It’s a quiet morning on the far east side of Gary. The only noise breaking the calm comes from an electric saw chewing through a 2-by-4 supporting the roof of a vacant home.
People from the neighborhood occasionally drive by to see nearly a dozen men and women tearing up the vacant home in the1200 block of Idaho in the Aetna community.
They are working as a part of Steel City Salvage, a project funded by Delta Institute, a Chicago-based non-profit.
The Delta Institute’s Steel City Salvage project was awarded a $385,000 grant from the Knight Foundation to deconstruct homes and reclaim materials including lumber, doors, windows and flooring, Director Eve Pytel said. The recycled building materials could either be reused or sold.
Delta Institute, has kicked off the Steel City Project by training demolition contractors teaching them how to safely deconstruct vacant buildings that will eventually supply Steel City Salvage, a marketplace for building materials in Gary.
“We had this idea a while back that Gary has a lot of vacant property and Gary needs a lot of things to help itself advance,” Pytel said. “We had this idea that what if we could take some of the assets that Gary has and turn it into a resource that can help fuel economic development.”
After homes are stripped of reusable goods, materials are being taken to an undisclosed location until a physical facility for resale items is established. Pytel said it’s vital that Gary reaps the economic benefits of this project.
“Gary doesn’t have a lot of the infrastructure that some of these cities have, so we’re trying to think around that so that we can build up that infrastructure,” she said. “A really big concern of ours is with Chicago having a really strong market, we didn’t want groups from Chicago coming in, taking the materials and selling them in Chicago.”
For this particular project, most of the contractors in training are from It’s Gary’s Time, a Gary-based organization.
“Deconstruction requires a skill set and knowledge of the proper safety requirements about demolishing homes, renovation, construction and assessing the value of the materials,” said Roger Hayward, the founder of It’s Gary’s Time.
More Top Picks Best Curved Monitors
But for Hayward, this project and his organization is not merely about training demolition contractors. It’s about nurturing a segment of people who are often neglected, he said.
“It’s about re-entry development and helping them overcome the barriers of education and employment so they don’t go back to prison,” Hayward said, adding that he established his organization to help ex-offenders transition back into the civilian population.
“When I got out nobody gave me a chance because I’m fresh out of prison,” Robert Gonzalez said. “To get back into the work place is a little harder to do with a record. Roger gave me a chance to prove myself. He gave me an opportunity.”
The demolition contractors must also go through hours of classroom instruction to accompany their on-site training.
“This project represents the chance to get more skilled people and resources to rebuild Gary,” Pytel said. “Like everywhere else it’s a process. One home, one block and one community at a time.”
Pytel said Delta would continue to assess the project and the best way to establish a marketplace that would ultimately prove valuable for Gary.
“Our goal is to create long-term, sustainable economic benefit for Gary and its residents,” she said.
Twitter @JavonteA