Agenda Item Name:
Title
Update and Accomplishments to Date for Community Redevelopment Funds for the Gainesville Metropolitan Area
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Presenter:
RD Bonnaghan, Rebuilding Together North Central Florida
Meg The Losen, Working Food
Sean H. Mclendon, Strategic Initiatives Manager, 352 548 3765
Description:
Update on accomplishments to date by Working Food and Rebuilding Together North Central Florida on their professional service grants as funded by the Community Redevelopment Funds for the Gainesville Metropolitan Area.
Recommended Action:
Recommended Action
Accept presentation and amend Working Food’s agreement to extend the term through December 31, 2021, allow for the majority of remaining funds to be used for the youth culinary program, and a smaller percentage to support continued engagement and collaboration in Workforce Development activities related to local food systems.
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Prior Board Motions:
At the Board's November 10, 2020, regular meeting Commissioner Cornell moved option 1, if the City is not using CRA Funding then approve use of option 2 to use the step down funding and authorize the County Manager to sign the agreement.
From the agenda item:
Direct staff to coordinate with the Gateway Team to develop a scope of work to study the economic redevelopment potential of the Waldo Road Corridor within the bounds of the Gainesville Metropolitan Area and bring back to an appropriate County meeting for approval and:
Option 1: Approve the use of up to $100,000 as contributed by Alachua County to the 2019 City of Gainesville-Alachua County Community Redevelopment Agreement as a 50% match with the City of Gainesville
Option 2: Approve the use of up to $100,000 as contributed by Alachua County Gainesville Community Redevelopment Step-Down Fund as a 50% match with the City of Gainesville
The motion carried 5-0.
At the Board’s September 22, 2020, Consent Agenda the Board approved the revised Community Redevelopment Fund process.
On 23, June 2020, Commissioner Byerly moved to approve a $50,000 award to Working Food and a $50,000 award to Rebuilding Together North Central Florida from the County’s Community Redevelopment Grant for the Gainesville Metropolitan Area. In Fiscal Year 2021, the requirement of $100,000 of the total supplemental CRA contribution for professional services will be removed to allow the Board the option to utilize the total amount at their discretion. Staff was directed to prepare capital projects sufficient to expend the full year’s proceeds for Board consideration. The motion carried 5-0.
At the Board’s May 12 consent agenda, the Board approved the finalized grant criteria and application. Directed staff to solicit and bring back ranked applications to the earliest possible County Commission meeting for review and award. Authorized the County Manager to sign agreements with non-profits after the Board’s award.
At the Board’s February 11, regular meeting Commissioner Cornell moved to direct staff to return with finalized criteria for community redevelopment grants within the Gainesville Metropolitan Area and create a final application process for professional services grants for FY20 and develop a list of infrastructure projects for FY21. The motion carried 4-0 with Commissioner Chestnut absent. 2nd Wheeler
Fiscal Consideration:
Fiscal Consideration
Working Food has invoiced the County once in February 2021. The total amount remaining for reallocation in a revised agreement is $45,288.82.
No further grant applications will be accepted, per the Board’s June 2020 direction, unless new direction is given by the Board.
Staff requests that the Board extend Working Food’s agreement term to December 31, 2021 and allow them to expend remaining funds on the youth culinary program.
The resources for these efforts are funded from a portion of financial contributions committed by the County to the Gainesville Community Revitalization Area agreement (GCRA). Alachua County's annual commitment to the GCRA starting in 2020 is $4,191,460 with an increment drawdown of $100,000 annually for 10 years to reach equity with the City of Gainesville to $3,325,657 per year. The Community Redevelopment Fund in the first year (2020), had a $100,000 increment available for economic development projects and thereafter grows by $100,000 per year over ten years per Section 3 of the GCRA agreement. These funds are in account 001.17.1770.552.46.00.
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Background:
This presentation brings back an update on accomplishments to date for the two Community Redevelopment Fund grant awardees, Working Food and Rebuilding Together North Central Florida. The two $50,000 grants are for professional services that impact employment opportunities, food systems, the built environment, and residential energy efficiency for low-income and elderly populations in Gainesville Metropolitan Area. The grant term ends on July 1, 2021. A final report and Board presentation will be given after the end of the term.
Community Redevelopment Fund History:
• In FY20 $100,000 was dedicated to two $50,000 grants.
• Per the Board’s June 2020 direction, all available funding Community Redevelopment Funds will go towards County directed projects with a focus on serving low-income to moderate-income citizens within the Gainesville Metropolitan Area.
• FY21 $100k dedicated by the Board to the Airport Gateway Market Analysis; $100k remains to be allocated to other projects.
• FY22 $300k available for projects. Staff are looking at funding opportunities related to the Board’s December 15, 2020, Food System Corner Store Initiative motion.
Working Food Summary of Accomplishments to Date
Youth Culinary: The county grant has allowed for the development and execution of the Young Chef's program by Working Food. This program will have conducted 18 zoom classes by the end of May and has planned a Pop-up restaurant finale event to celebrate the end of the program. The grant has supported community partners employed to teach the classes and the purchase of food from local farms. The meals created by the students feed approximately 25 people per class each week. The students that have participated and their families benefited by having extracurricular activities during COVID, quality meals, as well as the exposure and training that the students have experienced.
Workforce Development: The grant allowed Working Food to engage in outreach, catalyzing conversations and creating connections. Specifically, working with County, City, UF, Santa Fe and other community stakeholders in a Workforce Development & Food Systems collaboration to facilitate discovery of what is possible. In addition, it has furthered Working Food’s ongoing effort to identify ways / places to utilize existing county investments by supporting other local food initiatives and programs to create a network. The network that is forming has fostered the development of three main opportunities to fill gaps in the local food system by education of a workforce and support of local food initiatives:
1. UF Culinary Certification Program - commercial kitchen / culinary skills courses - in early development stages.
2. UF / NASDA Entrepreneurial Training - Women Farmer's course to create food and beverage products from local food sources. Curriculum, Course schedule, guest speakers are set. Interest level has far exceeded the 12 slots available.
3. Working Food's Kitchen and Women’s Meat Processing Co-Op - to propose a USDA meat processing facility in Alachua County.
Rebuilding Together Northcentral Florida Accomplishments in March
Thirteen applications for Emergency Repair Program meet the requirements of the program to receive repair services, and were completed within the budget of the grant.
Of those 13 approved application: All have been substantially completed (exceeding the contract requirements of the Emergency Repair agreement, which stipulated 10 emergency repairs). All eligible projects were previously reimbursed, no further reimbursement for this portion of the grant is requested.
DIY Tune-Up Status Report:
CWC DIY Tune-Ups have been completed at a total of 13 eligible addresses to-date, 9 of which have been previously reimbursed. A significant number of kits are out currently, and all remaining CRG funded Tune-Ups are expected to officially close out in April. Completed
February Tune-Ups:
1. S.P.H. (Homeowner): SE 29th Blvd. Gainesville 32641
2. E.D. (Renter): NE 1st Dr. Gainesville 32609
3. A.B. SW 33rd PL APT A Gainesville 32608
4. M.M. SW 20th LN Gainesville 32607
Summary of Applications
Working Food Proposal
Support Local Farms, Pilot Youth Culinary Career Program, Expand Local Food Entrepreneurs
Total Funding Award: $50,000
Summary of Major Outcomes:
• Identify economic opportunities for North Central Florida small and mid-sized farm operators to increase the volume, diversity, and seasonal availability of specialty crops sold to foodservice and possible storage for crisis response.
• Pilot a culturally competent youth culinary program that provides cooking, nutrition, and food safety skills while also connecting students to the heritage of their food and future career opportunities.
• Create a Strategic Plan and curriculum outline for a culinary training program that would provide cooking, nutrition, food safety, job, and entrepreneurial skills related to the food industry.
• Expanded use of local food with incubating entrepreneurs at Working Food.
Executive Summary of the Grant Request: In order to assist with the county’s comprehensive planning Objective 1.7, to maximize local resource & energy-efficient food production and processing within the County’s local foodshed, Seed to Plate aims to increase education and demand for local food, develop a plan for needed culinary skills training, and accelerate food system innovation in Alachua County to address healthy food access and local food systems development. It will focus on two synergistic planning projects that will provide guidance for how we can stimulate local food industries and protect public health by improving food access. Further, it will expand opportunities for education on cooking, food safety, and nutrition, including life and job-related skills training, to increase better eating habits, workforce participation, and better employment opportunities in our food system. In order to achieve these goals, Seed to Plate will:
- Research possibilities for aggregation and processing for regional farmers in order to expand food security, connecting farms to food service, and provide guidance to building local food infrastructure and food systems-related jobs in Alachua County.
- Develop a strategic plan for collaborating with area educational institutions and community organizations on a culinary training program that would provide job skills and entrepreneurial skills development to ensure a skilled workforce and business development as our local food system expands.
- Deliver education programs for at-risk youth in culinary arts, science, and culture in order to inspire a new generation of eaters attuned to local food and inspired for careers in the food system.
Some of the key gaps in our local food system include the infrastructure to aggregate, process and distribute local food, as well as the workforce to serve this industry as it develops. This project will explore the intersection of supply and demand in our existing food system to provide foundational knowledge that will help plan for safe, affordable access to local food by identifying potential value-added products useful for foodservice and storable for long-term and crisis response needs. During Covid-19, it became clear that our local food system is critical to our food security. Not only do we need to ensure local markets for fresh products growing in farm fields, but we also need to explore how we can process and store these products to make them more accessible and convenient during good times and available when a crisis occurs. By identifying the needs of foodservice and local retail that match with the production capabilities of our local farms, we can plan for investment that will make sense for both economic development and disaster-mitigation. This data will also provide options for targeted infrastructure investment as the development of a Food Hub in East Gainesville is taking shape through the GCRA plan. Finally, during this process, we can identify and support opportunities for our incubating clients at Working Food to integrate local food products into their operations.
Several years of working with aspiring entrepreneurs, food service professionals, restaurateurs, and farmers have highlighted the extreme need for robust training programs that can support low-income and under-employed people to gain the skills they need to pursue careers or business ideas in the food industry. While there is no lack of demand for our incubation services, the lack of baseline skills in the aspiring entrepreneurs and a lack of coordinated resources to facilitate their success in our community has made our incubation program struggle. This project would develop a strategic plan and curriculum outline to provide culinary training, nutrition education, food-related job skills, and entrepreneurial training to address this need. Targeted for under-served and vulnerable community members in Gainesville, and built-in collaboration with stakeholders such as Santa Fe College, UF Entrepreneurship Program, Eastside High School, Greater Duval Neighborhood Association., CareerSource, and other stakeholders,
Finally, this project will build educated eaters, cultural identity, and community understanding of local food, nutrition, and food safety with youth. By working with multicultural chefs that can provide fun, age-appropriate activities and education on cooking skills, cultural food identity, nutrition, and food safety, we will build a strong foundation of food literacy with the next generation of citizens and leaders. This effort would dovetail directly into the culinary training program and research portion of the project, as it would build an educated consumer base for local food, inspire cultural connection to local food, and highlight food systems career focuses for youth.
Rebuilding Together North Central Florida
Emergency Home Repair, Utility Use, and Cost Reduction Home Tune-Ups
Total Funding Award: $50,000
Summary of Major Outcomes:
Goals
1) Ensure vulnerable individuals can shelter in place safely, minimizing the spread of COVID-19 and reducing strain on local hospitals and social systems in the Gainesville Metropolitan Area.
2) Aid the most impacted by the COVID-19 crisis, including seniors and minorities, to maintain financial security.
3) Improve the physical, psychological, and financial health of vulnerable communities including minorities, families, seniors, and disabled households living in poverty.
4) Expand access to affordable, adequate housing in the Gainesville Metropolitan Area.
5) Preserve and promote economic equity through homeownership in the Gainesville Metropolitan Area.
6) Increase conservation of energy and water in the Gainesville Metropolitan Area.
7) Reduce the risk of homelessness of low-income homeowners in the Gainesville Metropolitan Area.
8) Reduce or prevent the development and spread of slums and blight in the Gainesville Metropolitan Area via rehabilitation of existing residential properties.
9) Mitigate absenteeism of impoverished and minority communities due to health and financial instabilities caused by substandard living environments, thereby increasing educational attainment and economic equity.
10) Support apprenticeship and employment opportunities for vocational trades in vulnerable populations by utilizing minority- and women-owned subcontractors.
Objectives
1) Complete a minimum of 10 Emergency Repairs at income-limited homeowner-occupied residences within the Gainesville Metropolitan Area.
2) Reduce the conditions that endanger the health of residents and/or contribute to structural deterioration at homes served by the Emergency Repair Program.
3) Increase the safety and independence of elderly and/or disabled residents served by the Emergency Repair Program via the provision of needed accessibility modifications.
4) Supply a minimum of 15 DIY Tune-Up kits to income-limited residences within the Gainesville Metropolitan Area.
5) Reduce utility costs for at least 60% of households served by the DIY Tune-Up program.
6) Increase subcontracted labor utilized by 20%.
7) Support local minority- and women-owned businesses via utilization of subcontracted services.
Indicators
1) Number of households that received repairs via the Emergency Repair Program.
2) Number of time-sensitive major housing concerns hazardous to health/safety and/or structural stability addressed through the Emergency Repair Program.
3) Number of accessibility modifications provided by the Emergency Repair Program.
4) Number of low- to moderate-income individuals assisted through the Emergency Repair or DIY Tune-Up Programs.
5) Number of DIY Tune-Up kits provided.
6) Average reduction in utility costs at households receiving a DIY Tune-Up kit.
7) Number of households with a reduction in utility costs after receiving a DIY Tune-Up kit.
8) Dollars spent on subcontracted work.
9) Number of local minority- and women-owned businesses engaged.
Executive Summary of the Grant Request: Rebuilding Together North Central Florida (RTNCF) has been addressing substandard housing in Alachua County for over a decade through needed home repairs and accessibility modifications at no cost to underserved/low-income families. We bring together hundreds of volunteers every year to ensure our neighbors can be healthy, safe, and independent in their homes and communities for years to come.
During the COVID-19 crisis, RTNCF is taking precautions to ensure the wellbeing of our staff, neighbors, volunteers, and partners while remaining aware of and responding to our community’s needs.
To this end, RTNCF is launching an Emergency Repair Program designed to address urgent repairs before costly secondary effects set in. For example, RTNCF could repair a roof leak before water damage and mold become problematic. We intend to do targeted repairs that focus on keeping our neighbors safe and healthy in their homes, e.g. accessibility modifications, roofing, plumbing, and electrical repairs. To minimize risk to the homeowners and our volunteers, we will utilize subcontractors to perform the repairs in an efficient manner.
Additionally, our subsidiary organization, The Community Weatherization Coalition (CWC), is poised to continue offering its successful resource-saving and cost-reducing Energy Tune-Up Program, which has helped over 1,200 families save hundreds of dollars each year on their utility bills since 2008, with reduced risk via new DIY Tune-Ups. This program will provide low-to-moderate income clients with all the information and tools needed to reduce their utility usage without sacrificing the quality of life via small changes, e.g. energy-efficient lights, water-saving showerheads, and insulation for water heaters and A/C units.
Over 40 percent of all households within the Gainesville Core Based Statistical Area have at least one problem with their housing, such as high monthly cost burden, overcrowding, or deficiencies in the spaces and systems used for food and water1. Among Black and Hispanic households, this number is nearly 55%1. While Black citizens use 10% less electricity per person than our county average, they pay nearly 40% more of their income on energy1. Only 28% of Black 3rd Graders are proficient readers, compared to 74% of White 3rd Graders1. Safe and stable housing would reduce the number of minority children that never graduate high school, never able to be equal competitors in our economy.
RTNCF is requesting $50,000 to jumpstart our Emergency Repair Program as well as the CWC’s DIY Tune-Up program. We will leverage our proven skills along with $10,000 of our own budget, $20,000 received from CAPP, and hopefully $20,000 from Lowe’s. We will use this funding to provide a minimum 10 owner-occupied households with emergency repairs and 15 households with DIY Tune-Ups.
As we are all spending more time at home than ever, maintaining affordable living and low-income homeownership is imperative as homeownership is often less costly than renting, provides a stronger foundation to climb out of the grasps of poverty, and helps equity to remain in communities. Through funding the Emergency Home Repair Program and DIY Tune-Up Program we can help families avoid deciding between paying a bill, seeing a doctor, or having a roof over their head and focus on what is important; their wellbeing and maintaining their livelihoods.
Grant History
As part of the Board’s Special Budget Meeting on June 4, 2019, Manager Lieberman proposed the creation of an Economic Development Grant Fund. The purpose of the fund would be to capture those programs that do not fall within traditional Community Agency Partnership Program (CAPP) services and spur economic development in areas of need.
This effort aligns with the County Commission’s desire to “promote the economic prosperity of all citizens, address economic equity, and diversify the tax base”, per Goal 1 of the Economic Element in the Comprehensive Plan. The Economic Element further elaborates on the Board’s policies relating to achieving greater prosperity for all including but not limited to the promotion of job training, local food, business incubation, nature-based tourism, and recycling businesses while addressing historic equity issues. Concurrent with this goal, the City of Gainesville and Alachua County in 2019 ratified the Gainesville Community Revitalization Area agreement (GCRA) <https://alachuacofl.civicclerk.com/Web/GenFile.aspx?ad=20342> which seeks to catalyze redevelopment and remove the effects of slum and blight for low and moderate-income residents including the elderly.
Based on both commitments, the Board approved grant criteria and a process that promotes community redevelopment via economic development service projects in the Gainesville Metropolitan Area.
The resources for these efforts would be funded from a portion of the funds committed by the County to the GCRA agreement.