Former inmate recycles his life by cleaning up San Francisco's Hayes Valley

SAN FRANCISCO -- If you live, work, or visit some parts of San Francisco you've likely spotted piles of trash along sidewalks, leaving some impassable. 

Tyrone Mullins is working to make all Bay Area streets cleaner by bringing together property managers and community leaders to help create jobs and reduce waste. 

Mullins knows the challenges life can throw your way. He grew up in Hayes Valley and saw the turf wars and gun violence. He sadly became a result of his reality. 

"After you've made so many mistakes or have so many hiccups in life, sometimes you're just forgotten about," Mullins said. "I shot someone and in that, I was arrested, and was sent away for a while."

Mullins was locked up for three years. When he was released, Mullins says everyone wrote him off, even his own family. He says he knew he couldn't waste his life, so he started cleaning up around his neighborhood. 

"This was the first time I had people actually seeing me in a positive light and that just felt good," Mullins said. "It made me feel respectable as a person."

Mullins says when he felt respected as a person, it allowed him to sort through the piles of garbage in his own life. His property manager at the time, David Mauroff noticed. 

"The property manager at that time, David Mauroff said to me, 'If you can help us figure out something with this trash, we'll get you the seed money to start your own business.'"

Mauroff is now the CEO of The San Francisco Pretrial Diversion Project. It aims to build better communities by offering restorative justice and behavioral health to certain offenders. 

"Tyrone is where he is right now because he became what he made himself," said Mauroff. 

Waste Management is very expensive in the public housing world. Mauroff said when you couple that with a cycle of joblessness, drugs, violence and even the lack of resources, communities like Hayes Valley and other across the Bay are ravaged. 

"Particularly in San Francisco where the African American community has been disenfranchised. There's magic and beauty, support and love in these communities," Mauroff said.

Tyrone co-founded Green Streets. It's a community-owned and operated business that contracts with property managers and Bay Area cities, going into low-income and commercial settings managing composting and waste diversion. 

"In the low-income sector and places like this people don't want to do the work so we have a whole workforce who lives in these communities that can be doing this work," said Mauroff.  "So train them up and get them ready to be part of the work force."

At one point, Green Streets had more than two dozen workers, recycling 20,000 gallons of waste per month. Tyrone says he hires people like him -- who were written off and forgotten about. 

"Then to meet this White man who gave a Black man a chance from the Western Addition and said I believe in you – after meeting me for only a little bit of time – that means a lot to me," Mullins said.  "I feel forever grateful for him. Giving me a chance to turn my life around and now I'm doing it for other people. The community's greatest resource is its people."

Green Streets takes it's businesses even further. Mullins says Green Streets has trained mental health facilitators helping the workers identify triggers and trauma that's often not talked about in his community. He says when people begin to understand one another better, society begins to understand why. 

Mullins says while sorting trash isn't the most plesant thing to do, it works for him. While he's sorting through trash, he's also helping other remove bags of waste in their own lives.