More than 400 San Diego Job Corps students will be displaced and more than 200 staff members after the U.S. Department of Labor called for a pause to the programs by June 30.
San Diego Job Corps has been offering life and job skill training to at risk, vulnerable youth for about 50 years, and, as of last Friday, the center closed.
“This scares me. I have 200 plus staff members who will be unemployed, not by choice, not because they’re lazy and don’t want to work. It’s because they’ve been forced on the streets just because of a budget cut,” said Career Success Director, Twyla Dunham.
Dunham says about 99 centers across the country are being forced to shutter and the U.S. Department of Labor says the decision aligns with the Trump Administration’s proposed budget.
Can you get unemployment benefits if you quit a job?“I’m from Compton, California,” said Dunham. “I graduated from high school and when I graduated my parents said, ‘we have done our due diligence with you. You have 3 months to leave our house.’ I was not ready. Job Corps took me in and I have been working in the workforce ever since. I’ve never been without a job in my life. I’ve never applied for unemployment, I don’t even know how to do that. But within the next two weeks, I will have to learn how to do that.”
On Tuesday, some Job Corps contractors filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Labor calling the pause illegal and “fundamentally irrational” in that it will displace tens of thousands of vulnerable young people and destroy businesses who have relied on the government’s support.
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