Mayor Adrian M. Fenty and Department of Employment Services Acting Director Joseph P. Walsh announced a comprehensive plan that includes an increase in the weekly benefits for the unemployed and an expansion of city services to help those filing unemployment claims and looking for work.

“We are facing an unprecedented economic challenge that is hitting many District residents hard,” said Mayor Fenty. “We need to be doing all we can to provide people the help and benefits they count on, and to provide the basic services that unemployed need as they search for their next training, education or job opportunity.”

The new benefits for the unemployed include the Additional Compensation, a supplemental $25 weekly benefit outlined in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) which will be automatically added to unemployment payments beginning next week and will be retroactive to February 17, 2009 the day the AARA was signed by President Barack Obama.

In addition, the administration announces an extension for those who have exhausted their unemployment benefits and are actively seeking work. With the timely passage of necessary legislation that the Mayor is forwarding to the Council of the District of Columbia, those who will exhaust their unemployment benefits by late spring will be able to extend them until December 2009.

Both the new supplemental compensation and the extension of benefits are 100 percent federally funded as part of the ARRA.

View the full release.

 

As part of the Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the District’s Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA) will receive $1,879,421 from the Vocational Rehabilitation State Grant, Title 1 of the Rehab Act. The funding will be available until September 2011 and the Rehabilitation Services Administration will use these resources to:

In addition, under the Act’s Independent Living State Grant program, the District will receive an additional $242,913 to support the expansion and enhancement of independent living services for eligible District residents.

More information about these or other programs servings District residents with disabilities can be found at http://dds.dc.gov

 

Workforce Development–With $10.7 million ARRA funds allocated by formula for workforce development, the District is using this investment to prepare residents for job opportunities in high-demand and emerging “green” industries and in health care and hospitality, major growth sectors of the economy of the District of Columbia. 

One initiative currently underway is to use three of the District’s state-of-the-art career and technical education high schools for adult job training activities. The “Jobs Now” program offers adults pre-apprenticeship certification and training in construction, carpentry, HVAC and electrical at Cardozo Senior High School, and culinary arts and hospitality management at Roosevelt’s “Hospitality High.”  Initial ARRA funding for the program totals $1.2 million, with the first session scheduled to begin in September. 

In the area of Green Jobs, a major training partnership has begun between Department of Employment Services (DOES), Goodwill Industries and the Green Builders’ Council to train up to 240 residents in green construction trades and to transition them to work at construction sites. Using up to $3 million in local and ARRA funding, this program and other green jobs training programs the District will support provides training to adults in weatherization, energy efficiency and other green construction and maintenance disciplines.

The District is directing $892,000 in ARRA investments to help unemployed citizens return to work quickly, through a new Emergency Reemployment program. To date, more than 60 ARRA-funded jobs have been created in the District in transportation, construction, health care and other fields. 

To ensure maximum public awareness of these opportunities, the District recently mandated through Mayor’s Executive Order that employers post all jobs created with ARRA funding on the online Department of Employment Services “job bank.”

This summer the District supported the largest of its kind in the nation Summer Youth Employment Program to provide jobs to nearly 20,000 youth using local funds. The District will invest nearly $4 million in ARRA dollars in youth employment through a year-round employment program and an expanded reconnecting disconnected youth initiative beginning next month.

Unemployment Compensation–by modernizing the District’s unemployment compensation the District is poised to receive over $28 million in ARRA funds. To accomplish this, the District has made several reforms and legislative changes, including:

DOES to Post ARRA Job Opportunities Online

 

 

The United Planning Organization received funds from the federal government through the District of Columbia Government under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) to provide employment and employable skills to Washington, DC residents. UPO just published a web page reviewing what they have done thus far with those funds.

 

 

 

 

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