Bill Taylor is a San Francisco chef who is facing a dramatically increased demand for his services as a result of the recession.
But that’s not necessarily good news.
Taylor is program manager for a vocational cooking program that helps homeless people find jobs in foodservice kitchens. The program is known as CHEFS, or Conquering Homelessness through Employment in Food Service, and it began about 10 years ago as a service of Episcopal Community Services, which runs shelters and offers a variety of outreach and counseling services to those in need in the Bay Area.
Taylor is seeing a lot more applicants to his program, because more people are losing their jobs and their homes as the economic downturn lingers on. Taylor isn’t alone.
CHEFS is one of a number of similar programs in cities across the country that aim to help people gain self-sufficiency at a time when high unemployment is sending increasing numbers out onto the streets.
The problem, say such program administrators, is that while the number of applicants to such training programs has more than doubled in some areas, the job placement rates for graduates have plummeted as restaurant operators cut back on hiring.
How such programs are addressing this challenge varies, but a new push by one agency will attempt to tap into the collective power of many to solve a problem faced by all.
The collective movement doesn’t yet have a name, but it is being coordinated by Kitchens with Mission, a three-year-old offshoot of the FareStart program in Seattle.
FareStart offers full-time culinary training to the homeless and disadvantaged, including a range of services to help people get back on their feet. Kitchens with Mission helps groups establish similar programs in other cities.
In January, FareStart will host a “summit” meeting of representatives of such programs across the country in an attempt to address some of the challenges they all face.
Karla Smith-Jones, FareStart’s marketing and communications manager, said the goal is to look for ways the program operators can work together, such as by collective food purchasing or job networking, but mostly by sharing best practices.
What they can do together and how has yet to be determined, she said. But, while each market is different, the nonprofit groups face common obstacles.
FareStart, for example, typically produces about 100 trained kitchen workers through a 16-week program. In past years, the job placement rate for FareStart culinary graduates—some of whom end up working in the best restaurants or hotels in the city—was about 80 percent.
This year, however, the economy has lowered the placement rate to about 60 percent, and the program is increasingly working with returning alumni who were working but have lost jobs, Smith-Jones said.
Fundraising efforts have also taken a hit, she added. FareStart, for example, operates an eponymous restaurant in downtown Seattle that serves lunch with students and graduates in the kitchen. Proceeds help fund the training program. On Thursdays, the restaurant serves dinner with guest chefs planning a three-course meal for $24.99.
The chefs, who work with the training program students to prepare meals, have included such renowned operators as Eric Tanaka of Tom Douglas Restaurants. Prior to 2009, the dinner almost always was a sellout, Smith-Jones said, but this year the guest chefs have been harder to book and there have been only about 10 to 15 sellout nights for the weekly event, despite the bargain price.
“People are just not going out to dinner,” Smith-Jones said.
Meanwhile, in Chicago, a similar program called Inspiration Corp. has had better luck with fundraising, but also has had difficulty helping graduates find jobs, said John Pfeiffer, the program’s executive director and chief executive.
Inspiration Corp. offers a full range of employment and job placement services, including culinary training and job experience at the organization’s three cafes. Two of the cafes offer free meals to those in need, but a third called Café Too is open to the public and showcases the students’ talents.
Inspiration Corp. celebrated its 20th anniversary this year and, prior to the recession, had launched a $6 million capital campaign. Despite the economic downturn, the group has reached 80 percent of its goal, Pfeiffer said.
With the funding, Inspiration Corp. has purchased a fourth restaurant building in the East Garfield area of Chicago, which it plans to renovate and transform into its largest restaurant yet. Not yet named, the venue is scheduled to open in early 2011.
Pfeiffer said demand for Inspiration Corp.’s culinary training grew by double digits this year. Previously, the program had about 100 graduates each year who were trained in back-of-the-house skills.
This year, with help from a federal stimulus grant, he said, the program expanded to include front-of-the-house training, and the number of graduates is expected to grow to about 120. The new restaurant facility, however, will more than double the program, allowing another 125 trainees to earn on-the-job skills.
Earlier this year, the hiring of graduates pretty much came to a standstill because of the economy, Pfeiffer said. Lately, hiring has picked up again, and about 75 percent of graduates now find work.
In Berkeley, Calif., The Bread Project is also expanding, thanks to support from local sponsor Semifreddi’s Bakery and Chevron Corp.
The group provides bakery skills to low-income residents, this year producing about 120 graduates through seven nine-week sessions at the Berkeley Adult School.
In January, the program will establish a second training facility at a former Semifreddi’s bakery in Emeryville, Calif. Semifreddi’s is moving to another production site, said Dagmar Schroeder-Huse, Bread Project’s executive director.
The new space will allow the program to increase the number of trainees by about 80 percent over the next two years, which will help address the skyrocketing demand for training, Schroeder-Huse said.
In addition to operating a cafe, which helps fund the program, the Bread Project also supplies school districts and restaurants with baked goods, which in the most-recent fiscal year generated about $85,000 in income for the program.
Officials hope to double that business within the next year with the new facility.
“We’re really excited about this,” said Schroeder-Huse. “Now we’re really working to build our network of potential foodservice employers.”
Taylor in San Francisco said the success of such efforts depends heavily on industry support, either through job placement, instruction or fundraising.
The CHEFS program produces about 60 culinary graduates each year who have been through six months of training. Graduates have ended up working at San Francisco venues such as Kuleto’s Italian Restaurant, Lotta’s Bakery and 1300 Fillmore.
“We have people who have worked for three and four and five years in the same place,” Taylor said. “Part of that is because they have been homeless. When they find a place, they have a tendency to stick to it, because permanence is what has been missing from their lives.”— [email protected]