The city is exploring several avenues to connect at-risk youths with jobs, including an apprentice-support program and minority-led entrepreneurship training and co-working program.
At the city’s Economic Development Committee (EDC) meeting earlier this month, committee members recommended in favor of creating an Evanston Small Business Workforce Development program with funding of $36,000 to get the program off the ground.
Pending council approval, the program would launch Oct. 1.
Addressing the committee, Paul Zalmezak, acting economic development manager for the city, and Kevin Brown, the city’s community services manager, said the idea for a more comprehensive workforce program developed out of discussion over a funding request from Curt’s Café, which employs and trains at-risk young people at two locations, 2922 Central Street and more recently 1813 Dempster Street.
During debate of the request, some aldermen, as well as community members, expressed a need to develop criteria to broaden programs to include other businesses which may be working with the same demographic Curt’s Café is.
Zalmezak and Brown proposed in a memo to the City Council that the workforce development be created to support local city businesses and agencies which work toward a number of goals including seeking to “close local workforce skills gaps to meet the needs of growing in-demand industries for Evanston residents.”
Based on job trends they say they’ve targeted eight areas to link up young people, including information technology, sales, business and financial, health care, office and administrative, transportation, food service and manufacturing.
Funding could go toward businesses which adopt “earn and learn strategies,” which “help employers to address skill shortages by training new workers in job specific skills and protocols while receiving partial reimbursement for employee wages,” they said in the memo.
“Employers are able to hire employees based upon fit and attitude, and employees are able to earn a wage as they train,” Zalmezak and Brown’s memo said of the proposal. “This model benefits the public by investing tax dollars into local businesses and citizens.”
At the meeting, Alderman Delores Holmes, 5th, was one of the EDC members who reacted positively to the proposal.
“If we’re ever going to build a work force of young people, we’re going to have to step out there,” she said.
Alserman Ann Rainey, 8th, questioned whether October was too early of a launch date. “I think it’s a mistake to implement it (if) not ready. Then you don’t get the best results,” she said.
In response, Brown noted that officials had gained “quite a bit of experience” in recent years working with local employers on the Mayor’s Summer Youth Employment program. “This sort of came out of that,” he said.
Officials are also examining a pre-apprentice support program as well as a minority-led entrepreneurship program.
In the entrepreneurship program, officials are exploring a potential partnership with Sunshine Enterprise and local Evanston leaders and program participants, they said in the memo.
The program that Sunshine has launched in Chicago’s Woodlawn neighborhood, “supports women, minorities, immigrants and other traditionally marginalized populations to start and grow successful businesses by investing in the entrepreneurial spirit that already exists in stressed communities.”
Sunshine Enterprises started in 2012, according to its website, to train and equip “neighborhood-based entrepreneurs in business management and development.”
Evanstons officials are hoping to replicate the success the city has seen in its national-award winning Mayor’s Summer Youth Employment Program.
Since 2012, summer employment for Evanston youth has increased from 160 jobs per summer to more than 550 jobs in 2015, officials said.
Twitter: @evanstonscribe
