By Khalida Sarwari
U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis visited San Francisco this afternoon to tour two job-training organizations that assist veterans and young people.
Solis’ first stop was Swords to Plowshares, a nonprofit that provides employment training services and job counseling to veterans and receives grant funding through the U.S. Department of Labor.
The purpose of the tour, Solis said, was to find out how well the organization is integrating services to meet the needs of young veterans who are returning home from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Swords to Plowshares, she said, is a model organization for providing “wrap-around services” which include counseling and case management, employment and training, housing, and legal assistance.
“These kinds of programs are essential,” Solis said.
The organization, which was founded in 1974, has expanded with the addition of an employment branch in Oakland, a more convenient location for the younger vets who reside in the East Bay, Swords to Plowshares spokeswoman Colleen Corliss said.
“There has been an influx in people experiencing the housing crisis and Iraq and Afghanistan vets seeking employment,” Corliss said.
Solis commended the “dedicated” staff at Swords to Plowshares for providing veterans “support to be successful.”
“Overall we saw good services,” Solis said, adding that she plans to learn and garner ideas from such organizations.
Solis said the Department of Labor would place more emphasis on the plight of part-time workers, reforms in education and support for the working class.
Immediately following the Swords to Plowshares tour, Solis took a hardhat tour of a YouthBuild construction site at 149 Mason St., a Glide Foundation operation that provides on-the-job training in construction jobs for young people.