Archives of the Mayor's Press Office

Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani today opened the Coney Island Job Center, the last welfare office to be converted into a Job Center to serve clients applying for and receiving public assistance. The opening of the new Job Center marks the completion of the City's historic effort to convert all 27 welfare offices, which focused on administering welfare benefits and monitoring eligibility, into Job Centers, where individuals and HRA staff now focus intensively on employment.

Mayor Giuliani also announced that the City's welfare rolls have declined to 497,113 as of June 2001-a drop of 663,480 persons, or 57.2% from its peak of 1,160,593 in March 1995. During the most recent month, the welfare rolls declined by 11,610 persons. The City's welfare rolls are now at the lowest level since July 1966.

The Mayor was joined by Deputy Mayor for Planning, Education and Cultural Affairs Anthony P. Coles and Human Resources Administration (HRA) Commissioner Jason A. Turner.

"When we developed New York's welfare reform program in 1994, more than 1.1 million people were on welfare with projections that welfare rolls would one day exceed 1.5 million," the Mayor said. "We understood that a transition to self-sufficiency could not be accomplished without an underlying change in philosophy. By converting welfare offices into Job Centers, we have helped to restore work and the work ethic to the central role they once occupied in our City.

The Mayor continued, "The City's welfare decline of more than 663,000 individuals is unprecedented. Every day our welfare reform program continues to demonstrate that the real meaning of compassion is helping people make the transition from dependency on government to a life of self-sufficiency."

The Job Centers are critical components of New York City's landmark welfare reform program. There are now 27 Job Centers throughout the City serving public assistance clients, and 3 other specialty Job Centers, whose mission is to provide targeted employment services to populations with particular needs. The specialty centers include a substance abuse treatment service center, a center for single homeless individuals, and a refugee center.

The purpose of the Job Centers is to provide welfare applicants and recipients with meaningful opportunities to avoid dependency through employment and job-related activities. All eligible applicants who enter a Job Center are immediately assisted in exploring and pursuing alternatives to welfare and are initially engaged in a full-time job search focused on obtaining unsubsidized employment. Job Centers provide on-site access to job search and placement services, childcare information, and vocational, educational, training and other services.

Through the Job Centers and other welfare-to-work initiatives, HRA has achieved dramatic results in moving people from dependency to self-sufficiency. Last year, HRA surpassed its goal of 100,000 job placements by achieving 133,000 job placements. HRA accomplished this goal through many initiatives, among the most important of which was the initiation of strictly performance-based job placement contracts. Under this fundamental reform, HRA's employment placement contractors, including both for profit and non-profit entities, are paid on the basis of actual job placements and job retention. The annual number of placements made through these performance-based contracts presently exceeds 15,500 jobs.

"New York City continues to lead the nation in transforming welfare and expanding opportunity for all New Yorkers," Deputy Mayor Coles said. "Through its innovative and effective Job Centers and Mayor Giuliani's other welfare-to-work initiatives, HRA will continue to play a critical role in making New York the nation's welfare reform capital."

"As we continue to expand our welfare reform program, the City is taking on a whole new set of challenges," said Commissioner Turner. "Beyond providing assistance in finding a job, we are helping working families obtain health insurance, retain their jobs, and secure promotions. We can attribute much of HRA's overall success to strengthened internal management and accountability for our employees and private contractors through our JobStat and VendorStat initiatives."

The Coney Island Job Center is located at 3050 West 21st Street, Brooklyn. Mayor Giuliani opened the first Job Center, the Greenwood Job Center, in March 1998.