HARTFORD HOUSING AUTHORITY
"HARTFORD GETS JOBS CORPS CENTER"
To be located in Charter Oak Terrace Business Park
January 10, 1999
City officials landed one of four multimillion-dollar federal grants Tuesday for a new job training center for high school dropouts and at risk youth.
Construction of the $12.9 million center, to be known as the Connecticut Capitol Region Job Corps building, is expected to begin by spring. City officials say it will provide basic education and training in the areas of computers, construction, business, hospitality, finance, manufacturing, nurses' aides, retail and culinary arts. The training center will initially enroll 200 at-risk young adults between the ages of 16 and 24, said Nilda Torres, executive assistant to Mayor Mike Peters.
Vice President Al Gore and U.S. Department of Labor Secretary Alexis Herman announced Tuesday the federal government is giving the city $8.9 million toward the center, which will be built in the Charter Oak Terrace Business Park. The city will contribute $1 million and the state will contribute $3 Million to the project.
Job training is the key to helping many of the city's young people rebound, Peters said.
"This is a city that has seen some difficult times," he said. 'This is the type of medicine we need to get back on our feet Job Corps will provide a positive option for young people who currently lack the skills to compete in today's labor market This will be a great opportunity to offer our youth."
"Hartford's selection marks the continued expansion of this remarkable program," said Gore, adding that the federal government already operates 115 centers nationally and has done so for the past 35 years. In addition to Hartford’s new programs will be started in Exeter, R.I., Wilmington, Del and Carville, La.
The program is intended to help youth who normally have trouble in school, Herman said. The Hartford program will be non-residential.
"The young people who come to Corps have experienced problems at school, at work and in meeting their own goals. Job Corps lifts em up and gets them on the path o success," Herman said.
The construction of the training facility, which includes a day-care center, is expected to start this spring after the city receives local approvals, said Torres.
A Job Corps program might a new work force for the city's factories, hotels and restaurants, Tores said.
In Hartford alone, the proposed Adriaen's Landing Project will create approximately 7,000 jobs in the service industry.
Hartford's unemployment rate is nearly twice as high as the statewide average of 11 percent, city officials said.
"High rates of youth unemployment have been an acute problem for Hartford and Connecticut’s other cities for many years, city officials said in the application the federal government.
"While the recession of the early 990s led to sharp increases in youth unemployment among all racial groups in all parts of the state the minority populations that concentrated in the urban centers are not sharing equally in the state's current economic resurgence," the application said.
According to the 1990 census. Connecticut's statewide unemployment rate for young people, ages 16 to 24, was 10.66 percent. In Hartford, the unemployment rate for the same group is estimated at 17.9 percent overall. The percentage is much higher for young minorities, at more than 20 percent.
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