A group of workforce development partners have come together to create a plan to get residents living in North St. Louis back to work.
St. Louis Job Corps Center, St. Patrick Center, Better Family Life, Construction Prep Center and Construction Careers Center are some of the groups that have developed a plan to hire North City residents in the long-delayed Northside Regeneration project headed by developer Paul McKee Jr. and McEagle Properties.
The group of partnering organizations is calling the workforce development plan the Northside Regeneration Workforce Coalition.
“We really started coordinating this project about five years ago to figure out how the process is going to work to get people in the community jobs,” said Michael Holmes, executive director of the St. Louis Agency on Training and Employment (SLATE).
The coalition has set a goal for the construction phase of the Northside project of 25 percent workforce participation by local residents living in the development area. This would mean hundreds of jobs for people living in North St. Louis.
“The first year they’re looking to hire about 86, the second year they hope to hire another 159 and the third year they hope to be around the 230 mark, which represents about 25 percent of the total workforce,” said Stan Shoun, president of Ranken Technical College. “If you’re looking at the total number of jobs this brings to that sector, you’re looking at 1,000 jobs.”
Shoun’s main focus is to work with the six contractors planning to work on the development to ensure that 25 percent of the workforce is comprised of local residents. There is a learning curve involved. “A lot of people struggle with this,” McKee said.
SLATE has mapped out the process of finding and preparing North City residents to fill the jobs.
“Our goal is to help coordinate, first, residents who are laid-off journeymen, get them in and get them back to work,” Holmes said. “Not only journeymen, but apprentices.”
The second step of the process, after getting those skilled workers on the job, is to help those who may have some training, but require more. The third phase is to train those who need work and have no formal training for the jobs that will be available.
Holmes said that once the development project is in motion they plan to open their office for a period of time to those who are looking for work, then process everyone who is interested. Once businesses start to move into the development area, SLATE plans to use a similar process to fill the permanent jobs that will become available in North St. Louis.
McKee calls SLATE the “gatekeeper” to jobs on the project.
“We have to see what [McKee] is bringing to the community, but we’re going to do the same on permanent jobs,” Holmes said.
The goal for the development project is not only to bring new businesses and development to North St. Louis, but also economic opportunity for those in the community who are in need of jobs.
“One of the things that first impressed us about this process is that building isn’t the solution to the problem,” Shoun said. “Jobs are the solution to the problem. So it’s not only having a job, but a job in their own area.”
“It’s important for the people who live, work and play in that community to see people who look like them working in that community,” Holmes said. “It’s going to eventually expand city-wide, but you want to start with the people in North St. Louis as they see their community being revitalized.”
In addition to the goal of having 25 percent of the workforce made up of North City residents, McEagle Properties has also set goals for 25 percent of construction companies contracted for the project to be minority-owned businesses, five percent to be woman-owned businesses and five percent to go to disadvantaged business enterprises.
McKee points out that his project goals are more specific than the city’s workforce goals of 25 percent minority participation on public works in the city. His goals are for 25 percent resident participation within the project area, which has mostly African-American residents.
This requirement has stood on its head the usual expectation that people have to leave North St. Louis to look for jobs.
McKee said, “People ask me how they can get a job on our development, and I tell them, ‘You want a job, move down here.’”
