1.4.2023 Community Development Agency Public Hearing

tonight is the public hearing for the year 4 annual action plan January 4th 2023 tonight's public hearing is being held to provide residents of Fall River and all interested parties the opportunity to express their views on the following the Housing and Community Development needs the needs of the homeless the development of the proposed activities including activities related to community housing development

organizations and various program performance in the city of Fall River the city of Fall River Consolidated plan was approved by the U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development on June 10 2020 that document identified Community Development housing and homeless needs and a schedule of strategies to address them over a five-year period a time frame that will come to a conclusion on June 30th

2025. we are developing an annual action plan that will present a schedule of activities and projects to be undertaken German this the fourth year of that five-year cycle that are designed to meet and address the needs in conformance with the established strategies testimony statements letters requests for funding and petitions submitted at tonight's hearing will be used in the development of that annual action plan

for the program year commencing July 1 2023.

completed requests for funding must be submitted to the fall of a Community Development agency no later than January 25th 2023 copies of the request for funding forms are available at the sign in table tonight and also at the office of the Fall River Community Development agency here at one government center and on the city of Fall River Municipal website which is www.fallriverma.org a summary of the

proposed annual action plan is to be published on February 23rd 2023 in The Herald News it will also be made available for public review at the office of the Fall River Community Development agency another public hearing has been scheduled for March 8th 2023 at 5 30 p.m here in the city council chamber to afford residents the opportunity to review and comment on the proposed year for annual action plan

residents will have until March 27 2023 to submit additional comments All statements received during this review period will be considered in development of the city of fall River's year 4 annual action plan according to the submission timetable copies of the plan and pertinent related informational materials will be submitted to the Fall River City Council sometime in April uh

the council will consider enactment of a resolution authorizing mayor Paul Coogan to file the year 4 annual action plan with the U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development honor about May 3rd 2023.

year 49 of the Fall River Fall Rivers Community Development block grant program year 32 of the home program and year 37 of the emergency Solutions grant program are scheduled to begin July 1 2023.

uh the city of Fall River anticipates receiving approximately two million seven hundred and sixty two thousand for eligible cdbg program activities one million 206 000 for home program activities and 250 000 for ESG program activities this estimation assumes the city will be level funded for the upcoming program year uh Federal Regulations require that citizens be providing information concerning the

amounts of funds that will be available and the range of activities that may be undertaken this and additional information was furnished in display advertisements in the following locations the Fall River Herald News Fall River cable television and the City of Fall River Municipal website the format of this public hearing will be to allow participants the opportunity to express their views on the city's

Housing and Community Development needs the needs of the homeless and or program performance and to submit requests for funding prepared statements will be accepted persons wishing to speak have been asked to sign a separate speak speaker sheet and will be called to testify each speaker should State his or her name and address and if appropriate the agency or organization that they represent before we begin the

proceedings and the testimony I'd like to acknowledge the following statements that have been received by the Fall River Community Development agency we've received a letter from the Fall River Community Housing Resource Board concerning uh funding for choto activities we've received a letter from People Incorporated concerning their um child development program we've also received a letter from the

Council on Aging for the support on their four senior centers uh in the city so tonight to uh call up the first speaker um I'd like to call Stephanie I believe it's Mancini um from the YMCA thank you Mike I have a prepared statement um uh thank you for this opportunity to apply for the Community Development block grant my name is Stephanie Mancini senior executive director of YMCA South Coast Fall River and Swansea

YMCA South Coast is seeking funding from the Community Development block grant program for the Fall River YMCA's educational achievement Center otherwise known as the EAC program The Fall River YMCA has been serving the greater Fall River area since 1857. we are committed to strengthening our community Through Youth Development healthy living and social responsibility it is that

commitment to our community that gave us the initiative to complete an 11 million dollar revitalization project of which five million dollars was dedicated to child care programming including the EAC the EAC was piloted in 2015 to promote growth and development for All Fall River residents and to be a community resource where families could continue to expand their knowledge the goal is to address the academic

disparities among underprivileged students and their peers by providing quality of school time programming for Fall River elementary and early middle school youth prior to the pandemic the EAC was providing after school enrichment programming to an average of 150 students throughout the school year and about 75 to 100 during the summer learning loss program summer enrollment has been dependent on funding

servicing approximately 400 students over the past six years with the exception of Summer 2020. all children enrolled receive a free YMCA family membership to the Y equivalent to 900 annually membership includes a variety of traditional programming including Aquatics group exercise who supports and more the goal of the EAC is to provide programming that focuses on enrichment and steam projects to supplement the

loss of over the last two and a half years from the pandemic we have serviced over 700 children between ages 5 to 12 throughout the program's lifespan though we did not meet our anticipated goals of last year we intend on offering the program to all of our Child Care Program enrollees along with all campers over the age of 10. we have the potential to enroll up to 130 children during the

school year and upwards of 160 during the summer months we anticipate meeting this goal we are respectfully requesting twenty five thousand dollars to support the continuation of the Fall River YMCA's educational achievement Center programming thank you awesome thank you so much okay could I could I keep that yeah awesome thank you thank you okay thanks Sheila representing uh Catholic Social Services

Social Services I'm the director of Housing and basic needs I'm here representing our agency to show the need for the Emergency Solutions Grant and any other housing funding that we can support the homeless and at risk of homelessness our coordinate entry system oversees and receives calls from those that are at risk of homeless and physically homeless in need of stabilization and housing the

need has increased during covid and after covet we have several families and individuals that are still at risk of homelessness and have received Summary Court judgments to for eviction to vacate their properties the income level here in the city has not met the housing requirements for those to remain stably housed within private units so the emergency Solutions Grant helps with keeping those families and individual

um stabilizing their housing units preventing evictions and um further stabilizes them with their income and family units we have successfully met all of our goals within the ESG program this past year we've housed over 30 families and individuals we've assisted several other individuals and families with rental arrears and this also supports landlords in our area landlords during covid with the eviction

moratorium and people being out of work we're not receiving their rental payments and therefore they were also at risk of losing their their homes and with utilization of their rental income so this program definitely helps the community and there's a great need there's a greater need for it Countrywide county-wide and so I support further assistance in funding from the ESG program

awesome thank you thank you thank you is there anybody else that would like to speak no okay um with that uh I'd just like to remind people again that um the requests for funding can be obtained at the fall of a Community Development agency they're also on the city's website at www.fallriverma.org and uh those requests for fundings are due back into um the fall of a Community Development

Agency on January uh end of business on January 25th 2023. so again thank you for your participation in tonight's public hearing and we look forward to receiving some RFS and uh thank you have a good evening