Second gentleman Doug Emhoff and Biden administration officials huddled with representatives from community groups in the White House’s Eisenhower Executive Office Building on Wednesday to discuss improving job opportunities in areas most affected by gun violence.

The roundtable, which featured officials from the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention and Labor Department along with Emhoff, focused on the use of the $85 million in federal funding announced earlier this month to support programs that help at-risk youth in their careers.

"This is not just mass shootings," Emhoff said on Wednesday during opening remarks, calling gun violence in America "an epidemic."

"This is every day – shootings every single day all across the country," he said. 

"It's clear that with gun violence now being the No. 1 cause of premature death for all youth in America certainly one of the leading health pandemics in our country, that we must take an all-of-government public health approach to address this crisis," Gregory Jackson, deputy director of the Office of Gun Violence Prevention, told reporters Tuesday. 

Jackson also participated in Wednesday’s roundtable as did Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott. Kalef Jones, a member of PowerCorpsPHL, which seeks to connect people to careers, also spoke on Wednesday, recounting some of his personal experiences with gun violence in Philadelphia, including being shot. 

"This just needs to stop," the second gentleman said on Wednesday. "It must end. We have solutions."

The Biden administration is hoping that by providing job-related opportunities to young people in communities plagued by gun violence, it will help end the vicious cycle that has prevented too many teenagers from reaching their potential.

The $85 million in grants, announced earlier this month, will go toward programs that provide skills training through work-based learning, employment services, educational support and mentorship to youth and young adults. 

“By doing this, our intent is that justice-involved young people will have the credentials and the opportunities necessary to choose a different path, a career path that leads them to not only high-quality jobs but family economic security,” said Molly Bashay, senior policy adviser for the Labor Department’s Employment and Training Administration, which funds the program.

​​Bashay said the department hopes to hand out about 28 grants ranging from $2 million to $5.1 million each over two rounds this year.

A senior administration official said the grants could go to local government, nonprofit groups, Native American tribes and organizations, or other community programs.

"We're looking to work with folks who have lived experience of violence, who have had successful reentry after potentially committing a violent crime … being convicted, serving time and then coming back and doing something incredible for their community," the official said. "These are the types of leaders of organizations that do the CVI [community violence intervention] work, who we're proud to partner with."

Jackson said the program could provide a boost to nonprofit groups that have previously not received any federal funding. 

The grants will “elevate their life-saving work but, most importantly, unlock additional resources for communities most in need,” he said.

Wednesday’s roundtable capped a day marked by crime and gun violence events at the White House. Earlier on Wednesday, President Joe Biden touted his administration's efforts to combat crime ahead of a separate roundtable with local law enforcement officials and public safety leaders at the White House. 

"Last year, the United States had one of the lowest rates of all violent crime in more than 50 years," Biden said to the room full of officials from cities including Philadelphia, Miami, Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee, Buffalo, N.Y., and Charlotte, N.C. "Murder, rape, aggravated assault, robbery all dropped sharply, along with burglary, property, crime and theft."

On Wednesday, Emhoff noted his wife, Vice President Kamala Harris, leads the White House’s first-ever Office of Gun Violence Prevention, which was established by the administration last year to build on the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act by speeding up its implementation and coordinating support for communities and individuals impacted by gun violence. 

Emhoff called the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, a sweeping gun violence bill signed by Biden in 2022, "the most significant" gun legislation in years but added it is "clearly not enough."

"We need Congress to act," he said.