Last week, National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) Administrator Lawrence Strickling provided an update on the agency’s Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) and highlighted efforts by Los Angeles-based Chrysalis that teaches digital literacy skills to homeless and low-income individuals who are trying to find a job.
BTOP is a federal program aimed at closing the digital divide by expanding broadband Internet access in communities throughout the nation. Below is from a Strickling’s lengthy address given on Jan. 16 at the Brookings Institute:
Sheryl Culbert, a 49-year-old mother of two in Los Angeles, knows this [need for computer skills] first hand. After being released from prison in 2010, Culbert was determined to turn her life around. That meant finding a job. So she made her way to Chrysalis, an Los Angeles non-profit that helps the city’s homeless and low-income residents find work and get on a path to self-sufficiency.
Chrysalis enrolled Culbert in a BTOP-funded digital literacy program that taught her how to go online and set her up with an email account. For Culbert, who had lacked the confidence to use a computer, it was a major step. Chrysalis also helped her land a job with the Skid Row Housing Trust, an organization that operates housing for the homeless in Los Angeles.
Today, Culbert manages her own building for the Skid Row Housing Trust. Her new job requires her to use a computer practically every day – to update rents in the system database, to email with Los Angeles County housing officials, to make flyers to be distributed to residents. She credits the digital literacy training she received at Chrysalis, for her success.
Chrysalis is one of 19 programs across California that has received a piece of a $14 million Recovery Act investment in the California Emerging Technology Fund, a non-profit organization seeking to close the state’s digital divide. Through all of its programs, CETF has helped over 2600 persons find jobs.
