Nickerson Gardens Picked for Jobs Plan : Rebuilding: Officials announce $3.4-million training program for 500 residents of the housing project.

In a post-riot initiative directed at some of Los Angeles’ poorest residents, officials announced a $3.4-million program Thursday aimed at removing 500 public housing project residents from the welfare rolls by training them as security guards, health care technicians and office workers.

The program will use federal and state money to reserve spots at vocational schools for residents of the Nickerson Gardens housing project, which is on 68 acres in Watts and is the largest such development in the city. Residents of other public housing projects will be offered slots on a space-available basis.

“Nickerson Gardens has been living in disaster for a long time, and now we’ve decided we want to come up out of it,” said Nora King, president of Nickerson Gardens Resident Management Corp., at a news conference attended by a dozen government officials. “You can’t do nothing for us. . . . We’re the ones that’s going to have to take a hold of our lives.”

Although officials hailed the county-state-federal pact as groundbreaking, details remain to be worked out. Some residents expressed skepticism that the grandiose plan can be started next month as officials hope.

The program will provide county-funded child care for participants, who will have to meet minimum educational standards for acceptance but not necessarily have high school diplomas. Officials called the lack of child care a major obstacle discouraging Nickerson’s residents, 75% of whom receive Aid to Families With Dependent Children, from finding jobs.

Several dozen employers have signed on to hire those who complete the program, officials said, but the agreements are non-binding and at least one employer, ABM Security of Los Angeles, said it has not committed to anything yet.

“I don’t know anything about it,” said Katrina Anderson, personnel recruiter for ABM, which has 700 security guards placed throughout the county. “Our name must have been put on the list. I imagine we’ll be hearing from them soon.”

Another designated company, Superior Care Nursing of West Hollywood, said it cannot guarantee full-time positions, and those jobs it does offer last only as long as the terminally ill clients survive. The company sends health care aides, who earn about $8 an hour, to the homes of AIDS patients and those with advanced cases of cancer and other illnesses.

“The type of jobs we offer are not full-time positions,” said Gayle Boland, the firm’s executive administrator. “They are assigned to a patient until that patient expires. The hours vary and once the person dies, they’re often out of a job for a while.”

The jobs program, which is funded through the end of June, is designed to train 500 residents in sessions lasting from two to four months. The program will be considered successful if about half of the participants complete the training and are placed in jobs, officials said.

Barry McLucas, 50, a Nickerson Gardens resident, was skeptical as he stood outside the housing project’s community center under a scorching midday sun.

Inside, representatives of the state and federal post-riot task forces and other government officials hailed the job training effort as a model that ought to be tried elsewhere in the county. McLucas, who has been laid off from his job for three years, grumbled that none of the jobs in the program appeal to him.

“If it’s true, what they’re saying, it’s good,” he said. “But you don’t really know what’s what. You don’t know if it’s a long-term deal or a publicity stunt.”