Norton Releases First Year Figures on D.C. Residents at DHS Construction Site

August 31, 2011

WASHINGTON, DC - At a Ward 8 community meeting last night, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) released new statistics on D.C. residents employed at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) headquarters construction site in Ward 8. Noting that the increases in D.C. residents employed have been steady as the project has progressed, Norton said, "On the ground right now at the DHS site, 322 of the 854 construction workers, or over 36 percent, are D.C. residents. To date, D.C. residents are 26 percent of the workers onsite, and have logged 256,685 hours out of 1,268,286 worked or just over 20 percent. The small percentage point difference between the workers and hours worked reflects that some trades work longer hours based on weather and daylight. These figures are far better than is generally found for D.C. residents employed on construction sites in the District of Columbia, but we will continue working for more jobs for D.C. residents." Norton said she was especially pleased that 20 percent of the District residents employed on the project live in Ward 8.

Norton, who requires monthly hiring reports on the project, has held regular Congressional hearings, roundtables and community meetings and regularly goes on unannounced visits to the site. We have achieved these results, Norton said, even though the federal government by law cannot require that any percentage of work go to D.C. residents, D.C. residents account for only ten percent of the regional population, and federal projects must hire from the region and from any state. However, the federal government encourages aggressive outreach to employ residents in the jurisdiction of the federal construction, and Norton has taken full advantage of outreach to achieve results unusual for D.C. residents hired in construction in the District. Norton and her staff have worked almost daily with the General Services Administration (GSA), the agency with oversight of the project. Most of the D.C. workers at the site have been hired as a result of the prefabricated Opportunities Center that was built on the site. The Opportunities Center has provided small businesses with information on opportunities, and has trained others on securing small business contracts from the federal government.

The Congresswoman, who is the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management, which has jurisdiction over GSA, secured the funds for the first phase of the project. She said that work is expected to continue on the project for years, providing 38,000 construction-related jobs and 14,000 permanent DHS jobs when the first federal agency to move east of the Anacostia River. The Congresswoman is now seeking funding for the second phase of the project, including infrastructure and construction funds for a building on the east campus of St. Elizabeths, which is owned by the District.