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City committee backs OEWD grant package to expand green-jobs and youth programs
Summary
The Board committee advanced three OEWD items to accept federal and state grants to expand green-jobs training, summer youth employment and related workforce services; staff said the package will fund training for dozens of San Francisco residents and augment existing academies.
Amy Wallace, deputy director for workforce development at the Office of Economic and Workforce Development, told the committee that OEWD applied for a competitive grant from the California Energy Commission and Employment Development Department to expand training in energy efficiency, solar-thermal installation and a construction pre-apprenticeship. The funding will be delivered through OEWD’s Green Skills Academy and City College partners and will support training and placement services for 90 San Francisco residents.
Wallace said the award is new funding that augments earlier stimulus and Workforce Investment Act block-grant dollars and will allow additional cohorts. She described OEWD’s three sector academies—CityBuild (construction), Green Skills and a healthcare academy—saying the combined programs have served close to 1,000 people and target roughly 700 trainees over two years, with program goals of 90 percent graduation and 90 percent placement for graduates.
Supervisors pressed staff on geography, eligibility and outreach. Wallace said outreach is coordinated through community-based organizations and Goodwill, with orientations at city “one-stop” centers and most training delivered at City College campuses (Evans and Ocean). She said OEWD is required to serve dislocated workers and low-income residents, and that the office tracks participants with criminal-justice backgrounds and offers a “reentry navigator” to provide additional supports.
The committee raised staffing and fiscal questions: OEWD confirmed a grant-funded position would be added to administer the project and that the position would end when the grant expires. Public commenters sharply criticized outreach and alleged the mayor’s office and OEWD were not reaching ground-level residents; Wallace and the committee agreed to provide additional data to the Board on program enrollments, neighborhood origins and demographic breakdowns.
After public comment and follow-up questions, the committee voted to advance the OEWD items to the full Board with recommendation.
