- And we are right at 5.30. I'd like to thank everybody for being here, for attending this as we get ready
- to start the CDBG 2026 Funding Round tonight. Of course, we're gonna hear some presentations from all
- the applicant agencies, but before we do that, I'd like to take roll call. So if we can go around and
- have the committee members give your name, get this started.
- start with, or well, actually we'll start here. Steve Bishop. I'm Janet Welch. Paul Jonesons.
- Courtney Daly. Terri Anderson. Carl Greiser. And Terri Anderson. Thank you all. Just introducing this,
- like I said, we'll be hearing presentations this evening for
- the 11 applicant agencies that we have this year. It is anticipated that we will probably have around
- $117,000 to allocate for the CDBG 2026 funding year. Unfortunately, only 15% of the CDBG funding that
- we receive can actually go towards social services. And moving into the
- kind of overview of it. CDBG is used for the benefit of low to moderate income individuals who are at
- 80% or less of the area median income as determined for the Bloomington metro area as established by
- HUD yearly. Tonight, we will be hearing, like I said, 11 different presentations. Each will be no longer
- than five minutes. I will be keeping time. Each agency will be given a
- kind of nudge with one minute left to go, just noting that their time is close to being over. And I
- will ask that with the open seat that we possibly have up here as you're presenting, if you can come
- up here just to get closer to our microphone, the owls, so that way those online can hear as well, and
- for reporting purposes that we're able to get you there. But I will start the timer whenever you begin
- your presentation.
- We'll move on from there. The order of presenters is also here on the agenda that has been printed out
- and is available. But from here, I would like to let our committee chair, Ms. Janet Welch, take over
- and we can begin the presentations. Okay. Well, let's get started. Is someone here from Beacon House?
- This is Amy Kendall. I'm from Beacon.
- Yes, you have five minutes. Okay. My name is Amy Kendall and I'm the development director at Beacon.
- Thank you so much for having me here tonight.
- Beacon is a solutions-driven anti-poverty organization dedicated to aiding and empowering people experiencing
- extreme poverty, especially hunger and homelessness. Our six programs address issues ranging from the
- first crisis that threatens homelessness to finding housing solutions for people who have experienced
- homelessness for years. We are the largest nonprofit housing provider in Monroe County.
- and in 2024, we housed or prevented homelessness for 683 people. We are respectfully requesting $25,000
- in funding to support the operations of Beacon's Overnight Shelter, Friends Place. Friends Place is
- a 40-bed emergency shelter for people experiencing homelessness. Last year, we served 269 people for
- 14,210 bed nights.
- Perhaps the most important thing about the shelter is that it is the largest emergency shelter for women
- in our community. Approximately 90% of our guests are currently women. Other vital things about Friends
- Place are that we prioritize Monroe County residents, ensuring that a resident can always receive a
- bed. We also prioritize people fleeing domestic violence.
- Although we are the third nonprofit to run it all together, Friends Place is the longest running emergency
- shelter for people experiencing homelessness in Bloomington. It's also the only local year round emergency
- shelter for adults without a religious mission other than the care of its guests.
- Friends Place provides casework to its guests to help them find permanent homes. We believe in finding
- permanent solutions to homelessness, and our average stay last year was approximately 60 days, while
- over 50% exited to permanent housing. We also are active with the Heading Home collaboration, and as
- recommended, a housing first shelter, meaning our first priority is to help people find and stabilize
- in permanent housing as quickly as possible.
- In addition, we were a contributor to the Housing Action Plan to end street homelessness, and we fully
- support this plan. Homelessness is consistently rated as one of the biggest challenges for our city.
- In fact, on any given night in Bloomington, 305 people are experiencing homelessness, 63% of which are
- adults without children in their care.
- Given the unique support the service provides to our community, CDBG social services funding for Friends
- Place is an essential fit. As to partial funding, we recognize that partial funding is the common practice
- for this grant, that every dollar below full funding has to then go into other avenues to make up that
- money, leading us to put more time and money into fundraising.
- And if that becomes not possible, we would have to look at reducing hours of the shelter or case management
- support for housing. Friends Place is an important resource in our community that helps people get back
- on their feet. One of our former Friends Place clients, who is now housed, she's in school, and she
- is stably employed, said about this program.
- I just have so much gratitude. It helped me as a stepping stone to be able to get where I am. I grew
- a lot as a person and it enriched my life. I learned a lot about myself. I would just like to say thank
- you. And from me, I appreciate your time and consideration and now would like to open it up for questions.
- I have a question.
- Is the grant designed to replace funding from another source that is going away or that you're not expecting
- to receive or is it just new funding for this program? We've received this funding in the past and it
- is part of our hoped friends place budget, normal budget. It's not replacing funding that has gone away.
- There's one question, let me say, I won't say this one time, not to each person presenting tonight.
- Thank you for your organization services and thank you for your time to present and your organization's
- work to put a proposal together. So I'll say that one time and now repeat myself, but appreciate it
- all. One question about the
- seeking permanent housing for those of them friends, house residents. And your numbers look good in
- the proposal. You vet your benchmarks, apparently, of what I can see and all that. I'm curious what
- you learn about follow-up, about people who are successfully transitioned to permanent housing. How
- does that last? And what have you learned from whatever day you have about that and how you help people,
- new folks who are coming in, seek that transition successfully?
- Yeah, that's a great question. I would say that we know that going through certain channels, working
- with certain partnerships work. So whether that be helping someone get Section 8 vouchers or getting
- them in touch with permanent supportive housing or rapid rehousing, we know that these are programs
- that work and we've seen success in those. So we've got
- established partners, rapid rehousing, a permanent supportive housing being two of Beacon's other programs.
- We have these relationships where we find that based on casework and how the caseworkers get to know
- each individual client, understanding that everyone's unique, we get to know their specific situation
- and determine which path and which assistance is most suitable for them.
- Are there any other questions? If you have anything else you wish to say, I don't know how much time
- we have left. If any members of the public are also here, we also provide an opportunity for public
- comment. Okay, are there members of the public here that would like to give public comment at this time?
- Seeing none.
- we're able to move on. Yes. Uh, the next part next of applicants on the list is the community kitchen.
- You want me to go to the beer cup? All right. My name is Vicki. I'm the executive director of community
- kitchen. We appreciate the opportunity to be here this evening. We are the largest provider of free
- meals in the community.
- We provided 302,900 meals and snacks last year to folks in our community. 58% of those folks were children,
- 9% were seniors and 11% were experiencing homelessness at some point the previous six months. So really
- our focus groups are the most vulnerable in our community while our doors are open six days a week to
- anyone in need. So we have our Roger Street location, excuse me, it's a sit down facility.
- our express location, which is carry out. And then we have a mobile food truck that's out six days a
- week. Three of those days is here in the city neighborhoods that folks have more trouble accessing our
- services. And then we have outreach programs for children in particular and seniors folks who are chronically
- ill. We feed friends place every day and have our, yeah, have a couple of other programs that we provide as well.
- You know, what we're seeing right now is, of course, already some increases that we're being told by
- clients are because their SNAP benefits aren't coming. And so, you know, we're sort of bracing for that.
- You know, the community's been really responsive so far with a lot of extra food for us, which has been
- great. I know Julia and Jake have been working on getting some additional food through the food bank
- into the community so that we can meet those needs as they come in.
- But that's really what our focus has been right now. We've received CDBG funding for years and appreciate
- that support. We don't get a whole lot of government support. And so all of that that we are able to
- acquire, we really appreciate it. It's a part of our funding model. I could talk all day or I could
- stop talking now and find out if you have questions. That's a lot of people.
- It is a lot of meals. So what is the cost per meals when we break it down? So our cost last year per
- meal cash cost was $3.69. Yeah. And it was honestly, it stayed under or right at $2 for years. And then,
- you know, food prices started shooting up when gas prices did several years ago and then just not gone
- back down. And so we've seen those costs continue to increase. Were you going to say something, medical?
- I thought you had a question. Sorry, I thought your finger was up. Oh, no, I will add one if no one
- else has. Go ahead. Well, you've been in existence for a while. Yes. 43rd. Yes. Yeah. So congratulations.
- Of course, I know small matter survival. Right. And so I looked at some of the data from some of what
- you've learned, the benchmarks and all. In addition to some immediate things like SNAP and such, what
- are the trends? What do you see?
- Just I'm curious what, where you sit, where your organization sits, find responsibility and purposes.
- Yeah. Relating particularly to the grant and the application and all that. Yeah. It's only a big picture
- of the universe, but. So, you know, I've been at the kitchen for 21 years, so I could tell you all kinds
- of things that I've seen. But one of the things that
- Uh, some of the things that have been most sort of impactful big trends that we've seen is that when
- we moved, uh, 14 years ago, one of the things that we had been seeing for a couple of years and saw
- definitely for five or six years after that was more families with children coming to our facility.
- Um, and so our current facility that we've been in 14 years, you know, people still called our new facility.
- Um, it has a family dining room for folks.
- who come as a family to be able to sit at a round table instead of a banquet table with strangers. The
- thing that we've seen obviously over the last six or eight years is more folks with mental health issues
- and substance abuse issues and just folks who are trying to manage that. That's a multifaceted complicated
- issue for obviously each individual person. We're just aware of the fact that folks have to eat every day and
- You know, we want to, for a lot of folks, we are really sort of part of their best plan for survival
- and managing other things. We do see a good number of seniors in our dining room every night. And for
- those folks in particular, they're on fixed income and we are part of their best plan. They can save
- some money by eating with us and get a healthier meal, a more robust meal too, and then be able to have
- more money for utility bills or
- medications or whatever they need. I'm not sure that completely answered your question, but that's what
- I'm throwing out there. What you have to say is what's the answer. Okay. I know there's a bus stop here.
- Right in front. Yeah. Right near it. Is that how long people get here is using the bus? It's been a
- handful of years since we asked people how they got there. There are a good number of people who come
- on foot. A bunch of them come on the bus, some of them drive, and some of them bike.
- And there's a good mix of all of those. But yeah, we get a significant number of folks who write to
- us. Anything else? Well, thank you for your time. Thank you. Do you need to ask the public?
- All my colleagues. Yeah, I'm just going to ask you those questions. Thank you. Thank you.
- Our next presentation comes from the Boys and Girls Club. Thanks for letting me slide in. I was coming
- from downstairs with the physical improvement presentation, so happy to be up here now. Thank you all
- for your work. Thanks for doing this work. I know it's a lot to look at and to read about and to sift
- through, but we really appreciate it. We appreciate the funding provided by CBPG over the years to the clubs.
- I'm just telling you a little bit about our organization with Boys and Girls Clubs of Bloomington. Been
- around 70 years as of next year.
- We're serving our highest number of kids ever. So we have about 700 kids a day in our buildings, more
- kids than ever before that we have seen, and we're continuing to grow. Usually we plateau about this
- time of year, but our attendance just keeps going up and up and up. We still have kids registering and
- coming to us. So the need is there, and funding like this helps us to meet that need. So we charge $20
- a year to be a member of the club. They can come every single day for 20 bucks.
- We rely on community donations to make up the difference. It certainly does not cost us $20 a year to
- provide that programming. We have a lot of parents that do donate, so if they can give more, families
- do cover more of the true cost of their kids. For example, my kids go and I cover the cost of my kids
- and two other ones, right? There are a lot of families that do that, but majority of our families really
- can't do a whole lot more than that. And so that's really who we're there to serve. Our mission says
- we're there to serve the kids who need us most. And those are the kids who need us most. And so we charge
- the $20 a year
- If families have five or six kids and that feels like a burden to them, we also let them make payments
- and those kinds of things as well. We'll scholarship them if we need to and cover at least half the
- cost. We want them to have some skin in the game, but not much, some of them. And so we're able to do
- that again because of funding from CDBG. The Crestmont Club specifically is what we're asking for funding
- for tonight. That is our highest need club. So over 80% of our kids that come to the Crestmont Club
- are on free and reduced lunch.
- About 68% of them are from single parent households or non-parent households. They're living with a
- relative or in a foster family, things like that. We provide snacks, thanks to Community Kitchen and
- Vujo's Food Bank partnerships, and we provide meals to the Cresmont Club as well, and then a safe place
- to be until seven o'clock at night.
- We bus the kids from the club or from school to the club. So the parents don't have to worry about how
- their kid is gonna get to the club after school. And then we're open all summer long. So parents still
- work in the summer, even though kids are off. And so from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. kids are at the club all
- summer long as well. And so funding from CDBG helps us to support staffing at that location to keep
- kids safe. We have to keep adult to kid ratios appropriate as according to the law of the state of Indiana.
- And so really staffing and facilities are our biggest costs.
- downstairs talking about facilities and now I'm upstairs talking about staffing. So that's really the
- request for today and thank you so much for hearing it and I'd love to take any questions. Yeah. How
- many locations are there? We have four locations. We have three in Monroe County and two in Bloomington.
- So one at the Lincoln Street location and then the Ferguson Prescott location is in the next neighborhood.
- Just a membership is interesting for all organizations. I think that by, I just read, I haven't read
- for scoring yet. I've read from the beginning. I think, I think it's something like 536 members. I think
- it was there. There was a benchmark or goal for the 25, 26 school year to increase by 10%. I'm less
- interested in exactly where you are.
- What are you learning about membership? Why did people join? And how does that relate to your grant
- application or application response? Yeah, and that's a great question. I think people join because
- it's the most affordable child care for after school care in town. I think we provide high quality programs.
- We built trust in the community. I think people trust the Boys and Girls Club and they feel like their
- kids are safe after school, as opposed to having them go home alone.
- If you could guess, what's the time of day where there's the highest juvenile crime in the community?
- You have to guess.
- Right after school. Oh, right after school. Yeah. So after school until it gets dark. So we love just
- keeping kids occupied, right? I mean, there's kids get in trouble for lots of reasons. Most of the time
- they're just bored, honestly, and looking for something to do. And so we engage with kids. We give them
- leadership opportunities. We help them to feel like they have a purpose and they're having fun after
- school. They're learning. They sometimes don't know it. I was tutoring a kid the other day and he goes,
- we didn't even learn anything today. And I was like, ah, that's a good tutoring session. He didn't even
- know I was teaching him today. We were playing games.
- and he was learning math and he didn't even realize it. So that's, I think parents love that, that we
- are doing things with their kids that keep them engaged and it's 20 bucks a year. I hear parents all
- the time like, oh, it's a no brainer. Of course I can send my kid for 20 bucks a year somewhere instead
- of sending them home by themselves. So I think that's really what drives membership for us is, and word
- of mouth is our biggest reason people sign up is they know another family or their kids talked about
- it or their friends go to the club or they trust a family that told them about it.
- Yeah. Great question. We'd love to serve more. We have space in that building to serve more kids. So
- we could fit more kids in. Yeah. I noticed that you have 500 members in the Crestmont area, but you
- typically only have about 100 of them at the club each day. Correct. Yeah. Is there some
- Some ways to increase that or yeah, you have any plans for trying to increase that. Yeah, it's a good
- question. Are we it's a drop in program. So they the nature of it is that they can come when they need
- to. We talk about regularly attending members and we're always trying to get that regularly attending
- member number up a little bit that percentage of people who come every day.
- versus our registered members. Some of that's kids play sports after school. They have other stuff going
- on. Their parents are home early on those Tuesdays and Thursdays or whatever it is. But yeah, I think
- we're always looking at ways to get kids engaged. A lot of times it's what programs are running that
- day. So if they like, maybe they're taking violin lessons at the club and violin lessons are Monday,
- Wednesday, Friday. So they come Monday, Wednesday, Friday. So what can we do to draw them in on Tuesdays
- and Thursdays? And so it's kind of playing with that mix of programming and trying to understand what
- gets kids to want
- be there especially the older they get when parents feel more comfortable leaving them at home then
- we really have to entice them to want to come because they really need us then too. They don't know
- it as much but they really do need us then too so that's a good question. We're always working on it.
- I know you said that the hours in the summertime is 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Do you notice an increase or decrease
- during the summertime? Yeah we have less kids in the summer but they come more often.
- So it's more regularly coming in the summertime. But there are kids that go on vacation, or they go
- to grandma and grandpa's, or they're staying with friends. I mean, kids are kind of all over the place
- in the summer. Maybe they're doing a summer camp, something like that. So fewer kids, about 500 kids
- a day in the summer, as opposed to 700 kids a day in the school year. But they come more regularly in
- the summer. Yeah, the ones that come most days. It's a good question.
- You said you're experiencing a lot of growth in your membership that you typically don't see at this
- time of the year. Are you seeing a shift in the demographics of people who are joining as members with
- increased growth, or are you just seeing a larger population of the same groups of people? I think it's,
- you know, I don't know, honestly. That's a good, I think, thing for us to look at, a data point for
- us to look at. I think it's just more people understanding that the club is for them.
- Anecdotally, that's what I think is that it's not just for the kids who need it most, but it's for all
- kids it's available to. And so I think post pandemic, people are coming sort of a little bit away from
- working at home as much and they're going back into offices and those kinds of things. And maybe they're
- realizing like, oh, I can send my kids to the club. So that's anecdotally my answer, but it would be
- a good data point to look at.
- It's interesting to know if maybe it's a utilization of certain demographic in the segments of Bloomington
- that was utilized for certain reasons or and it's obviously there's a lot of data points right now at
- the point to why you have increased membership. So it would just be interesting to know what
- what's kind of driving that and what kind of services those people utilize in relative to your tip for
- all of like, for sure. That would be, I think, I always think the lower, the less money you spend on
- us, if I will say that, we need to drive our costs down, not up, because they need groceries, they need
- to pay utilities, they need to pay rent, they need to pay bus fare. Like we don't want them to be paying
- us for those services. So that's why we have community support to make that happen. And I think that
- we provide that relief in that way to help free up resources for them to spend on other things. Yeah.
- Are there any comments from the public that want to be made at this time? Thank you very much.
- Thank you. I appreciate some of you. The next one on the list is courage to change sober living. Hi.
- My name is Marilyn Grimes, and I'm the executive director and co-founder of Courage to Change Sober
- Living. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today and to share the mission and work of our
- organization. At Courage to Change Sober Living, we are dedicated to supporting individuals on their
- journey to recovery and empowering them to build healthy, fulfilling lives.
- When courage to change began, it was after I had gone through the struggles of substance misuse. I was
- working at New Leaf New Life and working with people coming out of jail. The main problem that I could
- identify was those being released from jail that had nowhere to go. Our goal is to give people a safe
- place to live and to learn new habits and live with others with the same goal. We are asking for your
- support in granting
- us money for the salaries of our three case managers. As a level two certified recovery resident, we
- are required to have case managers. We also know that they are vital to the work we do. Funding from
- CDBG will help to pay part of their salaries. One of our main goals is to facilitate those that have
- struggled with substance misuse and are unhoused in our community.
- These are individuals who are involved in the legal system or who have gone to rehab facility. Most
- of our potential clients have nowhere to reside after leaving jail or rehab. Their substance misuse
- has created many obstacles to housing. One of the most important aspects of successful recovery is to
- have a place to live.
- At Courage to Change, we provide a safe place to live with oversight by our case managers. Our case
- managers work 25 hours a week, but are on call to our clients 24-7. They play an important role in the
- lives of those residing in our houses. Our case managers do weekly house meetings with
- our clients to go over their concerns and help them in setting goals. They also do drug screening and
- oversee the guidelines of our houses. These include being good neighbors, doing chores necessary to
- keep the house in good order. They oversee the curfews and monitor the 12 step meetings our clients
- must attend. Without case managers, our clients would not have the direction needed to stay on target
- to meet their goals.
- Courage to change also impacts the housing issue. And we also impact the recidivism rate. Our clients
- have an 85% rate of not returning to the legal system. And we also, we let our clients stay for a year.
- And if it gets to the point we're at a year, if we can't find housing for them,
- and they've been looking and they can't find anything, we will lengthen that time so that they don't
- just, our goal is to get them into another place so that they can have success. And so we let them stay
- with us throughout that time of being able to find a place to live. So that's courage to change. Thank
- you for your time. If you have questions, happy to answer them.
- How many houses do you currently have? We have five houses. And how many people are in each house? Well,
- the most we have is eight, two house. Our clients share bedrooms, and the reason we do that is because
- we try to set a community, and isolation is part of substance misuse. And so we don't want isolation, so we
- put them together. We have one house that has five, but all four other houses can hold eight people
- and we have, we always have enough room. We're under the guidelines of the state recovery works. And
- so they do, and they have guidelines that are really stricter than hand as far as the amount of room
- they have and how we set it up, you know, for our clients. So it's, it's comfortable and safe.
- Do the case managers live in the houses or do they come to the houses to do the case management? They
- do not live in the houses. They do go to the houses. They're in communication with the clients on the
- regular. My women's case manager, they keep a group Facebook chat going all the time. So they're always
- communicating. But they do not live there.
- I heard you say that 12-step programs are mandatory. I'm sorry? 12-step programs are mandatory for your
- residents? Yes, they are. When you're in the legal system, if you're on probation or parole, a lot of
- times they'll put those stipulations on them. But for us, Bloomington's got a really strong recovery
- community.
- And 12-step meetings is a part of that. And so we feel that it's important that they attend. So they're
- required three meetings a week. OK, three meetings a week. Uh-huh. All right, thank you. How many people
- are usually assigned to one case manager?
- Oh, we have, okay, so our women's case manager has 13 clients and we have one men's case manager that
- right now has 16 and then our other one has eight. We'd like to get one more house so that he can have 16.
- We do have cameras in our houses in the common areas. So we have curfews and we also have. It's called
- one step and it's an app where you actually have to. Basically it has a GPS on it, not that we want
- to locate him all the time, but we want to know when they came in and because we do have curfews. And
- then also you can monitor that they've been at the 12 step meeting because all of our meetings are on
- And they can check in at a meeting and then check out when they leave. So we, we do have a good amount
- of oversight. You noticed you mentioned that your case managers are on call 24 7.
- Does this mean that they work extra hours that they don't actually get paid for, or is that included
- in their 24 hours, 25 hours? Yeah, I'm the executive director, so my phone is always 24 seven. So we
- try and get them to, if something really is going on that I can help them, then they can call me. But
- for the other part,
- When people are first in recovery, they need that little extra help. So the hours, I would say 25 hours
- does cover that because it's not a constant 20, you know, people are not reaching out to them constantly
- during that time. But they do know that if they need something, there's someone that is there for them.
- any comments or questions from the public? Okay, thank you very much. Thank you very much for letting
- us put the grant in. Bye. And the next applicant on the list is Hoosier Hills Blue Bay.
- I'm Julio Alonso. I'm executive director of Vigilance Food Bank. I'm here with our associate director,
- Jake Bruner. And we appreciate the opportunity to speak with you tonight in your consideration and have
- support of the Food Bank's HCDBG funding. We are in the business of collecting and distributing food.
- We collect and distribute about 5.8 million pounds of food each year and distribute that through direct
- service programs.
- and through a network of about 84 partner agencies in six counties, including six of the 10 other agencies
- on the list tonight and work very closely with them. What we are seeking support for from CDBG is our
- oldest program and essentially the genesis of what we are, our local food collection and distribution route.
- We started as and are in essence a food rescue organization. We collect food from places that have excess
- that might otherwise be wasted. And we get that food out through those systems, through our direct service
- programs and our agencies to people in need. This program works with about a dozen donors on a regular
- basis. Our driver goes out every day.
- and collects food from primarily retailers, and then takes that food and distributes it to five agencies
- within the city of Wilmington. Some of that food also makes its way to other agencies like Pantry 279
- that are located in the city, but serve a lot of city residents.
- Our goal really is to support the agencies that we work with so that they can have food for their programs
- and they can then focus on their programs. It's kind of like what they're doing and we do with direct
- service for the individuals that are being served.
- taking food off the table sort of as an issue so that they have that and they can then focus on other
- aspects of their life and have enough money for medicine and childcare and rent and things like that.
- Being sufficiently fed enough to be healthy and to be able to be active and
- successful in the community. The food that we collect from this kind of process to rescue is supplemented
- in a number of ways. We also receive food through USDA commodity programs from the federal government.
- We do community food drives where community food drives are done for us. We grow food in our garden
- and garden program and we purchase food from local farmers, from
- from wholesalers and from partnerships with Feeding America, the National Food Bank Network. So essentially
- pull this food from every corner that we can get and get it out to those agencies and our neighbors
- through our direct service programs. We've been around
- for a little over 40 years, and again, have appreciated the support that you've shown us. It is a very
- difficult time for us right now. Hopefully, this funding will not impact the shutdown, because the shutdown
- won't last into the next twisting year when this one starts, but the shutdown is having an enormous
- impact on the supplemental food assistance network right now, so to challenging time.
- With that, I would be more than happy to answer any questions you might have. I don't have a question,
- but when I went through your proposal, I was, to be honest with you, astounded by the cost per unit
- of service. I want to tell everybody what that is.
- I think it was pretty well. Yeah, sure. I think we indicated 19 cents as our cost per unit of service
- here. I just couldn't, when I saw that, I was just, really, I have to compliment you. That is just amazing.
- Well, thank you. But I mean, that is a testament to
- to the kind of organization we are and the support that we receive from the community, a great deal
- of the food that comes in is donated food. So that really helps us to keep the cost down, even though
- purchasing directly has become a significantly more important source of food for us. In the last year,
- what has that cost gone up? And obviously we all know the grocery food is getting more expensive. So
- how much has your cost gone up?
- than the last kind of purchasing food? That's difficult to say because our purchasing food is really
- driven by the amount of support we can raise to do that. So the costs for the items that we buy is definitely
- increased.
- Unfortunately, I don't think I can give you a specific percentage or number, but all food is costing
- more, I can definitely tell you that, even when you're buying it in volume like we are. Thank you. What
- effects have you noticed that the shutdown is having on the organization? Aside from not getting any
- sleep for the last two and a half weeks, it's having a big impact. We are already seeing significant
- significantly higher numbers of folks at our mobile pantries and hearing from our partner agencies that
- they're seeing a lot of increased traffic. I believe the fifth, which I think was Tuesday, maybe was
- the first day that in Indiana SNAP beneficiaries did not receive their benefits. But even in the week
- or so prior to that, because of all the
- the press that this has gotten, people were preparing for the fact that they will be getting their benefits.
- So they're getting out to food pantries ahead of that so that they can get food into their houses and
- stored up. We do one of the distributions we do is at Limestone Square here in Bloomington. We did that
- one last night and it served 148,
- households compared to 90 households the month prior. So we're already seeing the numbers increase
- significantly. Thank you for the work.
- It seems to me you're not just going to pick up and do delivery business. It's collaboration across
- the board. I'm curious. You get a lot of moving parts. But I'm curious, in terms of the program for
- which funds are being sought, how are these funds supportive of the relationship, Bill and my partner?
- You're there. How do you say it? To make it pure, most effectively. They absolutely are supportive of that.
- Collaboration is the nature of what we do. We, you know, we do some direct service programs like that
- mobile pantry.
- that I was just talking about, but the majority of the work we do is providing food to those partner
- agencies, to food pantries, to kitchens, to shelters, to boys and girls clubs, giving them the food
- that they need, not 100% of it, obviously, but as much as we possibly can so that they don't have to
- worry about that as much and can focus on the programs that they're doing, whether it's providing meals
- or providing youth programming or whatever the case might be.
- Everything we do really is collaborative. And our goal is always to bring in more food to support these
- agencies and to support them with the type of food that they need to the best degree that we can. That's
- where purchasing becomes more important because with donations, obviously, we're very grateful for whatever
- we get, but you can't control nutritional content or quality or quantity just based on donations. And
- that's what purchasing is important because it allows us that kind of
- of flexibility. Hi, Michelle Gilprest here. First of all, thank you for the work that you're doing.
- I know food banks across the country are struggling and for, you know, even though it's hard for you
- locally, it's great to see the community come around you as an organization and provide the resources
- My question is more on the impact. I think it's very important that we continue to sustain this particular
- program for what it does for the community. What impact has the loss of funding? Not necessarily the
- shutdown, but a lot of food banks depend on federal funding to be able to provide the resources and
- services that it provides. How dependent has your organization been
- and what financial impact has that had? Sure. Well, last year, for example, about 25% of the food that
- we distributed overall came through federal government sources. It was federal commodities. We saw a
- significant cut to that earlier this year when one of those programs, the Commodity Credit Corporation,
- program was terminated, that food and funding was coming through us through the TFAP program, which
- is sort of the bread and butter, the Emergency Food Assistance Program. That's where most of the commodities
- that were even distributed out to agencies comes through. So we lost about 9% of our food when that
- program ended. In terms of funding,
- Most of those programs come with some administrative funding. We haven't really yet determined the impact
- of that. Any funding that came with CCC is gone, of course, but everything is up in the air right now
- with the shutdown until the federal budget gets through. And so what we're facing right now is that
- For that program, for example, food that's been ordered and paid for through November will still be
- delivered, so we're still receiving shipments of that, but they're not making any more purchases going
- forward. If the shutdown goes on much longer, we're going to run into lags due to supply chain issues.
- Those orders have to be placed well in advance to get them out to the states and then out to the food banks.
- we could be seeing a more significant impact of that later in December and in January. Thank you. Who's
- the member on zoom that I should introduce? Yes, I'm sorry that she had joined in a little late, but
- this is a show. Bill Christ. She is listed on the agenda as one of the members, but yeah, she actually had a
- another meeting prior to this day's joining us. Thank you, Bernie. Yes, thank you. Thank you, Cody.
- I apologize. I had a finance meeting right before here and I didn't want to miss this meeting. Were
- there any comments or questions from the public? I guess we can move on then. Thank you very much. Thank you.
- And the next presentation will be made by Middleway House. Good evening. My name is Chloe Timmons and
- I am the grants manager at Middleway House. We are local to Bloomington and serve survivors of domestic
- violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking within our community.
- We are home to the New Inks Emergency Shelter, which houses survivors who are actively fleeing a situation
- of violence, stalking, harassment, or human trafficking, as well as any dependent children a survivor
- may have. This service operates 24-7, 365 days a year. We're operational on holidays, weekends, or other
- non-traditional working hours. We are the only organization of its kind within Bloomington serving survivors.
- In 2024, we served 125 adults and 103 children with a total of 5,233 shelter nights. Through CDBG social
- services funding, we will serve extremely low, low income or low to moderate income families who are
- considered homeless due to domestic violence. Most individuals served are residents of the city of Bloomington.
- Funding will support the staffing of part time resident advocates within the emergency shelter. These
- advocates ensure that our shelter is properly staffed during those non-business hours. We wouldn't be
- able to operate without them.
- Our part-time resident advocates are responsible for conducting shelter requests and intakes during
- those evening hours, meeting with any residents who can't meet during daytime hours, sharing referral
- resources, working to resolve any conflicts within shelter, maintaining client records, and providing
- on-call services on a rotating basis as necessary. Our part-time RAs also provide crucial emotional
- support during evening hours, and we see a lot of survivors who need that sort of crisis intervention
- during the night or during the evening times where they might feel most vulnerable when the world goes
- a little quiet.
- The goal of our project is to increase residents' knowledge on community resources available to them
- and allow them to exit to safe, secure housing away from an abuser. We also do at least two safety planning
- sessions with all of our adult survivors to ensure that they remain safe after exiting our program.
- So again, CDBG Social Services allows us to continue staffing those essential roles and making sure
- that survivors in our community have a safe listening ear to go to when they need it. Thank you.
- You mentioned a new emergency shelter. Could you give us a little more information about that? The name
- of our emergency shelter is New Wings. We've been operating it in some capacity for over 50 years, but
- that's just the title. Any other questions?
- Any comments from the public? I guess we're ready to move on. Thank you very much. Thank you. And next
- on the agenda is my sister's closet. We have someone here from my sister's closet, either on Zoom or
- I guess not here in the room.
- They were also physical improvements applicant as well, so there could be a possibility that they still
- be downstairs. If they're not here. You want to call them at the end or? We could move them to the end
- of the agenda and see if they arrive late. So we will move on to new hope for families.
- Seven to three, all five. E. Hi, hello all. My name's Chase. I am the operations director at New Book
- for Families. Thank you guys for serving on this committee. I know CNBG has a lot of technical details
- and the plan is a big document. So I'm really grateful for y'all parsing through all those applications
- and all those things to make the best use of these funds. As you guys know,
- Luton has a lack of affordable housing and a lack of affordable childcare. And put together, families
- with children, especially children birth to five struggle to find the decent affordable childcare that
- would enable them to work enough hours to pay their rent, meet their other basic needs. Today in Monroe
- County, anywhere between 30 and 40% of the individuals who are experiencing homelessness, that means
- they're sleeping outside or in shelter, are members of a family with children.
- You're not going to see them outside. You're not going to see them at the park because they're at home.
- They're at Middle Way. They're safe and in shelter. But nevertheless, it's a big proportion of people
- who are sleeping in shelter outside. And the majority of those people are ages six and younger. You're
- most likely to experience homelessness. You're most vulnerable to it in your first year of age. A family might
- sleep outside of the shelter. I think those statistics speak to the way the two issues are intertwined.
- Families need childcare so they can work, keep their homes. When childcare is missing, we see people
- lose the other two that lose out on income and household. So as many of you are also aware, recent state
- funding cuts have cut the CCDF voucher program. It used to be called the Casey voucher that makes childcare
- income-based. It helps working low-income families afford childcare.
- They lowered, the way it was cut was they didn't stop, they had stopped issuing any new vouchers. So
- no one's going to get income-based childcare for the next two years or indefinitely. But they also lowered
- the rate that they'll reimburse. So everybody who has it right now is now going to have to pay more
- out of pocket. They stopped it for 2026, but they also stopped it for 2027 also? Yeah. Okay. New guidance
- has just come out, so it was forestalled. So that means that
- the people who are currently enrolled at our early learning center are exposed to more costs, and they're
- exposed to losing that voucher and being able to get it back. We serve, I'm sorry, let me get back to
- that. Early learning Indiana survey reported that in response to that, 19% of childcare providers have
- closed at least one classroom already because of lack of enrollment. 12% are at serious risk of just
- closing altogether, mainly because low income families with these vouchers
- are just disenrolling because they can't afford the extra bit. Conversely, New Hope is trying to keep
- families enrolled. I can think of, we reserve half of our enrollment for kids who are affected
- by homelessness. Close to 70% of our enrollment are using the CCDF voucher. And we have about 53 kids
- enrolled there. In my son's two-year-old classroom, one family stayed in the shelter two years ago.
- They've got two years sober. Their two-year-old was there. She's thriving. They're thriving in,
- In employment, another one is a mom who had gone through the shelter, blood or abuse or her two year
- old son is also there enrolled. She just finished her CNA.
- Uh, both of those, uh, all the children there are meeting or exceeding developmental milestones. Whereas
- by rights, people who experienced these big, dramatic events there, the children have really adverse
- experiences. So we're trying to reverse that and hang on to these families and preserve their vouchers.
- So that's what this, uh, that's what this application is all about trying to make sure that we don't
- have to raise our prices because we don't have as much revenue coming in from that voucher and make
- sure that families don't have to pay more. Even if we don't pay, raise our price. So I just wanted.
- Just a couple of details from the application with the remainder of my times. I know that you guys have
- taken close to one minute. Units of service, the total program budget is about a million dollars to
- run the Early Learning Center. The CCDF shortfall is a little over $149,000, about 15% loss that we're
- expecting. So our unit of service, we think with the $25,000 we can
- give about 1,800 weeks of childcare, and that would be $79.69 per week. So it's not the total cost of
- care. We fundraise above and beyond what families pay in tuition. It's $385 per week, but we will be
- claiming $79.69 because we're claiming that gap, not the total cost. I had a question about that, John.
- Why is there such a difference between the $79 and the $385? What costs are included in the $325? That's
- what I wanted to know. $385 is the cost per student of the total budget. So all the staff, all the overhead
- mentors and things like that, the classroom rate is lower than that. So we fundraise that extra bit.
- And because we want to keep prices low for middle income families too,
- And the CCDF voucher, sorry, it's a little technical, but I think we'll get that. CCDF gets really close
- to the full cost, close to the room rate. I mean, the families pay that little bit in the middle. They
- pay a little bit based on their income. And we're saying $79 per week is what they're now exposed to
- every week because their reimbursement rate's lost. So it's a little technical, we're right in the middle
- of that sandwich where that's what they would be paying. But we're just gonna make them pay.
- Some of the other expenses of your program though, your overall program beyond the child care, is that
- included in the 395? No, that is our early learning centers program budget. We have extra staff and
- we have extra, we have extra staff. We have some retention bonuses and things like that built into the
- budget because a lot of the children that we serve have been through a lot of traumatic events. So they
- present with, it's difficult for those children to make transitions. People come in and out because
- they're moving to the shelter. So we have extra staff and we have some extra supportive measures and
- things that costs more to provide services. So we fundraise that extra bit. Yeah, I have a few questions.
- What is the average length of stay? At the shelter? Yes. Families who went to the shelter.
- would otherwise sleep outside in the vehicle. No children that we are aware of sleep outside in the
- vehicle in our community, in our 610 region, and so a lot of different partnerships, including the city.
- If they come, they get childcare, which is what this is helping to underwrite, then the parents get
- income and they bear that income on the place to live as fast as they can. Families stay in shelter
- for about 90 days on average. 82% leave to release in their night.
- Is that an age-stating goal to do early living center? There seems to be a lot of competition for housing,
- for placement. So how is that coordinated in the city of Wellington? For families to find housing? Yeah.
- There are three full-time housing specialists of families who do the crisis of homelessness, and then
- they follow up with them for three years after they leave.
- So families who are, they can remain enrolled with the Early Learning Center because we want them to
- keep that income and keep their housing. Yeah. Do you notice any statistics that like, you might not
- know them off the top of your head, but about how many people usually stay like not homeless after they
- leave your shelter? We have an extremely low recidivism rate and it's because we follow up with families
- and make sure they stay safe. Statewide,
- families who are exiting the shelter, only about 32% of them are leaving to a lease of their name. Only
- about 32% of people leave a homeless shelter to housing. Most leave to another shelter, to couch surf,
- to do something other than have a built house. So that because we have the early learning center there
- really undergirds people's ability to get all the way over having to return to an abuser, having to
- return to an uninhabitable place
- and then they stay enrolled. The other point before we get too far is that in our statement of financial
- position, I wanted to bring up that we do have a credit union certified deposit account that has $400,000
- in it, and that is word revenue from two
- three-year grants that are already, they gave us the money at the fund. So we do have a lot of cash
- in the bank, but that is allocated toward other activities already, especially following up with families
- for two years. And we have a
- All of our assistive, an early learning center has a lead teacher and they're supported by assistant
- teachers. All of our assistant teachers are in a two-year associate's degree through Ivy Tech, called
- our Jumpstart program. They're going to become master teachers, help with the shortage of teachers and
- childcare. So that's what those two, that's what that big amount there is on the books. So those were
- the two things that the details, financial details are going to highlight for you.
- I have one more question. You said that they follow up with them three years after. How closely is that
- followed? The case managers will call you once a month, every month for three years. They will do a
- survey with you three to four times a year, and you'll get a $100 incentive to take the survey. It's
- about childhood well-being and medicine. They also have a reentry prevention fund that's in pay bills,
- help people get their car battery fixed or whatever, do things that are related to helping them maintain
- their medicine.
- What percentage of people stay in the county instead? The huge majority of people get housing in Monarch
- County. Sometimes I can think of like six people who have lived in like Ellisville or Bedford, but our
- housing specialists know about our community and they know how to help people get established. Also
- the huge majority of people
- who experience homelessness are having a housing crisis that originated in Montero County.
- We don't see, in families, we're seeing people on their first night of homelessness. They still have
- custody of a child. It means that they have not been sleeping outside of that child for years. So a
- lot of us is tied to the local. And then that's especially true for the early learning center. People
- do not stay enrolled if they move to bed because they've got
- Why would they drop off their care if they live far away? So everybody at the early learning center
- is in the limits. And I think there's only two or three dams that are not living in this limits or will
- be affected by this limit. Kenny, are there any comments from the public?
- Thank you very much and thank you. We will do number nine, new life. Is someone here from my sister's
- closet? Yeah, we deferred you to the end. So I guess we're going to hear from Newly's new life now.
- Good evening. Thank you for the opportunity. My name is Heather Scott Land and I am a reentry case manager
- and coordinator for New Leaf New Life. New Leaf New Life is an organization serving residents in Monroe
- County since 2005. Our service center primarily on community members who are currently or formally impacted
- by the legal system.
- New Leaf New Life facilitates weekly programs inside the Monroe County Correctional Center with a Read
- to Me program in partnership with the Monroe County Public Library, as well as reentry planning classes.
- And these classes build relationships with New Leaf staff while collaborating strategies for success
- after release. At our transitional center, we offer case management by our certified peer recovery
- credentialed staff through our reentry mentorship program.
- In 2011, Perry Township trustees donated office space at 1010 South Walnut Street where we provide the
- reentry support services. These services include but are not limited to obtaining a copy of the birth
- certificate, photo ID, assistance with getting HIP insurance and SNAP benefits, help getting a cell
- phone, employment referrals and partnership with Goodwill Industries. We help with treatment and sober
- living placement and referrals.
- We can provide assistance with fees for the first two weeks if our mentees don't have the resources
- to pay the initial bed fees. This prevents many of these vulnerable community members from being unhoused
- or returning to unsafe, unsupportive environments that led to their arrest in the first place. We give
- them an opportunity for change.
- They're met with compassion by our staff who has personal lived experience with incarceration, substance
- misuse, or have been impacted within their immediate families. They're given hygiene items, clothing,
- bus tickets, encouragement, and hope. New Leaf New Life is an organization that is available to any
- person during their involvement with the legal system or throughout their journey back into the community.
- New Leaf New Life has requested funding to support staffing costs so we can continue to provide these
- vital services to our community. This will provide approximately 3,000 hours of mentorship. The 2024
- State of Indiana Department of Corrections recidivism rate was 32.6% in 2024. At the end of this October,
- the recidivism rate for our mentees was 13.27%,
- and the mentees that were given treatment, sober living, and housing referrals were tracked at just
- under 2%. Our staff provides a unique service that served nearly 500 new mentees last year, and the
- numbers are climbing. Last month, we served 55 new mentees and 189 were returning. We found that the
- relationships with the staff and the services that we provide are truly making a difference in our community.
- Thank you for the opportunity to allow us to speak about what we're doing. And I can take any questions
- you have. You mentioned that you help anyone, you don't turn anyone away, it sounds like. Is there a
- prioritization for those living in Bloomington? So we serve people who are coming from incarceration
- in Monroe County. Now, if someone calls from Owen County and they were incarcerated there,
- They are getting our services or they are being referred into Monroe County. That's very few and far
- between. We also go and we speak at DOC facilities, but it's just for District 5, which are paroled
- to Monroe County. So I guess my question would be is if you have people that are incarcerated in Monroe
- County, but they are not from here, they just got caught
- are put in the legal system, so now they are part of that legal system. Once they're released, are they
- able to utilize their services or are they fielded out to kind of a home area for them for similar services?
- So what we do is we coordinate with the other 91 counties and we help get them services, a warm transfer
- over to where they're going, connect them with resources there, help them find housing,
- We also have gotten funding through another grant to provide transportation through Greyhound or Uber
- Business to be able to get them home to their families or to their home base so they can have resources
- or sober living there. We don't just drop people, but we do like to get them back to where they're going
- to be most successful.
- I know that you said you usually connect them with SNAP benefits. How has that been affected with all
- the current things going on in the current administration? We are so fortunate to be in the same building
- as the Township Trustee, which has a food pantry that's connected two doors down to where we are. We
- also distribute Finding Food in Monroe County, which coordinates our participants with warm meals,
- Hoosier Hills Food Bank, Pantry 279, churches, anybody who is distributing food, we can let them know
- when, where, and how. We also collaborate with agencies for pop-up things, for warm meals, for warming
- shelters. We have our ear to the pulse of things that are happening and moving and adapting, pivoting
- with it to try to best serve people and can keep them fed.
- I'm curious about just relating particularly to what the question is here. How is your thinking at the
- organization about partnerships change, if it has over time, to be part of those partners for the agency
- to make your work successful?
- I think our collaboration and partnerships are growing. I mean, last month we looked and we had referrals
- from 20 different agencies, whether it was another social service agency, whether it was Sober Living,
- the justice system. I mean, we get several referrals from the public defender, from the correctional
- center, from problem solving court. And so we're continuing to nurture these relationships. Our assistant
- director sits on the committee
- of the downtown resource officers, which collaborate every single Wednesday to talk about people who
- are unhoused in our community, people that may need treatment. I mean, we have our basis of people coming
- from reentry, but we are also prevention. If someone is unhoused, we're working with different agencies
- to get someone into treatment or to get someone housed or to try to help someone so it doesn't lead
- to incarceration.
- I wanted to do a follow-up. You speak about the county, but in the city of Bloomington itself, are the
- services being provided to Bloomington? In the city or the county? Yes. So we are in the city and we
- provide within the city,
- We talk about Monroe County because it is the Monroe County Correctional Center. But we are based out
- of Bloomington, the city of Bloomington. Do you keep track of whether people are residents of Bloomington,
- residents of the county, or what? So we keep track of which township. So if they're Perry Township,
- Bloomington Township, if they are county, or if they are city. So yes, we do track that.
- Are there any comments or questions from the public? Okay, thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you.
- All right, we will now go back to number seven, my sister's closet. We need to come up here closer to
- the aisle so that we can be sure that you're
- presentation is picked up on the floor. I've invited Marcy Hibbert with me. If I could get another seat
- for her, that'd be wonderful. Thank you so much.
- Hello, my name is Sandy Keller. I'm the Executive Director of Founder of My Sister's Closet, and with
- me is Marcy Hibbert, our Vice President of Development. We are here tonight to discuss our financial
- wellness programming, programming up to financial success. My Sister's Closet helps women coming to
- us from all kinds of different situations of low-income status and at-risk status. The majority of the
- women what you're serving are living in single
- parent households. Many of them have one to five children. Some of their times their children are in
- a foster care and they're trying to get them back because they're in a situation of homelessness. Other
- times they are trying to move past addictions and other issues so that they can be able to have their
- kids back with them again. The women that we work with are regularly coming from situations where
- They have not had any kind of education on financial wellness at all. For a lot of them, they might
- have a debit card, but they have never balanced a checking account, for example, even though they own
- one. They don't have savings accounts. They don't have checking accounts. They're wanting to be able
- to find employment. That is the biggest reason why women come to my sister's closet. They are wanting
- to become self-sufficient, and we are in an age
- where you know you are judged if you do not have a good credit report people search those things out.
- A lot of the women that we work with have been abused by payday loan companies. They have other people
- in their life that put their hand out and ask for their paycheck after they've earned it so that as
- soon as they have money, somebody else has decided that that is theirs. One of the bigger things that
- we do with our programming is teaching them how to have the self-confidence and the ownership over your
- own finances so that you learn a new language with one of the words being
- home. We want these women to feel like that they are independent so that they have the ability to pay
- for things when they come up, not everybody else's emergencies, but to be able to actually have a goal
- written down of things that they would like to achieve. Maybe fixing a tire on a car that's not running
- anymore because they need to replace it. Maybe they're wanting a safer deposit so that they can move
- into their own apartment.
- There are lots of different things that we work with them to help them meet with job success. Our program
- is structured with mentors and advocates like Marcy, who was in the banking industry at JC Bank who
- oversees our program. And the idea is that we help them feel like that they are not alone.
- Not knowing how to manage your money is a very, very isolating thing. If you feel like you've got a
- team, if you've got people that are hoping you win, then you understand that this is not as hard as
- you thought it was. So we work with them to understand how to create a budget.
- and we identify one thing on that budget and we have a match program that for every $50 you save, we
- will toss in $10 towards that goal. We don't give it to you until the goal is achieved. The average
- goal that we set, we want to try to make achievable of about $300 so that when you are getting to that
- goal, we are writing the check with you and we are making sure that it's going to the car mechanic.
- It's going to the landlords that you have that
- So that you are getting you are starting to see that success. We don't want someone to just achieve
- one goal. We want to identify several small goals. If we can get you to stick with us so that you become
- a habitual saver.
- then we are going to possibly change the way that you see the power of your own dollar and your own
- ability to be able to meet with life success. We know that from national statistics, if we are able
- to help women learn how to save families, learn how to save, then we are able to help them achieve other
- goals. For example, holding down a job and being able to be consistent in other things in their life
- so that they are seen as credible, reliable,
- respectable, professional job applicants so that we increase their employability and so that we help
- them to become known by the banking industry so that they feel like they've got people supporting them
- on the other side. We are respectfully asking for $25,000 to support this program. So with the financial
- ask, with the work shop, workbooks and tools,
- with some paid mentoring help from staff so that we can make sure that we have somebody consistently
- working with them. We are reaching out to other organizations as well to invite their clients to be
- part of this. If I understand a second, when they're saving up for a goal, they save up $50 and then
- you give them 10 or do they have to basically save up five, six,
- of their entire goal and you both spill and pay. No, no, because it's a little bit at a time.
- You know, think about it. If you have somebody cheering you on a little bit at a time, then you're excited
- about the next $50. If you have to save up $300, but you have to get to $251, most of them will not
- be able to achieve that. It's just too hard. This makes it more achievable. We have success built in
- along the way where we are rewarding them. They graduate with a certificate of success and we kind of
- throw a celebration
- when you achieve one of these goals, but we want them to feel like that they have a team behind them.
- And then it is a huge, huge celebration. And so how is their savings verified? Do they just show you
- the bank account? Or do they give that money to you to hold onto? No, we do not hold onto their money.
- We are working with banking partners who are verifying that they're meeting their goals. And to a certain
- extent, it's an honor system. But they can show us electronically that they are saving for things. Part
- of what we are wanting to do is make sure that if there are some fees associated with the institution,
- that they are wanting to work with, whether it's a monthly fee of $350 to hold down a checking account
- until they reach a certain amount or whatever, that we are helping to pay for those things so that we
- eliminate the barriers that otherwise would have made them feel like this was too hard. But the biggest
- thing is overcoming that fear of walking into a vein.
- And helping them to feel like they've got somebody that is interested in them. So I'm working with the
- banking partners that we have. They understand our situation of what you find to accomplish and they're
- all in on that. They want people to succeed also in the banking and the money saving. So it's kind of
- a good partnership. And if we're successful, they build a credit score.
- And they are seen, you know, differently from these banking partners who can write referrals for them
- and references saying that they can vouch for them for other things that they want to do. What kind
- of program materials, what resources? Well, we use a lot of different things. A lot of it is from the FDIC.
- Money Smart Program. I did a lot of that when I was in banking. I did a lot of training with people,
- both adults and children with the FDIC Money Smart Program. So I have a lot of experience in that and
- I like to bring the best parts of, like David MC is a good one. Now, given that, this programming is
- tailored to the specific
- clients that we are serving. We're not going to talk to them about their 501.
- We're not going to talk to them about their investment portfolio of stocks and the assets that they
- have right now and their retirement plan. They don't have these things. We are doing this in a way that
- is palatable and relatable for them. And taking a cue from Randy Powell with the business placement
- office, he incorporated a lot of comical cartoons into his programming for the business placement office.
- which we use for other programming, My Sister's Closet. So the workbooks have cartoons that talk, that
- make you look at yourself and laugh a little bit. So this isn't quite so hard. Yeah, I guess a follow-up
- to that. So you mentioned some financial partners that you have, banking institutions. Do they help
- with placement of accounts? Because for folks that typically have, you know, down-share credit, things
- like that, oftentimes they can't get bank accounts. So is that part of the placement? It is, actually.
- because we know that these people probably have left banks previously for no good reason. We'll work
- with them and the bank will help them see what needs to be taken care of. They can go and take care
- of those issues before we can get them the bank account. But that is a goal that they can do. That's
- a goal they can say, I need to pay off this bank before
- said they will open an account for me, maybe one that has a fee on it because of their experience. And
- so you work with them on things like check systems or other issues that come up. Exactly, exactly. Because
- we understand that a lot of our clients have gotten themselves into those problems and haven't been
- in the banking industry like you understand. They have not been educated.
- There has not been education for these people and it is daunting to them and it's scary and the last
- thing they want to do is walk in a bank and have them be told no. They need a partner they need support
- they need us.
- to help them with that and that's why we have some great banking programs. Is this a relatively new
- program or is it has been in place for quite a while? It's relatively new. It's funny. Sandy, I had
- been working with Sandy volunteering while I was at the bank and she came to me and said,
- we need to help these people with this financial understanding. And I said, yes, let's do it. So that's
- how we kind of came about talking about how can we do this? How can we help? What, from a banking perspective
- and from a nonprofit perspective, how can we bring this together to help these clients? So it is relatively,
- our program is relatively new. We've done the rounding up and the banking partnerships.
- We've always taught financial illness, but we were not seeing the success that we wanted to see. This
- meets the needs that were unidentified before or identified before, but we did not know how to address
- them. And so it's just a perfect partnership and it's so positive.
- You know, the clients coming through this really like this. It's not scary. And when someone tells you
- that they've done something that they didn't think they could do before, like put a deposit down on
- an apartment or actually a deposit down on a house, I mean, that is absolutely amazing. And so one of
- our clients carries her budget with her everywhere she goes. And when she feels like she's tempted,
- she picks it up and she looks at it for her guidance as she calls it her conscience.
- Oh, sorry. No, no, go ahead, Terry. You're about to say something. No, go ahead. Yeah, shut up. Sorry,
- real quick. First of all, thank you for the presentation. I real quick want to share a quick story,
- like not a story, more of a situation. I helped this lady and
- it was interesting to see her predicament and it was a horrible thing. But she and I sat down and kind
- of went over her budget and she understood now she has a plan in place. So sometimes when we look at
- these many programs that a lot of people utilize is out of necessity. So the question is, how can this
- be a program that could prevent the need and dependency on those programs?
- And so teaching financial management and how to budget and how to save, if you're invested in it and
- if you take money that you've earned, however you earned it, and you set it aside, it'll help you to
- realize that what you were taught or what you have been exposed to is not normal. It's not normal to
- be dependent. And so I appreciate you. Quick question. Since this is a new program, how do you plan
- to sustain it? That was really why I raised my hand.
- That's a very good question. Well, I mean success meets with success. We feel that our banking partners
- when they see these women succeed one after another, they're more empowered themselves to be able to
- help fund us because it is exactly how they identify themselves in helping the community and giving back.
- banking advocates and mentors that are helping to the clients, every time somebody meets with success,
- it's a good thing for everybody. It's very positive for the community and for the community. So we believe
- that we will just continue to receive grants for this because of that. Thank you. Make sure she's done.
- My question picks up on that. I'm also interested in peer learning, peer support, helping each other,
- whether that's within Sister's Closet cohorts or whether it's outside to divide them into peers. I'm
- curious what you have to share or what you'd like to share relating to the peer support and learning
- related to this work, especially as it relates to your grant proposal. There's a lot of it out there.
- Peer, as far as
- previous clients, talking to other clients, encouraging them and letting them believe that this is possible
- and it'll work. We absolutely do have clients coming back to do that. As far as advocates and mentors
- who work with my sister's closet in the different lanes that they work with, for example, financial
- wellness, we have
- We just have this incredible team that feels very, very empowered every time we're able to help someone
- win. And we just really believe that everybody should have the chance to win. Can I do one follow-up?
- Sorry, I think this is it. In terms of
- Helping the individuals who are connected with you through this program, particularly, how they get
- the support they need beyond those you provide is part of the education, if you will, and the support
- that you provide beyond some narrow piece about the bank and the financial reward, in effect, by encouraging,
- but how they get support from others in their networks
- Right. That's the last thing. When you get assigned as a mentor or an advocate, that's not a one and
- done thing that lasts like six weeks. We want you to stay connected with that word forever. We really
- do. One of our advocates, Denise Shockley, who's an accountant here in town, has stayed connected with
- one of the women that we have served since
- She was enrolled in the Success Institute Programming in 2016. And she calls her up and asks her if
- she should go to the right or to the left when she's making a decision. And she has stayed with her
- the whole time to insert her and help her make good decisions. I don't know if that's what you're asking
- about. What you have shared would be relevant. Yeah, but we want these women to feel like that this
- is their network.
- that this is their safe place. They can always come back to my sister's closet no matter what. We want
- them to feel like this is their team. We also want them to feel like when they start to get that relationship
- with the bank, being a banker, that was what I was about. And I have helped a lot of women, a lot of
- people that came in that didn't know what they were doing. So that is a huge part of the customers coming in
- and building that relationship with the bank because they're not just there to take your deposit and
- give you your money. No, they're there to say, how are you doing? Great job. You're making a deposit
- today because we understand, the banks understand if they are relationship banks that this is only going
- to help them in the future. Last question. How are you made from success in this program? We were measured
- success five.
- First and foremost, women achieving, or men, it's open to men and women. We mostly serve women with
- our other programming. This is for both. And whether or not they have actually been able to go through
- the program and create a budget, and if they have been able to reach one of their primary goals of actually
- making it to one of their savings goals. And then if, you know, with customer satisfaction, surveys
- on how they felt something was working, whether or not we need to tweet it to the left,
- or to the right to improve it, whether or not we are able to have more clients refer to other pairs
- of their own because it helped them so that they can refer somebody else into it. I mean, the biggest
- thing is to help, you know, our clients reach some of those larger goals and to appear that they have
- moved away from predatory lending companies, like payment loan companies, and that they have established
- a banking relationship. Those are a lot of different questions that we ask, but they're all pretty important
- because this is a lifestyle change. There's a very specific set of goals and actions, and you kind of
- have to stick with it. And along the way, we want to see that you're succeeding in this.
- Okay, are we about out of time, I think? Yeah, we have two more presentations still. I'm sorry, yes.
- Thank you very much. The questions can take longer, that's fine. We don't have any public at the moment,
- so I don't think there's any public comments.
- Okay, is there somebody from pan free 279? You have somebody on one. Hello, can you all hear me? Yes,
- we can hear you can't see though. Yeah, apparently, um, the laptop I grabbed today is one that does
- not have a working webcam. So I apologize for that.
- Would you like to go ahead and introduce yourself? Sure. My name is Tracy. I'm the assistant director
- for Pantry 279. Pantry 279 is a low barrier food pantry located in Bloomington, Indiana. We were started
- by a Girl Scout troop 10 years ago. We just celebrated our 10th birthday on November 2nd. I'm gonna
- try and make this short and sweet. I'm gonna throw out
- some numbers just so you guys can get a better understanding about how food insecurity within Bloomington
- has really increased throughout this year. I know Julio spoke a little bit on the current issues that
- are going on with SNAP and with the cuts to the TFAT program, which have
- really hit our pantry hard. We have seen a huge increase just in the last three days that we were open
- for distribution. But I want to give you some numbers that reflect like a January through October increase.
- In January of this year, we served 2,092 households, which was 6,863 individuals.
- In October, we fed 3,245 households, which was 10,784 individuals. We are one of the only food pantries
- in Southern Indiana that offers grocery delivery to our clients. They have to be completely homebound
- to receive this service, but 73% of our deliveries are to the elderly,
- 83 percent of all of our deliveries are done within the city limits of Bloomington. In January, we fed
- 469 households with our delivery program. In October, we fed 883 households with our delivery program.
- That's almost doubled just from January. We are a staff of 12 employees.
- Only two of us are full time, which means everybody else works 20 hours or less. I am currently working
- 85 hours a week, you know, most of which is volunteer hours. And I know that our executive director,
- Cindy Chavez, probably is the only person who puts in more time than me. We run three special programs
- throughout the year. One is our summer kids food program, which helps supplement
- food to children who are on the free and reduced lunch program while they're out for the summer. That
- way they're not skipping any meals. In 2024, we fed 3,446 children with that program. We run a Thanksgiving
- kindness box program where our clients can pick up or get delivered a box that has everything you will
- need to prepare your Thanksgiving dinner. In 2024, we fed
- 20,374 people with that program. And then we also do a Christmas assistance program called ELF. In 2024,
- we provided Christmas gifts to 2,302 children through that program. In 2024, we fed 117,433 individuals, 80%
- of those people were from Monroe County and 95% of that 80% were residents of the city of Bloomington.
- According to feeding. I'm sorry. Sorry, one minute remaining. Okay, thank you. Um, with the snap benefits
- just for the last three days of distribution, so Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday,
- We have seen approximately 60 new clients per day of distribution. Just since it came out and in the
- media that SNAP benefits weren't getting released. I'll be happy to try and answer any questions that
- you might have. I wasn't supposed to be the one presenting this. I just found out I was going to do it.
- Yesterday, Cindy's husband had surgery. I know she's pretty disappointed that she didn't get to do this
- presentation herself. I have two questions. Sure. Your main program, if I understand your presentation,
- was homebound individuals? That is our delivery program. So our main program is
- more like a grocery shopping experience. So we're open Mondays. And that is my second question. So you
- your source of food comes from the food bank. Is that correct? We get food from Hoosier Hills Food Bank.
- We also take community donations and we also purchase food. Okay. And what's the source of
- of income for food purchase. Donations? Community donations and local grants. We get no federal funding.
- Okay. Great. Thank you. Yep. Any other questions? Any other questions? Are there any other questions?
- I guess that is no questions. Thank you very much for your presentation. Thank you. Thank you for your
- time. And we have one final applicant here, Summit Hills Community Development Corporation. Hello. Hello.
- Hi. Thank you for sticking it out with me. I am Jessica Craig.
- And I'm with the Summit Hill, I'm the Housing Stability Coordinator with the Summit Hill Community
- Development Corporation and the Bloomington Housing Authority. And I'm here to share some information
- about our eviction prevention program, which helps Bloomington residents remain safely and stably housed.
- So I think we're all probably aware that housing stability is really the foundation for everything in
- someone's life, you know, their employment, education, health and community connection.
- When a family loses their housing, it impacts every part of that. Our program steps in before an eviction
- happens, providing early intervention and supports to families so that families can maintain stability
- and avoid long-term consequences. We serve residents who earn under 80% of the area median income and
- are within 14 days of a landlord filing eviction. We can cover up to two months of arrears, including
- late fees and legal fees, helping households cash up to stay housed,
- Since May of this year, we have helped 15 households remain in their homes and provided $34,963 in direct
- assistance, which ends up being about a little over $2,300 per household. To date, we've received 44
- applications for this program, which I think shows that the community need far exceeds what our current
- financial resources are.
- And then this program also works to ease pressures on our local shelters and homelessness support services
- by preventing crisis situations that would cause an eviction and send somebody potentially into that
- homelessness cycle. Our approach combines financial assistance with landlord mediation and case management.
- We work closely with partners such as Beacon, Centerstone, IU Health, New Hooper Families, and the VA
- to address
- not just immediate housing needs, but also the underlying challenges that put households at risk of
- eviction in the first place. We also partner with local landlords, many of whom now refer to us directly
- if they have a tenant who is falling behind. And we will work with participating households for the
- remainder of their lease to help mitigate potential issues and just to ensure that
- that household does not become at risk of eviction again during that releasing period that we become
- involved. And then, so we are requesting funding to expand this program's reach and to continue helping
- households in urgent need. Eviction prevention is one of the most cost-effective strategies in addressing
- housing instability. It strengthens neighborhoods, preserves affordable housing and supports overall
- community stability, which reduces strain on emergency services.
- So thank you for your time today. And yeah, I guess open up for questions if you have some. Are there
- questions? I have one. Is there an educational component to anyone who legalizes your programs in terms
- of helping them get on better financial footing once you obviously help them get on better financial
- footing? Yeah, so we do that in a couple of different ways.
- We have a tenant support and education class that we actually teach for another program of ours, and
- we utilize the resources from that class. It's a two-hour class. Then we go over with applicants for
- the eviction prevention program, and a component of that is budgeting as well. Something that we find
- is that sometimes it's not always,
- a lack of budgeting. It's maybe somebody's hours got reduced due to a medical issue or something. And
- so we do try to assess the individual client need as well to make sure that we are focusing on the area
- that really got them behind and to begin with. But yeah, budgeting is definitely something that we focus
- on quite a bit with people. What is your relationship to the Housing Authority? How do you work with them?
- Yeah, so the Summit Hill Community Development Corporation is a nonprofit branch of the Housing Authority.
- And so I am technically a BHA employee, but then I also work for Summit Hill. It gets a little in the
- weeds in terms of my funding breakdowns, if you'll look at my time sheet. But yeah, so Summit Hill is
- a nonprofit, a subsidiary of the Housing Authority.
- Are there any other questions? Well, thank you very much for your presentation. Appreciate you being
- here. Yeah, thank you guys. I hope you have a good rest of your night. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
- So I have a question about this. So this eviction prevention program is actually a partner of the Housing
- Authority.
- Is that correct? Yes. So is it the only program in the Housing Authority that also does eviction prevention?
- Of course. That I could say we could send to them as a question just to make sure on that. Because I
- mean, it's just weird to me that they don't have a mechanism inside the Housing Authority themselves
- to deal with this problem.
- I think that becomes an issue of who can receive funding. So they have to have the FI1C3 to be able
- to grant funding. Yes. However, the city has a different funding project they have access to. The city
- has lots of funding streams. So anyway, it was just a question. Yeah, I'd be happy to submit that to
- them though. I think that would be a good verification.
- Summit is not one of the one of the granting funds, correct? Can I make a comment on that real quickly?
- So we fund, we provide some funding to Summit Heal. So the issue with their funding structure is
- that things that will help people that are on public housing to no longer be in need of public housing,
- there are restrictions dependent on what kind of funds and where those funds come from, right? So hence
- the creation of the
- Summit Hill Corporation a couple of years ago, so that organizations like, we had to decline them when
- they were part of the housing authority. But when they became part of the Summit Hill, now they're a
- 501c3, where the city has restrictions because of where the source of funds come from. And it helps
- to help the residents to become,
- more stable, then that's where nonprofits like our organization can come in and be a bridge for that.
- So it's, I think a lot of their issue is, it sounds good, why isn't it part of the housing authorities?
- Because where their funds come from, whether state, federal, local, if it's the Bloomington Housing
- Authority, some of that funds come from HUD, there are restrictions on it. You can't do certain things.
- Thank you.
- Okay. Is there time for more general discussion among us, or is there what? Yes, so long as you feel
- that we've gone through the applicants properly, that can end the public hearing ordinance. If you would
- like to move that forward and say that that's the end of that, then we can have a general discussion.
- I believe we are bringing to close the first part of the public hearing on applicant presentations.
- I'll second that motion. Thank you.
- We don't need to vote on that. Oh, yeah. All those in favor? OK. All those in favor? All those opposed?
- OK. I think there's still a public. I think someone else is still online that's from the public. I don't
- recognize who Katz is. Is Katz yours? No, that's Katz TV. So they are helping us record this session.
- Oh, OK. OK, sorry. Who we left online at this time? Oh, just me.
- I think he's meeting Michelle. There's a chat that's, is that anything you have to address? Yeah, the
- chat in itself was the read AI notes, the meeting notes, so take 40 of that to be gathered here. But
- moving on to the general discussion though, the most important things coming up that I'd like to take
- note of, of course,
- As we have discussed previously, that if there are any lingering questions as a result of the presentations
- and applications that have been submitted, I can forward those to the agencies for clarification,
- which would, of course, the clarification would be due prior to the scoring that is due Thursday of
- next week, November 13th, by noon. For any
- Many members have any questions or difficulties within that process. You can also reach out to me coding
- to has been with hands to make sure case I didn't introduce myself earlier. But of course, you all doing
- all of the decision making and scoring from here on out. But those are really be
- main points to go over after that what we are aiming for as far as our allocation recommendations that
- you'll be making is that they will move forward to the redevelopment commission as well as the city
- council at later dates which have not fully been determined that's mostly how we will make it onto the
- agenda i believe for redevelopment commission we're aiming for uh the december say it's always the
- We'll get to which Monday that is very quick, December 15th. And I believe with City Council, we're
- also aiming for around, maybe January 14th, but that has not been submitted. When is the deadline for
- us to add any questions to that spreadsheet that you sent out? The deadline for any questions to be
- added to that spreadsheet will be end of business tomorrow.
- terms were at five o'clock. Just a note, I've gone through the applications and I've added a bunch of
- questions and then a lot of them were answered, so we'll go back through and remove the questions. Yeah,
- and I did leave a section for notes on that spreadsheet as well, so if you feel that they have been
- answered, I can do that and I can remove those, but all of you should be able to edit those and make
- sure that if any have been answered, you can remove them as we put them all in.
- But other than that, I suppose if there are any lingering questions from our committee members? Yeah,
- but sure. I just want to make sure I heard that right, that the social services subcommittee allocation
- meeting, it's by asserting the number 15. Yes, by assuring that. And to make sure that I get that noted
- as well, it will also be held in this exact same room. And also have a Zoom option for those.
- So of course, that also will be publicly noticed.
- Is the outpatient meeting open? Is it a public meeting or is it a? Since we do have a member from council,
- as well as redevelopment commission for open door laws, we are required to actually have some kind of
- public access or competitive. About protocol. Process for the meeting. Process for the meeting. I say
- an agenda will be
- looked at, but primarily the process that we'll go through is I will tabulate the scoring and average
- those out completely from all the scores that we received from committee members. At that point, I will
- put them onto a spreadsheet in which the agency name, because we do a blind scoring, so
- that is in order to hopefully prevent any kind of bias or anything tripling through it, any kind of
- deliberations or if anybody has the specific projects they feel more passionately about, goes strictly
- by the score as opposed to that. But from there, it will be a decision on a few different things. One,
- what kind of allocation to recommend forward for the approval for the redevelopment commission and the
- council to undertake.
- then deciding on if we get more funding than we anticipate, how to divvy that up in that event amongst
- the receiving agencies, and if we receive less funding than what we anticipate, how do we divvy that
- up amongst those agencies as well? Yeah, I said that one is, yeah, I'm not forgetting anything on that.
- So in my understanding, it's black, and we're not looking at each other's scores, what we all give our
- rights for us. And I understand, I think, about depending on what we know, Ben, who might not know now,
- about specific dollar amounts. That's on the table then at that time for decision by the committee about
- the specific dollar amounts recommended for each applicant at that time of the meeting that we do because
- by consensus or whatever we do it.
- Correct. I'm happy with everything. That one will be recommended by consensus. So we'll be seeing scores
- without names of agencies. Yes. We'll base our allocations. Will we know how much the particular person
- that a particular agency has requested? That's on the request. That's on their application.
- you'll see it when you go through the scoring sheets. They ask how much money, you'll see it. Okay,
- so they'll be blind, but we'll know how much they're asking for. Yes, yes. In fact, that one scoring
- spreadsheet that kind of uses something that you can kind of do without having to go into the neighborhood
- system and submitting anything that might
- require me to unlock it and let you back in. It does have their asks on it. So we do have, I believe,
- a total of 260,000 that is being requested total with possibly only 117,000 or give or take that might
- deal with that. I'm still confused about one thing. I will start. I tend to overdo it. You might have
- done this stuff.
- That's a long story, but that's me. I just want to make sure I said what I understood. I want to, because
- of our chair's questions helping for me further, I want to say one more thing. I'm still like, this
- is the second time I've done this, but it's still been a while. Why is it that the committee coming
- into the meeting would not have the total score for each of the applicants on hand? If that's what I
- heard, if it's not what I heard, then tell me I'm wrong and I'm bad.
- Because I know when the sports review, I'll actually try to get those out to you beforehand. It's just,
- you will not know what agency necessarily sport that. So you'll have a list of all the total. Why, why
- I say that would be revealed during the meeting. But the way that has been done in past years is to
- I suppose from what I'd understood, there was a lot of in-fighting in previous years amongst people
- who disagreed with the scores other members were able to get. I don't think we should know each other's
- score. That does ask for trouble. Subturity. In my opinion. But I just didn't understand to make it
- a habit, because we don't know if I'm right, God knows. But if I'm right, we don't yet even know exactly,
- because we don't know what we all think. That's fine.
- but we don't know what the total expected dollar amount will be, but more or less, right? We don't know
- that. Unfortunately, that we'll talk about. I know, I know. We'll have that different discussion. But
- I don't see the danger of not knowing what the total scores were. Excuse me. I have a point of order.
- Yes. Doesn't the scoring determine the funding amount?
- Yes, I understand your question. If the scoring determines the funding, what is your question? Can I
- chime in real quick, Terry, because I was on there the year before you came on, and it was no offense,
- Cody, you did a great job. I think part of the reason that you went to this model is that you walked
- in, people put all this effort
- into submitting these proposals, coming out, doing their presentations, having a great cause for the
- committee that had been there year after year to have preferences. This is not what this funding is
- supposed to be about. And then to look at the scorecard and to say, oh, so-and-so did it, why change
- minds to that? No, this process, you gotta earn it.
- You gotta earn it whether you come through us as a foundation or any other foundation. It should not
- be treated any differently. You have to put the time and effort in and the need is there. But when you
- have more requests than you have funding availability, our personal interest should not be the reason
- that someone receives funding. It has to be that there is a proven need. And so I think when we start
- hiding the scores, it held us accountable. It held us accountable as a committee
- for reviewing the proposal submitted, giving everybody the same time to present, and then revealing
- the scores in the end, then you can see who scored what, so you don't, I don't think it was intentional,
- I just think it was just to me, so I actually objected to that process. Yeah, and to let that know,
- the aggregated scores from all the committee members is I'll take it and average it, so we have nine
- committee members, it'll be an average of the nine,
- as it stands, and those will be shown before you all make your decisions. So thinking of this, we're
- going to get all standings for football. We're going to have somebody at first place, we got an 89,
- we don't know who they are. And then somebody else is going to go, yeah, so it's going to fall. The
- most important thing is though, CBDG money is for very, very low income individuals. So it's 80% of
- AMI. And what is that amount?
- It varies by household. So as a starting point, at this point, this year, it's $60,500. I think one
- of the pages on the application, like one of the first pages, charts it out. Yeah, so they do calculate
- it to a household rate. So we try to take that into consideration. But it does start off at about $60,500.
- And on average, it jumps per household about anywhere between $5,000 to $7,000.
- And doesn't the scoring take into account something about how larger percentage of the client has served
- by a particular agency meets the lowest standard versus the medium standard?
- I, we do try to have something like that built into it. So it's, and part of the overall program requirement
- is that at least 51% of the people that each agency serve have to be under that 80% or less of the area
- median income. So that, you know, entire percentage of course that they serve at that rate means they're
- reaching, you know, more of those folks in the community. Okay.
- Let me just respond to the gentleman's question about- George. You said George, thank you. He's still
- a gentleman. My interest is only having information at the time to make decisions that we can ask and
- make. I don't disagree with generally anything being said, because it's just common sense, I think,
- but if you don't know about it, ask and do it. Speak for myself, I'm just saying, that as I think if
- depending on where it takes, if we have a list, an anonymous list of 11 applicants, and we know they've
- been scored bust, top to bottom, you're actually saying, which is all right. And then we're saying,
- let's say we've just got 50% of the funding actually we thought, what do you want to do? For me, I'm
- wondering, I thought, gee, if I knew who was, how that broke,
- And that list of 11 how I thought about fixing addressing the allocations might be different as I thought
- about that exactly unfair discussion. Maybe I think I could argue each way or it helps me make a decision
- to be more
- Can we say ethically or ethically these days? I don't know. I don't even talk about it. Whatever it
- is, it is happy and good. We could decide that we make our allocations based on what we think we're
- going to get. And then we say, well, if we get less than that,
- everyone will get a percentage. Oh, I know. Why do you say how we get a percentage? More than that,
- everybody will get a percentage. Yeah. It all comes out. Yeah. We have options. Cody, you discussed
- this earlier, but you want to repeat this thing about over or underfunding, please? Oh, yes. So one
- of the reasons that we do decide, I'll go into that first, is the over and underfunding is because we
- really won't get an idea of what our total allocation is until usually April.
- of each year. So we do get this process started earlier so we can complete other things that are required
- for the program of environmental reviews. But we do need to decide that if we get more funding amongst
- the people that we recommend for allocation, how can we distribute that amongst them? And that is a
- committee decision based on consensus. And then if we are receiving less than that total
- amount that we think that we get, which we're basing it honestly currently on what we received for the
- 2025 program here. These numbers are subject to change and unless if they're forced in the federal budget,
- do you have the potential of not being received at all? So it's
- not exactly an enviable position to kind of, I know it might feel like in some cases we're jumping the
- gun by even doing this this early, but with all the other things that we have to do and how do we have
- to take this into account for the city's annual action plan, it does make sense to do it this early
- ahead of time. All right, is there any other issue that anyone would like to raise that needs to be
- discussed?
- I wanted to hear the presentations today before I did any story. It was important for me to hear what
- they had to say. And one of the things is that of the median income issue and then come
- The priority of people being served in the city, right? Rather than the county. Yes. Exactly. Okay.
- Those were my issues there. Most of the applications, they do typically state the percentage that they're
- serving in the city and in the county. I think there's a line item question of some kind of that. I've
- currently distributed that to where they can be more clear on that. Yeah. Although I think honestly,
- there might even be another step I can probably take.
- to maybe clarify that more in other years that just did not get brought to my attention with enough
- time to actually make it a meaningful change, especially since it was the middle of the application
- period. But that's something that counts to be evident. But it is also good to note that all of these
- agencies are required to be reporting on any funding they receive for that
- period in which they're actually using that funding. So we do have to keep track of, and they are required
- to have their clients certified, whether in the case of things like food pantries, they can be more
- reliant on self-certification as it's a presumed benefit. But we do take client demographic information
- as well as income levels.
- I said thank you to most of them. I think I hope I did. Okay, so we already there's no additional email.
- No, actually, although in this particular case with this having been reported, I would like to provide
- the recording and also make it available. From city sources as well. So.
- It'll definitely be one of those that will go out to any committee members that weren't able to attend
- tonight, which was one who couldn't make it total and then one or two came in maybe a little late. So
- I'll make sure everybody gets the chance to hear every presentation. But it is the plan for here. Okay.
- There are any other issues that need to be discussed?
- I would like to go on record before we adjourn and just say thank you to all of you. Honestly, this
- is a heavy lift. It's not indivisible with the decisions you'll have to make, but I very much appreciate
- everybody's time, effort and giving for this evening and our battle against this evening as well. Sure,
- sure. Motion to adjourn? Motion to adjourn.
- All the time. Not available.