Youth Job Program to Receive $960,000 : Urban aid: The federal allotment offers summer work for another 750 needy or handicapped youngsters.

A Ventura County summer jobs program for low-income and handicapped youth has received $960,000 from an emergency urban aid package approved by Congress and President Bush in response to the Los Angeles riots.

The aid, which was received by the Oxnard-based Job Training Policy Council about two weeks ago, will double the size of the council’s summer jobs program this year to employ a total of 1,500 youths countywide, said Phil Bohan, a manager of the nonprofit group.

The money is part of $500 million in federal funds spread across the nation to increase summer youth employment. Those funds, in turn, are part of the $1.1-billion emergency urban aid package signed by the President in late June as a response to the Los Angeles riots and cries for help from the leaders of other troubled inner cities.

Although Ventura County had no riots, it received its proportional share of funds for summer youth employment that was distributed to California and other states and then passed on to local jobs agencies.

For Ventura County’s Job Training Policy Council, the new funding comes on top of more than $1.5 million in federal funds received earlier this year for summer youth employment.

The earlier funding was allocated to the office of the Ventura County superintendent of schools and the city of Thousand Oaks to provide about 750 minimum-wage jobs to youths between 14 and 21 years old. About 200 of these jobs have been filled.

The additional money will allow the council to contract with another four agencies in the county to put 750 more youths to work on projects ranging from removing graffiti to providing child care at summer day camps.

Although the jobs program is primarily targeted at low-income youths, those who are physically handicapped or have a learning impairment are also eligible.

“Most of them have never had a job,” Bohan said. “Most of them have never had a positive experience in their lives.”

The participants work 25 to 40 hours a week at jobs that generally last five to nine weeks.

The work experience teaches the youths about responsibility and enhances their self-esteem, Bohan said.

In addition, it puts money in their pockets. And many of the participants turn most of their income over to their finan-cially struggling families, program administrators said.

But Lonnie Miramontes, director of community services for El Concilio del Condado de Ventura, said the wages are only “the incentive, the carrot which draws them in” to receive other social services.

El Concilio has been contracted to use $200,000 of the new, federal funds to provide 125 summer jobs in Fillmore, Piru, Moorpark and Santa Paula. Those hired will remove graffiti, clean up senior citizen housing complexes, paint outdoor murals and work on other neighborhood beautification projects. The jobs are scheduled to begin July 27.

The youths who get the jobs will be offered workshops by El Concilio on such issues as improving self-esteem and learning about drug and alcohol abuse, Miramontes said.

In addition to helping the participants, the summer jobs program has other public benefits, said Ruthanne Begun, executive director of the Conejo Youth Employment Service, which administers the program for Thousand Oaks.

The youths “are doing jobs that wouldn’t get done otherwise,” she said.

Financially strapped school districts depend on the young workers to clean school grounds and buildings during the summer.

“They really need these kids to help get the schools ready for fall,” she said.

Other agencies that have contracted with the Job Training Policy Council to provide summer jobs are the city of Oxnard; Oxnard Adult School; El Centrito de la Colonia, a social services center in La Colonia; and Tomkinson & Associates, a private, nonprofit group in Oxnard.

FYI

Although the extra federal dollars will double the size of this year’s summer jobs program, the county’s Job Training Policy Council has assembled a list of more than enough eligible youths to fill the available positions. For more information on the program or eligibility requirements, call the council at 988-1533.