D.C.’s signature summer youth employment program could expand to include people up to age 30 under a bill introduced Monday by D.C. Council member Brooke Pinto (D-Ward 2) — one of a slate of 23 bills the lawmaker introduced in an effort to uplift residents economically.
Many of the proposals focus on young people. In addition to expanding the youth employment program launched in 1979 by then-D.C. Mayor Marion Barry (D), the proposals would stand up new teen centers in all four city quadrants, create neighborhood-based organizations to support at-risk young people across the District, pilot a subsidized employment program for 100 young parents and create an apprenticeship program for high school graduates.
The measures also tackle other issues affecting a wider swath of residents. One bill, for example, would address an increasingly popular fertility procedure by requiring insurers to cover elective egg freezing for patients who live in D.C. Another proposal tries to put a dent in D.C.’s rat problem with more rodent-proof trash bins. Another seeks to stimulate job growth in the District by offering a tax credit to businesses that create at least 25 new jobs for D.C. residents.
Pinto, who recently announced a run for the congressional seat currently occupied by D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D), is calling the package of bills “Prosper DC” and touting it as her plan to help the city weather economic headwinds.
With the Trump administration slashing the federal workforce — disproportionately concentrated in the D.C. region — and health care costs soaring, Pinto said she wants to make the case next budget season for city leaders to invest in new programs that can get D.C. residents employed and help businesses willing to pitch in to the city’s struggling economy.
The challenge, however, will be funding the initiatives over the next several years, as city budgets are projected to shrink.
“Yes, it’s going to be a tight budget year,” Pinto said in an interview Monday. “We have to make some strategic choices.”
The bills’ unveiling also comes after heated debate this fall between council members and D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) over the future of a stricter youth curfew policy, which surfaced broader questions about how the city government is or is not addressing young people’s needs. As lawmakers debated the curfew bill — which allows the police chief to set youth curfew zones that prohibit teens from gathering in groups of more than eight after 8 p.m. — its opponents argued that city officials were expanding the policing of teens without offering more safe spaces for them to gather.
This package, Pinto said, is part of her answer to persistent calls for more teen-focused programming, more economic opportunities for young people and more support to nonprofits that serve them. She emphasized Monday, as she did during the curfew debate, that an expanded curfew should be just one piece of a broader plan to help young people.
The teen centers would be run by D.C.’s Department of Parks and Recreation. According to the bill, they could offer fitness classes; arts programming such as creative writing and music recording; academic support like tutoring; team-building and community service projects; and special events. The bill would also create youth advisory councils with some decision-making authority at each site, in an effort to make sure young people have a say in how they are run.
Another bill would create “youth villages,” modeled after the city’s Senior Villages program — a network of D.C. neighborhood-based nonprofits that help older people age in place. Pinto’s bill would provide grants of up to $300,000 to eligible nonprofits, to help them serve people up to age 25 who have been involved in the criminal justice system or are at high risk of being arrested. These nonprofits would be charged with providing daily mentorship, academic support, community service opportunities, assistance with food and transportation, and other help to young people in underserved neighborhoods.
Other bills would tackle jobs and economic opportunity for the city’s young people — which Pinto said she focused on in direct response to conversations she had with teenagers in D.C., including those who had become involved with the juvenile justice system.
“I’ve asked those kids, what could the city have done better and earlier to help you not go down this path?” Pinto said. “And the most consistent answer that I’ve gotten from young people is access to money.”
To that end, Pinto’s bills would create an app to connect young people with part-time paid work and pilot a program that would subsidize employment for 100 young parents ages 16 through 24.
One proposal would also expand the Marion S. Barry Summer Youth Employment Program, named for the late mayor who launched it, to reach residents up to age 30. It currently serves residents ages 14 through 24, providing them with city-funded summer jobs in both the government and the private sector.
Another proposal would allow minors between the ages of 14 and 17 to open their own bank accounts without parental permission. The banks would not be allowed to offer lines of credit and would be forbidden to charge overdraft fees. Pinto said this bill was a response to other feedback she got from teenagers who were afraid their parents might take their money without permission.
Another ambitious bill would create an apprenticeship and credential program aimed at training D.C. residents with high school diplomas for jobs in tech, education, hospitality and construction management. The bill would provide zero-interest, forgivable loans for tuition and living expenses, and place participants with employers for paid apprenticeships while they take related coursework at the University of the District of Columbia or another school.
This type of legislating — introducing many bills at once and branding them with a one-word tagline — has become a pattern for Pinto, who has served on the council since 2020. Pinto’s first such package, a collection of crime-focused measures called “Secure DC,” was passed by the council last year in response to a surge in crime in 2023. Her second, called “Peace DC,” passed this year and also largely focused on crime and criminal justice by continuing harsher pretrial detention policies and relaxing college credit requirements for police.
“Prosper DC” is wider ranging, part of what Pinto describes as an effort to get to the root causes of crime by creating more workforce development opportunities and diversifying the city’s economy as the federal workforce shrinks.
Pinto said her hope is that the bills would all get hearings over the next several months and receive funding through next year’s budget process. That would require buy-in from colleagues who lead the committees with jurisdiction over many of the bills. Pinto is trying to make the case that these bills all merit immediate investment, despite the city’s potentially tighter budgets and myriad programs competing for limited funding.
“This is our effort to say, hey, let’s be not just on the defensive when it comes to protecting our right to home rule and our autonomy and our right to make our own laws,” said Pinto, citing the barrage of efforts from the GOP-led Congress to overturn bills passed by the D.C. Council.
“Let’s also be proactive about things that our residents and our economy need today and need to get through these next couple of years in a productive manner.”
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