by Paul Bass | Nov 3, 2011 9:11 amSome 50 New Haven adults will go to school to learn new trades—by building the school themselves.

They’ll be gut-rehabbing an abandoned shell of a former auto repair shop at 316 Dixwell Ave. into the new home for city government’s Construction Workforce Initiative.

That’s the program, run by the Commission on Equal Opportunities’ Nichole Jefferson (pictured), aimed at helping train out-of-work adults for construction-related jobs currently booming in New Haven but going mostly to suburbanites.

City government’s Livable City Initiative foreclosed on the abandoned former home of Hank’s Custom Automotive (run by local jazz sax player Hank Bolden) and turned it over to the training program, which currently holds classes at 200 Orange St.