He found his job, helping others find theirs

Joel Larus works with Ed, a homeless man, at the Selby Public Library last week. His "counseling center" consists basically of a table near the library entrance.

By Billy Cox
Published: Tuesday, March 17, 2009 at 1:00 a.m. Herald Tribune

SARASOTA - So this guy sees the Job Seekers' Program signs posted at Selby Public Library and approaches Joel Larus, the man in charge.

The visitor says he just got laid off at a local restaurant, and he needs work in the worst way.

Larus asks what his culinary specialty is, and the guy says barbecued ribs.

Larus asks if he ever considered catering to New College and University of South Florida students on the north Trail. The guy says no, but then starts thinking aloud about styrofoam delivery boxes and plastic cutlery and pricing schedules.

Larus asks him how much it might cost to get started, and the fellow says maybe $100, which he doesn't have. Larus doesn't usually do this sort of thing, but he reaches for his checkbook and spots the guy a $60 loan.

Furthermore, Larus pays him $20 in advance for two rib dinners to be delivered to his condo at 6 p.m. that Friday night.

Larus waits. The guy never shows. Larus phones for an explanation. The guy hangs up. Larus loses $80.

"Well," says the old Ivy Leaguer with a laugh, "it could've been worse."

Making loans to strangers isn't typical sport for an 85-year-old. Nor is seeking out unemployed strangers who might well be lying every time they speak. But these are treacherous times, and Larus is certain he can be of help.

So, from 10 a.m. until noon on Tuesdays and 1 to 3 p.m. on Thursdays, Larus waits for people to show up at his makeshift job counseling center that consists basically of a table near the library entrance. Nearby is a room he uses for consultations, where he tries to match workers with potential jobs.

Recently, after listening to more than 300 hard-luck cases since setting up his one-man Job Seekers' Program in late 2007, Larus has noticed a shift in the line-up of people who approach him. A more educated, white-collar demographic is beginning to emerge from the rising floodwaters of unemployment.

"I had a Ph.D. last Thursday!" Larus exclaims, as if he had just bagged a tarpon.
Actually, the self-proclaimed doctorate holder could have been lying, too. After all, Larus doesn't do background checks. He doesn't gather contact information. He doesn't verify their employment status.

But Larus is prepared for anything with his mother lode of employment information contained in a 2-inch thick stack of 4-by-6 note cards. Everything is in there, from local employment agency information to potential employers to contact information jotted down from help-wanted roadside signs. Not to mention his own ideas, like the barbecue catering gig.

"Am I doing good work? Frankly, I don't know," says the retired antiques entrepreneur and academic. "The problem is, very few come back. If I am successful in sending someone to a job, that's where he or she goes. They don't come back here."

Roman Gimenez, 56, doesn't know if his recent session with Larus will pay off. He has been reduced to working odd jobs since his lawn service collapsed.

"Joel gave me quite a few leads that I've been following," says Gimenez, struggling to keep his family in their house. "He knows about a lot of places around here, places I never thought to look. He's a very kind and helpful person."

Library director Liz Nolan suspects Larus' efforts are paying off more than he knows.

"Somewhere along the line, he must be making a positive difference, because people seek him out," she says. "And even if he helps just one person find a job, he's done a great thing."

With free Internet access, and a location a few blocks from the Salvation Army's soup kitchen, Selby Library is a natural magnet for indigent traffic. Larus, a voracious reader, took note years ago. More recently, with the numbers of the unemployed accelerating, he also discovered a community in denial.

"There's a problem in Sarasota," he says. "If you hang around Five Corners or Starbucks or Whole Foods, you'll see the backpacks and the tents. I listen to these people, and I've heard horror stories."

Larus, whose parents introduced him to volunteerism ages ago, also understood that many of the itinerates were content with their hardscrabble lifestyles. But he approached Nolan with some ideas about helping those who were sick of it. Nolan decided to give him some space, for good reason.

Larus earned an undergraduate degree at Harvard and his doctorate at Columbia, where he once taught international relations. But for nearly 30 years, he made real money in the antiques business in Boston. In 1997, two years after arriving in Sarasota, the opera aficionado founded a continuing education program for retirees called the Pierian Spring Academy.

Partially accounting for Larus' latest actions are his readings of Hinduism's Four Stages of Life, particularly the final phase -- asceticism. Although he is not inclined to reject material comforts as prescribed, he finds an appeal in its stripped-down philosophies. Certainly he hears more desperate variations of that theme with the strangers who gravitate to him.

"I've had one or two bank robbers, several thieves, two wife-abusers, one husband-abuser," he recalls. "Prostitutes. I've had drug abusers, heroin, crack, that kind of thing."

Larus' sessions can put him at a distance with his social circles, from his fellow gym rats who give him strange looks when they find out what he's doing, to his wife, Jane. "Sometimes if there's a crime story in the paper involving a homeless person, she'll say, 'I wonder if that was one of your friends.'"

In the brighter moments, it's almost as if he's enjoying a run of true kismet. One morning he's having coffee and reading a New York Times story about how Maine is experiencing a shortage of dentists. Hours later, a jobless husband and wife -- certified dental technicians -- wander into the library from California and ask for advice.

Larus refers them to the article. "And I said let me make a few calls and I'll get you a bus ticket to Maine," he adds. Then he states the obvious. "It can get kind of weird."

David Proch, executive director of Resurrection House, which provides lodging and services to the homeless, swings many of his clients over to Larus for consultations. He's certain of at least this much: "Joel is going to stay busy if he keeps doing this."

Larus makes it sound as if he has little choice. "I see and hear what's happening to the good men and women who built your condos, who prepare fine food in restaurants, who service your lawns so faithfully," he says. "Sarasota's affluent retiree and business community has no idea of the pain and the crises their fellow citizens are going through. I can't ignore this."

But ask who benefits the most from this quixotic mission -- which, for all he knows, could be a huge waste of time, not to mention $80 -- and Larus looks like he just saw lanterns glittering on the dark side of the moon.

"I'm hoping I can find my own spiritual enlightenment," he says.