COVER STORY .

Fred Gigliotti

Social Worker, Office of Supportive Housing


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Published: Apr 29, 2009

Fred Gigliotti, 35

Social Worker, Office of Supportive Housing

Salary: $48,500

Union: DC 47

Fred Gigliotti decided to go into social work after his father — who had owned a hairdressing salon and raised Fred in middle-class Yardley — lost his business and fell into homelessness. Fred worked with kids in group homes after college, then took the civil service test for social work. He started at OSH about three years ago.

One of Gigliotti's responsibilities is to field complaints from shelter residents about conditions in homeless shelters. The other is to monitor those residents' progress in shelter programming — the city's shelter system is intended to be emergency housing, and when someone checks in, she's assigned a case manager and given a set of goals to move her toward independent living. For instance, a person living in the shelter system is supposed to save 60 percent of her income (usually welfare). Gigliotti is responsible for making sure shelter residents are on track, and, if not, motivating them to get on track. People do get kicked out of shelters. "There may come a time ... when they'd have to rely on family or friends. It's an unfortunate part of the system," Gigliotti says. The flip side, though, is that he sometimes gets to actually help people.

Gigliotti tries not to take the frustrations of work home, which is in Fairmount, where he owns a rowhome with his wife. He's pursuing his master's in social work at Temple. Though he makes much less than his friends in, say, sales, for now, he's happy. "I can walk to work," he says.