i thank you for everybody to be here thank you for paul that was actually streaming everything which is why we have the mikes not because we can't normally hear one another's voices but i want to be able to transfer into the ethers and so when you want to speak just raise your hand and we'll pass this mike around it's a nice long cord and we really want to hear from everybody from past experience what makes this more enriching is the more engagement there is so i think even for people who can't be here in person and you might be that way is that needed to be heard so we appreciate you know all of your interaction all of your communication and i think because we're so fortunate to have the experts always say like let's push our growing edge and see where we are in this climate especially when it comes to you know this is the three forums have been the hottest topics when we're talking about police relations within the communities we're talking about housing and now of course we're talking about jobs so i'm definitely eager to learn as much as possible of course the whole point of learning is that when we know we can also share that information so we don't keep knowledge just to ourselves with that i'm going to ask our esteemed  take a few minutes to introduce introduce themselves tell us who you are you represent the community what department you might work for and then from there we'll build on our questions and  challenge one another too because i think that we also learn from our peers as well ok so who so who would like to  are good evening my name is brianna i am with neighborhood house i'm here to represent for both neighborhood house and for the work source system  for self sufficiency so we're doing a wide range of programs related to training and job search and job placement yeah this city seattle's office of economic development and the office of economic development as a small executive office for the office for the city of seattle where we focus on creating a sustainable economy with broadly shared prosperity and we do that in a number of different ways one we have a small business assistance program where we work with small businesses around a variety of different needs that they might have around access to financing there might be issues around interfacing with government had to navigate government process as well as business assistance so that's one of our kind of business lines the other is around what we call our only in seattle program which is our commercial district program that focuses on the commercial district health of small business district districts in seattle so areas like columbia city and  other small neighborhood business areas that we focus on and the one area that i work on personally is in our workforce development and training programs so there we're really focused on providing bridges to  employment as well as identifying ways for individuals to advance in their careers through the acquisition of new skills and credentials to help individuals be competitive in the for putting this event together city council in seattle and actually we just won a reelection campaign in november of last year after the district council member but of course if you look at the issues that are of the most urgency to the people in our district it's education jobs housing the issue of and these are you know city wide and indeed region wide issues so i don't believe that we can have a parochial viewpoint about this we have to have a city wide and region wide approach to this and just to remind everybody you know in terms movement but really the energy of the movement came from young workers themselves many of the young workers of color and that was a huge step forward again in january the wage has gone up and it has gone nationwide innit  the presidential candidates to say something about this and as you know bernie sanders has already come out in favor of fifteen dollars an hour that shows the power of movements and that's the approach we use that we can make tremendous and historic policy shifts but those policy shifts happen not because corporate politicians haven't taken the lead in decades but it's when people on the ground start speaking up that's when you see change and that's how we can make a lot of things better for people in seattle including providing a living wage jobs to people of all ethnicities and you know region wide jobs thank you all for being here my first question is really about access behind me so how does the community reach your department should they need to and how do you reach out to the communities and that can be anybody much to be spread spread around king county where we need to be also we are working in partnership with the work source so there are seven work site source locations in king county but there's also twenty two connection sites  where people can access computer labs and virtually connect to to work source i think we're trying always to do outreach and this is another this is a great opportunity here to also share about what's available at the work source and what kind of opportunities there are for people to reach and i would encourage everyone to check out their work source s k c dot org website which does have all of the workshops and information about all the locations to work for accessing information for any place you are in the job search who are looking for training we do that in a number of different ways and it really depends on what business primarily we work with our community partner is reaching out to folks we have our business services team that does you know actively goes out and talks to folks i think all of us in the office are out in the community a fair amount talking about our service a king about our services and programs so we try to do a good job of providing that information and getting out there after tonight please let them know that if they don't already know that my counsel office is is the place that they can call me if they want to ask questions because what we do is we are not the ones who have the expertise for all of the issues that they have but we can act as a conduit to lead them in the right direction and if they don't know which department they should reach out to is not a problem just call or email my office and we will lead them to prove the resources and also if there what you need to discuss i mean just to give you an example of what i mean a lot of workers young people especially young workers who are immigrants some of them undocumented and therefore you know very nervous about their status they will come to my office and let us know that they're facing wage theft and they're a place of war but they're afraid to speak out that's a very common thing that happens so just to let everybody who know everybody who you know who's watching here if you yourself or if you know somebody who's facing issues like that or if you faced employment discrimination for any reason or if you think you did and maybe you didn't but it is something you want to investigate you know you should approach us so that we you ourselves or if we can direct you to are people who can help you with so nancy you just alluded to what access really means can you speak a little bit more on that and i'm sure everybody else can add a little something  so one of the things that i wanted to talk about and i think it was listed on the agenda is around our the mayor's youth employment initiative which is really structured to provide more access to jobs for young people currently you hear about a really low unemployment rate across the city it's about four percent so it's pretty low but when you look at young people they experience unemployment at three times that rate thirteen percent and then if you look at folks who are who represent certain  communities it's even it's far worse so individuals who don't have a high school diploma or degree it's at thirty percent so there's not access there's not the same access to jobs for everybody or with private employers elsewhere so that they earn a wage and they begin to build their networks and connections build their professional skills to create a more access opportunities into the future into their future so for everybody else on the panel i know you brought up youth in particular but do you work with youth as well or eighteen and older is it adults only how does that every single one of the sites but they are available at some of these sites for work source and in addition on that one i'm thinking about access about head but i'm thinking about language too and so i wanted to just jump in there to say that something that we're always really thinking about too and making sure that regardless of the english language level that people can get that and get the help that they need when it comes the job search or whatever it might be or training so i share that if that is possible and that we have employment specialists to speak a number of languages that are available one of them is here with me tonight  language of the person that the person coming into the six services is more comfortable with we will provide free interpretation so i want to make sure that when it comes to accessibility with language that that's part of that conversation too  macro economic indicators are good and you know it's good for the global economy because the rest of the economy isn't looking that good any sort of writing on the fact that u s is doing not so bad right now but those are the larger picture of what's happening to specific communities so you're absolutely right if you look at the unemployment rate for black population you look at unemployment rate for youth look at unemployment rate for black moment rate for black youth you'll see a completely different story for those communities and they are really the it's not like they have fallen short it's society that is failing them and it's absolutely needs to be recognized and then on top of that if you combine all of that with  and really really horrific statistics on how likely it is if you're black or if you're latino how likely it is that you're going to end up in jail and have a record and then when you come out of incarceration the barriers that you happy that in this last budget in november i was able to lead up the effort to double the fun and all of that is great i just want to add one last point is that even that is great but that in the end of the deed these services  are are able to reach only a small proportion of the people who need them and in order to actually address youth unemployment actually address black poverty we need a much larger we need to you know set our sights much higher and i would say that for young people is not only to learn to navigate the system which they absolutely need to because it's hard you know it's hard for me to navigate the system if i had to look for a job i tell you honestly it would be hard but really if you want to make a change then the young people need to get involved in social movements like the black light like the movement for fifteen dollars an ounce so one zero pm people are paying attention and the please let me know if you have any questions raise your hand and i'll pass it along and i'm going to keep asking questions until they say and go out and also in your experience as well some of us have emigrated here and you know there's just those individuals so it takes a finding those employers that were willing to partner and to you know be employers for the some of those folks too and so that that's an area i think we should be focusing on and part of the conversation and part of the conversation in my previous job with neighborhood house and i have seen i serve most sixty or seventy percent of all jobs in the state and i think it's a national figure as well will require some form of post secondary education so i think that there is an increasing demand for skills and so what we hear from employers all the time is we have all these jobs but we don't we can't find individuals with the skills so that's why we're really focused on  skills that taim in college career attainment as well really focused on getting individuals with those skills and credentials that they need to be competitive so we've worked on  number of programs in partnership with our office of immigrant refugees affairs of ready to work program is something that we need a work program is something that we work with that starts to provide individuals with english language acquisition as one connect them with a future of education and training so that they can be successful so a lot of the focus is rail in training and education i think at the same time too there needs to be a better recognition on the part of the employers that come to us that they need to consider as a talent acquisition strategy not just bringing in folks from outside the state but really supporting and training folks that are here as part of their talent pipeline so that's part of the conversation that we're having with the mayor's youth employment is let's get employers to see young people and other folks in our community as a potential talent pool as well as at the same time skilling up those individuals so that they're ready for those jobs and demand need to do over q so you're really put myself through the same offer an e s l class five terms probably be good no i would probably be good overkill is good when it comes to when the skills become off you have a legal way that no school can set up a school skill these people without being accredited and  one thing about business also is for suggesting businesses you have to incorporate that with the feasibility study if you don't go into to a business with feasibility stud what you're doing is you're creating you stimulating the economy you're still you creating a small business industrial complex which didn't you make a lot of money in a lot of life and i'm here to advocate on their behalf the country like united states to have such young people specially the black children to be  so with respect to finance that's one of the suite of services that we offer i can't really connect you with the person in our office who really handles that but we do partner with community organizations like community capital development and washington cash to provide financing for small business development there is also there's also a number of technical services and support that we provide as well so we have some folks on staff that work with you know i'm thinking about our restaurant success program and so we have a person on staff who works with individuals who are interested in starting a restaurant around kind of all the things that they need to navigate and we could put you in touch with other technical services that are available to small businesses as well i had this supplier that i had meant to bring today but i don't see it in my materials but it's a small business resource fair that the seattle public library is putting on january twenty first so if you're interested in that let me know and i could find out more details about that but a number of organizations and services will be available at that time to support small businesses who are interested in either you know expanding their business or starting up a new business as like everybody else and they are underemployed so that's one of things and another thing i like to bring up for the council especially is that unemployment is really going down but then again it's not necessarily that more people are employed people are nowadays it's not that easy it's easy to find a very minimum job but not that easy to find a very high paying job even if you have an education because of the period of the english language so what is the city but i am very very proud of the i think it really goes back to that access issue and ensuring that individuals who are qualified have opportunities and access to those jobs it's hard for me to speak for the city at there is a continuum of the lady and that there needs to be opportunity for individuals all of the all continuum there needs to be those opportunities you know there is institution no racism everywhere and there is also institutional racism that we are working against within the city as well as outside the city as well so working with i think  it's largely working in partnership with the community to bring our the city by themselves are able to break down those barriers but it has to be a community wide effort it has to be a partnership to make sure that individuals in your community who have who are qualified are able to access jobs whether they be within the city are outside i want to point out that that's a global conversation right now especially with particular to syria right now going to europe i know that's something that's been on the news a lot and we have highly educated immigrants and how do we employ them in the recent budget the mayor allocated in the recent budget grant but a small amount and working with one america is that the advocacy around that is to do a piece abilities study for the creation of a wild center in seattle and the idea would be in seattle and the idea was we now in june would do a study to determine what that would look like what it would take to do it and basically what it would be would be folks who come in to seattle who are a few g s in emigrants and have skills from other countries have college degrees have other credential how do we track people into getting credit for those and getting placed into jobs and so on so it's a small initiative but it could make a big difference for a lot of folks who have all of these obstacles who come in with those skills i just wanted to mention that because that could be a very positive some of you may know the program that exists that highline the welcome back center at highline which has done some interesting things but in the city of seattle will be working with the colleges with want to america the city council to try to figure out how we could address that particular missing piece which grade school kids about coronary arts there should be a pipeline that goes from there to the art institute or whatever other college has a corner program and then from there to an actual job right and so i  and high schools here to help out so that's my comment as a youth worker i can definitely vouch for that when you have young people who are ending the program by the end of the summer and not having anything to look forward to again you know starting the cycle all over again and not necessarily building their skills from season to season and that kind of finding opportunity employment opportunity for youth is definitely raised city so funding the study for the welcome back center so what we're going to be doing in the next six months is looking at models like minnesota looking at what's happening in san francisco and denver and other cities and before we rush off and make a recommendation to the city council do a little bit of research but come back to really make this a really really work for folks who come in with credential and i think it's something like a third of all of the immigrants in washington state come in with educational credentials and while many folks are successful there's many many who just don't get help from the existing system so part of it's going to be working with the colleges and working with other institutions like the workforce system to to replicate what's been successful in other communities and to one of the points that were made earlier and i think it is important to note access for people coming from different countries with education but also access to people here with education who are here and trying and working hard and taking the steps but still somehow are not able to go through those channels and i'm sure there are tons of different experiences and th job search i mean i've been in this country for over thirty years and yet and you know i think i speak english well enough but and still i've had my own barriers and sometimes you just can't you know pinpoint what is it i've had the education i've had the you know resources i've sought it out and yet what why are there still these roadblocks is it really about who you know or are there these pipelines that really a lot of good points were made a lot of good points were made on the question of portability of your educational qualifications i think that's absolutely should be done it seems to me it's a no brainer and and i think the question that i've been raised about you know why don't we do this what i did i thought i thought paul said it really well you know you it should be simple  and i'll be very honest with you this is not about i mean we don't do lack as a human race as a city we don't lack creativity to figure out how this can be done you know we can figure out administratively and other solutions i in education one of the basic position is half the job because nobody just just by the way the human brain functions retains everything that they've heard the first time so part of your job as educators  to reiterate the most important point so that students walk away with having learned the most important things so my point is that none of this is rocket science and even rocket science has been done so it can be done so i want to go to the fundamental issue what is the what is the fundamental reason these things are not happening including what you what you said about you know can we wipe out wipe the record clean for somebody for a young kid who maybe didn't cite the record clean and why should that young kid be a price for it when when he's thirty forty fifty and honestly there are other kids who do the same things because kids are kids and kids will do things that don't pay the price because we have a deeper a show that i think you know disparity and deeper a show that prison and on top of that a racial disparity that is just as just horrendous so what's what's the bottom line why is none of this happening i think to get to to get we have to look at larger you know systemic issues you mention capitalism this is the reality under capitalism one of the realities under capitalism especially now in the post recession era is there just aren't enough jobs to go around and there just enough aren't enough good jobs to go around and as a matter of fact and i can speak as an economist under gapper lism it is in the interests of the ruling elite you know i don't mean business owners like you i mean like the really top echelon it's india interest the people who run the federal bank and federal reserve bank and people who run  the white house and congress it is in their interest to never have enough jobs because if you had enough jobs you would feel secure enough to question your workplace conditions and then it completely changes the balance of forces it completely completely changes the dynamic between cabinets and workers i mean i know this sounds this might sound textbook to you but this is actually what happened in england so what is the result of that the result of that is that the people because there aren't enough jobs to go around enough for services to go around you could find adult e services for every immigrant who comes to the city why not seattle is a wealthy city one of you said it yourself the reason it doesn't happen is because if they did that then it would empower the grassroots to a point but it will start shifting the things even more because once that's why you have a situation where jobs good jobs that they they should be getting by right and on the other hand as you mentioned to see they should because so many inner city kids kids that grew up your kids who may be children of immigrants but then they have grown up in united states has another great distinction we have a trillion dollars in student debt how do we expect students to go to college and get to get education i mean hypothetically speaking even if there weren't enough good jobs to go around which there are our students going to go to college in the first based community college itself has become a no community has been taken up but i want to date of the community colleges in the one hundred sixty s was to make higher education good quality higher education accessible to inner city kids who had no other option no other way nobody else to go after high school there was a mandate of the community colleges and now we have even community colleges in accessible to those kids because don't tuition is high financial aid has been squeezed and because now you know we have this for your c