[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 114 (Thursday, September 14, 2006)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1736]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       RECOGNIZING THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF YOUTHBUILD TO THE NATION

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. CHARLES B. RANGEL

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, September 14, 2006

  Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 5837, a 
bill to amend the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 to provide for a 
YouthBuild program and to recognize the many achievements and 
accomplishments attributed to YOUTHBUILD USA.
  The YouthBuild program started in my Congressional District of East 
Harlem in 1978 as a response to the failed public school system, the 
lack of workforce development programs available to young adults and 
the growing number of youth who were being driven into the criminal 
justice system, YouthBuild's mission is to provide a pathway to 
successful productive careers. YouthBuild started in the interstices 
between these three systems as a community-based comprehensive program 
designed with and for youth. It became simultaneously an alternative 
school, a job and career training program, a point of re-entry for 
adjudicated youth, a way to serve one's community by building the 
highly valued commodity of affordable housing, and a way to gain 
leadership skills to improve the community in the long run and to 
become somebody who could make a difference.
  This combination has been highly attractive to the disconnected 
youth, and has created a pathway to a productive future for tens of 
thousands of young adults across the country.
  YouthBuild spread from East Harlem throughout New York City, and from 
there around the country. It became a federal Housing and Urban 
Development (HUD) program in 1992, and with HUD's help has spread to 
226 of America's poorest urban and rural communities. It has been 
incubated as a federal program in HUD--still outside of the existing 
public education, workforce development, and criminal justice systems. 
At HUD, the emphasis has been on broad community development.
  YouthBuild has shown itself to be highly attractive to communities 
seeking a solution for the fact that 32 percent of America's youth are 
dropping out of school, a hundred thousand are aging out of foster care 
each year and need a supportive transition, and tens of thousands are 
returning to their neighborhoods from incarceration needing a guiding 
hand.
  Now YouthBuild is being moved as a response to its success. It is 
consistent with the priorities of the Department of Labor to engage the 
most disadvantaged youth in education and job training in high-demand 
careers through a cost effective community-based solution. While it is 
consistent with HUD's general community development goals, it is 
consistent with the Department of Labor's central priorities for young 
adults.
  YouthBuild programs are also working well as re-entry programs under 
a special grant with the Department of Labor and with various state 
governments. They are working as AmeriCorps programs especially 
designed for low-income youth in partnership with the Corporation for 
National and Community Service. They are also working with local public 
school systems and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation--40 YouthBuild 
programs have become diploma-granting public charter or alternative 
schools, expanding the reach of limited federal funds by attracting 
additional local public education funds and deepening YouthBuild's role 
as an alternative school. Since it has become simultaneously a school, 
a job-training program, a re-entry program, and a national service 
program, it is working now on the creative edge of all these systems.
  Local YouthBuild programs are led by entrepreneurial and committed 
professionals rooted in local communities. They are knit together by a 
national non-profit organization, YouthBuild USA, that works in 
partnership with the federal government to hold local programs to high 
standards, to train them in best practices, and to recognize innovative 
promising practices. This public/private partnership has also proven 
itself to be a good delivery system which has been responsible for the 
effective implementation of a creative program design.
  At a time when America is seeking solutions to the disconnection from 
school and work of over 5 million 16- to 24-year-olds, 2.4 million of 
whom are poor, at a time when we are realizing that some of our 
existing systems are not working for this sub-set of young adults, it 
is a good moment to highlight YouthBuild as a solution, and position it 
in the Department of Labor for its next stage as a visible and viable 
pathway to success for tens of thousands of young Americans.

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