09-17-18 Personnel and Finance (#9)

Home Browse Search

kiwi CITY OF SOUTH BEND I OFFICE OF THE CLERK there are statistically high areas of need for digital services and in red is where we know that some of these services are bountiful. On the left map is the map for internet connectivity for high-speed internet and, again, we see the same pattern in the right map which is a map of places where computers are available. Going along those needs, we've established this partnership to establish CLICK Centers.Those are centers for connectivity,learning,information and knowledge. The first (1st) one (1) is in the Martin Luther King Jr. Center and we will have one (1) of these in each of the library branches as well as our community centers. We are starting to look very heavily for third (3`d) party partners that want to establish similar centers across the community. In the map, you have service areas. So these are areas that are within a fifteen (15) minute walk of a library branch or a center. The color scale indicates what percentage of the population within that walking area are low or moderate income. You can see we are very strategically putting the resources in the places where there is the highest need. In the little bubbles you have numbers. Those are the number of households that are low and moderate income within that fifteen (15)minute walk that now have access to these facilities that are safe,have high-speed internet and that have free devices. There will also be programming, classes and other resources. He went on,We've supplemented some of that with investment in free Wi-Fi. So we have free Wi- Fi downtown,on Western outside of MLK and this year we also piloted some work in the southeast neighborhood park. We have some expansions planned in other parts of town and, again, the idea is that we are trying to reach residents where they are. The pilot we are running in the southeast neighborhood is really cool. It is a collaboration with the Bowman Creek Educational Ecosystem and Notre Dame's Society of Women Engineers team. They designed, with a couple of local companies, a system that had solar powered access points that was able to extend the service area of the free Wi-Fi. That is pretty exciting and we know this is an area that is also very close to an area the schools have identified there to be a high concentration of residents with children that receive food assistance and that don't have devices or internet at home. He continued, The final story we wanted to share with you is the preliminary results for our Bloomberg Grant. So last year, Bloomberg Philanthropies launched a Mayor's Innovation Challenge. They received over three hundred(300) applications and we were one (1)of thirty-five (35) finalists of the applicants. We will find out by the end of October 2018 whether we won a$5 million award, a $1 million award or if we didn't win anything. What we focused on was talking to employers and we realized there was a very high turnover rate in a lot of part-time third (3rd) shift workers. Some of the employers told us that they had up to three hundred percent (300%) of annual turnover. That means that in one(1)year,they would have completely new staff, all around in all positions over three (3) times. That is very expensive for the companies. When we talked with the employees and people unemployed, we realized and they were telling us that sometimes they would get the skills and certifications but the reason they had lost their job is they had issues of transportation to get to work. Even if they had a new skill, they weren't able to keep some of the jobs. So we ran with the $100,000 we received as finalists, we ran twelve (12)pilots. We used Uber thinking, an on-demand tool that people would just be able to track how many trips we provided and what-not. We ran twelve (12) pilots with four (4) employers and we reached over five hundred (500) employees. The results were amazing. We were able to see that eighty-three percent (83%) of employees wanted to work longer shifts but the rides would leave and they usually have to cut their hours short. Now they were able to work more hours and they were able to bring more money home. At the same time they also shared with us that they were experiencing less stress during their commute so they are able to spend more time with their families and pursue their own interests. They were making more money, were less stressed and it also had some pretty EXCELLENCE I ACCOUNTABILITY I INNOVATION I INCLUSION I EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 227 W.Jefferson BvId I South Bend.Indiana 466011p 574 235.92211f574.235.9173 TTD574.235.55671www.southbendin.gov 14