Youth work programs gets $1M in funding from police budget

Transcript

your teens across the city use their summer break to work Cincinnati's newest budget takes a million dollars from the police buzz budget and ships it to a program that employs some young people especially in low-income backgrounds and Jeanette levy shows us what the funding will mean for that program artworks creates beautiful murals on buildings around the city some of the young people who helped create them work for artworks through the city's youth to work program I think when people hear about artworks they think a lot of it's just like oh so you like paint all day and it's like yes we do do that but at the beginning of the summer we usually have orientation which is where we learn epics we do all kinds of job training we learn there's a lot of public speaking seventeen-year-old Corrine Lara is starting her third summer with artworks gaining valuable job skills and getting paid living wage the youth to work program partners with Cincinnati police the fire department a Cincinnati Zoo and other organizations to provide jobs to people ages 14 to 24 many of them from low-income backgrounds youth to work is 10 weeks in the summer and it pays 10 69 an hour when city council passed its budget it shifted a little more than a million dollars from the police budget over to youth to work giving the program a big shot in the arm we're gonna use that money to not just hiring for summer but we're gonna extend the program and hire year-round so we'll have a fall and winter hiring program city recreation director Daniel Betts oversees youth to work and lobbied for more funding the program has grown over the last four years from hiring 200 young people to 600 last summer the jobs mean a lot to the teens I have kids who are a part of this program who used us ten weeks and use this money to help support family members in their homes and even more young people will benefit over the next year anjeanette levy local 12 News last summer youth to work hired 600 young people because of koban 19 hiring did get off to a late start so only 270 have been hired