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