NEW YORK, Aug. 4 (DPI) — Mayor Mike Bloomberg pledged $30 million of his own money to a new program to help young African American and Latino men in New York City, an initiative met with many caustic and critical comments from online readers.

Readers rallied around the view that a huge donation to a public project reflected a broad national decline. “America is currently an oligarchy,” wrote an NYTimes.com reader whose comment (#7) is now the highest recommended. “Charity is no substitute for sound public policy.”

Additional posts complained that Bloomberg and other high-profile billionaires weren’t doing enough to help the nation’s underprivileged, that the program did not offer anything for women, and any assistance was too-little, too-late for a part of society conspicuously left behind.

The 3-year $127 million initiative, beginning this fall, will focus on helping the city’s estimated 315,000 Black and Hispanic men ages 16 to 24. The program would introduce job-recruitment centers in the city’s public-housing areas, train probation officers to help reduce repeat criminal offenses, establish classes on fatherhood and review schools on improving the academic progress of male black and Latino students.

Laudable as all that may be, many readers were unsupportive.  “I hope for the best results but, honestly, I cannot convince myself to be optimistic. The barriers that Bloomberg hopes to breach through investment are high and begin growing at a much earlier stage in these people’s lives.”

Another wrote, “Nice gesture from a good guy and a great mayor. Unfortunately it won’t make any difference. Money will not solve the problem of parents who don’t care and children who have lost hope. It would have been better to spend the money on family planning and counseling.”

More wrote that the wealthy donors should foot the entire bill. “If mayor Bloomberg … and George Soros feel so strongly about this cause, why don’t they simply foot 100% of the 130 million dollars themselves instead of only 50%! They can surely afford this extra 50% more easily than can a cash strapped city which has anyway much more important priorities on its list.”

Reader responses left on nypost.com reacting to the Bloomberg initiative were even more critical and shrill in tone.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/04/nyregion/new-york-plan-will-aim-to-lift-minority-youth.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=bloomberg&st=cse