m. - - - BILL 990117 - Amending Section 19-201 of The Phila. Code entitled "City Depositories" by authorizing the City Treasurer to deposit funds in Summit Bank, under certain terms and conditions. BILL 990326 - CDBG application RES. 990337 - Authorizing OESS to apply, on behalf of the City of Philadelphia, to the Department of Community and Economic Development, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, for funds for a project for the prevention and alleviation of homelessness in Philadelphia. PRESENT: COUNCILWOMAN JANNIE BLACKWELL, Chair COUNCILWOMAN PRESIDENT ANNA C. VERNA COUNCILMAN DAVID COHEN COUNCILMAN JAMES F. KENNEY COUNCILMAN MICHAEL A. NUTTER COUNCILWOMAN MARIAN B. TASCO COUNCILMAN RICHARD T. MARIANO - - - VINCENT VARALLO ASSOCIATES, INC. Registered Professional Reporters Eleven Penn Center, Suite 600 Philadelphia, PA 19103 (215) 561-2220 6/1/99 FINANCE COMMITTEE I N D E X Page Bill 990117 Douglas Smith, Deputy City Treasurer. . . Res. 990337 Sally Fisher, Director. . . . . . 6 Office of Emergency Shelter and Services Bill 990326 John Kromer, Director . . . . . . 16 Office of Housing and Community Development Belinda Mayo, Director. . . . . . , Metropolitan Career Center 23 Barbara Coscarello, President . . . . 28 Campus Boulevard Corporation Argo Simpkins, Director, CBC Job Training . 30 Martin Nock, President. . . . . . 34 Communities and Schools of Philadelphia Anthony McIntosh, Executive Vice President. 49 Philadelphia Housing Development Corporation Stephen Mullin, Director of Commerce. . . 62 Dainette Mintz, Director. . . . . . 71 Special Needs Housing, OHCD Kevin Brooks, Director. . . . . . 76 Employment and Training, OHCD Curtis Jones, President, PCDC . . . . 90 Bill Hankowsky, President, PIDC . . . . 114 Chas. Wingfield, Mill Creek Council Dev. Corp. 152 Taylor Frome, Executive Director. . . . ) Gloria Guard, People's Emergency Center . . 168 Sister Mary Scullion, Project Home. . . 169 Alicia Christian, Dignity Housing . . . 173 Liz Hersch, Director. . . . . . . 176 Blueprint to End Homelessness Reverend Dr. Paterson . . . . . . 194 Rick Sauer, Director, Phila. Assoc. , District Council 33 . , AFSCME Dist. Council 33. , Law Department . . . 212 Elsie Wise, President . . . . . . 216 John Leatherberry, Vice President . . . 221 Ruth Adams, Member. . . . . . . 222 West Powelton Concerned Community Council Brad Blumberg, Blumberg Associates. . . 218 Lionel Drain, Aspen-Olive CDC . . . . 224 Shirley Brotman, President of the . . . 229 Board of Directors, Edith R. Rudolphy Residence for the Blind Michael Erdman, Ralston Mercy-Douglass House 233 Barbara Easley, Advocate CDC. . . . . 241 Joann Jackson, Executive Director, ACDC . . 242 Paul Steinke, Executive Director. . . . 243 University City District Delphyne Dukes, Executive Director. . . ) Herbert Reid, Maze Group. . . . . . 251 Lee Capkin, Executive Director. . . . 255 Housing Consortium for Disabled Individuals Ed Schwartz, President. . . . . . 260 Institute for the Study of Civic Values Judy Berkman, Esquire . . . . . . 282 Regional Housing Legal Services Maitrey Roy, Horticultural Society. . . 290 Sharon Olson, Friends of Gorgus Park. . . 293 Paul Snipes, Private Citizen. . . . . 296 Francis Walker, President . . . . . 300 Dunlap Community Citizens Concerned. John Wagner, Director . . . . . . 307 Housing and Homeless Services, Catholic Social Services, Archdiocese of Philadelphia Vivian Vanstory, President and Founder. . 311 Community Land Trust Corporation Edward Franklin, Director, Colt Coalition . 317 Vernard Johnson, Healthy Family Healthy Life 330 Jide Sokale, Director . . . . . . 338 Comar HIV and Mental Health Services Jimmy Lee Smith . . . . . . . . 344 North Central Empowerment Zone Connie Winters, President . . . . .
349 Germantown Business Association Deborah McColloch, Deputy Director, OHCD. . 361 5 6/1/99 FINANCE - Bill 990117 P R O C E E D I N G S
Good morning. We would now, like to begin our finance hearing. We have three bills before us this morning. We would like to thank all of you for coming out on this very important day as we hear the Community Development Block Grant application. Before that, we have two other bills which should only take a few moments to hear. For the purposes of a quorum, let me say that to my right is President Ann Verna. To her right, Councilman Michael Nutter. And to my left, Councilman Jim Kenny. Also in the room is Councilman David Cohen. The first bill that we will hear this morning is Bill No. 990117, and we will ask the clerk if she would please read the title of the bill.
An ordinance amending Section 19-201 of The Philadelphia Code entitled "City Depositories" by authorizing the City Treasurer to deposit funds in Summit Bank, under certain terms and conditions.
All right. 6 6/1/99 FINANCE - Bill 990117 Would you please identify yourself for the record and begin your testimony.
I'm Douglas Smith, Deputy City Treasurer, and the City Treasurer, Whitney Reid, had to be out of town, so I'm here in his place. Shall I read my testimony?
I'm here today to testify in support of Bill 990117 that amends section 15 19-201 of The Philadelphia Code relating to authorize City depositories; specifically, to add Summit Bank to the list of financial institutions in which the City is authorized to deposit funds. To this end, I've reviewed the financial information provided by Summit Bank and have determined that the bank meets the basic criteria for becoming an authorized depository. Summit Bank has, one, been in business for the pass five years; and, two, has been profitable for the last two years. It is federally insured and 7 6/1/99 FINANCE - Bill 990117 it has assets of over $100 million. This concludes my written testimony. I'm available to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you.
Thank you. Are there any questions from members of the committee? (No questions.)
Okay. Thank you very much. Seeing none, then we will go on to the next bill. Would the clerk please read Bill No. 14 990337. This is a resolution and not a bill, I do believe.
A resolution authorizing the Office of Emergency Shelter and Services to apply, on behalf of the City of Philadelphia, to the Department of Community and Economic Development, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, for funds for a project for the prevention and alleviation of homelessness in Philadelphia.
Thank you very much. 8 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990337 Good morning, Sally. Would you please identify yourself for the record and give your testimony.
Good morning. My name is Sally Fisher, and I'm the Director of the Office of Emergency Shelter and Services. OESS supports the resolution. The resolution is for permission to apply for and to accept and to expand the DCED funding, that's the Department and Community and Economic Development. To date, OESS has been informed that $280,147 will be awarded to Philadelphia this year. The specific projects being funded are a shelter rehabilitation project for $150,000 through St. Barnabas Mission, a children's initiative, and an adult literacy support program. The match for the St. Barnabas is being provided by Episcopal Community Services, and the match for the children's program and literacy support is proposed from the existing City General Funds that are being used for the shelter services contract. If additional DCED funds become 9 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990337 available later in the year, OESS has identified additional projects. And we urge Council to approve this resolution. And I can answer any questions if you have any.
Miss Fisher, you said $150,000 goes to St. Barnabas. The other programs are not per se in shelters, or are they?
No. The other two -- the St. Barnabas program is a rehab project. The other two programs -- the children's initiative and the adult literacy program -- are both essential services. So there is support programs for individuals that are currently in the shelter.
The St. Barnabas missions that's currently at 64th and Haverford Avenue. The Episcopal Community Services has identified another site, which is on Lancaster Avenue. That they're proposing to use these dollars as well as match dollars as well as other funding to relocate the program to a new building.
So in each of 10 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990337 these categories, the St. Barnabas program as well as the children and adult literacy, they all have other matching funds?
Miss Fisher, can you tell us where the Lancaster Avenue site is.
I don't have the exact location of the new site. I can get that for you. I don't have the address with me, but it's on Lancaster Avenue, and I believe that whoever is Councilmatic district we're in, we've been in contact with the City Councilperson.
Well, that's interesting because St. Barnabas, at 64th and Haverford, that's in the 4th District.
I don't recall you and I having a conversation about that. I talked to the St. Barnabas people some time ago, and they indicated an interest in moving.
But we've had no 11 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990337 discussion about this particular grant.
I know I have a propensity to ask questions that I already know the answer to, but in this particular case, I actually don't know the answer to that question.
Okay. I think a follow-up after the hearing, and if you could share any information with the Chair, I would greatly appreciate that.
Yeah, we'll make that information available to all members of the committee if you get that information to me.
I'd like the detail of the grant and the match and what it's used for in writing. And then we can get the 12 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990337 information to every member of the committee and anyone else who's interested.
Early this afternoon, I can provide that information. I'll pull it all together.
Miss Fisher the resolution indicates that the City would be able to apply for up to $1.5 million in federal funds for the Emergency Shelter Grants Program. I quickly took down some of numbers that you indicated. I got the impression that we were applying for about 200-some-odd thousand dollars?
We actually did already apply in April for the funding. We applied for in excess of $1 million, but we were notified that the amount of funding that would be available for Philadelphia this year was the $280,147. Initially, we applied for a number of projects which we still have on the table. So if there's additional funding, we would entertain possibly funding the other projects. 13 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990337 But, yes, we have -- we applied for much more than what we were granted.
Okay. Did I understand from what you just said that even though the hearing is here today, that the Office of Emergency Shelter and Services has actually already made the application?
That's true because the resolution was not heard, or the paperwork was not submitted to get approval for the actual resolution until late. But the approval that we're requesting is not just necessarily to apply but also to expand and to administer the funding. So we haven't received any money yet, so we're requesting authorization to -- after the fact for the application; but more particularly, to expend the money and to administer the grant.
Thank you. Are there any other questions from members of the committee? (No further questions at this time.) 14 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326
Thank you very much. We will now ask the clerk to read the title of Bill No. 990326, which is the CDBG (Community Development Block Grant) application.
An ordinance authorizing the Mayor, on behalf of the City, to file an application with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for a Community Development Block Grant (CDBG), as required by Section 104 of Title I of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974 (P.L. 93-383), as amended, including all understandings and assurances contained therein; and designating the Mayor and the Director of the Office of Housing and Community Development (Housing Director) as the authorized representatives of the City to act in connection with the application, to provide such additional information as may be required, and to accept the grant under certain terms and conditions; and further authorizing the Housing Director to file an application, including all understandings and assurances therein, with HUD to participate in the HOME Investment Partnership 15 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 program under Title II of the National Affordable Housing Act of 1990 (P.L. 101-625), and to take any and all other action necessary to participate in that program; and further authorizing the Housing Director, on behalf of the City, to file 7 an application with HUD for a Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS (HOPWA) grant, under the AIDS Housing Opportunity Act (42 U.S.C. 12901), including all understandings and assurances therein, and to take any and all other action necessary to participate in that program; and further authorizing the Housing Director to file an application, including all understandings and assurances therein, with HUD to participate in the Emergency Shelter Grant Program under Title IV of the Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act of 1987, as amended (P.L. 102-550), and to take any and all other action necessary to participate in that program; and further authorizing the Managing Director, on behalf of the City, to file 22 an application or applications and, if an application is accepted, to execute a contract or contracts to obtain grants from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (The Commonwealth), under the Act 16 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 of April 12, 19 1956, P. L. 1449, Section 4, as amended, to prevent and eliminate blight; and further authorizing the Mayor to file an application or applications, including all understandings and assurances therein, with HUD to use the Section 108 Loan Guarantee Program to enter into an agreement with HUD to implement the loan guarantee program, and to take any and all other necessary action to participate in the Section 108 Loan Guarantee Program.
Thank you very much. Good morning. Please identify yourself for the record and begin your testimony. Thank you for coming.
Good morning, Councilwoman Blackwell, Council President Verna, members of the committee, and members of City Council. I'm John Kromer, Director of the City of Philadelphia Office of Housing and Community Development. And I'm here to testify in support of Bill No. 990326 and am also here with a request that the bill be voted out of committee with a favorable recommendation and request to suspend the rules to 17 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 allow first reading at the next Council meeting. I have submitted written testimony previously, and because of the number of speakers that have signed in, the Administration's opening testimony will be brief, but I wanted to touch on a few points. First, during the coming year, Community Development Block Grant Year 25, the City expects to receive $68.7 million in new entitlement funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. In addition, an additional 8.6, nearly $8.7 million in program income is budgeted. And 1.6 in prior years' funds are being reprogrammed under this proposal. I really want to take this opportunity to thank the Finance Committee and to thank this City Council for its consistent support of the Community Development Block Grant Program. This past seven and a half years has been a very exciting time in the history of the program, and much has been accomplished. But all of that has been made possible by the foundation of support that City Council, through the Finance Committee, has established for the program. 18 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 During the past -- this program is now years old. During the past five years of the 4 program, we have acquired more vacant properties 5 and produced more housing than in any other ten 6 years during the entire history of the program. 7 Our Homeless and Special Needs Housing Program is 8 totally different from what it was ten years ago, 9 and hundreds of new units of transitional and 10 permanent housing managed by capable service 11 providers with neighborhood support have been 12 produced and are being produced now. 13 We have the largest first-time home 14 buyer program in the country. We brought 10,000 15 first-time home buyers to the single-family sales 16 housing market during the last 6 years, and we 17 have one of the largest repair programs for 18 owner-occupied housing in the country. 19 The Redevelopment Authority won a 20 national award for its management of the 21 Philadelphia Home Improvement Loan Program, and 22 the Authority has consistently been able to obtain 23 all of Philadelphia's share -- or, in several 24 years, more than Philadelphia's fair share -- of 25 low-income housing tax credit funding and Penn 19 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 homes funding from the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency. So this has been a very, very productive time. And the foundation of that productivity really has been City Council's support. And I wanted to thank this committee and this Council for that ongoing support, which has just been invaluable. We have two very brief presentations this morning. One is from Belinda Mayo, Director of Neighborhood Program Coordination for the Office of Housing and Community Development to present some information about employment, training, and job-readiness programs that are proposed to be supported through the Block Grant Program.
Thank you. And while she's grabbing the mike, let me also note the attendance of Councilman Mariano, Councilwoman Tasco to my left. Thank you.
Good morning. My name is Belinda Mayo of the Office of Housing, and I'm the Director of Neighborhood Program Coordination at the Office of Housing and Community Development. 20 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 I have copies of my testimony. I also have three other presenters this morning: John Rice from the Metropolitan Career Center, Martin Nock from Communities and Schools, Inc. Of Philadelphia, and Barbara Coscarello from the Campus Boulevard Corporation. All three are currently funded as providers of training and skills and education programs through the Office of Housing. Over the last three program years, OHCD has committed to support education, employment, and training opportunities in cooperation with the Philadelphia School District, the Private Industry Council, and more recently, with the Greater Philadelphia Works Program. CDBG funds have been used to leverage other public and private-sector funding in support of these activities. CDBG funds have also been targeted to individuals transitioning from welfare to work and chronically unemployed workforce between the ages of 17 and 25. With the onset of welfare reform, legislative and regulatory changes at the federal level, OHCD will begin in Year 25 to assist the 21 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 impact of these changes on current programs and funding. As new state and federal regulations are developed and implemented, we will work with the Private Industry Council, the Philadelphia Jobs Initiative, the Jobs Policy Network, and the Greater Philadelphia Works Program, as well as training providers to identify the appropriate use of CDBG funds in support of education, training, and other workforce development programs. While providing funding to organizations that assist individuals in meeting new TANF requirements through community service programs, it is important for those individuals not ready for training and full-time employment, our policy and approach has been to utilize CDBG funding in support of programs that help individuals acquire the skills and education needed to obtain full-time permanent employment that pays a living wage, benefits, and the opportunity to advance to positions that provide a higher level of compensation and a higher level of job security. During Year 25, OHCD intends to continue support of these activities through a 22 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 network of community-based and citywide organizations, as described on the attached chart. These programs are designed to address the human resource needs of companies and corporations within the city. Training providers work hand in hand with the private sector to design training programs and develop specific skills identified by the employers. This approach ensures that a majority of the program participants will be successfully replaced in jobs at the end of training. For the last two program years, we have worked with the Greater Philadelphia First Corporation to further develop employer-driven job training and placement programs through the establishment of employer advisory committees and the data-intensive precision manufacturing and hotel and hospitality and tourism industries. The advisory committees provide feedback on the types of jobs currently available in their respective fields, the development of training curriculum, and projects as related to the future human resource needs of the job market. This information is used to structure training programs 23 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 and recruit program participants. As we move forward in our efforts to support education, training, and workforce development in the ever-changing environment of state and federal regulations and resources, the need for coordination among providers and funders becomes even more critical.
I assume that these are people to talk about this Job Works Program?
Yes, yes, they are. They're going to provide testimony as it relates to their specific programs.
Right. Do I assume that this chart, although we will hear testimony, then ask questions, that these jobs are -- is this a plan or are people working in these slots?
These are the programs that we funded over the last three years, and those are the placement objectives for each program.
All right. Then we will wait until the end to ask questions 'cause we certainly would like to know if people 24 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 are working there now, if it's a plan or if it's a real job and the people are working down there now, how many of the objectives have been met. But we'll wait till the end and certainly would like to hear all of your testimony with regard to the jobs programs now. Thank you.
Please identify yourself for the record -- good morning -- and begin your testimony.
My name's John Rice. I am the President of the Metropolitan Career Center. I don't have my testimony printed, but I do have some appendix material about our programs available for each member of the committee.
I have been with the Metropolitan Career Center for years. We 20 provide a range of programs to help unemployed and 21 disadvantaged Philadelphians move into jobs with 22 career potential. 23 This year, our organization will serve 24 over 800 Philadelphians, and we provide a variety of programs that are listed on the first sheet of 25 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 the attachments that you have there. Specifically, OHCD, through the CDBG, funds the MCC Computer Technology Institute. We have just opened a new branch for our Computer Technology Institute on Broad Street. We had began developing this program back in 1992. And at that time, we were looking ahead to identifying an industry which would be growing into the future and would provide persons with long-term employment. We developed our computer technology program in consultation with 60 companies. That was back in 1993. And on the second page of the attachments, which I have provided, you will see the range of jobs that we focus on, including PC user support, hardware installation and maintenance, network administration, and office administration. And then on that second sheet in the packet, if you look to the bottom, you will see a range of companies which have actually hired our graduates. And they are, through the alphabet from, Aetna and Amtrak, all the way through Vanguard. 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 Then I would ask you to look at the last page of the attachment, which gives a summary of first three years in which we ran a pilot program. The program enrolled 127 persons, and we completed 110 or 87. And 88 of those persons, or 80 percent of our students, were placed in jobs in computer hardware and software technology, with an average starting wage of $22,000 a year and benefits. From the first year of placement, we placed 27 people. And at our last check-in, which was just before the new year, of those persons 14 were retained on job much. 15 Now, that's a lot of statistics. 16 You'll actually also see that from our enrollment, 17 that fully half of those enrolled were welfare 18 recipients, and half of these enrolled were young 19 men. And one of the things that we wanted to do 20 when we started this program was do a program that 21 would be particularly attractive to young men. 22 But because we're having our 25th 23 anniversary on Sunday, and I've interviewed some 24 graduates, I wanted to tell you the story of just 25 one of our graduates, Lynette. Lynette was in the 27 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 very first group. She was on welfare from age 15 to age 35. She has seven kids and two grandchildren. She finished our computer technology program more than two years ago and qualified for a job paying $32,500 at the Philadelphia College of Textiles and Science. She's still at the College of Textiles and Science. She's, over that period of time, gotten promotions. And she has a plan that all her children will go to the Philadelphia College of Textiles and Science where they can go free without having to pay tuition. And her dream is to graduate in the near future from that college with her oldest child. So the significance of this program are, briefly, the fact that these jobs exist in the computer world. And that good-paying jobs exist. And we know that we've demonstrated that it's possible, with a well-framed program, to help persons who were previously unemployed, laid off, low-income, through a year's instruction, and then a private-sector externship to be able to transition into a private market and retain a 28 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 full-time job. Lastly, I'll tell you about a young man who graduated last June, has only been in the job market almost a year. He is now making $50,000, he's working some overtime. But persons are moving into jobs that are paying much more than our staff. Thank you very much.
Good morning, Councilwoman Blackwell, Council President Verna, and members of the Finance Committee, members of City Council, ladies and gentlemen.
My name is Barbara Coscarello, and I'm the President of the Campus Boulevard Corporation. I do have copies of my testimony if you would like them.
On behalf of CBC, my colleague to my right, Argo Simpkins, and I are grateful for the opportunity to present testimony before this committee regarding the Year 25 Community Development Block Grant. 29 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 By way of background, CBC is a unique consortium of medical and educational institutions in northwest Philadelphia whose basic mission is to improve the neighborhoods in which the CBC members -- which include the Albert Einstein Health Care Network, Germantown Hospital and Community Health Services, the Pennsylvania College of Optometry, LaSalle University, Moss Rehab, Mana Bible Institute, Central High School, Philadelphia High School for Girls, and the Widener Memorial School -- are all located. We have met this mission in many ways in our 20-year history. In recent years, we began concentrating on programs which partner the assets of the CBC member institutions with the assets of our community residents -- namely Fern Rock, Ogontz, Belfield, Germantown, and Logan neighborhoods. The cornerstone of that partnership is CBC's highly successful and award-winning job training programs for city residents who secure entry-level positions with various employers, including, the CBC member institutions mentioned above and their affiliates. 30 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 All of our students are low-income, primarily welfare recipients. Our funding is primarily from the Philadelphia Private Industry Council, and the City's Office of Housing and Community Development with support from CBC member institutions and a few private foundations. We seek your support today for the Year block grant's general allocations and its 10 specific allocation for CBC's job training module 11 program in the amount of $185,000. 12 And now, Miss Argo Simpkins, CBC's 13 Director of Job Training, will explain briefly how 14 our training program is conducted, who it serves, 15 and what our anticipated results are. 16
Good morning, members of 17 City Council, ladies and gentlemen. My name is 18 Argo Simpkins. I am the Director of CBC's Job 19 Training Programs. 20 The CBC module program consists of a 21 two-day assessment of each student, three weeks of 22 adult basic education, and a clerical core 23 curriculum of approximately 13 weeks. All our 24 students receive training in business 25 communications, math, keyboarding, PC 31 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 applications, and office procedures. Life skills and soft skills training, for which CBC is most recognized, are a consistent part of the training, along with daily case management. Depending on the student's ability various, modules can be selected for additional training, such as medical terminology, medical billing, advanced data-entry, and bookkeeping. Time for preparation for job searches and actual employment interviews are also included. Since this program is open-entry, open-exit, students in effect receive very personalized attention. As students can enter the program at key periods throughout their training, CBC has also developed a unique relationship with the Albert Einstein Health Care Network, one of CBC members institutions, which will allow 19 students from among the 75 admitted to be program 20 to be employed at Einstein for 20 hours per week, at a salary of 8.89 per hour while they're in training with us. After training is completed, our students are employed in many cities, suburban, and even rural companies, both large and small, in 32 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 positions such as medical billers, admissions representatives, customer service representatives, secretaries, and bookkeepers. I believe it is important for Councilmembers to recognize that CBC's record of training, placement and retention is outstanding. For example, the last training program, we completed and admitted 69 low-income city residents, graduated 63, and placed 59, with an average wage of 10.59 per hour, with full benefit packages. If you contrast this income of approximately $1,836 per month, not including the value of company benefits, to the welfare payments which these same students have been receiving in amounts of $200 to $597 per month, you can see why the CBC job training program has been cited as a model for the United States and Pennsylvania Departments of Labor, the PIC, and OHCD. In addition, CBC has recently received the Outstanding Economic Development Program Award in the United States by the National Council on Urban Economic Development, the Outstanding Job Training Program in the County awarded by the 33 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 National Association of Counties, and the Outstanding Job Training Vendor Award by the state of Pennsylvania. Our retention rates are equally impressive. A study performed last year indicated that approximately 93 percent of our students were still employed after six months to one year of work, and 63 percent have received salary increases and/or promotions. Another way of looking at the economic impact of the CBC job training programs, which OHCD has funded in the past and Philadelphia City Council has approved, is to determine the total in salaries which are our students have realized since we began our training program five years ago. That number is conservatively calculated to be $4,400,000. And this figure does not even include the savings to the taxpayers for the cost to support our students while they were collecting welfare.
On behalf of the Campus Boulevard Corporation and the many city residents who have benefitted from our training, I urge your continuous support of our program 34 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 through the funding allocation in the Year Block Grant Proposal. I earnestly hope this information, though brief, has been helpful. Miss Simpkins and I are, of course, available for questions. And if you have no 7 objections, I'd like to include our testimony as part of the record of the committee. Thank you very much.
Good morning, members of 11 Council. My name is Martin Nock. I'm the 12 President of Communities and Schools of 13 Philadelphia. 14 My testimony was sent last week, and I 15 only have a couple copies of it, and I'm hoping 16 it's in your package. 17 I am pleased to come before City 18 Council today on behalf of the Office of Housing 19 and Community Development. My organizations, 20 Communities and Schools of Philadelphia, has 21 worked with the Office of Housing Community 22 Development for approximately four years, 23 primarily in the area of youth employment and 24 development. 25 Communities and Schools of Philadelphia 35 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 is a nonprofit organization that works within the School District of Philadelphia to bring curriculum enhancements, innovative programs, and supportive services to high-risk students. By providing funding for staff salaries and student stipends, the Office of Housing and Community Development has helped Communities and Schools of Philadelphia to provide paid work experience for more than 2,000 public school youth during the summer and part-time during the school year. Most recently, the Office of Housing and Community Development has been a primary partner with us in bringing American Allies Travel Academy curriculum to students enrolled in Communities and Schools' National Academy of Travel and Tourism. We currently operate the National Academy of Travel and Tourism programs along with another one of our partners, the National Academy Foundation in New York in ten comprehensive high schools. The high schools are: Audenried, Frankford High, Kensington High, Olney High, South Philly High, John Bartram, Simon Gratz, Martin Luther King, Roxborough, and Strawberry Mansion. 36 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 The American Airlines Travel Academy, funded by the Office of Housing and Community Development, is a nationally-recognized curriculum providing professional-level training in the automated reservation systems and related skills used throughout the travel industry worldwide. The program is currently housed at the Community College of Philadelphia. With funding from the Office of Housing and Community Development, we are giving Philadelphia's high school youth the opportunity to acquire training and expertise that will prepare them to enter the exciting field of travel and tourism, one of the fastest-growing industries in our city and throughout the country. Over the years, we've been able to work so closely with the Office of Housing and Community Development's Director, John Kromer, and Belinda Mayo, the Director of Community Development, because our agencies share common goals. The most important of these goals is to help young people develop their potential to the fullest through relevant educational programs and work experiences that open the door to genuine 37 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 career opportunities. We would not have been able to accomplish all that we have for Philadelphia's public school students in all of our Councilmatic districts where Communities and Schools' National Academy of Travel Tourism's programs where are without the support of the Office Housing and Community Development. We have used the Office of Housing and Community Development funds wisely and efficiently. We serve the maximum number of students possible. We appreciate they're partnership. We hope that City Council recognizes, as we do, the value of OHCD to our young people in our communities. We urge you to continue support of this agency and the very fine work it accomplishes for the residents of Philadelphia. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Certainly, we are glad to hear about all these jobs programs. And I for one have -- my first question is that we need the ability to avail ourselves of this information. We have a 38 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 lot of students etc. who frequent our offices, as well as adults who could take advantage of this training if we had a way to access it. Some of it was neighborhood-based in various neighborhoods. Certainly, the Councilperson in those areas could be helped if they knew where to refer an unemployed person or students in schools programs, etc. So I would request that if you would give us the information so that we can use it so that we can have this information available to the Council people, it would be very, very helpful. I for one have created a program, West Philadelphia on the Move, and my own jobs program because I didn't know we were this far along on this one. But this, in addition, certainly to whatever else we can create would be very, very invaluable.
The chart that was attached to my testimony lists the programs that we supported. However, we're facing some real serious changes in the way that Philadelphia residents are recruited for our programs. In the past, we've worked through a network of not only training 39 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 providers but recruitment and assessment agencies that are normally housed in community-based organizations. However, the Workforce Investment Act that sort of takes effect on the federal level on July 1st, will change the way that people are recruited for these programs. Instead, there will be a series of other types of recruitment and assessment agencies that are funded through the Private Industry Council to assess the job skills levels and needs and educational needs of residents of Philadelphia in a one-stop-shop sort of approach. So as of July 1st, and more likely as of January 1st, when these regulations will take effect, we'll have to reevaluate the way that we recruit people for the programs because instead of a low-income person being able to apply to one of our programs, instead they have to go through the one-stop-shop centers and receive a voucher, and then they would go out and try to find the appropriate training program for themselves. So right now, to provide any additional information to providing about these programs 40 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 might be helpful, but you should just know that as of January 1st, those things are going to change.
In terms of this chart, Job Training/Skills Development Programs -- and I see you have the number of slots. What is the -- how many people are actually in these jobs for this? You said these are goals when I generally asked the questions. Well, who's working and who isn't? How do we assess the success of this program based on this chart?
Well, Campus Boulevard and the Metropolitan Career Center spoke briefly about the success in their programs. OHCD provides funding for these number of individuals in the program. Our retention rate has been traditionally very high. Most people end up in permanent positions, which is our goal. And I can provide some additional information on exactly how many people have been through the training programs and who have gotten employment and are still employed in those positions.
Yes. Again, 41 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 our interest is that we have these programs that we're funding, and we're glad to do that, but we need the ability to access them for the people who come to our offices. And that is our goal, that we receive information in a form that we can use for our constituents. Do any members of the committee have questions? Council President Verna?
Thank you. Can you tell me how much CBC was allocated by OHCD during Year and how much is 13 being allocated for FY 25? 14
It's $185,000, 15 Councilwoman, last year and this year, the same 16 amount. 17
We have in the past provided 18 additional funding to Campus Boulevard during the 19 program year to fill gaps in funding that's 20 provided by the Private Industry Council. So in 21 effect, in Year 24, CBC received, or will be 22 receiving, by the end of the program year 23 $230,000. 24
I ask that question because in reading some of the testimony, 42 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 I notice that Youth Build's budget is slated to remain stable at 1.2 million. However, the overall employment and training budget is slated to decrease by 9.9 percent. Which groups are being decreased?
Well, in Year 25, because of the changes at the state and federal level and the way the job training dollars are provided, we have not allocated our entire job training budget for Year until we know what those changes are and 12 how we can best to utilize our funds in support of 13 whatever programs are established through the new 14 federal regulations. 15 In the past, we've funded at least 16 three community-based organizations to do 17 recruitment and assessment. That is, they do 18 outreach in the neighborhoods and on a citywide 19 basis to bring people into the programs, such as 20 Campus Boulevard and MCC. 21 Because things are changing, the 22 federal regulations are changing, and no longer 23 will these providers be funded directly to provide 24 training in the same way that it's been done in 25 the past, we're waiting to see what those changes 43 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 are to allocate the balance of our job training budget in support of those activities. So it hasn't really been reduced. It's just that we haven't allocated all of our funding.
We would note that Youth Build is, I'm sure, as the Director knows, and we talk about every year, they have an excellent program, and we certainly would not want them to be cut.
Well, Youth Build doesn't fall under the same funding category as the other job-training programs. And most of the funding that we provide for Youth Build also covers some of the program costs itself.
Well, I'm just saying we do not want them cut. They do an excellent job. They help so many young people. They've even taken people that they don't even get paid to try to educate. They've graduated someone who's 35 years old that they just carried. I mean, they're committed to doing their part. So certainly, we would not want to see Youth Build cut. 44 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 Councilwoman Tasco?
You talked about the new regulations, federal regulations which will require applicants to be recruited from one-stop locations. Could you tell me, in your opinion, is that better? Or would the present program activity, in terms of what community-based programs recruit would be better for the residents?
It's a little early for me to pass judgment, if you will. The regulations on the federal level have only been published on an interim basis. And the state regulations that will follow won't be published until the federal regulations are finalized. And I really don't have all the information about how Philadelphia will set up centers, so I can't say whether it will be better or worse. The opportunity to be able to go to one place and get information about employment, regardless of your income, seems to me to be a good approach, but I'm not sure of all the 45 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 particulars of the program.
So those agencies have not been identified in Philadelphia that you know of?
So you're saying that these agencies -- Metropolitan and Campus Boulevard, and Community and Schools -- they also can recruit now? Are they considered community-based organizations?
They are considered community-based organizations. And in the case of Campus Boulevard and MCC, they will enter into contracts with PIC to provide training in the same approach as of July 1st through December 31st. And if the regulations under the new Workforce Investment Act have been finalized, then that may change in January. It was just too soon to tell right now.
Okay. I'd just like to say that two of the centers I do know, Metropolitan Career Center -- it was "Collegiate" when I first met you some years ago when you were calling our office to seek help -- and Campus 46 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 Boulevard, I'd like to say that when the Women in Municipal Government Board met here in the summer of '97, we took them on a tour of the training program. And the members of that committee included mayors and council members from across this country. We wanted to show them what was going on in Philadelphia. And it certainly is a very good program, both of them or. But, John, I just happened to take them downtown to see Campus Boulevard. And, certainly, the quality of students and the end product is very good to the point that when I called for a secretary, they told me that I wasn't paying enough and that they could find their clients a better-paying jobs than what we were paying here in City Council. So I want to thank you both for the wonderful programs.
Thank you. Are there other questions? Councilman Cohen, did you have a question for this panel?
Yes. Just one technical question. 47 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 In two places on the chart, there's reference to 1.2 million, which includes acquisition and construction costs. And I don't see any explanation of what that's about -- in the Campus Boulevard chart and in the Youth Build chart. That's the second page of the charts. One is in the block for fiscal year '90 and fiscal year 2000 for Campus Boulevard; and in the year '98, Fiscal Year '98, for Youth Build.
Is Youth Build here? I know we told people what time they were scheduled to speak so they wouldn't have to sit around all day.
Could somebody just explain what that amount of money represents, what it's for? .
The 1.2 million proposed for Youth Build represents their operating costs primarily. But the director of Youth Build and some of their staff will be here later today to testify.
How about Campus 48 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 Boulevard, is it 185,000 plus million? Or is it. . . I just can't tell what the chart indicates.
Mr. Kromer, wasn't it the intention to increase Youth Build? Weren't they supposed to be expanding to just about every section of the city?
On several occasions during the past four years, and if we had more funding, we would expand it again. But for this year, we're simply proposing that funding --
So they won't be able to expand the way they wanted to.
Their director can testify as to that. I'm not sure whether they would or not. The 1.2 million reference in the note on Campus Boulevard is apparently an error. The other figures are the funding proposed for Campus Boulevard. The 1.2 million provides the Youth Build.
Thank you very much. Are there any other questions for this panel? Mr. Kromer, let me ask, is Anthony MacIntosh a part of this? He's to come next?
All right, and then after that, Steve Mullin, I assume?
Thank you very much. Thank you. (Anthony MacIntosh comes forward.)
Would you identify yourself for the record and begin your testimony.
Good morning. My name is Anthony McIntosh. And I'm the Executive Vice President of the Philadelphia Housing Development Corporation. 50 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 Over the past five months, PHDC has concentrated its efforts on the improvement of service provided under the Basic Systems Repair Program. We have focused on increasing production, decreasing the backlog of cases, and streamlining the time gap between application for repairs and delivery of service. In November of 1998, we were faced with a backlog of over 1700 cases, with an average waiting period of weeks or more for initial 12 inspection. 13 I have some charts here that I would 14 like to share with the members of the committee. 15
No, it isn't. But 18 . . . 19 Now, if could you take a moment while 20 the charts are being passed around, over here, we have a larger chart which basically depicts the status of the backlog. And in looking at that, it starts with this fiscal year, and it goes all the way back to July 1. And in looking at that, we came aboard in November of 1998, at which time 51 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 there was a backlog of 1700-plus cases. Each month, thereafter, the chart shows the number of clients waiting decreased. Now, if I could bring your attention to Chart No. 2 in your packet. Chart No. 2 is a Basis Systems Repair Program monthly production analysis. And while the other chart was showing the status of the backlog and the subsequent decrease on a month-toe-month basis, this chart shows production numbers increasing as cases are completed. , and, again it's depicted on a month-by-month basis. The last chart that we have is a chart which is a production analysis of our Year 16 versus Year 24. And this is a monthly production 17 analysis by tier. So for each program, we could 18 take a look on a month-by-month basis of the 19 increase in the overall production while also 20 increasing our response time. 21 Today, six months later, I am pleased 22 to report that PHDC has made major strides in 23 reducing the backlog in the Basis System Repairs Program. Over 1849 cases have been completed, which resulted in a 62 percent increase over Year 52 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 completions. In addition, we've been successful in reducing response time to requests for service. Our ability to achieve this level of production is as a direct result of the staff and their dedication and commitment to serve the people in our neighborhoods. In closing, we plan to continue to make this program more effective and responsive to the responsive to the needs of low-and moderate-income homeowners by making continuous improvement of operations and services our ongoing goal. Thank you.
Yes. 17 Mr. MacIntosh, I think that this is an 18 absolutely wonderful program, and I know that in 19 checking with a member of my staff, we get at 20 least 15 people that call for assistance, I guess, 21 on almost a weekly basis. Is there an overall 22 decrease of 9.3 percent in the budget for these 23 activities?
Yes, that's what's proposed. 53 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326
You know, I think we address the most troublesome emergency repairs of homeowners, and we all know that I guess we have more senior citizens, we're becoming a city of senior citizens, and many of these people need the necessary repairs that we're able to provide them. Why are we decreasing this budget?
Well, I agree with your concern about the need to sustain a repair program. The budget is proposed to be decreased because there is still some funding from the current fiscal year that we expect will support the program during some months of the coming fiscal year. The reason why that money for current fiscal year hasn't been spent already is because of a delay in receiving Section 108 funding that had been allocated to the program that hadn't been expected but had been delayed due to new requirements that HUD had imposed on the program. So because OHCD got the funding later 54 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 than expected, PHDC got the funding later than expected and was not able to deliver the funding as quickly as expected. Now, in the past, City Council has supported, and we've documented in the plan, an approach in which if other programs such as the Rental Development or the Sales Housing Development are not producing on schedule if developers experience delays and find that they can't produce in the year that they propose, their funding can be reallocated to the Basic Systems Repair Program and other activities. And through that combination of the current year's funding, the funding that's proposed in Year 25, and other funding that if needed can be used to supplement that, I am anticipating a full-year program that will be available during the entire fiscal year.
With that being said, can you tell me why the 18th Street Development Corporation is losing their $50,000 in funding for their repair program?
Yes. The 18th Street Development Corporation, which has been funded 55 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 through the program for several years now, is still in the process of spending out the funding commitment that it has received previously. And we anticipate that the spending of those currently available funds will take up most or all of the coming fiscal year. With other nonprofit groups of that kind that are in that kind of situation, if we find that there's an increase in performance and an expenditure of funds during the fiscal year, then we amend the program to provide the funding that's needed to keep them busy during the course of the entire year. And if we find that that is the case with respect to 18th Street Development Corporation, that is that they spend the funding allocated to them --
How much could they possibly have left from this year's allocation to carry them into the end of next year?
Well, the program has, frankly, been slow in performing, and by the end of the day, we can provide you with the 56 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 statistics. But our commitment to them is to keep the corporation as busy as it can be during the next fiscal year, and we will amend if we need to to make that happen.
Let me ask you, is it just the area residents that would solicit them for help? Or does some of the requests come from OHCD for many of the buildings in that community that need repair?
In my experience, most or all of the requests for the service of the 18th Street Corporation come from the immediate community.
Thank you. Are there other questions regarding the Basic Systems Repair Program?
Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. MacIntosh, did you get a message from my office on the 28th, which was the date 57 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 that I received your printout regarding the Basic Systems Repair Program Status Report Councilmatic District No. 4, these were received in the office on May 28th. I placed a call to a Sandra Barnhill (ph.), is she a deputy in your office.
Okay. The request was, was it possible to compile the data in such a way that we would be able to see full expanse of the BSRP Program and a layout by number of properties and treatments and dollar amounts by Councilmatic District? Would you happen to have that information?
The total budget for the program is -- in this year's plan, it appears to be 10.6.
10.6 for the BSRP 58 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 Program?
Wait, I'm sorry. Hold on, Mr. Kromer. I thought the previous number you gave me was 10.6 million for the total budget.
It's about 10.6, 59 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 Councilman.
Yeah. Okay, on of the plan, if I could draw your attention to that. Okay, and looking at Year 25, we have 3.3 million in State funds. That's a part of our Tier I Program. And our Tier II Program, it's about 7.8 million. And then there's for Tier III, there's an additional $800,000. And that's Year 25.
Okay. And you said you'd be able to get us -- when can we have all ten Councilmatic districts and the breakout of BSRP programs by Council district?
We could have that for you in about five days, sir. 60 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326
Well, didn't each District Councilperson get the same report that I got on May 28th?
But you asked for a further breakdown of the distribution.
What I'd be interested in is just getting the information. If I have the information, I can do my own analysis.
Council districts and forward them to the Chair, you can have those, probably, in about ten minutes, right?
Just to be clear, so the totals for each Council district on a single so that you can compare them.
Right. The report I have, the last page, , says, "Councilmatic District Total." The total count is 257 properties, the total dollar amount is $324,588.88. What I would like to see is each direct, the total number of properties that were treated and the total spending.
'Cause I'm trying to figure out if your figures are now -- if you have $11.9 million in the BSRP, I'm trying to figure out why you only spent $324,000 in one district. So I'd like to see where the rest of the money went.
Are there other questions from members of the committee 62 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 about the Basic Systems Repair Program? (No further questions at this time.)
Stephen Mullin, Director of Commerce, has some brief testimony regarding the economic development portion of the proposed plan.
Good morning. Would you identify yourself for the record and begin.
Yes, good morning. My name is Steve Mullin. I'm the Director of Commerce for the City. I'm here joined by Deputy Commerce Director Mjenzi Traylor, by PCDC President Curtis Jones, and by PIDC President Bill 19 Hankowsky. I'd like to offer a quick bit of testimony for the economic development portion of the Year 25's block grant and offer my support for the passage of the fiscal year 2000 Consolidated Plan. Before I begin, I'd like to join John 63 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 Kromer in thanking the committee and City Council for agreeing to expedite the public hearing in consideration of this bill and am looking this morning to summarize it, and in some cases, expand on the economic development section of the Consolidated Plan. We take very seriously the notion that Philadelphia's neighborhoods play a pivotal role in the City's economy. Most of the City's economic activity takes place in its neighborhoods. To ensure the quality of life for the majority of our citizens which reside in our neighborhoods, we targeted neighborhood economic development as our number-one priority. The City's approach to the economic development -- neighborhood economic development encompasses three goals: number one, assisting small neighborhood businesses; number two, investing in neighborhood physical infrastructure, including housing, to improve the business environment near residential areas; and, three, fostering the growth of community economic development skills and capacity.
Mr. Mullin, we 64 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 can't hear you very well.
And they're asking if you would speak a little bit slower; they can't understand what you're saying. Thank you.
These goals are reflected in the broad array of neighborhood development programs, initiatives, and accomplishments in the 65 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 past year. 1 million in program income, and that is 5 basically reauthorizing the use of the revolved 6 loan funds at PCDC and PIDC. 7 To help meet these goals, this year, we 8 will expanding our targeted CDC support efforts in 9 lower Germantown and eastern north Philadelphia. 10 Our basic lending programs are divided among the 11 Philadelphia Commercial Development Corporation, 12 the Philadelphia Industrial Development 13 Corporation, and the Commerce Department itself. 14 Our Small-Business Lending and Facade Improvement 15 Programs are implemented at PCDC. 4 million. The 19 Facade Programs will be funded at $200,000. And 20 our new Targeted Neighborhood Commercial Area 21 Acquisition Program will be funded at $100,000, 22 with an additional $450,000 dedicated to the 23 completion of the Italian Market Canopy Program. 24 The Housing Contractors Program will provide 25 approximately $1 million in lending. 66 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 PCDC will also provide support for the Small-Business Support Center, and the Micro Loan Program. These efforts are funded primarily through non-CDBG resources. PCDC will continue to operate the Targeted Neighborhood Commercial Area Program, its program, and this program provides an array of support services to 38 commercial areas throughout the City. A listing of these areas is attached and in the ordinance itself and the plan. In addition, PCDC will provide direct assistance to for-profit businesses and nonprofit organizations which act as key service-providers and employers in these areas. The principal goal of the TNCA Program is to enable businesses to remain and expand while providing needed goods, services, and employment opportunities for Philadelphia's low- and moderate-income residents. PCDC will provide acquisition grants to community-based development organizations located in one of the TCNAs. The organization will acquire an approved property, and after the improvement is completed, the organization will 67 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 either lease or sell the property to a business which will provide retail goods or services to the low- and moderate-income residents of that neighborhood. 4. The business will be required to create at least one permanent full-time job equivalent for every $10,000 of grants assistance. It is anticipated that at least properties will be required, 15 renovated, and occupied. This is a detailed 16 example of one of our programs. 17 Our major commercial and industrial 18 lending programs are administered by the PIDC. 19 These include our CDBG Mortgage Loan Program, the 20 Neighborhood Development Fund, and our Section 108 Loan Programs. 9 million will be used to support the Mortgage Loan and Neighborhood Development Programs, and that is program income-revolved funds. At Commerce, we will continue to 68 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 provide neighborhood development and planning grants to nonprofit community-based organizations. We will also expand our Targeted Neighborhood Support Services Grants. We will provide support to organizations in the American Street and West Parkside Enterprise Zones, Germantown, West Philadelphia, South Philadelphia, Frankford, Central, and North Philadelphia, and Eastern North Philadelphia. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Council for your ongoing commitment to the Office of the City Representative and Commerce Department's Economic Development activities. I look forward to working closely with members of Council to continue to strengthen the economic base of the City. My colleagues and I are pleased to respond to any of your questions. Thank you.
Thank you very much. I assume then that Mr. Traylor and Curtis and PIDC, you're here as support, in case we have any questions. All right, thank you. And now is our time to ask questions. 69 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 In the strategic plan, it's estimated that -- I guess we will need Mr. Kromer back up for these questions. (John Kromer comes forward.)
Let me ask you a general question, first. Priority level is assigned to meet specific needs. For example, in the area of drug and alcohol addiction, those individuals with severe mental illness are getting a lower priority. Is that because there are other funding streams for them in terms of the priority listing for drug and alcohol versus mental illness?
Yes. And with other services that can be funded through available City or State funding or that are part of the City's service programs, we have assigned a lower priority.
In terms of -- you estimated that it would take $264 million to address priority needs. How do you determine that and how does this relate to the $68 million we're getting? How do you make those assessments?
I believe the assessment 70 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 is made by staff contacting other City agencies which deliver the services to establish the estimate of what it would cost. The emphasis of the Community Development Block Grant Program is -- housing is the only funding really that's available for housing. And so, rather than provide supplemental funding for service programs, we've tried to fund the development, bricks-and-mortar piece of special-needs housing so that available service funding can be used to complement that. And the arrangement with the Health Department and other service agencies funded by the City is to -- is for us to provide the bricks-and-mortar funding supplemented by their service support.
Do you know how long the waiting list is for transitional housing? I'd like to have an estimate of what that is and also what the lists look like.
The Director of Special Needs Housing will provide some information. 71 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326
It's actually much more straightforward than I expected. The referrals are made by OESS based on the needs of shelter residents. And my understanding is that there is no waiting list.
There's no 9 waiting list for transitional housing?
That's right. My understanding is that the shelter residents who are ready to move to transitional housing are referred to OHCD programs by OESS.
That's almost unbelievable. Okay. What about the list for those who want to move from transitional to permanent housing, do you have any idea what that number is? Those who want to take the next step?
Good morning. My name is Dainette Mintz. I'm the Director of Special Needs Housing at OHCD. 72 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 Presently, the Transitional Housing Program provides months of rental assistance 4 for homeless families that are referred out of the 5 City's shelter system to the program. And we 6 currently have about 100 families who are in their 7 18- to 20-month time period in the Transitional 8 Housing Program who would be moving on to 9 permanent housing. 10 The majority of them would be moving 11 into permanent housing or other transitional 12 housing programs that we fund through our special 13 needs housing development activity, and then a 14 smaller number of them will also be moving into a 15 Section 8 housing program as their names have 16 risen to the top and certificates become 17 available. 18
Do you have 19 any idea? I know that we have a relationship also 20 with PHA. 21
Do you have 23 any idea what that looks like in terms of people 24 then moving from transitional permanent housing, what we have, and what we need? 73 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326
During the course of the current fiscal year, we have not had any families who have moved into the Section 8 Program. What we're looking at and what we have available and have identified is 100 families who are on the Section 8 waiting list, who have been in the Transitional Housing Program and are slated to move into the Section 8 Program when they reopen and begin to make available certificates.
So in other words, we have 100 families in transitional, and we don't have any Section 8's -- we don't have any program to move 'em out at this point?
We have 100 families in transitional housing who have been earmarked for the Section 8 Program who are in either their 18 to 24 months. We try to prepare them as they get into last six months of that program and be able to transition out into other long-term housing programs. So right now, we have identified 100 families who are prepared to move out of the Transitional Housing Program into the Permanent Housing Program. We've been working with the 74 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 Section 8 Program to assist those 100 folks. We have some additional families, probably about 25 families, who are in that same category, who will be moving into other special-needs housing, permanent housing, or other long-term transitional housing programs.
So then in six months, we should have available for transitional housing the opportunity for other families to go from shelter to transitional housing.
It was estimated on that the number of elderly non-homeless special- needs individuals will progressively decrease over the next two years. Why is that so? Is it because of new housing developments such as we're trying to do out west? Why is that so citywide, that our non-homeless elderly will decrease in the next two years?
What we are looking at, in terms of non-homeless special-needs population is the ability to assist folks in place, where they're currently residing. So we have increased our technical assistance budget line in the Year 75 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 plan in terms of being able to provide them with additional assistance to access other community-based services so that they would not need to move out of their current residence into other types of housing but to really to try to assist them in place.
In terms of 9 the 50 percent neighborhood benefits strategy, 10 Mr. Kromer, are we generally meeting those goals? 11 Is everyone cooperating with those goals that the 12 mayor demanded by executive order? 13
The neighborhood benefit 14 strategy is applied to all developers that are 15 receiving funding through the Community 16 Development Block Grant Program. And it is 17 related to a federal mandate, the Section 3 18 regulations of the Department of Housing and Urban 19 Development. 20 We find, and I believe reports are 21 submitted to Council that reflect these findings, 22 that there's a variation in the actual levels of 23 participation from one development venture to the 24 other. 25 In some cases, and I'm going to ask 76 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 Kevin Brooks to come forward with a couple of examples. In some cases, the goals are met or exceeded. The participation is quite high. In other instances, more needs to be done, and we're working to have more done. So the overall results of the program have improved since the issuance of the executive order. We have some excellent examples, but we also have more work that needs to be done in order to make the fullest use of the order and to comply fully with all of the local and federal regulations. I'd like to ask Kevin Brooks, the Director of Employment and Training for OHCD, just to cite a couple of examples of the application of that.
Good morning. My name is Kevin Brooks, and I'm the Assistant Director for Employment and Training in the Office of Housing and Community Development. I have some handouts that I'd like to give to the Council this morning that show both 77 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 housing and some economic development activity summaries for employment. Madam Chair, you mentioned a neighborhood benefit strategy, and what we have tried to do in the Office of Housing in the last year is to focus on the actual employment of residents, both locally and outside the Philadelphia area, to make a determination if in fact the goals of returning half of all the economic value is being accomplished. So that's what I have. Two of the major projects that are underway right now are commercial projects. The City Hall Annex Project and the Marriott Courtyard Project and the Loew's Hotel Project. Both of these are supervised by a number of City agencies, but my office is one of the principal offices responsible for tracking the employment. And I think you'll -- the numbers speak for themselves. And they're positive. These numbers will show that approximately a little more than 50 percent of the labor -- that's labor only -- is being performed by Philadelphia residents throughout the City. And we also have a 78 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 Councilmatic breakdown so that you'll be able to see by Council district where people from your neighborhood are in terms of employment. So let me have a second just to separate this out.
Thank you. If I asked you what the estimate number of employment and job training opportunities made available through OHCD, what that number is, could you give me an estimate?
I couldn't give it to you this morning because it's wrapped up in construction, maybe professional service opportunities. They may be -- excuse me. It may be new hires or existing employment. So the question of is it new jobs created or continued employment? So based on those factors, I'd have to come up with a number. I can do that but I just couldn't give it to you today. You'll be able to see directly the number of workers on these two hotel projects.
Yeah, we would look to know since we have job training programs, 79 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 if somebody says to us -- asks me what programs -- what jobs programs we fund or how many jobs do we generally fund under the CDBG plan, we would like to have some general idea.
We can provide that information in summary form on a single piece of paper so, you know, it will be clear.
Thank you, thank you. While you're looking for that, Kevin, let me ask Mr. Kromer. We know that Cecil B. Moore was designated as an Empowerment Zone, Home Ownership Zone, and a Neighborhood Revitalization Strategy Area. Are other areas so designated and can they be? And what benefits does that get having them also designated as a Home Ownership Zone? That's kind of new for me.
The Empowerment Zone and the Home Ownership Zone are both HUD-funded programs in which the funding was awarded to, in each case, a handful of cities following a national competition. There has only be one competition for Empowerment Zone funding, and only 80 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 one for Home Ownership funding, and Philadelphia was one of the cities that was fortunate enough to get both. In each case, the zone designation means that there's a substantial award of federal funding as well as a commitment of local funds to supplement that federal award. There has been some discussion of additional funding competitions for these programs, but none have happened as of yet.
You refer in the plan to welfare reform, but I don't know if you identify any specific strategies for this in terms of jobs.
The approach that is proposed in the Consolidated Plan is consistent with Mayor Rendell's position on welfare reform. And that position is not to use existing City resources to make up for funding gaps that emerge as a result of the implementation of welfare reform policies. And so there is no set-aside of OHCD funding that is proposed in this plan to compensate for welfare reform or to fund some of 81 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 the welfare reform activities that are currently being implemented through Greater Philadelphia Works and related programs. Instead, OHCD is proposing to continue the emphasis on supporting training programs such as those that were presented earlier that prepare neighborhood residents to be ready for private-sector jobs that are currently available in the local and regional economy, that pay substantially greater than minimum wage, and provide a living wage as well as benefits. And that is the approach that we propose to continue.
Thank you. Let me yield for questions from other members of the committee. Councilman Kenney, then Councilman Nutter.
Thank you very much, Madam Chair. While I recognize after -- I think we've done seven or eight of these -- seven or eight of these plans over the course of years that I've been here. And while I recognize that a lot 82 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 of the dollars are restricted by the federal government when it comes to low or moderate income, perhaps the largest group of people that we're losing as a city are families that perhaps live in a row-house neighborhood now but are looking to purchase up and to either purchase a single or a twin. And the opportunities for those families to purchase those types of homes in Philadelphia, without paying exorbitant prices, are very, very rare. I look at neighborhoods like East Falls and other places where single houses are, and they're well out of their reach. Those homes, those single homes are simply out of the reach of the middle-class, working-class homeowner who's looking to purchase a newer and larger home. Those opportunities exist, say, in the price range of $130,000 to $170,000, which is not out of the realm of some working-class families. But their opportunities for those purchases are generally in southern New Jersey, in Delaware County, and in counties outside of Philadelphia. I haven't sensed at all a strategy in the time that I've been here to attempt to deal 83 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 with that problem by using what dollars are available that are not restricted by low- and moderate-income regulations and what our strategy is in general. You know, I expect that the Office of Housing and Community Development would have that particular problem in its purview, and the people who are sitting at this table have an interest in maintaining our middle class. What, if anything, has been done -- and probably not much -- but what can we do to attempt to compete with the Washington Townships and the Glensides and the neighborhoods that are draining our working-class families out on a monthly basis?
The resources that are available to address that issue are really two. One is the Home Ownership Zone Program, which is the first HUD funding that we've received during this administration that can be used to provide benefits to middle-class families, meaning families with incomes of up to 120 percent of the median.
Yeah, are you talking about the first-time homeowners stuff that 84 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 we're doing?
No. This is the construction of new houses in the Cecil B. Moore area. And people are moving into those houses now at 18th and Oxford and in that vicinity, who make 120 percent of the median income for the first time because of that flexibility.
Let me interrupt for a moment to welcome students, 2nd-graders from the George Clymer School. Welcome and thank you for coming. (Applause.)
There's an income table in Appendix 4 of the proposed Consolidated Plan. For a family of 4, 120 percent would amount to $66,700. For a family of 2, it's $53,400. The other resources available to address that issue has been the Economic Stimulus Program. And there have been three uses of that funding over the past four or five years: One is to develop the Philadelphia Interfaith Action Sales Housing at 46th and 85 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 Market, all funded by Stimulus funding, not income-restricted. The second is the Moderate Rehab Program to develop vacant properties for sales housing, and the biggest user of that has been Scott Mazzo (ph.) of Neighborhood Restorations in West Philadelphia, although other nonprofit groups have used that resource. And the third is the Come Home to Philadelphia Program, which PNC Bank administers, which has specifically targeted at to providing mortgage financing on favorable terms to families that are moving up. There are no income restrictions at all in the PNC program, which is open now.
Do we have numbers on how successful or not that these programs have been? And I guess my other question is, should we not be looking at the clearing of blighted land, the clearing of post-industrial land, and the construction of new single-family suburban-style homes that would have the amenities that our families are looking for when they decide to pull the plug on Philadelphia and to go -- and I 86 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 recognize we have school district problems and tax-rate problems and other things, but that's one of the bricks on the load of a family's decision to move out of the City into the suburbs. What are we doing or what can we do about the construction of new, moderately-priced, affordable homes that are the desire of our families who are moving into suburbs? I don't see any of those kinds of projects at all. I mean, row house -- we're talking about people who live in row houses now and who want to the move up to singles and twins. Is there anything that we're doing in that regard?
There are a few efforts under way to do that. They are all limited by the availability of funding to acquire and prepare sites. You're familiar, I'm sure, with the Jefferson Square proposal, which is intended to do that. The Association of Puerto Ricans on the March Puerto Ricans on the March is working with a suburban developer, Leon Weiner of Wilmington to produce new-sales housing that would not be income-restricted in eastern North Philadelphia. 87 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 Frankford Group Ministries is working with Britt Altman, a suburban developer, on something similar as well. The PIA experience shows that this approach can produce results. It takes time, though, to acquire and prepare and deal with community problems and move ahead. So I think this approach should be continued but I also think we should try to build on the success of consumer-oriented programs organizations like Come Home to Philadelphia, which enable a person to come in and get financing to buy a home anywhere he or she wishes. The success of the Penn program over a period of less than a year, a phenomenal impact on the sales-housing market in West Philadelphia I think shows that those kinds of incentives can work. And what I would like to see in the future is more of a linkage of consumer-oriented programs like that with City funding so that we can boost the real estate market in that as well.
And I guess what I would like to hear is some opinion from that side 88 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 of the table as far as the use of economic stimulus dollars and other types of dollars that have gone into larger construction projects, hospitality things, stuff that we're talking about with ballparks and other things, which we all need to do. But how do we start utilizing some of those dollars to continue to contain the loss of the people that we've been talking about in the last few minutes?
Councilman, I'll answer that by noting that every time we talk about -- every time in the Administration we talk about new stimulus allocations or what should continue, housing remains one of the three general areas that we talk about and for the exact reason that John just mentioned, that we realize that the stimulus dollars are basically the only source where we have the flexibility to get around the guidelines of the block grant. And every year, that is an important component of the Stimulus Program. And we'll also note that we also believe fundamentally that employment 89 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 opportunities and an improvement in the growth of the business infrastructure all helps hand in hand with the residential decision-making of citizens, not only Philadelphia citizens, but potential Philadelphia citizens.
Well, the stories, I guess, from the people that I've talked to who no longer live in the City is the issue of the affordability of the house that they're looking for. A house in Philadelphia that provides a garage or two, a little bit of land, a little bit of ground to mow, and in a cul-de-sac setting of some kind, in Philadelphia, it's going to cost you about $300,000; while in Washington Township, it will cost you anywhere from $130,000 to $200,000. We don't have those $130,000 to $200,000 houses within the boundaries of Philadelphia, and we wind up kind of forcing the hand of these people who perhaps would stay given the opportunities of choice but find it impossible because of the inability to find a such house for their purchase in their price range.
In the next hour, we'll have a couple of examples of Come Home to 90 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 Philadelphia to show you how this is beginning to happen, and I agree that something needs to be done.
When I first came to city government, I worked for Thomas Henry Masarro (ph.), who was then the head of Housing and Community Development. One of the things that he said, because I lived and came from Wynnefield, was -- we looked through the book to see if there was an allocation for Wynnefield. And one of the things he said was, he snickered -- and he's a good friend of mine, so I'm not talking out of school, but he said that the in Wynnefield are just going to have to tighten their Gucci belts. And continually, because of the income levels that folk in that neighborhood are on, they suffer --
Excuse me, Mr. Jones, would you identify yourself for the stenographer.
I'm sorry, Curtis Jones, President, Philadelphia Commercial Development Corporation, formerly with OHCD a million years ago. 91 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 And what happened was, that kind of policy has kind of been replicated over the years, giving the greatest resources to the communities in the most need, which makes sense. But one of things that I've been able to take a look at is what Washington, D.C. is doing because they're in a similar situation where the property values in the inner city are rising and escalating beyond the indigenous resident's ability to keep up with. And one of the things that they've done there is combine a kind of office of neighborhood community development, which is dealing with your big developers, but also giving them certain incentives to create blended-income developments, which would bring people from different stratas in a neighborhood together based on some subsidies provided to the developer to bring down the price for those people in the middle income and lower income area. So what you get is more of a blended New York style community where you have people from different income stratas in the same couple of blocks. And that's one thing that I think we might do well to examine. 92 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326
Thank you. Let me just note for the record, as a resident of Wynnefield, I do not have a Gucci belt as an -- (Laughter.)
Today I'm wearing a Docker's belt, which I just purchased on Saturday. Mr. Brooks, I had not planned to ask you questions at this time, but given the information that you handed out, I'd like to ask you some questions and then I actually wanted to use this round to have some discussion with Mr. Mullin. Mr. Brooks, you handed out these charts. One is Office of Housing and Community Development City Hall Annex Project, January '99, and the other is the Loew's at PSFS, January of '99. Are those your charts?
Yeah. You should also have April, which is -- there's two sets. I 93 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 wanted to give you two sets for two projects -- April and January of 1999 for those two projects.
All right, I just have January, but we can discuss the January of 1999. First, Mr. Brooks, do you know what the unemployment rate is in Philadelphia?
No, I don't. Overall unemployment, no. I guess the national average is approaching 5 or 6 percent.
Okay. But you don't know what the unemployment rate is in Philadelphia.
Okay. Well, maybe you can explain to me -- I'll use your April '99 chart since that's the most current information.
No, for the Loew's project. That's showing the number of workers at 729. It shows the total Philadelphia residents at 401, which is 55 percent.
But I find it 94 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 interesting that there are 163 people who worked on this project who are from the Philadelphia suburbs, 147 from New Jersey, from Delaware, 4 5 from New York, and 2 from Florida. 6 Now, can you tell me why we would have 7 328 people from outside of the City of 8 Philadelphia who are supporting this particular 9 project, who fund this project based on our 10 population and our poverty rate? I assume there 11 are OHCD funds in these projects? 12
And they're a function of population, poverty for people in Philadelphia, correct?
So can you tell me why 45 percent of the people who worked on this project, 328 of them, are from outside of Philadelphia.
Yeah. Part of the answer is the mix of the construction trades in general, 95 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 that based on the availability of these trades, approximately 45 percent of that labor currently lives outside of Philadelphia. It may not mean that these folks did not at one time live in Philadelphia, but they're currently living outside of Philadelphia, and that's the reality. I wanted to present the reality of the distribution of labor as accurately as possible. This is the first time that my office, we tried to accurately sort out where the labor is coming from, and this is our honest attempt to present that to you. More than half of the laborers in Philadelphia, a little less than half of it from the south side of Philadelphia. Our job is to try to increase the number of residents inside of Philadelphia. We try to do that by expanding the pool of trade -- of skilled trades persons in Philadelphia through supporting the apprenticeship training programs. Congreso de Latinos has an apprenticeship training program, and we try to place the graduates of that training program on construction projects like the City Hall Annex project.
Well, what 96 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 incentive would a person or a company possibly have even utilizing the programs that you're laying out if people are able to exit the city -- you just engaged in a discussion with Councilman Kenney about that -- and continue to work on these projects? And close to half of the people live outside the city on whom they're depending to get the project dollars in the first place.
Yeah. Councilman, I've just been trying to present to you the distribution of labor. The questions of --
I understand that, and I'm not complaining to you about the provision of information, I appreciate it. It does nothing more than back up what many of us have historically known for most of our lives.
I'm just glad that you have it now in a form that we can actually see it and have a discussion about it. (Applause.)
Still doesn't answer the question that we continue to pour money into projects. We'd like to have the projects, 97 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 I'm not complaining about the Loew's Hotel project, I'm not complaining about the City Hall Annex project. I aired those issues at the appropriate time. What I am now complaining about is people are working on these projects who do not live in Philadelphia. Now, I understand you might not be able to get 100 percent or sometimes 90 percent but you are now getting in the realm of 50/50. And I do not understand that, given the unemployment rate, which, you stated for the record, you do not know. (Applause.)
Councilman, the federal government does not require, and we cannot require, any certain percentage or quota of Philadelphia resident hiring. What we can do is try to enforce the Section 3 regulations. And I agree with you, it's good that we have this information. We need more of it.
Mr. Kromer, we can enforce whatever it is we want to enforce. I believe that it is still our money, correct? We enforce a lot of things around here that we may 98 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 not have the legal authority to enforce. But when we tell people that we want things to be in a certain way, somehow magically, they figure out a way to be in compliance because they want the money, and they want to do the project. And all I'm saying is, if we're going to put money in projects on the backs of people who are in poverty in Philadelphia, for which the rate is guaranteed, then we need to figure out a way that Philadelphians can do the work. This is the constant complaint -- not only in our neighborhood, but also in downtown. It is now documented by Mr. Brooks here what people have been saying for 10, 15, years, 16 that they go to project sites and see license 17 plates from a whole host of places outside of 18 Pennsylvania. And not only are they outside of 19 Pennsylvania, some of them are not even in the 20 same almost time zone. You have to fly to some of these places or take a train. Now, explain to me why two people from Florida are working on this job or in New York? In the other one, we've got folks Maryland, New Jersey, Delaware, New York again. Why does this 99 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 happen? Is there no one in Philly that wants to work on these jobs?
The only way to address that priority is by enforcing the executive order, which this example shows has been done, and by supporting the kinds of apprenticeship programs and training programs that make people ready for these jobs.
Well, you don't figure enforcement of executive order the fact that you've met the 50 percent threshold and then that's the end of the discussion, do you?
Could I also respond? I can't underscore how important having the data 100 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 first to present the problem, but secondarily, training programs are so important.
Mr. Brooks, you didn't need this data to know the answer to these questions. You've known about this -- and I'm not talking about you individually, it's you collectively. People have known about this for years. This didn't come as a sudden revelation to you, did it?
Not at all. But in response to this data, it's all the more important that we support training programs that expand the pool of skilled labor in Philadelphia. If we say that we need carpenters and apprentices from Philadelphia and we're not getting them -- and you can see on the summary of trades by distribution. If we're not getting them, then one of the things we have to do is to emphasize the need to have training programs for these people so that you can get 'em from Philadelphia.
Didn't we emphasize 101 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 it last year?
What was the result? How many new people came on in any of those apprenticeship programs last year to this year?
Thirty people graduated out of the Congreso de Latinos apprenticeship training program. I don't know the placement on these hotel projects, but all of those people have been placed in construction fields in Philadelphia and surrounding counties. And it's a modest number, but that's one way you attack it, Councilman.
I understand that, I appreciate the answer but it is irrelevant to the point that I am raising. What I am trying to figure out is, what are you trying to do, presently and going forward, to make sure that more people -- we have a lot of projects that are about to come on line. Bill Hankowsky, how many projects we 102 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 got coming on line in the next couple of years? What have you got, TIFs? And more coming?
So there's a lot of 6 work that's going to happen over the next couple 7 of years. 8 Now, what are you guys going to do 9 about these kinds of figures when we have people 10 every day in every neighborhood standing on the 11 corner, looking around, looking at each other, or 12 looking to see what they're going to do to 13 somebody next, and we got close to half of the 14 people who are working on the big production jobs in the city that don't work here?
The only way to assure that is by sitting down with the developers and the builders and the building trades and establishing goals.
Could we have some quiet over on the side, please. I'm trying to get an answer.
And sitting down with the parties on each of these ventures and establishing goals that we insist on being enforced. And I 103 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 would being delighted to include you or other representatives of City Council.
Have we ever stopped the construction work on a project for noncompliance?
That wasn't an answer to my question. Have we ever stopped a contract for noncompliance?
Not on commercial projects, but on housing projects, we have. And I think with this information, I think Mr. Kromer's comments are right on point. Before we approve any deal, we negotiate these kinds of employment goals that are outlined here to say we need to do a better job in these areas. And if they become a part of the agreement, then we can stop the funding, we don't sign off on the deal at all. 104 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 And it's a matter of the oversight agencies to make sure that it gets done. It's our job to make sure that those goals are achieved. That's how it's done.
I will always appreciate the effort to bring someone in compliance. What I'm more interested in, rather than stopping project, is making sure that there are people available to do the work. The question is, what are you going to do about that?
Well, we'll -- the first thing you do is, you try to make sure you've got the labor that can do the work. So if you surveyed the entire pool of people in Philadelphia and we know there are X-number of carpenters, X-number of electricians, X-number of plumbers who can work and we get the support of the unions to make them available, then we can successfully achieve any goals we --
Well, it's going to be pretty -- quite honestly, it's going to be 105 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 difficult because right now, there's an awful lot of construction underway. And so a lot of people are --
And there are a lot of people working, so there is the reality that there may not be --
No, there are so many people working and there are so many projects going on, that we have to go get people from the Philadelphia suburbs, New Jersey, Delaware, New York, Maryland, and Florida to fill spaces while we've got people right now -- many places in my district, Councilwoman Verna, Tasco, Blackwell, and anybody else around here, you can go out to any one of our districts right now -- I'll give you five locations, and there are a bunch of guys standing around doing nothing. That's the issue. Now, maybe they weren't thinking about being a carpenter today.
Maybe if they knew there was an opportunity, they would. 106 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 The question is, what are you going to do about it when you know that we have so much work going on that we can't find people in our own city to do the work and we've got to go out and hire people from other places.
Well, one thing we can do is do a better job of outreaching to the neighborhoods about employment opportunities before they start. And we can work through neighborhoods-based organizations to let them know well in advance about opportunities, identifying the most qualified people to take advantage of those opportunities. And then what we will do is to make sure that they work. If they're qualified, they're local, it's our intent to make them employable. And that's what we do. That's one way to do it, Councilman, is early notice to the neighborhoods about the opportunities, ask them to identify people who qualify, are looking for employment, those people referred to the appropriate agencies for consideration of employment when work starts -- before the work starts to have them interviewed for employment. 107 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326
Mr. Brooks, I'm going to yield to Councilwoman Tasco. Let me tell you that I appreciate your attempt to try to respond to what I've asked you about here today. Let me say for the record that it's not disrespecting. Your answer is inadequate, and I would suggest that go back to the shop, deal with the other folks who are at the table and some other people who are in this room, and come back to us with a game plan that actually makes some sense about what we're doing going forward. (Applause.)
Unfortunately, unfortunately, some of the commitments or promises that you may make today may in fact expire in about seven months. So I want to know that we have an actual plan going forward that this Council has an opportunity to take a look at to deal with 15, 16, 17-some-odd projects, most of which are large that have also come through this Council. And more than likely, based on the answers that you've given here today, we're going to see the same kind 108 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 of reports, and I appreciate the reports, you know how much I love information. But all you've done is document what many of us have been talking about, at least for me since the time I got here for some of my colleagues for many years ahead of time. This is a disgrace. (Applause.)
Thank you very much. Follow-up question, Councilwoman Tasco?
Thank you very much. I was looking at these charts when we first received them. Why is the performance -- they're both terrible and appalling. But why is the performance a little better on the City Hall Annex project as opposed to the Loew's project?
Councilwoman, I would say that the City Hall Annex has been underway a little bit longer.
It's been underway a little longer, so they've been working longer on that project. Loew's is maybe a month or two starting later.
I'm sorry, Councilwoman, can I interrupt you for one second. If you look at the April of '95 numbers, because I did notice that on the January '99 numbers, there was a distinct difference between the two projects. If you look at the April '99 numbers for Loew's, its total Philadelphia residents, 55 percent. For City Hall Annex, it's 54 percent. And for Loew's, it's total outside Philadelphia, 45 percent. And for City Hall Annex, it's 46 percent. They are now, as of April '99, essentially the same.
You are in charge of the Office of Employment and Training. Who is your enforcement officer to oversee these projects?
I wear that hat as well. There's no -- I do both the outreach and the 110 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 planning initially and am also charged with working on the enforcement of the plans that are developed for the projects.
Wasn't Handford Jones a part of your office? What happened to him?
He was detailed to our office to help with the oversight of the construction projects, and he was on a leave of absence. And his leave of absence expired so he had to return to the Minority Business Enterprises Council.
Well, he seemed to be fairly effective when he was in your department but he didn't seem to get too much cooperation when he wanted to shut down some of the projects because of noncompliance. Why was that?
Well, I thought we worked really, really effectively during the year that he was in the Office of Housing, so I --
I never met a more frustrated person than Handford Jones. And this has nothing to do with him, but just in my dealing with him in terms of trying the get the attention 111 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 of everybody about the lack of participation on these projects of minorities and women, total frustration. And you saw that when we had the discussion around the Kvaerner issue.
There are two or three training programs targeted for construction. There's also the Top Win, a trades women for women, so that's the second one that I know of. So it's Congreso and Top Win are the two training programs targeted for construction in the city in addition to, the trade unions have apprenticeship programs as well.
So I look at a number of the trades where there are -- there's just absolute participation of zero. What do you do to interact with those trades to see if they have apprenticeship programs, if they have women and minority members and how do they intend to comply?
It requires sitting down 112 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 and talking to all three trade unions where there are zeroes and saying that we need to increase their number that they're -- that's how you start, by sitting down and talking to them and saying there's no apprenticeships in this training program.
What kind of reaction do you get? What's their response?
Well, initially very cooperative. They're willing to consider individuals doing the openings of --
Were you given any timetables as to when you'd like to have minorities and women to be made part of their apprenticeship program?
They have standard apprenticeship training scheduled openings. We'll refer individuals during those standard training program openings. In addition, we ask for special training tests throughout the year for some specific trades, and they have been accommodating for those specific testing requests that we've made in the past. It normally happens through local community-based organizations as opposed to 113 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 a city agency like mine.
Do you try to encourage the development of more training programs around the building trades with all this new work coming up around the construction industry?
We have tried diligently to expand the number of opportunities for residents in some of the key trades where -- there's an awful lot of work in electrical, HVAC, plumbing. Those are some of the major trade areas and so that's where we try to focus our activity on. On some of the other trades, we have not because of, I guess, the total number of hours for those other trades. But in the primary trade areas of electricians, plumbers, HVAC, we have targeted, and I think we have -- you'll notice some of the apprenticeship training programs are bearing some fruit because we have carpenter apprentices now and we have electrical apprentices now. And so there has been improvement in that area.
Mr. Hankowsky, 114 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 when we had this discussion before around minority participation, do I understand that we were to make part of the contract now a goals and timetables or something of the contract when we had our last discussion around minority participation and these new TIFs?
Yes. I should probably start by introducing myself. Bill Hankowsky, President of PIDC. Councilwoman, as Mr. Brooks said, there is -- projects do submit an economic opportunity plan that lays out on the workforce side and on the -- generally on the construction subcontracting side participation. And those are -- the two that are in front of you are examples of that, and there are other projects where those are also in place. The workforce issue that's before you is a problem that I think you have correctly, in the questions you were just asking, identified one of the tensions in this. These are also what are generally known as Davis Bacon projects, which tends to mean that they are bid by union contractors. So you have union jobs which then 115 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 puts the contractors and developers in a situation where they're seeking to meet these goals within the confines of a defined labor pool. And the questions by both yourself and Councilman Nutter with regard to the need to really create an avenue to get more people in that labor pool to reflect the diverse background of the city, I think, is the critical linchpin. Because, otherwise, you see the phenomenon which you're seeing, which is the fact that the union card-carrying members are then recruited from outside the metropolitan area when the work happens, and we are in that phenomenon today, whether we assist the projects are not. The region on the whole is in a high construction mode. And that's the problem you're seeing.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I have other questions but not on this issue so I'll wait.
Thank you very much. 116 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 The trades that have been the most successful in changing the complexion and gender of their apprentice programs and in their journeyman programs, in your opinion, has been which trades? I see higher numbers obviously on these two particular projects. And I guess part of the question is they've come from -- some of them have come a long way, some of them haven't come even anywhere near where should but some of them have come a long way. And the question I'm asking is, what has made those programs successful in recreating more minority and more female, more diverse ethnic backgrounds than some of the others have?
I would say that the carpenters union has been really aggressive in both adopting the approach of local-resident employment, so they really have reached out and tried to understand the policy of local employment first of all, and then work with community groups across the board to get more people in the pipeline, help them get pre-apprenticeship training so they test well and are successful in becoming union members. And that would be one 117 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 example. I think the electrical union has also made strides there.
Is there some way that we could try to outline for these other unions the exact steps that these two unions -- the electricians and the carpenters -- have taken to improve their minority and female component and to perhaps not impose -- or maybe impose those kinds of requirements on those other trades that aren't -- that are lagging behind in their efforts, that maybe sound as if they want to be cooperative, but in reality, you know, wind up not being successful in what they say they're going to do.
Yeah. I think that's a worthwhile goal to have, and we can share with those other unions where there are other opportunities coming up some of the successful strategies that the carpenters and electricians have employed.
And I guess the other question I have on the component, the breakdown of the demographics. Of the 45 percent 118 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 or so that are outside the city, what would be the average on the two projects for outside employment, 45, 47 percent?
Do we know what the racial demographics of that group are?
Not precisely, but I would call your attention to a summary of employment participation for the City Hall Annex project with the report of April 1999. And you can see that overall, 3 percent of all the labor across trades were employed by females, so females represent 3 percent of all labor by race and sex. So it's 3 percent for females, 20 percent of all the labor by hour performed by African-American male, 3 percent by Hispanic male, and 74 percent by white male.
Do we know whether they're city residents or they're not city residents?
I would suspect, just from my experience, that the majority of the 45 percent who live outside of the city are 119 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 probably white males.
Who probably at some point lived in the city. I would venture to guess that a portion of them, I guess, going back to my initial question to Mr. Kromer about housing opportunities in the city for people in that income level, a lot of those guys were probably city residents at one time and then have moved out into New Jersey and to the surrounding counties.
Yeah. You see that the distribution in the Philadelphia suburban areas and in the New Jersey area is pretty high.
Right. But I would be interested in knowing what percentage, if any, are minority or female that are ranked in the New Jersey or suburban group, just for my own interest, and see also what kind of demographic moving trends we have amongst construction trade minority members who may also be moving out of the city. So I'd like to know what that group is. And, again, go back to reiterate that the successful building trade unions that have been improving their situation vis-a-vis their 120 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 diversity, I think, needs to be matched by the other unions that are lagging behind and perhaps even forced to do so if, in fact, they are not being successful, to employ these kinds of apprenticeship training programs in their particular locals to get their minority components up to where they should be.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Brooks, I had planned to ask additional questions about this subgroup of people as well, and I'd like to expand the request that was made by Councilman Kenney. What I would like to know is, the City Hall Annex project and the Loew's Hotel project, for instance, in the City Hall Annex chart, you're showing 160 people in the Philadelphia suburban area. I would like a breakdown of that 160 people to tell me what their race and gender are and what trade they happen to be in. And I'd like that information for each of 121 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 the additional categories -- New Jersey, Delaware, New York, and Maryland for the City Hall Annex project; and the same for the Philadelphia suburban areas -- New Jersey, Delaware, New York, and Florida for the Loew's Hotel project. Now, you'll be able to tell us that information, right?
That's what I thought. Secondly, Madam Chair, I would ask through your chairpersonship, I would like to make a formal request that a representative from the Law Department be requested to come to this public hearing. I'd like to have some discussion about this particular issue with a member of the Law Department on the record. Thank you.
Thank you. We'll make that request. Are there any other questions?
Certainly, 122 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 Madam President.
You know, we think very highly about the Youth Build. Once the students graduate from Youth Build, do they automatically come under any particular group?
No. The Youth Build graduates, as the Youth Build representatives will explain, take different directions. Some of them go to Community College or go onto additional training. Others do go into construction trades, and there has been some linkage with apprenticeship programs in Youth Build graduates. But that's the kind of activity that I think we need to continue to support so that we can continue to build the apprenticeship base.
Thank you. Are there any other questions? (No further questions.)
Certainly we thank Mr. Kromer. We know that he will be around, 123 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 as will some of you, to respond to --
Yes. Madam Chair, can I just note for the record that I started my questioning by saying that I had questions for Mr. Brooks because of his charts, although my original intention was to actually have discussion with Mr. Mullin and the rest of the economic development people when I finished with Mr. Brooks.
Mr. Mullin, on of your testimony, you talk about trying to meet some particular goals and that you're expanding your targeted CDC support efforts in Lower Germantown in Eastern North Philadelphia, which I'm certainly pleased to hear about, and I'm sure the folks in Lower Germantown and Eastern North Philadelphia are very happy about that. 124 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 Can you tell me, though, what efforts you're taking in West Philadelphia, north and south of Market and Wynnefield, Overbrook, and North Philadelphia and the Allegheny West section, or any other areas that might be in other close to the 4th District.
In fact, Councilman, I believe that the types of things that we -- the types of things that we do -- by the way, not only just block grant, but through all of the economic development in those economic development agencies, and those areas would include the Enterprise and Empowerment Zones in West Parkside, Capital Infrastructure projects going through the Commerce Department and maybe coordinated with other departments. I'm not sure of the targeted -- out of the 38 targeted neighborhood commercial programs, we have some -- 60th and Market Street is in here. I don't have a map of where these are but we do have some of the --
Yeah, the charts. Well, 125 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 the charts in the --
All right, we can skip that question, I'll get back to that later.
Thank you. On of your testimony, can you give us a brief explanation of what the CDBG Mortgage Loan Program is.
The CDBG Mortgage Loan Program is PIDC's main business program. It's not housing mortgage, but it's the CDBG mortgage program for businesses originally funded through CDBG entitlement. And now it's revolved -- the revolved money's back from the loans. We reprogram essentially every year on the order of about $4 million.
Can you by way of example explain to me what you're talking about.
Sure. I mean, I might understand it or know it better by project than by the description that you gave.
Yeah. The PIDC 126 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 Mortgage Loan Program is, as Mr. Mullins just said, is a program that was established now about years ago, where back then, in the Annual 5 Community Development Block Grant Program, there 6 was actually -- new dollars were allocated to 7 PIDC, and a fund was created. We no longer 8 receive any new dollars. But the revolved dollars 9 that come back by loan and interest repayments are 10 lent out. 11 It's a program available to for-profit 12 businesses whereby we finance fixed assets, 13 acquisition of real estate, renovation, machinery 14 and equipment. It has lending criteria that I 15 could provide you with in terms of a facts sheet. 16
Okay. Why don't 17 you get us some detailed information about the 18 program and forward it to the Chair. 19
Yeah. We get about 20 20 -- roughly 20 of those loans last calendar year. I could bring it more current, but I did a year-end just to --
If you could get us the brochure material on the program to the Chair as well as the last two years of activity and who 127 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 are the recipients, that would be helpful.
Thank you. Mr. Mullin, on , again, of testimony, it reads: "In the event that applications are not submitted this fiscal year, then we anticipate. . . " I guess this is supposed to say "having approximately $35 million of remaining authority." What does that sentence mean? What do you mean if applications are not submitted? And what applications are we talking about?
I'm not sure. . . uh, you might have a -- I'm a bit embarrassed. You might have a copy of testimony that included some language that we had left in about the HUD 108 loans last year. That was from last year, and when I cleaned them up, I thought we had sent those over to you. So. . .
I'm reading from the testimony I was given that's dated June, 1, 1999.
Right. Yeah, that -- the applications actually were submitted. And let me 128 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 ask Bill to -- this remained in and got sent in error, this paragraph was supposed to have been taken out.
With regard to the HUD 108 Program, and we have at various other sessions discussed this. So, again, today is sort of a snapshot of where it is at this moment. We have received HUD approval -- and when I say "we," I include both the housing and the economic development aspects of the use of 108 for 275 million. That doesn't mean it's all spent or disbursed. It's simply approved applications.
There is one application submitted that is pending for million. There's about 43.5 million, 19 therefore, currently available without 20 applications in front of HUD. 21
The capped amount 22 is 343 million based on 5 times 68 percent? 23
Correct, correct. And 24 the 43.5, there's an anticipation -- and I think 25 it's reflected in the Year 25 application -- that 129 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 approximately a little more than half, about 23.5 million of that, would be used in housing activity that I would have to defer to Mr. Kromer on what the specifics of what those might. And roughly would be used for economic-development 7 activities anticipated. 8
Okay, thank you. 9 Mr. Mullin, back to that same section 10 of the testimony. Now, I don't know whether this 11 is left over or not, but the next sentence says, 12 "To that end, we anticipate drawing down Section 13 108 funds to assist in larger-scale development 14 projects in support of our hotel development 15 initiatives and to support our neighborhood 16 lending programs." 17 Is that a current sentence or is that 18 an old sentence? 19
That was an old sentence, 20 but it actually -- it actually recurs. It is -- it describes how we're continuing this year. It is -- that whole paragraph basically was the last year.
Are we anticipating funding additional hotel projects? 130 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326
No, that's why I say -- they are -- the projects that are underway have already been listed.
How much -- Mr. Mullin, again, down at the bottom of your testimony, you talk about the elimination of blight. Can you tell me how much money the Commerce Department spent last year and how much you anticipate spending in Year on blight 11 elimination? 12
I know the block grant -- 13 I can find out that number for you. If you mean 14 when we categorize which expenditures are blight 15 elimination, I can get those figures for you. 16
Okay, that will be 17 good. Thank you. 18 Now, we've had this discussion in the 19 past. The HUD 108 loan funds have primarily been 20 used, in many instances, to support the hotel 21 development initiative, and the way that they have 22 qualified is that they are, in essence, providing 23 jobs for low- and moderate-income people; is that 24 correct? Because that's one of the national 25 objectives of the CDBG program; is that right? 131 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326
Okay. And, again, the way that these projects qualify is because they're providing these particular jobs for low- and moderate-income people.
You don't have to respond. Do we have any sense of, for any of those projects that are now up and running, what their recent revenues were as a result of the development of the project?
When you say "recent revenues," any projects that have actually been committed and are running, to see whether or not they're matching up with their proformas for the first few years, we can take a look at that.
Matching up or having any proformas. Take -- did we put any CDBG money in the Marriott Hotel? 132 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326
Are there any projects that are now functioning where people are, you know, staying in rooms, and having a good time, that had CDBG funds in them?
I think with regard to the HUD 108 Program -- if that's the question -- I think the one hotel that has gone the full cycle that is now operational and complete is the Hawthorne Suites, which is, I guess, several months into operation.
Okay. And do we subsequently, when these projects get up and running, do we get any data on what their financing are, how successful the project has been, what the revenues are that are generated from those locations?
We get -- they are required to submit reports vis-a-vis employment, tracking back, I believe, to the question just a motion about who is hired for the permanent jobs, where do they come from, etc. We don't actually get -- we don't get a monthly operating report. 133 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 As a lender, we'll generally receive an annual financial statement of the operations.
The reason I ask the question is -- I mean, it just becomes interesting over the period that we utilize funds that are put in place for the primary benefit of low- and moderate-income people. We build, in many instances, either hotels or other developments at particular sites that, you know, may or may not, in the classic sense, they're certainly not in low- and moderate-income neighborhoods. They're often in our Center City area. This is not a Center City versus neighborhoods debate, though. And I just wonder from time to time how successful the projects end up becoming and whether any of that success in terms of those revenues ever filter down to the people on who's whose behalf allegedly the projects were built or least funded in the first place. To the extent that we can get any information on how these projects are functioning going forward, I'd be interested in that. 134 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 Mr. Mullin, in addition to the information I asked you regarding elimination of blight, if you can get me information on any infrastructure work or infrastructure improvements that you've utilized your funds for, that would be helpful.
On a little more personal note, have we resolved the problem with West Parkside and their cleaning contract? Have they have they gotten a check? Do you know?
Did West Parkside get a check? I think what we were looking at was to give them an interim check because there was still a month's worth of work in the --
I'm not sure what the problem was. What I know is that the business people are actually making the payments.
Because the check was held up in the fiscal office somewhere. So if you could find out what the story is.
Yeah. We found where it was, and I don't know yet, but I'll find out 135 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 today. But I think we actually made an advance.
Okay, that's great. Thank you. Madam Chair, I have no more questions for Mr. Mullin. I will have some whenever Mr. Kromer returns.
Thank you very much. You said Mr. Kromer is still here?
This is the final round of questioning. Thank you all for being so patient.
After this round of questions, certainly all of you who are here to testify -- we have some students from Youth Build who I know have to go back to school, so we'll try to move it on really, really quickly 136 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 after we do this intense I have question and answer, which is at its tail-end. Then we will try to move it quickly if all of you will agree to limit your requests to three minutes. If you have questions, Mr. Kromer will be here, and you can step in the back and ask it or you can certainly respond to me as Chair of the committee, and we will try to move it along very quickly. We really want to -- the Youth Build Charter School and students are here as well as certainly Steve Culbertson and Judy Berkman, CDC of Frankford, and the Frankford Ministry Group is here. Certainly we hope that they don't have to leave. I know that people can't stay all day. Unfortunately, we have no way of assessing what will happen at the first part of the hearing when the Director makes his testimony and the City departments and the Council people have right to give them intensive questioning. This is a once-a-year process to justify the whole budget, and that's why it takes this amount of time. We're sorry. If everybody can be patient, this is the last round of questions. After Councilman Nutter speaks, we will get the 137 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 students in and out, with one exception, a gentleman from Mill Creek who, I know due to physical reasons, cannot stay. We'll get the students in and out, and then we will proceed very quickly. Councilman Nutter?
Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Kromer, how many units of housing were produced last year in the categories of new construction, rehabilitation, and senior/special needs housing?
We have a specific breakdown in each category in the quarterly reports that are sent to each Councilmember. I can give you photocopies within the hour of those statistics under each line.
Okay. What do you estimate the cost per unit of new construction versus rehabilitation? What's the average costs for those two?
In some instances, the costs are equal. There really is -- a savings through one approach or the other is not 138 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 guaranteed. One of the most expensive ventures that we supported was the completion of the Brentwood Apartments on Parkside Avenue, in West Philadelphia, a very expensive development in which the subsidy was near $80,000. On the other hand, even the Philadelphia Interfaith Action Development, at 46th and Market, which was an attempt to produce low-cost housing on a large scale, required a substantial amount of funding to be committed to acquisition, some environmental cleanup, and some infrastructure. And so the high end is $70,000 to $80,000 in subsidy. The low end, on the good side, is the moderate rehabilitation that's done by many groups around the city in which the subsidy does not exceed $25,000.
Okay. And you said you can get a breakdown of what we did last year in terms of new and rehab and senior or special housing?
Okay. And what was 139 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 the spending, if you know at the time moment of -- what are we in, Year now? 4
Either Year 24 or 6 Year 23 for the entire CDBG budget, which is 7 generally somewhere in the $90 million to 8 $100 million range. What was the breakout of 9 spending by the various programs by Councilmatic 10 district; do you know? 11
I don't have that right 12 here, but we can certainly produce that breakdown 13 for you. 14
Okay. Is it your 15 view that some areas that are eligible for CDBG 16 funding, due to the sheer demand on limited 17 resources, just literally do not end up seeing 18 much of the CDBG funds in some of the outer areas 19 of the city? Outer, in contrast to the central 20 core of Philadelphia? 21
I think there's an issue 22 of need and also an issue of demand. There's 23 certainly a need for new housing construction, 24 vacant house reconstruction in many areas of the city. But I think that you will find, as you go 140 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 through the data that we will provide you with, that there's also an issue of demand. When a request for proposals is issued for a special-needs housing development, for example, I expect you would find that a lot of the requests, whether they're funded or not, come from the 5th District. We've had one special-needs developer, Philadelphians concerned about housing in the 4th District, but we don't have a half a dozen or more proposals coming from that district. That may or may not be true of programs like the Basic Systems Repair Program, but you will see, there's no denying that the need exists nearly everywhere in the city.
Well, one of the issues that is of challenge for some of us who may not have as high a need on the pure new construction or housing rehab side is that there is a fair amount of high home ownership, as you well know, and I know the Chair knows, in aging, continually aging population that finds it difficult to maintain their houses. Tell me a little bit about our efforts or abilities and certainty the funding support we 141 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 provide to help some neighborhoods that may not have seen some of the deterioration as others but are on their way. What are we doing to prevent the slide?
For aging homeowners, the basic resources that we've supported have been the Basis Systems Repair Program, which has a substantial representation of elderly people as, well as the Sharp Program, the minor repair program administered through the Philadelphia Corporation for Aging. In addition, we provide support to developers of Section 202 housing, which is elderly housing. And we routinely fund the gap between the Section 202 award that HUD provides and the actual cost of completing the venture.
Well, let me at least say for the record that in some areas, what we're really talking about is the difference between the subsidy that you talked about earlier, which, you know, on the low end, might be 25; on the high end, 80, 90, sometimes 100.
And in some 142 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 neighborhoods $50,000 or $630,000 would really go a long way to almost complete block rehabilitation as opposed to one house. And I'm not arguing against the house in some areas being rehabilitated. All I'm just saying is that efficient use of resources or creative use of resources can get you a lot in some neighborhoods that haven't seen the incipient blight that we talk about. Share a little bit with me about what your plans are. I notice in your testimony, on , you talk about that you're budgeting $8.6 million in CDBG program income for various projects and another $1.6 million from prior years. That seems to add up to about $10.2 million, or about 15 percent of your $68 million CDBG application amount. What do you plan to use those dollars for?
That funding, which occurs in every year's budget, is reallocated for various activities. And the reallocation is shown in the other column in the budget breakdown that begins on in the budget section. 143 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 For example, the program income that is earned by PHDC is one source of funding for PHDC operations. So the program income and the other funding is not specifically set aside for any single activity but is allocated throughout various line items in the budget.
Well, maybe it's sheer coincidence, but you and I have had an opportunity to chat briefly about this, and many of my colleagues are supporters of a particular bill that is pending before the Council and may have a hearing sometime soon that talks about using CDBG funds for a variety of eligible activities out in neighborhoods like we've talked about. And the specific percentage is actually 15 percent, which is about $10 million. And by sheer coincidence, I guess, that's what your program income dollar amount is. What's your reaction to the prospect of -- similar to how we handle some of our capital budgeting items and a couple other programs -- some flexible dollars or discretionary dollars that Councilmembers may have to fund some of the activities that don't normally get covered on a 144 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 case-by-case basis in the CDBG application? We have some of that flexibility with our Capital Program right now.
I would oppose a specific discretionary set-aside by Council district. That approach would create a new line item, which would divide a portion of the budget into ten parts and create some planning and administration issues as well as fragment the program more than it is now. What I would like to support instead is a continuation of funding for area-wide programs, such as the Model Blocks Program, the PNHS Program (Philadelphia Neighborhood Housing Services Program), and others which have more flexibility than some of the other programs and assign agencies to perform those tasks rather than dividing up the budget further than it is now.
Well, let me just respond back to you that with regard to the Capital Budget Office or the Rack (ph.) Activities Fund, I mean there is coordination between the members and the respective agencies as to what's going to take place. We don't do it on a helter-skelter basis. 145 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 I think we should have some additional discussion -- you might want to have some additional discussion before locking yourself in to a full position of opposition. You might find that there could be some significant interest in trying to pursue something like that.
I think what we both agree on is that there is a need for supporting those activities. And the clearer we can be about what those activities are, the more specific that I could be in trying to describe how the proposed plan would address those needs.
Well, let me at least say for the record that what I'm primarily talking about is the kind of activities that are CDBG-eligible, that are a part of the three-part national objective test that talk about elimination of blight and slum conditions. For instance, there are no particular dollars set aside to deal with issues of curb, sidewalk lighting and tree-planting and the like other than as associated with an economic development project. We used to have those funds available; we do not today. And unless you can 146 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 figure out how to get the Water Department to replace water lines, sewer, or PGW or somebody else, that kind of activity is really not going on, although it is eligible by the guidelines. And so that specifically is what I'm talking about is a constant need by many of the Councilmembers, certainly district Councilmembers. But there is no discretion and generally no dollars available for those kinds of projects. I'm not certainly trying to take anything away from someone being in a house, but in some neighborhoods, that kind of revitalization is of equal need to some areas with their housing needs.
I understand, but in light of the fact that the Block Grant Program is the City's only resource to address the City's housing needs, the dollars that would be taken to fund curbs and sidewalks and trees would be taken from the funds that are currently meeting the housing 147 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 needs of Philadelphians. There's no other way around it that I can see.
Well, I understand that, but it's not your testimony, Mr. Kromer, that those CDBG dollars are only for housing, right? That's not your testimony.
Right. And that the items that we've discussed just now are eligible activities, correct?
Okay. Lastly, on , we have this situation where you have borrowed section HUD 108 loan funds for housing developments.
And other activities, it's my understanding, because maybe you had easier access to them. But now we're in a situation where you have to pay the HUD 108 loan back and we have to use CDBG funds to pay the HUD 108 loan back, which is backed by future CDBG allocations. 148 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326
Does that come from 9 Year 24 loans or numerous previous-year loans. 10
It comes from several 11 previous-year loans, which are coming due now. 12
Okay. And you also 13 anticipate getting another $10.5 million HUD 108 14 loan -- 15
That will be repaid over a 21 period of years following the drawdown of the 22 loan, which we would expect to occur this fiscal 23 year. 24
Well, I guess my 25 only question is, I'm sure it was with the best of 149 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 intentions, and I'm sure whatever projects got funded -- some may be mine -- and they are now built and the people are in the houses and they're very happy. I will express at least a concern, though, that the HUD 108 Loan Program is backed by future CDBG allocations, it's the basis of the HUD 108 Loan Program.
We are borrowing from that program to fund housing projects and then using current CDBG allocations to pay them back.
Aren't we, in fact, double-counting on our ability to pay back these dollars?
No. We're simply returning in future years the funding that's being drawn down now to make things happen now.
But, Mr. Kromer, let me play this out. You're going to borrow $10.5 million now from the Section 108 Loan Program. 150 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326
Next year and in future years, you will have to pay that back with future CDBG allocations.
So we are basing our HUD 108 loan applications on future allocations.
And you are getting a current loan that is based on future CDBG allocations.
The current Section 108 award is a new resource that is based on the 151 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 current budget.
Right, I understand. But we are almost, in fact, double-backing the HUD 108 loans on future CDBG allocations based on the current and the future.
Thank you very much. Are there any other questions? (No further questions at this time.)
All righty, thank you very much. Then we will begin our public testimony. Let me again note that in the balcony, there are many representatives from Frankford. Let us welcome you, and thank you all. I see refer Reverend Wells up there with the group. Thank you and welcome to all of you. (Applause.).
Let me also 152 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 thank Steve Culbertson for bringing that to our attention and also Judy Berkman, who's with CDC of Frankford Ministries. Charlie Wingfield, Mr. Wingfield, would you please come up. And Taylor Frome, get ready, as well as the Frankford groups because I know you have to leave. And Mr. Wingfield can't stay due to health reasons, so we're asking him if he would come forward. And I thank him for coming. I know you initially didn't think you'd be able to come, but certainly, we do thank you. (Charles Wingfield comes forward.)
This is Charles Wingfield, Mill Creek Council Development Corporation. Identify yourself, Mr. Wingfield, and again, thank you.
Thank you, 153 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 Councilwoman. Protocol here is kind of jumbled up. I hope I have it all in the right procedure. Councilwoman Blackwell, Chairman of the committee.
President of City Council, Miss Verna. Councilman Nutter, from West Philadelphia. Councilwoman Tasco, from the Northeast -- or I think it's --
All right, thank you. And Councilman Kenney, it's a pleasure. You've had quite a few engagements on housing. And I'm also the deposed Chairman of the Housing Committee in West Philadelphia. My plans didn't fit too well for the Empowerment Zone. 154 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 You have in front of you two of my projects that we would like to complete. I'm asking you to help us complete these two projects. I have five other projects with vacant land to do 'em. And I also have the contractors to do 'em. Let me run you some of the contractors that are in with me. Michael's Development Corporation, Adrien's Development Corporation, Investors Development Corporation, Black Contractors Association -- which I'm the president of. Also Block Contractors, one of our backers. We have Jamison Court Associates III, and I'm one of the three, I'm on the end. We have Mill Creek Development Corporation, which I am the president and CEO. I have three projects, three main projects, that I think that are really becoming to this city, because as I was told before, you name all your projects after deceased persons. I'm sorry about that, but they were people that lived in Philadelphia that wanted to see housing advance as far as it could. And we can advance housing. My program says that housing is necessary first 155 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 before you can do any economic development. You give people decent houses to live in and they will work, they will find a job to upkeep that house. (Applause.)
One of my projects is Daniel Dunn. I don't know if anybody here knows it, but Daniel Dunn project duplex housing, modular type. Miss Dunn, Miss Daniels, as a young man, they both wanted me to get into politics, and I said no, I don't want to be in politics. As a master sergeant, retired engineer, I want to do housing, I want to build housing. If you ever get into West Philadelphia and see East Mill Creek and West Mill Creek, you will be surprised. I want to be the first neighborhood in the City of Philadelphia that will not have any vacant houses. I also have another project, Smith Jamal Duplex Housing. Mr. Smith was the leader, the director of Carol Park. He died of cancer. Mr. Jamal was also the leader and the director of Carol Park. He just recently passed away. He was a member of my board that helped me put the project together in the different areas that we 156 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 were intended to do under the Empowerment Zone. Jamison Court II is one of my projects. It's an apartment complex again, 42. If you've ever seen Jamison Court I, it's a masterpiece of modular housing, and has 72 apartments, all filled. They were filled two days after we opened the doors for people who wanted apartments. Jamison Court was named after a friend of mine who was the president of East Parkside and also the one officer in the United States Army, and I named it after him. By being a master sergeant and working along with him, I decided that that project would be in his name. And we want to do Jamison Court II. And where we want to do Jamison Court II is 14 vacant houses that have been vacant for 17 years, just sitting there. Now, with all the money that the City is spending on housing, where's it going for these vacant houses that we can tear down and bring in new inset housing or new modular housing? (Applause.)
I want to thank you for hearing me and looking over my projects. And I 157 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 hope everybody here that has anything to do with housing will be in an uproar for this next Year 4 money that's coming into this city to do housing. 5 Make it your first priority because we need it. 6 Thank you. 7
And let me say 11 that we want to work with you to make these things 12 happen. And I don't know anyone in West Philly 13 who doesn't know Mr. Wingfield. And certainly 14 Marian Tasco remembers him from when she was out 15 in "Mighty West." And he's helped to raise 16 everybody in West Philly. 17 We thank you and are committed to 18 working with you to make these a reality. Thank 19 you. 20
Taylor Frome 22 and Youth Build. Next we'll have the panel of 23 Gloria Guard, Elizabeth Hersh, Sister Mary 24 Scullion, and Lisa Christian. (Above-named panel members come 158 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 forward.)
Come right up. Thank you, thank you for your patience. I know the students have to leave, and as you come forward, let me thank you for the excellent, excellent job that you do. We absolutely appreciate you and your commitment to youth and to rebuilding our city. Thank you.
Thank you. My name is Taylor Frome. I'm the Executive Director of the Youth Build Philadelphia Charter School. I want to thank you for this opportunity to testify on behalf of the school. I'd like everybody who's here from Youth Build to stand up for a minute so that you can see. This is staff and mostly students that are here with us, and I brought two of them up to the front. (Applause.)
I have Diane Douglas and 159 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 Stefan White here with me, in case anybody has questions for some of our students. The students who are here today will be graduating this month with high school diplomas, and they'll be going on to jobs or to continuing their education. About half of our graduates would like to be placed in construction fields when they graduate, so we'll have about 50 people who are looking for construction jobs at the end of June. The students that are here today represent over 400 other graduates, and the 200 young adults who we will be enrolling for the 1999-2000 academic year. And the 40 houses that have been built by Youth Build students for low-income families in Philadelphia. The Youth Build Charter School is an innovative academic and job-training program that involves young adults who dropped out of high school in rebuilding abandoned houses in the city as they learn important job skills and work toward a high school diploma. Students spends 50 percent of their time at the construction sites, and the other half in classrooms where they receive 160 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 individualized academic attention, life-skills counseling, and opportunities for communities service. Youth Build Philadelphia has been a grantee of the City's Office of Housing and Community Development for six years now. During this time, we have combined housing revitalization with economic and job-development initiatives to help low-income people attain and retain jobs. By this summer, over 400 young adults will have graduated from our program, with an attendance rate of 93 percent. Ninety-five percent of all who complete our program earn their high school diploma. Our graduates have consistently moved on to successful careers and lives. More than 80 percent of the 1996, '97, and '98 graduates are now in full-time employment or enrolled in college. Nearly 40 houses have been completely rehabilitated for sale to low-income families. At the start of the 1998-1999 academic year, we enrolled 174 students from across this city. Of these, 20 live in City Council District 1, 33 in District 2, 28 in District 3, 7 in 161 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 District 5, 8 in District 7, 26 in District 8, and 13 in District 9. For the 1999-2000 academic year, we will enroll 200 out-of-school youth. These students will also be drawn from across the city and will be enrolled in schools in three neighborhoods. Eighty will be enrolled in our South Philadelphia site, 60 in North Philadelphia, and 60 in Northwest Philadelphia. 2 million and development subsidies provided on a project-by-project basis through neighborhood-based home ownership production funds. The development subsidies provided through neighborhood-based home ownership production funds will allow students in the 1999-2000 class to rebuild 14 abandoned houses in 3 sections of the city. These houses will be built in partnership with Universal Community Homes, the Greater Germantown Housing Development Corporation, and the Philadelphia housing Development Corporation. During the past years -- each of the past years, we have used CDBG funds to leverage 162 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 other resources, and it is our goal to continue to do so. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. We have also been successful at obtaining an Americorp grant for five consecutive years and at raising money from private foundations and individuals. In 1997, we attained charter school status and per-pupil funding from the State. Charter school status has also allowed us to award own high school diplomas to our graduates. We are grateful for the support we have received from the City. It has allowed us to address two of the City's most critical needs. First, under-educated youth; and second, abandoned housing. Our program design provides a way for mobilizing at-risk youth to become a positive workforce reversing urban blight.
The benefits of our program tangible and encompass the entire community. We have still to reach the capacity and enroll larger numbers of young adults. Each year, we are able to enroll less than a third of the 163 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 youth that apply to our program. Continued support from the City is crucial to us as we serve increasing numbers of at-risk youth in Philadelphia and continue to rebuild communities one block at a time. )
I believe the last time we had conversation, you indicated that you were trying to expand the program. Did you talk to Mr. Kromer or anybody in his office about that, with the hopes that you could possibly get more funding?
We did talk about it, and I think that at this point, our capacity -- we're expecting a bigger increase in our capacity next year. This year, we're increasing from 175 to 200 students, and that seemed like at a pace where we could continue to do a good job. As people know, it's difficult to build an organization.
How can you 164 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 do that with the same amount of money that you had last year?
From funding from other sources that we've brought in. So I think that in terms of expansion, what I would like to do is have an opportunity to talk with City Council and with the Office of Housing about larger expansion next year and in the coming year. But for this year, I think that we're actually at the capacity that we're in a to fill. Part of it has to do with the sizes of our school buildings and needing to rethink our school locations and to strengthen our organization so that we can do a good job with a larger group.
What percentage go on for, say, an apprenticeship say join the unions; do you know?
I think it's only about 5 percent that get into a union after they graduate. About half of our students end up interested in the construction trades and work in construction for a part of the first couple of years after they graduate. It's difficult for them to get jobs that keep them working enough of the time, 165 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 especially at the entry level, for that to be the work that they stay with. And a lot of our students end up wanting to go to school after a year or two, a lot of our graduates.
I guess that was the question I wanted to ask also. Is there cooperation from the unions to accept your students into the apprenticeship program? Do you have any difficulty?
We've had very good support from the carpenters union and brick layers, and I don't know if -- we've had some support, but it's been slower, with the other unions. And the Office of Housing has been very helpful in trying to help us get people to the table and get contractors to the table. But it's still an uphill battle to get enough positions. I mean, we'll have 50 people looking for construction-related jobs at the end of this month, and it's still an uphill battle to get opportunities for all of them. 166 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326
What is the process? Does the applicant have to be recommended by a contractor? Can you just go to the union and ask to qualify for an apprenticeship position?
It usually is helpful if there is a contractor that is interested also, and that's been our most successful way to get people in. Several of our students have taken the apprenticeship exam and have gotten into the union that way also.
So you've only had about 5 percent enrolled into the --
Have you had a larger percentage of students who wanted to go in and didn't get in?
You talk about a school, you are going to have three sites.
We have three sites at this point. We have three school sites.
One is at Sixth and 167 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 Catharine in South Philly, one is at Eighth and Cecil B. Moore in North Philadelphia, and one is at Germantown and Wistar.
Are there any other questions? (No further questions at this time.)
Again, we applaud you for the excellent jobs you've done. And I like those shirts -- they're almost as nice as the one I got last year. Thank you. (Applause.)
Next is Gloria Guard from People's Emergency Center, Liz Hersh from GPUAC (The Blueprint to End All Homelessness), Sister Mary Scullion from Project Home, Alicia Christian from Dignity Housing. (Above-named panel members come forward.)
Thank you very 168 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 much. Again, we apologize for the wait. And, believe me, all of you who are here, we will try to get you in and out as quickly as possible.
Thank you very much, and we'll try to be as quick as possible as well.
Good morning, President Verna, Chairwoman Blackwell, Councilman Kenney.
Good afternoon, that's right. We also have with us Rick Sauer from the Philadelphia Association of CDCs, and I'd like to thank Steve Culbertson for yielding his spot to us. Before we started, I wanted to please ask those members of the Homeless and Special Needs Housing and disability communities to stand and say hi to the Councilmembers, who have done so much to help us build housing and rebuild our neighborhoods. (Applause.)
And I'd like to start our panel off with Sister Mary Scullion. 169 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326
Thank you all for being here. SISTER SCULLION: Thanks a lot. We really appreciate the time to share with you. Our experience with the OHCD funding and what an important source of funding that is for our work. Since 1989, Project Home has worked in partnership with men and women who are homeless, primarily men and women that live on the streets of Center City, to break the cycle of homelessness. And we do that for a continuum of care. We do street outreach every night on the streets. We have four entry-level residences, and we also have permanent housing with support services for these men and women. We've also begun four small businesses. We have a restaurant (the Back Home Cafe), a catering business, a bookstore, and a thrift store all to give people the ability to get back into the job market. And those businesses are no government subsidy at all; it's really a business and that's how it works. In addition, Project Home has been lucky enough to Philadelphia Plan, which is a 170 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 State and City initiative towards community revitalization in a North Philadelphia neighborhood. And our corporate partner in that is Crown, Cork & Seal. And through the Philadelphia Plan over the past four years, we have been able to do greening of vacant lots, the development of home ownership for the working poor, rental housing that's affordable for families in the neighborhood, and also some workforce development projects, which is especially critical right now because of the new TANF regulations. I'm pleased to testify regarding the proposed Year OHCD budget as it relates to 16 housing for homeless persons with special needs. 17 I'd also like to take this opportunity 18 to acknowledge the incredible leadership of 19 John Kromer and his staff Dainette Mintz and the 20 many other people that work at OHCD, as well as 21 Noel Eisenstat and the terrific staff at the 22 Redevelopment Authority, which makes so much of 23 our work possible. 24 We can clap, we can clap. ) 171 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 SISTER SCULLION: I think their creativity, their practicality, and their commitment to building but only affordable housing for people that are homeless, but, quality affordable housing for people that are homeless will be a hallmark of their administration. The $3 million allocated to development of special-needs housing in this proposed OHCD budget plays an important role in leveraging State, federal, and private housing dollars. This particular allocation of funds is usually filled -- is usually needed to fill a critical gap of financing for the bricks-and-mortar money that you can't get through the tax credits or through PHFA Homes money. Over the past eight years, organizations like One Day at a Time, Horizon House, Catholic Social Services, and Project Home, and many other organizations that work with single people with special needs, this has enabled us to develop both safe havens and affordable housing. In the case of Project Home, in the past eight years, through this OHCD allocation, we've been able to develop 50 units of safe havens for people 172 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 right on the street and 250 units of affordable housing. Project Home, with that allocation of OHCD money over the past several years, has been able to leverage over $20 million of federal, State, and private money to build this housing and to operate it. And I think what is particularly unique and something that often isn't really mentioned at these hearings is, in addition to the tremendous help that it offers men and women that are homeless, it also impacts the City in a much broader way because of the development of jobs at really liveable wages in the construction field, the architectural field, the legal community, and the social service community, as well as really providing and developing our tax base because of the jobs that are created through this investment in the housing and in the work that goes into developing that housing.
I'd also like to just end with this one fact -- that housing with support services has been found to be the most cost-efficient way that produces positive, long-term results in addressing homelessness both in the research that Dennis 173 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. ) has done at the University of Pennsylvania, as well as a recent publication in the New York Journal of Medicine, as well as the most recent report done by the controller's office, it shows that in order to solve homelessness in a way that keeps people in housing with the necessary support services, the way to do this is through the development of housing. And the OHCD allocation of development funds towards this effect has been truly remarkable and I think has leveraged an incredible amount of other money to make this city -- the quality of life not only better for people that are homeless but a better quality of life for the entire city. Thank you very much. )
And, Madam Chairwoman, if you agree, we could just have our panelists go before questions, and that would mean Alicia Christian from Dignity Housing is next.
Good afternoon. I am pleased to be here to testify largely in support of the Year 25 Preliminary Consolidated Plan, CDBG 174 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 Consolidated Plan. What I want to emphasize in my testimony is the tremendous positive return on the investment that the City has made in funding special-needs housing and in funding a commitment to affordable subsidized housing and neighborhood economic development in the neighborhoods supported PHCDC. It seems to me that if a number of the City bureaucracies and if a number of the other agencies had the kind of return that we can show and demonstrate, there would be applause throughout the City of Philadelphia for the progress in making this a truly liveable city. Dignity Housing is a nonprofit that serves more than 400 homeless men, women, and children annually. Most of them were at the bottom looking up when they entered the program. We were founded in 1988. We were founded by people who had a frontline interest in the homeless problem, victims of homelessness themselves. The leadership of Dignity Housing, the activists were, indeed, low-income and formerly homeless individuals. Since 1988, nearly 1200 -- or more than 175 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 1200 people have participated in the Dignity Housing Program, which provides affordable housing, which provides support towards the attainment of educational objectives, it provides supportive social services and internship and employment opportunities. There are more than 1200 individuals who are graduates of the Dignity Housing Program. They include nearly 57 homeowners. They include five currents police officers in the Philadelphia Police Department. They include more than 30 graduates of associate-degree programs at Community College and four-year bachelor-degree programs. They include people who were formerly written off who have resurrected their lives. We have 140 scattered-site properties that were formerly abandoned properties, that were a blight on the community. The inventory of Dignity Housing is now valued in excess of $8 million. We have been part of a tremendous positive return on this City's financial investment, both in terms of impact on the neighborhoods, of the restoration of the properties that were there, abandoned, generating 176 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 very little in the way of revenue and productivity for the neighborhoods. I believe that the CDBG plan, the provision that deals with special-needs population, should be supported in part because it's the right thing to do. But if we need to get beyond the right thing to do, it should be supported because it represents a positive investment in a need that often has an immeasurably positive return, an immeasurable return on the investment. Please return to the annual report, which has been distributed, the Spotlight Newsletter, which is inside of the annual report, and other materials that have been distributed by other testifiers, or testifiers who come forward previous to Dignity Housing. We have a tremendous challenge ahead of us because with TANF, we are being required to do more for more with less--- a really, really difficult mandate. What we are here today to support is a continuation of the positive initiatives provided for in the CDBG plan by the leadership of OHCD, John Kromer. We are here to 177 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 ask City Council to invest in the resurrection of lives and the resurrection of neighborhoods. Thank you. (Applause.).
I'm Liz Hersch. I'm the Director of the Blueprint to End Homelessness. Thank you. And after I speak, I'm going to rush out. My child is in day care, and they charge me about a million dollars a minute past 2 o'clock. I just want to step back for a moment and just talk briefly about homelessness because homelessness is a part of what special-needs housing is all about. Homelessness has three basic causes: when people don't have an adequate income, their jobs don't pay enough or they can't get job; when they don't have affordable housing. It's not unusual for a low-income person to be paying half, 60, 70 percent of their income or maybe all of their income for rent alone, and not counting utilities, and Pennsylvania still has some of the highest electric rates in the country. So lack of jobs, lack of adequate income, lack of affordable housing. And then lack of services, and that's 178 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 also where special-needs housing comes in. People have chronic mental health problems, substance problems, violence problems in their families; whatever kinds of stresses and strains, we all need supports in order to help us to get by. So one of the ways that we prevent homelessness or that we alleviate at the other end, to make sure that people don't revert into it, is to invest in jobs, in services, and in housing. And people need all three. And OHCD has really understood over the last seven years that we need to support all of those components. The other thing that they've really understood, from the homelessness perspective, is that people need housing, and they've invested in housing, housing with services and housing that allows people to become stable in the community and at the other end of the continuum to prevent homelessness. As the administration and mayor change over the next year, we really want you, as the stewards of good city policy, to understand the legacy that's been left behind in OHCD, or that will be left behind, and to make sure that the 179 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 lessons that have been learned and the good practices that have been embodied carry forward, that this not become a patronage haven, that it not become a place where the favorites get funded, and funding isn't based on merit. I think that we've all gotten very comfortable. And I know that for me coming from another -- I moved from Chicago and had lived in Milwaukee -- that maybe sometimes we don't appreciate just how far ahead Philadelphia is. We have a highly professional office of housing here that works in partnership with the community. We don't always agree with them; sometimes, we think do silly things, but they always listen to us, they always work with us. They hold us accountable for a high standard of programs and delivery on the investment, and they work in partnership to try and solve problems. And I think that's a pretty rare thing, and we hope that you will ensure that this goes forward into the next administration. Finally, we hope that you will keep the focus on the full range of things that the Office of Housing does, but particularly to remember that 180 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 unless people have housing, we can't solve homelessness. And the future of the city and the economic development of the city is linked to adequate housing for people. Thank you. (Applause.)
Good afternoon. I'm Gloria Guard from People's Emergency Center. Looking back very the last eight years, one of the most notable issues that has been raised again in this year's Consolidated Plan and repeated again has been that the Rendell Administration, specifically through John Kromer and Noel Eisenstat, chose to set aside special funding for the homeless and special-needs housing. What this meant was -- this didn't mean that before that time, there was no money for homeless or special-needs housing, but it did mean that there was a set-aside, which made a tremendous and crucial difference in the landscape in Philadelphia for special-needs housing over the last eight years. And that is why we are so supportive of this plan and want City Council to 181 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 continue in this vein over the next eight years. Because there was specially set-aside funding, it assured that there are new housing units for the homeless each year coming on line. Homeless organizations do not now have to compete against the larger sophisticated CDCs for one pot of money. We have not a large enough pot of money, but our own pot of money nevertheless. It has increased the capacity over the last eight years among special-needs providers. There is now not just one or two special-needs providers, but a good half dozen or more, each of whom can take on a few units, a couple of dozen units a year and really bump up the capacity in Philadelphia. Without the earmarked funds, units like those at Calcutta House, at Help, at Project Rainbow, as well as the ones that are represented here, would not have been built. What Alicia spoke about, I have to repeat -- that the money for special-needs housing provided by the City through CDBG leverage two, three, four times that much from federal money and private money and State money. At People's Emergency Center, we have invested over 182 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 $12 million in the Saunders Park, West Powelton neighborhood. Probably about a quarter to a third of that was CDBG funds. The rest of it came from everywhere, from banks, to Harrisburg, to Washington DC. And that's the model we want to continue; we don't want to rely on the city for 100 percent of our funds. But we don't want to lose money, which we were. Before the Rendell Administration, we were losing hundreds of millions of dollars compared to other cities in terms of homelessness and special-needs housing money coming out of HUD. And, lastly, in addition to earmarked funds, what we want to apply to OHCD for was to have a very systemized, orchestrated planning and funding cycle process, which makes it easy for us nonprofits and service-providers to work with the City to plan for the future. This system kicks off each year in January, everybody is used to it. There are huge public-educational sessions in which all nonprofits have equal access to the funds. They're trained about what comes next, about how to get the federal money. The whole system that has been put into 183 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 place year after year has been fine-tuned so that every last dime is squeezed out of Washington, and that's what we wanted to do. We also want to make sure that that planning process, which has taken a while to put in place and fix in place, stays that way. We urge City Council to accept this year's plan because of the special-needs housing particularly and recognize that homeless people, not only do we need housing, but as Alicia said, we do become good, solid, tax-paying voting citizens. 8 million in that earmarked money, which is increased about a half a million dollars over the last year. Some of this increase is in the area of adaptive modifications that will make housing more accessible to the physically disabled. There is also another increase of a half a million dollars to mitigate the decrease in federal Section 108 funds, and there is some increase in rental assistance.
4 million also for people with AIDS, and we don't want to forget our brothers and sisters with that disease. 184 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 Specifically, I would also like to ask for support for PEC's new project, Families First, which is going to be a job training and child care center, about a $3 million center, for which we are asking the City for a small portion of that, less than percent. That is our effort to stem 8 the tide of welfare reform. We will be serving 9 about 400 homeless women each year, each of whom 10 have children. There are no large -- there is not one job-training center in this city which has on-site child care at the volume that we are planning. We are planning from 80 to 100 children to take care of in job training. All of the operations funds for this project are totally secured, and they're all non-City money. It's all federal money, so the operations for both the child care and the job training are in hand. All we need now is the capital to build the building. And so we would like support for that. Before I would close, I would also like to take off my homeless hat and put on my neighbor hat. PEC is in Saunder Park West Powelton neighborhood, where we have successfully taken 68 185 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 properties which were abandoned, and we have rehabilitated them. We have built over 100 units of housing and have invested $12 million into this vibrant neighborhood. It was not a neighborhood that was going downhill, but it certainly -- be rehabilitating over half of the vacants, I think it's been solidified. Miss Elsie Wise from West Powelton Concerned Community Council is here this afternoon with a number of other West Philadelphians to support the development of an economic development center, including a supermarket in our neighborhood. And I would like to see that that is our neighborhoods, and we would love to have someplace that we could shop, because that is sadly lacking, as Jannie knows. So before I close, I'd like to introduce Rick Sauer from the Philadelphia Association of CDCs. Thank you very much. )
Good, members of the committee. I appreciate the opportunity to testify on the Consolidated Plan. As was mentioned, my name is Rick 186 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 Sauer. I'm the new Director of the Philadelphia Association Community Development Corporations. We're a citywide association of over 50 CDCs and other nonprofit organizations who are working in various ways to revitalize our neighborhoods. Our members are involved in a wide variety of activities. Just real briefly, in the 1990s --
Excuse me, Mr. Sauer. We'll have to break a moment for the stenographer. Thank you. We'll take a fine five-minute break for the stenographer. Thank you.
Chairwoman Blackwell, we're going to have to excuse Sister Mary Scullion, if you don't mind.
No, no, no, I sure don't. We'll have to have a homeless conversation by phone. I'll call you. Thank you. (Short break taken.) - - - 187 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 (Proceedings resume.)
Thank you. We would like to resume or hearing. We don't want to hold people up any longer than absolutely necessary. Again, let me apologize. Mr. Sauer, will you continue with your testimony.
Actually, if there's any questions first for Alicia, I'd like to let her go first.
We didn't take any questions yet for your panel. Do you have to leave, Miss Christian, is that it?
Okay, are there any questions from members of this committee for Miss Christian or Dignity Housing? (No questions.)
Thank you. As I was beginning to mention, our members, which include over 50 Community 188 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 Development Corporations as well other nonprofit organizations operating here in the city, have accomplished quite a bit during the 1990s. They've developed over 3500 homes, they've created over a half a million square feet of commercial space, including supermarkets in our neighborhoods. They've trained and employed over 2,500 neighborhood residents. And they've created over 30 neighborhood parks and gardens. Clearly, they're making a difference, not only for the neighborhoods, I think, but for the city as well. They're bringing additional resources into our neighborhoods, and they're putting abandoned and vacant properties back on the City's tax rolls. These groups have an enormous amount of experience in accessing programs and resources from the City, and so I appreciate the opportunity to comment on the City's proposed Consolidated Plan for Year 25. There's just two brief issues I wanted to do comment on today. The first is funding to support neighborhood revitalization projects, and the second is the City's deliver system on how 189 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 they go about supporting projects for housing and economic development. The Consolidated Plan, as we all know, specifies how the City intends to use available funds to meet the various goals it has laid out. And I think one thing we can all agree on is that there aren't enough resources to address the severity of needs there are in our neighborhoods. As a result of all the disinvestment that's happened over the last 40 years, there's a lot of work that needs to be done. There's a lot of projects in the pipeline, but there's a limited amount of funds to fund those projects. So, first of all, I just want to put on the table that we certainly hope we can work with the City and other actors to make sure that we are accessing all available resources that are out there, and let's sit down and think a little bit more creatively on how we might garner additional resources that are not at the table right now. Given the fact that we do have a limited pool of funds, though, the City has to decide among these competing uses how the funds are divvied up. We appreciate the fact that under the 190 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 current administration, under the leadership of John Kromer in particular, that the City has implemented a practice of allocating a significant amount of their federal funds, CDBG funds, to support projects being sponsored by Community Development Corporations. And we strongly encourage the City to continue this practice on into the new administration. We also urge the City to make sure that adequate resources are being allocated for housing production, because the creation of new homes not only addresses the critical need for decent and safe and affordable housing for Philadelphia's families and individuals, but it also helps repair the physical fabric of our neighborhood. On the delivery system side, I think it's important that we take a step back and examine how our programs and systems are working right now. Given the fact that we do have a limited amount of resources, could we be doing things more efficiently? Are there changes that we could make with limited dollars that could go further, that they could fund more projects with out there? Well, what are some of the obstacles 191 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 or barriers currently in place? We recently released a report called "Philadelphia Neighborhoods First: A Platform for Neighborhood Revitalization," which the committee should have a copy of. It was submitted with the testimony last week. And there's a number of recommendations in there to address such issues. I just want to focus real quickly on two of those issues. The first is land reuse.
The current process of acquiring and disposing of the tens of thousands of vacant and abandoned properties across the City creates significant obstacles to many neighborhood revitalization efforts. It leads to delays in projects and increased costs. And there's been --
Excuse me, Mr. Sauer. The Chair notes the attendance of former Congressman Lucien Blackwell who had this committee before Anna Verna had it before me.
And we want to know, is he here to try to, you know, like take 192 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 over, take back this committee chair? I took his seat, now I have his committee. So, you know, we think we'd like to keep it for a while. (Laughter.)
Thank you. Okay, Mr. Sauer, so we'd ask you to try to tie up, please, sir.
Okay, sure. What we want to see the City to do is to identify a single entity to deal with the land acquisition process, to streamline the process, and we know that there's a select committee right now looking into the issue of land reuse. And we hope that the City Council and the City in general makes this a priority issue as we move forward. The other second issue deals with neighborhood economic development. And I think as was mentioned earlier in the previous testimony, there is a solid system in place to fund housing projects right now. We want to see this same type of system put in place to fund neighborhood economic development projects. A one-stop shop is 193 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 the Department of Commerce, where CDCs and other developers can go to the get access to resources in a streamlined manner. So those are our two key issues. We hope you take 'em into consideration as you review the plan and work with the City to improve the current system. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Are there any questions for this witness? (No questions.)
Thank you very much. Reverend Paterson, Mr. Ben Smallwood, Brenda Mitchell, Baltimore Avenue Redevelopment Corporation, please come forward. We thank you for your patience. After this testimony, the next two people will be certainly Pete Matthews and Jeff Brown, Local 1971. We have to let the Law Department in. And then we will have Elsie Wise, West Powelton. And I promise you we'll get you 194 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 out. Certainly, Paul Steinke and Lionel James, I promise I'll get you all out. (Reverend Paterson comes forward.)
Please identify yourself for the record and begin your testimony. Thank you for your patience. And we know how busy you are, and we appreciate you too, Reverend Dr. Paterson, coming in person to, as has been your commitment, on the Baltimore Avenue strip.
Thank you, thank you very much. I'd like to be referred to as the son of Samuel and Ida Paterson. One's deceased and one is still on the firing line. I come to represent the Baltimore Avenue Redevelopment Corporation and to say to you, as a long resident of Philadelphia, many of us are very proud of great the work being done in revitalizing the City of Philadelphia, especially in the areas such as Columbus Boulevard, the Avenue of the Arts, the Philadelphia Airport, and Center City. We say to those local agencies with 195 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 lead responsibilities such as OHCD and PCDC, the Commerce Department, and PIDC, thank you for a job well done, thank you for a job being done, and thank you for jobs yet to be completed. However, as we look at all that's being done for visitors or Center City shoppers and compare monies spent where people go compared to areas in Southwest Philadelphia where people live, there seems to be less concern for those of us who help pay the bills, those of us who bear the lion's share of the taxes, those of us who purchase goods and services from City establishments. The Baltimore Avenue Redevelopment Corporation, better known as "BARC," was organized in 1990 for the purpose of combatting community deterioration, decreasing juvenile delinquency, and assisting poor and underprivileged people to live a better life. On October 19, 1995, the 50 to 5100 block of Baltimore Avenue was recertified as blighted by the City Planning Commission under the terms of the Pennsylvania Urban Redevelopment Law. The 50 to 5100 block of Baltimore 196 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 Avenue Redevelopment Area is comprised of properties situated to the south and to the east of Baltimore Avenue: 5000 to 5116 Baltimore Avenue, 728 to 738 South 51st, and 739 to 741 South 55th Street, and properties located on the northeast side of Baltimore Avenue, 5009 through 55 Baltimore Avenue. The Urban Renewal promotes two major objectives: the achievement of change and land use, and the elimination of blighted influences. The permitted land use for 5100 to 5116 Baltimore Avenue and &28 to 738 51st Street and 739 to 741 South 51st Street are as follows: commercial and institutional. And under that, we have general offices, medical offices, medical centers, medical clinics, community centers, schools and surface, parking, and other uses permitted in C-2 and C-7 zoning classification. On June 3, 1996, the Baltimore Avenue Redevelopment Corporation entered into an agreement with the City of Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority to begin and complete the development of 5008 to 5038 Baltimore Avenue in conformity with the Urban Renewal Plan. The 197 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 properties between 5008 and 5038 Baltimore Avenue required by BARC (The Baltimore Avenue Redevelopment Corporation) and/or RDA and demolished with financial assistance from the Office of Housing and community Development. And we do want to thank Mr. John Kromer for all of the assistance and guidance that he gave us. We might say that John is tough, but when someone is tough, he makes you tougher. And we have learned quite a bit from the kindnesses that John has bestowed upon us. First-mortgage financing was acquired from Jefferson Bank and second-mortgage financing was obtained from the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation. On the Baltimore Avenue site, Mercy Wellness Center, a 12,000-square-foot facility, was constructed. The medical center provides medical service to Southwest Philadelphia residents through Mercy Hospital, which signed a multi-year lease for the facilities in November 1998. The medical center joined the Philadelphia Credit Union, and the Farmers Market as the anchor businesses along the 50th to the 198 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 51st Street and Baltimore Avenue commercial corridor. The medical center will create and/or retain entry-level and semiskilled jobs.
And the center is also in conformance with the City of Philadelphia Planning Commission plans for West Philadelphia, which include a small retail commercial strip developed through public and private partnerships. To continue the development, BARC is requesting that it be named redevelopers of the following properties: 5004 Baltimore Avenue, 5040 to 5050 Baltimore Avenue, 5100 to 5106 Baltimore Avenue, 5110 to 5116 Baltimore Avenue, and 728 to 738 South 50th Street. As we speak, BARC is conducting a study to determine the feasibility of developing an educational center under the Urban Renewal Plan that would be utilized by the community by children and adults for lifelong learning and job training. BARC intends to develop 5004 Baltimore Avenue into a community center specializing in economic development, which is a use permitted under the Urban Renewal Plan. 199 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 The 728 to 738 South 51st Street site is being considered for conversion to public parking for the community. These proposed development activities will complete the development of the properties situated to the south and east of Baltimore Avenue. Specifically, BARC is asking for the following support: To be named redevelopers of the requested property; Funding of a pre-development budget, which will include property acquisition, demolition, architectural and engineering design, project management, facade treatment; Also a capital budget funding for parking and sidewalk curbs and street lighting. S. 20 Department of Housing and Urban Development for 21 the Community Development Block Grant establishes 22 economic development activities as a high-priority 23 need. The Philadelphia City Council, through 24 legislation adopted in 1982, mandated that a 25 maximum of 25 percent of CDBG funding be spent on 200 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 economic development activities, all of which must be designed to create or retain jobs for the very low, the low-or the moderate-income persons. The continuation of the Baltimore Avenue Urban Renewal Plan is designed to meet that objective. The proposed 25-year Consolidated Plan, , supports this continued development. Under West Philadelphia goals for economic development, the plan states: Throughout the past decade, area commercial revitalization has been among the CDBG's important economic development project objectives in West Philadelphia. Continuing support for major services, retail corridors will remain in the Year 25. We respectfully request that , the West Philadelphia Economic Development section 19 of the plan be amended to include the Urban Renewal Area of 50th to 51st Street and Baltimore Avenue. This is my prepared statement. Let me say this as I conclude: that we are more than happy, and we are glad that we have had those like yourself -- like the Councilwoman Jannie 201 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 Blackwell, who played a major role in the Baltimore Avenue redevelopment; Councilman John Street; and the distinguished Mayor of Philadelphia, Ed Rendell; plus the help of Noel Eisenstat and Joan Kromer -- to make this an area that we can all be proud of. It is our hope and our desire that as we face this new millennium, that we will take with us the prayers and the hopes and the desires and the moral support of the Philadelphia City Council. I know that you have others that are asking for help, but I must remind you of a song that we sing in church. " Thank you very much. )
Thank you, Reverend Paterson. Are there any questions from members of the committee? (No questions.)
Certainly, we appreciate what you've done to bring the strip the strip alive, to bring it back. There's never been 202 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 any work on that strip on Baltimore Avenue. And certainly, we want to work with you to make all of these things a reality. Thank you.
Could I just say this also, one last pitch. We are grateful to have met associates Dr. Mitchell and brother Ben, who have been more than soldiers on the walk, making sure that this development was a reality. Thank you very much for your time.
Pete Matthews District Council 33. Jeff Brown, Local 1971. We want to get Elsie Wise. We want to get you, Lionel, after that. I'm not going to forget you, Frances. You hear me, Lionel? I'm won't make you like the last time you waited till 5, okay? We'll take care of it. We're trying, we're going to try get everybody taken care of. (Pete Matthews and Jeff Brown come 203 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 forward.)
Thank you again for your patience. Try to move you along very quickly. I'd certainly like to thank you for coming. Thank you, President Matthews for being here and for your support of our city and certainly for supporting me. Please identify yourself for the record, and then begin your testimony.
Madam Chairperson, Council President Verna, and Councilman Nutter, good afternoon.
I'm here this afternoon in support of Local 1971, one of the locals under District Council 33. I come in support of the proposed cuts and layoffs in that particular local PHDC and OHCD. I'm not going to give testimony today but I -- briefly, when I came in, I heard a little bit of a comment from Councilman Nutter, 204 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 and one thing I want to reiterate is that all of our employees must live and work in the city. I think that should be taken into consideration. And also, I always like to say our employees live in the city, and they're a part of the community, and our concern is for the community. And this would result in reduced housing services for current prospective homeowners. As I said, I'm in full support of our local, and I would like for every consideration from Councilmembers to do the same. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you for what you said about residency. It's a serious issue for us. Thank you. (Applause.)
Good afternoon, Council Chairperson Blackwell, Council President Verna, and Councilman Nutter. My name is Jeff Brown. I'm President of AFSCME Local 1971, which is in District Council 33. And our local represents employees at the Philadelphia Housing Development 205 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 Corporation, the Office of Housing and Community Development, and the Redevelopment Authority. These are the workers who will administer and implement the Community Development Block Grant Year Consolidated Plan that City 7 Council is being asked to approve here today. The 8 people at Local 1971 represent at the free 9 agencies, include, clerical, technical, 10 professional, and supervisory employees. Most of 11 these employees have dedicated their careers to 12 preserving and expanding housing opportunities for 13 low- and moderate-income residents of our city's 14 neighborhoods. 15 And to reiterate what President 16 Matthews said, all of the employees must live in 17 the City of Philadelphia, and all of these 18 employees at PHDC, in particular, are union. I 19 know there were some questions about that earlier. 20 Many of the employees live in the 21 neighborhoods that are targeted for housing and 22 community development programs in the Year 25 23 Plan. Indeed, those that do are low- and 24 moderate-income residents themselves. And the 25 employees, therefore, are directly affected by the 206 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 CDBG Year 25 Year Consolidated Plan, both as residents and as City workers. I'm here today not only as a union leader but as a resident and a taxpayer to raise one main issue -- this year, it's only one -- in the Year Consolidated Plan, which critically 8 affects the residents of the neighborhoods, 9 including members of my local. And that issue is 10 OHCD's reduction of annual programmatic and 11 operating costs at PHDC, which I feel will result 12 in reduced housing services, particularly for 13 current and prospective home ownership. 8 percent or $2,118,000. 25 million. 20 Goal number of OHCD's strategic plan 21 is promoting home ownership and housing 22 preservation -- and rightly so, I agree with 23 that. In my opinion, one of the things that makes 24 our city great is our neighborhoods and the high 25 degree of home ownership in those neighborhoods. 207 1 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 Our city is fortunate to have significant numbers of homeowners of all racial, ethnic, and income groups who take pride in their houses and in their communities and who are willing to put their time and their money into making their neighborhoods a better place to live. Among the programs in the CDBG Year 9 plan that promote such home ownership and housing 10 preservation is PHDC's Weatherization and Basis 11 Systems Repair Program, or BSRP. That program 12 provides emergency repair, housing preservation, 13 and weatherization services, and PHDC administers 14 it by overseeing the rehabilitation performed by 15 contractors to income-eligible owner-occupants. 16 Another program involves the 17 rehabilitation of homes for sale to 18 income-eligible first-time home buyers. That's 19 PHDC's Home Start Program. 20 Both programs are integral to the 21 success of the Year 25 Plan, and both are 22 administered by PHDC. 5 million, and to decrease the Home Start 25 budget by another million. 208 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 PHDC performs many of the functions which can contribute to the success of the CDBG Year Plan. These include acting as developer 5 and undertaking developments such as new home 6 ownership projects in Cecil B. Moore in North 7 Philly and Sears Street in South Philly, and 8 playing a significant role in the rehabbing of 9 vacant PHA row houses. But the decrease in 10 programmatic as well as operating budgets will 11 severely limit how PHDC function and will further 12 reduce services to the residents of the city.
13 OHCD included a caveat in the CDBG Year 14 25 Plan which claims if currently available, Tier 15 3, which is of the BSRP Program, if that financing 16 is spent during CDBG Year 25, OHCD will make 17 available any additional funding which may be 18 needed. 5 million come from for additional funding to 22 BSRP or Home Start? 23 It seems to me that unless OHCD can 24 identify the additional funding in this plan that 25 City Council's being asked to approve today, the 209 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 budget is mere window-dressing and is indicated solely to obtain City Council approval in order to submit a plan to HUD. And once approved, OHCD can juggle the budget figures around any way that it wants. I challenge John Kromer to identify today where he will obtain the additional funding when needed, since he says that he will be able to do it. Furthermore, PHDC, which has suffered a layoff of employees in CDBG Year and 22 12 employees in CDBG Year 23, has notified the union 13 that there may be an additional layoff in CDBG 14 Year 24 and possible further layoffs in CDBG Year 15 25. Employees who are to be laid off are the same 16 employees who must administer the programs. 17 PHDC has informed the union that these 18 additional layoffs would be caused by PHDC's 19 funding deficit and the loss of an arbitration 20 regarding PHDC's improper layoff of employees 21 while it contracted out the work that those 22 employees had been performing. The arbitrator 23 found in our favor. The continuous annual layoff 24 of PHDC employees is not only devastating to employee moral, but it decreases the number of 210 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 employees that are available to provide these services. In conclusion, OHCD is asking that City Council approve the Year Plan and Budget that 6 has as its number-one goal promoting home 7 ownership and housing preservation, while its 8 passage will result in a significant budgetary 9 reduction in just those items, and layoff of 10 additional low- and moderate-income neighborhood 11 residents who just happen to currently work for 12 one of the housing agencies that administers the 13 plan. That's not merely unjust, but it's a 14 travesty and a complete contradiction of OHCD's 15 stated priorities as well. 16 On behalf of the affected City 17 residents and employees, Local 1971 and District 18 Council 30 request that City Council require that 19 OHCD reinstate funding to BSRP and Home Start to 20 retain the level of services and to prevent the 21 layoff of additional employees at PHDC. 22 Madam Chairperson and committee 23 members, we at District Council 33 and Local 1971 24 thank you and the Finance Committee and City 25 Council for your support. Thank you. 211 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. )
Thank you. What we would like to do is ask Mr. Kromer if -- and we've got to let the public leave since they've been waiting here since o'clock, but we 7 certainly would like, before the hearing ends, to 8 have you respond to these issues. Thank you. 9 Thank you. 10
Mr. Brown, if I had prepared your testimony, I think it would have been exactly the same. I'm very concerned about the cut in Home Start, and I totally agree that that's -- we're supposed to be making these homes available for home buyers.
And also, the emergency repairs, I think that's another great issue that has to be dealt with. I did not know about the layoffs, but that's something we will check with Mr. Kromer about layer.
We will have 212 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 all issues responded to, and thank you again. Thank you, Mr. Matthews, as well as. We're going to take -- Mr. Nutter said it would only take about two minutes for the Law Department. Is Squirrel Hill here, Amy Williams, Frank Murphy, and Morris Warner? Okay, thank you very much. Come forward. Next will be West Powelton, then we will Lionel Drain. (Richard Feder comes forward.)
Please sit down and give us your name for the record, please.
Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I'm Richie Feder from the Law Department.
Thank you, Madam Chair and thank you for ensuring that the request made earlier was fulfilled. Mr. Feder, you've had some opportunity to take a look at the documents that were handed 213 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 out earlier today from the Office of Housing and Community Development regarding the Loew's at PSFS and the City Hall Annex Marriott Courtyard projects, both of which are dated April 1999; is that correct?
Okay. I do not expect any answers as we speak. The purpose for you to be over here today is to take back some information and then be able to provide to the Chair and the rest of the body a response to the basic questions. The issue that arose earlier was that in the Loew's project, 729 are people listed as being hired, 401 of which are from Philadelphia, and they are broken out by the 10 Council districts; 328, or 45 percent of them, live outside of the city; and essentially, the same percentage, 46 percent, representing 345 people out of 742 live outside of the city with regard to the City Hall Annex Marriott Courtyard project. What I would like to ask the Law Department to do is to look at two specific areas. One, I'd like to know what legal advice you can 214 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 provide to us with regard to any ability by this City Council and the City of Philadelphia to help ensure that any projects that we provide funding for, whether City funding or any other various federal funding sources, what we may be able to do legislatively to ensure that more Philadelphians are able to work on these particular projects. And, secondly, what if any provisions can be inserted into the various master contracts and subcontracts that relate to these types of projects, again, for the primary purpose of ensuring that Philadelphians have the opportunity and the reality of working on Philadelphia-based projects that are supported either directly by the City or through the various federal funding sources that allow for these projects to go forward.
Councilman, I understand the question. As I explained to you when I walked in, these are complicated questions, and we'll certainly try to look into them as quickly as we can.
I understand that. What I will also ask is if you would 215 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 meet and discuss these issues with Mr. Brooks, who provided the tables; Mr. Kromer, who is the Director of the Office of Housing and Community Development; Mr. Hankowsky, who I know had to leave; but also Mr. Bob Fina, who is very familiar with these particular projects; and anyone else you feel that you need to talk to get the necessary information and data so that you can report, as I said earlier, to the Chair and the Council President on what your findings are and any recommendations that you may have that would help ensure that Philadelphians get to work on Philadelphia-based projects.
Mr. Feder, do you have a copy of the information that was provided to Council?
Thank you, Mr. 216 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 Feder. Thank you, Councilman. All right, now West Powelton, we'll ask you to come forward. Hang on, Lionel Drain, Jim Wilson, we're coming. Again, let me ask if -- let me ask if Squirrel Hill or RHD are present. (No response.)
Thank you very much. I will assume not since there was no show of hands. Thank you very much. Thank you for your patience. It will get better. Thank you. Miss Wise, would you identify yourself for the record and introduce those who are with you.
Good afternoon. My name is Elsie Wise. I'm President of the West Powelton Concerned Community Council. Good afternoon, Madam Chair and President Verna. On my right is Brett Blumberg, he's from the Blumberg Associates. On my left is John Leatherberry. He is the Vice President of West Powelton. On my left also is Ruth Adams, a member of West Powelton, and Helen Gamble, who is 217 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 also a member of West Powelton. We are here in reference to the 41st and Market lot that was formerly a laundry of the modern laundry. We are asking -- I have -- I gave you a copy of my package, and I'll lead my letter and then Brad will read his, and then we'll have some comments from them. The proposed building of the Pathmark supermarket at 41st and Market. The West Powelton community is very badly in need of a supermarket. On the northeast corner of 40th and Market Street is 440 University Square senior apartments. On the south side of 40th and Market, there are 70 units of townhouses. On the northeast side of 40th and Powelton and Filbert are several hundred low-income, and they're called the Center Post Apartments. In this community, there are no 20 drugstores, meat stores, dry cleaners, etc. When our seniors have to shop for food, they must pay someone to take them to the nearest market, which is at 43rd Street and Walnut. Many do not have money to pay for transportation and buy food. The West Powelton area is covered by: 218 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 Market, Powelton, Baring, Spring Garden, Haverford, 44th, 42nd, 41st, 40th, 38th, just about to the Schuykill River. This market will not only an asset to West Powelton but also to Powelton Village and Mantua. We are in hopes that our request will be granted for this market to be built. We have many houses that have been rehabbed and fixed over for people, so we have these houses and community rising up, and we're looking forward to getting more houses done. But we bring houses and rehab and bring residents into the community and give them no place to buy their food. We desperately need a market so. . . Brad?
I'm Brad Blumberg, a partner in Blumberg Associates, the lead development firm involved in the proposed shopping center to be located in the area of 41st and Market. We're making a major commitment to leverage our relationship with national retailers to rebuild urban neighborhoods, and we're very bullish on Philadelphia. The project consists of 219 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 a Pathmark supermarket, which is important, because it's a committed supermarket; they are committed to go to this location pending the resolution of site issues. A food court, neighborhood retail, and potentially office space will take advantage of the site's location in the Technology Corridor of West Philadelphia. Excluding land, the project costs is approximately $6 million, which will be privately funded. The project would contain substantial employment, estimated over 200 jobs, with annual payrolls of over $5 million. The project eliminates blight and several nuisance properties and rectifies environmental site issues. Indeed, removing the redevelopment obstacles such as land assemblage and environmental remediation is the focus of Elsie Wise's West Powelton Community Council's request for consideration to be included in the city's Fiscal Year 2000 Plan. The project is an anchor for neighborhood rebuilding. The project will significantly spur neighborhood revitalization west of 40th Street and north of Market Street. 220 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 The project will also help create safe and exciting corridor from Market Street south to University City. And the project is strongly supported by residents and community leaders. The subject to the resolution of land issues, the project would be open in under 8 months with 6 months allotted for design approvals 9 and a 9-month construction timetable. 10 Thank you. 11
Let me say 12 that I wish I had a nickel for every -- I wish I 13 had a penny for every time someone's asked for a 14 supermarket in our area in the neighborhood and at 15 that location. It would just be a Godsend, and certainly we hope that all members of the committee will understand how much this means to this community and how much we are in support of this project. I thank all of you for your leadership and your commitment in this area. Folks, wait till you see a Pathmark at 41st and Market -- I'm tellin' ya! West Philadelphia's on the move! Thank you, thank you, thank you.
We do have support letters 221 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 from the West Philadelphia Partnership, the West Philadelphia Coalition, Mt. Pisgah African- Methodist Church, State Representative Michael Horsey, and of course, West Powelton and Blumberg, and then also Senator Vincent Hughes' letter is forthcoming and also Congressman Fattah's letter is coming in as supporting this project. And so we have our vice president. Now I'd like for him to have something to say.
Thank you. And we note that Gloria Guard also spoke.
And we've already met with the administration in this regard, as you know, and I think we're just ready to go. Certainly, we're glad to hear any other testimony.
Yes, good afternoon. I just want to thank the Councilwoman for having us here this afternoon.
One of the things I want to say is that a supermarket is nothing new on that strip. We had supermarkets there years 222 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 ago, before the Redevelopment Authority changed things around. This is just going to be something more up to date, a better quality of supermarket, something that is much needed in the area, as everyone has stated. We can only ask that the City Council will assist us in doing this. We have opened our arms to everyone to come into the community, but we haven't did anything for our own self. This would be one of the biggest things that could happen to West Powelton, West Philadelphia and certainly most of Philadelphia, including the Avenue of the Arts. We want Market Street to be the avenue of all business, all types of activities going west. Thank you.
Good afternoon. I'm a former board member of West Powelton, and my name is Ruth Adams. And I'm a member and officer of Mt. Pisgah African-Methodist Episcopal Church. And the church is also looking forward -- and our other guest here is also a member of Mt. Pisgah, and we're really looking forward to -- we have a 223 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 lot of senior citizens and members of the church. And they're not there not just on Sundays; we're there during the week a lot of times too. And a market certainly would be helpful and beneficial to each and every one of us. And there's people that have to pass my house -- I live on Powelton Avenue, between 40th and 41st. And people are constantly passing, walking all the way from 31st, 32nd Street, going to the market at 43rd. And at least if there was one a little nearer, it would benefit them as well as those of us that's right around it. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Any questions if members of the committee? (No questions.)
And certainly, I checked with community groups as well -- or, in fact, and housing developers who are very pleased that their tenants will have a place to shop. Thank you for your patience, thank you for coming, and testimony. 224 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326
Lionel Drain Aspen-Olive CDC. I know Ivy Dench (ph.) was here from Penrose Properties, she had to leave, and I don't know who else is with you, but please, we welcome you to come forward. And let the Chair note that Terri Youngblut, Northern Liberties Association, had to leave. Her testimony will be made a part of the record. Reverend Silas Thomas, First Corinthian Baptist Church, also had to leave but did leave his testimony, which will also be made a part of the reported. Thanks for your patience. I promised you I wouldn't keep you to the very end like last time. Thank you. Please identify yourself for the record and begin your testimony.
Good afternoon. My name is Lionel Drain. I'm with CDC from Mantua. Thank you for having me here. On my left Claudine Cooper; she's from the Belmont Improvement Association. 225 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 We're having some difficulties on a project which is coming to our community, which is called the Sarah Allen Project. There seems to be no input from the community on this project, and I was under the impression that there was supposed to be some type of input from the community. And right, now it's just being rammed down our throats. For one, we are -- we were told by different individuals that there would be no RFP until after the election, and here the RFP comes down before the election. We were told that there is no RFP and then come to find out there is an RFP. Then we're told that you have X-amount of days in order to get your paperwork prepared. If it came down, say, April the 27th and then they gave us until the 17th to have your paperwork in order, I don't think it was fair. Also, we -- as a CDC, we don't have the funds to hire individuals to write our proposals. We have to more or less go out and seek someone to write our proposals for us or get a partner who has the ample source of income to do so. And in doing that, it takes time. And the time that we 226 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 was given from the time that the RFP came out to the deadline of the 17th, it would have been impossible for a CDC or for the community groups to even form anything for this particular project. So we are asking that this proposal be sent back to Mr. Kromer for some type of consideration, have a meeting with the parties in question -- with Belmont with Aspen-Olive, with Penrose, and with all parties in question until further notice, because we are very upset that this project was awarded to a developer that the community are having problems with. And we are highly upset that this was awarded to this particular developer, and we wish that this be tabled until we talk to Mr. Kromer.
All right. The Chair is requesting a meeting as Mr. Drain requested with Lionel Drain, Miss Cooper, and any other representatives from Belmont, as well as Penrose and myself so that we can review this whole process and the whole awarding of this contract. And certainly, we are also requesting that nothing further happen until we have a chance 227 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 to meet, Mr. Kromer?
Okay, that's fine, and I will be in touch with you.
Or call me tomorrow, and we'll get a mutually acceptable date.
Thank you so much. Thanks for your patients. Mike Erdman, Jim Wilson, Mercy-Douglass House. This is another development project that's very, very important to us. Many of you know Jim Wilson from Steven Smith and Mercy-Douglass and so many projects. He's been a Godsend to seniors and certainly to us in the 3rd. And let me apologize for holding you up, but we do appreciate all that you have done for senior citizens in our city. All right, it's Mercy-Douglass Rudolphy, not Mercy-Douglass Ralston. Thank you, I am duly corrected. Thank you again. Identify yourself 228 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 formally for the record for us and begin your testimony. Thank you.
All right, my name is James J. Wilson. I'm the Executive Vice President of Mercy-Douglass Human Services. I'm here representing a joint venture with Rudolphy Home for the Blind, a joint venture that came together with Mercy-Douglass, (unintelligible), and Rudolphy. We've submitted our package. And basically, this project has been approved by HUD. HUD has already approved it, as you will see, in the documentation. HUD has provided $1.3 million for the capital advancement. It also has provided a subsidy for the project for the next 40 years. Rudolphy has been involved with providing services in the community for 100+ years. I find it interesting, of course that as a young boy, I used to climb over the fence and play in the backyard, and they used to run me out. So I'm very attached to this project. I have the president of Rudolphy, Shelly Brotman, here. I want to pause a moment and let her speak. (Shelly Brotman comes forward.) 229 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326
Good afternoon, Councilwoman Blackwell. Thank you very much for your time this afternoon. My name is Shirley Brotman. I'm President of the Board of Directors of Edith R. Rudolphy Residence for the Blind. We're at 3827 Powelton Avenue. We've been there for 131 years. We serve aged, blind, and visually handicapped persons in the County of Philadelphia. We are the oldest blind home in the nation. The project that we're entering into is independent living for residents. Our residents range at this time from age 40 and up. Our oldest resident is 85. The people that come to us are on SSI, adult-dependent from Social Security. Some of them go out to work in workshops. A lot of them become blind later in life and need our supportive services that we give them so that they can become independent persons. It's very difficult when you become blind in your 50s and 60s to adjust to a new world. Families sometimes don't know how to deal 230 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 with this, so they come to us, and we are a family at Rudolphy. Each one is treated like one of our own. In the past, we have had problems with money because we are a private-nonprofit corporation. We receive no State or federal funding. We rely on the kindness of others -- private donors, trusts, and contributions from wherever we can get them. Our residents are very -- how shall I say? -- dependent on us because being blind in society today is difficult in traveling, having your home, and knowing what's going on around you. Security is very important to us. And at Rudolphy, we make our people very secure. We're a family, and in that family, each person means something to everyone. Rudolphy, in the past, has had so many go through our doors. We were formerly known as the Pennsylvania Industrial Home for Blind Women, and in those days the, women did handicrafts, knitting, crocheting, rug-weaving, caning, whatever to make money to sustain the home. Also a vegetable guard in the back where Jim said he 231 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 probably played in our vegetable garden. That's where they threw him out of, I imagine. Then the women went out to work in various jobs. And now our blind persons are not only blind, but multiple handicapped, with mental disabilities, retardation, and aged. This is a lot to deal with in today's world. Our project that we're going forth in the future with, we hope, will help make our people like they're contributing to society. We would like to have a small workshop where they can work and earn a little bit of money. Under SSI, as you know, they can only earn so much, but their needs are small. And we hope that you're consider our project. We're a good neighbor in Powelton Village. We're across the street from Presbyterian Hospital, and we'd like to remain there so we hope that you will help us. Mr. Wilson?
Thank you. As you can see, the background and experience of Rudolphy. And the coming together of the two 501(c.)(3)'s to make this happen, we are almost there. The 232 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 $255,000 we're requesting from OHCD will help us close the gap. And we're requesting another $127,500 from the PHFA. You can see the importance of this project. Many persons, as has been indicated, that had diabetes are looking at the possibility of going blind also. I'm a diabetic. This is a project we need. Mercy has been involved in the development of housing for seniors. We are a HUD developer and planner, and we've had success before. And as you can see, we do have the grant all; we need is to do the gap. The money is in place. Help us make this a success. Thank you very much.
Thank you so much. Let me say that, obviously, I've been there many times, and you do an excellent job there for so many people, and we thank you for this service that you have provided with people. Generally, as Miss Brotman said, they have multiple handicaps. And it's been a very, very special place, so we certainly hope that we can do our very, very best to give you the support that you need. And thank you, Jim, for all that you 233 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 and your family do in West Philadelphia. Are there any questions?
I'd just like to know how many residents are presently at Rudolphy?
And how many residents would be accommodated with the new project?
Thank you as well for your patience. Thank you, Jim. Mike Erdman, Ralston Mercy-Douglass House, please. And Joann Jackson and Paul Steinke, get ready. (Mike Erdman comes forward.)
Madam Chairman, I appreciate being able to speak briefly to you. 234 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326
You've been on a marathon, and you're coming to the end of it, so I will keep my remarks extremely brief.
I have a prepared statement that I can give to all of you that will be beyond what I will talk about. I simply want to say thank you. Ralston Mercy-Douglass House will be at 39th and Market Street. It will be a HUD 202 project that we have been working on for two and a half years, along with my associate, who you just heard from, James Wilson. Last October, funds were made available from the CDBG home allocation, and those funds will come from this coming year, the 2000 year budget, because we plan on having this project begin this summer. We have been delayed for various different reasons, and it has been a long, involved process with the people from HUD. But we do plan to be in the ground this summer. The project will house 55 -- the 235 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 project will have 55 units of single-bedroom apartments, and we are gaining funding not only from your source and from the HUD sources, but we will also be getting funding from the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency and from the Federal Home Loan Bank of Pittsburgh, plus other private funds are going to be involved. But that's not all. This project will also contain a unique health-care delivery system called "Living Independently for Elders" on the first floor, which will provide services to the frail elders living in this building in the West Philadelphia neighborhood. The program will be run by the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing and will be a first in Pennsylvania and, of course, in Philadelphia. The added cost of these services for the "Life Program," as we call it, will be funded entirely by private sources. And we have been able to attract some of the major names in the Philadelphia area, such as the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Connolly Foundation, and McClean Contributionship, to name a few. The University of Pennsylvania is supporting it by giving us the land free. The 236 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 land will be given to this project free, and they are also going to be providing funding for the build-out of the space that they need. This project is going to be funded 60 percent through public funds and 40 percent from private funds, and it's going to be managed by a partnership consisting of Ralston House, which is a 182-year-old traditionally white caregiver and the largest and first black institution serving the elderly of Philadelphia, Mercy-Douglass. So we hope that you will agree that this joint venture is going to be a tremendous asset to the West Philadelphia area and where there is a huge need for serving the elderly, and particularly the frail elderly. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Certainly, I absolutely know that and know how hard both of you have worked on this project and know of the need that we have and of the wonderful program that you have at Ralston House. As some know and some don't, my mother, who means most to me in the world, is a part of that program. And so I certainly am committed to 237 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 any expansion that we can do for seniors. Are there any questions from the members?
May I? On the first floor that you mentioned, you said that the seniors would be living independently? Is that what we call an assisted-living facility?
Well, these are the frailest of the frail. These are people who need assisted living in a major way.
Let me correct. That is not assisted living. That's more of a glorified or a much broader day care inside of a HUD independent-living project. The services are provided to anyone in the community in addition to the people in the building. Assisted living specifically building residents.
All right. The people that will be in day care, will they also be living in the complex?
And others will come from a broader perspective of West Philadelphia.
See, the University of Pennsylvania is going to be using their Life Care Program, which is -- it has a combination of day care, mental as well as medical services. So you have a broad base of community coming in and getting that service.
It sounds like a wonderful project. I wish you luck with it.
Madam Chair, one quick question. Just from a location standpoint, from the materials, one, I would agree with the Chair and the President, both are aware of my strong support for services to the elderly. 239 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 I'm trying to picture this location. And from the -- from one of the pictures, I see that you have the -- it looks like the back end of the 1st District Plaza, which I know is at 38th and Market.
And University Market or something, that building at 40th and Market. I can't --
Directly behind the AMA Church building is a parking lot there.
A parking lot, 240 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 okay. So you're going to build on that parking lot. This is on the north side of the street,, though.
Thank you very much. Joann Jackson, Advocate CDC. Barbara Easley, Advocate CDC. And then next we'll have Paul Steinke. (Ms. Jackson and Ms. Easley come forward.)
Thank you both. Thanks for your patience. Joann works hard in and around West Philadelphia. Forgive us for taking so long to call you, and thank you, thank you for waiting it out and staying here. Thank you very much. Please identify yourselves for the record and begin your testimony. 241 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326
My name is Barbara Easley, I'm the Chair of the Advocate Community Development Corporation, a CDC of North Philadelphia. To be precise, it is at 18th and Diamond. We would like to take this opportunity to thank the Council for all they have done for us over the years.
I would also like to state that we celebrate our 30th anniversary June the 10th, 1999, at Minton Hall. I'm sure that everyone has received an information and a follow-up call. But we're very grateful to be celebrating 30 years as one of the oldest CDCs in Philadelphia. We will be honoring our founder, Christine Washington, and her husband Father Paul Washington. I would like to take the opportunity at this time to introduce our new Executive Director, Miss Joann Jackson, and she will take a few moments to tell you about our Diamond Street corridor and the activities that we have been 242 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 involved with. Thank you.
My name is Joann Jackson. Chairperson Blackwell, President Anna Verna, Councilman Nutter, it's a pleasure to be here. I'm delighted to be ACDC's new Executive Director. I can't claim to be a stranger to ACDC. I've been on their board for almost the past two years. We're here today to say thank you and to tell you that the last project of ours that you supported, the townhouses on the 1600 block of Diamond are -- the last one is under agreement of sale. We're very pleased about this; we hope you will be too. If you haven't seen the houses, before we sell that last one, please come by. We feel that they're the nicest houses that are selling for that price in North Philadelphia. They will address some of the concerns that this committee voiced earlier today about bringing people back to Philadelphia, keeping them in Philadelphia. These houses actually have dining rooms where you can have a Thanksgiving dinner, and bedrooms where 243 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 your children can have desks. Our latest plan is a Diamond Street corridor plan. This plan calls for 183 units of housing and a variety of housing types. There's some commercial development and a playground for young children. Congressman Brady has indicated that he very much wants to support this plan, and we are in the process of seeking foundation money for pre-development activities. But we want you to know that both Barbara and I will be back next year to tell you more about our Diamond Street corridor plan. Thank you for this opportunity to address you.
Thank you very much. Are there any questions? (No questions.)
Thank you again for your patience. Thank you so much. Paul Steinke, Director of University City District. (Paul Steinke comes forward.) 244 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326
Thank you for your patience. Paul, I know that we promised we'd get you in and out. We'll have to make it up to you, but thank you very much.
Good afternoon, Madam Chairwoman, Council President Verna, and Councilman Nutter. My name is Paul Steinke, and I am the Executive Director of the University City District. I'd like to start by thanking Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell, my councilwoman, for informing me of this hearing today. I'm delighted to be here.
I'm also well aware of the plans for the Pathmark, and the University City District is in support of that project. And I'm also well aware of the Baltimore Avenue Redevelopment Corporation's plans. They're also doing great work in the University City and West Philadelphia area. The University City District, or UCD, was created in 1997 by a coalition of the University City institutions, businesses, and 245 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 community associations. We cooperate with City government to provide sidewalk cleaning, graffiti removal, public safety patrols, and marketing initiatives designed the make University City cleaner, safer, and more attractive. Funding for the UCD comes from voluntary contributions from over 200 institutions, businesses, and residents, and the list is growing nearly every day. In fact, I should point out that some of the organizations that testified here today are supporters of the University City District -- People's Emergency Center, Ralston House, Mercy-Douglass, and the Rudolphy Home are all voluntary contributors to support our perhaps. I might also add, to touch on another theme of today's hearings, that 100 percent of the UCD's maintenance employees are residents of West and Southwest Philadelphia, and we're pleased to make that commitment and continue that commitment to improve the quality of life of our community. Currently, we're working on two key projects to enhance the quality of life in University City for which we seek City funding 246 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 support. First, the UCD is working to extend two directional sign systems into West Philadelphia from the Schuylkill River, all the way to Cobbs Creek. These systems, known as Direction Philadelphia and Walk Philadelphia, already exist and are highly successful in Center City. The UCD has funded the design and planning work to extend these systems into West Philadelphia. We've been working very closely with the office of Jannie Blackwell, as well as the partnership CDC to do so. We now respectfully seek City capital funding to support the creation and installation of the signs. The total estimated costs to build and install these systems is $470,000, which we seek from the City. Second, the UCD is creating an operations center at 40th and Chestnut Streets in the heart of University City to serve as our flagship in the community. It will house a police department substation, which will enhance public safety by allowing for the sharing of information on crime patterns, developing joint deployment strategies, and conducting joint roll calls between our safety ambassadors, who you may have 247 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 seen in the yellow jackets throughout the neighborhood, and the Philadelphia police who will have a 25-person substation at that location. The operations center will create a positive focal point on a major thoroughfare. More than one third of the space will be occupied by the Philadelphia police under a commitment made to us by Commissioner Timoney. Our fund-raising target for this project is approximately $1.7 million. To date, we have about $850,000 committed from eight civic-minded corporations, from the William Penn Foundation, and from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. A City contribution of $250,000 would greatly assist our fund-raising efforts for this project. The University City District hopes that the City will support both of these projects. And once again, I thank you for allowing me this opportunity today.
Thank you again, and please forgive the delay. We thank you for your patience all day and certainly look forward to continuing to work with UCD to try to 248 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 make West Philadelphia all it can be.
Thank you very much. Delphyne Dukes, I didn't see you. I thought you were gone. Many of us know her, she's former chief of staff for Councilwoman Miller. And certainly, we are glad to have her here wearing a different hat, a new hat, and invite you to come up and give your testimony and formally introduce yourself. Is Herbert Reid, Maze Group, here? (No response.)
Good afternoon, Chairlady Blackwell and Councilman Nutter. I am Delphyne Dukes, the Executive Director of the Wistar Neighborhood Council. I'm here today on behalf of our organization. I want to extend my gratitude to the Philadelphia City Council for the opportunity to testify on the Year Consolidated 23 Statement and Plan for the City of Philadelphia. 24 The Wistar Neighborhood Council has 25 worked tirelessly to improve the quality of life 249 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 for residents within our jurisdiction. We have worked collaboratively with the Office of Housing and Community Development for years. Their 5 guidance and intervention, coupled with our 6 commitment and outstanding service record, has 7 afforded the privilege of being a neighborhood 8 advisory council of superior service. 9 It has become the norm that we exceed 10 our service quota every year for the past three 11 years. I believe this is directly related to our 12 willingness to upgrade the quality of life for 13 neighborhood residents. 14 As the only neighborhood advisory 15 council operating in the northwest, we are 16 overwhelmed with service requests from an amalgam 17 of individuals. It is unfortunate that 18 neighborhood advisory councils are not in 19 operation. This absence creates a void of the 20 service in the northwest community. I am 21 personally convinced that it is neither the intent 22 of OHCD nor City Council to have constituents lacking for service. In lieu of this, I am requesting, on behalf of the Wistar Neighborhood Council, that 250 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 additional funding be allocated for administrative purposes to allow us to better service the residents of the northwest in an expeditious and fiduciary manner. Presently, we have only two staff persons to service the entire northwest. Additional funding would allow for more staff to service the community, which would include residents in the 19138 and the 19140 service areas. I am well aware that as a governing body of the finances for the City of Philadelphia, you are inundated with requests for additional monies. Nevertheless, I know you to be individuals committed to service for the residents in the City of Philadelphia. We encourage you to make an extra effort in the new millennium to increase funding to area NACs. Thank you for this opportunity to share our perspective and our request.
Thank you very much, Delphyne. Again, please forgive the delay. Are there any questions? (No questions.)
All right, we 251 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 thank you for your testimony. And, in fact, I realize that we were down that low, but we certainly empathize with you and look forward to working with you.
Thank you so much. The Maze Group, Herbert Reid, please come forward. (Herbert Reid comes forward.)
Again. I know that Harold Thomas, Amy Williams, Frank Murphy, and Morris Warner are not here. And Malik Muhammad, I assume he's not here. Okay, thank you. Identify yourself for the record, please. And thank you for your patience. I did get a call from Senator Williams earlier, so we thank you for your patience and please forgive the delay.
It's perfectly okay. Councilwoman Blackwell, Chair of this Committee, Councilman Nutter, I represent Maze Group, Inc., and I would like to introduce Ted Profit (ph.), who is also a member of the Maze 252 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 Group. I'm going to be very brief. The Maze Group is basically interested in developing the 4100 block of Leidy Avenue. Leidy Avenue is located -- is bordered, I should say, by Parkside on the north, Girard Avenue on the south, 42nd Street to the west, and 41st Street to the east. There has been a lot of development in that area. Basically all of the vacant houses on the 4100 block of Girard Avenue has been renovated over the last couple years. There has been extensive renovations on Parkside Avenue. There has also been some new houses built to the West of Leidy Avenue. Unfortunately, Leidy Avenue itself has not been touched. The block has in excess of a 50 percent vacancy rate. It is quickly deteriorating. And it is the goal of the Maze Group to stop the hemorrhaging of that block. Therefore, we are requesting for Council's help in securing the necessary assistance to condemn the balance of the vacant buildings and lots on this particular block and to allow the Maze Group to secure funding for the 253 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 rehab of the existing buildings, and in the case of the lots, construction of new buildings. These will be affordable houses, rental units in the low- to moderate-income guidelines. We would like to pursue this project in phases. Presently, we own four buildings on the block. We have already made applications to RDA for (unintelligible) assisted funding. Unfortunately, we're at a Catch-22 in that we would have to show support for the entire project before we can do the first phase of the four buildings. Therefore, we would like to request your assistance in getting this project off the ground thank you.
I'm sure that you've been in touch with my office to identify. We have a list of all the properties you're interested in, and is that complete?
So you're trying to get further acquisition before you can begin Phase I; is that the problem? 254 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326
We need a commitment from Mr. Kromer's office to provide the funding for the condemnation of the balance of the block before RDA can proceed with the first phase of our project.
I don't know where we are on this project. I don't know whether Mr. Kromer's aware of it, but we'll be -- he said he isn't aware of it. I know you've been in my office for about the past two months maybe, in terms of property identification; am I correct?
All right. Then what we will have to do is -- I don't know if you have if there's been a formal proposal submitted, but we'll have to follow up certainly with Mr. Kromer who's now aware of you and so that we know what the next step is. So I'm going to ask you to be back in touch with me again. And I'll check with my staff. I'll check with Sandy Hayes on my staff so that we know exactly what we are to give housing what they need in order to move forward, because 255 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 Mr. Kromer, at this point, still does not know who you are and what you need. So we've got to pick our socks up if we want to try to get something in for this next year.
All right, so I look forward to you following up. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Mr. Lee Capkin, Housing Consortium for Disabled Individuals. (Mr. Capkin comes forward.)
Thank you for your pay patience, Mr. Capkin. Please forgive us for the delay. Ed Schwartz, sorry for holding you for so long, but we will certainly have the discussion, I promise. Is the Horticultural Society still present? UNIDENTIFIED AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yes.
Thank you. Please identify yourself, have a seat. 256 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 We're glad to have you.
Good afternoon. My name is Lee Capkin. I'm the Executive Director of the Housing Consortium for Disabled Individuals. Councilwoman Blackwell and Councilman Nutter and others present, I'm very pleased to have the opportunity to testify on the Year 9 Consolidated Plan. We have provided you with 10 written copies of our statement, so I would 11 request that those be used in part for the 12 record. I want to just elaborate briefly on a 13 couple aspects of the testimony itself. 14 I want to talk about specifically the 15 Adaptive Modifications Program to improve the home 16 -- accessibility of the homes of people with 17 disabilities in Philadelphia. This is an 18 immensely valuable program for both older disabled 19 adults who have become disabled as they have aged 20 and for families with disabled children. In fact, 21 it is such a successful program that over the past 22 year, the number of new applicants to the program 23 has increased by over 700. 24 It was estimated about a year ago that 25 the waiting time for the services of this program 257 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 were two years. That waiting time is now up to four years. That is specifically because HCDI, as part of its role, was instructed to do outreach to make sure that people with disabilities in the community knew about the program. We have done this work very energetically, and now we have a backlog of 700 or more people, with an additional 50 households per month being added to the pile. The funding is considered level for this year, as for 25, as it was for Year 24, and we don't see how we're going to cut into the increase in the numbers of people by over 100 percent. We believe that the funding does need to be increased and that City Council needs to join with us and the City Administration in looking into this. We also believe that there does need to be some kind of evaluation of the production process to see just what is going on that keeps a number of households being served to 200 or less per year. Our goal is to come and advocate for the program and to advocate for people with disabilities who specifically are having trouble getting served, and we are getting more and more 258 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 very angry calls from all over the city from people who simply do not understand why something can't be done to move the program along while they're being told that the services are available. There are many things that the City can't do very much about. We know that there is a decrease in the production of rental housing, there's a decrease in Section 8 certification; therefore, housing for people with disabilities that is affordable is becoming more limited. There is a very limited amount of home ownership that is accessible. Fair housing laws do not cover single-family homes. But what we can control is avoiding displacement of people with disabilities from the homes that they own. We can avoid institutionalization. We can avoid them having to be stuck into the homelessness prevention programs, the homeless support programs which are being cut. We need additional support for adaptive modifications. If there is one thing that Council and the City Administration can get behind, it 259 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 would be a push for all people with disabilities in the City it is adaptive modifications. We will work with you in any way we can, and we appreciate the time to be able to come over and talk to you today about this.
Thank you very much, Mr. Capkin. Are there any questions? (No questions.)
We thank you again. I know you come in yearly and are always committed to this, and certainly we thank you for your patience and for your commitment.
Thank you. Ed Schwartz, Institute for the Study of Civic Values. Thank you for your patience. He's been here all day. We promised him a dialogue and certainly look forward to hearing his testimony. Let the Chair also note that Steve Culbertson, who stood aside certainly for our first group folks. Gloria Guard, Mary Scullion, Alicia Christian had to leave, but I believe -- is Judy Berkman still here? 260 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326
Okay, thank you. As soon as we get Ed Schwartz, we got you, so we'll get you soon.
Good afternoon. My name is Ed Schwartz. I'm here speaking for the Institute for the Study of Civic Values. Before I get into my remarks, which extend the debate that I've launched on the role that OHCD, I believe, should be playing in relation to welfare reform, since this is somewhat critical, I do want to say something at the beginning that I send said at the end of my remarks of testimony. I believe that the housing initiatives that this office has pursued since 1992 have been a staggering success, and I must say I shared in what must have been their poignant kind of -- I shared some poignancy in reading through, as the mayoral campaign, various things -- that we've been a failure in this or that. I don't agree 261 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 with that in the slightest, and I would add some detail from that from my perspective of not only the four years I spent as director, but from perhaps sometime before that. We laid the groundwork for CDCs, that was part of what we hoped to do, but there was no 8 guarantee in looking at what a new administration would do that that would happen. But it has happened beyond, I think, what anybody even expected to happen, and I think that's a terrific accomplishment in and of itself. Secondly, I believe that the settlement program, which really hasn't been mentioned very much here today, I thought that was again conceived sort of at the very last months of my tenure, no guarantee that it ever be carried forward, that it has been carried forward and has created the opportunity for now thousands of people to get into houses that didn't have to be rehabilitated and expand their housing opportunity. That was something I thought was absolutely necessary to do, so sever the task of getting housing for people from the task of rehabbing houses, the inseparable link between 262 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 those two. I think that the initiatives on homelessness deserve every degree of credit that the homeless advocates have been given for it. And the most important thing, I think -- I mean, I could add some others, but those really kind of stand out for me -- is that before this decade, housing was a kind of an after-thought spread around the map here. We laid the groundwork for the notion that centers of community development would be as important to the City's future for economic development. Again, we had three years and a difficult beginning to overcome, and there was no guarantee this would be carried forward; but that eight years later, you can now look at this map and see centers of community development that have been given significant investment and support and have the capacity to carry on during a new administration. I think all of that is a terrific accomplishment, and I want to pay my personal compliments to John Kromer and to the staff for all the work that you have done here. So if I'm harsh -- and I am about this, what I'm going to discuss -- it's on the principle 263 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 of, to whom more is given, more is required. And I'm really very desperately concerned that some things that are beyond the control of everybody sitting in this room could undermine all of that success. And for the last two years of my own life, when I saw this coming, I dropped, frankly, a lot of other things that I was working on as a full-time venture to focus on this in the spirit that if we didn't do this, this would be a real devastating catastrophe for the city, and we are hardly out of the woods yet. With that in mind, I will now turn to the comments. And I start with Mayor Rendell, from his most recent budgetary message to this Council. "Looking first at budgetary balance, while our successes have been undeniable, considerable threats still remain. First, there is welfare reform. Already 43,000 single adults have lost their state-funded medical assistance. That means the number of uninsured patients visiting our health centers is increased dramatically.
As a result, last year, we provided an additional $1 million in the operating budget, 264 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 and we are maintaining that level again. "But the real trouble starts this spring, when an estimated 32,000 more Philadelphia families will lose their welfare benefits between March and June, flooding a labor market that does not have enough jobs for all of them. That is the challenge, and it is formidable: 32,000 families without benefits, without a job, without hope. In terms of personal devastation, the cost is limitless. "In terms of the General Fund impact, the cost are also severe. During the first quarter of FY '99, shelter requests were up 61 percent over the same period in FY '98, even before the colder winter months had begun. " That's Mayor Rendell's characterization of the impact of welfare reform on this city. In response to my March 24 testimony on OHCD's preliminary plan, John Kromer cited a 265 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. " John, you reiterated that one today. But the mayor's own testimony would seem to contradict that proposition. 2 billion out of the city's economy by the fiscal year 2003. Today, however, you are reviewing the City's Year Community Development Block Grant 22 application to the federal government that 23 proposes to invest $133 million in neighborhoods 24 where most of our low-income residents live. And 25 not one word appears in the plan that either 266 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 reflects this concern or offers any meaningful effort to help housing and community development organizations respond to it. Only in its discussion of homelessness, I have found, since my preliminary testimony, the two words "welfare reform" did appear; they appeared in relation to homelessness. Only in its discussion of homelessness does the application acknowledge that, quote, the implication of welfare reform will add to the causal factors contributing to an increased proportion of Philadelphia's population with both affordable housing and special human service needs. So far as the Office of Housing and Community Development is concerned, welfare reform becomes relevant at the point when people are homeless, not before. But those of us who are working hard are doing so to prevent homelessness. A crisis of this magnitude requires, first and foremost, collaboration among all the organizations that are working to help welfare recipients achieve self-sufficiency. OHCD funds a wide range of these groups through its support for community development corporations, neighborhood 267 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 advisory committees, housing counseling agencies, adult literacy groups, human service providers, and day-care and after-school programs that need to working together if TANF recipients are going to have a chance to succeed. These are the groups that the Institute for the Study of Civic Values has been brining together over the last two years, along with the wide range of organizations involved in housing through a range of conferences, workshops, and now neighbor roundtables between community groups with district welfare offices that are among the first meetings ever to take place in Philadelphia as far as I can tell. 3 percent of this proposed budget before you. We even design and led two multi-session seminars for neighborhood advisory committees on welfare reform as part of this contract that went a long way to alerting the NACs to the problems and how they might work with other neighborhood groups to solve it. We raised more than twice as much to support this program 268 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 from foundations and corporate contributors. We even won a modest national prize of $5,000 from OMB Watch, 1 of 6 awarded out of 150 applications, for our use of the Internet to manage an e-mail list that permits now more than 200 leaders and activists working on welfare reform to share information and ideas with one another within a matter of minutes.
Just as we approached the March 3, 1999 deadline requiring long-term recipients to work 12 hours a week or lose their benefits, OHCD lost 13 interest. This is last year. We were 14 gratuitously eliminated from the Year 24 Program 15 without warning or even formal notification. And 16 it was only the intervention of a number of 17 members of this committee and this Council that 18 restored our funding, or at least that's the way 19 it appeared. 20 That experience forewarned us that this would happen again this year, and it has. We weren't in the plan. And this time, it appears that perhaps Council is prepared to go along, we'll see. After all, if welfare reform is not identified as a crisis by OHCD, then why support a 269 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 group that is trying to respond to it. Other agencies -- the PIC, notably -- are dealing with this, but the PIC has a specific set of assignments related to helping recipients find jobs. They have no authorization to build a broad-based support system for recipients struggling to make these transitions. This is a problem of community development in its broadest sense, but it seems that our community development agency now seems willing to sit by as recipients are made homeless, whereupon we are even expanding the services that will be made available to them. This is what occurred between 1980 an 1984 in Philadelphia and other cities after the passage of the Reagan budget. And it's this horrific outcome that many of us are trying to avoid. As I noted in my testimony on this plan at the March 24th administrative hearing, there are various areas in which community organizations can help recipients cope with welfare reform. They can develop van and bus services to provide fast access to the thousands of entry-level jobs that do exist in the suburbs now far from where 270 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 most recipients live. They can participate in one of the new community service jobs programs now sponsored by the PIC. They can help the mayor's Commission on Literacy develop adult literacy programs in every neighborhood that will permit people to acquire office skills and GED certificates while they work hours a week. 9 They can help in securing adequate day care and 10 after-school programs for the children of 11 recipients now entering the workforce. 12 I did not suggest that OHCD should pay 13 for all of these services in that testimony. I 14 argued merely that OHCD should support the work 15 that the Institute and dozens of organizations are 16 now undertaking to build capacity among these 17 organizations to meet these needs now acknowledged 18 by virtually everyone dealing with welfare to work 19 as the priorities that we need to address. Not 20 our department, John Kromer said in effect, in response to my testimony. We're the housing agency, and if we do other things, it's in the context of helping housing groups that grow out of the specific services that they offer as housing groups. Case closed. 271 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 I would submit, however, that while OHCD and the Council have the right to reject anything you want, that doesn't make it right. And terminating support for our work won't make the problem go away; or deter us, for that matter, from fighting for meaningful solutions for the recipients from the city. Forty percent of the recipients who are getting jobs through our new job centers that the City has created are now working in the suburbs. But it is still impossible for most of them to reach these jobs in less than 90 minutes. A number of CDCs tried to gauge support, I learned by going from a hearing from the Delaware Valley Planning Commission, for exactly the sort of van services we are advocating. The Chester County Community Development Department is even using CDBG funds to offer direct support to such services. Here OHCD doesn't even list transportation in its application as one of the supportive services that recipients most need.
And again what we are talking about is not for the office to pay for these services, but to pay for 272 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 the process that might lead to getting support for them. The post-March 3rd "get a job" requirements imposed by Harrisburg are now making it virtually impossible for the PIC to conduct a coherent intake system for the thousands of community service jobs that will permit these recipients to meet their 20-hour-a-week work requirements. Figuring out a way to reach these recipients via the housing system would be an important method of overcoming these barriers. Much of that would have to involve public housing, but the wide range of apartments rehabbed by OHCD over the past decade would provide an important link again as well. OHCD does not appear to be interested. The mayor's Commission on Literacy has been saying for months that there are now 1200 vacancies in City-sponsored adult literacy programs because we have not worked out ways for recipients to join these programs and meet their work requirement. Again, CDCs and NACs could be helpful in informing their own residents and clients of opportunities in these programs, but 273 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 there is little if any connection between these systems in most neighborhoods. And, again, OHCD says it's not interested. The need for day care becomes increasingly evident as the number of recipients working outside the city grows. And every single candidate for mayor this spring pledged support for more after-school programs. Again, groups working on housing could be helpful in pointing the way for their residents to receive these services. And some of these CDCs and NACs already do this. But here again, OHCD says, Not our department. But the ultimate irony here is that if these systems aren't repaired, the ones I'm describing, and we do face the kind of crisis that Mayor Rendell has been predicting, then it will be the housing developments supported by OHCD that will be among the hardest hit. In his response to my preliminary plan testimony, he argues that OHCD benefits welfare recipients through housing, and I agree. Programs like Basic System Repair, Rental Rehabilitation, and even some of the home ownership initiatives mentioned in the plan do 274 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 either improve housing or create affordable housing for people receiving TANF. But what happens to these recipients if they lose all their income? Where will affordable housing be then? And what will happen to the homes that they are forced to abandon? In 1991 -- for those who think this can't happen -- there were 1,000 foreclosures in West Oak Lane, I learned from a reporter who called to inform me of this grim statistic, a grim outcome of the recession and of people given low-interest mortgages who ended up on drugs. How many foreclosures will welfare reform bring about? John Kromer now asserts that the role of OHCD in dealing with TANF recipients is primarily through housing, and I will make some comment about the training discussion we had earlier. I would conclude these remarks by urging this committee to insist that they provide us -- that is Housing -- with this information: 1. An enumeration of the number of TANF recipients presently living as either Section 275 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 renters, tenants in conventional apartments, and homeowners in houses rehabbed by OHCD. Ideally, we should be able to get this information by census tract if the information systems are still running as they were, so that we can see where the highest concentrations of at-risk residents are. 2. An equivalent breakdown for the people who received support under the Settlement Costs Grants Program, that has benefitted, as I understand it, more than 9,000, perhaps 10,000, households in the city. 3. A breakdown of the sales prices of houses supported for rehabilitation by OHCD under their home ownership programs.
Here I think we're going to discover that in some instances, the City is, in effect, having CDC sell houses for over $40,000 in neighborhoods where the median sales price is $15,000, thereby putting low-income homeowners and renters of these neighborhoods at risk of higher costs due to increased tax assessments. I'm not sure that's correct but I've seen sales prices of that magnitude in areas that, in fact, don't seem to justify it, and I'm curious as to what impact this will have on this entire 276 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 picture. 4. And, finally, related to another project mandated by the federal government, a projection of the total number of units that will be available to a low-income residents once all the public housing developments are downsized as opposed to the total number of public housing units available to them now. If we cannot get OHCD's support in making community development responsive to welfare reform, we can at least require it to keep us informed as to the status of low-income housing in response to this crisis. But beyond this limited role, there is still a critical need to build relationships among all of the groups working with low-income residents of our neighborhoods to provide support to welfare recipients in entering the workforce. That is the core of what we have been trying to accomplish. And I will add that when I left the government, I was acutely aware that it was essentially a structural shambles, and that, frankly, having been in it for eight years -- four 277 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 in this room and four over at 1234 Market Street -- it didn't seem to me that much could be done internal to it to solve that problem. And in a way, this hearing absolutely typifies what I am describing because what we have here is some terrific people working on some terrific projects, doing terrific things, but it's like in one little tunnel. Let's take the training programs. These are excellent programs, all of them that the nonprofit housing group is funding. Campus Boulevard Consortium, Metropolitan Career Center, the other organizations here, they're all very competent programs. And even the logic, I believe, of why they were funded makes a lot of sense from the Community Development Block Grant's point of view. Many of these organizations are community development and are anchors for their neighborhoods and involved in a lot of other things. They've been in this budget, I believe, for a few years before welfare reform was even, you know, contemplated by the legislature. So by getting into job training, this enhances their ability to strengthen the 278 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 neighborhoods around which they are working. No 3 problem there, that's what the nonprofit division of OHCD is supposed to be doing, and it's doing it well. But to say that the collective work of these training programs, which added up in the application to 385 jobs, is an adequate response to a welfare reform crisis that is going to affect, in Rendell's words, 32,000 people, just in fact doesn't make sense. And meanwhile, we have the PIC with 2500 people in programs supported by something called "Single Point of Contact," which is no 14 longer a single point; we have job centers that, right now, are dealing with the 15,000 people through Philadelphia Works; we have the Work Opportunities Program, which the PIC has just awarded 2500 more jobs to nonprofit groups, many of them in fact supported by OHCD, and they're now sitting around waiting for people to come do this work. That's over in some other room, and the literacy committee is in another room, and ne'er the twain shall meet. But in the neighborhood, the support system we need is one that brings those groups together. 279 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 And if I thought there were some place other than OHCD in this government where that support could be provided, I assure you I would go there.
But right now, OHCD is there, and they're the ones who are the most likely to succeed. If they're not willing, then we have to figure out some other way to make it happen. The Office of Housing and Community Development, in short, has not fulfilled what I believe its responsibility in this area ought to be, as much good work as it is doing. And as president of the institute, I deeply, needless to say, regret the loss of its tangible support for our own work in this area in the coming year. But as a resident of Philadelphia who has fought for a comprehensive approach to community development for the past years, going 19 back to the very first year of this program in 20 which I testified, I regret it even more that OHCD 21 is missing an opportunity to make a real 22 contribution here when the stakes for our people 23 are so high and the risks to our neighborhoods are 24 so great. 25 I thank you for your attention. 280 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326
Thank you, Mr. Schwarz. We did promise that we would have dialogue. I would hope that -- we have a few people left that need to testify, and that we could have a little more dialogue. We hear a lot about jobs programs. It seems to me --
Excellent programs, I have no problem with them. They're great programs, except that they deal with a very limited number of people, and the intake -- I mean, there's so many intake systems at the PIC now, I think they're going to need a vestibule to go through them. But if Belinda Mayo is now saying that the intake for these programs is shaped by the Workforce Investment Act, that isn't even related to welfare reform; that is a whole different channel in and of itself. Right now, they separate out that work from the welfare to work. So I -- you know, Metropolitan Career Center is a premier training organization in this city and gets support from all sorts of places. Those are great programs. This is an organization that deals with 281 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 the entire City of Philadelphia, at least its low-income neighborhoods, and has the chance with a limited amount of support to leverage an awful lot of other things. That's what I'm arguing, and that is what I don't see is happening here.
Well, we certainly hope that you will remain. We have a few other people to testify and --
And then we will have Mr. Kromer come back. Thank you. Mary Francis Davis, Greater Philadelphia Urban Affairs Coalition, is she still in the room? UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: She left.
All right, she left. Judy Berkman, CDC Frankford Ministry. Thank you so much for your patience. We know that Steve had to leave, and we thank him for certainly his work in this area and the work he did for PACDC in the past. (Judy Berkman comes forward.) 282 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326
Thank you very. We are glad to have. You still look perky, even though it's been a long day.
Thank you, and I'm here to talk about something new, so hopefully, it will be interesting. Thank you and good afternoon. I thank you for the opportunity to testify in support of the housing preservation and vacancy prevention activities set forth in the proposed Year Plan 12 of the OHCD and to add these comments to the 13 record. 14 My name is Judy Berkman. I'm an 15 attorney with Regional Housing Legal Services, 16 which provides free legal services to 17 community-based organizations developing 18 affordable housing and revitalizing neighborhoods 19 with economic-development activities. I cochair 20 the Title and Property Subcommittee of the Vacancy 21 Prevention Committee of the Philadelphia Partners 22 in Home Ownership, as detailed in the testimony of 23 Mary Frances Davis, who was supposed to come 24 before me, and her written remarks are in the 25 record. 283 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 My area of focus today is the tangled title aspect of the OHCD housing preservation proposal. I'm testifying on behalf of the Frankford Group Ministries CDC, and Steve wasn't here to testify himself, but this actually is an issue faced by many of our groups at regional housing. And three of them -- Dignity and PEC and Project Home -- were sitting at the table here before. The term "tangled title" describes the variety of legal issues which can cloud an equitable owner's ability to convey title, obtain a grant or loan to make repairs, or even obtain insurance. I have determined, just for the purposes of what I've been working with on this committee, that there are three basic types of tangled title: one is, the person's name is not on the deed; the second is, there's a name on the deed which should not be on it; and the third is some other kind of cloud on the title. Tangled title contributes to the housing and neighborhood deterioration. For example, a house in the Frankford neighborhood becomes vacant. There is a family in the 284 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 neighborhood willing to buy the house and fix it up, but the title to the house is tangled and the house remains vacant. At first, the house is used by drug dealers, prostitutes, or squatters. Later, the real-estate taxes on the house exceed the value of the property, so it could not be sold even if title could be cleared. The house may deteriorate to a point where it becomes a nuisance and must be demolished at City expense. The vacant land is used for dumping. There are rodents. The neighbors call L&I. They call their City Councilmembers -- maybe frequently. The neighbors' properties' values decline, they may not be able to ensure their homes. In-fill houses are too expensive to build, and one solution is to use the land as a side yard, but even that's tough without title. The Community Development Corporation of Frankford Group Ministry is actively developing affordable housing projects in the Frankford neighborhood, but sometimes tangled titles sometimes stops the acquisition of properties. On one block, for example, they developed a row of 285 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 properties but could not acquire the corner property due to tangled-title issues. They would have paid for the house if they could have found the owner. The result was an eyesore at the end of the block, where Frankford Group Ministries could have built two new homes. I've attached -- to shortcut this, I've attached a lot of other scenarios. I'm sure you're all familiar with people calling to complain about vacant and abandoned properties, and what we're trying to do here is catch it before they get vacant and abandoned, and keep people in homes. So as part of this, we distributed an informal survey. I brought 15 copies with me because I didn't attach it before, and I thought it would be interesting for you to have the backup survey as a part of this. The purpose of the survey was -- this is sort of an anecdotal issue, and everybody knew it existed but we didn't have any data.
So we wanted to determine the extent of the tangled title problem, the availability of resources to resolve the tangled title cases, what were the 286 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 barriers to resolving the cases, and what were the pros and cons of resolving them. The issue's important because -- and Mary Frances Davis was going to mention the same things but I'll point them out here -- 175,000 homes in Philadelphia are owned by people over the age of 55. And of these, about one-third, or 60,000 homes, are owned by people over 65. " So what was the response of this little survey we did? The response rate was percent. 17 If you don't mind, I'll sort of shortcut through 18 this because it's been such a long day. 19
We had a wonderful 21 collaboration of CDCs, housing counselors, senior 22 centers, title insurance companies, attorneys, and 23 public-interest organizations responded. There 24 was an overwhelming response of "yes" in all three 25 categories; especially the attorneys and title 287 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 companies thought that all three categories were issues. Who faces the title problem? I'm going to add to my remarks here 'cause I did a little extra tabulation 'cause I think people were thinking it's just a senior issue. And we asked for three basic age ranges. Under 40, got 9 responses. In the age group of 41 to 64, we got 10 24 checked off. And 65 and older, we got 18 11 checked off. So this is actually a pretty broad 12 problem on all age ranges. And of the -- 13 folks 13 said that it was for all ages. So in other words, 14 we got responses back from all over the city, and 15 it seems to be a broad problem, even though I'm 16 here on behalf of Frankford Group Ministries. 17 I'm going to shortcut through some of 18 these pieces here because there's a lot of legal 19 services available and it's free, but it's sort of 20 fragmented, and we want to pull it together and do training for folks. Lack of money seems to be the biggest problems, money for the costs for this and money for the training so that the housing counselors and the senior center advocates can know what the problems are and refer them to the 288 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 right attorneys. See, I was supposed to follow Mary Frances Davis, but I'm sort of filling in for her piece a little bit. And everyone saw overwhelming advantages for resolving tangled title. For example, people could stay in their homes, they could be eligible for a home repair grant program, or they could transfer title or sell their homes. A few people identified disadvantages -- there's always pros and cons to everything. It would have to be evaluated for each person. We got a lot of voluntary comments added on the surveys. One was from a CDC. "We see almost 30 to 40 people daily. Many people are unable to get assistance with various programs because the deed is not in their name." I just want to thank you for letting me testify today. The funding for this small piece will have a big impact on the city. We want to do an education and training program that would be available for the housing counselors and the senior centers and the CDCs. And we think that this will avoid a silent epidemic of decay, we will preserve housing, stabilize neighborhoods, 289 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 and strengthen the city's real estate tax base, prevent homelessness, all for a modest cost, which involves a lot of training and education and cost for the -- cost of resolving tangled title. I thank you for the opportunity to testify. And it's important for me, so I stuck around.
Michelle Lewis, Northwest Counseling Services? (No response.)
Okay, then we have the Horticulture Society. (Horticulture Society panel members come forward.)
Is Paul Snipes here? Paul Snipes? (No response.) 290 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326
Frances Walker, then you're next, after the Horticulture Society. Paul Snipes? Okay, we'll be with you next, then Frances, okay? This is the Horticulture Society, Miss Roy. Say your first name please.
Good afternoon, Madam Chair, members of the Finance Committee. My name is Maitreyi Roy, and I'm with the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society's Philadelphia Green Program. Thank you for this opportunity to present to you some of our key Philadelphia Green projects. These projects are good examples of how we've been able to leverage Community Development Block Grant funding to attract a wide range of public and private resources to green Philadelphia. In the last year, we have developed over 75 new greening projects and provided assistance to 200 others. Across the city, our garden tenders and tree tender groups continue to attend trainings and have independently developed over 110 new 291 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 green spaces and planted over 2,000. Over the past three years, with support from Pew and the William Penn Foundation, our work with three Community Development Corporations -- APM, Associations of Puerto Ricans on the March, Greater Germantown Housing Development Corporation, and Frankford Group Ministries -- has resulted in landscape improvements for large economic-development projects greenways, and residential developments. In Kensington, through a separate grant from OHCD and support from Joan Kromer, work continues to refine their Open Space Management Project and stabilize vacant land. Our success in partnering with New Kensington CDC has resulted in an effort to explore this model for other communities and develop a citywide strategy for the vacant land problem. The first of these studies, five reports, a cost benefits analysis, was just released in April, and I believe that was mailed to your offices. The key goal for this is the management of vacant land in our neighborhoods to attract new investments, retain residential 292 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 populations, and address quality-of-life issues. In the last six years, we have also been working closely with the Department of Recreation and community groups across the city to revitalize the neighborhood park system. We have worked closely with nine partner groups, and this project is supported by the William Penn Foundation, and the Lila Wallace Readers Digest Fund, which is a national foundation interested in supporting urban park issues. Our work with neighborhood parks include Carol and Malcolm X Park in West Philadelphia, Elmwood Park in the southwest, Fair Hill and Norris Square in North Philadelphia, Gorgus Park in Roxborough, and Vernon Park in Germantown, as well as Wissinoming Park in the northeast. We ask that you continue your support for these important projects. To speak to you about the impact of this work is Sharon Olson. She is a Friends Group member at Friends of Gorgus Park.
Friends of Gorgus Park is a nonprofit group of neighborhood volunteers from 293 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 the Roxborough-Manayunk area whose mission is the restoration and maintenance of Gorgus Park, which is a 20-acre park located in Roxborough. We strive to revitalize the park and create recreational opportunities for park users. We're able to do this through a partnership with the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, the Rec. Department, and Councilman Michael Nutter. In the summer of 1997, the Friends of Gorgus Park took over the maintenance of the park, including turf maintenance and restoration. Over a thousand people attended the group's first Harvest Day celebration in the fall of '97, raising over $2000. In the winter of 1998, the Rec. Department restored the park house, which was erected in the 1920s. Repairs included the restoration of the metal roof, installation of new floors, windows, doors, and a heater. In May of 1998, with the help of Councilman Nutter, we hosted our first annual Roxborough Festival of the Arts, which was a two-day event, with over 60 artists and performing artists over the weekend. 294 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 In June of 1998, Saul High School designed and planted new gardens in the front of our park house. In the fall, Gorgus Park was selected first place in the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society's citywide gardens contest. In October of 1998, we held our second annual Harvest Festival. Gorgus Park was selected by the Fairmount Park Association in 1998 to participate in the New Landmarks. This a program to create permanent works of art in parks. Just recently, last weekend, we hosted our second annual Roxborough Festival of the Arts. This year, instead of 60 artists, we had over 100. For two days, there was performing artists. Again, Councilman Nutter's involvement played an important part. Also, the Department of Recreation was very much appreciated by the friend of Gorgus Park. This summer, we plan on having a new entry into our park. Also, we are having a new children's play area put in. This tot lot will be 295 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 funded by the Department of Rec.'s capital funds through the efforts of Councilman Nutter. The Friends of Gorgus Park would like to maintain and improve Gorgus Park for its community. We look forward to a long-term relationship with the Department of Recreation and Philadelphia Green. And thank you for your time.
Thank you very much. What was your name, for the record?
Thank, you Miss Olson? Are there any questions? Any questions? (No questions.)
Mr. Paul Snipes? We have Frances Walker, who's here. Let me ask, is John Wagner, Catholic Social Services, here?
Is Miss Vanstory here? Thank you. Is Colmar, Inc. here? I know Mr. Smith is here, he's let me know that all day. Maya Burnett, North Central Empowerment Zone? UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I'm here. Maya's not here.
Or Ruth Birchette. So Ruth Birchette, Connie Winters, and Maya Burnett are not here. Okay. (Paul Snipes comes forward.)
Okay, please identify yourself for the record and begin your testimony. Thank you for your patience, Mr. Snipes.
My name is Paul Erin Snipes, Sr. I reside at 2154 East Church Lane. I got involved with the Redevelopment Authority in 1995. They, in turn, relocated me in 297 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 1996 into a house that did not pass inspection at my expense. I don't know why I was forced to this house, but I, in turn, owe the City $300 plus interest after having the house inspected. It did not help me try to get rid of the house. It's just a charade. I'm stuck in a house in a war zone at 58 years old, and nobody cares.
He with the Office of Housing and Community Development. 298 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326
I've bee going through this for -- going on three years. And this house cost the City almost $71,000.
Do you know what Councilmatic district you're in, sir, or who your Councilperson is?
This is my first time here. I've been talking to any -- I've talked to the gentleman at Street's office, I've talked to everybody's office in City Hall over this three-year period. They just refuse to do anything about this property. It did not pass inspection. How it cost the City $73,000, how I wound up with it, how I cannot get rid of it. HUD told them to he help me, pay me, and help me relocate. They haven't. I. Have ten grandchildren, I have grandchildren all the way in Warminster. You think I'm going to bring them into that war zone?
Mr. Kromer, 299 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 would you have someone work with Mr. Snipes to find out? He said he's in an RDA property that he was forced to take. And try to get some information from him. Are you aware of this case?
Yes. And I was just speaking with Benjamin Walters, who's Director of Monitoring. Mr. Walters has been following up on this particular case, and there's been some confusion over the question of the attorney representing Mr. Snipes. I understand there was a change in that. But if Mr. Snipes will go to Mr. Walters right now, they can resolve that and we can move ahead because we certainly want to do that.
Thank you. Mr. Walters, would you stand up so that he can see you. Mr. Snipes, if you would talk with Mr. Walters now.
And we'll try to get you straightened out right here. Thank 300 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 you. Thank you, Mr. Kromer.
Certainly. Frances Walker. (Frances Walker comes forward.)
Fran, thank you for your patience all day. And we again note that Terry Youngblut of Northern Liberties Association had to leave. The next person is John Wagner, Catholic Social Services.
Good afternoon. My name is a Francis Walker, the President of Dunlap Community Citizens Concerned. I just took over the leadership for, I guess, the third time, in January.
Thank you. Dunlap Community is located on prime land in West Philadelphia, and it was once an influential community. 50th Street from Market to Haverford Avenue at one time was considered the 301 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 most beautiful street during the Christmas season. People from all over visited our community to witness the Christmas splendor. We have over 65 percent home ownership. Dunlap has 28 square blocks, blocks 7 have block captains who actively participate in 8 community activities. There are 61 vacant lots 9 within these boundaries where houses or businesses 10 once stood. We would like to have site control of 11 these lots. The lots would be designed for use by 12 the youth and also for community projects, with 13 the support of the University of Pennsylvania. 14 We have prime land to be developed in 15 the 5000 and the 5100 block of Market Street that 16 has been left dormant for over eight years. We 17 request site control and support from all City 18 agencies and others working on economic 19 development issues. 20 Due to not having a public facility in the neighborhood, the residents of Dunlap purchased the old Devon's drugstore on the northeast corner of 51st and Arch Street to be used as a community center. The Dunlap Community Center has been maintained by the residents for 302 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 over 30 years. This center is in dire need of renovation to enable us to provide programs such as tutorial, child care, and other educational and social services to our residents. We request technical and financial resources to rehabilitate our community center, technical assistance and financial resources to develop a strategic plan for our community. It was requested by our former president, Margaret Shepherd that the entire Dunlap community be designated as an urban renewal area. As you know, part of it has been designated as an urban renewal area, but we want the entire Dunlap community designated so. We request site control over all vacancies, residential and businesses, lots and all other vacated areas in the Dunlap neighborhood. Home improvement grants and low-interest loans are definitely necessary for the residents. We wish to be included in the Year 22 OHCD proposal, and we request the use of any funds 23 now available to rehabilitate our community center 24 and begin to implement other projects and programs 25 in Dunlap. 303 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 And thank you again. One of the things that really concerned me, as my family's been residents of Dunlap community since 1945, and I have served as president off and on since the '60s. And the only thing that's in this OHCD document that has been spent in the Dunlap community, on , is $1.95 million for the renovation of the Dunlap School. There are no public facilities in our community, our children have no place to play. We have a thousand lots in the community that are vacant because of neglect throughout the years where no money was put into our community to rehab some of those properties. We have over 47 vacant properties in that small community. And I think it's time that Dunlap receive some kind of funds, public dollars, because we are taxpayers in that community. And we're being taxed without adequate representation or funding from the City. So on behalf of the Dunlap residents, I'd like for us to be included in the OHCD Year 25 Plan and also to work very closely with you, 304 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 Councilwoman Blackwell, to implement some of the projects and programs that we really need to have going on in our community.
Certainly let me say we have worked together over the years. We've supported Dunlap. I don't know if "not having adequate representation" is the right term. Some things are feasible and some things aren't.
Oh, that's all right. Some things are feasible, and some aren't. Certainly, we know about the community center. We've had people fix the roof over the years and those sorts of things. In terms of what we've begun to call "Miss Sheperd's lot," we have already tried to begin condemnation for the lot next to the Kentucky Fried Chicken place. So there are some things we're trying to do, but we have to maintain communication. I don't know that it would be feasible for -- as a community organization, you know, we have to work on a plan. 305 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326
You can't get City-funded without a plan, and you can't get funding out of this application without a specific plan, so we've got to start with some things we can do. It's great to have an overall goal, and I have one -- West Philadelphia on the Move, as you know, my economic agenda for all of West Philadelphia. So there are some things we can do short-term and some things we can do long-term. I'm glad to meet with you, as you know. I mean, we've met and we've been friends over the years, but I think what you have to do is maybe earmark some specific things that you want to see done now, and then we have to come up with a plan.
Well, as you know, there's a need for technical assistance. Dunlap does not have the wherewithal. As a matter of fact, we don't even have money to pay the bills.
That's fine. But Dunlap has to then specifically state for what they want technical assistance. To ask for all the business properties, all the residential properties, everything in the Dunlap area just 306 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 won't get you anyplace, Fran. You know that.
Okay. Well, if we had the adequate, proper kinds of assistance that we need -- like I said, the technical assistance and resources, we could move forward from that point on. I've been writing letters and so has Margaret since 1975 to no avail, so that's why I --
And we've been answering them and we've been doing a lot of stuff in Dunlap. Let's be fair, let's be fair. That's why we are here. It's our privilege and our pleasure to serve you and to serve Dunlap, and we want to continue to do that. What I'm saying is, we have to sit down and be more specific and walk our problems down so that we can try to get where we need to go.
And I'm sorry, I didn't introduce my vice president Edna Jenmans (ph.) and our block captain coordinator, Cynthia Felder.
Welcome, yes. I've known them for many years, for many years. 307 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326
Thank you. After John Wagner of Catholic Social Services, we want to have Vivian Vanstory, Community Land Trust Corporation. Thank you. (John Wagner comes forward.)
Thank you so much, thank you for your patience, Mr. Wagner.
Thank you. Please identify yourself for the record and begin. Thank you.
Good afternoon. I am John Wagner, Director of Housing and Homeless Services at Catholic Social Services of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. I represent an agency with a full range of social services in the community. Through the work of Catholic Social Services, the Catholic church administers a variety of community-based and residential programs that serve men, women, and children of all faiths who are in need. We currently provide: 308 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 A continuum of services for men, women, and children who are homeless; A network of residential and community services for people with developmental disabilities; A full range of juvenile justice services for adjudicated delinquent youth; And comprehensive services for children, including emergency shelter, day care services to children in their own homes, foster family care, and long-term residential placement. Catholic Social Services provides mental health counseling and case management services, emergency services, and information and referral assistance. In 1998, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia provided assistance to over 150,000 people in our community. With a total budget of over 60 million, Catholic Social Services is the largest voluntary social service agency in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Much of this work is accomplished with the help of our partners in government. I believe it is important to point out that though most of our funding comes from government contracts, in 309 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 nearly every program operation, there are private dollars which represent the faith-based commitment to undertake our works of charity as an integral expression of the church to respond to all people in need. Over the past couple of years, the Office of Housing and Community Development has been our partner in developing programs to serve the most vulnerable persons in Philadelphia. John Kromer and his dedicated staff, and if you'll allow me to mention a few -- Mr. Scott Wild, Deborah McColloch, and Dainette Mintz -- have been instrumental in helping us develop programs for persons with AIDS. With the help of OHCD and HOPWA funding, Catholic Social Services has created the Good Shepherd Program and McAuley House Program to serve medically fragile homeless persons. In just a few years, over 100 men and women received housing and services from these programs. Catholic Social Services cosponsored senior housing in the Norris Square section of our city. The Office Housing and Community Development, along with the Redevelopment 310 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 Authority helped to put the last piece of funding in place to make the development of 35 units of housing for seniors possible. More recently, the Office of Housing and Community Development, through its special needs housing section, assisted our agency in applying for federally-funded dollars to hopefully build transitional housing for homeless families. We have always found them to be open and creative in exploring ways to help people we serve. At Catholic Social Services, we applaud the work of the Office of Housing and Community Development and support its Year Consolidated 15 Plan. We will do our part. Surely, we have no to 16 do so, it is integral to our mission. But it is 17 also integral for us to partner with OHCD to do 18 what is ultimately best for the common good, 19 especially for the most vulnerable members of our 20 society. 21 I thank you for all your attention 22 today and your invitation to come and offer these 23 words for your consideration. We at Catholic 24 Social Services welcome the opportunity to 25 continue to work in partnership with the Office of 311 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 Housing and Community Development and with others who share our values as well as our concerns.
Thank you, Mr. Wagner and thank you for all that Catholic Services does. Thank you.
Miss Vanstory, Community Land Trust Corporation. (Vivian Vanstory comes forward.)
Thank you for patience. We're sorry to have held you up so long. Next is Edward Franklin, III, Colt Coalition. Mr. Franklin, are you here? Yes, sir, you'll be next. And then, of course, our Vernard Johnson.
Good afternoon, Councilwoman Blackwell, Councilman Nutter, and other members of the Council chambers and in the listening audience, John Kromer. My name is Vivian Vanstory. I'm President and Founder of an organization called Community Land Trust Corporation. Community Land Trust Corporation has 312 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 reviewed the 25-year Preliminary Plan consolidated for the fiscal year 2000 and see no recognition in the strategic plan for the year 2000 for our area. Census tract 140, south of Master Street to Girard Avenue, the west of Broad Street to Ridge Avenue. This area has been totally excluded and so has the revitalization for private and public estimated dollars, zero dollars. The same exists for land acquisition, technical assistance, street improvement, sidewalks, tree planting, and recreational facilities, parking facilities, cleanup, contaminated site, public service, general and legal services, substance-abuse services, child-care services, child care centers, youth services, public information, or application for federal programs. Community Land Trust is a nonprofit, multipurpose organization. Let me explain that. In order to be acknowledged in the community and be able to get any money that's allocated to the community, the community must be multipurpose, not just a CDC. There has been empowerment money, zero dollars. We haven't received one brown 313 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 copper penny for the community in itself. I sit here today to testify in City Council hearings. This is my second testimony here in a public forum to alert City Council of the community that's designated as an Empowerment Zone that's been impoverished here with zero dollars. So the community has to create an organization in order to be sustained in the millennium 2000. The Community Land Trust is a nonprofit, multipurpose organization. Our primary objective is to address in a comprehension fashion the planning and design of the public outdoor environment. The Trust maintains vacant deteriorated lots in North Central Philadelphia Empowerment Zone. The Trust -- deteriorated lots and other open spaces in the Empowerment Zone. We also do environmental education and recreational needs for the community. We work with transitional work programs, youth programs, we work with welfare to work, and other activities such as summer lunch programs, volunteer workers from the community. The Community Land Trust Corporation's first phase 314 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 in its rehabilitation of housing would be the 1800 block of Master Street. Not that it's not needed anywhere else in that area because that would be the first phase. Master Street is located in the area where they're going Nehemiah housing on the north side of Master Street. And on the west side of Master Street, Reverend Moore just did some other housing. In the 1800 block, which is 80 percent homeowner-occupied -- taxes, water, and sewer taxpayers -- there are five abandoned houses there. And the community doesn't understand how you can rehab do new housing and forget about helping the community. It should have been the first phase to rehabilitate the existing houses where there are taxpayers and water, sewer, voters. In the area in North Philadelphia -- as we know, in the United States, there are scattered sites. There are more scattered sites in Philadelphia than there are in the whole United States, and they are located in North Philadelphia. But statistically, they'll say that the area has been neglected by the community. How 315 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 can the community neglect the area when it's all -- 85 percent renters, when there's federal dollars coming down. There should have been an educational program to make sure people take care of their homes, and money has gone to waste. There are five vacant houses that need to be repaired to make the block completed to enhance the stability of the community.
The Trust also has a recreational plan in action for the 1200 block of North 15th Street, which would -- which is a vested park. In 1989, there were three designs done in the Cecil B. Moore area. In the 1200 block of 15th Street, there was $10,000 paid for a vested park, which I have the design. To this point, there has no implementation being done. To this point, in census tract 140, there are no recreation facilities in census tract 140, which is 85 percent PHA scattered sites. So how can you rent houses to children and have no 21 outdoor creation facility there? These two projects are the first of a few components that the Trust envisions certainly of new construction that enhance the quality of life in the community. We need to -- we have 316 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 stated this in the budget hearing in the chambers of City Council, May the 5th, 1998. We testified again in December of 1998 at the Office of Housing and Community Development public hearing concerning the Year Consolidated Plan, and 7 March the 24th, 1999, for the same plan. We are 8 now testifying June the 1st, 1999, a year later, 9 to be included in the Plan for the year 2000. 10 After reviewing the final analysis of 11 the Year 25 Preliminary Consolidated Plan, we have 12 determined that the past and future plans of the 13 year 2000 did not include the community. There 14 has been no community development in this area 15 above since the mid-'80s when National Temple was 16 in existence. The Community Land Trust 17 Corporation CDC requested you administer funds in 18 our community for the economic development for the 19 growth of the community. 20 I thank you for allowing me to testify 21 here today in a public forum, and I hope that you 22 consider the community in your efforts. 23 Thank you very much. 24
Thank you very 25 much. 317 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 Are in any questions? (No questions.)
All right. Then next will be Edward Franklin, III, Colt Coalition, and then Vernard Johnson, Healthy Family Healthy Life. After that is Jide Sokale, Comar, Inc. then Jimmy Lee Smith, North Central Empowerment Zone. And then Connie Winters, Germantown Business Association, in that order. (Edward Franklin comes forward.)
Thank you, sir. Thank you so much enter for your patience. Would you identify yourself for the record and then begin.
My name is Edward Franklin. I'm the Director of the Colt, C-O-L-T, Coalition. Started out with four groups -- Citizens of Tioga-Nicetown, Opportunities Industrialization Center, Lower Tower Community Council and Temple University -- as a sponsoring group. We have now went to 29 groups, and we are more than happy to be here today to participate in this testimony. 318 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 Shall I continue or shall I hold on?
Okay. I'm here for a few items that may or may not have been part of the Year Plan testimony that we had and I hope 7 that -- 8
I'm sorry, did you 9 identify yourself for the record? 10
The concerns that we 14 have were brought in the planning process. And 15 for 19 years, members of our organizations have 16 been coming to planning process and submitting 17 testimony. And we just have a concern about how 18 that process actually works so that specific 19 procedures can be set up so that individuals are 20 more comfortable with how that works. 21 I also appreciate the tremendous 22 efforts that the Office of Housing and Community 23 Development has done for the Colt Coalition and 24 those in the area. In 1987, we had a ten-year 25 plan to develop the Allegheny Avenue from Broad 319 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 Street to 17th Street where there were at least 250 vacants or possibilities for housing. We are pleased to report that as of 1998, there have been 227 new development of housings in that area, which -- some were sponsored by the Colt Coalition, including 60 units at Bancroft Court, which is the largest modular development in the City of Philadelphia, and 62 units at St. Joseph's. All of those were clearly supported by the Office of Housing and Community Development and could not have happened without those particular development areas or so. I'm here to express a concern, unfortunately, about a gap in some of the current things that are happening in the area bounded by Lehigh Avenue to Huntington Park, which is our major focus area. If you look at the map on in the Year document, there's no 20 development going on from Lehigh Avenue to West 21 Oak Lane. So I'm concerned about all of those 22 citizens in that other so that something would be 23 at least pointed out in the map in a line item to 24 see some particular development on that. 25 One of the main concerns we have is the 320 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 Amtrak train station. There's a train station area where we're looking to get homes start housing in that area. There was some planned in Year and 21, I believe, but there's a 6 significant gap of that happening in our area. 7 We also have what is called "City-State 8 Urban Renewal Projects" in our area funds where 9 funds are held in Harrisburg as well as the City 10 to do some development. And we have two projects 11 that are raring to go with some funding. We've 12 already got a developer to be able to work with 13 them, but we need some additional funding for 14 those, and we have brought that to the attention 15 of OHCD, and I guess we're looking basically for 16 responses. 17 The concern that I have and why I bring 18 it up today is -- we filled up the last hearing 19 room with, I think it was a bus load or a mini bus 20 and a van and about five or six cars of people, all of them representing organizations. And they didn't understand the process, how it was working, and was trying to get some specific feedback from the folks in OHCD. And we're kind of waiting for that to supply that to those folks, but so there 321 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 is a great concern that they're not hearing it. And, hopefully, something can happen so that a process will be set up that people who testify will get response from that. Some specifics that we're looking at and concerned about, we have -- and you may be able familiar with it -- the former Marcus Foster Health Center that was at 17th and Tioga. It's an 8-story, 40,000-square-foot building where our organization has now taken it over, and we're trying to develop 50 units for mature adults 55 and older in the facility, but we have problems from everything from L&I putting up a bid tomorrow to tear it down because nine bricks fell off the place, to some concerns that we have. For example, we have over 75,000 medical records from the community people in that building that we're trying to put up guards and volunteer people in the community to protect and have no way of doing that.
So the small amount of pre-development costs would allow us to at least board up the building, seal it up, and put the medical records in a safe place until we can continue to distribute the records to the persons 322 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 in the community. We were burdened with that responsibility when we took on the building, but we definitely need some help in that area, so. . Some of the other concerns that were mentioned earlier, the person from the Wistar NAC mentioned how her area is overburdened, and if the persons from south of Lehigh would have been here, they would have mentioned that their area is overburdened. And the reason for that is because there is no NAC in the Tioga-Nicetown Hunting Park area and has not be since approximately, I guess, April of last year. And a lot of citizen have been missing the services that would be expected on that. What we are requesting is that OHCD review the Colt Coalition as a possibility of taking over the NAC in that area. We need some assistance in that area. We are doing the work of what the NAC is. For example, in this last year alone, we got 182 people jobs at the Pathmark, we got 64 folks jobs as census takers, 43 jobs in non-skilled places and businesses and agencies, and 16 toll-takers in the community, and we have 323 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 almost 200 jobs still in our office that we've called up other folks to get. But the problem, as mentioned earlier, is a transportation issue 'cause most of them are in the suburbs and Bensalem and some of those areas. So we're doing the work of the NAC since it's been closed but we need the financial assistance to be able to pursue that. Unfortunately, our group consists of some of the groups that was the second oldest Community Development Corporation in the United States. We have and Tioga-Nicetown Citizens League, and Citizens of Tioga-Nicetown who are community groups in their fifties. But those energetic persons who were and 30 years old are now still 17 our board members and our staff persons, and 18 they're now 70 and 80 years old, and they just 19 can't do any more. So we're looking to get some 20 assistance so that we can retire those person gratefully and use some of the younger folks to help us in doing the particular work or so. There's a general concern that I did not see in the testimony and in the plan and it may be because of the way it has been coming out 324 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 with the federal government but I'd like the committee to be aware of it. The federal government is putting out rules and guidelines for persons on Section 8 to be able to buy a house and use their Section 8 payment to pay the rent -- pay the mortgage of that house for the next ten years. But I think that's a very serious and a very important thing that the Office of Housing and Community Development should be a part of, and some guidelines should be submitted to the federal government as well as Philadelphia Housing Authority for folks to take advantage of that. Clearly, if we're subsidizing folks for almost 15 to 20 years on Section 8 certificates, we could clearly work out a situation where a person could own a house in ten years so that after those subsidies are over, they own that house, and the only thing that they have left is the utilities and the taxes or so. So, hopefully, some dialogue can go along, and I plan to be in the session after the head of the OHCD comes up again to be able to talk about that. One of the other young ladies mentioned 325 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 the senior citizens. We put 240 senior citizens in housing developments in our area. Clearly one-third of them have not only tangled titles but the inability to do something with their houses. They are in their 60- to 70-year-old groups.
We're not talking about the group who left their houses with their children or so, but groups who are just sitting there, allowing there houses to go without any services simply because they moved on into senior citizens housing and they just don't know what to do, whether or not they want to lease it or sell it or so. And we've made attempts to work them, but funds are needed for not only our community but for any community who has those in their area so that they can acquire those houses they before go much more deteriorated than they already are. We are also looking at the possibility of the Philadelphia Plan being expanded and asking the City Council to work with OHCD to ask folks to be encouraged to expand that so that more organizations such as ours will be involved with a group such as members of the Philadelphia Plan to get into a greater amount of housing development. 326 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 Another concern has been the institutions' commitment and exchange of properties. When we were working with Temple University when they were building their hospitals, they came into City Council and promised greatly that they would help with the community and that they would be a part of -- the Temple University Hospital would be a part of any development or any services that the community can use, but what they're saying to us is they haven't heard anything from City Council and OHCD, and they're waiting on those groups, even though we have supplied to them a plan for them to put up funds so that we could be a part of the program that allows you to acquire houses and rehabilitate them for under $25,000. They are still waiting on someone from City Council or OHCD that says Temple University, we'd like you to participate in something of that nature there. We are also looking for assistance to nonprofits in an effort to develop the projects that they've acquired in the first 15 years. For example, the property that we developed, which is Bancroft Court, which was built in the '90s, in 327 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 Year 2005, it will be available to the nonprofit or the Colt Coalition to acquire. But if we don't have the expertise as well as the other items that are necessary, we will not only be able to require, but that will got to a for-profit developer or someone else. Something has to start happening in the three to five years before then to make sure that the developer and the management continue to keep the building in a state that is easily available to turn over as well as working with the nonprofit and helping them to do the transfer of it. The facility may be worth $8 million with a $2 million loan on it, $1 million of that belonging to the Office of Housing and Community Development, but if we're not able to handle that property, we're going to lose out on that particular project or so. Mr. Schwartz mentioned the coordination of the area agencies. I am all for that; I just have to disagree with him for one and two aspects. One, I do believe that it's the responsibility and the ability of the Office of Housing and Community Development to pull together 328 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 the NACs and the other areas to provide a more comprehensive information and referral services. And, two, I believe that unfortunately, with the limited amount of resources that OHCD has, they can only do housing and housing-related areas, and the money that went to the Private Industry Council should be looked at more for the job-related stuff even though OHCD is doing a part of that, but if they concentrate on their efforts in housing and community development areas, hopefully, we'll get more of the objects that we are concerned about.
In closing, I had a concern because also on May 8th, I testified, along with 15 other CDCs in 1988 about the concerns that we had and were looking for our comments to be a part of the Plan, and they were not in the Year Plan, and 19 I'm wondering about the Year 25 Plan because I 20 don't see none of the testimony that the room full 21 of folks that we brought in, I don't see a 22 particular line item or a paragraph suggesting 23 those concerns. 24 So in conclusion, I appreciate the opportunity to testify in front of City Council. 329 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 I appreciate the efforts that OHCD has done in our area, specifically on Allegheny Avenue and on Tioga, but we're looking for help in capacity-building for our organization as well as pre-development costs to be able to stabilize some of the current developments that we have so that our area can continue to grow and develop. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Are there any questions? (No questions.)
Thank you very much. Vernard Johnson, Healthy Family Healthy Life. I also see Brenda Cooper Cutts (ph.), Horizon House. Thank you. (Vernard Johnson comes forward.)
Thank you for your patience, Vernard. Thank God when you come to Council, you're generally here from beginning to the end, so I'm not as pressured since I know you kind of see it to its conclusion.
I wanted to see it to the 330 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 end anyway.
Please identify yourself for the record and then proceed.
Sure. My name is Vernard Johnson. I'm the Executive Director of Healthy Family Health Life, Inc. And this is Brenda Cooper Cutts, who is the outreach manager for Horizon House and a lot of other things. Councilwoman, I wanted to talk -- we've had this conversation. I just wanted to go on the record with it, and thank you for the invitation. I wanted to talk about the Kingsessing community of Southwest Philadelphia and the Woodland Avenue coordinator, and I want to do it quickly so we could have this other kind of discussion. One of the other areas that I'm concerned about is this lead-based paint hazardous reduction strategy. And you and I have talked about this a lot. And Southwest Philadelphia -- specifically the Kingsessing community. Not to eliminate any other community, but specifically the Kingsessing community has a number of houses that have a lead-based paint hazard in them. We have a number of children who have been poisoned 331 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 by lead paint. And when I look at these numbers in here that talk about micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood, and when we get a reaction from the Health Department and, I guess, OHCD, it is way beyond when a kid has been affected. And we need to address the situation of lead paint hazard all across the city, but specifically in Kingsessing at a faster pace. And we need housing that would allow a family to move out of a home and move into a temporary situation until their home is -- the hazard in their home is corrected. And I don't think we have that situation in the southwest, and it's a problem across the city where a family moves. So I wanted to bring that to your attention. And there's some need to look at that closer, and that was on . And then on -- I've been here long enough that I studied the pages. Then on , there's a section that talks about West Philadelphia and there's a small section in here that talks about money having been spent in the Pascal and Eastwood community. And that might suggest what I'm talking about and what we've been 332 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 talking about, Councilwoman, that the Kingsessing community has been overlooked. And what I would hope that we could do is -- there are a number of CDCs in that area, you know, that I know it, and I'm sure Mr. Kromer knows it. What I think we need to do, and we've been talking, and we talked to Reverend Robertson last week from Mt. Zion CDC, and him and some other CDC people have been talking about how we could come together and put a comprehensive plan together -- one plan, not five. To put a comprehensive plan together for that community. And I was thinking that maybe some planning dollars could be looked at to make that happen to, put a comprehensive plan together, which we would like to be a part of. We're not seeking any CDC money but we certainly are seeking the betterment of our neighborhood. So we certainly would like to be a part of any plan that would go on regarding the Kingsessing community in Southwest Philadelphia. And I would hope that before this plan is approved, that we would look how we could get planning dollars in there for that effort. 333 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 And then on page -- let me go back to this lead piece. When we talk about jobs and economic development, maybe three years ago, I sat with Commissioner Richman, and we talked about putting a hazardous lead-based paint company together. I don't know whatever happened to that, I never got a chance to talk to Mr. Kromer directly about that. But there's a way that we could train Philadelphians to remove the hazard of lead from the home, and they could be trained, they could make nice money, we could create a company -- every neighborhood in the city could almost stand a company that would address the issue of removing lead-based paint from homes. There's enough work and there's no 18 reason why people from Boston or Washington or any place else needs to come in.
Maybe they could come in and train us 'cause we don't know how to do it, but they don't need to have the job forever and ever and ever. There are Philadelphians who could do that work. And certainly Brenda works with a number of people who, for one reason or another, may not have a stable home situation, 334 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 that could qualify for that type of training. So I just wanted to go back there for that in the planning piece. Then on , it mentions again Southwest Philadelphia, and it talks about Woodland Avenue being a retail district and how money was spent on Woodland Avenue in the retail area. I submit to you, that's around 62nd, 63rd, 64th, 66th and Woodland. And the dollars have gone up there over the years, and you could see it, and it's a viable shopping district. From 46th and Woodland to 58th and Woodland, I don't personally know of too much that's happened in that neighborhood in terms of developing the business corridor there. But if there was planning dollar, however that works, available to help the that strip develop a business association, whatever we have to do to qualify to get some of these dollars like other areas of the city get 'em, maybe that's what we need to be doing. I know that if there's a business association between 46th and Woodland and 58th and Woodland, it's real loose. And how ever we could work to tighten that up so that the 335 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 fringe of University City could look like the inner parts of University City, it would be good. So they're the three areas that I wanted to mention in terms of this plan. And then I wanted to say that, you know, for the last -- I wanted to hit a point about these unions that Councilman Nutter was banging on earlier today. And, as you know, I sat on a committee to oversee the construction of the biomedical research center at Penn, a process that was two components. We did two buildings, came in on time, and saved $50 million, which I didn't know until they had a public forum, so I can't figure out why Penn can't talk about coming to Woodland Avenue with some of the dollars that we saved on that one project and have a partnership between the University and the City and community organizations that would look at the economic development of that area. But just in terms of the unions, we found out that -- I'm sure Councilman Nutter can hear me. We found out that if you don't build it in with the requirement early on in terms of what you would like to see the contractors do before 336 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 they sign their name on the dotted line, that you don't get it. And so whatever the goal is in terms of hiring Philadelphians on a project, if we don't do it early on in the process, we're not going to get it. It kind of reminds me of the Kvaerner piece where people are coming back, the minority contractors are coming back, saying, We were cut out of this piece, how did that happen? And so if you don't -- if they agree to it and don't live up to their agreement, then you don't pay 'em. And when you look at these certified payrolls and you see people coming in from all around America working in Philadelphia -- and that's what's going on right now, and Philadelphians can't get work, then it's just as simple as you don't pay 'em. So I don't think it's a question of -- I'm sure we could always use more job programs, but I don't think it's a question of the job training programs alone. It's a question of changing the culture, the way the unions do business. And I don't even know that it's -- I don't know what we won in the courts and what we haven't won in the courts; it just seems to me 337 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 that we don't win very much in court decisions. But it seems to me that we've got to sit down with the unions and work with them so that they can begin to change their culture the way they've been doing business -- not just in Philadelphia but also around this area that I'm familiar with.
And so along those lines, we've been working with Ed Jordan, as you know, whose the President of Barkley White Construction Company, and he's doing a lot of work at Penn now. And Ed and I have met with Pat Gillespie from the International, and Pat has suggested that he is interested, with Ed Jordan and the president of the carpenters union, in sitting down and talking to you about how we can get unions to not only introduce the pre-apprenticeship training program in our community but then -- 'cause that's easy to do, they do it everywhere. But then how do you get the jobs? So they're willing to sit down -- they want to sit down with you and talk about how we need jobs to follow the training. And I think they were the four areas -- the three areas in this book and the one that deals with the unions that I wanted to talk about 338 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 today.
Thank you. We certainly look forward to that meeting. And thank you for your commitment. We've had a hard time in that area, but we're certainly committed and have some ideas about improving matters and look forward to meeting with you very shortly and bringing some ideas -- I've got some ideas of what maybe we can do in that area, around 49th and Woodland.
Thank you so much. Jide Sokale, Comar, Inc. (Jide Sokale comes forward.)
You're welcome. Good afternoon Chair and members of the City Council Finance Committee. As I listed my name is Jide Sokale, and I am the Director of Comar HIV and 339 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 Mental Health Services. I thank the Finance Committee members of the City of Philadelphia for the opportunity given to me to testify regarding the Year 6 Consolidated Plan. I am here to testify on behalf 7 CASSAH Program, which is Comar AIDS Support 8 Services and Housing Program. 9 Comar, Inc. is a nonprofit community 10 mental health agency, which has been providing 11 HIV-specific services to individuals diagnosed 12 with mental health, HIV, and substance abuse since 13 1991. Among its programs are two: Outpatient 14 programs -- (unintelligible) and Latino treatment 15 programs specifically for Spanish-speaking 16 individuals, a partial hospital program, a 17 prevention program, a psychosocial program, and a 18 rent-subsidized housing program, which is called 19 CASSAH. 20 The CASSAH Program, which is in the 21 sixth year of operation, provides rent-subsidized 22 housing for persons with HIV and AIDS and serious 23 mental illness. The program is funded by the 24 grant from Housing Opportunities for Persons With 25 AIDS (HOPWA) through the Office of Housing and 340 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 Community Development. In addition, CASSAH provides support services -- that is, psychiatric, psychotherapy, and case management -- to its consumers. Consumers are admitted into the program, have the opportunity to live anywhere within the Philadelphia city limits. Consumers pay only 30 percent of their adjusted income towards their rent, and the grant from HOPWA pays the remaining portion. The consumers are encouraged to pursue either education or vocational opportunities since individuals diagnosed with the HIV virus now live longer as a result of medical advances in HIV treatment. Consumers are referred by the HIV case managers, and the eligibility criteria include, but are not limited to: 1. A serious and chronic mental health diagnosis, with a history of treatment and a commitment to ongoing treatment. 2. HIV disease attested to by a physician. 3. A demonstrated ability to live independently with minimal to moderate supervision. 341 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 4. A verifiable source of income. 5. A commitment to remain sober if applicant has a history of substance abuse. 6. And lastly, homelessness or the threat of homelessness, as documented by the case manager. The most important aspect of this program is the ability to plug the consumers into other services within Comar that complement their treatment. Comar provides free psychiatric and psychotherapy services to the consumers last year. It is a great relief to note that these services are given a great priority by OHCD in the coming year. This is attested to by the increase in the support services allocation for the year 2000. The need for housing programs with support services for (unintelligible) with mental health diagnosis cannot be overstated. The CASSAH Program continues to experience an increase in the numbers of referral. Currently, the program has a waiting list because it only has room for 24 housing units. We hope to increase the number of housing units to 32 or more with the interest in 342 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 the rent subsidy allocation for the Year 2000. Approval of the Year plan by City Council can 4 only make these changes possible. The significant 5 increase in the Year 2000 grant for the program is 6 gratefully embraced and appreciated by the staff 7 and consumers of the program. 8 I am proud to share some success 9 stories about the program with everyone present 10 here today. A consumer bought a house with a son 11 last year and voluntarily resigned from the 12 program. Unfortunately for this consumer, prior 13 to coming into the program, she was virtually 14 living on the street because of her drug use and 15 the HIV diagnosis.
The consumer is currently 16 working a full-time job and actively involved in 17 our community. 18 Four consumers graduated from the 19 (unintelligible) program and are currently working 20 as HIV educators. A consumer of the program is 21 currently enrolled at the Community College of 22 Philadelphia. In each of the above examples, the 23 consumers were able to achieve success in areas as 24 social stability, employment, vocational and 25 educational training, which could not be possible 343 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 but for the grant for rent-subsidized housing opportunity which supports services. We are grateful to John Kromer and his staff for being receptive to our needs and constantly willing to work with us to improve our services. I hope -- I thank OHCD for its commitment to quality housing programs, and hope that it will continue to fund housing programs with support services. And again, I really appreciate the opportunity given by the Council for me to be here today to testify. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Sokale. Any questions? (No questions.)
Before I leave, let me introduce Mr. Troy Scott, one of the participants in the program. He was willing to testify when we got to the letter of invitation, so he's here as well.
Thank you both. Thank you. Mr. Jimmy Lee Smith, North Central 344 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 Empowerment Zone, you're next, and you've been waiting all day and you're not last. And now it's your turn. Connie Winters, are you still here? Thank you. Is there anybody else out there?
I am the Chairman of the Board, Jimmy L. Smith, of the North Central Philadelphia Housing Trust Fund Board of Directors. There are 13 members of that board -- mayoral appointees, 3 CTB Board appointees, and 8 elected members -- from 5 central tracks in North Central Philadelphia. And I'm very glad to see him back, Councilman Kenney, who has made me aware of many things about -- the housing trust fund deals with homes only. The Philadelphia Financial Partnership, which all the news has been in the paper about, which I seen the Deputy of Commerce Secretary just wanting to know about it, asking me the questions, deals with the commercial part of it. They are two financial institutions in 345 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 Philadelphia. There are no more CTB boards in Philadelphia. The mayor asked them to serve on to wide down their business. Philadelphia Empowerment Zone, as you know, received $79 million. Now, $25 million of that came into North Central Philadelphia. The housing committee, under Maya Burnett and myself, as Chairman of the Board, we have not spent not one dime. And we were allocated out of the 12 million, $5 million. That's just the housing 13 committee, but there are four other committees. 14 Those committees are now trying to interact their 15 arts and cultures, crime and public safety which 16 we bought police vans and all of that, bicycles, 17 opened up an office. 18 But the financing institution is solid. 19 The federal laws say that the financial board must 20 be an ongoing institution. So the housing finance 21 board is different than any other committee other 22 than the economic development, which is the 23 Philadelphia Financial Partnership. American 24 Street have their own, West Philly in Parkside 25 have their own. 346 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 So what I have given you is our brief from the Mayor's Office of Community Service, an investigation report that I asked for six months ago. We leveraged $5 million to bring our fund to $10 million. That money has not been spent. And the reason it's not been spent is because there's been a whole lot of innuendos and senators that certain people got contractors. We don't have the contractors. I went to the Black Contractors Association, they gave us a list of contractors. 6 billion settlement, gave the North Central Zone $250,000. We used $2,500 of that money to put in a brand-new heater the day after Christmas, December 1998. But to this day, we have budgeted out for minority contractors -- women, men, they know who they are, minority contractors. $228,000 has been approved by the CTB board and approved by my board. We haven't spent any of the money because we're sitting around, as Councilman Nutter said, every contract they sent me is from Paoli Norristown, none from the zone. So we're having a problem. And this 347 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 report, I'll tell you, from the City, out of six programs, not one. We're supposed to have a office in the zone. Every office in every poverty zone is supposed to be in that zone. Yet, we got a office sitting way down here at Seventh and Arch, fully staffed, paying people $70,000, $80,000 a year, and we can't open a office in North Central, they say there's no space, no 10 building accessible? Give me a break. We had Nehemiah houses. I'm from tract 140. Oh, we got plenty of work going on in North Central Philadelphia. The Nehemiah houses, the Temple plan. We got houses up there with Floyd Alston, the President of the Board of Education on Turner Street, having a big display at Leeds School this Saturday. Oh, there's work going on in North Central. But yet, we're sitting on the money, and the money just sitting there. And as I tell everybody, this is not going to be another Model Cities because I'm ready to call it in and do the whistle-blowing right now on this administration, John Kromer's office. They use $1 million that's sitting in a fund over here for the minorities and 348 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res.
990326 we supposed to certify contractors. I don't know who we think we fooling in this city. I talked to MacIntosh, came from OHCD, just moved up to PHDC. I mean, come on. I know all of these guys down here. I came from a housing stock. I did the first rehab in the country -- Brownsville, Brooklyn, New York, the first, under Shirley Chisholm, the first, and it's still going on where the houses were resold back to the people. So, I mean, I know what's going on in my neighborhood. But until -- first of all, oh, they say, You don't have a councilman. Well, thank God I seen him here today. He told me he's back on the job, he's going to serve out the rest of former Council President Street's term and is hoping that he'll be lucky and come in January with a new situation. But that's penny work going on. The thing is, what are we going to do about our situation. I got to read this report, and I got a group in here from Atlanta, Georgia right now. So I just want you to read the report and to help to us make sure that the money is spent in the zone, Parkside. Frances Walker was here. I seen 349 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 Dr. Paterson, who was here. I know these people. We want the money spent in our zone, and it's not going to be spent on people's personal projects. It will be spent for the people only. 'Cause I've asked two members of my board to redesign because they wanted some of the money, and that's a conflict of interest. So I ask you to read the report.
Thank you so much, Mr. Smith. Thank you for your patience. Any questions? (No questions.)
Connie Winters, Germantown Business Association. (Connie Winters comes forward.)
Hi. My name is Connie Winters. I serve as President of the Germantown Business Association and am currently head of the long-term planning and development committee. I'm a resident of Germantown. I do historic preservation and development work, and I have a city planning background. I'm here today representing the GBA to testify regarding proposed funding in this year's 350 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 budget of up to $131,000 for targeted neighborhood support activities in the Central Germantown business district. This can be found on Pages 62 and 92 of the Year Consolidated Plan. 6 The Year 25 Plan calls for the 7 continuation of funding throughout the Central 8 Germantown Council specifically to provide staff 9 support to the Germantown Business Association. 10 The Germantown Business Association has received 11 no support from the Central Germantown Council 12 since August of 1996 when its then-executive 13 Director resigned to head the newly formed 14 Germantown Special Services District. 15 If funds are designated in the OHCD 16 budget as being for the Germantown Business 17 Association, then it is our position that those 18 funds should come directly to the Germantown 19 Business Association to be used at the discretion 20 of the Germantown Business Association. 21 The Year 25 budget should include funds 22 for the Germantown Business Association, which now 23 has over 90 members and meets in a renovated 24 office in a highly visible location on Green 25 Street, but has no staff. We have sought 351 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 clarification from the Central Germantown Council, the OHCD, and the Department of Commerce concerning this matter of funds allocated in previous budgets for the GBA. To date no response has been forthcoming. The GBA, founded in 1898, is the oldest chartered business association in the state of Pennsylvania. At one time, its membership represented the city's time premier shopping district. As recently as the early 1980s, the GBA functioned as an independent association working to improve conditions which affect the quality of business district in Germantown. Sometime in 1985, the Central Germantown Council offered to facilitate the funding of a full-time executive director for the Germantown Business Association through City and foundation funds. These funds were to be funneled through the CGC as the facilitating community development corporation. In August of 1996, the then-executive director, the paid executive director of the GBA, was transferred from that position to the head of the Germantown Special Services District. The 352 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 funding for a staff position for the GBA disappeared at that time. Membership in the Germantown Business Association had been dwindling in the previous years due to ineffective leadership. Some of the remaining members at that time determined that it was important to continue the organization and to use it as a vehicle to turn around conditions on Chelten Avenue. Since that time, membership has grown to 90 members and the GBA has renovated the new headquarters. Its board of directors has committed to the Main Street Program for the revitalization of declining business corridors. We have conducted a survey of the business district between Germantown Avenue and Wissahickon Avenue. We have begun efforts to enforce existing laws regarding signage and vending. Chelten Avenue a neighborhood commercial revitalization area, and we have worked with L&I to bring the businesses into compliance with the code. Recently, with the cooperation of the Graffiti Abatement Team and the City Managing Director Office, we have succeeded in removing graffiti from the second and third floors of 353 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 buildings along Chelten Avenue. We have accomplished all of these things without any financial or staff support from the Central Germantown Council -- the organization with all of the funding.
So I am here today to request that funds funneled through the CGC, which are intended for staff support for the GBA, be given directly to the GBA. We have proven that we can be effective in leading our business district on a volunteer basis. With appropriate funding, we can make Chelten Avenue the shopping district it should be -- one that serves the needs of surrounding economically and racially diverse populations. Last fall, I was privileged to attend the 21st Century Neighborhoods Conference sponsored by the Foundation for Architecture. I heard, with interest and some relief, the comments by John Kromer who said keeping and bringing back the middle class is key to the life of the city. A deteriorated commercial district not only fails to bring all the taxes to the city that it might; it has a rippling effect to surrounding residential districts that brings decline and home 354 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 ownership and residential real estate values. The Germantown Business Association realizes this. We are working to make our business district as successful as Manayunk and Chestnut Hill. When I shop in either of these commercial areas, I see my neighbors. I'd like to see them on Chelten Avenue. It is possible; in fact, probable. Please adjust this budget to give the funding for the GBA that has been funneled through the Central Germantown Council directly to the Germantown Business Association for staffing and staff support. It will be used most effectively in this way and will result in an improved commercial district. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Are there any questions? (No questions.)
Thank you very much. Well, Mr. Kromer, I guess it's time for us to resume our discussions. Is there anyone 355 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 else here who wishes to testify? (Short break taken.) - - - (Proceedings resume.)
Thank you very much. We're at our last leg. There were some questions concerning the testimony of Local 1971. There were about five issues. And also Ed Schwartz, in terms of what we can do to try to get that issue resolved. (John Kromer comes forward.)
In terms, Mr. Kromer, of issues that Local 1971 mentioned with regard to layoffs, the Basic System Repairs Program and the Home Start Program and money being available for those as well as layoffs, could you respond to those issues?
Yes. OHCD has no plans to lay off any OHCD employees, and I don't know of any plans by the Redevelopment Authority to do that either. I know that there has been a lot of discussion at PHDC regarding layoffs, and Tony MacIntosh can follow up if that's appropriate. But my understanding is that there are no layoffs 356 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 that are currently planned at PHDC either. The layoffs that did occur -- and they were serious, we take every layoff seriously -- as I understand it, and again, Tony can connect me if I'm wrong, were the result of some activities that related to the management of apartment buildings that PHDC had acquired in the 1960s and then at one time decided to hire staff to manage them and then changed its mind and laid off the staff and contracted out. None of this funding was CDBG funding. This funding for the apartment management is a separate activity at PHDC that has never been supported through the Community Development Block Grant Program. I'm concerned about maintaining BSRP, and I agree with Council President Verna and everyone else that we need a full-year program that provides as much service as we possibly can to Philadelphians. This year, we are reducing a number of programs, as you can see by looking over the budget. And the reason for that is that we have a substantially larger debt service payment on the 357 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 108 financing than we have had in prior years. The 108 financing, just to be very brief, supported a lot of the Home Ownership Zone development, a lot of the tax credit rental, the homeless housing that was referred to earlier. It's virtually cleared out the majority of the Logan residents who are desperate to move out o the Logan triangle area. And as you'll note in the appendix, it describes the uses of the 108 funding. It provided funding for the Basic Systems Repair Program. And the need to pay off that debt is the primary reason for the reduction in BSRP, Home Start, and other activities. With regard to BSRP, our commitment is to a full-year program, and we would like to make use of the opportunity that Council has given us in the past. If during the course of a year, other programs are under-spending, to take from those programs to build up BSRP. We have been able to maintain BSRP as a full-year program in every one of the five years since Council supported that approach, except for last year. And the reason that we failed to do so last year 358 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 was because of a circumstance that was beyond our control, a delay that HUD imposed in the delivery of funding that we needed. But for that -- and we believe that there's no reason to expect a similar delay during the coming year.
With regard to Home Start, we won't be doing as much Home Start as we would like to do again, but we have some funding in Year that has not been spent. We will be able to 16 supplement that with some Year 25 funding and do 17 Home Start packages in every area where we have 18 commitments. But in light of the commitment to 19 repay Section 108, we are not proposing any 20 ambitious Home Start Program. 21 None of this reduction in activity will 22 necessitate any layoffs of PHDC personnel. And 23 the presentation that Tony MacIntosh gave this 24 morning indicates that the productivity in BSRP is increasing, not decreasing. 359 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326
Can you tell us how much of a decrease we have with the home repairs? It's a sizeable amount, I believe.
What I'd like to give you in addition to the published figures in the Year Plan are also some data on unspent Year 24 10 funding. Because it's that mix that we believe is 11 going to carry the program through the end of Year 12 25, and we can give you that combination tomorrow. 13
Mr. Kromer, on this 15 impact of the Section 108 loan repayment, this is 16 the $13 million that you and I discussed earlier? 17
Okay. How many 19 years of does that represent of the $13 million 20 payment? 21
You're paying back 23 a number of loans that were made in previous -- 24 that you received in previous -- 25
I believe it's a total of five different 108 loans. It's actually six, and they're listed in the Plan. They start at Year 19, but they're itemized in the budget portion of the Plan.
Are they all six years or are some six, some four, some three?
The terms vary, and some of them have been repaid prior to this year. Others are just starting repayment, but several are beginning their repayment during this coming Year that had not been repaid at all. 20
Well, maybe you're 21 not understanding the question. Does the 22 $13 million payment fully pay what you have 23 outstanding to this point in time? Because I also 24 understand that you're going to take another 25 $10 million loan. 361 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 So what is the 13 million repaying?
No, the 13-year is just a partial payment of a series of payments that will have to be made in future years.
We can give you a breakdown of the payment schedule. But, again, it extends over a period of years, and some of the repayments will be completed earlier than others.
Right. Well, I guess what I'm trying to get to is, you feel you have to make a $13 million payment in Year for 15 Section 108 loans. It's my understanding that you 16 have up to 20 years to repay the Section 108 loan; 17 is that correct? 18
I'm going to ask Deborah 19 McColloch to address that. 20 (Deborah McColloch comes forward.) 21
My name is Deborah 22 McColloch. I'm the Deputy Director of the Office 23 of Housing and Community Development. 24 The 108 loans in the housing program, 25 the term of the loan is determined by HUD. And 362 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 for us, our loans are usually five- or seven-year loans, not 20-year loans.
Was that on the economic development side only that the 20-year term exists?
Yes, because that becomes a part of the deal that the whole loan package that's created with the entity that's carrying out the development. And, as I say, on the housing side, HUD tells us what the term of the loan is going to be.
Okay. Well, how many HUD 108 loans has OHCD taken out over the past six years?
We've taken out a loan each year -- well, actually, we've taken out a loan each year since Year 13. Those have been paid back over time. Each year we make a payment so that we're -- in the proposed plan for Year 25, we're making payments on our Year 19 loan and then Year 20, Year 21.
I mean, you see 7 where this is going. Can you give us a full, 8 through the Chair -- 9
-- of all of your 12 outstanding loans, what the repayment schedules 13 are, and what the yearly payment you expect to 14 make on each individual loan, and then what your 15 total is for that particular year for all of the 16 outstanding loans. 17
Okay. And what 20 would happen if you didn't pay in Year 25 the full $13 million back?
Well, my question is, are you paying the 13 million because 364 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 13 million is actually due, or are you trying to get ahead of some of your payments?
Thank you very much. From Miss McColloch's testimony just now, this is not an uncommon practice, the borrowing through HUD 108 to do specific projects in a given year that were perhaps not available, or the monies were not available to do it unless we made the loan, correct?.
To pay off what 365 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 we're borrowing to do now.
Year 13? I mean, since we've been here the past seven years or so, has it been disclosed? And it's been clear we've been doing this; this is not like a surprise.
And in every year, we pay a portion of it back, whatever's due, correct?
No. What's different this year is that a substantial amount of the payments have come due in this particular year.
But the money that 366 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 was used, the money that was advanced to us paid for needed programs of Basic Home Repair, of Home Start, of whatever it, all the things that we do, we did them earlier, and did more of them because we borrowed the money in advance.
And now we've got to -- what you're saying this year is that we're cutting back to a degree because we owe that money we've already used for worthwhile programs.
All right. But there's no mystery here. There's nothing that's been disclosed which should be a surprise to us. We borrow and pay back every year.
Well, I mean, I would only add that it doesn't necessarily come as any particular shock. I think the surprise here is the size of the payment and the subsequent impact on other programs. It was nice that you did whatever it is that you did. The resulting impact is now the 367 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 BSRP program and a couple other programs will suffer as a result of a lack of resources. That's the primary issue, and that you have to make a $13 million payment out of a $68 million budget. It's a fairly significant amount of money. I think it's somewhere in the neighborhood of about percent. 9
Yes. The overall budget 10 is much larger than that, it's over a hundred 11 million. 12
Right. And 13 out 13 of 100 is not chump change, either. 14
Okay. And is there 16 any other possible funding source to help 17 alleviate the cutbacks that you're now 18 anticipating in the BSRP Program or other programs 19 that will now suffer as a result of the 20 $13 million repayment?
Because there is no other funding source. I'm not expecting a reduction in BSRP service, and the data presented this morning 368 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 seemed to indicate that it will increase rather than drop.
You know, I mean, I got to figure out how to do this. You really can do more with less?
Combined with unspent funding, I anticipate that we'll do more during the coming fiscal year.
Okay. I guess we'll have this discussion next year when the reports come in. Okay, thank you. We shall see.
I just want to make sure the record's clear. The things that we accomplished with the borrowing of the money got done earlier and faster because we borrowed the money.
So when you look at the total issue here, you have to really plug in what was able to be done far and above what we 369 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 would have had if we hadn't borrowed the money.
Mr. Kromer, with regard to the Institute for the Study of Civic Values, it seems to me that given the program's housing and job programs that we have -- and I understand, I read it and you also told me twice that we do not fund welfare to work, and I also read it in the plan. It seems to me that we must make some assessment of where people are. And isn't there some way we can work something out? It seems to me that somewhere in the system, we have to allow for who's on welfare being cut and who is not. I mean, what can we do to try to get past this impasse and work something out?
There are two opportunities that are provided for that. There is a massive amount of funding that is being made available by the federal government, the State government. And the City has had great difficulty in trying the to get any of that funding, which is over $200 million, released to address some of the 370 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 needs that we have. Secondly, there's a substantial amount of funding that the Clinton administration made available to cities, including Philadelphia, specifically to address this issue of the impact of welfare reform. These are new funding sources that amount to millions of dollars. I do not support the use of a limited declining, in terms of inflation-adjusted dollars, funding source, the Community Development Block Grant fund to also be put into use to address welfare reform issues. We've just talked about the limitations of funding. This is the only housing resource that the City has. Welfare reform couldn't be more serious, but there are substantial resources that have already been committed to address this. And Ed himself described the work that's being done very effectively with the PIC and with the other agencies that are managing that. The responsibility for creating the structure that he talks about really lies with those agencies that receive the funding to perform that work. If we start making a commitment to this 371 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 new endeavor, however worthwhile, it is money that we will use that will be taken from those programs that were presented this morning that are placing people in unsubsidized, good-paying private-sector jobs. We simply, in this year of the program, with the limitations that we have, cannot afford to fund an agency to coordinate a process -- which is exactly how Ed described the work that the institute proposes to perform. We just don't have that leeway now, and there are other sources of funding and other local agencies that are working on this problem.
Let me ask you a question maybe in a reverse manner. Is it possible, given the work that the institute has done for us in the past then that you could intercede to see if the -- to see if they could not then work within the welfare to work realm. Would you intercede in that regard?
It seems clear to me that Ed and the institute are making use of every possible opportunity, but we will try to help pursue that as well. That's really the best use of the resources in the system that we have now. 372 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326
Since our hearing's about over, I'm looking at Mr. Schwartz to see, since we have the door open, if that will kind of get us where we need to go. (Ed Schwartz comes forward.)
And given the fact that I know I'm holding everybody up for meetings, give me just five minutes and we're out of here. So I know we've got to on and get this committee meeting going, but we do have a commitment that Mr. Kromer will in fact intercede to deal with other welfare-to-work dollars so that we keep the door open and try to take advantage of the excellent services you provide.
I'm not sure, to be honest, whether the existing welfare-to-work dollars can be used for what I'm describing. If they could, I would go there. We are supported, in part, by some of that. On the other hand, there may be some private sources. I've got some commitments from some that would be forthcoming with some additional support with the collaboration of the office in trying to raise the money. 373 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 So, you know, I do appreciate the difficulty here. I don't agree, I will say, with this decision obviously. And I don't agree that this is not a role that CDBG place. I think I'm familiar with the various agencies. And unfortunately, in a way, this is the specific role that I think CDBG plays. But it's the right of the agency to say, you know, we're not going to do that. On the other hand, if we manage to work together, there may be some other sources of support which would come for this and accomplish what I am trying to do, and I am willing to sit down with John and see if we can work something out on this.
Thank you. And Mr. Kromer, you agree as well that you two will sit down.
Thank you very much. Now it comes time for us to consider the calendar.
Mr. Kromer, have you seen this proposed amendment?
We need just a second so that all members of the committee can see it. What is with our opinion of the amendment, Mr. Kromer?
I haven't spoken to the Mayor or his staff, so don't know what the mayor's position is on this. But I certainly think that what is called for is doable, and that within this week, we can determine who's going to do it in terms of the division of labor between us and the economic development agencies and come back with a clear response about how this would be implemented. The only concern I have is about the frequency of the reporting every month, but I believe that's appropriate. Every year clearly is not sufficient; every month clearly is doable. I just need to consult with the other agencies and report back to you. And I can do that in file 375 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 form before the end of this week.
Currently, on City construction projects that are utilizing taxpayer dollars, I believe the Mayor's Labor Department check the certified payrolls and have the information as to names, addresses -- I don't know whether it goes as far as age and gender and race. But do they have a lot of this information now from your experience when they do the certified payroll research on the prevailing wage issues, and couldn't that department simply provide this information to us?
The certified payroll reporting certainly is helpful. The only issue would be staffing to compile and publish the reports on a monthly basis. But as I said, that's doable. Councilwoman Tasco had mentioned that Hanford Jones, that the position he occupied is vacant, and that's a hiring that we can do and an assignment we can make to that person.
What was the job? 376 6/1/99 FINANCE - Res. 990326 I'm sorry.
A gentleman by the name of Handford Jones was detailed to us for a year from MBEC.
But would the Mayor's Department of Labor Division be one of the departments or one of people that you talk to about it?
If OHCD deems it is doable and albeit you haven't checked with the administration, if the committee deems then that it is acceptable, then we'll move on.
Okay. At some point, I need to read it into the record, but whenever you want to do that.
I think we want to now conclude our public hearing and enter into our stated meeting.
Yes. I need to read it into the record. 377 6/1/99 FINANCE - Public Meeting
Let's do the first two issues first. Councilman Kenney, would you give me a motion to approve Bill No. 990117.
Madam Chair, I move that Bill No. 990117 be reported out of this committee with a favorable recommendation and an additional request for a rules -- no rules suspension? No?
All in favor? Opposed? Councilwoman Tasco, would you give me a motion for Resolution No. 990337, that it be reported out of this committee with a favorable recommendation.
Madam Chair, I move that Resolution No. 990337 be reported out of committee with a favorable recommendation.
All in favor? Opposed? The ayes have it, and so it is reported 378 6/1/99 FINANCE - Public Meeting out as recommended. Now, with regard to an amendment, we will ask Councilman Nutter if he will read an amendment to Bill No. 990326 into the record.
Madam Chair, I propose that Bill No. 990326 be amended on by adding a new section to read as follows: New section 13. The Office of Housing and Community Development shall be required to report to City Council on a monthly basis any data related to the residency of hires for construction-related jobs for any project supported by any funds received or pledged as security pursuant to this application or any previous applications whenever the percentage of hires for construction-related jobs who reside outside of the City of Philadelphia for any project that exceeds ten percent (10%) of the total number of hires for construction-related jobs. Said monthly report(s) shall provide a detailed listing of the current hired residency/non-residency rate of individuals hired for construction-related jobs, the race, gender, 379 6/1/99 FINANCE - Public Meeting skill or trade and locale of residency for all non-Philadelphia residents hired for said project(s) and an explanation as to the reason for the hiring of each non-Philadelphia resident for construction-related jobs.
All in favor of the amendment? I'm sorry. I move that the -- he already did. May I have a second?
Madam Chair, I move the adoption of the amendment as read. (Duly seconded.)
All in favor? Opposed? Madam President, may we have a motion for approval of Bill No. 990326 as amended?
Madam Chair, I move that Bill No. 990326 be reported out of committee with a favorable recommendation, as amended, and also that the rules of Council be suspended so as to permit first reading at our next if session of Council. (Duly seconded.)
All in favor? 380 6/1/99 FINANCE - Public Meeting Opposed? The ayes have it, so it passes. Let me thank all members of the committee, Mr. Kromer, and all members of OHCD and RDA as well as members of the public for your patience and for hanging in this with us all day. Thank you. (Adjourned at 5:43 p.m.) - - - 381 C E R T I F I C A T E I HEREBY CERTIFY that the foregoing proceedings of the Council of the City of Philadelphia of Tuesday, June 1, 1999, were reported fully and accurately by me, and that this is a correct transcript of same. RE: COUNCIL COMMITTEE ON FINANCE BILL NO.'s 990117, 990326 RESOLUTION 990337 __________________________________, JOSEPHINE CARDILLO, Registered Professional Reporter