Norton Announces Help for Jobs & Contracts Available February 1st when Opportunities Center Opens
Norton Announces Help for Jobs & Contracts Available February 1st when Opportunities Center Opens to the Public
January, 4, 2010
As the new year begins, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) today announced that the Opportunities Center atthe construction site for the new U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) headquarters on the St. Elizabeths West Campus, unveiled on December 18th, will be open for business for the community beginning on Monday, February 1st. The Opportunities Center will feature job search assistance, on-site small business training sessions, pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship information, a computer lab, a conference room, and information kiosks. The Center will be open to the community on weekdays, from 8 a.m.-5 p.m., with arrangements for community use possible for other hours. Congresswoman Norton unveiled the modern modular facility before a standing-room only crowd in a tent outside the Center in mid-December to allow residents to tour the Center and to learn about jobs and business opportunities that will be available there.
"The site is being cleared by a few workers now, but actual construction has not yet begun and hiring in significant numbers will not occur until the warm weather months," Norton said. However, "Enthusiasm already is high in the community about the long-term benefits of this federal signature headquarters in Ward 8," Norton said. "We are notifying residents well in advance of hiring and contract opportunities about how to compete. The February 1st opening will guarantee that D.C. residents know in time what jobs, pre-apprentice and apprenticeship openings and what other opportunities are available, and have a fair chance to compete and to get training."
The DHS headquarters, the largest federal construction project underway in the country today, is expected to generate 38,000 jobs over the next decade. When completed, the three-building headquarters compound will house 14,000 federal employees located in the first federal center built east of the Anacostia River. The Congresswoman, who chairs the Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management, which has jurisdiction over the General Services Administration (GSA), the agency supervising the construction, has insisted that the DHS headquarters include "genuine" live opportunities for D.C. residents to compete for jobs, apprenticeships, and small business contracts. The GSA has been holding workshops to help small businesses, including minority-owned and women-owned businesses, obtain 8-A certification applications to qualify for federal contracts. The Center also will accommodate training by contractors hiring work crews for the DHS headquarters site, and GSA staff will help residents identify and apply for job opportunities. Hiring will be done by Clark Design-Build, LLC, the construction contractor for the DHS headquarters, and its subcontractors.
Norton got $3 million in the stimulus bill for pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship programs to make sure women, minorities and others who have not been part of the construction sector could benefit from the jobs created by renovating and greening federal buildings across the country, including 16 located here in the nation's capital. On December 14th, Norton spoke at the graduation ceremony for the first pre-apprenticeship class trained by the Community Service Agency, the Metropolitan Council, AFL-CIO, and Wider Opportunities for Women, which successfully competed for funding from Norton's stimulus training funds. The 20 students in the first graduating class, as well as future pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship graduates, will have opportunities to work at the DHS site and the 16 other federal buildings being rehabilitated here. Many residents will begin as pre-apprentices, but those who become apprentices will train for jobs, with full benefits in many trades, including bricklaying, carpentry, stone and marble masonry, roofing, plumbing, elevator construction, insulation, electrical engineering, and steam fitting. Qualifications for some apprenticeships are as basic as being at least 18-years-old, drug free, having a high school diploma or GED, and having access to reliable transportation. Those who graduate from rigorous full apprenticeships, which often involve four or five years of training for journeymen status, typically earn more than $40,000 as apprentices.