City Council Member Ritchie Torres and colleagues are introducing two new bills aimed at improving conditions and outcomes for residents of the city’s public housing. About half a million people live in New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) buildings.....

.....Under the bill, the city’s Center for Economic Opportunity (CEO) would have a year to create a plan that expands JobsPlus from the nine current sites serving specific developments to the entire city. There would be one facility for each geographical zone identified by NYCHA. The plan would include estimated costs and a timeline for implementation and would be submitted to the Council Speaker, the Comptroller, and the Mayor.

“JobsPlus is the most successful workforce development program, the most successful jobs program that you’ve never heard of,” Torres said in a phone interview with Gotham Gazette. “It’s the best kept secret in public housing.”

Torres cited the challenges that public housing residents face and the successes of the JobsPlus program in helping boost opportunity. According to CEO, about 46 percent of working-age residents in the city’s 334 NYCHA developments do not report employment income and about 84 percent of households earn below the city’s median income. A 2010 report by the MDRC found that average earnings for residents in developments targeted with a JobsPlus program increased by 16 percent and those effects stayed strong for three years after the program ended.

The program was first implemented in New York City in 2009 and then expanded to seven additional sites in 2013.

“My goal is to shine a light on the lack of opportunity in public housing and to offer what I believe is the most empirically proven workforce development program in public housing,” Torres said. Comparing it to other such programs, he said JobsPlus is easier to gauge, owing to the division into geographical zones, and it provides the “missing ingredient” of financial empowerment that goes beyond wage increases.....

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