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City Platform Section II, Step 18:
"Provide transitional jobs for disadvantaged youth and adults who need temporary, wage-based employment as a stepping stone to develop work skills and enter the regular labor market."
Mayors and city councilmembers understand that a healthy and skilled workforce yields a stronger community, a more vibrant local economy, and a more productive, engaged citizenry. Yet approximately 60 percent of city officials say that unemployment is a problem in their city.
The transitional jobs model - time-limited, wage-paying jobs combined with skill development activities and related support services - offers cities a much-needed framework for effectively serving those with significant barriers to employment.
City Examples
Detroit, Mich.
Detroit recognized the need to help ex-offenders successfully re-enter the workforce upon release, but the municipal workforce agency did not have the resources to do it alone. The city's selection for the YEF Institute's Transitional Jobs Project provided a focal point for pulling together a group of potential partners, and staff from NLC and the Center for Law and Social Policy helped the group with some early brainstorming on an initial site visit.
As this group continued to meet, the city was able to help facilitate a new partnership between a residential rehabilitation program, a local Goodwill that could provide transitional jobs, and an organization the city was funding to provide job counseling and placement services. As a result, a successful program called New Start emerged, helping hundreds of former offenders find and keep jobs paying living wages.
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Jackson, Miss.
With technical assistance from NLC, Jackson created two new transitional jobs programs: one for youth that was launched in 2003 and one for homeless individuals that was launched in 2005. These programs, run through the city's Department of Human and Cultural Affairs, offer time-limited paid work experience, training, and job placement services to individuals with significant barriers to work.
In late December 2003, the city received a $300,000 federal earmark, which enabled them to move forward with the GED & Beyond (GED&B) Pilot Transitional Jobs Program. The goal of the GED&B program was to provide 15 out-of-school, low-income, unemployed 16- to 21-year-olds per quarter with individualized educational and employment opportunities to lead to permanent, stable employment.
The City of Jackson's persistent efforts to garner funding for their transitional jobs initiatives again paid off with a $120,000 earmark in the FY 2005 appropriations from the U.S. Department of Labor to provide transitional employment for 15 homeless individuals over a one-year period.
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Resources
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