NAMPA, Idaho — Students at Centennial Job Corps in Nampa have until Friday to find new accommodations after recent funding cuts at the Department of Labor. While some can stay with family, others could find themselves homeless.
"My sister said she'd let me stay there, but only for about a month, you know," said Lucien Yervasi, a Job Corps student.
"Luckily, I have a place to go, but I will have to continue looking for a new job, stuff like that," said Shawn Hadden, another student at the center.
Hadden and Yervasi are among the luckier students with a place to stay after this week. The housing challenge comes after the Department of Labor cut funds and closed the national Job Corps program, effectively ending a pipeline of skilled apprentices to enter the workforce.
"Yes, it frustrates me the most that they pull [out] a spreadsheet, and it has numbers on it. But our students, they're not numbers," said Traci Jones, Center Director at Centennial Job Corps.
A Department of Labor transparency report considers the cost-per-student to be more than $150,000. Nampa's Centennial Job Corps tells me that data is inflated, nearly threefold, because only about a third of students returned after the pandemic.
"And so when you're pulling from a poll that's not full, it's going to inflate the numbers," Jones said.
Yervasi has been a student at Centennial Job Corps for just two and a half months and already has his first welding certificate.
"This place taught me a lot of hard work, and that hard work pays off. So, with the positivity that this place brought me, my fear is that I will lack bringing that into my real life because I feel like I'm not finished here," Yervasi said.
Hadden shared worries about his future and that of his fellow classmates.
"Some people don't have places to go. Some don't know what they're going to do next. So that's something I worry about," Hadden said.
Centennial Job Corps employs 77 staffers, all of them now without a job, and Center Director Traci Jones had to deliver the news herself.
"When I had to tell them that was coming to an end, that we had to send all the students home, and we as staff weren't gonna have jobs anymore, and it was coming to an end no later than the 30th— it was devastating. To see the looks on their faces, to see them cry, to stay afterwards and ask: 'what are we gonna do?' We have students that are homeless and we are scrambling to find somewhere for them to go," Jones said through tears.
Nampa Mayor Debbie Kling penned a letter to Idaho Senator Mike Crapo saying that while she "supports the Administration’s desire to reduce the federal deficit and debt, I respectfully ask for your support in advocating for the reinstatement of funding for America’s Job Corps."
Centennial Job Corps tells me they only learned of the cuts to their students and staff when they saw the proposed budget from the Department of Labor.
This story was initially reported by a journalist and has been, in part, converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
