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Minority & Small Business Week
October 4, 2017
Job Training to Break Cycle of Low Employment
Non profit helps
young adults reach
full potential
by D anny p eterson
t he p ortlanD o bserver
David Greenidge is working to break
a cycle of low employment and hous-
ing that keeps too many young men and
women from our community from reach-
ing their full potential.
Several years ago, he and other con-
cerned residents got together to survey
why people couldn’t find jobs in the King
neighborhood of northeast Portland. They
found many members of the black com-
munity were out of work due to a prior
criminal history.
Greenidge then went to work to break
the criminal justice bonds. As a resident
of Portland, he founded the National Ur-
ban Housing & Economic Community
Development Corporation to help former
offenders turn their lives around with job
training and housing assistance.
According to a Racial and Ethnic
Disparities Report from 2016, Afri-
can-Americans are over represented in
the Multnomah County jail system—they
represent 5 percent of the overall popula-
tion, but they represent 27 percent of its
jail population. That disparity is impact-
ing many people of color economically.
David Greenidge
A Poverty in Multnomah County report
from 2014 showed black residents are
over-represented in the county’s impover-
ished population—36 percent of the black
population are in poverty, while only 14
percent of whites are in poverty. Further-
more, a study from 2001 to 2006 examin-
ing three states found that less than half of
people returning to their community from
prison had secured a job.
“I saw people needing help and I
thought we could put together a nonprof-
it that could help them,” Greenidge said,
describing the start to his specialized pro-
gram about two years ago.
Greenidge said he discovered that one
C ontinueD on p age 25
A non-profit rooted in Portland’s African American community provides training in
construction as a way to break a cycle of low employment impacting young men and
women from our community.