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HUD grant aids hiring practices

Date: 10/11/2011

Oct. 10, 2011

By Debbie Gardner

Assistant Editor

SPRINGFIELD — A recent award from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) will help two local housing agencies make sure more of the city’s low-income and public housing residents are employed on any of the city’s HUD-funded projects.

Springfield was one of 12 housing authorities, cities and states nationwide chosen to receive a $50,000 HUD grant to hire a Section 3 coordinator to oversee hiring practices and job training opportunities associated with publicly-funded housing renovations and construction.

According to William H. Abrashkin, executive director of the Springfield Housing Authority (SHA), the application for this highly competitive grant was a joint effort between his organization and the offices of Geraldine McCafferty, director of housing for the city of Springfield.

“Gerry and the city of Springfield has really taken the initiative and has been very helpful [on this project],” Abrashkin said. “We really look forward to working with them.”

According to the HUD website, Section 3 is “the legal basis for providing jobs for residents and awarding contracts to businesses in areas receiving certain types of HUD financial assistance.” Abrashkin said his agency partnered with the city on the grant application because Springfield receives Community Development Block Grant and other HUD funding, and the new position would help it “address its Section 3 obligations.”

Though the concept of offering training and employment to low-income and public housing residents seems easy, the many factors involved make the actual execution of this HUD-required obligation for projects complex and time consuming, according to Abrashkin.

“If people don’t have skills, you have to figure out programs to give them skills [and] you need to figure out how to reach out to the people who might benefit [from the program],” he said. “You [also] work with all the public contracting requirements that apply to a Housing Authority and to a city project ... that means posting a request for proposal ... [and] doing business with the lowest bidder.”

The job of the new Section 3 coordinator will be “to put these two requirements together,” for both the SHA and the city he said, adding the coordinator’s work will be “a way to bring some economic development to people who have been unable to access employment, and job training for employment.”

Though the initial grant will only fund this position for a year, Abrashkin said the hope is that the Section 3 coordinator won’t just be putting these requirements together on a project-by-project basis, but will “devise an ongoing program that can be integrated into the work that the city does and the SHA does” so that HUD’s Section 3 requirements can continue to be met effectively and efficiently on an ongoing basis.

“There’s a lot of talent that is not being put to work for the city and the SHA,” Abrashkin said. “An opportunity to get jobs for people and job training for people who can then turn around and contribute [to their community], that’s what we’re trying to do.”



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