Program chief offers homeless help, along with respect, dignity
Ed Brant's colleagues say he's the perfect choice to lead a program that aids Clearwater's homeless population.
By CHRISTINA K. COSDON
Published October 4, 2004
CLEARWATER - Ed Brant, who has made a 24-year job out of working with the homeless, is used to being second in command.
As program director of the Clearwater Homeless Intervention Project, he dealt with the problems of how to shelter some of the county's homeless and get them back on their feet.
Now, Brant is the first paid executive director of CHIP and his peers say he is the best man for the job.
"He was wonderful as my second-in-command," said Carole Ciokiewicz, who was executive director for 41/2 years and said her focus was mainly on the financial end of CHIP. "He's able to both deal with the clients on a daily basis and understand the business side - I admire that in him. He really cares a lot about people - he has a huge heart."
CHIP came about when Clearwater police Chief Sid Klein began working on the city's homeless project 11 years ago. That was about the same time that Brant was working on a homeless program for the local Salvation Army.
When CHIP was formed, the Salvation Army was contracted to run the program and Brant to be program director.
"I've worked with Ed since we started the concept for CHIP in 1993," said Klein, who is president of CHIP. "He was in on CHIP from the ground floor.
"The mission of CHIP is to give a helping hand, not a hand out, and Ed really, truly believes that. It takes an immense amount of patience and understanding to really reach out to these people and do it with the dignity and respect that he gives them."
Ciokiewicz left CHIP in January to take a position as the University of South Florida's director of special projects. Brant was hired in February to replace her at an annual salary of $63,000. Tami Carlson, his administrative assistant, is CHIP's only other paid employee.
CHIP's operating budget for the 2004 fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30, was $499,000, Brant said. All the money comes from grants and private donations, he said. "Some grants come through the city, but I have to apply for them," he said.
Since he is not entirely new to CHIP, the transition to executive director has been uneventful.
"I haven't changed anything," Brant said. "I write grants. We're always looking for new grants, new monies to run the program and then administer the grants. Money is growing tighter and the services are expanding. I also meet with the clients, go down and see what's happening."
Brant said the need for the program is growing. The last count of Pinellas County's homeless population indicated 4,081 at the end of January, according to the Pinellas County Coalition for the Homeless, "but I think this is fairly low," Brant said.
Pinellas also has 31,000 families living below poverty level - "the working poor," he said. "They're candidates for becoming homeless."
CHIP has a 48-bed shelter and a day drop-in center. Next to that is a St. Vincent de Paul soup kitchen and next to that is CHIP's new eight-unit transitional housing apartment complex.
"'We saw 344 individuals last month and we see about that number every month," Brant said. Sixty-five to 70 of them will be first-time clients, he said.
"We're always looking at making the program better," Brant said. "We're getting ready to enlarge the shelter by 14 beds and we are looking to have several more transitional apartment complexes."
Brant, 54, said he is also working to bring in a dental clinic. "We meet with individuals who are in our program on a weekly basis to get their input on what can be done to improve the program, make changes. Each person, each group is different; we work the program around that."
CHIP also uses WorkNet Pinellas to help teach individuals in its program how to fill out job applications and prepare for interviews, he said.
Brant, who was born in Clearwater and grew up in Lutz, has degrees in sociology and psychology from the University of Kentucky and Asbury College. He was managing fast food restaurants in 1980 when a friend asked him to help develop a program for the homeless in Lexington, Ky. Twenty-four years later, Lexington's Street People Program is still going strong.
"It's grown and it's a lot more dynamic," Brant said. "The city of Lexington took over the program."
In 1985, he left Lexington to return to the Tampa Bay area and now lives in Lutz with his family.
He worked 10 years for the Pinellas Private Industry Council, then started the Salvation Army's homeless program. He is president of the Pinellas County Coalition for the Homeless and a seven-year member of the organization.
"When I've called on him as president of CHIP, he's never let me down," Klein said. "Ed gives every challenge a big smile and says "Let's work out a solution,' and he does."
