Representatives of the YWCA of Greater Los Angeles updated Congresswoman Lucille Roybal-Allard (CA-34) (shown center in group photo) about the construction of the new Urban Job Corps Campus in the heart of downtown Los Angeles in her congressional district.

The YWCA of Greater LA runs the Job Corps program for the Los Angeles Area.  Facilitated at the federal level by the congresswoman, the new urban campus will serve as a prototype to be replicated in other urban centers around the country.  The new Job Corps facility will create a "campus" environment where core Job Corps services are consolidated into one centralized area.

Administered by the U.S. Department of Labor, Job Corps is one of the nation's largest residential education and job training programs for at-risk youth, ages 16 through 24. 

The congresswoman commended CEO of YWCA of Greater Los Angeles, Faye Washington, (shown far left) for her leadership of the LA Job Corps, which has trained and developed hundreds of successful young men and women to enter and contribute to the area’s workforce.

Scheduled to be completed in the Fall of 2011, the Urban Campus project is the recipient of an $82 million stimulus grant from the United States Department of Labor, which will fund a 20 year lease agreement for the new building. The project funded with various resources, leveraged $70 million in new market tax credits from organizations, which partly funded the project's construction costs, including Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Enterprise Community Investment and LISC and the Los Angeles Development Fund (LADF), managed by the Community Redevelopment Agency of the City of Los Angeles (CRA/LA). 

The project will produce over 900 jobs, including 60 jobs dedicated to train job corps students on the construction of the new building.