Councilman Wants Commitment From Business : Inglewood Youth Job Program Urged

The idea is simple: Inglewood business people should look first to Inglewood young people when they hire entry-level employees.

City Councilman Daniel Tabor and several business leaders are preparing such a proposal--patterned after a recent Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce agreement with the City of Los Angeles--to the Inglewood-Airport Area Chamber of Commerce. The Los Angeles chamber members committed themselves to provide 14,000 jobs for disadvantaged youths.

But that simple idea raises complex questions about youth unemployment in Inglewood, where the grim arithmetic mirrors that of predominantly black and Latino communities around the country. The percentage of unemployed young people 16 to 19 years old in Inglewood corresponds to the county average of 19%, said Jerry Shea of the state’s Employment Development Department. However, in both Inglewood and the county, unemployment among black teen-agers is more than 30%.

Some Not Counted

Those statistics do not include a large population of teen-agers and young adults who need jobs but have stopped looking, often because they lack the most basic job skills, Shea said

Nor do the statistics include those who have entered the dangerous but lucrative drug culture and are making enough money to drive expensive cars and support their families, various officials said.

“We’re losing those kids,” said Jan Vogel, who directs federally funded Joint Training and Partnership Act programs for economically disadvantaged South Bay residents. “They don’t need us.”

The $3.1-million federally funded program is administered by the Inglewood-based Private Industry Council, which provides sorely needed training and jobs in the Inglewood-Hawthorne area and other South Bay communities. This summer, federal funds are paying 117 teen-agers working for city departments and nonprofit enterprises, said Vogel, an Inglewood city employee assigned to the agency.

Another 100 young people are working in permanent jobs, some of them in construction and other relatively well-paid fields, where employers split salary costs with the federal government, Vogel said.

“What we’re doing we’re doing well,” Vogel said, adding that 78% of the trainees move into unsubsidized employment, the military or educational programs. “But it’s a limited number of kids.”

Councilman Tabor agrees, pointing out that many young people looking for jobs are not served by the federally funded programs because of restrictions on income. For a trainee from a family of four to be eligible, for example, the family’s annual income can be no more than $14,000.

Tabor said young people are constantly coming to him for jobs; he wants to match them with business people who need workers.

“I want a commitment that they will look first to Inglewood residents, especially young people ages 14 to 21,” Tabor said. “I’m talking about the gamut: small businesses, retail, chain stores, the Forum.”

Teach Basic Skills

Tabor and chamber manager Roger Scott are developing a proposal asking businesses to support a program that would instruct teen-agers in basic work habits and job-hunting skills, then place them with employers. Tabor envisions local schools providing a pool of applicants whom chamber members would contact before they publicize job openings.

The school system could use help in training and placing students who do not qualify for the federally funded programs, said Kermet Dixson, director of special projects for the Inglewood Unified School District.

“There are kids whose parents can help them find jobs, and kids who quality for JTPA (Joint Training and Partnership Act programs). It’s those kids in the middle you feel sorry for,” Dixson said.

Working on Details

The details of the proposal are still being worked out, Scott and Tabor said. Tabor sees the school district, possibly with city help, training employees for fully paid positions, while Scott described a JTPA-style program where employers pay only part of the salaries with the rest coming from other sources such as government or the Chamber of Commerce.

Selling the idea to employers remains a challenge, Scott said.

Businessmen interviewed about the proposal said they are reluctant to comment until they know further details. Several said that they had nothing against the idea of hiring Inglewood young people but were concerned about pressure to hire unqualified workers.

“You have to be careful how you go about something like this,” said one store owner. “Otherwise people get turned off.”

Give Them ‘First Shot’

Tabor did not disagree. “I’m not saying anyone should hire someone they don’t want to hire,” he said. “If they’re not qualified, fine. Just give them the first shot.”

To deal with reluctant employers, Scott has an energetic sales pitch:

“I’ll ask them, Do you want to see your country go down the tubes totally, partially or not at all? These are our future Americans. We’re going to turn our nation over to them. Hopefully we’ll have some kids with some zing, some moxie, who know what it’s all about. Otherwise our country’s in trouble.”

Former chamber President Frank Denkins, who said he has been hiring local teen-agers at his Holiday Village Cleaners for years with good results, said there is a dire need to get Inglewood teen-agers working.

‘Not Enough Opportunities’

“We have as much of a crime element in this community as we do because there are not enough opportunities,” said Denkins, who favors minority set-asides that would require industries coming into the city to hire high school seniors and juniors.

Most discussions of youth employment in Inglewood return to an image of youths adrift in a culture of drugs and violence, some getting rich enough to ridicule the thought of a 9-to-5 job.

“When I hear some of the stories of how much money has changed hands, I sometimes think I’m in the wrong racket,” joked Evelyn Holmboe, who heads the South Bay Youth Services Center.

Although Holmboe’s agency is based in Torrance, it has one of the best records in training and placing Inglewood youths in jobs, Inglewood JTPA staff said. It specializes in helping poor and troubled youths who are considered the hardest to employ.

$600,000 Budget

The success of the South Bay Youth Services Center, which gets nearly all of its $600,000 budget through the Joint Training and Partnership Act, demonstrates the need for training alternatives to overburdened school systems, officials at the center said.

“Schools are not historically geared to becoming job developers,” Vogel said, though he underscored the federal commitment to school-based programs.

Holmboe has a paid staff of nine and seven additional volunteers who deal with problems ranging from drugs to broken homes to sexual abuse. But the ultimate goal of the center is to “find these kids jobs,” Holmboe said. The agency placed 155 young people in full- and part-time employment last year, and uses funding from charity and grants to help those ineligible for government aid.

“We don’t force anyone to do anything,” Holmboe said, attributing the center’s success to an informal, hard-working atmosphere of trust and a wide range of counseling services. But job counselors at the center said they are not above going to teen-agers’ homes and getting them out of bed to make sure they show up for a new job.

Good Reputation

Michael Pena, who landed a permanent job at a bookstore through the South Bay center two years ago after the federal program paid for his first 100 hours, said the agency has a good word-of-mouth reputation among Inglewood teen-agers.

“I would recommend it to anyone,” Pena said. Considered a star product of the federally funded program, Pena, 18, will attend Grambling University in Louisiana in the fall on a scholarship and plans to be a math teacher.

Not every story Holmboe tells is so spectacular. As with all such programs, some clients go through counseling and training but get fired or disappear from jobs, often sliding back into the subculture.

“Do we get fooled? You bet we do.” Holmboe said. “People who are removed from young people today don’t realize how complex they are. Many of the kids we get in here are dazed. They’re onlookers. It’s not just drugs. It’s a lack of alertness, a lack of feeling.” But L. D. Shern, a JTPA employment counselor in Inglewood, said those looking to improve the employment prospects in the city should consider opening an agency there along the lines of the South Bay center.

As for the proposal to the Chamber of Commerce, Tabor said he and Scott hope to present a concrete plan to the chamber’s board of directors this month, with a vote by the executive committee to follow. If the business community gives its approval, Tabor said a job program could be under way by the end of the summer.