potrero view

November 2009

Stimulus Funds Created Summer Youth Jobs

By Herman Wong

A bit of the $789 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was spent at the Potrero Hill Family Resource Center this past summer, where more than a dozen Potrero Hill residents received temporary jobs.   Federal stimulus funds helped support the City’s Summer Youth Employment Program, or SYEP, which partnered with agencies and community groups throughout San Francisco to offer summer employment to more than 400 youth, 15 of whom were employed at the Turner Terrace-based Resource Center.   Participants ranged in age from 16 to 24, and were paid the minimum wage of $9.79.

  “One of the great things I liked about this program was the fact that they employed youth ages 16 to 24,” said Hattie Breed, a Resource Center program assistant who grew up in the neighborhood. “ Under 24, you’re gaining your experiences, you’re looking to grow, you’re building your vocabulary.  So I really liked how they offered that.  That was something they never offered when I was a child.”

The center offered three types of work:  childcare, afterschool programs, and gym supervision.  “I rotated them so they could have an experience in different fields,” Breed said.  “Sometimes we may think that’s for us but down the road we’re like ‘ugh I don’t like it.’  So I just gave them a sneak peak at the different opportunities in our community.”  Of the 15 program participants, five had never worked before and five had criminal records.  Two-thirds had a child, and all received government assistance, challenges which needed to be overcome for the participants to become independent.  Those with no work experience took longer to adjust to the rules, such as coming on time, according to Breed.  And the young women with criminal pasts preferred childcare work to office duties.

“What I saw with the group that had prior convictions was that they couldn’t believe they could get a job. Every last person that had had problem wanted to choose childcare.  And they seemed not forthcoming when I said they had to come up to the office.  They were like ‘what am I going to be doing in the office?” Breed said.   However, all of the participants ultimately helped with office tasks, such as creating monthly center activity calendars to distribute to the community, and learned to use the computer lab for job searching.  

By the program’s end most of the youth left with a greater appreciation for making their own money, Breed said.   Some moved on to other City programs that provide job training and career support; five have enrolled in City College.  One of the latter, a young woman with a criminal record, had come a long way.  She’d dropped out of high school before undergoing a nine-week educational support program at the Center for Academic Re-Entry and Empowerment at the YMCA in Bayview to obtain her GED.  She then took part in SYEP, saved her stimulus money, and registered for City College.   “Hopefully in December I can see how they are doing,” Breed said.  


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