Jobs for at-risk youth elusive

Garry Kern was a north Omaha original gangster who ran wild with his crew and away from responsibility.

Today, after serving nearly 15 years behind bars, the 38-year-old is back where he began. Only this time he's on the other side, pushing young people toward jobs and productive paths.

All too familiar with boredom and other factors that breed crime, Kern is among the many voicing concern about the lower number of job opportunities this summer for those most likely to be swept up in street violence.

“If you're going to work, you don't have time for that nonsense,” said Kern, a youth case manager.

Last summer, 725 seasonal jobs were created for Omaha's at-risk teens and young adults. But only about half that number of jobs are available this summer, even with the 125 publicly funded job training spots to be announced Tuesday by the City of Omaha and Urban League of Nebraska.

“Employment provides a structured alternative to a summer on the streets and a deviation from the path to gangs and guns,” said Mayor Jim Suttle, who continues to work with the African-American Empowerment Network in seeking employers and funds to put more youths to work.

Driving the jobs deficit is the lack of anything akin to the $1.6 million in federal stimulus funds that last summer paid for as many as 500 temporary jobs in Omaha for low-income young people ages 16 to 24.

Private employers have spots to offer, but many are looking for a different type of worker: someone who has an education, job skills and experience, and the ability to pass a criminal background check.

And with an unemployment rate in north Omaha that is twice that of Douglas County, plenty of older adults many laid off in the economic downturn are competing for those jobs.

Nonprofit agencies such as the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Midlands say they are not equipped to take up the summer slack for older teens who aren't working.

Fred Schott, president and CEO of the Boys & Girls Clubs, said that for the second year in a row, he has no funds to operate the Nightscapes program, which once kept hundreds of older teens occupied on sports courts during evening hours.

Schott was blunt: “We're nervous. I think everybody who has a role to play in north and South Omaha is nervous.”

Behind the heightened angst is the recent surge in violence that Boys & Girls Clubs staffer Regina Tullos-Williams, a north Omaha mother, describes as more brazen than she ever recalls.

In the past few weeks, a 23-year-old man was shot execution-style in broad daylight; a teen was gunned down outside a store; a masked teen robber was killed by an armed customer; five people were shot, one fatally, during a 14-hour span; and, most recently, three men were shot, one fatally in the head, in a gang-related drive-by Sunday afternoon.

The 14 homicides so far in 2010 are twice the number at this point last year.

Given the pattern, Tullos-Williams said it is critical for traditional community-based agencies to focus on their younger clients and provide a “safe haven” during the daytime.

Urban League President Thomas Warren, who is Omaha's former police chief, agreed, saying that the sliver of ruffians causing the most havoc should be the aim of law enforcement.

The focus for schools and nonprofit organizations, Warren and others said, should remain the vast majority of inner-city youths who aren't violent but are at risk of going astray because of disproportionately lower graduation rates, higher poverty rates and a greater percentage of single-parent households.

Warren and several other community leaders who as youths participated in government-funded summer jobs programs said such jobs instill a work ethic and are a key component in keeping streets safe.

“There is a direct correlation,” Warren said.

Kern explained it this way:

If you take 10 gang members or associates, only one is a hard-core criminal or shooter and two are “followers.” The rest want to “hang out.”

The hard-core guys won't be seeking the minimum-wage, seasonal job. But the seven just hanging out can be convinced. And given a paycheck, a sense of accomplishment and encouragement, the seven could continue down that positive path.

Moreover, those seven can create a counterculture in the neighborhood. Little kids look up to them because they're more visible than the violent few whose self-preservation depends on keeping a low profile.

But when jobs are scarce and boredom rules, Kern said, young people party and get swept up in negative activity.

Kern's own first trip to jail came after he was ticketed for parking at a popular hangout lot in north Omaha.

Admittedly, he said, he was “far from an angel” and by then had dropped out of school and left his parents' house because he didn't want to abide by their rules.

“I don't blame the system,” he said. “But that really puts a bad taste in your mouth as a kid. I'm 18 and going to jail for parking in a parking lot!?”

At 21, Kern was sentenced to state and federal prison for bank and motel robberies. Released at age 34, he started college and landed a job as a caseworker at the Tri-County Partnership for Youth Development, based at 24th and Lake Streets.

There, he interacts with young adults who are faced with barriers typical of many jobless people in north Omaha.

Take Randy Nunn, a ninth-grade dropout. Nunn, 21, has big dreams: “I want to be that man in the suit.”

But all the jobs he aspires to require a high school diploma or the equivalent. He has been studying off and on for three years to obtain his GED and was considering a job driving an ice cream truck.

Jordan Pavelka, 18, also quit school as a freshman and, without a car, has had trouble getting a job. He rides the bus and his skateboard to get to GED classes.

Classmates Lenaye Smith and Arkayla Suess, both 20, are single moms with home demands that have stretched their GED studies beyond two years. Each had a cousin who died by violence in the span of a week last month.

Summer jobs programs target young adults who face similar and even tougher barriers, said Willie Barney of the Empowerment Network, north Omaha's home-grown initiative to improve all aspects of the community.

He said he and City Councilman Ben Gray have recruited a range of participants for Impact One's Great Summer Jobs Program including several who were in handcuffs being questioned by police.

Participants benefit from a mix of real-world experience and career courses that teach basic life skills, such as having an appropriate voice-mail message, dress and speech for the workplace.

Yet even summer employment graduates such as Brandon Anderson return to joblessness, underscoring challenges in the north Omaha community where teens suffer from almost twice the unemployment rate as teens countywide.

At 23, and with a few semesters of college under his belt, Anderson was ahead of many. He landed a government-funded job last summer working with youths at a community recreation center.

But the seasonal job ended, and past criminal offenses related to child neglect and stealing a car have stood in the way of other jobs. He needs a decent-paying job, as child support payments for his four children can quickly eat up a paycheck.

So on a recent morning he walked to the federally funded Partnership for Youth Development, a year-round program based at the Blue Lion Center at 24th and Lake Streets that helps youths become self-sufficient.

He checked in with Kern, his caseworker, and applied online for positions a routine he's followed periodically since 2007, when he came home from an Iowa junior college with the intention of earning a few thousand dollars to pay back tuition and re-enroll.

Kern said Anderson has some bad friends but wants more out of life and could get it, if he sticks with his plan to get back to college.

“I haven't given up on my dream,” Anderson said. “I'm having trouble doing it.”

After a few hours at the Blue Lion, Anderson walked to a friend's house, where he and some childhood pals composed rap songs for a CD they hope to sell someday.

One of the friends, Melvin McGhee, then headed off to work at a grocery store, leaving Anderson and fellow rapper J.J. Sturgeon to linger and talk.

With three children and bullet scars, Sturgeon, 28, said he has outgrown the gangbanger life. He wants to find a job.

He and Anderson rattled on about employers who won't have them. They talked about how each lost his mother as a youngster; how both bounced from home to home; how they excelled on the basketball court.

Turning back to job prospects, Anderson said he actually got a job recently but was let go when the employer ran a criminal background check. He shook his head as if to block the disappointment.

“Let's go with the day,” he said, changing the subject. “We'll make some music if we have to. It's still good.”

Contact the writer: 444-1224, cindy.gonzalez@owh.com

« Metro/Region

Share