Ready, Willing & Able
In 1990 The Doe Fund received two contracts from the city: a work contract to renovate low-income housing; the second, a contract to purchase and renovate an abandoned building on Gates Avenue in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn where program participants would live. To attract volunteers the McDonalds canvassed Grand Central Terminal and homeless shelters throughout the city, inviting anyone who wanted to work and was willing to not use drugs or alcohol. The work project—Ready, Willing & Able—and its formerly homeless employees were credited with doing a “great job” by then-New York City Housing Commissioner Felice Michetti.
Within four years, the Ready, Willing & Able program had graduated 90 men who had full-time private sector jobs and their own apartments, but the program’s contracts were among many other cuts made by New York City when it struggled to meet its budget in 1995 and sold much of the low-income housing that was the subject of The Doe Fund’s key work contract. Faced with an immediate need to redirect his workforce, George McDonald decided they should address the growing problem of litter on New York’s streets. Using Ready, Willing & Able’s remaining funds to buy the men rolling trash buckets, brooms, and bright blue uniforms with American flags sewn on the sleeves, he sent them out to clean a five-block area around East 86th Street. The crews quickly became so popular that neighborhood residents began to support them with private donations, enabling Ready, Willing & Able to expand. As of 2010, The Doe Fund’s community improvement projects include over 150 street miles in New York City and Philadelphia and the organization’s annual operating budget is over $40 million.
To enter the program, participants must pledge abstain from using drugs and alcohol, forego entitlements (with the exception of Medicaid), and agree to submit to random, twice-weekly drug tests. They also must sign waivers allowing The Doe Fund to identify orders for any current or past child support they may owe. Once accepted, they move into one of Ready, Willing & Able’s dormitory-style residences, and, following a month of counseling and orientation during which they receive a small weekly stipend, they are put to work for 30 hours a week starting at $7.40 an hour, which gets raised to $8.15 after six months. All are first assigned to a Ready, Willing & Able cleaning crew, after which they can transition to work in the culinary arts, as drivers, on security details, or in other assignments—most of these positions created by The Doe Fund's various social entrepreneurial ventures. All take classes in life and computer skills, job preparation and financial management. After three months, they are offered occupational training in fields that include culinary arts, green building maintenance and pest control. Graduation from the program comes 9–12 months later, once they have found full-time employment, are living in their own non-subsidized apartments, maintaining complete sobriety and, if applicable, paying child support. Sixty-two percent graduate from the program.
A Harvard University study by criminal justice expert Dr. Bruce Western which tracked Ready, Willing & Able's formerly incarcerated clients for two years after their graduations, found that they were 45% less likely to be reconvicted than other parolees. A follow-up study by Western found that they were 60% less likely to be convicted of a felony than other parolees within three years. The resulting savings in social service and criminal justice expenses exceeded the program’s costs by 21%, the study found.
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