Bay Area Nonprofit’s Path to Public Safety: Painting Murals and Picking Up Trash

A Bay Area nonprofit sees community cleanup as a path to improved public safety, and it’s employing homeless people and former criminals to get the job done. Led by Ken Houston, better known to locals as the “Son of Oakland,” the Beautification Council was started in 2012 to protect residents and lead by example. “We’re changing lives,” Mr. Houston told The Epoch Times. “Some of these people never had a job before, and we’re showing them dignity and respect and teaching them responsibility.” Initially a community-based organization called the East Oakland Beautification Council, the group subsequently sought to expand, first dropping the “East” and later the “Oakland” from its name so it could better serve a wider swath of the community....