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[pnwmom]

8. And the context of that tape is that Bloomberg nine years ago announced a three year program

to try to help fix the problem of crime being concentrated in poorer, minority communities.

In addition to launching the city's program, he announced the donation of $30 million from his foundation.

https://www.bloomberg.org/press/releases/young-mens-initiative-to-aid-young-black-and-latino-males/

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg today announced the launch of the Young Men’s Initiative, the nation’s boldest and most comprehensive effort to tackle the broad disparities slowing the advancement of black and Latino young men.

This cross-agency enterprise is the culmination of 18 months of work begun when the Mayor committed in his 2010 State of the City address to find new ways to tackle the crisis. Through broad policy changes and agency reforms over the next three years, a public-private partnership will invest more than $127 million in programs that will connect young men to educational, employment, and mentoring opportunities across more than a dozen city agencies.

“When we look at poverty rates, graduation rates, crime rates, and employment rates, one thing stands out: blacks and Latinos are not fully sharing in the promise of American freedom and far too many are trapped in circumstances that are difficult to escape,” said Mayor Bloomberg. “Even though skin color in America no longer determines a child’s fate – sadly, it tells us more about a child’s future than it should. And so this morning, we are confronting these facts head-on, not to lament them, but to change them, and to ensure that ‘equal opportunity’ is not an abstract notion but an everyday reality, for all New Yorkers.”

Key programmatic components include the overhaul of the Department of Probation, which has supervision of almost 30,000 New Yorkers – the majority black and Latino males. As part of the Young Men’s Initiative, the Department of Probation will take responsibility for connecting probationers to the economic and educational opportunities that can prevent recidivism and will launch five satellite offices in neighborhoods with the highest number of disconnected youth.

To strengthen educational supports, $18 million will help provide transformative mentoring and literacy services while a $24 million investment will launch the Expanded Success Initiative, a pioneering effort that will target schools that have shown progress in closing the achievement gap in high school graduation and use them as a laboratory for strategies to eradicate the achievement gap in college and career readiness.

Additionally, an investment of almost $25 million will connect young men with employment opportunities via an expansion of Jobs-Plus, an evidence-based program that saturates public housing communities with high-quality services, community support for work, and removes barriers to obtaining employment.

Key developments to policy and agency practice include: new metrics in School Progress Reports to hold schools accountable for the performance of black and Latino males; a requirement for City agencies to encourage and support young people in obtaining government-issued identification, the lack of which serve as a barrier to employment; the development of criteria for teen-friendly clinics that will lead to more young people being able to access appropriate health care services; a review of agency policies to identify how obstacles to a father’s involvement can be reduced; and an Executive Order ensuring that City agencies do not place undue barriers in their hiring processes affecting people with criminal convictions unrelated to the jobs for which they are applying.

SNIP