FORT PIERCE, Fla. — Job seekers on the Treasure Coast were turning to an advertised resource for help, only to be greeted by locked doors.
CareerSource centers are set up throughout the state to provide an array of services for job seekers.
WATCH BELOW: State advertised career centers that were 'completely shut down'
CareerSource is not a government agency, but it receives funding from the Florida Department of Commerce, which administers the state's Reemployment Assistance program.
While CareerSource employees can't adjudicate reemployment claims, they do have a direct line to FloridaCommerce in Tallahassee and can assist claimants with the application and appeals process.
Liz Rodriguez of Stuart lost her job at a software company in January due to corporate restructuring.
She said she was given one month's severance and applied for Reemployment Assistance when the severance package ran out in February.
Then, she waited.
"You can't even contact someone because you're waiting on the line, on the phone for hours," Rodriguez said. "Then, when you do get someone, they're not helpful."
Rodriguez went to the FloridaCommerce website and looked up her local CareerSource center, so she could seek assistance in person.
"I went to the actual building where CareerSource was in Stuart, and that was completely shut down," Rodriguez said. "The signage was still there, but no one was in there."
The CareerSource center in Stuart closed in October 2024, along with the center in Vero Beach.
The center in Fort Pierce now serves all of Martin, Indian River and St. Lucie counties.
As recently as this week, the FloridaCommerce website was showing that both shuttered offices were still open, along with a note that the site hadn't been updated since May 2024.
For Rodriguez, the CareerSource center is nearly an hour's drive from home. She said she's had to make the trip multiple times.
Rodriguez experienced issues getting her benefits: first to upload additional tax documents, then to file an appeal when her initial claim was rejected, then again after her payments suddenly stopped (she said her severance package was cited as the reason for an ongoing review).
"The people at the CareerSource in Fort Pierce are very helpful, so I appreciate that, and they're very patient," Rodriguez said.
Brian Bauer is the CEO of CareerSource Research Coast, which serves Martin, St. Lucie and Indian River counties. He said CareerSource is in the middle of executing a consolidation plan that has been in the works for at least two years and faced some delays.
The consolidation plan involves closing the Stuart and Vero Beach CareerSource centers.
"We've made — have been — continue to do so, make efforts to make sure that those locations, those areas, are updated (on the FloridaCommerce website)," Bauer said Monday. "Unfortunately, we — as you know, we don't have control of that."
After visiting with Bauer, WPTV emailed FloridaCommerce questions about its website Monday afternoon.
On Tuesday morning, the closed offices were removed from the site's CareerSource directory.
Bauer told WPTV that there are plans to make services more accessible to people across the Treasure Coast, including satellite offices in multiple locations.
Bauer also aims to offer more services under one roof in Fort Pierce once the only remaining CareerSource center in the region moves to a new facility in the Renaissance Business Park from its current location in an old school building on Avenue Q.
"We were supposed to be there six months ago, and here we are still waiting," Bauer said, citing slow permitting as the primary reason behind the delay. "Hopefully, fingers crossed, we'll be in by the end of the month."
WPTV is still waiting for a reply from FloridaCommerce to our questions about its website. Bauer said the best way to get accurate information about resources available on the Treasure Coast is to visit CareerSourceRC.com.
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