Have changes to NYC employment programs been effective?

Pro Bono Partnership raised more than $1.8 million at a Nov. 13 gala in Manhattan. Several hundred people attended the event in support of the nonprofit’s mission to provide free legal services to nonprofit organizations in Connecticut, New Jersey and New York, according to a press release. MSNBC Chief Legal Correspondent Ari Melber hosted the event, which honored Aetna Inc., and Thomas Reid, a managing partner at Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP.

Carter Burden Network raised $650,170 at a Nov. 5 event in Manhattan. City Councilman Ben Kallos was among those in attendance at the event, which honored the Glick Family/GPG Properties/Mautner-Glick Corp. for its longtime support of the nonprofit. The Carter Burden Network offers a variety of services for seniors 60 years old and above. Among its more creative endeavors is its operation of an art gallery that features the work of “re-emerging artists,” which was featured by NYN Media late last year.

The Community Preservation Corporation has celebrated its 10 billionth dollar lent in support of housing in New York. The nonprofit affordable housing finance company has helped hundreds of borrowers sinces its founding in 1974, according to a Nov. 8 press release. To mark its latest milestone, the nonprofit also recognized the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development and the State of New York Mortgage Agency for their help over the decades.

“Over the last 44 years we have worked with our partners to invest in the places and the projects where we can be the most effective in revitalizing underserved communities. And, while much has changed since 1974, there will always be a need for a company like CPC that is committed to helping our public and private partners solve their most pressing housing and community revitalization challenges,” Rafael Cestero, CPC president, said in a statement. “I’m excited about what the next $10 billion will look like, and encouraged to know that as CPC grows, so, too, does our ability to impact the physical, social and economic outlook of the communities we serve and the people who call them home.”

The New York City Independent Budget Office has some answers on whether changes to a city job training program have been effective. In 2017, the city Human Resources Administration implemented changes to how people on cash assistance received employment services. The purpose was to emphasize individual needs and provide tailored services for youth and other groups. Here are a few findings, taken verbatim from the IBO report.

• Largely as a result of the transition to the new contractors, overall job placements for cash assistance clients decreased by 17 percent, from 47,005 in fiscal year 2016 to 38,942 in 2018 even as the number of recipients remained relatively flat over that period at about 360,000.
• The new contracted employment programs placed 15,390 clients into jobs in 2018—a decrease of 34 percent from the 23,278 job placements made by contracted programs in 2016, the last full year under the old contracts. The Human Resources Administration attributes the decline to the phase-in of the new employment vendors, and expects job placements to rise substantially in 2019.
• As IBO reported in March, the number of cash assistance recipients in education and training programs has roughly tripled under the de Blasio Administration, but at an average of about 3,000-4,000 a month is still a small share of the caseload.
• The number of job placements from the WeCARE program increased by 7 percent, from 3,455 in 2016 to 3,710 in 2018.
• The number of cash assistance clients placed into jobs through subsidized employment decreased slightly, from 4,633 in 2016 to 4,454 in 2018. Subsidized employment includes the Human Resources Administration’s job-training programs in collaboration with other city agencies such as parks and sanitation, as well as some private-sector jobs where subsidies are provided to employers by diverting clients’ grants.
• Other programs accounted for 4,776 job placements in 2018, down from 5,886 in 2016.
• The number of clients finding jobs on their own rose from 9,753 in 2016 to 10,612 in 2018, an increase of 9 percent.