ESL Sewing Training Program Revived: Earlier Program Failed in 2001
By Mike Fitzgerald, Belleville News-Democrat, Ill.
May 28–EAST ST. LOUIS — A state agency plans to spend $550,000 to fix up the old Lincoln High School to make space for a sewing training program for chronically unemployed adults.
The Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity approved the grant requests made by state Rep. Wyvetter Younge, D-East St. Louis, despite the failure of another sewing-training program in East St. Louis.
That earlier program’s demise in 2001 cost federal taxpayers more than $400,000 and yielded only a few jobs, inspectors later reported.
But this time around things will be different because the nonprofit Lessie Bates Neighborhood Association, which is overseeing the sewing factory, has a lot of experience in helping low-income adults find jobs, said Bill Kreeb, the association’s executive director.
Kreeb’s group received $100,000 from the Department of Commerce and Economic Oppoortunity to set up the Lincoln Center Sewing Factory, at the corner of Bond Avenue and 14th Street.
In addition, the agency awarded $450,000 to the nonprofit Concerned Citizens for Justice to renovate the high school’s plumbing, electrical wiring and make other repairs, state documents show.
“This is really an employment program,” Kreeb said. “And this is really to help people get some skills to move into fulltime employment.”
Kreeb said he does not know when the sewing program will launch. But the pieces are in place, including a business plan, while talks have begun with cultural and arts programs nationwide to provide them with costumes, he said.
Nonetheless, Kreeb predicted that “very few” of the 50 students expected to enroll in the sewing program’s first class will likely find jobs in the garment industry.
The point of the program isn’t to provide workers for that industry. Instead, the idea is to use “that sewing concept to teach some basic job readiness skills,” he said. “It’s a job development grant. Our goal is to get those people jobs.”
But a national group that spotlights wasteful government spending took a different view of the $550,000 earmarked for Lincoln Center projects.
Those state grants illustrate how “we have a spending problem in Illinois, not a revenue problem,” said Joe Calomino, the state director of the not-for-profit Americans For Prosperity Foundation, of Washington, D.C.,
Calomino slammed the Lincoln Center sewing program, as well as hundreds of other grants worth more than $1 billion that Illinois lawmakers of both parties have steered to supporters.
“And part of the spending problem is the process by which we spend tax dollars,” he said. “It’s not open, it’s not transparent. We need serious budget reforms.”
Younge could not be reached for comment.
Andrew Ross, a spokesman for the state agency, said the Lincoln Center grants are “a reflection of the priorities of both the administration and the General Assembly.”
Ross said his agency makes sure all groups that receive state grants comply with the grant terms.
“And if somebody is not living up to the terms in an agreement, we will take the necessary steps to ensure that no taxpayer dollars are wasted,” he said.
In addition to the $450,000 for building repairs, the state agency two years ago awarded $100,000 — also at Younge’s behest — to Concerned Citizens to set up a program to teach custodial and welding skills to 16 adult high-school drop-outs at Lincoln.
That program ended 15 months ago amid complaints by some former students about a lack of equipment, vandalism and poor training.
Concerned Citizens’ chairman is Thelma Bobo, of Edwardsville, a friend of Younge’s, as both women have acknowledged.
The state is steering hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Lincoln Center projects at the same time many small businesses in Illinois — including pharmacies and nursing homes — are complaining the state is forcing them to wait 15 months or more for payment of legitimate bills.
This problem has grown especially acute for Rod Washausen Jr., a Waterloo businessman who makes a living removing leaking underground storage tanks. The state owes Washausen more than $900,000 for work his company, WSI Inc., has performed.
But the fund set up to pay for such work has been frozen by Gov. Rod Blagojevich, its dollars funneled into the general revenue fund — the source of the grants Younge has obtained for the Lincoln Center projects.
“Do you really need to dump that money into East St. Louis?” said Washausnen. “It’s frustrating.”
The Lincoln Center Sewing Factory follows the footsteps of the nonprofit Gateway East Metropolitan Ministry Center’s sewing program, which was housed at a former Masonic Temple at 575 N. 14th St.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services gave the ministry center a $400,000 grant in 1999, with the goal of creating 65 jobs for low-income people. Frank Childress, the center’s director, was the longtime companion of Debra Powell, East St. Louis’ mayor at the time.
The GEMM sewing program opened in January 2001, but shut down six months later with only a few people finding jobs.
The inspector general for Health and Human Services began scrutiny of the project after Childress refused to show how the all the grant dollars were spent and what happened to the factory’s equipment, including 30 sewing machines and a $16,000 silk-screen press. The inspector general later dropped the probe.
Contact reporter Mike Fitzgerald at mfitzgerald@bnd.com or 239-2533.
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Copyright (c) 2007, Belleville News-Democrat, Ill.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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