We will call the CBG Citizens Advisory Committee to order. It is November 3rd, 2025. And we will begin
with a roll call vote. And we'll begin, for those that are online, with a key written order. Hi. I just
got my phone working, so I don't know what I'm doing. You have just acknowledged that you're here. Yes.
Oh, I'm here. Hi, yeah, I'm here. All right, thank you. Kayla Cox Dexter. I'm here. Michael Denuzo.
Denuzio, here. Denuzio, my apologies. Michael Burton. I'm Michael Burton. I go by they, them,
and I'm here. And we have Jennifer Holland. And then we have Randy and Corey that are not yet here.
But when we do come here, we'll bring them in. For staff, I'd like to... Hannah Killian-Hanson, Director
of Housing and Neighborhood Development. Matt Swinney, Program Manager for Housing and Construction
Projects. And Mitch Berg, Chair for now. And I'd like to introduce... Caitlin Cotter, student at IU.
So with that, we'll move to approval of an agenda. We do have a slight modification to the agenda. Matt,
do you want to? We do have a revised agenda, so there are actually two posted online for the public
benefit. Yeah, so we changed the order, still starting with Boys and Girls Club.
then moving to New Hope for Families, then Summit Hill BHA, then Life Designs, then Middleway House,
and finishing up with My Sister's Closet. That's great. Thank you. Any questions on the amended agenda?
OK. Here's an amendment. We have a need to elect a vice chair. And so I would entertain any motion for
a vice chair.
I'll do it. All right. So do we have to have a motion? Yes. We'll have to have a motion. I motion that
the senator be our vice chair. Second. Second and third. We have a motion by Michael, second by Michael,
or second by Kayla. All right. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye.
Again say nay motion carries congratulations Jennifer. With that before we get into the applicant
presentation I'd like to yield to Matt to kind of walk us through the process. So all applicants will
get five minutes to talk about their project. Please be mindful the five minutes we have most of the people
going between this and the upstairs social services meeting. We will have a timer present on the large
screen. And we will have a microphone that we'll keep right here that everybody should sit at for their
presentation.
Once you give your presentation, committee members will ask any questions that they have. Once committee
members are done asking questions, we will ask if there's any public comment. And if there's not any,
then we will move on to the next presentation. All right, thank you, Matt. With that, let's begin.
like to introduce yourselves as well before we start with that. Sure. Can I ask that you guys move those
microphones close to you? Yep. I'm Leslie Absher. I'm the CEO of the Boys and Girls Club. James Kennedy,
IT and Facility Director for the Boys and Girls Club.
So today, you read the application, but we are asking for safety improvements for our organizations
club. We're looking at the Ferguson Cresmont Club access control for our doors so that we have access
to who gets in and out of our spaces with our kids. We can have a record of that, and we can control
that as well. That's really important to us, but it is also very expensive. So it is one of the things
that's been on our list for a while. We do external safety assessments that a national safety assessor
comes in and looks at this. And this has been a recommendation of ours for a few years.
had local law enforcement come and do risk assessments on our buildings to see how we can harden those
facilities and keep our kids safe. And this has been on the list as well. We've got about 200 kids in
that building every day. So kids ages six to 18 years old. And so there's a lot of kids to keep track
of. And it really is helpful to know which rooms they're in and when with which adults and when. And
so this access control will really help us with that. We've had auto locking doors and that that's one
step in the right direction. But it becomes difficult with keys and things like that. So this
be quicker access, it'll be safer egress, it'll make a huge improvement for us. So all of our requests
are safety improvements, that's the first one that you saw. We have some gym floor repairs, parking
lot repairs, padding in the gym as well, and then fence line access to our external building. We've
had some people
so dodging under that fence and coming onto our property, and we need to secure that up so that our
property stays safe, so that people aren't on the property that we don't want on the property. Boys
and Girls Club, just so you know, we're an organization in town that's been here 70 years as of next
year. That Ferguson Crestmont building was built in 2017, and before we were in a little duplex apartment
in the Housing Authority, who you'll hear from later, and we were thankful to be there for 25 years,
but we only served about 30 kids in that tiny little building, and so great to have more kids there every day
school now in the larger building but of course a larger building has more safety challenges to it in
ways that we need to keep kids safe in that space and is more expensive to maintain so that's the request
today boys and girls club kids in that club specifically over 90 percent of them are on free and reduced
lunch about 68 percent of them are coming from single parent households it's our highest need club because
of the location that it's in it serves the neighborhood kids a lot of times walk to and from the club
location their bus there after school but they also come in the summer
on break days we're open you know all day long during the summer from 7 a.m. till 7 at night so just
a lot of kids coming in and out of that space and the more control we have over that and the more we
know where kids are the safer they can be.
As you know, things have gotten a little more dangerous in our world over the last decade, and we built
that building almost a decade ago now. And so we're continually looking to improve that space to keep
our kids safe. It's our number one priority. You hear us talk about safety all the time if you're around
us, and we hired a full-time facilities director to maintain those spaces when we built those new buildings
as part of our investment in safety and keeping kids safe. So thank you for your consideration of this
request, and we would love to take any questions that you have.
All right, that's phenomenal. Any questions from the committee? Maybe I'll ask Kate to see if she has
any questions first. I don't have any questions. I'll write them in if I do. Sounds good. I just know
being online sometimes, it's kind of hard to participate. So with that, any questions from the committee
and president? I'm wondering.
what the priority is for your asks if you're
when they're partially funded. Absolutely. Kennedy, do you want to answer? Priority for us is access
control. Having the police officer visit us and do an on-site assessment of that has proven that that
needs to be a number one priority. Not only does that give us the ability to keep all doors locked at
all times with an easier access and no loss of keys. If somebody loses a key when I'm changing out a
lock or anything like that, I've got to shut it off. It gives us logs that we can see through at all
times to see if anybody's in there.
and how long toward the other priorities? So we, after doing the walkthrough with him, the priorities
for us would be access control, the fence line getting that short up because people can't go under that
fence right now because of weather erosion this last year. I know you guys experienced with the snow
wiped out a lot of landscaping and so that would be second priority followed up by the gym padding,
gym floor, then parking lot. Okay, thank you.
Does that help address your question? Yeah. So it looks like, as I was reading through that, the gym
floor repair had to do with settling, right? It is, yes. Do you feel comfortable that settling is complete,
or is there going to be more of that? I've had several construction managers come in and take a look
at it. They are happy with the way it's settled now. You can see the crack line of where it came down,
and they're saying that it won't expand any further past that. OK. Great. Thank you.
And can you just talk a little bit about the parking lot repairs? It's like a standard resurfacing,
or are there some other things happening with it? So it started out as it was going to be resurfacing.
And then we had the parking lot company coming out and look at it. They're the ones who donated the
work in the beginning. And there's this part where it's starting to sink in the parking lot. And that's
why, instead of just being like a resealing or something like that, it's deeper than that. All right.
there any other questions from the committee yeah so you did you did thank you by the way you did a
very good job explaining the importance of the access control and the fence line that that all that
all makes makes sense what would be the consequence if we were not able to fund the gym padding or the
floor or the parking lot we have
happens all the time, right? We ask for funding, and we get partial funding, and we understand that
everywhere. So we have other requests out. So we've got other opportunities that we could request funding
for. Those, again, are not secure or guaranteed. But we would have a few other sources that we would
go to to request items like that. Thank you, ma'am. I won't give up on it. It's not going anywhere.
Fair enough. It is a top priority for us. Yeah, of course. We'll get it done. Any other questions?
There are no further questions. If there's any questions from either the observer or the audience. Or
any online. Members of the public. Are there any members of the public who would like to comment? Oh,
that's what I meant. What did I say? OK. Members of the public that wish to comment.
None. I appreciate your presentation. Thank you. Thank you very much. And then we'll move to New Hope
for Families. Would you like to give your name? Sure. Hi, my name is Chase Teckenton. I'm the operations
director at New Hope for Families.
I've been there for about six years. New Hope's been in the community for about 13 years and in some
new facilities for just about three. From the start, I'm thanking you guys for your dedication to serving
our community, managing some complex funds, and reading through my application. So I'm grateful for
you guys. I want to tell you a little bit about New Hope and then get into some of the details of the
various things we're asking for. New Hope has two pillar programs.
First is our family shelter. That's the only shelter where a whole family with kids can be sheltered
from homelessness together. And families come and sleep at the shelter if they would otherwise sleep
outside or in their car. It puts them in all kinds of danger, including separation by DCS. We keep families
together in that way. When families enter shelter, they find childcare, then they find income, and then
they pair that income with housing that they can afford and move out. They move quickly through the
crisis of homelessness.
Of the families who stay, about 80%, 82% exit to a lease in their name. And they do it on average in
90 days. You don't have to leave until you have success. A big part of how we're able to have that much
success is our second pillar program, our Early Learning Center. That's where kids birth to five can
enroll for $10 a week if they're enrolled in the shelter. And we reserve half to 70% of our enrollment
for kids who are affected by homelessness, and they're using an income-based voucher to subsidize their
care there. As you're all aware, housing is really scarce in our community, and so is childcare. So
when we put those two things together, we help families be stable in the long-term. Just for example,
there are three families I can think of in my two-year-old's classroom where two years ago, their parents
were in the shelter. Now their two-year-old children are, one, their parents have been sober and thriving
in employment for the last two years with their child enrolled, and another,
A single mom fled her abuser. She's had her child enrolled there for the last two years. She just finished
her CNA. And all those kids are meeting or exceeding developmental milestones where, by rights, they
should be going through a lot of trauma and falling behind. So it's a really compelling pair of programs.
I'm really happy to work there and proud to say we've got a lot of success with it. I think our application
When I looked back over all the different text fields could use a little clarity. So I want to give
you two buckets one is security we need some things to
to sharpen up our security. We have some people with lived experience on our staff and we've gotten
some feedback from clients that say they'd like to see some more cameras that can see more of the parking
lot, more areas of the building. So that's one of the things in security. The other is the early learning
center has shades. All four of the classrooms are on a central hallway. They have big open windows.
You can see right through their outdoor classrooms and the shades that they could pull down in an active
shooter situation are not complete and don't work that well.
So we would like to replace those so that they could work better in a scenario like that or in a lockdown.
The other security piece is an interior breezeway door for our shelter building. Right now, there's
just one big door. And if you get in there, you can get all the way to the stairwell and pretty close
to a lot of the function. So we wanted an interior breezeway. That's connected to our second bucket, which is
renovating some parts of our new shelter building to add some more office space and programming space
because while we do that housing first model, we want to get people into an affordable lease, we don't
want to do housing only. So we've committed to follow every family who moves into a lease for three
years. That takes more staff.
and we're adding a community room and a few more spaces to welcome people back, do surveys with them,
and just offer more care for people after they've left the shelter. So the things in the shelter renovation
bucket include, for a little visual aid for us, we need to put flooring down. There's polished concrete
there now, but we'd like to put in vinyl flooring and carpet tiles there.
And we would like to enclose some of our spaces with closets so that we can have some multipurpose tables
and chairs come out and also store some programming supplies for the after school program we like to
do. We would like to do that breezeway door and we need a curtain wall.
of four glass panels, like a sliding door. That'll enclose the community room, especially over summer.
Ten weeks of summer, we do childcare for school-age kids right there on site, and that would protect
the daytime staff from all that's going on in the community room during the day. So there are a handful
of things there for the shelter renovation.
Our HVAC system does not circulate air well enough, especially in the shelter bathrooms. And we need
some active fans and to renovate that to prevent some of the mold that has come up from there.
That's my time. All right, thank you. Any questions from the last panel? Committee members.
Pretty similar kind of questions from a prioritization perspective. Would it be a good assumption that
the security elements are a higher priority than the administrative? Right now, the security elements
are a high priority, but I think that the shelter renovation elements and the interior breezeway door
are the things that are most salient to this grant and least salient to some of our other opportunities
to get funded. So that would put those things
first year, especially the HVAC. The HVAC renovation, the shelter renovation pieces, then the shades
and last, the cameras. And for the HVAC, you know, the building is still relatively new. Yes. It has,
I'm assuming there are no longer warranties on the HVAC or other issues related to maybe getting some
resolution from the original installation? The HVAC system is not broken. It just,
And there isn't a way to get it remedied by the original installer. The design is simply poor.
I don't mean, it just means it doesn't blow enough air around. It's improperly sized, which can often
lead to other issues. Yeah. Separately, the showers in these bathrooms that have mold around them are
in the corner like a baseball diamond, so we could build it more
efficiently but I think just they open in the middle and water comes out which means that what may have
been a good design for a bathtub is not a good design for a shower that gets a lot of water on the floor.
So we think that will that will get us to the root of the problem along with some other remedies we've
already done to protect against that water spilling out. I am so sorry you went through your priorities
priority you listed them all but you listed them all really quickly could you give them to me one more
time? Sure HVAC renovation.
The broad list of shelter renovation items, the flooring, the curtain wall, the interior breezeway door,
and those closets that are going in. That whole piece of the project. Then shades for the early learning
center windows. And last, additional cameras. Thank you very much. Thanks.
Any other questions from the committee? All right. Hearing any, any from the observer or members of
the public? All right. Hearing none, I'd like to say thank you, Chase, for presenting. And I'd like
to welcome Randy, who just came in at 546. So hearing that, we'll move right on to the next group. That's HCDC.
BHA. You wanted to start off with your name and position? Sure, I'm Rhonda Moore from the Bloomington
Housing Authority and we're applying through Summit Hill Community Development Corporation, our sister company,
to do site improvements at the Reverend Butler affordable housing apartments. And we would like to do
site improvements like we need to, or the playground tot lot was installed about 18 years ago and it's
somewhat deteriorating and needs a lot of work done to it.
So I would like to replace it, but I could, that could be if we didn't receive full funding, we could
do repairs and pressure wash it and paint it possibly. Then we would also like to do some tree trimming.
I've got all the scope of work listed out in the budget and those can be
you know, kind of shifted around, do a little more of something, a little less of something else. We'd
like to do some sidewalk replacements where walks are cracked. They cause trip hazards and we have a
lot of pedestrian and bicycle traffic across the grounds and they don't necessarily stay on the walkways.
So it's causing, you know, erosion in places and they
wear it down to the bare ground and we don't want runoff. So I'd like to do, I'm actually working, our
ACE student from IU is working with a class and I'm helping her develop a plan that they can take off
with and come up with a landscape plan to try to divert traffic to sidewalks and put ground cover where there's
You know, all the mud areas. I know you guys usually do a property tour. If you're going to do that,
then I'd be more than happy to show you some of the areas that I'm talking about. Let's see, what else
have I got on my list here?
So there's a couple of areas where we need asphalt replacements done. We had a small parking lot on
West 11th Street repaved whenever we were doing our substantial renovations of the apartments. And that's
kind of sinking in next to an ADA ramp. And I'd like to get that milled out and re-poured in there.
So it's kind of a hodgepodge of items, but my number one priority would be to get the trip hazards,
the trees trimmed so that we don't have any falling limbs, and then playgrounds, you know, whatever we can
do with the funding on the playground would be great. Replace border and add the engineered wood fiber.
Our maintenance calls it mulch, but I tell them it's ADA compliant wood fiber. Yeah. So add more of
that. That pretty much sums up what we'd like to do. Questions? Given the fact it's in the Reverend
Butler Park, is that part of parks?
Responsibility or is this just something we're needing to do in order to accent out with the park itself?
It's not actually Parks and Rec because we own the property. It's a taut lot. Yeah. So we own that property.
And so it's not really parks responsibility because it's not city property.
the BHA's park in order to take care of the residents and the children within that residence. Right,
right. Thank you. I had the same question. Michael, I apologize. I'm new to these committees. Can you
talk a little bit about Summit Hill and how you service the community? So Summit Hill Community Development
Corporation is a nonprofit that was put together
to help obtain grants and loans to help us do a major renovation of the Cresmont, Reverend Butler, and
Walnut Woods communities. And those three apartment complexes were previously public housing, but we've
converted to what's called the Housing and Urban Development Rental Assistance Demonstration, RAD.
They're subsidized with vouchers through HUD, and they're all low income, affordable housing. Yeah.
Thank you. They've switched from public housing to voucher. Yes. Is this a project based on vouchers? Yes. Yes.
There's project based and another kind of voucher that's kind of right out of my realm, but they all.
It's called housing choice vouchers. Yes, yes. Do you have project based that are for a particular area
and then the housing choice, it's up to the voucher holder to choose where they can go. Thanks.
You've done a substantial renovation up there at this present moment. Yes. So of multiple millions of
dollars. Yes. In-house, what we would consider our public housing. Right now. Yeah. It's not a voucher
system. Yes. You're still unable to provide everything you need. Unfortunately, it only goes so far.
Yeah. Now, to ask the question again about the sinking asphalt, given the fact that that was part of
the overall large thing.
Can we ask the contractors? It sank on our time with your installation. It is out of warranty. OK. Yeah.
According to the application, the beneficiaries here total around 56. Is that right? I'm sorry? The
beneficiaries from this total around 56 people. Is that right? Yes, there are 56 apartments there. Let's see.
28 or 30 of them are two-story townhouse apartments, and that's typically where the family units are
with the children. There are around 40 to 50 children that live in there at one time. Of course, people
move in and out, and so it fluctuates, but yeah. Do you have a sense of those apartments? How many of
those are single unit or single person dwellings? Are there any, or are they all family units?
56 apartments in Reverend Butler. Let's see. I think 30 of them are one story. So those are primarily
elderly, disabled, single people. And yeah, the rest of them are family units. And then they're right
across 12th Street from the Crestmont complex, which has
I'm really bad at numbers, you guys. Sorry. I think it's got 206 or 208 apartments. And most of those,
I think all but 56 or 60, are family units. So the majority of those are. OK. So the better fish raiser
listed as 56. But that's not 56 people. That's 56 units that could have many more people. Right.
Right, up to two per bedroom. Yeah. Are there any other questions? All right. Any public comments from
members of the community online or in person? Seeing none, please move on.
Thank you for your consideration, and thank you for last year's funding. We put in bike parking and
covered parking and pods, and they're really being used, and we really appreciate it. The residents
appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you, Robert. Thanks. So our next group is Middleweight Health, and then
we'll conclude with my sister's closet after that. You skipped life designs. Oh, did I?
Oh, you're right. Okay, then we have life designs coming up. That might as well. That's reassuring.
Okay. Do you want to give an introduction? Okay, thank you. I am the Director of Housing Development
and Facilities for Life Designs DSI. We merged with DSI three years ago, but we are
We are a partnership with DSI, still retaining some of our Life Designs identity. Life Designs DSI has
been serving people with intellectual and cognitive disabilities primarily for almost 50 years, the
two organizations together. I want to say I really appreciate the opportunity to present tonight, appreciate
your consideration and our prior funding as well.
We are hoping to do a flooring rehabilitation throughout a rather large home that will be used as supported
living. A little bit different than a group home when you look at the funding for it, but not to get
lost in the weeds. We are hoping to support three to six clients who will live there with cognitive
and physical disabilities.
We want to renovate the flooring throughout the house. It's very old. Some of it was installed when
the house was built. I believe that was around 1971. It's cracking. It's raised in some areas.
We're concerned that it's a trip hazard and we would like to replace the flooring with waterproof flooring.
If you've worked with people with disabilities, you know there are accidents and waterproof flooring
is just a practical material. So I was thinking.
it will provide a safer, more secure environment where the clients can live and receive services. They
are special needs, and that does address a need identified in the consolidated plan. Again, grateful
for the opportunity to present. It's kind of short and sweet, but that's something we would like to
be able to do. Thank you. Just for the record, your name was? Oh, I'm sorry, Cindy Fleetwood.
Any questions from the committee? So your total here, I'm sorry. Your total comes in at $19,420 with
your 10% contingency fee and architect's fee. Was this a single source quote, or did you get quotes
from the committee? We usually do a single source quote, but then we have to bid out if we receive the
grant. So we'll get multiple quotes then.
What I refer to as transitional housing in order to assist these intellectual individuals in need of
help. Do you have people that live with them? They don't live with them. We provide 24-hour staffing,
but the staff work in shifts. So there are no staff living there. So the physical improvements basically
will make it better for the residents as a whole. But they're self-sufficient in regards to their health.
It's for the residents, yes. And they're existing living there right now? No, they're not living there
right now. We had somebody renting there, ResCare rented there. But they moved out. They found their
own housing. And we want to put it to good use for our own clients. OK, thank you. OK. How many classes
like design support in total?
I think across, I mean, across the state, Life Design's DSI probably supports thousands. Any other questions?
No further questions? Any from the public or online?
Um, thank you. Okay. Thank you again. And no middle way houses online. All right. You mean go ahead.
Yes. Good evening. Thank you for your flexibility. I live in Indianapolis and grateful to not drive
home in the dark this evening. Um, my name is Chloe. I am the grants manager at middle way house.
For those of you who might not be familiar, we are a non-profit, local to our community, serving survivors
of domestic violence, sexual violence, and human trafficking, as well as their dependent children. We
operate various different programs that support survivors, including emergency shelter, 24-7 crisis
line, and legal advocacy. All of those services are offered in our new names building, which is located
on South Washington Street.
A lack of access to safe and affordable housing is a significant barrier to survivors of violence in
our community and is also a critical factor in achieving long-term safety. In 2024, our emergency shelter
house 125 adults and 103 children. We work with adults on achieving safe, secure housing upon their
exit to work on other self-identified goals and reaching self-sufficiency.
We are seeking funding through CDBG physical improvements to support the installation of a new fire
panel within our newest building. We're the only program of its kind serving survivors of domestic violence,
sexual violence, or human trafficking. Domestic violence survivors are a priority need population in
our city's consolidated plan.
As housing needs to change in our community, we remain a prominent figure for that emergency shelter
and ensuring resources and housing are available to those who have a critical need to leave their current
housing situation. Our program also aligns with the anti-poverty strategy as we work with survivors
on their goals that are related to employment, education, receiving essentials, and we do that through
case management.
The current fire panel in our building is outdated. Though it still works, it will stop communicating
with newer fire alarms. What that means is if we need to replace fire alarms in our individual units
in a emergency shelter or throughout that building, we have to source older fire alarms, which can be
more expensive, harder to find. Because if we were to install newer systems, they wouldn't communicate
with our panels. So we would have kind of a disparity in the functioning of that.
We don't want to fail a fire inspection. If we were, that might put survivors in our community at risk
of losing their physical, their physical housing, jeopardizing their physical and mental safety. And
so we're hoping to be proactive in installing new fire systems to prevent that from occurring and to
maintain a safe and modern environment for our survivors. So CDBG physical improvements can help us
in that task.
I thank you for your consideration, and I'm open to any questions. Any questions? Yeah, when you install
the new fire panel, will the older alarms need to be upgraded? We do plan on, with the installation
of a new panel, installing new alarms in our emergency shelter units as well.
The older pieces in the rest of our building, I believe, can still communicate, but the alarms we'd
like to install in the system in our individual rooms, I think, are gentler alarms. They might not be
so ear piercing, and they will also include a strobing light element. Okay, and that's included in the
$11,334 cost? Yes, it is.
On your fire inspections, this has been noted in regards to something. I will have to go through our
old fire inspections. Our facilities manager had reached out to Horson, who was our servicer for the
fire system, and who also is responsible for our inspections. And they had suggested the replacement,
so I'm assuming it was pinpointed at some point. And I can provide any documentation of our most recent
inspections.
I just don't look at those in my day-to-day work. It's just part of a life safety situation that you
have to deal with with residents. Because if this functionality stopped, you would have to unoccupy
the facility. Right. Correct. Thank you. All right. Any further questions? Any questions from the public
or online? If there are none, thank you so much. Thank you.
My name is Sandy Keller. I'm the executive director and founder of my sister's closet and Before I begin
I want to say that we have been wanting to be at this table saying that we are going to have physical
improvement needs or
for a very long time. We are over 27 years old. We've been looking for a building, and I am so incredibly
grateful that you have allowed us to be here tonight. My sister's closet is
asking for $190,000 to be able to help us with the renovation of a building that we just acquired. It
is on the corner of West Second and Patterson. It is a vacant building right now, and it is 4,800 square
feet. We have an urgent need because our lease is ending at our current location in June of 2026. We
are seeking funds from the community and from various other
fundraising endeavors so that we can move in before our lease ends. We are very, very cognizant of the
fact that we might have an interruption of client services, and that's why this is such an urgent need.
My sister's closet provides workforce attire to women who are going on interviews, and also if they
get a job and they succeed, you know,
clothing and accessories and hygiene products to help them fit into the job. But what a lot of people
don't realize is the training services, the interview skill services that we provide them with, the
way that we provide mentors and advocates to help them build resumes, to talk about themselves, just
like a Kelly School of Business core project where you would have those incredible life skills to be
able to help you make you stand out
compared to your peers, because we are able to do this and work with these women over and over and over
again so that the way that they present themselves on paper and the way they present themselves in person
and the way that they are able to talk about their skill sets and transfer them over into new jobs,
our clients are able to get hired. If there are 20 women in the room for the same job or 20 applicants,
our client gets hired every single time.
85% of the women that we serve report that they have been able to find better employment within six
weeks of services. Better employment to us means that we want you to try to be in a job that's $10 more
an hour than what you were getting before with benefits. Majority of the women that we serve are single women.
They are parents. They are grandparents. They are often homeless. 74%, 76% are reporting that they would
like to get their kids out of foster care and out of somebody else's hands. So many of them are situation
where they are leaving situations of domestic violence. There are substance issues. There are incarceration issues.
all the different things that happen to people that we hope don't happen to people in our community.
The difference with these women is their incredible tenacity and their insistence that they are going
to have their kids look at them in a different way so that they can say that they are moving their kids
forward so that their kids see a parent who is working. Our clients want to be able to take care of
their own needs and become
further and further closer to self-sufficiency, and that is what our big goal. We have multiple programs
that we provide like financial wellness, but what we mostly are serving are women that are in the zero
to 30% AMI category.
We, this funding would supply us with the needs to be able to get the basics done to renovate this large
building that is basically two very, very big garage bays that are uninsulated. And with a small office
in the middle, we want to be able to transfer over our boutique that is our self-funding arm of the
organization. Without that self-funding arm, we are not as
funded organization and that is our primary goal to be that.
We are going to move the boutique, the racks, the clothing, and the employees over if we are able to
do this by the end of our lease. If we are not able to do that, then likely our services will go by
the wayside if they do not give us a few more months on our lease to raise some more funds. So that
is our biggest objective. We fulfill many of the things on the consolidated plan and the national objectives.
and I would be so excited to answer any questions about our clients or about our project. Let's open
that up for questions. You briefly mentioned in the application that you're obviously on a very aggressive
timeline. You mentioned that if funding is not secured on that timeline that you might be able to work
out a rental agreement to continue
where you are. I'm just curious to hear a little bit more about that given the way that this funding
rolls out. We are not guaranteed that we will be able to do that. Right now the county has been extremely
generous in forgiving our rent so that we can make our mortgage payments to the new building. If we
you know, need some flexibility, they have let us know that they might be open to that, and we would
discuss that as we get closer to it. In the meantime, we have our very first capital campaign, which
is extremely sexy to say, and we are raising money with a building or foundation for women. And so we
have a gala scheduled, we have other events scheduled in partnership with collaborations with other
nonprofits that we work with. We are going to be able to work with people so that they can figure out
a way to serve. We just recently received a consideration from our architect for a part of his services,
and we got matching funds just last night from 100 women who care to help with that. We are just hearing
from several people that are stepping up there saying they want to help. My understanding is that
My sister's closet has been looking for a space for a while. Is that true? Yes. Yes. At least since
2016. Since 2016. So this isn't you waited until the last moment. Uh-oh, the lease expires, right? You've
been spending a lot of time looking for this space, right? There's a lot of check marks involved in
this decision. Really, it's got to be on the bus line. It's got to be accessible, ADA accessible to
many of our clients that are coming in with disabilities. It's got to be accessible to the women who are
Funding us with their purchases and with their donations. It's got to be able to you know Be able to
have enough space. It's got to be safe We recently got a grant for security systems from the Sophia
Travis grant for the building But there are just lots of things that we need to make sure it would be
able to have but the biggest thing is parking spaces and it has
30 parking spaces, which is really, really wonderful. So everything about it, it's on a corner. It's
very visible. We believe the traffic coming into this building will be at least three times more than
what it is right now at our current location. And because of that, we believe that we will be able to
serve a whole lot more clients coming in with vouchers as a result. And because we are being stressed
right now at our current location with the numbers coming in already, this will be able to help us do that.
have a plan to add on to this building so that it will meet the needs of the space that we already have.
But the new part of the extension will be organized in such a way that it gives the clients much more
dignity. They will have their own entrance. We will have a place for children so that our volunteer
grandmas can work with those kids while the moms are working on their cells. There'll be a changing
area. There'll be a place for women to be able to nurse. There'll be a private bathroom
clients to get ready for jobs if they are coming from a place where they aren't housed we will be making
sure through our spot-in-a-box programming that they walk out feeling like they look presentable and
that again they have high confidence.
Can you talk a little bit more about, it seems like you and your folks working with you have done quite
the hustle on collecting multiple sources of funding. Can you talk a little bit more about some of the
other funding sources that are going to be part of this? We have a gala scheduled on Friday the 13th
at the Old Woolery Mill. We are hoping to invite all kinds of people to that. We have another event,
which will be a dinner theater event.
the Country Club and that is scheduled April 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th. That is in cooperation with
the Bloomington Symphony Orchestra. We're still working out the details with that. It will be on similar
to what the Cardinal stage production was that we partnered with called Love Loss and What I Wore and
we will have some of our incredible VIP women up on stage reading a Maya Angelou quote. We are going
We have several grants on our wall. We have a grant wall that's gotten pretty big recently and it's
got several different objectives and reaching out to the United Way for matching funds and for the Lilly
Foundation and for several of our other local foundations and family funds. Can you talk a little bit
about your support for trans women as part of my sister's closet?
We have a number of women that have come in over the years from our trans community and we are able
to help them in multiple ways. They get the same care and the same type of
really hands-on love that all the other women come in to our organization, meaning that if they do not
have clothing on the floor, we have other clothing in the back room specifically to meet their skeleton,
you know, because their needs are different. Some shoes have been put away that are definitely larger,
but we try to help them with hygiene, with makeup, with the interview skills training,
confidence building. We recently had one of our trans clients that we enrolled in the Excel Center and
we were with this person for quite a while because they did not have any typing skills at all getting
them through the process where they were being
logged on to the Excel system for the very first time. But we've had some wonderful experiences and
they keep coming back and they keep supporting us after they get employed and telling us about all their
success. Just like these other women, we have a unique situation that happens at my sister's closet
because you have a team that is working with you when you start. And this one's getting you undergarments
because most women do not own undergarments, underwear, bras when they come in.
This one is doing that. Another person is getting you shoes. Another person is working with you on a
resume. Another person is doing an intake to find out what your other needs are so that this isn't the
only place you stop at if you don't have ID, if you don't have food, if you don't have a safe place
for your children to sleep. It's a whole team that comes out to help you with the things that we are
trying to get you to do. And trans women get that same team.
When you meet with job success, these women walk into my sister's closet and they do something very
extraordinary. They see these women who are shopping, they see these women who are volunteering, women
who are staffed that maybe they haven't even met in their other appointments. And they walk in and they
raise their arms up in the air and they say, I just got a job. And women come in from everywhere they
are at. And they surround these women and they pat them on the back and they shake their hands and they
want to know every detail about this new job they just secured.
and it's this network that just keeps on empowering them and feeding them and reinforcing the fact that
they're not alone and we try to help them stay in touch with us with this network over and over and
over again so that they move away from the negative networks and we become their team so that they keep
on succeeding. So it looks like from the AMI numbers that you provided
So you have about 420 folks, all of them under AMI level of 50 percent, with 320 of those under the
level of 30 percent, is that correct? Yeah, most of them are zero to 30 percent. Yeah. Yeah, occasionally
when we come in at risk circumstances, they may actually have access to
Cars they they may have jobs somewhere else, but they're fleeing a situation of domestic violence They
we have had women come in from storm situations recently someone who came in from some flooding in in
Maine We've had women come in from all kinds of different situations like the storms in South Carolina
and Florida and the fires and you know the West Coast things happen to all of us you could get sick and
Your life is good, but then something unexpected happens to one of your parents and a family member,
and you are leaving your other job, and now you are helping them. So it's not everybody who is in a
homeless situation or in a desperate situation of multi-generational poverty, but it is all women coming
to us for the same reasons, because they need the support. Maybe not all in the same way, but whatever
it is that they need, we make sure that they get it.
amount of funding that you would need in order to avoid a gap in client services? Well, we believe that
we are going to try to raise the entire $285,000 with gifts and kind and fundraisers and grants like
yours. If we have to do it
A little bit at a time, we have talked about possibly opening up just part of the building at a time
and trying to figure it out so that we absolutely don't have to completely close off the services. But
we're trying to approach that one step at a time. Yes. All right. Any other questions from those from
the commission? Hearing none, we'll open it to the public and those online.
None. Thank you. All right. And thank you again for letting me be here today. So excited. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Before we move to general discussion, I think just because it says end public hearing,
I'll entertain a motion to end the public hearing. So moved. Second. You have a first, second by Randy.
All those in favor?
Aye. Aye. As of guest, the motion is passed. The hearing is closed at 6.26 PM. And I will yield to Matt
for initiating what's the next step. If anybody has any questions about the rest of the process or anything
that we've done so far, feel free to ask. We can discuss and answer any questions that you might have.
So maybe just a quick question here is for those since we're on television, even though they thought
maybe what's the next step so that people are aware? So the next thing is you guys are going to do the
very hard part of the whole thing is figure out what your allocations are going to be based
on our guesstimation of funds. I will say it is a little bit better this year. We don't have quite.
The huge ass that we usually do, we usually have more than double what our estimated amount is. So that'll
be a little bit better, but it'll still be some very hard decisions. So you guys will make your allocations
and turn them into me. And then our next meeting will be to go over the allocations and finalize them.
So. I'm sorry, Michael. Go ahead. So the idea that I was going with is we were kind of targeting 500,000.
as the like what we would probably have because it looks like our ask total from everybody if we if
we funded everything is yes it's 40 million right right so yeah whatever I whatever the final number
was that I put on the allocation sheets that I sent you was five something I think it was 505 okay something
like that yeah so the idea is we need to turn in our suggested allocations before the next meeting and
then at that next meeting we'll talk about that as a group yeah yeah the
The calendar that I sent you guys has their due noon of the day of the meeting. Yeah. You want it back
in our spreadsheets that you sent us? Yeah. So if you guys send it back in the spreadsheets, then I'll
take everybody's spreadsheets and put them onto one large one that will average everything out so you
guys can kind of see where you guys fell all together.
Yeah, then we'll kind of go through line by line and try to get it nailed down. Or you guys will.
I just help. Wherever you need it. For those of us that are comfortable working with Google Sheets,
I sent out a link that has a calculator. So we have all the different components. That was really nice.
Yes or no, you can talk. I just had an unrelated question. I come from Minnesota, and I'm hearing every
day what happens in Minnesota.
work in Indiana, but in Minnesota, of all your insurance premiums, a certain amount goes into DOLA,
or Department of Labor and Industry, and Minnesota has a state-peak grant that runs through OSHA.
And as a city minister, I've been very successful in getting OSHA grants to put electric key card access
for my city house. And I don't know if Indiana has any similar program, but if they do or something
like that, that would be worth your share to our groups as well, because I do know that
We know when you put in new systems, there's always things that come up. Oh, we didn't realize that
the computer now doesn't talk to the new system. So we need to upgrade and purchase a new computer,
or there's key pops and ongoing meetings. And so something that maybe to see if your staff could look
to see if Indiana has a similar program. Well, OK, so any other further questions from the committee?
Yeah, I do have, maybe I should have asked when my sister's closet was here. And without wanting to
get too far into the weeds, if we granted them, if this goes all the way and we granted them something,
your calendar said that money isn't going to get cleared until June, which is when they need to be there
and not factoring in a government shutdown.
spend money in May and then get it reimbursed with a grant that was just released in June? It doesn't
smell. There's a lot of very intricate timeline pieces to that. I know. So if everything would fall
into place, even before we get our money and before we even have agreements in place,
there would be a possibility for them to get reimbursement starting June 1st, which is the start of
our program year. But that would mean that they would have to have all the environmental review stuff
done and completed and approved by HUD before that. And if that happens, then we would be able to reimburse
back to then. But we would still be tied to we can't actually give them money until we have the grant
in our possession.
Now, I have- In the best possible scenario, the reimbursement would be somewhat delayed, or? Right.
I mean, we typically don't give money until September or later. So I have talked with them about that
situation. And basically, all this other fundraising that they're doing, they would try to front end that.
and do whatever they could to maintain themselves until they got that. And basically, I just tried to
explain to them that they have to maintain kind of a standalone project that they haven't started. Because
if they started before that, that's a choice-limiting action, which
then negates their eligibility. So we've been in talks about it, and we're going to continue to be in
talks about it so that they can maintain their eligibility and plan for a project to use the money for.
Because they're going to have plenty to do. Obviously, their biggest initial need is getting in there
in a timely manner. That's probably not going to be what this is going to be used for, but it may be
for the development of their add-on for the extra services.
separated out as a different project or something? Yeah. So the way that I view this, taking from what
you had said earlier in the previous meeting, anything that we're looking at, we should assume we're
making the yes, no, the incremental decisions on these. But these are all serviceable agencies within
the window. They will ostensibly meet the criteria. They may be shuffled around a little bit.
We're not looking at it from a feasibility, from a timing perspective. We're looking at it from the
feasibility of the information they've provided. Is that correct? Yeah. So I basically vet the applications
before they get to you guys. So if I see situations like this, then I reach out to them and talk to
them and make sure that they understand you're not going to get this money by the end of the year. Because
we've had people come in with that assumption.
So you have to plan out, you have to be able for this project to wait. And I make sure that they understand
that. So we try to make sure that there's no surprises and people are all on the same page. And say
for my sister's closet, those folks have been coming to CDBG for physical improvements for decades.
Yeah. I mean, they were here when I worked there in the 90s. Yeah, most of the people.
have a very good understanding of how this works. I mean, you get change over in personnel, and you
have to kind of start over. But they usually have some institutional knowledge of this is a good opportunity
for funding, but it's not going to be immediate. No. And it's a great avenue to demonstrate local support
for other grants and things like that, too. So of course, they're going to be back. Yes. All right.
Any other questions from the board?
I'm not from the commission, but I do have a question. So for anyone who's not aware, I'm an IU student,
and I'm just interested in this process. And Matt was kind enough to let me join. Mitch asked,
so thank you. I have access to the review portal, but I'm guessing those won't be taken into consideration.
You're not going to be a voting member. That's what I assumed. But you're welcome to.
go through the entire process, do the scoring, and participate in discussions. But yeah, you're on it.
You're auditing the committee. Just a little clarified, how about that? Yeah. All right. Well, having
appreciated your interest. Thank you very much. If there's here no further questions, I would entertain
a motion to adjourn with the next meeting being? This is the 13th, I believe. Next Thursday. Next Thursday.
I so motion. I second. All right we got a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All
those against say nay. Motion to adjourn has been approved at 6 36 p.m. Thank you.