City Council approves $2 million for Atlanta Mayor’s Summer Youth Work Program

The Atlanta City Council has allocated $2 million to fund the city-sponsored summer youth employment program this year.

The council voted Monday to amend the city’s fiscal 2024 budget to allocate money for the Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP), an initiative launched by Mayor Andre Dickens in 2022 in as part of its Year of Youth. The bill was sponsored by Councilwoman Andrea Boone.

The Youth Employment Program leverages partnerships in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors to employ Atlanta youth who can earn above-average wages while learning valuable career and life skills , depending on the city.

“The Summer Youth Employment Program helps our youth thrive by creating paid opportunities that provide work experience and life skills that can help prepare them for the future,” said Dickens said in a press release.

“Sometimes young people just need to know someone is in their corner and today, thanks to Councilman Boone and the entire City Council, Atlanta is saying, ‘It starts with us,'” Dickens said .

Highlights of SYEP 2023 include:

• 5,418 young people registered in the program;
• 157 employers signed up for the program;
• The average hourly wage was $17.27.

A report on SYEP 2023 is online here. For more information on how to register for the program or to learn how to become a hiring partner, visit atlyearoftheyouth.com.

In other action Monday:

The City Council approved amending the FY 2024 budget to transfer $500,000 from the Affordable Housing Trust Fund to create the Atlanta Community Energy Fund (ACEF).

The new fund will support clean energy projects and strategies identified under the Clean Energy Plan aimed at reducing the energy burden on households in the City of Atlanta, according to a press release. The bill was sponsored by council members Liliana Bakhtiari and Alex Wan.

The Clean Energy Plan was approved by the City Council in 2019. Last year, the city relaunched its Clean Energy Advisory Council.

“Nearly 50,000 homes face an energy problem in our city, and we are constantly looking for ways to help,” Dickens said. said in a press release. “We are following a strategic roadmap to reduce overall energy use and emissions in the city’s buildings and the Atlanta Community Energy Trust Fund will enable innovative solutions and faster action as we focus on energy efficiency solutions.”

The fund will be managed by the Office of Sustainability and Resilience. The new ACEF will be funded in the future from a variety of sources, including municipal credits, revenue generated from the sale of renewable energy credits and federal funding opportunities, according to the press release.