Thursday, September 23, 1999
Trade a key to new jobs
BY LUCY MAY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Four months ago, Shannon Leary was moving from temp job to temp job, unsure about how to reach his goal of entering the construction industry.
Now he swings a hammer in Walnut Hills every weekday, working with a general contractor to meet a Christmas deadline to finish two May Street townhomes being built by Jireh Development Corp.
Mr. Leary credits Jireh Development Corp.'s Exodus Program with getting his life on the right track and giving him the opportunities he'd been missing.
“I've had my share of bad luck and bad times,” said Mr. Leary, 25, of Hyde Park. “(Exodus) helped me in many ways. My attitude overall toward people, as far as dealing with the public, dealing with your employer.”
Mr. Leary has become the kind of success story Hamilton County commissioners hoped for when they hired Jireh back in February to train people for future jobs on the county's stadium projects and other construction needs.
So far, county officials have been pleased with Jireh's results, said Stan Williams Jr., the county's director of small, minority- and female-owned business.
The group's first three-week class started in April, and Jireh has completed four of the classes. Of the 59 people who started, 45 graduated. Of those people, 23 have jobs in the construction industry.
While those numbers may not seem big, each graduate is a success, Mr. Williams said.
“You're not going to get 200 people graduating from the program,” Mr. Williams said. “Even if it's one person, we know there's one more person in the work force we did not have.”
The contract was part of the county's effort to meet its pledge to increase the number of minority workers on the stadium projects and in other county construction jobs.
In addition, Commissioner Bob Bedinghaus argues such a program can help the community at large since Greater Cincinnati continues to have such a tight labor market.
“We have said from the beginning that the ongoing legacy of this stadium project is better focused on individuals having skills at the end of
the project than it is on any businesses,” Mr. Bedinghaus said. “The results (Jireh) has been able to produce have met if not exceeded our expectations.”
When Jireh won the county contract with its bid of $162,031, the agency pledged to train 110 people by next April, with a goal of finding jobs for 75 percent of them. Hamilton County's Department of Human Services already had a contract with it and had been pleased with the company's work.
Officials have high hopes that Jireh, an arm of Christ Emmanuel Christian Fellowship, will reach people other agencies cannot.
Some students in the current Exodus class have served time in prison, said Charles Clingman, Jireh's executive director. Others have been prostitutes. Others have struggled to beat drug addictions.
One recent morning, all sat listening, pens and pencils in hand, while Lesley Jones reviewed a math lesson focusing on fractions. She talked about buying a chair, how to figure the mark-down, and reminded them to add sales tax.
“Math is one of their greatest fears,” Mr. Clingman said of the group. “To get into the trades, you have to pass a math test with 80 or better.”
Part of teaching these adults math is convincing them they can understand and do the work, Ms. Jones said.
From there, the group goes to a motivational session with Vanessa McQueen, the director of Jireh's Exodus Program.
In that session, Ms. McQueen stressed the need for the class members to stay focused on their goals by reviewing the poem “Mother to Son” by Langston Hughes. “Well son I'll tell you, life for me ain't been no crystal stair,” the poem begins.
The students talked about their struggles. For some, it's finding a reliable baby sitter. For others, it's getting money for bus fare. One woman, a mother of five, talked about how she and her kids live in a shelter. She's thought about ending her life many times, she said, and was going to quit the Exodus Program.
She changed her mind, she says, after talking about the poem. The woman scoots out of the class a few minutes early, embarrassed that she didn't know to dress for a job fair later in the day.
On the way to the job fair, Mr. Clingman walks past a room where an Exodus counselor is talking to the woman. The Exodus staff realized she needed immediate attention, he said.
“Sometimes people just need to know someone loves them,” he said.
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