Despite its high employment rate, the Near Northside Neighborhood of Fort Worth, Texas, has a median income more than 40% below the citywide level. In 1999, the Near Northside Partners' Council (NNPC) became one of five centers for the national Neighborhood Jobs Initiative Demonstration. After extensive planning, the Neighborhood Jobs Initiative started full operation in Fort Worth's Near Northside in 2000. The Initiative is using a place-based approach to addressing the intermingled issues of culture, work, and intergenerational poverty by relying heavily on a network of cooperating community organizations with different specialties, including the Tarrant County College. The Initiative's initial objective has been to bring the level of adult employment among the heavily Latino neighborhood's residents to the level of the surrounding region over a period of several years while simultaneously working to increase the wages and quality of neighborhood residents' employment. Other areas on which the Initiative is placing special emphasis include encouraging more women to enter training and employment, improving residents' English, meeting the need for workers with computer skills, and managing the evolving program in a manner permitting quick response to new opportunities. As of mid-2001, the Initiative's APEX (Achieving Program Excellence) program had served roughly 200 people (about 2% of the neighborhood's population). (MN)