In this 2016 photo, a Tongue Point Job Corps Center dental assisting graduate receives her certificate. Officials and community leaders in Clatsop County are scrambling to find students and staff at the Astoria center housing after learning they may lose it by the end of the week. (Submitted file photo)

Court order buys time for center on Oregon Coast

A federal judge has temporarily blocked the closing of Job Corps centers across the nation, days after the Trump administration announced it was shutting down the job training program.

The restraining order buys extra time for staff and students at the Tongue Point Job Corps center in Astoria. Some of them faced the possibility of losing their on-campus housing this week.

At a community meeting Wednesday night organized by the Astoria City Council, the standing room-only crowd broke into applause when they heard the news of the restraining order. Mac McGoldrick, director of the Tongue Point Job Corps center, called it a small win.

He said some students who had been preparing to leave even though they did not have safe or stable housing to go to are now able to stay.

“But it doesn’t solve this problem,” he said. “And so we need this community to continue to stand alongside us and to help us do what we need to do for all of these students sitting here and (the others) back at the center.”

Tongue Point provides training and education across a number of trades and industries to more than 300 students and employs around 165 people. It is slated to close by the end of the month. But students and staff — and their families — were facing earlier deadlines for when they needed to be out of campus housing.

A spokesperson for Management and Training Corporation, the contractor that oversees Tongue Point, said around 20 students who live on campus do not have safe or stable housing to return to when the center closes. Before the judge’s order Wednesday afternoon, those students were due to be transitioned out of campus housing beginning Friday.

This abrupt deadline sent Astoria and Clatsop County communities rushing to come up with solutions. Local churches, governments and social service groups rallied to locate housing and other resources.

These efforts are still underway even with the temporary restraining order in place. Local leaders say the situation is fluid. They say the most immediate issue remains finding housing for people in a county where options can be limited.

Astoria Mayor Sean Fitzpatrick hoped Wednesday’s community meeting would be an opportunity to provide information, take testimony from people directly impacted by the looming closure and talk about what can be done.

He says the city will hold additional meetings as necessary.

Katrina Sturgeon, a former longtime Tongue Point employee and now the workforce and community development manager with Northwest Oregon Works, has put out a request to agencies, businesses and other organizations to compile information about what they can offer to help with housing, mental health services, financial assistance, career opportunities and other types of support.

There has already been a strong response, she told the audience at Wednesday’s meeting. But she said there are other ways people can help.

When Sturgeon worked at Tongue Point, there was a year she also faced the possibility of losing her housing there. She said she received a lot of love and support from the community at the time.

“But what I’m asking from the community now is give this staff opportunities to apply to live in housing,” she said, “to consider the fact that some us who got to live on campus for a good chunk of time maybe don’t have the rental history that might align with what property managers are looking for. Give this staff grace.”

Tongue Point partners with local K-12 school districts, Clatsop Community College and Columbia Memorial Hospital, all of which expect to experience impacts if the center closes.

Craig Hoppes, superintendent for the Astoria School District, said school officials know of at least 20 Tongue Point employees who have children enrolled in the district, and he suspects there could be more. The district does not require parents to list where they are employed.

A number of school district employees also have spouses who work at the Job Corps center. If they have to leave the area so their spouse can look for work or a living situation somewhere else when Tongue Point closes, the school district may have open positions it will need to fill, Hoppes said.

Around a dozen Job Corps students attend classes at Clatsop Community College in addition to their training and classes at Tongue Point.

College President Jarrod Hogue said the college is working with some of them on remote options to ensure they are able to complete their classes. The college is also looking at funding a term of education for affected students if necessary and will try to supply labs, training and other resources.

For Tongue Point students and employees it has been a bewildering, emotional and disorienting week.

A number of them attended Wednesday’s meeting and expressed their appreciation for the outpouring of support. They also spoke to the center’s impact on their own lives and their fears about what happens next if it closes.

Jena Cole, a dental student at Tongue Point, moved from thousands of miles away to attend the center. She said she has seen her fellow students change the trajectories of their lives, coming out of homelessness and difficult family situations.

“And having to see everyone figure out what we’re going to do now is extremely painful for all of us,” she said. “I don’t think it’s fair that the government has done this to us, to force us out to try to find housing and try to find our lives when we had all these dreams built up.

“I just want to urge every one of you to do everything you can with your voice because that’s the only way we have to speak up,” she added. “We have to do something, and I ask you to do that for me and for these kids here and for all the students. We need this. This is our life. This is our future.”

Local elected officials and community leaders attended Wednesday’s meeting and said they are in contact with state and federal representatives.

Staff members from the offices of U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley and state Rep. Cyrus Javadi also attended the meeting and spoke in support of Tongue Point. State Sen. Suzanne Weber sent a letter expressing her support.

Merkley and U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici signed a letter to the Department of Labor, urging the administration to immediately reverse course on the closures.