09-12-18 Personnel and Finance (#8)

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CITY OF SOUTH BEND OFFICE OF THE CLERK in South Bend. James mentioned the microloan program we are working on. We are also making headway with the impending launch of the West Side Businesses Resource Center, which you should be getting an invite to the Grand Opening next Wednesday. We created this in collaboration with SOAR and other partners. Behind this is the constant hum of continuous improvement on our desire to provide exceptional customer service to the buildings and developers that we interact with.I get to come in and show you gorgeous renderings of new office buildings or spec buildings, but behind that are hundreds of hours and weeks and months of hard work and working externally with companies and internally with Engineering and Public Works to make sure this comes together and creates great outcomes for the City. We are always willing to help our customers navigate City services, provide constant and consistent support of business and economic development resources that attract, retain and expand local businesses, with the goal of adding jobs, raising wages and increasing investment here in the City. Alkeyna Aldridge, Director of Engagement and Economic Empowerment for the Department of Community Investment with offices on the 14th floor of the County-City Building,stated,As James mentioned, we're a new team that is only eight (8) months old. Sonia has only been here since March, so we're really proud of the fact that we've been able to leverage our salaries by over a ratio of one(1)to one (1). For 2019,we're looking forward to utilizing the additional capacity that the AmeriCorps members will bring to us for the Love Your Block program, as well as United Way AmeriCorps members that we'll be welcoming to our team as well. We want to leverage the capacity there to get out into neighborhoods directly. There is no silver bullet, the only way to build relationships and really understand what the folks need is to get out and talk to them. Specifically, we're talking about populations that are most in need and are the hardest to reach. They're not coming to City Hall,we have to go to them. With the position proposal,we're hoping they can also help to leverage the capacity of those additional staff members that are coming in to us through external resources. Secondly, we want to identify more City programs that are good candidates for rigorous evaluations. We're quantifying the benefits and collecting data that can be leveraged for additional external funds. Some examples of that is what we've done with our City VG reform this year and the partnership we have with MIT and their Poverty Action Lab, so we want to continue that. We're also excited about the relationships we're building with the regional banks around the work they're doing with the low to moderate income population and figuring out how we can unlock additional capital and resources. Specifically,how it relates to homeownership and business ownership. As we know, those are really the only two (2) ways to move that needle with relation to economic mobility and the race gap. Pam Meyer, Director of Neighborhood Development for the Department of Community Investment with offices on the le floor of the County-City Building stated, I have a team of five (5) people and their time is spent doing direct service to residents in our community in a variety of programs. In a broader sense, neighborhood development in 2019 has a large role in advancing the neighborhood and housing development program that James had spoken about. In fact, we were an advance team by having a lot of work that we'd done previously on the 1000 homes in 1000 days and demolishing and readying vacant properties for this opportunity. We're looking to help partner with Planning and our other team members to address issues related to strategies in terms of the use of vacant land, development opportunities, and financing. Secondly, I am going to say that we will be celebrating the opening of the Gateway Center for coordinated entry and weather amnesty services. That is a big piece of our role in terms of working with agencies locally and providing the resources for that service. The third (3rd) is assuming a successful federal EXCELLENCE I ACCOUNTABILITY I INNOVATION INCLUSION I EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 1227 W Jefferson Bvld I South Bend,Indiana 466011 p 574.235.92211f574.235.9173 I TTD 574.235.5567 I www.southbendin.gov 10