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Our children want jobs
By Judy Atchinson
Thursday, May 7, 2009

What to do? What to say? How can I assuage this anger, this debilitating fury I have inside. Children 14 and older, lining up at 6:30 in the morning in hopes if getting a six-week summer job that pays $7.25 an hour. No extras, no future. Just a six-week summer job, come and go.

There was money for only 500 jobs and over 700 showed up. Many walking miles to get to the new one-stop Social Services Center that is not, I repeat, not centrally located for its clients. Most of whom do not have a car.

After waiting in line for hours, at 12:30, the rest were told to come back at various times during the day, some were asked to return as late as 4 p.m., to get a "wait" number but also told not to get their hopes up and perhaps look elsewhere for summer employment. A wait number means if someone drops out or doesn't finish their paperwork, there might be a lucky opening, but with 200 youth on the wait list, chances are very minute that those with later appointments will find a place to work.

This is a city of great poverty; almost 25 percent of our youth are living below the poverty level. When they turn to drugs or thievery, who are we to judge? Oh, we tell a good story — all those suicide prevention meetings, a three-day training session (now, how much did that cost?). But youth who see no future for themselves look at other options. How much money to make State Street look pretty? How many buckets of flowers are going to hang there? Pretty for whom? Not these kids who don't get to sit at the economic table. I mention yet again "The Big House"; how much will the final reckoning be there?......>>>>>>......http://www.dailygazette.com/weblogs/atchinson/2009/may/07/our-children-want-jobs/