[symple_googlemap title=”” location=”1505 E. First Street, Boyle Heights, CA” height=”300″ zoom=”13″]
Job seekers got a new resource in Boyle Heights Thursday, where city officials helped open the 14th of 17 job centers being made over as part of citywide $36 million effort.
The Boyle Heights/East WorkSource Center at 1505 E. First St. offers training and resources, such as telephones, fax machines, copiers and computers with Internet access.
The center is in a residential area, a block away from the Metro Gold Line Pico/Aliso Station and across the street from the Mendez Learning Center, a high school.
Jan Perry, general manager of the Economic and Workforce Development Department, said the Boyle Heights site is easy to get to and visible to Gold Line riders.
She called job center “exclamation point” among charities and government agencies, such as Dolores Mission Church, which runs the social services center, Proyecto Pastoral.
Renovation work at the Boyle Heights job center was funded in part by a $440,000 federal Community Development Block Grant, city officials said.
City Councilman Jose Huizar said Boyle Heights residents have wanted a job center in the area “for a long time, and I couldn’t be more pleased to see this dream realized,” he said.
A ribbon-cutting, attended by Perry, Huizar and other city officials, was followed by a jobs fair, where construction contractors were looking to hire people to rebuild the Sixth Street bridge over the Los Angeles River.
The next job center will open in Sun Valley, Perry said.
The former city councilwoman wants to enroll at least 45,000 people in city-sponsored programs, including veterans, homeless people, people with developmental disabilities and “disconnected youth and adults” coming out of the foster system.
Perry said the programs are geared toward those “who have gone through the re-entry system and the criminal justice system, and need a safe, social safety net to keep them on a path for a productive life.”
“We need to connect them, and they need to stay connected,” she said.
The city employment website, Jobsla.org, was recently revamped to carry more listings from government and private sources.
— City News Service