Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso has a big round number for Bushwick: a thousand young people, off the unemployment rolls and into careers. The money behind it is more modest, and the program leans on the neighborhood nonprofits already doing the work.
The initiative, called Bushwick 1000, aims to connect 1,000 unemployed young adults from Bushwick to jobs and training, a promise Reynoso made in his 2025 State of Brooklyn address. It launched with a job fair on April 7 at the St. Nicks Alliance Workforce Development Center at 92 Throop Avenue, where about 90 people turned out.
The structure is a partnership with three local workforce groups, RiseBoro, Opportunities for a Better Tomorrow and St. Nicks Alliance, which run the trainings and placements in fields like health care, technology, the building trades and financial services. Reynoso put $150,000 in discretionary funding behind it, split among the three organizations, each year for four years.
That is the honest scale of it: $150,000 a year, divided three ways, aimed at reaching a thousand people over four years. The number works only because the partner nonprofits already operate job-training pipelines that the initiative plugs into and amplifies, rather than building something from scratch. It is a coordinating push and a funding nudge more than a jobs program of its own.
For a young person in Bushwick looking for work or training, the useful part is the door it points to. The three partners, RiseBoro, Opportunities for a Better Tomorrow and St. Nicks Alliance, are the ones running the actual programs, and the borough president’s office can connect you to whichever one fits the field you want to get into. That is where a round number on a podium turns into an actual paycheck, or does not.
Featured image: Bushwick Daily
