Long Beach and Inland Empire Job Corps centers close
"I'm kind of nervous going back out there," 20-year-old Jacob Moan said after visiting the Inland Empire Job Corps Center. "I got permission to go back with my family in Los Angeles. The thing is my whole family is gang-related except me, and I didn't want to deal with that."
Moan is one of the hundreds of Job Corps students left in limbo. He has until Thursday to find another place to live.
"I'll be in a motel for about two weeks until a bed opens up at the shelter," he said. "I don't know where I'm gonna go. It sucks."
Dominik Rodriguez just graduated from the certified medical assistant program, but now wonders how he'll actually land a job and get money for his son.
"Society just like gave up for people in my situation," he said. "It hurts."
Last Thursday, the U.S. Department of Labor announced it would suspend operations at its 99 Job Corps centers due to budget constraints.
The federally funded centers provide housing, job training and careers for students 16 to 24 years old.
"Job Corps was created to help young adults build a pathway to a better life through education, training, and community," Secretary Lori Chavez-Deremer stated. "However, a startling number of serious incident reports and our in-depth fiscal analysis reveal the program is no longer achieving the intended outcomes that students deserve."
According to the Job Corps transparency report from 2023, the program had an average of 38.6%. The total number of serious incident reports at centers was 14,913. On average, one student costs the federal government more than $80,000 a year.
"The transparency report that was released was generated by someone from DOGE, who doesn't know the program, who used statistics from 2023, which were statistics that were coming out of the pandemic," said Luis Ramirez, director of the Long Beach center. "We had just over 30% enrollment at the time."
Ramirez added that the center went from helping 257 students to 37, all of whom have no place to go.
"They're asking if they can come home and the situations are not possible for these students and parents," Ramirez said. "The students that did leave, we're hearing they are reaching out to community services and are struggling."
Ramirez is one of the 140 staff members who will be laid off in Long Beach.
"When you walk through our center, we're changing lives every day," Ramirez said.
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