The short answer is MIMO has lots of funds and grants and lots of philanthropic support from MIMIDU.
Many of those dollars are already reserved for other uses. For example, we have a fund for people who
have already left shelter to help them maintain that. So all the same things, application fees, late rent,
utilities, those kinds of things. We could categorically pay for those kinds, but not for on-site shelter
and not for prevention. So that's why we're asking for these two populations. The other was a question
about whether we have cash reserves. The shortage is, yes, we have cash reserves for emergencies. We're
hoping to use BG to help us compensate for next year's shortfalls community-wide so that we can address
the increase in the name that we're going to see with people, especially people
who see drops in their ability to afford them after they've had for a long time because their subsidy
goes away or decreases. So this is not an emergency stopgap for us to keep the lights on. This is a
strategic move for the year to help us manage that increase demand, keep kids off the streets, and give
us time to readjust some of our other institutional gifts and build graphic partnerships to make sure
we can sustain this kind of prevention.
Thank you. Okay. Next up is, I'm sorry, do you have a specific question about the presentation tonight?
Just very briefly, only one. Just very briefly, while you respond to the question about, tell us about
the results of Danny Clarkson, I want to ask, is there anything more? Could you amplify a bit on how,
especially getting
conditions in Bloomington, financial conditions for your own organization, what you particularly hope
to learn with data collection this next period or the present period. That's very important for your
organization. What do you need to know? What we need to know is probably to separate from coming here
with these particular funds is a lot better, more accurate portrayal of
what is happening with prevention cases versus on-site or after care. We don't have a fund that is restricted
to prevention as such right now. So our data collection is important. So this will incentivize us to
say, okay, here's everybody, here's every cent that was spent. Let's compare that to how much it costs
to house someone in shelter, how many interventions we did for people on after care. So that will help
us map out
how much more we know that the production is more efficient than it would help us save a lot more clarity
to ourselves and to other funders and other people in the community, how much more effective it is to
the need that we adjust. Thank you. Appreciate it. Are there any other questions regarding the presentation
this evening from anyone on Zoom? So this is kind of a new
way that you would be using these phones is from like you said like maybe paying a security deposit
or things like that or is this something that you've done in the past but now it's just new for the
prevention side? This is a more focused and formal way to conceive of prevention. For a long time we
needed to be purely reactive just because we didn't have the capacity
to look upstream, legitimately reacted who was homeless and made plans. But we have found that it's
far more effective to look upstream, it's helping us improve our shelter capacity and do something.
So last year, we used some city arbiters to manage about $100,000 of climate support for these categories.
And in 12 months,
We expended, it's an 18 month grant, but we expended $91,000 for these same kinds of claims for prevention
on site clients, but not for aftercare. And it served 81 unique households. The average expense was
$517. The median was $112 with a lot of application for these small claims. And there's a little bit
more to break down. 53 households needed rent. 20 needed rental or readers. 28 needed security deposit.
So we think that based on that, that's the kind of information that needs to make this report. So no,
it's not a new kind of expense. It's not new to us to track the expense of those expenses to tie them
to good outcomes. It's just a new way to form losses, both sides of the spectrum. Any other questions?
OK, thank you very much. Thanks, Tom.
Move on. The next one is Beacon House or Beacon Incorporated. Hello. Yes. Hello. I'm Amy Kendall. I'm
the development director at Beacon. And thank you so much for having me here tonight. I appreciate the
opportunity to share our work with you and your consideration.
Beacon is a solutions-driven anti-poverty organization dedicated to aiding and empowering people experiencing
extreme poverty, especially hunger and homelessness. We have five programs that address different stages
of homelessness anywhere from that first moment of crisis to helping house someone stably who's experienced
homelessness for years. We're the largest nonprofit housing provider in Monroe County,
And in 2025, we housed or prevented homelessness for 667 people. We are requesting $25,000 in funding
to support the operations of our overnight shelter, Friends Place. Friends Place has 40 beds and it's
an emergency shelter for people experiencing homelessness. And last year we served 297 people for over
14,000 bed nights.
at Friends Place. The probably the most important thing about Friends Place that I can say is that it's
the largest, the area's largest women's shelter for that's year round for single women. We saw that
we used to be primarily for men but saw an increased need for women and so we responded to that need
and pretty much 90% of our people staying at our shelter are women.
We also prioritize Monroe County residents as well as people fleeing domestic violence. We also provide
casework at Friends Place, which is very important to us because we believe in permanent solutions to
homelessness. So people who stay there, it's more than just a bed, they're paired with case management
to help them search for apartments. There's also financial support for application fees and other startup costs
as it is expensive to move into a new apartment with those startup costs. Our median stay last year
at the shelter was 47 days, and we do strive to get people out as soon as possible. Our exits to permanent
housing, we have a 49 percent rate of our enrolled clients to permanent housing.
And homelessness is, we see it as consistently one of the biggest challenges for our city. On any given
night in Bloomington, according to this last year's point in time count, 373 people are experiencing
homelessness and 60% of those are adults without children in their care. To answer
Well, two of the questions from the committee. We are facing $45,000 less in funding from the previous
year, and that is due to the loss of Perry Township funds, which they are not granting to any agency
that was not a lack of reporting or any requirement like that, and loss of United Way funds. That is
because United Way is changing their
funding priorities and focusing more on Alice families. That's not as strong as we don't serve as many
of them in our population. We focus more on extreme poverty. If we're unable to make up for that funding
loss, we will shorten Friends Place's operating hours and or staffing.
This does not mean less shelter beds. This does not mean serving less people, but it would mean shortening
hours that were open and just having to lessen our amount of staff. To answer the other question that
was asked, one of the others was CDBG funds, if awarded, will cover the program director's salary and
or the case manager's salary would help.
cover those expenses. I appreciate your time and would love to hear any questions, any other questions
you have for me. Are there any questions? Amy from the panel. Yes. Just one, thank you for your presentation
and I didn't say thank you to the previous
Thank you to everybody who is going to present. It is appreciated. My question, though, for Beacon,
for you, Amy. I read the materials on A9, and I assume this is the, I'll give you the reference if I
can, the agency details section.
talk about under the question, do you make any changes to your program based on your evaluation? And
you talk about the emphasis on case management and so forth. Let's give you an opportunity to say any
more there is to be said to be useful to the committee about what you hope to learn, what's important
to learn about the case management going forward. Given changes in the world, changes in your finances
and funding, what do you hope to continue to learn about the case management in addition to it simply
being important?
Absolutely. I would say that we're always looking to individualize case management services as much
as possible for our guests at the shelter because we realize that no two situations are the same. And
so staying up with current changes with
federal requirements and like Chase mentioned, there's been changes with Section 8, things like that.
Just staying up on recent developments to know what is best for our clients and making sure our case
managers are as equipped as possible to handle those different situations. We've been awarded
a grant in particular for some new data collecting software. We're really hoping to get more details
on all kinds of things, demographics, but also closer tracking of changes in income, improvements in
income, things like that. That would
We feel that that's important. I mean, just to gauge, we track things already, but it's by hand. And
so being able to have better equipment for that, we feel would help us improve our case management toolbox.
Thank you very much. Are there any other questions? Any questions from those on Zoom? Okay. Thank you
very much, Amy.
Thank you. Next up is Big Brothers, Big Sisters of South Central India. Thank you everyone. I'm Jennifer,
I'm CEO of Big Brothers, Big Sisters. And you're back here today to talk to you about our program and
just a little bit about our agency. So I want you guys to think about growing up, like what did that
look like for you? There's a lot to figure out, right? There's a lot of friendships to figure out, school,
where do you fit in? Who wants to be alone?
So having somebody beside you to help you make those decisions and help you walk along that side of
life is what we do for Big Brothers Big Sisters. What we're looking for through this partnership is
the Call Mentor Up. This is a program where we want to be bigger in a bigger way. So we already traditionally
have our one-on-one mentoring. We have it in schools and the site community, different programs, but
we wanted to do that and elevate that in a group setting.
So still keeping our traditional one-on-one, but doing so in a group setting. We actually have a few
programs already launched in other counties. We have one small group here that's currently launched.
There's four bigs with four little brothers, and they didn't know each other prior to this program starting.
And so one of the things that we learned, which brought us to ask for this funding and to bring this
initiative forward, is that those kids
that didn't know each other, now created a friendship and a bond. So they get to start their first day
of school knowing one another that they previously didn't really have that friendship and relationship.
One of the things we really noted in that relationship and that whole board was having them come together
was great. We still do the one-on-one mentoring. They still have their one-on-one outings. They still
talk to each other outside of that, but they have a once a month setting where they come together and
talk more.
To me, what's more fun than mentoring? Doing it together, right? So that is something that we are really
looking at and wanting to do more of. One of the ways that this program will be even more impactful
is having planned activities. So in our Madison Jefferson County program, we have a curriculum, we actually
have a book that the kids pay for their science program that helps them build out their goals and their
expectations and just looking at if there's somebody that needs help with education or if they need
social emotional learning skills, they can build that together through the counselors at the school.
So we want to bring that out here a little bit more. We're already in the schools, but it's that one-on-one
setting. And we're not able to offer that support in a bigger setting. So that's what the purpose of
this funding will be. It will be a newer funding opportunity here in Wellington. And also, it will really
complement not just our current and new matches, but it's also an opportunity to complement our weighting
world. So we currently have over 80 littles on our weight list.
So this gives us an opportunity to engage them even further. So imagine if we had one big, either a
stack group or a paid volunteer or sorry, not paid volunteer, a volunteer that would help us come in
a group setting and we have 10 little brothers on a wait list that really want to learn basketball skills
or just soft skills on how to build a relationship or friendship. We can bring those littles that are
currently waiting for a big into the fold and to get them into our relationships now while they're waiting
to still be a big or waiting to get a big.
The funding itself will really help support our staff who are supporting those families. They're supporting
the mentors and they're just supporting all of us together in overlooking child safety. So for us, our
staff time really comes into child safety measures. We check in with the bigs and the littles and the
parents monthly in whatever program they are involved in. It's just one more opportunity to continue
that process to make sure that they're staying safe.
And, you know, I'm here today, I want to make sure to point out that our work isn't just supported by
our team, our volunteers, it's also by the members of our community and people that believe in us. So
with me is not only our board member, he's the Chief Deputy Superintendent and Chief Law Enforcement
Officer at IEPB and he has some experience and exposure as he goes to these sisters. So I wanted to
give him the floor, share a little bit about us.
I guess you want me to mess this up. Again, here to support Jennifer definitely appreciate it. My passion
for the Prospect Sisters comes from when I first started as a little bit of a program when I was younger.
But here we have Jennifer, she came to the office one day and had a program that she was doing and we
just kind of meshed from there and said, hey, let's kind of see what we can do. So we got an initiative
that we're working on called Bigs and Badges.
which is more of a site-based program which allows our officers or part-time officers who are students
as well to be able to connect with, you know, the community to use. One, to change the perspective of
law enforcement. And then two, just to see another aspect of the diversity that we have at IU and be
a part of that as well. So I'm passionate about it and know where I'm here to support whoever I need
to go through. You're welcome.
Are there any questions from the panel about the presentation this evening? Anybody on Zoom that had
a question? We have a panel member on Zoom? We do. Of course, members of the public are also open to
comments. Members of the public? Are there members of the public that would like to make a comment?
I have a question just about the program itself, the Big Brothers Big Sisters. Do you get a lot of IU
students? I remember when I was in college that there was a lot of IU students that were bigs in the
program. Is that still the case or is it? It is, we actually have an IU club on campus and so we found
students through there and we had a couple of tabling events and currently we have almost 50 bigs coming
through the process for IU students.
It's been a pretty fun experience. We try to match it up, excuse me, on our site-based program, because
it's closer to campus, so they don't have to worry about the transportation. So they'll go to the project
school, or even Fairview, and do some homework, sorry. Any other questions? Okay, thank you very much.
And the next step is the Louisville Clubhouse.
Amazing. Could I share my screen on this? Should I send you a request? Yes, indeed. Perfect. We're new,
so we have a little presentation. Yeah. We love each other. That's great. Anyway, it's a little bit
awkward for me, too. Can you see this?
My name is Matthew Joseph. I'm with the Bloomington Clubhouse. I'm also here with other people. We never
go alone. This is Amber, Becky, Nancy. We're only four of about almost 20 volunteers that are destined
to make Bloomington Clubhouse a nonprofit in Bloomington. And the need underlying this is something
that I'm sure all of you will be very familiar to, and that is the mental illness prevalence of it in
Bloomington.
thousands of individuals with mental illness in Bloomington and hundreds with specifically severe mental
illness. And the experience of mental illness looks a lot like three things, and it looks a lot like
severe disintegration from society, specifically through a lack of community where these individuals
don't have a place where they feel comfortable or they can be themselves, often because of stigma or
inaccessibility.
And then second, a lack sense of purpose. Many of these individuals are either at home or on SSI where
they don't have something to contribute to outside of mainly just getting their everyday needs met.
And then also all their symptoms kind of hurt their skills and confidence to be able to reach their
goals, whether that be through getting educated or going back to school or going back to work, if that's
a goal of theirs. And when we look at the current landscape, right, there's so many
day centers, community centers in Bloomington and they're doing remarkable work, some of which are in
this room and I'm like honored to be here. But I will say like from the research that we've done in
Bloomington, there is a sort of like a lack, they sometimes lack the sort of positive uplifting nature
that is necessary for healing. And then the second thing is, you know, in most day centers
and the traditional models that when somebody comes in, they get maybe a meal, see a therapist and then
they're done.
in that community, they're not asked anything of them. And so they don't have an opportunity to share
their gifts, their talents with the world, and don't even think that they have any to give in the first
place. And so that ties in well with the fact that traditional treatment is often detached from a broader,
consistent community. Many of these individuals have a therapist, but do they have a friend? And that
is a really big difference between when it comes to actual treatment of mental illness. And so the way
that we address this need
is through a world-renowned evidence-based model called Clubhouse, and we're bringing it to Bloomington
as its own nonprofit. Clubhouse is a cooperative community center where individuals with mental illness
that we call members, not patients, voluntarily work together to manage the daily operations of the
Clubhouse. The underlying core values of it is that it's totally free, it's totally voluntary, meaning
there's no coercion, there's no have-tos,
No, they choose the work that they want to do there. And it's membership for life. Once you're a member,
you're always a member. There's no time limit to the program. We follow a work order day. So this is
non-residential. It's a place you can go throughout the day, throughout the nine to five minute through
Friday. Typically, this looks like when you walk in the clubhouse, you'll see members making food for
each other. You'll see them on the phone calling members that are absent just to check in on how they're doing.
You'll see them doing landscaping, doing the gardening, making art and putting on the walls, writing
the newsletter. This is their space to make it their own and give to something that's bigger than themselves.
And this is important because it goes back to the three things that we talked about earlier, right?
It gives them that sense of community that is similar to them and as well as the sense of purpose that
they can engage in something that asks them to be a part of a collective identity.
So all the work on top of the community in the sense of purpose, all the work at the clubhouse looks
a lot like transitional employment. So we, in a sense, fill in those systemic potholes where individuals
with mental illness have trouble getting employment. So the clubhouse work is work experience. So for
people that don't have a job history or have gaps in their resume,
They can say, oh, I can work in your restaurant because I worked in the clubhouse. I've made food for
200 people a day, et cetera. There's so many things that we do for employment, transportation, on and
off the job support, vetting employers, as well as guaranteeing coverage for employers. This will serve
individuals with mental illness, more specifically, severe mental illness and economic instability.
There's so much research about Clubhouse worldwide.
Key highlights here, increases well-being, and then also for the community, increased employment, decreased
hospitalizations, which we see a lot of in Bloomington. We did a lot of research prior to this with
about almost 20 nonprofits in Bloomington, and we found that our specific space is individuals with
treatment searching for community and empowerment. There's about 400 clubhouses across the world. There's
12 in Indiana, and we're one of the biggest cities with that one. Starting about in this year,
Yeah, I have a few more slides, but I'm still getting angry. It's okay though. Yes. How many members
can a club where you're projected for the Bloomington Clubhouse accommodate? In this upcoming year,
we're just jamming. Well, yeah. So in this coming year, we are basing our projections based off of the
12 other clubhouses that are in Indiana and center cities. And typically they project about, they've
shown to have about
10 daily active members that come, 30 over a period of 90 days, 30 meaning they come at least once in
the last 90 days, and then about 75 in the whole year. And then that obviously expands. There's one
in Fort Wayne that has 30 to 40 active people that come every small day to the backups. It's nine of
them. Yeah, thank you. Absolutely.
Is there a staff person that is over this group that's all doing these various things? A hundred percent.
So yeah, it's very democratic, but we also don't want to make it, yes, alongside staff, all of the work
is happening. There's a director that oversees the data as well as the growth of the clubhouse. And
then there's typically at least a few general staff
One thing I want to note is that, and this was a slide and it's relevant to your question. We're more
inclined to use this money actually for salaries, for about fourth of the salary of the executive director
and a fourth of the salary of the general staff. In our current application, we have that we're going
to use some money for transportation and some member services, but I think it's a lot less necessary
than getting people to be in the playoffs every single day.
Um, so to that point, yes, there's staffing and that's going to go a little bit further. Other questions.
Are there others of volunteers that are there to help with what's going on? Sure. That's, that's always
something that, uh, the clubhouse is open to, although I will say the clubhouse is intentionally understaffed
because the idea is that the members themselves are the ones contributing. Cause again, I don't want
them, I don't want to say them.
I want to be able to tell them that we need you. And that the actual work needs to get done because
of the people that are here. So it's like a cultural thing as well. But so that's what I would say.
I have two questions. Are there any questions? Yeah. One, can we get the slides? Absolutely. Yes. I'll
send it to you. Send it to me and I'll listen. 100%. Thank you. And are any of the club houses also
residential? Do you know? No, no. Yeah, it's not a part of the model. OK. Yeah, yeah.
Because there's, I guess, there's power dynamics there with somebody living in the place. And then if
they, yeah, exactly. Yeah. There's a little bit there, but yeah, that's the blatant model. Any other
questions? Yes. I have two. I'll ask one and see if anybody else has that, if there's time for a second
there. In the materials that you put together, thank you again. You used the words and you've used them
today. Member-led community.
Absolutely. Is that inviting for people to see? Was that defined for the members in effect? You say,
okay, that's what it is. How is that information communicated to the participants? Absolutely. This
is what we address people as when we're walking the door. When we take people around the clubhouse,
when they first become a member, it is welcome to clubhouse. You're a member, you're a part of building this up.
And then just embedded in the programming is, I think it's 57 standards that Clubhouse International
has for every single clubhouse to abide by, to call themselves a clubhouse. And within those standards
are, there's so much language around it. And typically, actually, I went to the Terra Clubhouse just
recently. Every single day, they present a new, they present one of the standards
in front of the entire group, just to remind people of what we live by. And in all the standards, almost
every single one is the words members and not patients or clients, et cetera. So we want that to be
from the start, people knowing that that's the case, that they're not a patient here or a client. Because
I can see this in writing, in fact, not just of what's said. I saw all 57 standards on a giant wall,
and they could reference, the members could reference if it's still one of their favorite.
Which is so amazing. I love that. Me too. Is it okay? I can break it if someone else has a question.
just the only question went to I'm looking at the financial information material and because they asked
one of the questions go to one year or the two most recent financial audits another is dates covered
by the recent financial audit and because I have to pay attention to these things. Of course, yeah.
You said your response was the two most recent statement sets are account and compilations and then
obviously not applicable, no audit. So what are my understanding about them? Explain to me
Are there audits for other club houses? Formal, whatever the nature of it. I'm not looking to find your
points on it, but tell me and give me information about how other club houses manage other new audits,
other audits, financial audits, financial financial audits. For sure. And if this doesn't answer your
question, please let me know. Um, my understanding is every single club house has a board of directors that, um,
are responding to these concerns. Also, being a fiscal sponsor, having our fiscal agent be Clubhouse
Indiana, they've gone through this process many, many a times with federal dollars. Federal money coming
into the Clubhouse world and then having to manage that and get out of it and have to go through those
processes. But they had it from lots.
Yes. Thanks for helping me. I need it. We're still new. So yes, yes. They've gone through extensive
audits, in fact, on a federal level. And then also, they get audited by Clubhouse International, just
because of their programming as well. So it's embedded to have the infrastructure in place to address
these unimportant audits. Absolutely.
Ask a question. Please do. We also, at some point, we have somebody that also has a public comment piece.
Yeah. Are you a, has your nonprofit been raided by charities? What is it? I want to get 100% on that.
whatever that is, that sounds great. Sorry. It's, it's, it's stick my mind at the moment. Uh,
it's a charity, uh, that that's it. It's a group that looks at all different charities. It gives them
a rating. All charities are nonprofits. Like all charities, all charities give ratings. Oh yeah.
But you're, you consider yourself a charity or just a nonprofit, a nonprofit.
Okay, so I suppose. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, that's okay. I guess you probably don't have a rating that.
Yeah, sure. The charity group. Okay. Are you asking about maybe our like financial like disability as
well? No, they do straight up on the world. A lot of different branches. Sure. Any other questions from
anyone? Are there any members of the public that have a comment?
Yeah. And I just wanted to make a comment. I have a very vested interest in the clubhouse because my
son is 42. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia when he was 18 and a half and he has really, really struggled.
And this would be a wonderful place for him to go during the day, you know, meet more friends. Actually,
he met one friend lately and new apartments he moved into. Yay! He didn't have any friends.
Yeah, I was his world. So yeah, I'm just so, yeah, so looking forward to us opening. Oh my gosh.
And NAMI too. Yeah, and NAMI, I took the NAMI classes that they offer twice now. And so, yeah, once
like 20 years ago and then once recently a couple of years. And yeah, that's what got me, beard talks.
Clubhouse, I guess, to know. Yeah, because NAMI is like the backbone, kind of, or in the background
of Clubhouse. Yes, and Senator Stone, as well. And Senator Stone, too. Yes, yes, yes. So. Wow, how do
you do this? Imagine what it's like. And Senator Stone are both partners in this. Yeah. So I just think
it'd be a wonderful thing for my son, if he could develop some self-esteem, and yeah, is this
one of the groups in town that you would be getting referrals from? I understand we'll probably have
about 70% of our clients, 50 to 70% of our clients will come from San Francisco. Okay, any other questions?
Okay, we're ready to move on again. Thank you so much. It's an honor, yeah.
And next up is the community kitchen of Monroe County. Are they online or? On Zoom. I am here on Zoom.
Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. I apologize if there's any weird noise. I'm traveling and I've just grabbed
an exit off the interstate so that I could be here with you.
I am Vicki from Community Kitchen. We have appreciated past funding greatly and really appreciate the
opportunity to present again this evening. We are the largest provider of free meals in Monroe County,
serving dinner from two locations, six days a week, and additionally from mobile sites from our food
truck that goes to three, three days a week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday is in the city. And Tuesday,
Thursday, Saturday goes over to Ellitsville.
In addition to dinner, we have some outreach programs specifically for more vulnerable populations in
our community, primarily children, seniors, and folks who are chronically ill. We work with Area 10
on a home delivery program for seniors, work with IU Health Positive Link on a home delivery program
for folks who are HIV positive. And then we have several programs for children, specifically at-risk
and low-income children. We work with the childcare program at The Rise at Middleway House,
We work with Boys and Girls Clubs of Monroe County and also with the school system. We provide our backpack
buddies program. Those bags went out today. They go out on Thursdays to help families with their weekend
food needs. We serve 580 students across MCCSE and RBB today with food that'll help them and their families
with their food needs over the weekend. And then we provide lunches to children in 10 different low
income neighborhoods throughout the county.
in the summer from the day school MCCSE lets out until the day before they go back. So we've got a lot
of folks doing a lot of things. We rely on a lot of volunteer support and a lot of different areas of
funding and government funding as it tends to dwindle and continues to do that. Funding like CDBG is
very important to us. Something that we can count on consistently.
I think if you don't mind, since I have more questions than normal, I have already submitted those to
Cody in writing, but I'm going to go ahead and just sort of cover those and that way hopefully I can
make sure that we've got those really covered. So you had a question about documenting income and city
residency and some of my numbers.
We document income and city residency by surveys that we conduct with patrons. Those are anonymous surveys
because we are presumed to benefit as a soup kitchen and we don't have to ask names and track those.
So those surveys and that data gathered from them do meet HUD's documentation requirements. It's the
same surveys that we've been conducting for nearly 30 years and those have passed those HUD tests every
time that documentation has been reviewed.
You had a question specifically about our beneficiary percentages in terms of city residents and income
levels. I think section D is the section that you actually had questions about. And then I guess really
in question D two, the percentage that I referenced there would be numbers from 2025, the completed
year 2025.
But when I was looking at the answers for D3 through D6, it appeared to me that those questions were
about projecting for the current funding year. And so I answered those questions based on the numbers
that we have so far this year in 2026. It's not a complete year, but that's what those numbers look
like so far this year. So that's why those percentages from D2 don't necessarily match the ones in D3
through six.
hopefully that makes sense to you. We would actually and always have been able to do the required monthly
reports and document both our unduplicated clients and the demographic information. The way we do that
is we collect surveys every year in the summer when we hit June when the new funding year starts. We
consider everyone is new and so we try to
survey every patron who is around in June from both of our locations, both of our building locations.
And then from that point on, we are surveying just new people that appear to us. We know we don't catch
everyone, but we work to do that. So then when we do our monthly reports, we will gather the data from
those surveys for that month and we'll count those unduplicated folks that have not been previously
counted in another month. So that's how we do those.
I had a couple of clarifying questions about the budget numbers. Those columns don't match because there
are three different funding years, right? There's the previous funding year, the current funding year
and the upcoming application funding year. And so they're not gonna match exactly because the budget
is of course growing. There was a question specifically about our meal, our per meal cost.
The $4.03 cost per meal that I put in there, I did try to explain and maybe it wasn't clear enough,
but in question E4 that asked about that, when I figure our per meal cost, I actually figure our cash
per meal cost. So I take out any in-kind from our budget, but what is reflected in our budget section
is gonna be cash and in-kind. So what I took was the cash
per meal cost in 2025 and the cash per meal cost thus far in 2026. And then I averaged those. And the
reason I averaged those instead of counting exactly where we are right now is because we are heavy spending
in the summer with our kids program for lunches and our food spending tapers off some after the summer.
So that's where that number came from and why it might not look like if you multiply it out, it would
match our budget totals.
So I hope that makes sense. The question about the other categories, that's sort of a limit
of the application itself. You can't add text, you can't change the budget line item, and you can't
put any notes in. So I have three other categories. The first one of those is our food and beverage,
and it is only food and beverage that we're buying for our programs. The second of those line items
is gonna include
basically the other things that would be other in our budget. So technology services, bank fees, fundraising,
liability and workers comp insurance, as well as directors and officers insurance. And then the line
item in our budget that is actually other, which is only about $2,500. The third other category in this
budget is all of our in-kind expenditures. So that's going to be our in-kind labor, our in-kind food
donations and any other
donations of in kind that folks make to us. The audit is in fact uploaded. It was uploaded in the first
spot, but not the second one, but it is there and Cody and I verified that. You asked me about a couple
of typos. Your guess about those typos was correct. Unfortunately, word doesn't catch the spell check
if the word you spelled is actually really a word. So feed was supposed to be fee and routing was supposed
to be routine.
The other question was about our sample size. Because we do our surveys anonymously, we know we under
count. We always miss somebody. But additionally, we can only survey the folks who are on our premises
basically or at our food truck. We can't survey the people at Friends Place or at Boys and Girls Club
or at The Rise or at the school systems. So our sample size for 2025 was 163. So that's how many
patrons at our locations we were able to get surveys from. And then we get additional unduplicated counts
from all of those agencies we partner with. So we get those unduplicated client counts of folks that
we feed at Friends Place, at The Rise, at Boys and Girls Clubs, at MCCSC and RBB, as well as in our
program with IU Health Positive Link and with Area 10. We extrapolate the
demographic information that we get in our in-house surveys to that larger population because by and
large it tends to be very reflective of our community and of the folks we serve. So those are my quick
answers so I don't keep you all night to the questions that you had. If you have any additional questions,
I'm happy to try to answer those right here from the side of the road in Tennessee. Are there any questions?
I have your question. Do you guys serve meals on holidays? We absolutely do. We are open six days a
week all year round no matter what. We do not ever serve on Sunday, but we always serve on Thanksgiving
and if Christmas falls on any day but Sunday, we're open Christmas Day. Okay. Are there any other questions
or comments from the public?
questions from the panel. Okay. Thank you, Bernat. Thank you. We really appreciate your stopping along
the way to give us a presentation and we thank you. All right. Thank you so much. Moving on, the next
is the Hooger Hills Food Bank. Are they also online? Good evening.
Can you hear me? Yes. All right. I'm Giulio Alonso, Executive Director of Hoosier Hills Food Bank. And
we appreciate the opportunity to share the work of our food bank and to seek support from the CDBG program
tonight. Hoosier Hills Food Bank has been supporting food insecure neighbors in Bloomington and the
agencies that support them since 1982.
Rescuing food that would otherwise be wasted is our primary mission and the program we are seeking support
for tonight does that specifically in the city of Bloomington.
Our food rescue driver goes daily to about 12 regular retail donors in the city and collects food, which
then he delivers to about six agencies serving city residents, including Community Kitchen of Monroe
County, Beacon Incorporated, and the Bloomington Housing Authority Residence Council.
Our drivers food safety trained and certified and following appropriate procedures to get that food
safely picked up and delivered in our refrigerated vehicles. We anticipate once again delivering
through this program well over half a million pounds of food next year and that food is critical to
the food programs operated by our partner agencies. We also anticipate that it will become even more
critical as more low income neighbors in our community are removed from the SNAP and Medicaid programs
and forced to seek support from the network of the charitable food system agencies. We are,
proud to be a part of what we believe is a strong food assistance network in our community. Food insecurity
doesn't always get quite the level of attention that some other issues like homelessness do, in part
because it's not quite as visible. And we think that is in part due to the fact that we have such a
strong network of pantries, kitchens, and the food bank, and other agencies providing food to people
in our community here. And we're proud to be partners with all of those.
I also submitted answers to our questions in writing to Cody, but I'm happy to go through those now
with you if you would like or not, whatever is your preference. Are there other questions or did someone
wish to hear the answers to some questions they'd already submitted?
Are there any public comments, questions? Okay, I guess we're willing to move on again. Thank you so
much for your presentation. We appreciate your being here or being with us digitally and thank you again.
Absolutely, thank you for your consideration.
So our final presentation tonight, I believe, is from the Tandem Community Birth Center and Post Parking
Health. And are they also online? Yes, I'm online. Can you hear me okay? Yes, we can. So my name is
Julie Duhon. I'm one of Tandem's co-founders and I'm the executive director.
We're requesting $5,000 to help us restart our perinatal mental health one-on-one therapy services.
We launched our perinatal mental health program in January of 2023 with community catalyst funding,
a sub-award from IU Health that originated from FSSA. But since July of 2020,
We've been funded by IU Affinity Giving from the three groups, Women's Philanthropy, Queer Philanthropy,
and Black Philanthropy. Those allow us to run our mental health support groups and other doula-led peer
support groups that help facilitate mental health. Part of our partnership, the IU Affinity Grant is
also the foundation for our partnership with the IU Ursae Institute.
we've been working with the Ursa to do research with on the mental health impacts of our work, particularly
our support groups. So we have published on our website, not in a research journal yet, our first year
data results, a white paper on the work that we've done. And we believe that we've done some research
found some really groundbreaking things. So we think that a field shaping research question is whether
a universal access model like Tandems offers advantages for social capital formation. Basically saying
that everybody in the perinatal period, that includes pregnancy and postpartum, needs support. Mental
health concerns affect all income levels. They affect all socioeconomic backgrounds.
High education, no education, everything in the middle. We see on the national news platforms the impacts
of inadequate mental health support for our community. And so our work is showing that we are actually
able to within our
model create these cross-class connections that serve as protective factors for mental health. Overall,
all of Tandem's programs have, we always put a mental health lens on the work that we do. So we ran
one-on-one mental health services previously from January 23 until March of 25. And we paused those
services along with all of our other clinical services, midwifery services in March of 2025 to
to stabilize financially and make a strategy to reopen in 2027, which we're on track to do. We were
sort of forced by the pandemic. We incorporated in February 2020 and then the pandemic hit in March
of 2020. And that timeline forced us to completely, we shredded our original business plan and had to
completely pivot and try to do the clinical services and the one-on-one mental health services before
we were really,
organizationally mature enough. You know, now six and a half years later, we feel confident that we
can reenter this sphere of one-on-one clinical services. And so, and then I wanted to also announce
this is brand new news hot off the presses. We've just made it to phase two of an NIH challenge grant
program specific to maternal health. So we are participating in this challenge program with the hope
that, you know,
Soon we'll move to phase three, and we would get some prize money then, and then phase four, and then
at the end, it's intended to help community-based organizations write actual NIH grants. We would be
doing this in partnership with the RSA as well. They are so excited by their partnership with us that
they submitted an extended abstract to the American Sociological Association's national meeting and
got accepted. They presented our partnership in New York City this fall,
and it was very well received. So that's been really exciting. We were presented as an anonymous perinatal
center though, so nobody knows who we are from that presentation for the sake of protecting our clients'
privacy. So our initial years research data, we conducted a mental health impact survey that was administered
twice over a 90 day interval.
where 89.2% of the respondents said Tandem helps them build a sense of community, 59.5% said we help
them financially, 70.3% said we help improve their mental health, 64.9% said they feel less isolated
because of Tandem services. And then for those specifically participating in the in-person mental health
group, we do offer a virtual version. We asked how much they thought that their mental health had improved,
by attending this group specifically. And we had 36.4% say considerably and 54.5% say a great deal.
No one said not at all. We had like one person who said a little bit, but the aggregate of considerably
or a great deal is over 90% of the respondents. So to address and then tandem as a whole with our services
is serving over 600 families a year right now.
And we took over the Who's Your Diaper program last year and covered the bottoms of over 900 children,
unique children in the community. So I can answer your questions from the spreadsheet if you wanna do
that during the Q&A. I've also submitted those in writing. Okay, are there questions? Julie? Yes.
Just one, just from my education. Obviously, you just talked about the perinatal therapy section as
an essential part of what you're talking about here. Can you give me information about is the content
process protocol who develops that for each human? For each what? Each human, each person. Oh, for each
person? Yeah. How is that?
How is the model shaped in each and every time, if it's different, for different folks? Who creates
the model? For each person for how they receive our services? For each particular session. Oh, for each
therapy session? Yes, for each session. So, I mean, perinatal therapy is really
like any therapy, right? It's any one-on-one therapy that you might go to because you're having challenges
with anxiety or depression. But we're specifically focused on people who have symptoms that are considered
within the scope of perinatal mood and anxiety disorders. And so that's primarily people who are pregnant
or postpartum within the first year postpartum. But we do also see people who might be, you know, years
postpartum, but they never,
But their challenges, their mental health challenges are still inherently based on their perinatal
experiences and are connected to those perinatal experiences. So we do work with PTSD for traumatic
births and traumatic postpartum experiences, anxiety. We're not typically working with people suffering
from extreme postpartum psychosis. We're usually working with a psychiatrist at that point in referrals.
They may still come to us.
But therapy is therapy, but so many therapists, the perinatal world is a very special world, I guess
I would say. And the kinds of challenges people experience and their needs and the context of that care
is very specific. And I can tell you from personal experience, I can tell you from what I've seen, when
you send somebody who has a perinatal mood and anxiety disorder to a therapist who is not specialized in PMADS,
they're not necessarily going to receive the care that they need. And so having this specialized care
is really important and it's very rare. There are not a lot of providers in our community who have PMAT
specializations in order to be able to serve this particular population.
And then because Tandem is this hub and we're just serving people from many different angles, whether
it's diaper support and free clothes or community building, you know, other groups and classes or staying
in the postpartum house or having in-home dual services, we're able to connect them into this broader
ecosystem of support, which is really essential in that perinatal period when, as we all know, it takes
a village. Thank you.
The question was asked about how many are we giving? The budget pays for 10 per client, but we have
quite a few clients who tend to be a bit more transient, who may leave town. So if we had a client come
in for this funding and come for four sessions and leave, then we would allocate those sessions to another
of our clients who might need more than the original 10 in funding.
Are there any other questions? Are there any questions from the public? Okay, thank you very much, Julie.
We appreciate your information. Thank you so much. I believe that
That concludes the presentations of all of the applicants. And so I guess we need to turn this back
over to you to talk about the important calendar dates and close the public hearing. Starting tomorrow,
all the agency questions that have been submitted to me will actually be submitted to all of you.
be emailed and make sure that everybody gets their fair shake and it's also something you can refer
to during the sporing process. The next big date that is there is actually next Thursday, which is the
review of sporing and allocation recommendations. From there, I don't believe we have this particular
meeting scheduled, but it will go to the Redevelopment Commission afterward for their approval. Basically,
the recommendations that
you all make. I believe the scoring is due by noon on the 29th so next Thursday so that way I can compile
everything and get it ready for 530 when we can meet again. If you all have any difficulties by all
means please let me know especially with the neighborhood system that we use I know there's been a few
questions here and there so I'm happy to try and take those as they come in make sure we get everything
answered that
Everybody gets everything in as they can. Of course, that's really the remainder. Yes, sir. Question
about the October 29th meeting. I think I've done this before, but I clearly stood at all times. In
terms of the parameters of the discussion and the questions on the table for that meeting, say a little more.
about the elements and the parameters for that meeting's purposes. So I'll be taking, oh sorry, I thought
I heard someone say something, sorry. Okay, so I'll be taking the scoring, of course, as it's presented
immediately, making sure that those are all averaged out appropriately, double checking their numbers
to make sure that every individual part is counted for,
Historically, we've had some pretty tight margins for some of the scoring in the past. From there, I
also make it as we've done for decades, I believe in this process, make it blind scoring. So that way
it's motivated purely based on the numbers that came out at the end when everything was averaged together.
Once we are in that meeting, the force reveal as we decide
kind of moving forward based on just the actual raw number scoring. What kind of funding goes where?
We have roughly, well, it's an estimate. We don't get our allocations until about April of that year.
So we want no allocations for 2027 officially until April of 2027. However, it's been fairly
close consistently year by year. We receive a
Let's say we receive a decrease, does it make sense? We get a decrease in funding or have historically
as well, just for our decisions at the federal level and the way that our formula plays out. So I'm
anticipating roughly about 116,000. It may not be that much, in which case one of the other decisions
that will be made by the committee will be whether or not, or how to divvy up funding if more is received
than what we anticipated.
or less. So it's like a scenario funding might be done by based on the dollar amount X, Y, or Z,
or X and Y, or whatever it might be. Yeah. Dollar amounts might differ. So that can be discussed at
the next meeting. Right. Within the 29th meeting. Yeah. In fact, we'll have to decide that before I
let you all out of here. So tell us some ideas if you have any.
well is that sort of like we would say oh we can use next percentage of the total that we're given towards
this one percentage towards this uh yeah the method can be completely decided by the committee uh last
year there was pretty extensive debate about it as there were different federal proposals at the time
slashing it or maintaining its current levels so they tried to account for a few different things but uh
It might be easier just to stick with, in some cases, percentages of the award, or it's, again, very
much up to the committee to decide. So whatever ideas you all have, then bring and find the most equitable
way to distribute this money. I'm sorry to listen in advance. One more question, respectfully offered,
but curious in some ways. I understand it's all good and loud.
But I've always been interested in that. And I understand why they're blind scoring that. Yes, that
makes sense. It was, I thought it made sense. But there's no way for the members to discuss what they're
thinking about before they individually score. And once the individual scores are there, they're locked
in. That's dumb. They're not changing their scores individually at the last meeting, as far as I understand. Yeah.
So I guess I'm just curious. I'm nowhere else to ask, having the meetings of the meetings we have. Was
that a conscious policy decision not to have meetings of the committee of people? I'm not saying it's
a good idea, but it's interesting to me that people could not kick around what they've heard and before
the final scores are done, before they'll do them.
I'm just interested in process for these things, that's all. I'm not complaining about anything, really.
I know it's been done that way since well before I got here, so I'm understanding the reasoning for
it, at least for people not promoting certain projects that they've been more passionate about over
others, even though certain aspects of other applications could technically be better. I suppose it's
the idea behind it.
I mean, I'm certainly myself not opposed to it, especially if that's the way the committee would prefer
to move, especially in the future. But I think it was primarily done just within the interest of, I
guess just more famous last time. I'm not trying to take a bunch of time. If you were going to ask people
what they thought,
I'd better ask people individually by emails about what they wanted to do rather than have a long discussion
right now, I guess. I think it was my impression that the overall scoring gave us a baseline where we
started our discussion on how we were gonna allocate the funding. And I think that that makes it, I
think that if we had any other method, it would take a considerable amount of additional time
Yeah, there definitely would probably be more meetings on the books, but again, should that be a decision
that committee wants to institute for next year or recommendation, then it's certainly to take into
consideration. So. Yeah, I know that's really all I had. Of course, sir, anything any questions from
anyone else? I know if not, we can close the public hearing and move to a government,
Give everybody the opportunity. So, especially if it goes online. Thank you everyone for attending.
Thank you. No real decisions being made today.
Thank you, everyone. Thank you.