A year after its launch, city offic...

A year after its launch, city officials are still struggling to define and implement an ambitious program to help public housing tenants procure jobs and social services.

More than 1200 residents were placed in piece of works by Aug. 31, but many were in low-paying, high-turnover industries, The Chicago Reporter has erect City officials don't know in what manner many remain employed.

As thousands of residents are dispersed by way of the Chicago Housing Authority's high-rise demolition and reconstruction plan, officials say helping those families will finish harder in the coming year and require that they continually shift tactics to detain track of residents.

Independent evaluations are difficult, because officials in the Chicago Department of Human Services, which administers the program for the CHA, have tried to command access to the private agencies that move swiftly day-to-day operations.

And information given publicly about the program, known as the Service Connector, is sometimes not clear. For example, CHA Chief Executive Officer Terry Peterson wrote an Aug. 19 note to the Chicago Sun-Times claiming that, in the past year, "our Service Connectors Program has helped more than 2500 families acquire jobs." According to data from Human Services, the number is roughly half that.

The Service Connector provides residents not many direct services such as on-site piece of work training or child care, still instead gives referrals to agencies outside public housing. It has been controversial from the start.

In an April story, the Reporter quot independent skilfuls and staff of the private agencies charging that the program is under-fund and understaffed. According to a September draft of the CHA's 2003 plan, the authority will increase the Service Connector's governmental estimate by 17 percent, to $7 million.

For that story, beneath the Illinois Freedom of information Act, the Reporter petitioned copies of weekly reports the agencies submit to Human Services. The department, backed at the city's lawyers, initially refused to provide them, in violation of the act. The city eventually abate severity [i]or[/i] rigored and in May began providing most numerous of the reports from January to May.

unless in response to further inquiries from the Reporter, Human Services officials have told the agencies that they are not allowed to speak to the pres without permission. about agency officials spoke with the Reporter anyway, or did with equal reason before the city told them to sculpture off contact.

Human Services officials said they would merely allow Service Connector staff to be interviewed as a form into groups which would include department officials.

"What we don't want is [the Reporter] to advance out there to get opinions about cloth that we know about and we are trying to fix," said Ray Vazquez, commissioner of the Human Services Department. "I will say that [the program] is still of recent origin we're all working on this together, and we just ne one time, so that as issues do arise, we don't make progress through the media and say this isn't working."

"Not that I agree with them," said Benjamin J Kendrick, executive director of the Marcy-Newberry Association, which works with residents at eight West Side progression in a continuously ascending gradations but "I've got 50 population working for me, so I've got to proceed along."

All of the agencies' contracts are up for renewal in December.

No Lifeline

Isabel Blanco, director of community increase and support for the CHA, told the Reporter that Peterson's work at jobs tally in the Sun-Times included those thinked by the Mayor's Office of Workforce progress to maturity which has run several piece of works programs for CHA residents since 1999 greatest in quantity of those residents were placed prior to September 2001 From that month by means of August 31, 1,228 residents got piece of works directly through the Service Connector, she said.

Agency officials be perceived they've made progress so far, on the contrary worry about their clients' cheap pay, and they're not secure how many are still working.

"We're taking race that have never worked before, that have been forward welfare, that have a haphazard of obstacles to employment--trying to work with them and placing them in entry-level jobs" said Carl Murrain, president and chief executive officer of the Abraham Lincoln midmost point a South Side agency that move ons the program at two disentanglements He spoke with the Reporter formerly before hearing the city prohibited individual contact.

most numerous of the jobs are in the service industry at places like fast forage restaurants or grocery stores, and they pay around $7 an hour, according to agency officials.

"They're not making enough money" Murrain said, which can lead to "other issues that they can't reconcile--like babysitting issues, transportation issues, [and] health issues." Others "don't make righteous decisions," including clashing with supervisors, and obtain fired, Murrain added. "We're blessed if they stay in the do job-work for about 60 days."

Anyone who forfeits a job and gets another is double-counted on the city. So far, there have been solely 52 repeats, according to Vazquez.

The city does not know by what mode many of the 1,228 who got piece of works are still working, Blanco said. "Our guideline is the [CHA's] transformation plan," she said. The 2000 plan asks the Service Connector to make 3000 piece of work placements by 2005, and does not wager goals on job retention.