement as a done deal on its website, noting Pittsburgh as its 32nd city.

But Pittsburgh should figure out if it wants to hire a company to throw these stones at problems, or just look at its own policies and eliminate the problems from the beginning.