Marriott combats welfare woes with jobs program

Nation's Restaurant News, Nov 27, 1995 by Paul King

NEW York - while the debate over welfare reform rages all around them, Marriott Corporate Services and the Center for Urban Community Services have teamed up in the city's Times Square area to reduce welfare rolls the old-fashioned way: by providing welfare recipients with job training and the jobs to go with it.

One year ago Marriott was hired by CUCS to manage foodservice for tenants and the center's staff at the Times Square Hotel, a 652-unit SRO, or single-room occupancy, facility on West 43rd Street. Marriott offers them low-cost lunch and dinner menus in Top of the Times, the hotel's roof-top dining room. Because a high percentage of customers are on public assistance, Times Square Hotel accepts food stamps as payment; it is the only Marriott account to do so.

But Marriott offers more to needy tenants than $2.50 hamburger platters and $4 combo meals. For those who are interested, the company also provides training in food-service skills.

"We have plenty of accounts, where we are feeding the more affluent members of society," Marriott district manager Tony Tressler said. "We don't often get a chance like this to make a difference. This program is one simple way that we can give something back to the community."

Of the 30 people the contractor has educated, five have been placed in jobs at Marriott accounts in New York and New Jersey, and one of them, Tony Williams, has returned to Times Square as the night foodservice supervisor.

"We will have as many as 10 trainees at a time," said manager Riley Daniels Jr. "Normally, the training period lasts three months, but we never let anyone go until we feel they are ready to work on their own. We train them in all aspects of sanitation and give them instruction in cooking, salad and sandwich preparation, other pre-prep work and customer service."

Training currently is provided by Daniels and chefs from nearby Marriott accounts. He explained that a full-time trainer at the account quit recently, and Marriott has not decided whether to fill the position.

All interested tenants, along with residents of eight other SROs in Manhattan, are prescreened by David Johnson, who is job developer and vocational coordinator for CUCS.

"Just about anyone who wants to work can enter the program unless we see a severe problem with a person's ability to function in a regular work environment," Johnson said. He noted that foodservice is not the only area in which residents can be trained; most of the more than 100 jobs at the hotel are filled by tenants learning skills they can use on the outside, like housekeeping and maintenance.

The trainees are people like Henry Greene. 46, who lives at the Heights Hotel, an SRO on 178th Street in Manhattan. Greene said he has worked primarily as a custodian.

"What I found was that I was working only part-time or seasonally," he explained as he prepared the salad bar for lunch one morning. "I decided I needed to diversify, especially in case there ever comes the time when I am physically unable to do custodial work."

When trainers judge that a student has learned the requisite skills, placement coordinator Justine Zinkin uses community contacts and "a lot of telephone calls" to find the person a job.

"It can be very rewarding working with the businesses when they agree to take a chance on one of our people," Zinkin noted. "Our training program helps because it gives the tenants something they can put on their resume."

"It's satisfying to see someone come out of the shelter and stand on their own feet," Johnson added, "especially if they have had a hard struggle to make it."

The tenants' struggle to "make it" is mirrored in the building's own battle to find its niche in this area, which features some of the best and worst sights and activities New York has to offer. Built in 1923 and now a historic landmark, the hotel for years housed quite a few Broadway actors. Over time ownership changed hands several times, and eventually the building became a homeless shelter, notorious for drug dealing and prostitution, and then fell into disrepair.

In 1990 a nonprofit corporation known as Common Ground Community bought the building and revived it as a place of hope for the city's less fortunate. At present about half of the hotel's occupants are working poor - the annual income cutoff for tenants is $23,000 - and the rest are people who are on public assistance because they have physical or emotional problems.

In one sense the rejuvenated residence has literally become a "party place." In addition to providing lunch and dinner for tenants and CUCS staff, Marriott also offers catering for outside groups. Jennifer Smith, economic development assistant and catering coordinator, said the hotel uses Top of the Times and several outdoor patios to stage an average of four major parties and five to 10 smaller functions a month.

Up to 300 people can be accommodated, and the menu includes every type of service from buffets and barbecues to sit-down dinners and cocktail receptions. Again, tenants fill most of the jobs.