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Brooklyn Woods, a skilled woodworker training program and social enterprise operated by non-profit Brooklyn Workforce Innovations (BWI), is collaborating with Habitat for Humanity - New York City to provide environmentally sustainable, hardwood cabinets in St. John’s Residences, a new, affordable condominium development located in Ocean Hill-Brownsville, Brooklyn.
“We are proud to partner with Brooklyn Woods,” said Josh Lockwood, Executive Director of Habitat for Humanity - New York City. “Our mission includes building communities, as well as affordable homes. Providing job training opportunities for Brooklyn Woods and its trainees is one way we can help impact our neighborhoods and the lives of their residents.”
The Brooklyn Woods training program, which typically operates out of a custom-built learning lab in Gowanus, Brooklyn, recently graduated eight very-low-income and unemployed New Yorkers from a special “cabinet installation” training cycle. As a part of training, Brooklyn Woods students, who have multiple, significant barriers to employment, began installation of Brooklyn Woods cabinets in each of the 12 units at St. John’s Residences. For these eight individuals, barriers to employment include everything from incarceration and drug rehabilitation to a single mom and veteran pursuing woodworking as an avenue to support her children. Each participant has a unique story and a common desire to break down the walls that have kept them unemployed for so long. Through their work at St. John’s Residences, they began to do just that.
The cabinets constructed during the collaboration were manufactured to produce high social return and low environmental impact. Brooklyn Woods manufactures all of its cabinetry locally with a production staff consisting of former training program graduates, all of whom are low-income or unemployed when they begin training. Once completed, St. John’s Residences will house low-income, working New York City families earning between 50 to 80 percent of the Area Median Income.
“We’re always looking for ways to magnify our impact in the poorest New York City communities,” noted BWI Executive Director Aaron Shiffman. “Partnering with other community organizations to improve our training is often the best way to do that.”
For more information on the Brooklyn Woods training program or other Brooklyn Workforce Innovations’ sector-focused training programs, please visit www.bwiny.org. To learn more about Habitat-NYC, please visit www.habitatnyc.org.
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