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California Print Shop Help The Homeless
Screen printer hires the homeless
Classical music lilts through a small office in the Chinatown district of Salinas, where Michael Scharen sits at a computer, doing graphic design."I enjoy coming to work," he said. "I like what I’m doing now, even though I’m not getting rich. My mission, I guess, is to try to show that not everybody in this area is a drug addict, or a criminal, and we all have to pitch in to help them."
Scharen is manager of Peter Maurin Screen Printers, where he hires the homeless to help him make T-shirts, bumper stickers, business cards, vinyl banners, mouse pads, bookmarks or anything else he can figure out how to create.
"I was homeless myself for a while, which I guess is how I kind of stumbled in here," he says. "I’ve had a few problems and things got a little bit crazy for me for a while."
Scharen holds a master’s degree in physics. He was a process engineer in Silicon Valley until 2003, when the San Francisco Bay Area’s tech market crashed, putting 300,000 highly educated people out of work. Scharen was laid off from three jobs and, despite his education and experience, spent years looking for work.
Peter Maurin Screen Printers is a two-man operation — Scharen’s only co-worker is a homeless man with a construction background — but he envisions a day when he could have four or five full-time employees.
He doesn’t get a lot of walk-in traffic in Chinatown, still a seedy area, but he’s optimistic that business will pick up. He has built a website and
a Facebook page, and word is beginning to circulate that the shop produces quality work for less money than commercial print shops, and does it for a good cause."We’re hoping to make the people of Monterey County more mindful of what we’re doing here," he said. "We’re trying to give the homeless a hand up, not a handout."
The printing business was created in 2006 as part of a work co-op through Dorothy’s Place, a nonprofit in Chinatown that provides meals, beds, a health clinic and other services to people in need.
A doctor, Amanda Jackson, contributed thousands of dollars from her own account to co-found the printing operation with Mia Fereirra. Peter Maurin, the namesake, was a Franciscan Catholic worker who was instrumental in helping the homeless in the Chinatown district.
Scharen came aboard as manager two years ago, when the operation moved into a space at 15 Soledad St. that the city rents to the print shop for $1 a year. Business is conducted in the front area — formerly a barber shop and, before that, a Chinese restaurant — and screen-printing equipment fills a couple of larger rooms in back.
"The original purpose and the current purpose are basically the same: The concept is to get some of these people working again, doing meaningful activities and helping themselves," Scharen said. "If we can help some of these people get a track record, they’ll have a better chance in the mainstream job market.
"A lot of these people don’t even have basic job skills, like showing up on time or dressing appropriately for a job. We can’t take just anybody — we have to pick and choose — but we’re looking to hire homeless people, or even the under-employed, people who have had difficulties getting back to work for at least nine months."
In recent months, the shop has created its own clothing line — Soledad Street Apparel — which is sold at farmers markets in Salinas and Marina and at the Oldtown Book Nook. Some of the products are on display in the window at the former Dick Bruhn men’s clothing store.
The shop has printed sweatshirts, T-shirts, posters, shorts, tote bags and other items for a local superbike racer, a female mixed martial artist, a local church, a bakery, a belly dancer and a Pilates and yoga studio. One company commissioned them to create Mitt Romney dolls. CSU Monterey Bay, heavily involved in many Chinatown endeavors, is a major customer.
Ten percent of the proceeds are returned to the Women Alive! program at Dorothy’s Place, the only walk-in women’s shelter in Monterey County.
Salinas recently gave the shop an outdated van, and a private donor provided a car.
"This is very rewarding for me — it’s a lot different than Silicon Valley," Scharen said. "We’re hoping to get the word out to people in Monterey County that if they bring us their business, they’ll get good value and be helping needy people at the same time."
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