Fewer At-Risk Youths Attend Job Fair

By Olin Ericksen
Staff Writer

May 5 -- For the second year in a row, City and business officials teamed up to help at-risk youths in Santa Monica get a job. But this year, far fewer youths from the gang-prone Pico Neighborhood attended, according to City officials.

Although final tallies won’t be available until after follow-up interviews with participants, early statistics from the April 26 job fair indicate attendance among the youths from the poorest and most ethnically diverse area of Santa Monica may have dropped as much as 30 percent from last year.

Nearly 400 Santa Monica-based youths and 45 employers tried to find a good match at the job fair in Virginia Avenue Park sponsored by the City, which has launched an ongoing effort to combat youth violence.

With an emphasis on reaching out to at-risk teenagers who are in gangs or thinking about joining, or those kids who may be in danger of run-ins with the law, the youth fair’s aim was to empower teens, especially those in the Pico Neighborhood, City officials said.

“Many of these youths understand that at some point they will enter the workforce, but that’s not necessarily a very easy thing for these youth,” said Betty Macias, Human Resources senior administrative analyst, who helped organize the fair.

But while Macias said the City received “a good response” at the second job fair, she was still unsure how successful they were in reaching their target audience -- the Pico Neighborhood youth.

Nearly 41 percent of the teens who attended this year seemed to come from the zip codes in and around the Pico Neighborhood (90405 and 90404), the most gang-riddled area of the City.

Scores of teens have be shot at, injured or killed in and around the area in the past decade, with the most recent incident being the highly publicized murder of Eddie Lopez on February 28. By all accounts, Lopez seemed to be an innocent bystander. (See Story)

Of the 350 to 400 teens who attended last year’s job fair, 67 percent were from the Pico Neighborhood, according to statistics kept by Jewish Vocational Services (JVS).

“This year it seemed to be more ethnically diverse as opposed to last year,” said Macias.

While outreach efforts drew almost 20 teens that have been in gangs or in trouble with the law to this year’s fair, Macias said that officials in charge of the fair will try to find out why fewer Pico Neighborhood teens showed up.

“Part of the reason may have been the timing of the fair right after spring break,” she said.

Last year, City officials reached out to several community groups where the at-risk youth hang out, including the Pico Youth and Family Center and the Police Activities League, just before the fair. Because this year the fair ran just after spring break, many of those youths may not have been contacted, she said.

While fewer youths targeted by the City showed up at this year’s fair, there were bright spots, including an increase in the number of employers participating and a better tracking system to see how many youths were placed in jobs and stayed in those jobs.

In 2005, the City and Chamber placed nearly 60 youths in jobs, according to information gathered by contacting employers, a method Macias said is unreliable.

This year, the City will determine how many teenagers got and kept jobs by sending out questionnaires to the kids and following up with selective calls.

Another new approach this year will be to let youths who do not receive a job offer know that there will be another opportunity to seek work at next year’s job fair or through internships with the City.

In the coming weeks, City officials will try to gauge the successes and challenges of this years job fair, then they will try to determine how many youths – especially at-risk youths – actually got a job.