Brooklynites Demand More City Money for Summer Youth Jobs

Pictured: Courtland Hoower, right, holds a sign calling for a larger investment in the city's youth employment program. Photo by John V. Santore

NEW YORK CITY HALL, MANHATTAN — For Bed-Stuy resident Courtland Hoover, the worth of hard work at a young age is clear.

"It kept me out of trouble after school," Hoover, 18, said of his part-time job this year working for the anti-violence nonprofit S.O.S. "Having a job helped my mom. Less stress on her. Help with the bills."

Hoover, a senior in high school, says he hopes to be hired full-time by S.O.S. after he graduates.

"Without having a job, I'm going to feel like I'm sitting around doing nothing," he said.

Hoover joined a group of several dozen lawmakers and activists that gathered on the steps of New York City Hall in Lower Manhattan Tuesday morning. Together, they called for the city to make a larger investment in its Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP).

Last year, the city spent nearly $80 million on the program, according to the 2015 SYEP annual report.

More than 9,100 employers hired 54,000 young people — an increase from 2014, when that number stood at about 47,000.

Approximately 22,100 Brooklyn residents got a summer job through SYEP in 2015, far more than in any other borough.

But the program's advocates think those numbers are still too low — and they're worried that the Mayor's Office won't continue to prioritize the program going forward.

They may be right to worry. Rosemary Boeglin, a spokeswoman for Mayor Bill de Blasio, told Patch that "last year’s additional seats for summer programming were for one year only."

"We gave parents and providers a year’s notice to plan ahead for this summer," Boeglin said.

City officials received more than 131,000 SYEP applications in 2015 — more than double the amount of jobs they ended up assigning.

Considering that demand, organizers with the Campaign for Summer Jobs, composed of a collection of community groups, has called for the city to begin funding 100,000 summer youth jobs by 2017.

At the bare minimum, members of the campaign said they want funding for at least 60,000 summer jobs this year.

How much would that cost? Activists have calculated that NYC officials would need to commit an additional $42 million of the city's 2017 budget — which is currently being negotiated — to the program.

They are also pushing for an additional $32 million in 2017 funding to help SYEP handle even more applicants in the future.

Factoring in a rising minimum wage, the Campaign for Summer Jobs estimates that employing 100,000 young people would cost SYEP about $178 million in the 2018 budget; $257 million in the 2019 budget; and $288 million in the 2020 budget.

Still a small price to pay for one of the city's most crucial programs, said New York City Council members who attended the rally.

"Summer youth jobs provide discipline [and] self-esteem," said Councilman Mathieu Eugene, whose district includes Ditmas Park and Prospect-Lefferts Gardens.

Councilman Carlos Menchaca, who represents Sunset Park, said that for him personally, attending a summer employment program as a young man "connected me to my community, because I understood the value of jobs."

And Councilman Ritchie Torres, representing a broad swath of the central Bronx, said bluntly: "The best alternative for mass incarceration is mass youth employment."

But Boeglin, the mayor's spokeswoman, argued that NYC already "runs the largest summer youth jobs program in the nation." She noted that the city has increased programming hours at Cornerstone community centers, which operate in public housing developments, for people of all ages.

And there are other city efforts to connect youth with jobs. Elizabeth DeBold, a spokeswoman for the NYC Center for Youth Employment, a public-private partnership that began operating in 2015 in conjunction with SYEP, said the organization obtained internships for 1,035 young people last year.

This year, DeBold said, the program is adding at least 500 paying internships to its ranks.

By 2020, DeBold said, the Center aims to "support 100,000 unique work-related experiences each year, including high-quality summer jobs, career exposure, skills-building, and supportive mentorships."

What do you think, Brooklyn? Is the city doing enough to put its youth to work?