Myra Griffin has found the biggest problem placing people in jobs is transportation.

“We have had hundreds of openings, but many of our applicants didn’t have a way to get to work on time or get home after they clocked out,” said Mrs. Griffin, a job placement veteran who owns and operates the two-year-old Community Staffing agency at 422 E. Franklin St.

That’s why she and her husband, Michael Griffin, this year launched Community Transportation, a van service to provide reduced cost transportation service to job sites in the Richmond-Petersburg area for low-income working parents with incomes below 200 percent of poverty.

Now the Griffins’ company has won a city contract to provide free transportation to jobs and education centers primarily to public housing residents with at least one child and who qualify for TANF, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, to help them meet the work requirements.

Mayor Levar M. Stoney on Monday went to Fairfield Court in the East End to announce the new van initiative that is currently supported with a $279,000 grant from the Virginia Transit Association.

Dironna Moore Clarke, the city’s director of the new Office of Transit Equity and Mobility (OTEM), the Griffins and their company’s staff also took part in the announcement.

Kelli Rowan, OTEM program manager for the project, said that the program “had a soft launch in October, and the company already has provided 400 rides.”

The company’s vans pick up at a central point in public housing communities, usually the management office, Ms. Griffin said. Those who use the service are provided delivery and pickup from work sites and job training programs, she said, and the service also provides rides for children in day care along the way.

Ms. Rowan urged people to apply online at www.communitystaffing.work/transportation or to call OTEM’s Chenice Brown at (804) 646-3513 to gain signup assistance.

The company already has six vans in operation, Mrs. Griffin said, and plans to add more vehicles if demand grows. “We’ve been fortunate to find the drivers we need,” she said.

The VTA grant is expected to enable Community Service to provide service through June 30, 2023, and OTEM is already seeking additional grants to ensure the service continues.

Steven B. Nesmith, chief executive officer of the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority, which manages public housing, hopes to help on that score as well. He expressed enthusiasm for the program and said he will seek grants to support and expand a program that could “change people’s lives.”

There also is hope that some funding is included in the next city budget, as well.

Before this program, working residents without cards relied on GRTC buses. The van service initiative now provides another option.