Providence Committee on URRP-Wednesday, April 23, 2025-5:30 PM

For Wednesday, April 28. My name is Clark. Can you please call or call?

Chairwoman Mary Kay Harris is absent. Vice Chair, Monty Charlo.

Present.

Councilman Joppenstadt?

Present.

Councilwoman Adeb Race? Present. Councilwoman Anna Vargas is absent. We have three present, two absent. We have a one.

Thank you. For today, we have the agenda before you, and please note that councilwoman Barbas is with us. Yes. Thank you. And, can you read the the agenda?

Item number one, communication from his honor of the mayor dated 03/28/2025 with meeting the community development block grant project for program year twenty twenty five dash twenty twenty six. The following has been by. Emily Whitman, director of housing and human services, department of housing and human services. Alisa McDermott, director of housing and community development, department of housing and human services. The following has been invited for presentations, designs Rhode Island, Stuk Rud Stacampiana, executive director, Rhode Island Black Business Association, Lisa Rangling, executive director, First Worth, Kathleen Fletcher, executive director, Madison Street, United Methodist Church, Kevin Simon, director of outreach.

Thank you for that. And just wanted to acknowledge the fact that we have also our city solicitor with us, Sarah Sarah Pearson. Yes. Sarah. Us.

Welcome. Also from our project manager who's fairly new to the team, mister Bautista. Thank you for being here. And, of course, Hideepulango and Lauren Gutierrez. And welcome, everyone.

At this time, what I'd like to do is invite anyone who wait three minutes now. If not here with us, Allison can explain a little bit of that. I wanted to also welcome Allison McDermott, director of housing and municipal development director of housing and community development, department of housing and human services. Please?

Sure. Good evening, everyone. I'm pleased to join you again for the third our committee present the pro proposed HUD entitlement grant budget on behalf of mayor Smiley. Just as another reminder, this budget is going to serve as the first investment under our twenty twenty five to twenty twenty nine consolidated plan. We are expecting our final allocation numbers from HUD mid May.

Our HUD rep told us he's hoping around May 14, we should receive the final numbers from HUD. So as of right now, we are operating on an estimated budget. We are gonna build in a provision in the ordinance that has been used in the past. I know maybe I've read out the neighbors during the last meeting. So some for some next steps, I'll give you a brief overview.

The goal is to finalize and pass the budget twice through city council. We and incorporate it into our annual action plan and submit it to HUD by July 1 to avoid any delays in programming. Thank you to Kyle Delgado, who's not here as of right now, Robert Baptista, and the counselors for their proactive work to identify almost all of the board projects to include them in our upcoming ordinance. We are aiming to pass the budget out of the IRF committee before the five nine docket deadline to stay on track for the kind of recognition through the con plan, especially because this is a substantial document that staff are gonna have to gather together information for. At our next meeting on Monday, we are hoping to substitute the mayor's draft budget for an ordinance that I will be drafting and sending out to the chair and vice chair ahead of Monday's meeting for review over the weekend.

And then this will ensure that we'll meet the docket deadline of May 9. And then if there are any questions, we can move on to presenters, or I'm here to answer any questions if you guys have any.

Thank you. Any questions? We wish Emily also the best.

Yes. Everyone's happy and healthy. She has had

a meeting on Friday. Okay.

That's very exciting.

Very Very exciting. Exciting. That's That's awesome. Awesome. Okay.

Thank you very much. So before us, the next item will be we'll be hearing from our presenters. Thank you very much. I'd just like to take the motion to accept exit exhibit seven, eight, nine, and ten. It is from the corresponding organizations.

Is there

a motion? To accept exhibits Seven eight, nine, and ten. There is

a motion seconded by councilwoman Abhiya Graves. No. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor? Aye.

Abstention? Yea, it's aye. Now before us are the presenters for today. And, hopefully, as we continue to receive the presentations of the people that have been selected or at least are being considered, we will encourage you to go through your presentation, and, hopefully, we'll get it presented within at least ten ten minutes. With that, we'll hope this we'll certainly appreciate it.

Thank you very much. The first one that is before us is design r r I, and we have Rule Sakayama. Come on over. The executive director right in the front. Yeah.

Sure. Yeah. Actually, Alyssa, can you move on on this side and then have you sit there, please? Thank you. Alright.

So is that? Thank you. Yeah. Thank you, and welcome.

Thank you so much. Hello, all.

Well, members

has introduced me to Sathyama, the executive director here at. And I'm joined today by our program director, Rita Mitchell. I see that you all have these printed out with me. And so rather I guess I'll call them slide one. Sure.

You can also

If you're gonna they can just pull it up, and you

can just do some email.

Either way, whatever is it doesn't make a difference to me.

What was that again, Laura?

Oh, so I can just bring it up, and she can just go with it in the remote.

And Either way. Yeah. Great.

I need to make sure.

Walking smoothly.

Okay. We'll we'll run. Okay. Thank

you so much for having us this evening. We are pleased to share the work that we do in programs that will apply for CBDG funding for the upcoming 2025 and '26 of the year. A little bit about Design Diamond Island. The organization was founded in 2013 to amplify and recognize the value of the impact that creativity, design, and innovation bring to our state. We are a nonprofit economic development organization that serves Rhode Island based designers and creators through our events and our programming.

We believe that design is a critical economic sector that drives change globally, socially, and locally in the state of Rhode Island. And we are the only statewide organization for designing Rhode Island, and our events and programming provide value to the design sector. One of the areas that designed by Rhode Island supports the design community is through our programs, which nurture and support design and critical service businesses. These programs are intentionally created to support small creative businesses in the province and Rhode Island whose owners reside in low to moderate income households. The program aims to bolster the city and state's design economy.

And this evening, we are going to talk to you about our two flash flagship programs that we've applied for funding, the design pilots program and the launch program. To start, let's talk about the design pilots program. This program began in 2015 due to an initiative through the CDEG funding. Year after years, CDEG has supported our programming, and I can tell you personally that as an alumni of this program, it really, really can make a difference in one's greater partner.

Impact is defined and delivered with multiple critical and thoughtful components. Firstly, a cohort learning model. The program's curriculum is excellent, and classes are experienced collectively. Each cohort goes into the full program together. Running a business can be lonely.

It can be hard to know if you're making the right choices. It can really feel like the struggles that you're facing are your to know. In addition to learning from instructors, participants in Catalyst get to learn from one another. They build camaraderie for the environment. Cohort members can be peers and colleagues to each other, which is something that's often missing when you're running a business.

Mentorship is also integral to the program. Each participant is thoughtfully paired one on one with a mentor with whom they meet throughout the program, with someone from their field or business experience that's relevant to their needs. These relationships often extend beyond the program, which further strengthens and develops the network of businesses in Providence and in Rhode Island. Participants also have access to a financial adviser with whom they can meet multiple times during the program in addition to the hiring's classes. Finally, the key component of design capital is seed capital.

Business has also received seed capital. We wanna highlight this fact. It's one of the main differentiators for Catalyst from other workforce development programs. Community development block grant funding helps make this difference. It enables Catalyst businesses to implement their learning in ways that wouldn't be possible otherwise and elevates the impact.

So

over the past nine years, over 79% of the funding that we've received from is regranted directly to individual province based creative businesses. And what this means is that since 2015, over $1,500,000 has gone directly to support province based businesses in the form of some capital. Grants each year range from 5 to $35,000, which is dependent upon the funding that we have available and the demonstrated need of the business. The most common expenses that we see are equipment, marketing, contractors, and rent, indicating that the funding provided through the program really gives participants the boost they need to catalyze the business. The program also has a very strong record of supporting businesses that remain not only in business but also in Providence.