833 Jobs Available In At-Risk Youth Program Includes Rockland County
Following today’s gun violence prevention community meeting for the lower Hudson Valley area, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced 833 jobs will be available for at-risk youth in 10 ZIP codes that make up the zone. The ZIP codes are: 10550 and 10552, in Mount Vernon; 10952, 10954, and 10977, near Spring Valley; and 10701, 10703, 10704, 10705, and 10710, in Yonkers.
The state will provide funding to create 253 summer jobs for youth aged 15 to 24 in this zone to keep them employed until the start of school this year. The State will also partner with the local workforce development boards and community partners to provide job training, credentialing and career placement services to ultimately connect 580 at-risk youth living in these zones to good-paying, permanent jobs. Unemployed, underemployed and out-of-school youth age 18-24 in areas of cities impacted by gun violence will be eligible.
“Gun violence is a public health crisis, and that means we must work together with the people who are on the ground to determine what works, so we can keep our communities safe,” Governor Cuomo said. “Our goal is to keep our young people away from dangerous activities, and that is why we are creating more than 830 jobs for them across parts of the lower Hudson Valley region.”
“It is unacceptable what is happening to our children and our communities because of gun violence,” said Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul. “We have to give people hope and let them know their lives have meaning and we are doing just that with 253 new jobs for youth in the Lower Hudson Valley and investing over $200,000 in summer programming. I am optimistic just as we beat back this pandemic, that we can prevail over this pandemic of gun violence working together with our local elected officials and community leaders.”
Earlier this month, Governor Cuomo kicked off a series of community meetings that will be held in emerging gun violence hot spots across the state, where State officials and community leaders can carve out initiatives to address the ongoing gun violence. The initiatives focus on engaging the most at-risk youth in cluster zones in employment and community activities, hiring new community-based gun violence interrupters, as well as assistance for mental health and substance use disorders.
Governor Cuomo issued Executive Order No. 211 declaring gun violence a disaster emergency and requiring New York State’s Division of Criminal Justice Services to compile incident-level data provided by major police departments on a weekly basis so that it may be used by the newly established Office of Gun Violence Prevention to track emerging gun violence hot spots and deploy resources to areas most in need.
In today’s meeting for the lower Hudson Valley area, specific steps to combat gun violence included:
Creating 253 summer jobs for youth and 580 long-term jobs placed in partnership with the local workforce development board;
Establishing summer programs for youth including more than 100 activities at Rockefeller Park Preserve and State Parks across the lower Hudson Valley area;
Hiring new violence interveners to work at existing community intervention programs; and
Expanding community services and assistance for mental health support, substance abuse treatment and family crisis intervention.
On July 6, Governor Cuomo declared the first-in-the-nation gun violence disaster emergency as part of a new, comprehensive strategy to build a safer New York. This new strategy treats gun violence as a public health crisis, using short-term solutions to manage the immediate gun violence crisis and reduce the shooting rate, as well as long-term solutions that focus on community-based intervention and prevention strategies to break the cycle of violence. The disaster emergency allows the State to expedite money and resources to communities so they can begin targeting gun violence immediately.
