Pittsburgh councilman wants to provide temporary jobs for recently jailed people at no cost to the city

Legislation introduced to Pittsburgh City Council Tuesday would urge the city to explore employment opportunities for recently incarcerated people.

Councilman Ricky Burgess sponsored the measure, which calls on the directors of the Departments of Management and Budget, Finance and Public Works to explore the possibility of a partnership with the Center for Employment Opportunities.

Burgess suggested working with the New York-based nonprofit to establish a program providing employment opportunities for people recently returned home from jail.

“This reintegration is part and parcel of reducing gun violence and reducing crime in our city by giving them a bridge to employment,” he said.

In the legislation, Burgess identified “the difficulty of finding life-sustaining employment” as one of the largest obstacles formerly jailed people face when reentering the community.

One of the more successful ways of helping people overcome that hurdle is through transitional job programs, which provide temporary, subsidized employment meant to help such people eventually find private-sector employment, according to the bill.

No cost to the city

Thanks to grant funding, the program would operate at no cost to the city, Burgess said, and would pay workers daily.

“It gives them incentive for employment,” he said.

The Center for Employment Opportunities operates in 12 states and has made more than 34,000 job placements with more than 4,000 private employers nationwide.

In Pittsburgh, Burgess proposed people in the program could find transitional work caring for the city’s nearly 10,000 vacant, abandoned and overgrown land parcels.