Focus: HOPE To Suspend Job Training Programs

DETROIT (WWJ) - The stalemate in Washington over reducing the debt is ending job training programs for more than 200 adult students in Detroit.

Focus:HOPE announced Tuesday it will suspend four job training programs next week, due to uncertainty over federal funding. Seventy Focus: HOPE employees will lose their jobs when the programs for machinists, information technology, reading and math are shelved.

The classes are paid for by federal funding and officials say at this point they don't know when or if the funding will be restored.

"It is ironic that federal cuts come at a time when the need for skilled job training is high and the need for machinists and other skilled workers in our region is growing," said Focus: HOPE CEO William F. Jones, Jr., in a news release.

"Focus: HOPE students get good-paying jobs within 60 days of completing our programs. The more than 11,000 people who completed our programs since we began job training in 1981 have contributed over a billion dollars in earnings to the local economy," he said.

Jones claims 800 people have walked into Focus: HOPE over the past month looking for training and jobs.

"Without a skill of some kind you are between a rock and a hard place," he told WWJ's Sandra McNeil.

"So, that's why we focus so hard on making sure that people have, not only the techinical skills, but ... what I call the success skills, the soft skills that are necessary to be successful," Jones said.

Stanley Bunkley, who was laid off two years ago, has been training at FocusHOPE for a job in tech support. He was supposed to graduate for the program in January and, despite his class being suspended, he and his classmates are not giving up.

"Our class has already made up our mind that we're going to continue to meet and go for our certification because FocusHOPE has tought us that, you know, not to let anything stop us," said Bunkley. "They've already given us the basic tools we need."

More about FocusHOPE at this link.