The U.S. House of Representatives is proposing to eliminate AmeriCorps, the 30-year program that provides the people power that local nonprofit, faith-based, and community organizations train and deploy to respond to our country’s most immediate and critical needs.
If this happens, it will have a devastating effect on YouthBuild, the communities the program supports, and on the thousands of low-income opportunity youth serving their country by addressing unprecedented affordable housing shortages while gaining the skillsets and mindsets that lead to lifelong learning, leadership, and livelihood.
YouthBuild is a community-based pre-apprenticeship program, started in East Harlem in 1978 and located all over the world, that provides job training and educational opportunities for opportunity youth—young people between the ages of 16 and 24 who are neither in school nor employed. The program’s AmeriCorps members serve their neighborhood and develop as leaders through community improvement service projects, primarily the construction and repair of low-income housing. While service has been integral to YouthBuild since its inception, being an AmeriCorps grantee has allowed YouthBuild programs to support more young people, develop more houses, and allow its members to positively connect to and serve their own communities. As importantly, it has given young people traditionally known as “disenfranchised,” “marginalized,” “disconnected,” and “at risk,” an opportunity to fulfill their aspirations to improve their lives and communities and be connected to a national service movement that is greater than themselves.
Since 1994, there have been more than 51,000 YouthBuild AmeriCorps members who have generated more than 21 million direct service hours developing and repairing over 8,700 units of affordable housing for low-income individuals and families, and more than 13,000 YouthBuild AmeriCorps members have earned their high school equivalency or diploma while doing so. For having served, the receipt of the Segal Education Award has provided transformative opportunities for those whom higher education and further credentialing opportunities would otherwise have been out of reach.
In 2021, AmeriCorps published a return on investment (ROI) study that measured the benefits of the YouthBuild AmeriCorps program against costs. The report notes that while at a YouthBuild program, “AmeriCorps members gain the experience, skills, and knowledge that result in future benefits, such as improved employment and wages, which can be sustained throughout their working years.” As a result, there is increased tax revenue for government and reduced lifetime spending on corrections, public assistance, and social insurance, all while allowing YouthBuild AmeriCorps participants to reclaim their education, serve their community and gain job skills, and become leaders in their community.
Cutting AmeriCorps would eliminate critical opportunities for these deserving young people and restrict pathways to making meaningful contributions to their communities, the economy, and democracy. If we put AmeriCorps funding on the chopping block as Congress has proposed, it will prevent these talented individuals from realizing their potential, making significant contributions, and becoming our future leaders, innovators, and change-makers. AmeriCorps makes YouthBuild more effective and impactful and makes a difference for young people that other networks exclude. We need to invest in expanding, not cutting AmeriCorps so that we can strengthen more communities through service.