An Anchorage firm will run Job Corps in the South Bronx and Brooklyn

Fifteen months after the Trump administration tried to shut down every contractor-run Job Corps center in the country, the Labor Department is signing new ones — and an Anchorage company just picked up two in New York City.

Chugach Solutions Enterprise, a subsidiary of Chugach Alaska Corporation, was awarded contracts Sept. 14 to run academics, career training and student support at the Job Corps centers in the South Bronx and Brooklyn. The initial obligation is about $4.8 million; the two contracts are worth up to $28.3 million and run through September 2027.

Job Corps is the federal residential program for low-income people ages 16 to 24 — free housing, meals, health care and job training, aimed at young people who didn't finish high school or are dealing with homelessness or disability. The South Bronx and Brooklyn centers were among the 99 the Labor Department moved to close by June 30 of last year. As reported by CBS News, Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer said at the time that the program was "no longer achieving the intended outcomes that students deserve," citing "a startling number of serious incident reports" and a fiscal analysis.

That nationwide shutdown was blocked in court. A federal judge in Manhattan issued a temporary restraining order within days and a preliminary injunction later that month. U.S. District Judge Andrew Carter noted that the department's own attorneys had conceded it lacked authority to terminate a program Congress created, and wrote that without an injunction, thousands of young people would be "rendered homeless instantly because they have nowhere else to go." In July 2025, a second court found the department had "unlawfully closed" all 99 centers.

The department that tried to end the program is now contracting to keep it running through 2027.

Chugach is not a newcomer to this work. It has operated the Alaska Job Corps Center in Palmer since the center opened more than three decades ago, and describes it as consistently among the nation's top-performing centers, particularly in job placement. Chugach companies also hold Job Corps operating contracts elsewhere in the country, including Cleveland, Gadsden and Gulfport.

The New York awards were made without competition; the award records list the justification only as "only one source — other." Chugach, which is owned by nearly 3,000 Alaska Native shareholders, says revenue from federal contracting supports dividends, scholarships and other shareholder programs.

Grant Associates announced in December 2023 that it had been selected to provide academic education and career technical training at the same two centers. Federal records show its current contract period ending Sept. 30, the day before Chugach's new academic and training contract begins. The award records do not spell out how the transition will work.