Weekly Update

Friends,

You probably know this by now, but offering our young people activities and opportunities is a major priority of my administration.

It’s why we’ve expanded programming in our community centers and libraries. It’s why we’ve grown the number of summer jobs and intend to grow that even more.

And it’s why our Workforce Investment Network is working every single day with young people in our city to show them the pathways to careers. Just this week, I received a report on WIN’s work with youth thus far in 2017. WIN has worked with 825 young people, connecting 67 with credentials that can further their career, training 111 in additional skills, and placing 162 with jobs. Our goal is to train or place each of these young men and women by the end of 2018.

Are the numbers small in the grand scheme of things? Sure. But it’s a start, and it’s something we intend to build. If anything, it shows you the opportunity that exists at WIN. If you or someone you know can use WIN’s services, please visit its website to learn more.

It bears repeating that we’re an opportunity city. We even built a whole website to let you know that.

We have 15,000 open jobs in Greater Memphis at any one time. We have all kinds of free workforce training and skills help at WIN. You can get a free community college or tech school education.

A study that came out in 2015, as I was running for mayor, said Memphis had the largest percentage of “opportunity youth” in the nation — defined as young people who aren’t working or in school. Often, these youth are most at-risk for bad outcomes.

It’s a major challenge for us, but also a major opportunity. It won’t turn around overnight, but I hope you can see we’re making progress every single day.

More data: Also this week, I learned a few more things:

• We answered 93.5 percent of 911 calls in 20 seconds or less in October, and averaged 8.6 seconds to answer a call. Remember, when we took office, that average was 59.7 seconds.
• Memphis Animal Services set a new record for save rate in October — 89.3 percent. Seventy-eight percent fewer animals were euthanized for time and space reasons in October 2017 as compared to October 2016.
• We’ve also seen significant decreases in the average time to respond to new code enforcement service requests, thanks to that department’s hard work.

As always, we place the entire review online because we’re committed to transparency. You can find it here.

Improving our housing: I was excited Thursday to sign the Green and Healthy Homes Initiative compact at an event at one of our great partners in this city, LeBonheur Children’s Hospital.

GHHI, which works perfectly with our Memphis 3.0 initiative, intends to align current resources and look for more to address health in housing in our city. In more than 20 other cities in our country — like Denver, Austin, Atlanta and Philadelphia — it has demonstrated to produce healthier, more energy efficient housing, which can lead to green jobs and better social outcomes for families and neighborhoods.

Go Lynx!: Lausanne plays for its second consecutive state football championship tomorrow. Good luck to Coach Kevin Locastro and the Lynx!

A busy Saturday: The St. Jude Memphis Marathon, one of the great events in our city, takes place tomorrow morning and the weather looks great. Check out the map of the full course to see where you can cheer on the runners — and plan your travels for work or errands, if you need to get out.

More maps and charts of expected runner arrival times are available here.

In Raleigh, our staff will be present for the groundbreaking of the Raleigh Town Center at 11 a.m.

You’re also encouraged to drop by the Children’s Museum of Memphis at 10 a.m. for the grand opening of the restored 1909 Dentzel Carousel, which was formerly housed at Libertyland. 

And since you’ll already be next door, head on over to Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium, where I’m co-hosting an American Athletic Conference Football Championship watch party with the University of Memphis Alumni Association. Gates open at 10 and kickoff is set for 11 a.m.

Go Tigers Go!

Yours,