ABSTRACT
To address locally the complex problems of unemployment and poverty, community-based organizations (CBOs) have emerged that serve as workforce intermediaries (Giloth, 2003) often bridging a particular population and a particular industry. These CBOs may be private-public partnerships involving churches, school systems, community colleges, private entities such as banks, and, in an industry where training is done via an apprenticeship program, as in construction, unions, contractors, and community development corporations. They may operate with grant funding, state or federal funding, or donations and volunteer labor. As organizations, they tend to be vulnerable to changes in the political context because the enactment of their mission places the organization directly into the heart of the politics of the industry. If, in the upcoming period, a major new infusion of funding for jobs creation occurs, organizations like these will have an important role to play. If they function as a mirror of the general labor market, by applying traditional criteria and selecting by sorting and eliminating, they will only repeat and reinforce legacies of discrimination.
