Jobs for DC Residents at MM Washington
After successfully organizing to develop 90+ units of affordable senior housing and 15,000 s.f. of community space with at the historic MM. Washington Career High School on O St; WIN leaders at Mt. Lebanon Baptist began to work to ensure the project brings jobs to the neighborhood. Residents in Truxton Circle have experienced devastating unemployment over the last decade in spite of the massive development occurring a few blocks from their neighborhood. WIN leaders set out to leverage the relationships they’d built with the lead developer and sub-contractors to create a opportunities for qualified neighborhood residents to work on the project.
After several successful meetings, the lead contractor Hamel Builders and WIN agreed to host a joint job-fair for neighborhood residents. On a bright and sunny fall morning thirteen construction sub-contractors working on the MM Washington project met with 25 pre-screened neighborhood residents for two hours of interviews. As a result of this job fair ten neighborhood residents were hired to work on the site. This partnership is an encouraging example of what can be done to the address the critical employment problem in some sections of the city.