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Labor Intensive

Jewish Vocational Service
wins a $2.4 million contract to service
the unemployed in the city of Detroit.

JULIE EDGAR SENIOR WRITER

Detroit's Employment and
Training Department is the state's
Jobs Commission contractor for
the Work Place program and the
agency that awarded the contract
to JVS. The state is financing sim-
ilar centers all over the state.
Detroit's centers, one on Fort
Street in downtown, the other in
the New Center area near the
Wayne State University campus,
will serve as a single point of ac-
cess for job-related government-
programs, and private ones, too.
The State Jobs Commission will
set up operations in the center,

PHOTO BY GLENN TRIEST

j swish Vocational Service has
beat out 10 competitors in a
bid to assist job seekers in
Detroit.
The organization nabbed a two-
year city contract worth
$2,435,077 to operate two De-
troit's Work Place centers.
"It's a wonderful opportunity,"
said JVS Executive Director Bar-
bara Nurenberg. "When some-
thing like this happens, of course,
the creative juices start running.
It's an opportunity for the city, the
employers, the citizens, for all the
organizations involved with em-
ployment and employment-relat-
ed services."
The Work Place centers will
serve as a training, testing, infor-
mational and job search and
placement ground for any resident
of the city. Any business looking
for workers, in turn, will list their
criteria with the centers and even
have access to the centers' data
bases.
JVS plans to develop programs
for employers that address em-
ployee screening, recruiting and
interviewing, said JVS Associate
Executive Director Leah Rosen-
baum.
Yet, finding work for the un-
employed is but one issue the cen-
ters will tackle. They will arso offer
academic upgrading, computer
training and on-site child care.
"Getting a job or getting train-
ing is not the issue. Many unem-
ployed people have barriers like
transportation, child care, lack of
training, inadequate general ed-
ucation and general job skills," Ms.
Nurenberg said.
"The concept is, you need to
take a look at the individual and
agree upon the plan that allows
that individual to become em-
ployed by systematically elimi-
nating barriers to employment in
a planned and coordinated man-
ner."
Ms. Rosenbaum said the cen-
ters will form a "seamless system"
for putting people back to work
because a host of agencies will be
brought together under one roof.
Services can be coordinated ac-
cording to an individual's needs.
JVS will also operate a satellite
office in Highland Park. JVS
staffer Jackie Thomas will ad-
minister the centers, and about
38 people have been hired to run
them.

Good For The Jews?

Despite a Jewish Community Council decision
school vouchers continue to elicit debate.

JULIE WIENER STAFF WRITER

along with the Fam-
Barbara
Nurenberg: ily Independence

"Eliminating Agency, an entre-
barriers."
preneurial program

out of Wayne State
University, and the Michigan Em-
ployment Security Agency, among
others.
"Whatever door you go into is
the right door," Ms. Nurenberg
said of the centers. "It should re-
ally grease the wheels for people
needing employment and train-
ing services."
All of the state's 26 job centers
must be in place by July 1.
JVS, which helps match work-
ers with employers and offers ser-
vices to the general public that
range from computer training to
resume writing, has been work-
ing with the city of Detroit and
Wayne County for years, Ms.
Nurenberg pointed out. The JVS
branch on Woodward Avenue will
continue providing mental health
services, along with employment
training, literacy programs and
programs for the homeless. ❑

re they the badly need-
ed cure for faltering
schools or the nemesis of
public education? Do
they promote Jewish continu-
ity or -wider-mine the principles
of church-state separation that
have enabled Jewish life to
thrive in the United States?
The idea of school vouchers
— state tuition subsidies for
parents who send their children
to private and parochial schools

— has been tossed around for Jews are debating vouchers'
years. But with a 1998 Michi- relative merits and dangers.
The National Jewish Com-
gan ballot initiative on the hori-
munity Relations Ad
zon, a new proposal in
Congress and pilot Michael Eizelman, visory Council
programs cropping up with daughters Tova (NJCRAC) -- long an
around the country, (3) and Mira (14 opponent of vouchers
— recently opened the
vouchers have moved and wife Shelly.
issue for re-examina-
to the forefront of pub-
tion, encouraging local cam-
lic debate.
And as the Jewish commu- munity relations councils to
nity becomes more politically explore the implications.
and religiously diverse, many VOUCHERS page 22

Diagnosis: Fine

The Danto nursing care facility is admitting new patients in the wake
of a second state inspection.

JULIE EDGAR SENIOR WRITER

he Marvin and Betty Dan-
to Family Health Care
Center in West Bloomfield
fared much better in its
last inspection by the state of
Michigan.
"Ifs my understanding every-
thing was corrected," said state
licensing officer Grace Kerlin of
the Michigan Department of
Consumer and Industry Ser-
vices.

T

In January, one month after
the state-of-the-art nursing fa-
cility opened on the Maple-
Drake Jewish Community
Campus, a state inspection
team cited the Danto Center for
29 violations, half of them for
poor patient care. The facility,
which had 47 residents at the
time, imposed a voluntary ban
on admissions in the wake of the
inspection report.

The latest report, the result
of a mandatory reinspection last
month, shows vast improve-
ments.
While the 165-bed home still
has problems in the area of pa-
tient care, the state team cited
it for Only five such violations
and only one administrative
shortcoming. And the inspection
team found problems with the

DIAGNOSIS page 26