Chicago won’t be hosting the Olympics in 2016, but a consortium of foundations have banded together to use the remaining Olympic bid funds for job programs for the South and West Side neighborhoods. For more information on Chicago jobs, click here.
The 2016 Olympics Fund for Chicago Neighborhoods board is going to apply for federal stimulus money in an attempt to swell its remaining $1.7 million into more than $5 million for work force development efforts.
“Even though we lost the potential economic engine of the games, we think we can still be helpful in providing job training and transitional jobs in industries that are seeking workers, such as hospitality, health care and [freight] transportation, distribution and logistics,” said Terry Mazany, president and chief executive of the Chicago Community Trust, one of the participating foundations that had pooled money to assist neighborhoods that would have been affected by the Olympics.
According to ChicagoTribune.com, the federal fund offers a 4-to-1 match to local funding, so “it’s a huge opportunity to create great leverage,” Mazany said.
At minimum, the group could seek a match on $1 million, which could bring in an additional $4 million. But the 2016 fund may do a little more fundraising so it could seek a match on $2 million, which would hoist its pot to $10 million, he said.
The Chicago Workforce Investment Council, a nonprofit created last year and headed by Mayor Richard Daley, will design the spending plans. It will work with the Chicago Jobs Council, a nonprofit that will identify where jobs exist and organize the system for training and placement.
The fund consortium hopes to have dollars in hand this summer, Mazany said.
Job training and these new programs are in dire need, especially since Chicago has seen their unemployment spike.
The funding would be used primarily for wage subsidies so that employers could take on workers for short-term jobs without incurring cost. And participants would gain employment experience.
The 2016 Olympics Fund is a joint project of the Chicago Community Trust, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the McCormick Foundation, the Polk Bros. Foundation, the Joyce Foundation, the Wiebolt Foundation and Boeing Co.
The group originally raised $4.72 million, but some of those commitments were contingent on Chicago landing the 2016 Games, which went to Rio de Janeiro. The final figure came in at $3.7 million, and $2 million was spent during the bid period.
