Haifa committee aims to get young adults back to city

By MIRIAM BULWAR DAVID-HAY (TRANSLATED)
Haifa Mayor Yona Yahav has agreed to set up a special committee that aims to lure young adults back to Haifa from the center of the country, reports www.local.co.il. The committee, which will be headed by councilor and Haifa Youth Authority head Shai Abuhatzeira, will assemble a professional team to create a detailed plan for encouraging young adults formerly from Haifa to return. According to the report, Abuhatzeira proposed to the mayor that with numerous jobs being lost in the Tel Aviv area during the current economic crisis, now might be a good time to try to get young adults who had left Haifa to move back. He said that with Tel Aviv reporting a 25 percent rise in the number of people seeking employment, and with the high cost of living there, he had heard that "many people" were considering returning to Haifa. "Many academics from Haifa left the city for Tel Aviv, and this is a good opportunity to get them back," Abuhatzeira said. He said the committee would comprise professionals and economists, and would come up with comprehensive alternatives for encouraging former Haifa residents to return, which would be presented to the mayor and to the city council. He added that Haifa was the first city in Israel to set up a special team to deal with the economic crisis, and that the mayor was taking the situation seriously.