San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg Provides Mental Health Training to Address Trauma

Texas: San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg is addressing violence and trauma by providing more mental health training in the community. In response to the growing need for mental health resources, the city partnered with the local college district to launch Compassionate USA to deliver free training for residents to provide support and resources to neighbors. The primary goal of Compassionate USA is to decrease violence while healing trauma. 

County Board Chair James Gore: Sonoma County’s Resilience Fund Aims to Combat COVID Inequalities

The Sonoma County Board of Supervisors will allocate $39.2 million in federal funds from the American Rescue Plan toward the county’s Community Resilience Fund. NewDEALer Sonoma County Board Chair James Gore is a proponent of the effort and has outlined steps to ensure the funds will assist those who felt the greatest economic and health disparities during the pandemic. Projects range from training childcare workers to the Small Business Equity & Recovery program, which is targeted at minority-owned businesses. Project proposals must address one of ten identified priority areas, including educational disparities, food assistance, and mental health. The county is encouraging proposals from businesses or nonprofits to promote collaboration, and prioritizing projects that seek to address gaps in education, health, and wealth across racial, ethnic, gender, or geographic lines. A current project making use of the funds is expanding rural broadband to address the disparity in access felt by low-income students. Click here to learn more about how Sonoma County is using federal funding to address existing inequities.

ARP: Phoenix AZ, Improving Public Health with Mobile COVID Testing and Vaccination Units

From the beginning of the pandemic, Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego has centered her response on a simple question: How can we get resources to our residents? Rather than have residents come to a centralized location for services, the mayor and her team brought the services to the community.

 The mayor’s office is particularly excited about an innovative, high-impact health program that grew out of the pandemic and is now being funded by ARP.

The office created mobile COVID testing and vaccination units to bring services to areas where they can have a big impact. City officials partner with community leaders, such as pastors, to make getting COVID tests and vaccines as easy as possible. By working with and being invited into communities by trusted partners, the city is able to have a bigger impact than going it alone. With ARP funding, the unit administered tens of thousands of COVID-19 tests and thousands of COVID-19 vaccines.

The city has used the same concept to initiate a mobile workforce development unit, allowing residents to get help with resumes in their neighborhoods, and even take part in Zoom interviews with potential employers. 

ARP: Salt Lake City UT, Community Investments to Help with COVID Recovery

Mayor Erin Mendenhall utilized ARP funds to tackle her priorities and the most pressing issues facing residents, including $4 million for the Community Recovery Grants Program which provides support for small businesses and nonprofits; funds to continue their short-term apprenticeship program; and seed money for the city’s Community Land Trust.

ARP: Boise ID, Looks to Reduce Obstacles for Child Care Workers

Through a combination of regulatory changes and funds from the American Rescue Plan, Boise Mayor Lauren McLean is making it easier for child care facilities to operate. The city recently approved an ordinance change, allowing for temporary licenses for workers when they pass local and state background checks, permitting folks to start work before federal background checks are complete. 

City officials noted that it is rare for someone to pass the first two checks and fail the last one. Additionally, for the next two years, the city is footing the bill for license application fees for all new child care workers. Prior to the change, workers paid more than $80 for a license application as well as up to $50 for a First Aid and CPR class.

Recognizing that addressing the child care crisis is beyond a single solution, Boise plans to use ARP funds to invest in child care infrastructure on multiple fronts. Child care was identified as one of five top areas of need by community groups and residents during the city’s ARP community engagement sessions. While ARP investment details will not be finalized until the city’s grant application process is closed, the city expects to allocate funds for the physical development of child care facility space, in addition to further reducing barriers to employment for child care workers.

Update

Mayor McLean announced that Boise will use $3 million of ARP funds to provide one time payments of $1,500 to two thousand childcare providers and workers. In the first 24 hours that the Childcare Incentive Pay Program application was open, it received over 440 applications.

ARP: Stabilizing Child Care in Vermont

Child care providers in Vermont cheered the announcement of $33.7 million from the American Rescue Plan to support their sector. Child care centers are “hanging on by their fingernails,” Sarah Kenney, chief policy officer at Let’s Grow Kids, a Vermont-based advocacy group, told the VTDigger in October 2021. 

As of October 2021, roughly five percent of child care centers in the state had closed since the beginning of the pandemic, according to data from the state’s Department of Children and Families. The number of regulated centers dropped to 1,125 from the pre-pandemic level of 1,181. 

In October 2021, Vermont announced $29.3 million for Child Care Stabilization Grants, funded by ARP in addition to the state and local recovery funds program. Eligible child care centers in Vermont could apply for the grants to help with a wide variety of costs to help them stay open. The grants provide an opportunity for child care centers to cover a wide range of costs, including rent, PPE, other equipment to respond to the pandemic, mental health support for families and employees, and personnel costs.

As of February 2022, 942 child care programs, or nearly 80 percent of eligible programs, had applied for stabilization grant funding according to Let Kids Grow

The funding from the rescue plan came on top of investments the state had already made in the child care sector, including an increase of $5.5 million for the state’s Child Care Financial Assistance Program and an additional $4.5 million for required IT upgrades. At last November’s NewDEAL Leaders Conference,  Lieutenant Governor Molly Gray called out the imbalance in the current system as child care costs Vermont families more than $20,000 a year even as the child care workforce earns near-poverty wages, and emphasized the importance of additional child care investments for Vermont to prosper.

Sonoma County’s Resilience Fund Aims to Combat COVID Inequalities

The Sonoma County Board of Supervisors will allocate $39.2 million in federal funds from the American Rescue Plan toward the county’s Community Resilience Fund. NewDEALer Sonoma County Board Chair James Gore is a proponent of the effort and has outlined steps to ensure the funds will assist those who felt the greatest economic and health disparities during the pandemic. Projects range from training childcare workers to the Small Business Equity & Recovery program, which is targeted at minority-owned businesses. Project proposals must address one of ten identified priority areas, including educational disparities, food assistance, and mental health. The county is encouraging proposals from businesses or nonprofits to promote collaboration, and prioritizing projects that seek to address gaps in education, health, and wealth across racial, ethnic, gender, or geographic lines. A current project making use of the funds is expanding rural broadband to address the disparity in access felt by low-income students. Click here to learn more about how Sonoma County is using federal funding to address existing inequities.

ALOHA Homes: Affordable, Locally Owned Homes for All

What’s the Problem?

My father, an immigrant from China, worked one state job.  He was able to buy a house, put my brother and me through private school, put me through private college and graduate school, buy investment property, and retire comfortably.

Since then, Hawaii has developed a severe housing shortage.  About 11,000 students graduate annually from Hawaii public schools.  Only 2,000 homes are built annually.  Because of this structural undersupply, the median home price in three of the four counties now exceeds $1 million, and the state has lost population for 4 straight years.  Hawaii has the country’s highest percentage of people working multiple jobs and both parents working.  For young people today, it is no longer possible to buy a home, provide for one’s family, and enjoy retirement.  The housing shortage is the principal obstacle to fulfilling the basic progressive promise, “One job should be enough.”

 

What’s the Solution?

Singapore is an island less than half the size of Oahu, but with over five times the population.  It houses over 80 percent of its population in high quality, well maintained public housing that is available to all citizens for only $180,000 on average for a new three bedroom unit.  Even the President of Singapore lived in public housing before moving into the Presidential Palace.

ALOHA Homes (Affordable, Locally Owned Homes for All) adapts the Singaporean public housing model to Hawaii’s unique needs.  It would provide new, unsubsidized homes to Hawaii residents who would be owner-occupants and own no other real property for below market prices.  By building high density homes on state-owned parcels near rail stations, the state can house its future generations without developing agricultural, conservation or otherwise undeveloped land; without adding to the traffic on our roads; and create walkable, livable, safe neighborhoods.

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South City Tech Hub: Creating Digital Equity

Problem

The South City neighborhood in Tallahassee has one of the highest rates of families living in poverty in Leon County (44.8%). Due to COVID-19, almost 800 South City students were unable to experience equal learning opportunities as they did not have the devices, connectivity or technical assistance to fully participate in digital learning.  Students are falling behind in school, parents lack the tech skills to support their students, access employment opportunities, or get medical and other services for themselves and their families.  

 

Solution

The South City Tech Hub provides internet access, technical assistance, and skill building opportunities to Tallahassee’s South Side community by supporting school readiness and success for students and parents. The Tech Hub provides a resource for research, job search, connectivity, tele-health, schoolwork and even legal services.

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Lansing Built to Last

Problem

 Lansing Built to Last was a local startup competition held in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. We realized that in order for our community to thrive, businesses must have a strategy in place and be prepared to make it through the toughest of times.

 

Solution

The competition invited all entrepreneurs and idea-makers to submit their emergency-resistant business proposals for the opportunity to win a year’s worth of services to help launch their business. Ideas had to require a physical space downtown, withstand emergency circumstances, and enhance the community that surrounds it.