Perspective: Job Corps holds out hope

A fortuitous phone call four years ago has given Pinellas County a chance to land a new Job Corps center, which would probably be built in St. Petersburg's struggling Midtown area.

Job Corps has a remarkable success rate with young people who might otherwise end up chronically unemployed, and a center itself provides a boost to the surrounding community. So if Pinellas County is successful, the center would put dozens of Tampa Bay's young people into good jobs each year and would also provide a much-needed spark for economic development.

Pinellas County Commissioner Bob Stewart got the phone call from an acquaintence informing him that the U.S. Department of Labor was looking for sites for two new Job Corps centers and that they were interested in Central Florida.

The state has four centers, the closest to Tampa Bay being in Gainesville, but so much demand that most local candidates end up in out-of-state programs. After gaining cooperation from the Pinellas County School Board, the city of St. Petersburg and St. Petersburg College, the county applied for one of the new centers.

Two sites are being proposed. The primary one is at the Pinellas Technical Education Center campus on 34th Street near Gibbs High School. The site's only drawback is that it is smaller than what Job Corps usually seeks, and some of the facilities would have to be shared with the technical school. But that is also the site's strength. By sharing classroom space and other resources, Job Corps would save money at the PTEC site, and that could be critical in an era of tight federal budgets. The county also has offered a secondary site at the current SPC administrative offices on 66th Street in Pinellas Park. College officials will be moving to the EpiCenter complex in a couple of years.

Job Corps has a proven track record of success. It provides an education and job training to at-risk young people, and it connects them with employers who offer good jobs to graduates. The program also teaches social and professional skills to students and follows up for a year after graduation.

While attending Job Corps, most students live in tightly regulated dormitories and are kicked out for any criminal behavior. Eighty percent of participants get jobs, enlist in the military or continue on with advanced education. Studies have shown that every $1 spent on Job Corps returns $2 in taxes paid by successful students and savings in social costs.

The program is so popular that Goliath Davis III, head of St. Petersburg's economic development office, found no resistance to the center from Midtown residents or community leaders. To the contrary. Most groups he talked to had members who knew a Job Corps graduate, and the audience became the cheerleaders for the program, he said.

It fits the city's Midtown initiative, as well. "When we asked the community to define for us economic development, what they seek and hope for, one of the components was living-wage jobs and benefits," Davis said. That requires high-level training, and Job Corps provides it better than most. "We need this," Davis said.

So what are Pinellas County's chances? There is plenty of competition, though Labor officials won't say how many other applications it received. But Pinellas County has some strong backing. Six members of Congress, including Rep. C.W. Bill Young and Sens. Bob Graham and Bill Nelson, signed the application's cover letter. Young, a longtime supporter of the program, is chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, which approves funding for the Labor Department and Job Corps. That isn't a guarantee, but it should help.

In the meantime, the state's congressional delegation and community leaders should take every opportunity to promote Pinellas County's application. All Florida residents will be the winners if it succeeds.

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