Jafaar Bilal dropped out of high school at 15 to make money to buy the latest designer fashions.  He ran errands for his neighbors in the Bronx and ended up at a warehouse in the Hunts Point neighborhood, where he lifted heavy boxes and made deliveries for $10 an hour. “I’d be exhausted,” he recalled. “I don’t like manual labor, at all.”  Now Mr. Bilal, 21, is getting a chance for something better through an innovative program that aims to reach disconnected young people who do not have a high school diploma or languish in dead-end jobs, if they are employed at all. Called Y Roads, it has enrolled more than 800 New York City residents since 2013 for classes for the high school equivalency diploma and other services, including job training and placement and counseling.  Y Roads was started by the YMCA of Greater New York in partnership with Opportunities for a Better Tomorrow, a nonprofit, and the city’s Education Department, which provides teachers for the high school classes. The program operates from four centers — one each in the Bronx and Queens, and two in Brooklyn — with a total budget of more than $4.4 million annually in public and private funding.  Across the city, the unemployment rate among those 16 to 24 was 19.6 percent in 2014, or more than double the overall unemployment rate of 8.3 percent during that same period, according to estimates provided by the New York City Economic Development Corporation. That translated to 92,740 young people in need of jobs.  “This is an age group that was falling through the cracks,” Roberta Solomon, the director of Y Roads in the Bronx, said. “The Y recognized that need and created Y Roads as a way to fill that gap.”  Y Roads has helped place about 290 young people in full-time and part-time jobs so far, program records show. In addition, 81 participants have earned high school equivalency diplomas, and many others have improved academic skills that were fairly low; in some cases participants were reading at a first-grade level.  On a recent morning, more than four dozen young men and women were taking classes at the Bronx center, on the seventh floor of an office building on a busy commercial strip of East 149th Street. In one room, they took notes on photosynthesis. In another, they explained a graph in a math problem. In a computer lab, several typed papers and polished résumés.  Mr. Bilal, who goes every weekday, said he hoped to do more than just finish his high school education. He plans to go to college and eventually return to high school as a guidance counselor so he can help other young people learn from his mistakes, stay in school and “become entrepreneurs and not inmates.”  “I feel like everything before this didn’t happen,” he said. “It’s a new slate. You say a second chance, I say a new beginning.”  Ms. Solomon says the program offers a variety of services that are tailored to each participant, which can include access to social workers, assistance finding work clothes and even free memberships to YMCA gyms. Even the name Y Roads, shesaid, is a nod to what she called “individualized pathways to success.”  The program is open to any city resident 16 to 24, regardless of income. To reach young people, Y Roads workers have passed out fliers at libraries, subway stations, churches, parks and street fairs, and posted ads on Facebook and Craigslist. The Education Department and other agencies have also referred people.  Reyna Feliciano, 20, takes two buses from her home in Hunts Point to the Bronx center. In addition to the academics, she also learns life skills, like how to manage anger and time, conflict resolution and problem solving. Without the program, she said, “I’d probably be back to my old ways, hanging out and not caring about what happens in the future.”  Participants stay in the program from five months to more than a year; there is no time limit, program workers said. They receive free MetroCards to travel to and from the program, and breakfast and lunch are served at the centers. After they earn diplomas and find jobs, they are offered follow-up services, including counseling, professional development and a monthly support group where they can share their work and college experiences.  Timothy Miles, 20, who used to routinely fall asleep in high school, said that when he got another chance to earn his diploma at Y Roads, he took it as seriously as he would a job. He finished all of his class work, learned to use Microsoft Office and completed a training class in customer service skills. “I never fell asleep here,” he said. “It made me realize that life is not a game. It showed me a lot can come of a little opportunity.”  Mr. Miles passed the exams for his high school equivalency diploma and got a paid internship at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, where he fixed headstones and learned masonry skills. He plans to work in construction and own his own business someday.  “It got me more than I expected,” he said of his path through Y Roads. “The only thing I came here for was my high school degree. I didn’t expect to get a full-blown career out of this.”
The Y Roads program has helped young people in New York City finish their high school educations and find a place in the world.