District of Columbia
Meet the job training groups fighting for better economic mobility in D.C.
Government and non-profit resources abound
Employment is getting harder to come by in D.C.
In fact, as of August, D.C.’s unemployment rate is at 6.0% –– the highest in the country. Its unemployment rate increased by 0.7% from August 2024.
About 17% of D.C. residents lived in poverty in 2024, and marginalized communities were hit the hardest. Last year, 30.5% of Black residents and 11.9% of Latino residents lived in poverty, while poverty rates for non-Hispanic white residents sat at 4.6%.
With little room for economic mobility in D.C., multiple organizations and non-profits are fighting to change those statistics.
From on-the-job training to employment counseling, here’s a look into some local and governmental groups working to serve D.C.’s unemployed population.
LGBTQ-focused programs
Cesar Toledo, executive director of the Wanda Alston Foundation, knows the struggles of escaping poverty firsthand.
As a first-generation Latino raised in an immigrant household, Toledo said he was able to escape the poverty cycle through educational opportunities.
“Serving as an executive director for the foundation and supporting the most vulnerable members of our community…really gives me a front line perspective to the work that needs to be done to ensure that not only can our youth survive, but they can thrive independently, live on their own and being able to afford their own apartment,” Toledo said.
The Wanda Alston Foundation provides a variety of services to open new pathways toward economic mobility, including housing for homeless LGBTQ youth in D.C., free counseling and accessible employment opportunities. The foundation also offers educational support to their housed youth so they can continue to work toward securing an education.
The organization recently launched an initiative called “Slay & Sauté,” giving those it supports an opportunity to learn cooking skills that eventually open the door to a culinary career.
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 202-465-8794contactus@wandaalstonfoundati
Project LEAP is a program sponsored by Damien Ministries that supports job seekers in the D.C. area who identify as transgender, gender non-conforming and non-binary.
You can request to be paired with a one-on-one job coach, where you’ll receive pre-employment training and the tools necessary to overcome economic barriers.
Project LEAP has two other programs dedicated to jobseekers. One, called Project LEAP We Thrive, is a support group for men of color to discuss the employment challenges they face. The other, called Project LEAP Job Start, is for early-career job seekers to receive mentorship on entering the workforce and ensuring their resumes and interview skills are up to par.
The project also offers a “Style Closet,” where job seekers can receive a clothing consultation to ensure they are stylistically prepared for an interview.
Email: [email protected]
The DC LGBTQ+ Community Center Job Club
The DC LGBTQ+ Community Center hosts weekly job club meetings to help those entering the workforce or struggling to find employment.
The group’s goal is to “improve self-confidence, motivation, resilience and productivity for effective job searches and networking — allowing participants to move away from being merely ‘applicants’ toward being ‘candidates,’” its website reads.
Meetings are held on Zoom every Wednesday at 6 p.m.
Email: [email protected]
Government resources
The Department of Employment Services (DOES) offers on-the-job training opportunities for job seekers looking for a way to get experience while staying employed.
Pay rates range from $14-23.95 per hour depending on the job, and employees must work a minimum of 32 hours per week.
The types of jobs employees might work include administration, property management, merchandising, health care, law enforcement, hospitality and transportation services.
Email: [email protected]
DOES Occupational Skills Training
If you’re looking for more guidance, an employment specialist can steer you in the right direction by helping you secure the training and certifications required by local employers. Your training will focus on high-demand industries, such as construction, health care, information technology and retail.
Email: [email protected]
For other services and resources, such as a look into D.C. worker rights and federal employee frequently asked questions, click here.
D.C. Sustainable Energy Utility
Programs under the Sustainable Energy Utility provide you an opportunity to obtain the skills you need to land environmentally friendly jobs.
These programs match residents with paid, five-month opportunities to observe and learn about different necessary skills for green jobs. They’re open to anyone, no matter if you’re new to the workforce, in between jobs or simply looking for new employment opportunities.
Potential jobs to learn about include electrical engineering, solar technician, building maintenance, HVAC helper and mechanical engineering.
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 202-479-2222
The Office of Human Rights provides resources for employers to understand how to combat hiring bias and for employees to understand their rights, including:
Hired and Transgender –– For employers to understand how to recognize and combat hiring bias for transgender applicants.
Valuing Transgender Applicants –– For employers to receive guidance on how to best support transgender applicants and employees beyond legal obligations.
LGBTQIA+ Resource Portal –– For LGBTQIA+ employees or residents to better understand their workforce and legal rights.
Non-governmental Job Training Opportunities
The SOME Center for Employment Training (CET) is a post-secondary vocational school.
You’ll have access to free job training in the health care and building trades industries, and receive advice on the skills needed to land the right job. From resume help to writing the perfect cover letter, you’ll be equipped with both hands-on experience and the professional skills necessary to gain employment.
No high school GED is required, and the CET program is open to applicants with criminal histories.
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 202-797-8806
By mail: 71 O St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20001
Academy of Hope offers career training programs in a variety of fields.
Health care programs include medical billing and coding, nurse aide and phlebotomy technician training.
For business, you can receive training in project management, and for information technology, you can enter programs that could get you jobs in tech support, IT operations and other similar fields.
These programs only run from February to June. Classes offered involved hands-on work led by industry professionals, with the intention of landing students entry-level certifications to stay competitive for high-demand jobs post-graduation.
Contact page: Click here
Catholic Charities provides courses that equip residents with the resources they need on their career paths.
Courses include job skills for bank sales representatives, construction jobs using sustainable solutions and professional counseling.
Catholic Charities also offers English as a second language courses and personalized career assistance for adults with developmental disabilities.
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 202-772-4300
University of the District of Columbia (UDC)
You don’t have to be a college student to take advantage of UDC’s Workforce Development and Lifelong Learning courses.
Learn the skills necessary to land jobs related to early childhood education, construction and property management, health care, hospitality and tourism, information technology and lifelong learning.
Courses are free, but a few may require minimal out-of-pocket expenses.
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 202-274-5000
With UPO, you can receive certifications in child development, culinary arts, plumbing, professional building maintenance, information technology and more.
To begin the pre-enrollment process, you must be at least 18, have a high school degree or GED and be drug free.
Contact form: Click here
District of Columbia
U.S. Attorney’s Office drops hate crime charge in anti-gay assault
Case remains under investigation and ‘further charges’ could come
D.C. police announced on Feb. 9 that they had arrested two days earlier on Feb. 7 a Germantown, Md., man on a charge of simple assault with a hate crime designation after the man allegedly assaulted a gay man at 14th and Q Streets, N.W., while using “homophobic slurs.”
But D.C. Superior Court records show that prosecutors with the Office of the U.S. Attorney for D.C., which prosecutes D.C. violent crime cases, charged the arrested man only with simple assault without a hate crime designation.
In response to a request by the Washington Blade for the reason why the hate crime designation was dropped, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s office provided this response: “We continue to investigate this matter and make no mistake: should the evidence call for further charges, we will not hesitate to charge them.”
In a statement announcing the arrest in this case, D.C. police stated, “On Saturday, February 7, 2026, at approximately 7:45 p.m. the victim and suspect were in the 1500 block of 14th Street, Northwest. The suspect requested a ‘high five’ from the victim. The victim declined and continued walking,” the statement says.
“The suspect assaulted the victim and used homophobic slurs,” the police statement continues. “The suspect was apprehended by responding officers.”
It adds that 26-year-old Dean Edmundson of Germantown, Md. “was arrested and charged with Simple Assault (Hate/Bias).” The statement also adds, “A designation as a hate crime by MPD does not mean that prosecutors will prosecute it as a hate crime.”
Under D.C.’s Bias Related Crime Act of 1989, penalties for crimes motivated by prejudice against individuals based on race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, and homelessness can be enhanced by a court upon conviction by one and a half times greater than the penalty of the underlying crime.
Prosecutors in the past both in D.C. and other states have said they sometimes decide not to include a hate crime designation in assault cases if they don’t think the evidence is sufficient to obtain a conviction by a jury. In some instances, prosecutors have said they were concerned that a skeptical jury might decide to find a defendant not guilty of the underlying assault charge if they did not believe a motive of hate was involved.
A more detailed arrest affidavit filed by D.C. police in Superior Court appears to support the charge of a hate crime designation.
“The victim stated that they refused to High-Five Defendant Edmondson, which, upon that happening, Defendant Edmondson started walking behind both the victim and witness, calling the victim, “bald, ugly, and gay,” the arrest affidavit states.
“The victim stated that upon being called that, Defendant Edmundson pushed the victim with both hands, shoving them, causing the victim to feel the force of the push,” the affidavit continues. “The victim stated that they felt offended and that they were also gay,” it says.
District of Columbia
Capital Pride wins anti-stalking order against local activist
Darren Pasha claims action is linked to his criticism of Pride organizers
A D.C. Superior Court judge on Feb. 6 partially approved an anti-stalking order against a local LGBTQ activist requested last October by the Capital Pride Alliance, the D.C.-based LGBTQ group that organizes the city’s annual Pride events.
The ruling by Judge Robert D. Okun requires former Capital Pride volunteer Darren Pasha to stay at least 100 feet away from Capital Pride’s staff, board members, and volunteers until the time of a follow up court hearing he scheduled for April 17.
In his ruling at the Feb. 6 hearing, which was virtual rather than held in-person at the courthouse, Okun said he had changed the distance that Capital Pride had requested for the stay-away, anti-stalking order from 200 yards to 100 feet. The court records show that the judge also denied a motion filed earlier by Pasha, who did not attend the hearing, to “quash” the Capital Pride civil case against him.
Pasha told the Washington Blade he suffered an injury and damaged his mobile phone by falling off his scooter on the city’s snow-covered streets that prevented him from calling in to join the Feb. 6 court hearing.
In his own court filings without retaining an attorney, Pasha has strongly denied the stalking related allegations against him by Capital Pride, saying “no credible or admissible evidence has been provided” to show he engaged in any wrongdoing.
The Capital Pride complaint initially filed in court on Oct. 27, 2025, includes an 18-page legal brief outlining its allegations against Pasha and an additional 167-page addendum of “supporting exhibits” that includes multiple statements by witnesses whose names are blacked out.
“Over the past year, Defendant Darren Pasha (“DSP”) has engaged in a sustained, and escalating course of conduct directed at CPA, including repeated and unwanted contact, harassment, intimidation, threats, manipulation, and coercive behavior targeting CPA staff, board members, volunteers, and affiliates,” the Capital Pride complaint states.
In his initial 16-page response to the complaint, Pasha says the Capital Pride complaint appears to be a form of retaliation against him for a dispute he has had with the organization and its then president, Ashley Smith, last year.
“It is evident that the document is replete with false, misleading, and unsubstantiated assertions,” he said of the complaint.
Smith, who has since resigned from his role as board president, did not respond to a request by the Blade for comment at the time the Capital Pride court complaint was filed against Pasha.
Capital Pride Executive Director Ryan Bos and the attorney representing the group in its legal action against Pasha, Nick Harrison, did not immediately respond to a Blade request for comment on the judge’s Feb. 6 ruling.
District of Columbia
D.C. pays $500,000 to settle lawsuit brought by gay Corrections Dept. employee
Alleged years of verbal harassment, slurs, intimidation
The D.C. government on Feb. 5 agreed to pay $500,000 to a gay D.C. Department of Corrections officer as a settlement to a lawsuit the officer filed in 2021 alleging he was subjected to years of discrimination at his job because of his sexual orientation, according to a statement released by the American Civil Liberties Union of D.C.
The statement says the lawsuit, filed on behalf of Sgt. Deon Jones by the ACLU of D.C. and the law firm WilmerHale, alleged that the Department of Corrections, including supervisors and co-workers, “subjected Sgt. Jones to discrimination, retaliation, and a hostile work environment because of his identity as a gay man, in violation of the D.C. Human Rights Act.”
Daniel Gleick, a spokesperson for D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, said the mayor’s office would have no comment on the lawsuit settlement. A spokesperson for the Office of the D.C. Attorney General, which represents the city against lawsuits, said the office has a longstanding policy of not commenting on litigation like the Deon Jones lawsuit.
Bowser and her high-level D.C. government appointees, including Japer Bowles, director of the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs, have spoken out against LGBTQ-related discrimination.
“Jones, now a 28-year veteran of the Department and nearing retirement, faced years of verbal abuse and harassment from coworkers and incarcerated people alike, including anti-gay slurs, threats, and degrading treatment,” the ACLU’s statement says.
“The prolonged mistreatment took a severe toll on Jones’s mental health, and he experienced depression, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and 15 anxiety attacks in 2021 alone,” it says.
“For years, I showed up to do my job with professionalism and pride, only to be targeted because of who I am,” Jones says in the ACLU statement. “This settlement affirms that my pain mattered – and that creating hostile workplaces has real consequences,” he said.
He added, “For anyone who is LGBTQ or living with a disability and facing workplace discrimination or retaliation, know this: you are not powerless. You have rights. And when you stand up, you can achieve justice.”
The settlement agreement, a link to which the ACLU provided in its statement announcing the settlement, states that plaintiff Jones agrees, among other things, that “neither the Parties’ agreement, nor the District’s offer to settle the case, shall in any way be construed as an admission by the District that it or any of its current or former employees, acted wrongfully with respect to Plaintiff or any other person, or that Plaintiff has any rights.”
Scott Michelman, the D.C. ACLU’s legal director said that type of disclaimer is typical for parties that agree to settle a lawsuit like this.
“But actions speak louder than words,” he told the Blade. “The fact that they are paying our client a half million dollars for the pervasive and really brutal harassment that he suffered on the basis of his identity for years is much more telling than their disclaimer itself,” he said.
The settlement agreement also says Jones would be required, as a condition for accepting the agreement, to resign permanently from his job at the Department of Corrections. ACLU spokesperson Andy Hoover said Jones has been on administrative leave since March 2022. Jones couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
“This is really something that makes sense on both sides,” Michelman said of the resignation requirements. “The environment had become so toxic the way he had been treated on multiple levels made it difficult to see how he could return to work there.”
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