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Businesses don’t locate here because of our climate or our housing–the National Low-Income Housing Coalition ranked Massachusetts the second least affordable state in 2004. Employers come to Massachusetts because of the knowledge and work ethic of our people; yet, training skilled workers has not kept pace with market demand. Currently, there is a disconnect between available jobs and the number of qualified applicants for those jobs. According to the Workforce Solutions Group, a coalition dedicated to improving workforce development, there are 149,400 unemployed workers and 89, 296 job vacancies in Massachusetts. Our labor pool, except for our immigrant population, has been shrinking. Because many of these workforce training programs impact our youth and continued state funding is seriously at risk, I found myself at the State House again for the second day in a row. (This time I made the train and got to see the senator.)

As a member of Lowell’s Ten-Year Plan to End Homelessness Jobs & Education Subcommittee, I attended an hour-long meeting with D.J. Corcoran, chief of staff for Senator Panagiotakos, and Rob Dolan from his budget staff, along with more than ten others who work in diverse areas of Lowell, including city government, the homeless shelter, the career center, the International Institute, and Middlesex Community College. I attended to express my concerns regarding level funding for Adult Basic Education—especially in Lowell where we have the largest and best adult ed program in the state as well as a waiting list of students. I was also concerned about funding for the School-to-Career Connecting Activities program, where many of our at-risk teens receive job training while working on MCAS remediation and GED preparation. When you consider that 30% of homeless people are at-risk kids and that the cycle of poverty often leads teens to crime, gangs, and violence—the opportunity to turn their lives around has a huge ripple effect on all of us through our tax base, our prisons, and our community. You can build a million nanotechnology centers, but if we can’t fill those jobs with the population we have (our own young people and job seekers), how does that strengthen our community? Without a skilled workforce, you will not have economic recovery.