“Whether we want to admit it or not, a lot of us drive around and see someone living on the streets and think, ‘Why won’t they just go get a job?’” confessed Amelia Nickerson, CEO of First Step Staffing. 

But this Atlanta, Georgia, staffing agency has a different view. Rather than pity or critique those in poverty, they’re doing the opposite: placing trust in them by matching them with employment opportunities.

“We have a line out the door every single day,” Nickerson said. “They’re interested in working and want to work. They’re highly motivated. But one of those barriers jumps up and grabs them by the heels, and they’re back where they started.” 

These barriers can include failing to pass a background check, not having access to transportation, and many more. 

Just take Nic, a First Step client who spoke with excitement and energy of what others might consider a grueling workday: “There was one job at a construction site. I would get up early in the morning. I would wait [for] the bus, 30-40 minutes in the cold. Get that bus to the train, and then it would take another 30 minutes to get downtown.”

However, despite his enthusiasm, Nic always arrived just in time to see the other workers had already departed for the job site. “I could never make it,” he lamented. 

First Step Staffing exists to help individuals like Nic who are struggling with homelessness and poverty — seeking steady employment with opportunities to get a job and keep it. The organization has a bold turnaround promise for providing help.

“We find the people who are getting turned away from everywhere else, who are experiencing homelessness, veterans, and those impacted by the criminal justice system, then make sure they’re working in 72 hours or less,” Nickerson said. 

The ambitious plan is working: So far, the organization has filled over 25,000 jobs, and 70% of participants who find work with First Step are still working after 30 days.

 

 

That isn’t just charity for those struggling to find employment. It has huge benefits for workplaces as well. Many of these individuals have unique skills, strengths, and huge amounts of dedication to share — all they need is an opportunity to prove themselves. 

“We have access to a totally untapped workforce,” Nickerson said. “People don’t believe in them; they think they’re part of the problem instead of part of the solution. If you get told that enough times, you start to believe it. But when they get told, ‘Yes, you can start tomorrow,’ their confidence changes overnight. So if some of our employer partners need 20 people to start work tomorrow, our competitors may be able to send 15; First Step will send 25.”

First Step Staffing demonstrates a promising solution to chronic unemployment in America. By offering people in poverty the support and opportunities they need, First Step is opening up doors to the workforce for a hugely overlooked section of the population: workers who can provide huge value to their employers — and our communities and workplaces are stronger for it. 

For those in poverty, a job is much more than a paycheck

“The key to getting people out of poverty is a job,” said Nickerson. 

That may sound oversimplified, but it’s true: 500,000 people in America are currently experiencing homelessness, many due to the lack of sustainable employment.

“We’ve just left too many people sitting on the bench in the U.S.,” Nickerson said. “We’ve got a lot of people in our communities caught in a vicious cycle of unemployment, poverty, and there’s really no escaping it. You can offer a lot of temporary solutions, but a job really does provide a permanent pathway to exit that cycle.”

That’s why the people at First Step Staffing are focused on being much more than a Band-Aid solution. Instead, they’re building a strong foundation of confidence and skills that will allow First Step clients to lift themselves out of poverty for good. 

Nickerson explained that many for-profit companies automatically screen out the clients First Step works with, neglecting to recognize that there’s a lot more to a candidate than the struggles they’ve gone through. 

“We have individuals come into First Step who have applied to 10, 15, 20 different jobs, but because they have a criminal background or their mailing address happens to be the local shelter, they never have an opportunity to build out of that,” Nickerson said. “So if you come in and say you’re ready to work, we’ll give you that opportunity and give you that job so you can go out and prove yourself to yourself.”

Nickerson makes an important point: Before demonstrating their value to employers, First Step participants need to actually believe that they have unique talents, skills, and values to offer. 

For Nic, accepting that belief was far from easy, especially after spending 240 months, 36 days, 22 hours, 30 minutes and 52 seconds — by his own count — in prison. 

“Some things happened to me, and I never processed them, and I had hatred in my heart, and I became a monster,” he recalled. 

Hearing this, most employers would reject Nic’s application. But many who have gone through incarceration have gained unique, specialized training in different work areas that can be hugely beneficial to a workplace. By automatically screening out candidates with a criminal history, many employers are inadvertently losing a valuable talent pipeline that is particularly eager to contribute.

“In prison, my thought process changed, my world changed,” said Nic. “I learned how to weld. I learned how to do brick basing. I learned how to do horticulture. So when I got out of prison, I was resolute: ‘I’m not going to do what I did to go to prison; I’m not going to bring shame to my family.’” 

Unfortunately, Nic faced huge obstacles as a returning citizen, including a lack of reliable transportation and being stereotyped by employers. He soon had to resort to living on his brother’s sofa. Despite the setback, he was still determined that he wouldn’t fall back into living on the streets. 

“Guys were lined up; they were talking about robberies, they were talking about theft,” he said. “That would have been easier for me [than] job hunting, [which] was futile because I didn’t have any transportation. Businesses began to stereotype me left and right. I’d been doing everything I can do. I was so mad.”

That was, until a peer slipped him a business card with First Step Staffing’s information and told Nic, “Give them a call, and you’ll be working tomorrow.” 

First, Nic was required to attend an in-person orientation. First Step identifies the resources and needs that will allow clients to start work immediately. This could be new shoes, transportation, housing, or just a hot meal. After that, First Step taps into its network of employer partners to get clients out into the workforce within 72 hours. 

“That next day, right after I finished orientation, I got a job,” Nic said, cheering in excitement as he remembered that moment. “I felt so light. I just felt free.” 

After those immediate needs are taken care of, First Step broadens the focus and starts to assess what clients will need to be successful not just for the next week but the next year. 

That means looking beyond a client’s immediate situation and instead exploring the whole person underneath. First Step works with clients to reflect and identify their talents, goals, and interests as individuals. 

“I think the misconception is that these individuals don’t want to work, can’t work, or are too risky to hire because of their background,” Nickerson said. “But when they have three successful months, and they’re getting recognized by their supervisor, they’re seeing just how much potential they truly have, and it’s limitless.”

Right now, Nic works at 1-800-FLOWERS. After starting at the bottom of the totem pole as a line worker, he quickly demonstrated his dedication and enthusiasm for the role. So far, he’s been promoted three times. 

“They’ve entrusted me [with] the responsibility of taking peoples’ gifts that they created and bringing that to fruition and making it tangible,” he said, full of pride. “There’s no better joy than that.”

Although First Step Staffing provided the opportunity, it was ultimately Nic’s own strengths and gifts as an individual that led to his success. As Nickerson pointed out, First Step simply positions clients on the right path. It is ultimately their individual talents and values that bring them all the way to the finish line.

“I hope that Nic sees the success that he’s mapped out for himself,” Nickerson said. “We believe very strongly in personal agency and that somebody has the right and the ability to write their own success, and we’re just here to help guide it.” 

The First Step of many to come

Last year alone, the number of clients the organization matched with employment was about the same as the homeless population of San Francisco. It currently operates in seven states: Georgia, California, Texas, Florida, Tennessee, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. 

In 2023, First Step paid out more than $42 million in earned wages. “That’s real money that’s going back into our economy and going back into our communities,” Nickerson said. 

The more clients First Step helps secure employment, the more the workforce will be strengthened by the unique talents and perspectives those workers offer. It translates to a workforce revitalized by a diversity of experience and purpose-driven workers, resulting in more productivity — and more purpose — for companies. 

Now, First Step is taking its next big step. The agency hopes to soon scale to be able to employ 20,000 people a year. 

“That means finding enough employer partners that want to work with us that see the value in the individual, that see potential where they used to see a problem,” Nickerson said. 

Nic continues to thrive in his job and still appreciates what a monumental achievement it was to break the cycle of poverty he was trapped in.

“I’ve watched guys come from nothing and make something,” he said. “I was thinking, ‘That might not be my story.’ But it was my story.”

Now, he is helping others in the same position he used to be in find a better path ahead through First Step Staffing. 

“I love helping people, I have a passion for seeing people be the best possible them that they can be,” he said. “I want to utilize my experiences, my failures, my choices, to help people.” 

Speaking to a group of new clients at a First Step Staffing orientation, he empathized. “It’s hard. I come from where you come from, and this is how I was able to go from living with my brother to a household of my own. Just stay with it.” If they did, he promised, their experience would be “more than just getting a job. Y’all are part of the family.”

Most of all, Nic reminded the group that it was their decision to take that first step, and it would ultimately be due to their own gifts that they’d break out of the cycle. 

“Now give yourselves a round of applause,” he said. 

Could this mean the end of homelessness a few decades down the road? First Step Staffing is demonstrating valuable takeaways for other staffing agencies and employers to replicate. By taking the time to evaluate individuals with barriers to employment based on the promise they demonstrate — not the mistakes they’ve made — we could have a sustainable solution for poverty and labor gaps alike. 

“It’s a Herculean task to dig yourself out of this situation,” Nickerson said. “To have the perseverance, it’s a heroic effort. You see people showing up every day, ready to do that.”

First Step Staffing is supported by Stand Together Foundation, which partners with the nation’s most transformative nonprofits to break the cycle of poverty.

Learn more about Stand Together's efforts to build strong and safe communities and explore ways you can partner with us.