Baltimore allocates millions to job training program

Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott announced Wednesday that $8.9 million American Rescue Plan Act funds will be put towards Train Up, a free job training program for Baltimoreans, including $5 million that will be invested in the program’s initial year.

This is the largest one-time investment the city has ever made in employment development, according to the announcement, as well as the largest program in terms of scale. 

“Our residents here in Baltimore, we know, face challenges every day that directly impact their ability to get a job and advance their careers, in order to support themselves and their families, which is why targeting this population and providing them with free resources that will meet them where they are, right where they are, is so significant,” Scott said at a news conference held at the Jane Addams Resource Center in Baltimore’s Park Heights neighborhood. 

The program will provide grants to 17 community partners who will be training unemployed or underemployed Baltimoreans to pursue approximately 36 pathways in growing, well-paying professions, ranging from health professions like nursing and phlebotomy to trades like construction and commercial driving.  

Those grantees are Baltimore Alliance for Careers in Healthcare, BioTechnical Institute of Maryland, Associated Builders and Contractors/Project JumpStart, Byte Back, Catholic Charities of Baltimore, Center for Urban Families, Civic Works, Equality Equation, Goodwill Industries, HOPE Inc., Jane Addams Resource Center, Maryland New Directions, NPower, Open Works, Per Scholas, UNITE HERE and Vehicles for Change. 

Additionally, the program will provide other supports and resources to its unemployed and underemployed participants that aim to help them earn and maintain employment once they finish their training. These include access to legal services, behavioral mental health services and financial counseling. 

“Gone are the days when we can just provide a training program and give someone a skill. We have to dig deeper to make sure that we’re having the deepest impact for those individuals and their families,” Scott said. 

Comcast also donated 1,000 laptops for Train Up participants, which Scott said can be beneficial for things such as applying to jobs. 

Train Up is one of several workforce development programs the city is developing to help workers come back from the impacts of the pandemic. These include the Hire Up program, which subsidizes wages for workers at small and minority-owned businesses; a mobile career navigator program that will work directly in neighborhoods; an expansion of the city’s Community Job Hubs; and new apprenticeships. 

“Training is absolutely essential and it’s a critical strategy of the city’s recovery effort … but I don’t want anyone to think that it is the only strategy,” said Jason Perkins-Cohen, director of the Mayor’s Office of Economic Development. 

In total, the city is allocating a total of $30 million worth of ARPA funds into workforce development and job opportunities programs.