Why Cincinnati Needs a Community Jobs Program

By Samantha Herd

A pilot Community Jobs Program will help hard-to-employ residents find and keep jobs through the creation of 100 publicly-subsidized jobs combining work experience with, among other things, training in basic skills, mentoring, and financial education.

For most of Cincinnati's thousands of unemployed, this is reality. And from this reality stems a major reason for why too many of Cincinnati's neighborhoods are on the brink of decline.

Almost a decade ago, Harvard University sociologist Dr. William Julius Wilson captured this pattern of urban strife in his groundbreaking book, When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban Poor. As Wilson put it, "Many of today's problems in the inner-city neighborhoods + crime, family dissolution, welfare + are fundamentally a consequence of the disappearance of work."

And we have to look no further than Cincinnati to learn this truth.

The latest unemployment figures, coupled with census data from 2000, reveal thousands of people who are jobless in neighbors such as Over-the-Rhine, Avondale, Westwood, and East Price Hill. Meanwhile, in the past three decades, our city has lost 33 percent of its families, while the poverty level for those that remain has increased by 42 percent.

This trend is eroding our tax base, undermining Cincinnati's financial stability and leaving our citizens vulnerable to increased crime. And because of this chronic unemployment in many of our neighborhoods, the shrinking tax base in our city has contributed to a fiscal crisis that has led to firehouse brownouts, and cuts in city payroll personnel.

It is a mistake to believe that people who don't work don't want to work. On my street, neighbors fill long days picking up a few dollars by working on neighborhood cars, individuals stop by our campaign office looking for temporary painting or cleaning work. Just like you and me, the vast majority of our citizens are seeking purpose and structure in their daily lives.

An immediate investment of $1 million dollars, through state and federal workforce funds, will jump start a Cincinnati Community Jobs Program by providing jobs for 100 citizens. Such a transitional work program would help expand the labor pool by beginning to qualify new workers for better jobs. Modeling this program after similar programs that work, participants would:

• work for 25 hours each week; the City of Cincinnati is the employer of record and pays each client $5.15 per hour
• attend ten hours per week of professional development training through the Cincinnati Jobs Center
• are mentored by a work partner at their work site
• are eligible for child care and transportation subsidies for up to six months I propose we use these jobs to fill community needs. A community jobs program could address current holes in our city's public works needs including cleaning parks and roadways, filling potholes, painting bridges. Efforts desperately needed to help with the trash, litter and blighted street ways and sidewalks in neighborhoods across our city.

Let's get our city back to work by investing in our first 100 citizens, our first 100 families, our first 100 neighbors! More opportunities for work will promote personal responsibility, self-sufficiency and in the long run produce better neighbors, family members and citizens.

Of course, to make these efforts at work, the city needs to work toward constructive solutions to the challenges of limited health care insurance, childcare, transportation assistance and decent, affordable housing. And there will always be a small percentage of the workable population who will not be able to transition into steady work because of persistent drug or alcohol abuse.

But the benefits from increased employment will far outweigh the setbacks. Increasing out city's tax base and the stabilization of our neighborhoods through opportunities for self-sufficiency will bring about a dynamic change in our city's safety, economic outlook and general contentment. A Community Jobs Program in Cincinnati is a first step toward bringing employment and stability to our city.