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City Career Center reports 2,900 clients in year one and expands disability employment supports
Summary
San Francisco's new City Career Center reported about 2,900 clients in its first year and has added focused disability employment services, including an ACE program analyst providing disability-focused advising and recurring workshops with ASL interpretation when available.
Julia Ma, workforce and organizational development director at the Department of Human Resources, updated the Mayor's Disability Council on the City Career Center (Room 110, City Hall), which opened in March 2024 to help diverse job seekers navigate city hiring and provide career services to current city employees.
Ma reported the center served approximately 2,900 clients in its first year; about 65% were job seekers and 35% were city employees seeking advancement. She said the center is promoting digital accessibility and deploying assistive technologies (JAWS, EZC keyboard, braille stickers) and is working to acquire additional tools (ZoomText, Read&Write) and train staff.
To better serve people with disabilities, the Career Center now staffs an ACE (Access to City Employment) program analyst, Leora Dang, who provides in-person and virtual career advising on Mondays and Tuesdays and has already helped clients from the disability community. "We launched new programs and services in February, including our ACE program analyst," Ma said, highlighting that 41 people had received advising by the analyst as of an earlier data pull.
Ma acknowledged challenges in sourcing American Sign Language interpreters and said the center requests as much advance notice as possible for certain accommodations, explaining that the four-week advance notice recommendation primarily reflects ASL procurement lead time. She emphasized the center also provides drop-in services, and that many accommodations and assistive tools are already available on-site.
Council members raised concerns about the perceived length of time to secure accommodations and about outreach to the deaf community. Ma said the center is amplifying outreach to community-based organizations, planning to schedule workshops with ASL interpretation when possible, and encouraging job seekers to use the city's reasonable accommodation process when engaging with recruitments.
Next steps: the Career Center will continue to publicize its services, expand workshops, maintain accessible webpages and coordinate with ODA and community partners to improve outreach and interpreter procurement. The center can accept appointments for disability-focused advising and also offers drop-in support.
