Baltimore Receives $6.8 Million Grant For Job Training, Apprenticeships And Services

BALTIMORE (WJZ) — Baltimore City received $6.8 cardinal successful State American Rescue Plan Act funs to assistance unemployed and underemployed residents, and Mayor Brandon Scott said helium intends to usage the wealth to “invest successful communities that person historically been near behind.”

The Mayor’s Office of Employment Development volition enactment the funds, which were formally accepted astatine the Board of Estimates gathering Wednesday morning, toward training, apprenticeships and enactment services.

READ MORE: Maryland Weather: Severe Thunderstorm Watch Issued For Central Maryland

“The ongoing pandemic exacerbated longstanding challenges successful Baltimore and continues to plague moving families crossed the city. I convey the State for making this captious concern successful Baltimore residents and look guardant to moving intimately with the Mayor’s Office of Employment Development to enactment our unemployed and underemployed residents,” Scott said successful a statement. “This is 1 mode my medication volition absorption connected investing successful our radical and lifting our system arsenic a whole, each portion gathering a much equitable Baltimore.”

READ MORE: Merriweather Post Pavilion, Other Venues To Require COVID-19 Vaccination Or Negative Test

Scott said helium hopes the funds volition rise employment beyond pre-pandemic levels successful underserved communities. Even earlier COVID-19 crippled the economy, Black residents faced an unemployment complaint 3 times higher than achromatic residents.

The Mayor’s Office of Employment Development volition nonstop immoderate of the funds to its Hire Up initiative, which connects jobseekers to impermanent positions astatine metropolis agencies and nonprofits, and the Grads2Careers programme that provides grooming for 150 caller precocious schoolhouse graduates.

MORE NEWS: ACLU Demands Full Investigation In Baltimore Police Involved Death

“This grant volition bring important opportunities to residents and businesses astir impacted by the pandemic,” Jason Perkins-Cohen, manager of the Mayor’s Office of Employment Development, said successful a statement. “It volition summation entree to captious workforce services by expanding partnerships with community-based organizations, offering grooming and apprenticeships to residents seeking to heighten their skills, and creating incentives for businesses to prosecute metropolis residents.”

CBS Baltimore Staff