Modesto talent show highlights abilities of those who once lived on the streets
Art Englin, once homeless, took to the stage at the Martin G. Petersen Events Center in downtown Modesto on Friday, with a black fedora on his head and a silver glove on his right hand.
The Michael Jackson impersonator’s performance of “Man in the Mirror” drew a standing ovation from an audience of 100 or so people about halfway through his performance, with many remaining on their feet to clap in time to the music.
Englin, 38, was one of 11 performers in the Downtown Streets Team Modesto’s second annual DSTs Got Talent. The nonprofit provides homeless people with volunteer work picking up trash on city streets and in parks and help with jobs, housing and other services.
“It means so much,” Englin said after the show. “This is something I’ve been wanting to do since my childhood. Being able to showcase it to my peers and my friends and my team members means so much, and just the reaction, it got me speechless.”
DST Modesto has helped a little more than 300 people since it started in February 2019, including 153 with housing and 82 with jobs. Team members also have picked up 1.9 million pounds of trash in five years. But the key to its success is that DST creates a space where team members can find their humanity and a sense of purpose.
“The worse thing is the isolation and people looking down on you for the most part,” said Robert Hensley about his 18 years of homelessness before he joined Downtown Streets Team. “People think you are nothing, you are trash.”
Hensley, who was in the audience Friday, said that is no longer true since he joined DST Modesto.
“You change your life around ‘cause someone actually cares and shows you the other side of how to live besides being homeless,” he said. “... It helps you want to do better in the community and just everywhere. I have to have that. If I don’t, then you know, I kinda feel like nobody cares.”
Hensley, 37, his fiancee, Lenee Counts, and their infant daughter found housing in December through DST. He is now an alumni of the program and earns $16.50 an hour leading volunteer teams.
He has applied for a job with the city’s abatement team, which cleans up homeless encampments. Hensley said he has been drug free for a year and four months and Counts for a year and two months. She also is a program alumni.
DST Modesto case manager Katie Serrano came up with the talent show. “Our idea was just to get people out of survival mode, to showcase that they are people with talents,” she said. “We wanted to give them a stage to really show everybody who they really are.”
The performers included a woman who sang “Part of Your World” from “The Little Mermaid,” another woman who performed tricks with her dog, and DST case manager Jason Salas telling jokes.
“I told my child the other day, he was refusing to take a nap,” Salas told the audience. “I told him that’s a violation, against the law. That’s resisting a rest.”
The three talent show judges included Mayor Sue Zwahlen, who told audience members how much joy being with teams members brings her. The judges did not pick a winner but held up signs encouraging the performers. All of the performers received medals at the end of the show.
DST Modesto is part of a network of teams that operates in 20 Northern California cities, primarily in the Bay Area. The city has been a big supporter of DST Modesto and provides most of its annual budget. The city has provided DST Modesto with $3.4 million since its February 2019 start.
DST Modesto started with 25 volunteer team members in 2019. It now has two teams of 25 that pick up trash in downtown and along major thoroughfares including McHenry Avenue, and a team of 18 that cleans up city parks. It also employs seven DST alumni who lead the teams.
Team members earn a $50 basic needs stipend weekly for attending success meetings on Wednesdays and workshops on Thursdays. Team members share their victories at meetings like making a doctor’s appointment or getting a driver’s license. The workshops include such topics as finding and keeping a job.
But the workshops can also focus on fun. A recent workshop was on cupcake decorating and arts and crafts.
This story was originally published June 3, 2024 at 6:00 AM.
