Meet Local Hero Nominee: Don Larson
Title: Director of Operations, Clean Streets Clean Starts
Organization/Business: Northridge Beautification Foundation, 501(c)3
Website: https://cleanstreetscleanstarts.org/
“Don has contributed countless years to help the homeless regain their confidence and sense of value leading to employment, and in turn, shelter. Through his program Clean Streets Clean Starts, Don has reduced homelessness while improving the cleanliness of our streets. Other communities are working to duplicate his efforts. He is a role model and his work deserves to be recognized.” - Steven Muro, Nominator
About the nominee:
Don Larson, alarmed by the rapid outbreak of tent, makeshift shelters, RV, vehicle and open-air dwellers that is now overwhelming our region’s communities, organized the Clean Streets Clean Starts Program (CSCS) to offer homeless people a hand-up. CSCS is a boots-on-the-ground all volunteer Homeless-to-Work program offering stipend incentives and peer-to-peer on-the-curb outreach. The organization participates in the cleaning, trimming and painting-up of a community as a road to rehabilitation and cleaner, safer pedestrian environments. The result is a win-win situation. A fourth-generation resident of Northridge with very deep community service roots, Larson also owns the Das Bauhaus apartment building that acts as the backbone of the successfully ongoing turn-around of the Reseda Boulevard corridor.
More on Don Larson:
