State gets $ 27 million to hire cleanup workers

NEW YORK ( AP) — More than 5,000 New Yorkers will be hired for temporary government jobs cleaning up after Superstorm Sandy, officials said Sunday. About $ 27 million in federal Labor Department money will finance the cleanup and rebuilding positions in New York City and eight nearby counties, paying about $ 15 per hour and generally lasting about six months, state and federal officials said.

Separately, the state and the Federal Emergency Management Agency are working to put New Yorkers into more than 700 temporary FEMA jobs, some as administrative assistants and community relations workers.

“This is a neighbors- helping- neighbors effort,” state Labor Commissioner Peter Rivera said at a news conference in Red Hook, a Brooklyn neighborhood flooded by Sandy’s surge. Gov. Andrew Cuomo called it “a chance to provide young and unemployed New Yorkers with job opportunities cleaning up their communities.”

The crisis- turned- opportunity message wasn’t lost on K’Reese Cole, one of two dozen or more people who lined up after Sunday’s announcement to submit applications at a disaster relief center in Red Hook. So far, more than 800 people from across the state have applied, officials said.

Cole, who’s lived in Red Hook all his 32 years, works various jobs in demolition and construction.

“Now I’m trying to work with the cleanup effort out here because we did lose a lot in the community,” said Cole, a rapper who also goes by the name Tru Born.

Plus, he said, a government job — even a temporary one — could represent a steppingstone to steady work for him and many of his neighbors in Red Hook. The venerable dock and warehouse area includes one of the nation’s biggest public housing complexes, along with artists’ studios and accoutrements of urban bohemia.