When Veterans Place Manager of Workforce Development Earl Lamar made a Duquesne Light Co. site visit, his guides took him up one of the scaffolds the utility company includes in its new employee training.
His question as they rose high up in the air: How much do you get paid to work this high up? “They told me this one was only for the 55-foot poles,” he laughed. “I asked, ‘They go up higher than this?’ ”
Well, yes, they do, Lamar learned, and for that employees are well compensated, important information he and his three-person employee assistance specialists can pass on to the veterans they help at the Larimer campus.
Veterans Place and Duquesne Light strengthened their partnership with a ribbon cutting late last month for the new Duquesne Light Veterans Workforce Center, a dedicated space for homeless and low-income veterans in the Pittsburgh area. Since 2021, DLC has contributed $325,000 to renovate the former two-story donation and storage unit into a facility that offers activity areas, meeting rooms and virtual training programs to help veterans navigate their job search, according to a news release.
Total renovation costs reached $400,000, Veterans Place Director of Community Relations and Development Jessica Gilmore said. Phillips Charitable Foundation contributed $20,000, Wabtec Corp. gave another $10,000, she said, and contributions from companies and individuals made up the rest. Other equipment and support came from a federal Department of Labor three-year grant Veterans Place secured that runs until 2026.
Veterans Place is a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending veteran homelessness in the Pittsburgh region. Since its inception in 1996, Veterans Place has provided support and comprehensive services to homeless veterans and those at risk of homelessness through transitional and permanent housing, employment services, recovery programs and supportive services.
Sam Hartzman, DLC’s general manager of social impact and chief diversity officer, said the relationship goes back years because the utility has always had a strong commitment to hiring veterans, and it has included volunteers and charitable projects with Veterans Place, too. For example, A-VETS, which stands for Allies and Veterans Energized to Serve, is the company’s Business Employee Resource Group that’s focused on veterans, according to the news release. It was created in 2020 to help increase professional development and networking opportunities for DLC employees who are veterans and/or allies.
The workforce center renovation project became its most significant investment, Hartzman continued. The goal with the center is to ensure veterans having meaningful pathways to family sustainable careers in the workplace.
Lamar said Veterans Place never had a niche or a real pathway for getting the veterans he and his team work with into DLC “until we sat down and figured it out.”
That includes several parts. “This creates more of a collaboration between the two of us,” Hartzman said. “We’re excited about having more direct access, having DLC workforce personnel come out and talk to the folks. We’ll be visible in a way that we weren’t in the past. This partnership is much more intentional, and we can be more proactive.”
The entry point for the veterans will be DLC’s Electrical Distribution Technology apprenticeship program, and through that the new hires will learn everything they can. Then they get placed, Hartzman said. “We are very intentional in how we recruit,” she said. “Veterans Place will be a place to go to for next cohort.”
Lamar said the new space will give his team that works with the veterans who live in the nonprofit’s townhouses and those who travel to its campus for assistance more space and resources to be successful in finding employment. Previously they crammed into several offices in its Veterans Resources Center.
Kevin Kordzi, Veterans Place executive director, said the new center permits better one-on-one time for all that’s involved in a job search, from job research to resume creation to application completion and interview training and preparation. “It wasn’t available [to them] before. Duquesne Light’s kindness and support made all of these things possible and helps our flexibility,” he said.
“We have three programs on site. Now workforce has its own branded space. There’s a sense of pride that goes along with that, too.”
Veterans Place’s employment training component started in 2017. Sidney Singer, a member of the Jewish War Veterans, Post 718, in 1996 had worked and raised funds to purchase the group of run-down Washington Boulevard row houses. With government and foundation grants, he and the post created a safe haven of 13 townhouses where military veterans could continue their recovery from chronic mental illness along with an administration and service building. Right now it has bed space for 52, but a new building the nonprofit is finishing and will celebrate at a ribbon cutting ceremony on Veterans Day will add another eight single occupancy apartments, Kordzi said.
It has various housing arrangements through its programs. Kordzi said the veterans can need bridge housing, a short stay of about 90 days, giving them someplace to live until they have secured a place and have sufficient funds to pay rent and other expenses. In the other programs, veterans can stay for up to two years, but typically those programs run seven to eight months. All three give them access to workforce training as well as time to learn, both Lamar and Kordzi stressed.
Further, Veterans Place helps them with important items to land and keep a job, Kordzi added, such as bus money, tools, clothing and other needs. “It’s really not just getting the job but being successful at it,” he said.
Lamar said the planning for the renovated space has taken about three years. Right now staff is moving office furniture and computer equipment into the building, and once all the required city occupancy permits are in hand, it will be operational.
Information on Veterans Place website stated that 102 veterans took part in workforce training with a 100% success rate in 2023. Lamar said the program has been building to that number for the past two years. He noted that it has been ranked in the top three Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program grantees in Western Pennsylvania, which is funded by the Department of Labor.
Its flexible approach helps those statistics. Lamar said veterans who first need to learn more about computers can do that. If they want CDL licenses, Veterans Place will pay for that training, for example. “It can take as long as the actual individual needs to take,” he said. “We train veterans to the right situation to get them back into the workplace.”
It all contributes, Kordzi added, to breaking the cycle of homelessness. “It’s not unusual for someone to leave transitional housing with 6 or 7 thousand dollars in the bank,” he said. “We don’t want someone leaving here with just a couple of hundred dollars, then the first challenge or roadblock they have and that cycle of homelessness just repeats.”
DLC’s support and partnership aids that goal, too.
“It’s an eye opener to the wealth and knowledge that our veterans now have access to,” Lamar said. When we say it’s a pipeline to Duquesne Light and other opportunities, [we know] that is hard to get. Everyone is applying online to get into Duquesne Light. [This is] a comfortable setting. When our vets are applying, the employment specialist is helping them and calling the Duquesne Light hiring manager at the same time. Veterans have the opportunities that are opening up for them, and it’s tangible and available to them.”
Helen is a copy editor at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but she's currently on strike. Contact her at hfallon@unionprogress.com.