Contact: Colleen Roche/ Jack Deacy (212) 788-2958
Debra Sproles 212-331-6200
At a press conference following the tour, the Mayor announced a joint Human Resources Administration (HRA)/ New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) initiative to expand Job Centers into NYCHA developments and assist public housing residents to find and keep jobs. Mayor Giuliani also paid tribute to the job placement success of the Parks Department's Career Training (PACT) Program, a collaborative effort between the Parks Department and HRA that has already placed more than 1,100 former welfare recipients in permanent jobs.
"Today we can measure real progress as we transform our City from the Welfare Capital of the World to the Work Capital of the World," Mayor Giuliani said. "Four months ago, I vowed we would transform every Income Support Center into a Job Center. Today, eight Job Centers are already in operation. The remaining Income Support Centers will all be converted to Job Centers by Spring 1999. A Job Center is a place where people receive meaningful help that will enable them to transform their lives, moving them from dependency to self-sufficiency, and enabling them to support themselves and their children with dignity."
Over the past four months, HRA has opened Job Centers in the Greenwood and Bushwick Centers in Brooklyn, the Jamaica and Queens Centers in Queens, the Richmond Center in Staten Island and the Hamilton, Dyckman and Yorkville Centers in Manhattan. By January 1999, a total of 17Job Centers will be in operation.
Meanwhile, welfare rolls in New York City continue to fall and have now dropped to the lowest level since 1968. The total number of persons on public assistance through September 1998 in New York City was 735,795. This is a reduction of over 400,000 from the 1,160,593 people who were on the rolls in March 1995, when the Giuliani Administration began its welfare reform program. There are currently about 33,800 participants enrolled in the City's Work Experience Program, and almost 430,000 persons have already passed through the WEP program.
As a further development of the Job Center model, Mayor Giuliani also announced a joint initiative of the New York City Housing Authority and the Human Resources Administration, the "Home and Work Project." This project will first establish a Job Center at the Red Hook Houses which will provide a full range of employment and related support services. The project is intended to focus intensive attention within the City's largest public housing development on helping residents who are receiving public assistance to enter the job market and make the transformation to self-sufficiency.
The Red Hook Houses in Brooklyn is home to 2,823 families. Of those families, 38 percent -- or 1,081 families -- are receiving public assistance. The goal of the project is to have almost all heads of those family households -- except those receiving disability payments -- working full time in private employment or in work experience jobs. Participants will have on-site access to a high tech learning lab and to the services of employment counselors, recruiters and other specialists. Special attention will be given to insure that sufficient childcare is available for the participants.
In addition to assisting residents, the project will help the City's Housing Authority obtain a greater proportion of its operating income from rental payments through earned income, which is important to the long-term financial stability of this development and others like it.
"This represents a most creative effort to assist residents of public housing find and keep jobs," said Housing Authority Chair Ruben Franco. "It reaffirms our commitment to working families in our developments, as well as to creating the kind of healthy diversity that is reflective of the neighborhoods and communities that our developments are a part of."
HRA Commissioner Jason Turner said, "The Home and Work Projects will attempt to create the conditions which replicate those found in most New York neighborhoods, where almost all heads of families are working. We think that universal work within Red Hook Houses will have powerful and healthy effects for the entire community."
In addition to Job Centers, HRA and other City agencies are collaborating on work-based training programs to assist participants as they move from welfare to work. Through the HRA/ Parks Department's Parks Career Training (PACT) Program, 1141 former welfare recipients have found full-time employment and an additional 409 PACT participants found seasonal jobs over the past 5 years. Created in April 1994, PACT recruits its volunteers exclusively from HRA's Work Experience Program (WEP) participants. In addition to their regular 21-hour Workfare assignments, PACT participants volunteer 14 additional hours to take part in the program. In exchange, they apprentice in areas such as security, clerical, custodial, handyman/fix-it and horticulture. Participants can also receive free driver's training, Basic Education/GED preparation and first aid certification.
"I am especially pleased to see that of the 1,141 people placed in full-time jobs, 921, that is 81%, have private sector jobs," said Parks Commissioner Henry Stern." This program is a model of how city agencies can work with private business to offer people hope and the chance to fundamentally change their lives," Commissioner Stern added.
A staff of job developers market qualified PACT participants to potential employers. They also help participants write resumes, prepare for interviews and develop the skills required to keep a job. Because many PACT participants lack personal phones or answering machines, the Parks and Recreation Department has entered into a partnership with New York Community Voice Mail (CVM) to give each PACT participant a phone number.
Anthony Coles, the Mayor's Senior Advisor, said, "HRA, , NYCHA and the Parks Department deserve congratulations for their successful efforts to implement the Mayor's goal of reaching out to help all New Yorkers take part in the City's turnaround by providing jobs and opportunity. Commissioner Tormenta and the Department of Design and Construction also should be congratulated for their part in transforming and modernizing the physical appearance of the Job Centers."