On Saturday, April 23, members of the Northwest Labor and Employment Law Office ( LELO) Family Wage Jobs (FWJ) Organizing Committee and the Seattle Housing Authority (SHA) held a community accountability forum at the Rainier Community Center. The forum reported on efforts to employ more neighborhood workers in area housing projects.
The meeting was the culmination of intensive discussions between the two groups, as well as a Community Oversight Committee (COC) tasked with drafting strong section-three contractor language in SHA's bid documents. The language will ensure more area low-income residents are given jobs at projects such as Rainier Vista, New Holly, and the High Point redevelopment.
According to the 1968 HUD Fair Housing Act, federally funded agencies such as SHA are required to provide opportunities to hire section-three, low- income workers in the neighborhood the project is operating to the greatest extent possible. The goal of Saturday's forum was to give the community an update on language changes that will impact how such people are hired and to raise awareness about this hiring requirement. It was also aimed at giving area residents an opportunity to share their views on the gentrification of the Rainier Valley.
According to Wanda Saunders, a LELO member, the community in which these redevelopmnt efforts occur should be given the highest priority for receiving economic opportunities.
" The neighbors need to have more of a say in the neighborhood change process," Saunders stated. "Community members need living wages and benefits, youth need training via apprenticeship programs or 'Earn While You Learn,' and education, all of which builds individual self-sufficiency."
Cherry Cayabyab, FWJ campaign organizer concurs.
"LELO and FWJ want to raise community awareness and give community members a chance to speak out on their employment needs," Cayabyab asserted. "Verbiage must be in contracts going out to bidders to ensure low income people are hired for these jobs in the redevelopments."
Andrew J. Lofton, the Deputy Executive Director of SHA, understands these concerns, and he is delighted with the progress the COC, SHA ,and LELO have made in improving the employability of neighborhood residents
" SHA's role is to create self-sufficiency for low income residents. This is done by providing housing, education, language skills, and employment. Certainly LELO and SHA share many of the same goals," Lofton noted. "Both groups want to maximize opportunities for residents of SHA facilities, and to increase their employment."
Lofton felt that, in the past, the SHA and LELO had a difference of perspective and differences in terms of how to increase employment for area residents.
"SHA has constraints as a public agency along with the federal guidelines associated with obtaining bids on projects, said Lofton. "LELO doesn't have these same constraints."
Lofton believes that the groups were at odds because of a lack of understanding regarding these constraints.
"SHA didn't have, in the bidders' contracts, specific enough language about hiring low income people. So successful bidders were not bound to do certain things," said Lofton. "LELO wanted us to force contractors to hire these residents, but with the contract already signed, there was no vehicle to do this."
Lofton spoke with obvious pride as he recalled the accomplishments of the COC.
"First, as a result of the intensive dialogues between the various groups on the oversight committee, the contract verbiage is considerably stronger to ensure low income people will be hired. SHA can now enforce this," Lofton asserted.
According to Lofton, the COC developed a four-tier priority approach to hiring residents. The tiered approach works as follows: 1) residents living on the project site will receive the top priority when it comes to hiring 2) the second hiring priority goes to residents of all SHA facilities. 3) the next hiring priority will be participants in the Youth Build Program 4) the last priority is aimed at people living in zip codes adjacent to the projects.
The COC agreed that 100 percent of all new hires will be section-three residents. Additionally, Lofton noted the COC created a first-hire list for contractors who are required to take their new hires from this list. This list defaults to the hiring priorities.
With all of this in mind, it's important to note that all new workers nee to be qualified for a particular position.
To ensure everything is going along as smoothly and as accountable as planned, the list will be monitored monthly at regular COC meetings.
Lofton emphasized that both LELO and SHA share the same interests for improving the lives of low-income people in Seattle. He believes that these community hiring strategies will ensure that area residents get trained, hired, receive a fair family wage.
For more information on LELO, call 206 860-1400 or via the web, www.lelo.org.
The Seattle Housing Authority can be reached at 206 615-3500 or at www.seattlehousing.org.
Mary Sanford may be reached at editor@sdistrictjournal.com.[[In-content Ad]]
