Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis Announced New Federal Jobs Training Program for High School Dropouts,

Today, Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis announced $20 million in grants to prepare high school dropouts and young adult offenders for future employment at the YouthBuild Program in Southeast Washington, D.C., a neighborhood that has historically been disadvantaged.

“If people are given a second chance, they will take that route,” Solis says. The announcement took place in front of the foundation of an efficiency apartment complex the YouthBuild members constructed in front of an audience ofstaff, politicians, stakeholders and reporters. “These students will spend nine months in YouthBuild," she says, "and they will be able to turn their lives around.”

Solis acknowledges that think $20 million in grants as not enough, but, she says, “it’s a down payment and the first grants of this kind from the Labor Department.”

Sally T. Prouty, president and CEO of the CorpsNetwork, who received $10 million in grants says the money would be used in six communities.

“We are being given the chance to show the effectiveness of our programs,” Prouty says. “If we can show evidence that it works and we get people into work, we can expand our programs.”

The underlying importance of programs like the YouthBuild Program and the National Association of Service and Conservation Corps is catching young people who otherwise fall through the cracks, like 23-year-old Elisheba Jackson from Landover, Maryland, a suburb of D.C. She left home and school at 14 because of physical abuse and was eventually arrested for prostitution at 17.

“My mom died when I was 14 and I started messing up in school and missing days,” says Jackson, who was eventually expelled from school. She spent the next nine years living on the street and on friend’s couches. Once she turned 18, she started living at the Community for Non-Violence Shelter in D.C., but not before turning to prostitution to make ends meet after they couldn’t pay the rent.

“I was desperate, my stepmother wouldn’t let me back in the house and I had to do something,” she says. Jackson started frequenting a 7-Eleven in Fairfax County where she was taken under the wing of an older prostitute. Her boyfriend at the time would get her “tricks” but wouldn’t keep any of the money. Instead, he lived off her earnings while they stayed in motels.

“One night, I was coming back to my boyfriend, who was arranging a trick. I felt really uneasy about it, didn’t want to go,” Jackson says. The potential client ended up being an undercover cop. She was arrested for solicitation and eventually fled to a shelter in D.C. and did not appear for a court date. The State of Virginia put out a warrant for her arrest and she was eventually convicted.

Jackson is now a convicted felon, limiting her choices for jobs, which she says, led her to the Sasha Bruce Youth Work, a partner of YouthBuild, after hearing it from her “sister’s baby’s daddy.”

Jackson is doing much better these days; she has not smoked marijuana in three years, not had alcohol in one year and hasn’t had a cigarette in several months. She recently earned her GED and hopes to eventually attend the University of the District of Columbia to train to become a police officer. First, though, she has to figure out a way to get the felony off her record. It's not impossible, but it will be difficult

Jayme Stewart, a counselor at YouthBuild who supervises a program 44 children, is also excited about what this money might mean. The federal grant means several new counselors can begin transitioning in to help her.

“Sometimes when we’re in the office, we wonder, ‘Is this working? Are we the only people that understand the trials of these kids?’” Stewart says. “This money validates the work I do and shows that someone else understand the importance.”

Lisa Gillespie is a former staff writer for Campus Progress as well as the Managing Editor & New Media Director at Street Sense. She graduated from the University of North Carolina–Asheville.

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