County Receives a Larger Share of U. S. Jobs Aid

Ventura County has received a higher-than-expected $2.2 million in federal emergency funds to hire workers who lost jobs or businesses during the Jan. 17 earthquake.

State labor officials say the county’s share of the $28 million in federal assistance was higher because the county lost more jobs in the earthquake than originally thought.

“The information we got from businesses that were damaged and from individuals filing for unemployment claims in Ventura County changed our estimates,” said spokeswoman Suzanne Schroeder of the state Employment Development Department. “The numbers from Ventura County came in higher than we initially expected.”

Unemployment insurance claims in Ventura County filed by individuals who cited the earthquake as the cause of their unemployment have risen to 2,051 through Saturday, Schroeder said. Statewide, a total of 25,750 people have applied for unemployment because of the earthquake.

Counting the self-employed and others ineligible for unemployment insurance, at least 4,300 county residents have lost their livelihoods because of the quake, local job officials say.

The federal funds--part of the $9 billion in earthquake relief money approved by Congress--will be administered by the Job Training Policy Council of Ventura County. The money--which will pay for more than 1,000 county residents to work for up to six months--follows an initial emergency grant of $200,000 that the job council received immediately after the earthquake.

“This program has two immediate benefits for the county,” said Jacqueline Richardson, the job council’s chairwoman. “On the one hand, it aims to provide employment for the person who lost their job because of the earthquake. And, on the other hand, the people employed will work on public sector projects aimed at repairing the damage done by the quake.”

Sam Nakhleh, a general contractor from Ventura, saw his business dry up overnight when the earthquake struck during the pre-dawn hours Jan. 17.

“I had some jobs in Simi Valley, but I had to put them all on hold because my customers were waiting for money from federal disaster officials or waiting for inspectors to inspect the damage,” he said.

Nakhleh, 51, has been a contractor for nine years. Because he is self-employed, he was not eligible for standard unemployment insurance.

“There’s no safety net for someone like me,” he said. “You don’t qualify for unemployment, and most jobs you apply for you are either over-qualified, under-qualified or they’ve got a million applicants just like you.”

Fortunately for Nakhleh, state employment officials were able to use money from the initial federal grant to hire him to help in the laborious task of cleaning up hard-hit Simi Valley High School.

Since last week, Nakhleh has put his construction experience to use helping private contractors assess what can be salvaged and what must be rebuilt at the school, which is less than 10 miles from the earthquake’s epicenter.

During a walk through the school grounds, Nakhleh pointed to the extensive damage to structural beams, walkways and classroom ceilings. Loosely stacked desks were piled on the lawn outside the classrooms, along with racks of student pottery that somehow managed to survive intact.

“You have to see a building hit by a train to compare the destruction,” he said. “Look around. It’s devastation. Even in their worst nightmares, school administrators couldn’t have expected this.”

Saying he was never the type to stand in an unemployment line, Nakhleh said he was glad to have the chance to make a difference at the high school.

“The work here had to be done by someone,” he said.