Slow economy hurting agencies seeking jobs for disabled workers

Organizations assisting individuals who are developmentally challenged or have a mental illness say the slow economy has made it tougher to find new jobs for the people they help.

Because of the tight economy and corporate cutbacks, organizations assisting workers who are disabled or have an illness are finding a larger number of people they help unemployed or working fewer hours a week.

Boulder-based WAT Business Services helps adults with mental illnesses like bipolar disorder, chronic depression and schizophrenia find employment.

“We give them a place to learn work skills and to develop what they need to join the private sector if they want to,´ said Dexter Correa, WAT’s marketing director.

WAT, Work Adjustment Training, has contracts from businesses to provide services like packaging, mailing services, document assembly and handwork. “It’s a variety of things that help other businesses get their projects done,” Correa said. “We are a kind of job shop.”

The part-time work is completed in-house at WAT in Boulder for small to large companies. Some of the companies include Valleylab Inc., Hunter Douglas Window Fashions Inc., Octagon Systems Corp. and IBM Corp.

Another client, the Boulder Chamber of Commerce, has continued to use WAT in a slow economy to mail its monthly newsletter to 3,000 people and special mailings.

“The main reason we use them is the customer service they provide,´ said Kara Williams, who handles the chamber’s newsletter. “Their turnaround time is amazing. When we have an emergency to get mail out, they are helpful.”

Despite organizations like the chamber with steady work, the number of employees and the hours worked declined. Ruth Arnold, director of vocational services for the Mental Health Center of Boulder County Inc., said 50 people at a time will be employed by WAT this year compared with 60 last year. “At WAT we work to graduate people out into community jobs. When community jobs are hard to get, we can’t graduate people out, and our turnover is lower,” she said.

Arnold said from July 2001 to January compared with the same time period from 1999 to 2001, the number of hours people worked dropped by 16 percent. The total hours worked for all WAT clients declined from 20,894 to 17,667.

In addition to the in-house job shop at WAT, there are two programs that place individuals in jobs in Boulder and Broomfield counties. Arnold said the Chinook Clubhouse placed 50 people in Boulder during 2001-2002, compared with 60 people who found employment in 2000-2001. Job Development , which finds employment for people in Longmont, Lafayette, Louisville and Broomfield, had 15 job placements in 2001-2002 compared with 25 placements in 2000-2001.

“Job opportunities are even worse in the eastern part of the county,” Arnold said. “I don’t know why it is worse in the eastern part of the county.”

Arnold said the Chinook Clubhouse has been affected by cutbacks in the high-tech industry and tourism as well as Kmart closing in Boulder. It is taking longer to find a job for someone. “It is taking twice as long as it used to,” she said. “It may take six months instead of three months. We have had more people come in for placement, but there are no numbers on how many more people have asked for help.”

Two Boulder County organizations that help the developmentally disabled find work also are reporting it’s taking longer to place people in jobs.

Sterling Wind, director of Labor Source, an employment service of Lafayette-based Imagine, said his organization works with 60 to 65 developmentally disabled individuals a year. Most of the people work in small groups where they do the job of one person and are an Imagine employee. Others work individually for an employer. Wind said it is tougher for someone laid off to find another job.

“Two and a half to three years ago it would take us up to 20 hours of work to identify and get someone scheduled to start a job,” he said. “In the last year, it has doubled, tripled. It now takes a couple of months or more.”

Wind said some of the individuals, who can’t find the 15 to 18 part-time hours they are seeking, work several jobs a few hours a week. In the last six months, seven people were impacted by a reduction in hours or a job loss compared to three years ago when one person was looking. “Three years ago, the person lost their job because the business was sold,” he said. “Before the next month, the person had a job with a better wage and worked the hours the person wanted.”

Jan Hoyme, administrative coordinator for Boulder-based Employment Link, also provides employment services to people with developmental disabilities. The emphasis is on individual placement over small group employment. He said the number of individuals placed with Boulder County employers has declined. There were 80 people working in July 2001, 73 in June 2002 and 67 in February.

“The downsizing that has occurred over the last several months is having an effect on us as well,” Hoyme said. “The decrease is due to the downturn in the economy.”

Hoyme said prior to Sept. 11, there were about four to five placements a month, but now there are two to three a month.

The slow economy also has impacted the budgets of all three organizations. Arnold said WAT had to cut $150,000 out of a $300,000 budget. The loss was related to Medicaid cuts. Funding for WAT comes from state, federal and local government money as well as the United Way.

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