Last week, 375 of 390 students enrolled in a federally funded Job Corps program were living on a job training campus at San Francisco’s Treasure Island. By Thursday, just 100 students remained after being suddenly informed the school would be closing.

The Treasure Island Job Corps Center is part of a national program established in 1964 to support low-income youth with housing, education, and job training. On May 29, the U.S. Department of Labor announced a phased pause of operations at all Job Corps centers by June 30, citing severe financial and safety concerns.

A temporary restraining order issued by U.S. District Judge Andrew Carter Jr. in New York paused the shutdowns until a June 17 hearing.

“A lot of these folks come from broken homes or places where they’re in danger,” said Matthew Hardy, spokesperson for the California Federation of Teachers, which works with the students who range in age from 16 to 24. “They live very, very precarious lives. One of the students is going to a friend’s couch. That’s his housing plan.”

A Thursday rally drew students, educators, and union leaders who described the closure as an “act of injustice.” Student leaders recounted how Job Corps offered stability and direction after homelessness or hardship. Staff also decried the sudden job losses and urged President Donald Trump’s administration to reconsider.

“Before I came here, I had no real direction in my life,” said Eddie Lopez, student president at the Treasure Island school. “I remember that I would apply to numerous different jobs, and I would never really receive a call back. I really thought that my life would be over, that there was no other path. I found a job after being here at Job Corps. I have grown so much, much more than I ever thought was possible.”

“Before I came here, I had no real direction in my life. … I found a job after being here at Job Corps. I have grown so much, much more than I ever thought was possible.” Eddie Lopez, Treasure Island Job Corps Center student president

U.S. Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer said the program is no longer achieving the intended outcomes that students deserve, citing a projected $213 million deficit for 2025. She cited a first-ever Job Corps Transparency Report that she said revealed a 39% graduation rate, an annual per-student cost of over $80,000, and nearly 15,000 serious incidents in 2023 alone.

At a May 22 Congressional subcommittee hearing, U.S. Sen. Jack Reed, D-Rhode Island, questioned Chavez-DeRemer about the legitimacy of the report, noting that much of the data was drawn from the years of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Let’s look at the Transfer Transparency report another way,” said Reed. “It appears to count students that go into military service or further education as having zero earnings. As a result, you can make the argument that we have all this money and these young people don’t get jobs worthwhile, etc. This is a calculated, not transparent, but deceptive report in my view.”

Minact Inc. is the San Francisco job training contractor for the Treasure Island site. It has operated under a federal contract since 2021.

Ruth Dusseault is an investigative reporter and multimedia journalist focused on environment and energy. Her position is supported by the California local news fellowship, a statewide initiative spearheaded by UC Berkeley aimed at supporting local news platforms. While a student at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism (c’23), Ruth developed stories about the social and environmental circumstances of contaminated watersheds around the Great Lakes, Mississippi River and Florida’s Lake Okeechobee. Her thesis explored rights of nature laws in small rural communities. She is a former assistant professor and artist in residence at Georgia Tech’s School of Architecture, and uses photography, film and digital storytelling to report on the engineered systems that undergird modern life.