California Labor Secretary Natalie Palugyai recently visited the City to learn more about the Los Angeles Regional Initiative for Social Enterprise (LA:RISE) and how the program helps re-entry workers, LGBTQ youth, the unhoused and other individuals find transitional employment where they can learn necessary interpersonal and job skills to rejoin the workforce.

LA:RISE is an innovative program designed to connect individuals with high barriers to employment with job training opportunities in order to find full-time work.

Secretary Palugyai received a tour of a site, or social enterprise, run by LA:RISE partner Chrysalis. EWDD General Manager Carolyn Hull and Gerardo Ruvalcaba, Assistant General Manager of EWDD’s Workforce Development Division, attended as representatives of the City and EWDD.

EWDD is an LA:RISE leadership team partner of the program, which unites the City and County of Los Angeles' Workforce Development System (WDS) with non-profit social enterprises and for-profit employers to help LA:RISE participants find good jobs and stay employed.

LA:RISE is an innovative, collaborative partnership that unites the City and County of Los Angeles’ Workforce Development System with non-profit social enterprises and for-profit employers to help people with high barriers to employment get good jobs and stay employed.

The City’s WorkSource Centers and LA:RISE prioritize individuals recently released from prison, the unsheltered or those at risk of homelessness, and youth ages 18-24 who are neither in school nor employed. After working in a transitional job at a social enterprise, leveraging WorkSource Center training and services, LA:RISE participants are placed in permanent jobs within the private or the public sector.