 Thank you very much for joining us tonight for the community development grants open house. My name is Mallory Sullivan and I'm the community development block grant administrator in the department of planning and community development for the town for a few logistics for the zoom meeting tonight. Everyone is on mute by default and there will be time. If you have questions during the presentation, please feel free to put them in the chat and we'll make sure that they're answered in the Q&A. You can raise your hand by clicking the reactions button at the bottom of your screen and selecting the raise hand feature in the Q&A session. And this meeting is being recorded and will be available on the town's website. Here's our agenda for the night. There are two parts. First, we will have an overview of the community development block grant program with a special emphasis on its legacy in Arlington. Then we'll switch gears to talk about the CDBG application process. I think a lot of you are here tonight to hear about that and we'll take a look at the application itself. Before we get started, though, and we're a pretty small group, but I would like to hear how familiar you are with the CDBG program and then also what your role is here tonight. So there will be two poll questions and you can feel free to answer those when they pop up for you. Okay, we'll just give it another 10 seconds or so if you haven't had a chance to vote yet. Okay, so it looks like we have a quite a range of people here tonight who know from a little bit to a lot about CDBG. So that's great. And then a variety of folks in attendance to a few community members, individuals representing organizations and agencies. And some who are interested in applying for funding so you're all in the right place and I'm glad you're here. So, here's a little bit of information about the Community Development Black Grant Program. The program is administered by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development HUD through a congressional appropriation that is made each year. Those appropriations are then divided amongst the states and counties and localities who then in turn provide funds to address community needs. The primary objective of the CDBG program is to develop viable urban communities by providing decent housing and a suitable living environment and by expanding economic opportunities principally for low and moderate income persons. That bottom section there is in bold font. I want to call your attention to that you'll see that quite a bit tonight low and moderate income or LMI. And that's because, because this objective, the CDBG program primarily serves individuals who earn incomes at or below 80% of the area median income. The area median income is adjusted each year. And if you're interested in seeing what those current income rates are right now in Arlington, you can navigate to ArlingtonMA.gov or CDBG. Scroll all the way to the bottom of the page and you'll have an understanding there of who is eligible for CDBG funded programs based on income. So Arlington has been an entitlement community since 1975. Its status as an entitlement community means that we receive CDBG funding. In recent years, our grant has been about $1.1 million and this is divided over a range of different projects and activities. The way these projects are funded is through an application process. The Arlington Select Board has a CDBG subcommittee which reviews all of those applications and makes a recommendation to the Select Board, which then later on in the springtime sends it to town meeting for endorsement before we then provide it to HUD for final approval. The projects in town are carried out by nonprofits as well as by town departments. Eligibility for CDBG funding for these projects is contingent upon alignment with a few different key goals, objectives, and priorities. So these priority needs goals and objectives are all outlined in Arlington's five-year consolidated plan. The consolidated plan is designed to help our community assess our affordable housing needs as well as our community development needs and then to make data-driven and place-based investment decisions. Arlington is part of what's called the North Suburban Consortium, which is several communities in the region that receive funds from HUD. So we create a consolidated plan collaboratively with these other communities. But each community receives its own entitlement grant each year. And each year we take our priorities from our consolidated plan and create our own individual Arlington annual action plan. So as I had initially mentioned, each project that applies for CDBG funding must meet a priority need, which are the five items that you see in the top row. Housing, economic development, parks and infrastructure, public services and planning and administration. Really, you can focus on the first four there. Planning and administration is set aside for the town's management and administration of the program. In addition to meeting one of these, really the first four items on that list, which are quite broad. The project or the proposed project also needs to meet a national objective, which you see in that bottom row. And the most common one by far is meeting the low and moderate income beneficiary national objective. So this can be met in a number of different ways. A project can meet that objective if it is located in a, in a certain area, so in a census tract that qualifies for CDBG funding based upon the percentage of residents who qualify as low to moderate income. It can also be a public service project that has a limited clientele, all of whom or majority of whom meet that LMI criteria. It can also be housing or job creation or retention. Again, focused on that qualifying group. You'll see that slum, blight and urgent need are also national objectives. Those are far less common. And if you did have a project that you were interested in to meet one of those goals, we would, we could talk about that. So CDBG is really brought to life through our grant recipients who use those funds to, to meet a community need and serve the community. So you'll see the Arlington Boys and Girls Club has been a sub recipient of CDBG fund for quite some time. The photo that you see beneath that description is from a program that was facilitated during the pandemic. And that program specifically was open to students for after school homework support. It provided safe distancing, some social interaction and also provided child care for caretakers. The project itself was scholarships and the priority needed met as public services, and it was the scholarships were specifically available to households qualifying on the low to moderate income limited clientele basis. In the center, you see the housing corporation of Arlington. You may have driven by the Downing Square Development, which was supported in part by CDBG for design costs. The priority needed needs is affordable housing and again it serves limited clientele. All the way on the right is Wellington Park, which was supported in part by CDBG for ADA accessibility enhancements. So I hope that that gave you a little bit of information more than you had before about CDBG and the types of projects that can be supported in Arlington. So now I would love to know, based on this brief overview, which of the consolidated plan goals would you like to see the town prioritize? So go ahead and answer that when the poll pops up for you. I think we have everyone. Thank you. Okay, so it looks like majority said housing. Someone said parks and infrastructure and a few said public services. So thank you for sharing that. Something I didn't mention before was that in our current consolidated plan, housing is our number one priority. Many of you know about all of you that it's a housing is a major issue, not only in Arlington but regionally having sufficient housing and especially a sufficient affordable housing. That is certainly something that CDBG wants to continue funding, in addition to these other areas. So thank you for your input. So now we have some time for discussion. And your input and your thoughts here are incredibly important in general to the CDBG process citizen participation is not only a HUD requirement, but it is very helpful in terms of making our annual action plan, making sure that it reflects community needs and community input. So if you have any responses to any of these questions, these are just to get the conversation going. I would welcome you to raise your hand at this point or if you have any other questions or thoughts, you can raise your hand and we'll call on you. You can also feel free to put your thoughts in the chat. Hannah O'Halloran, you can go ahead. Yeah, I guess I'll jump in. I work over at the Summerville homeless coalition and we cover the town of Arlington homeless population as well and so I selected housing as a priority for us. I think it's kind of obvious why it would be a priority for us, but housing is definitely one of the answers to homelessness and more affordable housing. You know, we have plenty of people with section eight vouchers coming down the pipeline. Thanks to all the COVID funding out there. Finding affordable units for people to wrench in underneath the FMR has been really difficult. So that's why it's our priority. Thank you. All right. And Jack, I see that your hand is raised. Go ahead. You know, coming from the Allington Housing Authority, I mean, we have a obvious I chose housing and no, it's, it's something that we want to invest in further and any any additional means that we can get, whether it's through CDBG or otherwise, will help us achieve some of our goals to maintain our housing portfolio and continue to provide those services for residents in the future. Thank you. Is there anyone else who selected housing who would like to either react to what they've heard so far or contribute anything else. And how about anyone who responded? Oh, I see Joanne. Go ahead. Hi, I'm Joanne Preston. I'm on the board of the Arlington Housing Authority. And I just had a few questions about your priorities within housing. Do you pay for the preservation of affordable housing as well as for the creation of affordable housing and perhaps you're going to do that at eight o'clock, but what what's kinds of amounts of funding do you give for do you have a certain one for each like housing economic development assert is it is it equally distributed between all of these or well I should let you talk about it. Those are those are great questions. I will start with the types of housing projects that you asked about. So we primarily in recent years have supported preservation projects. Our primary partner in recent years has been the Housing Corporation of Arlington HCA. We have provided grants to support their capital improvements to their housing portfolio. So that has included a range of different improvements from exterior maintenance work to interior ADA accessibility components such as making kitchens accessible or bathrooms. So CDBG cannot fund new development. As I mentioned Downing Square there are some. So for example with Downing Square we supported some of the design and non development costs. So that was an eligible activity, but CDBG cannot fund new construction of new housing. As far as the percentages of and actually I'll mention that we are also partnering with Caritas Community this year for capital improvements as well. They're a new sub recipient this year. As far as the percentages the breakdown of how our overall million or so dollar grant is divided between the different categories. There's a bit of flexibility there. So public services and planning and administration are the only two with strict caps. For planning and administration there's a cap of 20% and for public services there's a cap of 15% of our grant. So that means that public services does tend to be pretty competitive. Since it's a restricted amount. The remaining amount can be divided across any of housing economic development and parks and infrastructure. Our consolidated plan does outline our plan over the course of the five years. So I would encourage you to take a look at that if you're looking for the specifics of how we plan to use our funds for the five year period. And with the consolidated plan, we're currently in the second year of that. Thank you. You're welcome. Beth I see your hand raised go ahead. My name is Beth lock. I'm with the Arlington Chamber of Commerce and I apologize the chat seems to be disabled. So I wasn't able to jump in on that and having some audio issues here. Sorry about that. Thank you for that. So anyway, I'm sorry I had joined the, the meeting late and right when I joined I noticed you had some percentages that look like people had voted on priorities. And I saw 0% for our economic development. So I would like to jump in and raise my hand and vote for economic development. You know, I'm not sure exactly what I missed but if you could talk a little bit about how what monies can be you were talking about certain certain caps and areas and how money could be applied in the area of economic development I'd be very interested in that. So there are a few different areas that funds could be CDB funds could be used for economic development. And in fact, during the pandemic, Arlington received a special allocation of funds through through the cares act, and a significant amount of that went toward economic development programs. So those are exemplars of how CDB funds can be used. So, one of those was a micro enterprise support program so this was for very small businesses with fewer than five employees and a business owner who, who makes a lot of moderate income. Those were direct assistance grants for the for the businesses. Another way that these funds can be used for economic development is through job creation and job retention. And specifically, these would be grant funds that are used to help a business support either the creation or the retention of a job that is held by a lower moderate income individual. There are also technical assistance for for small businesses. So for example, again during the pandemic we had a technical assistance program that supported small business owners with specifically with web based marketing, also with some developing business operations so there's quite a variety. Those are just a few examples from programs that we've had so far. Okay, and would there be any opportunity for projects that had to do with sort of downtown revitalization or more infrastructure type type projects. So infrastructure projects could potentially be eligible. A lot of it would depend upon the location if it's situated in an area that is a census designated block group. Eligible for CDBG funds. But I would be interested, certainly in having discussion to kind of think about some ideas that might be possible. Okay, great. Thank you. Okay, if there are any other questions, please go ahead and raise your hand. Well, I don't see any more hands raised so we will move on to the application overview. So who can apply for funding. It will primarily be 501C3 nonprofit organizations. There are also select for profit entities that can qualify for funding as well as faith based organizations, units of government and institutions of higher education. So I believe that most, all of you are representing organizations that fall within these categories. This is an overview of the funding allocation process in the funding cycle. So as of today we are in the application period. If you go online to our website you will now see our application is posted there as well as our application guidelines will also be taking a look at that in a few minutes. So the application period does close on January 14 from January through March is the application review conducted by the CDBG subcommittee. In April, we take our budget to the select board, which will then, if it is accepted, move it to town meeting for endorsement. At that time, applicants are also notified of the status of their application. In May, we submit our annual action plan which includes all of our proposed projects and our budget for the year ahead to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. And then our program year kicks off on July 1. So our program year aligns with the town fiscal year. So for reference, if you're applying for funds, you would be applying for funding starting on July 1, 2022, going through June 30, 2023. In the center is the grant review process which kind of discussed with the funding cycle. And then Arlington CDBG allocation, as I mentioned, our annual grant we expect about a million dollars and divided amongst several different categories. This again is a familiar slide. Just a reminder that any project must align with one of the consolidated plan priority needs and goals, and with a national objective. And while there are a lot of kind of different pieces to this, the good news is that you don't need to memorize any of this, you will just need to select the one that best fits your project and your organization's work. So those organizations that receive grants are called sub-recipients, and there are several key requirements that sub-recipients need to be mindful of. So there are several documentation requirements for program activities and expenses. This also includes maintaining documentation that certifies the eligibility of clients or those who are benefiting from the funds. This information is retained by your organization and is only provided to the town and later to HUD in compiled format without identifying information. You also need to submit quarterly reports, which measure your outputs and outcomes against those that you identified on your application. The CDBG program is a reimbursement-based grant program, so you will submit invoices for reimbursement on at least a quarterly basis. And if your program had, for example, didn't start until, wasn't scheduled to start until December or January, we would work individually on that. It's also a requirement to participate in monitoring with town staff as deemed necessary. This might include a site visit, it might include a review of documentation, but it's all necessary to ensure that the town is meeting HUD's requirements and that sub-recipients are meeting HUD's requirements. And lastly, if you're pursuing a construction project, there are additional compliance measures that sub-recipients need to support when it comes to contracting and subcontracting. And while there's a lot that goes into being a CDBG sub-recipient, the town and myself in particular will work closely with you to make it as simple and straightforward as possible. You see here we have a sub-recipient manual, which includes the requirements and the documentation and forms and everything necessary. If you're interested in taking a look at that, it's posted on the CDBG website webpage on the town website. So at this time, I would like to share with you the application for program year 48, which is our upcoming year. Let's see. Can somebody confirm that you can see this document? We can see it. Great, thank you. So this is the application for the new program year. It starts out in part one with a lot of basic agency and project summary information. I'll call your attention to a few specific items that you'll want to pay attention to. The first is the DUNS number. Some folks that haven't applied for federal assistance before may not have come across this. It is a number that is required for all organizations receiving federal assistance. It's a pretty easy online form. I've heard some people get their numbers back within 15 minutes, others it can take a few weeks. So that's something that you might want to get started on sooner rather than later if you haven't, if you don't have that yet. Additionally, you'll want to make sure that you're registered on SAM.gov, which is another requirement of receiving federal assistance. If the project that you're proposing is being submitted on behalf of a collaborative, you'll want to put the primary or lead contact information up top and then include any collaborative partners on this line. I won't go through every single line since there is a lot to it. I'll also note that there's a, as noted up here, an application guide that tells you exactly what you need to put in each box. This eligibility information will be familiar, as these are all of the national objectives that were discussed on an earlier slide. We do request beneficiary information with your application, and these are estimates on the number of either individuals or households that you plan to support through your program. The project summary is just that. We'll look for an elevator pitch of your project if you're a returning applicant, some reflection on the past year, and then a performance evaluation plan. So we can get an idea of what measures you are using to track the progress of your plan and what you would do if goals aren't quite being met. If you're a returning applicant and I know there are a few in the audience tonight, you'll notice that this is new. So I'm asking you to identify which town of Arlington goals your project is advancing. And what's listed here are several key plans that are current for the town. You can click on any one of those. Those are hyperlinks and they'll take you to the respective plan. And just provide a quick sentence on which goals, strategies your project is helping to advance. Again, something familiar, the consolidated plan goals and objectives. And last in this section is the attachments. So we'll need a copy of your IRS letter showing that you're a 501-3 nonprofit, a copy of the agency's most recent financial audit, and then a copy of the agency's Massachusetts certificate of good standing, which can be obtained from the Mass Department of Revenue if you need it. It's also optional to submit other letters of support or other program materials that you would think would help your application. So this is the budget. So either Part A or Part B in this section needs to be completed, depending upon the type of project. And this is where we ask you to get pretty specific with your budget. So this shouldn't simply be one line item with the overall budget for the entire project or activity. We ask you to get the different components, whether it's supplies, staff time, rental space, rental space costs, anything here. There's a column for CDBG funds for other funding and for your total proposed budget. If you do fill out something in column B, we ask that you explain that in section C, whether it's another local grant state, private grant, we'll note that leveraging is looked upon quite favorably with CDBG. So if your project has other support, that's great and we want to know about it. So be sure to tell us about it in this section. Now I'll move on to Part 3, our project narrative table. And this is where you can show us how you get from the community need that Arlington is facing, all the way through what it looks like when that need is addressed, the outcomes. So this is a big kind of empty page, but again this is where I highly recommend going to the application guide and either going there or hovering over each of the boxes you'll see a prompt for what specific information we're looking for with each of these each of these lines on the table from the need, the goal, so what the, what the purpose of the project is, the inputs, what staff capacity, institutional knowledge, other funding sources, space, what, what you'll be using in order to do your activities. And this is the core of your project, what are you proposing to do to it to address that need. And then we have outputs which are more numeric in nature and what it looks like when that project occurs down to your outcomes which are the more significant products of your project. And you probably maybe digested that a little bit but not fully, but I think the natural next question is probably, how is the application evaluated. So again, you'll, you'll recognize that in that green checkbox next to it is that the application or the proposed project meets a consolidated plan priority need and national objective projects that do not achieve these two benchmarks that will not be considered for CBBG funding, they won't meet HUD criteria. The next five checkmarks there in blue are the five main criteria that the subcommittee will use to evaluate your application there are also three additional bonus points possible for a new partnerships that are being proposed, a new service that's being available for evidence of being able to demonstrate self sustainability within three years. And the more information on each of these is available in the application guide on the final page where you'll find a rubric very briefly because we've already talked about the timeline and the funding cycle a bit. As I mentioned applications are due in January. There will be more hearings throughout the winter and spring, as well as deliberations by the subcommittee in order to make form a budget. The recommendations will be presented to the select board. And then later to town meeting for endorsement applicants will be notified of their status in the spring and program year 48 will begin on July 1 of 2022. There's a lot of information, but at this time if there are questions about the application process about the application. I'm happy to switch screens again so you can take a look at the application again. So go ahead and raise your hand if you do have any questions. Mary and I see that your hand is raised. Go ahead. Okay, thank you. I have a question about the budgeting piece. So, I'm new to this process so bear with bear with me so you, you have a million dollars that you get, and let's say, one of the people on this call needs a million dollars. In our budgeting, would we put exactly what we need, or would we in our minds pro rate it with the idea that, well you only have a million dollars so why don't we just ask for 200,000, or should we ask for everything we need, and then you would make the determination of how much you would give. I have a question. It could go either way it's, I would say it's pretty unlikely that we would fund one project with the majority of our of our grants just knowing that there are a lot of different needs in town. So I'd say that the some of the key things that we would be looking for would be, is this budget, is this budget realistic has it been created with some research in mind. Are there sources that are contributing to the budget or is CDBG, the only source of funding for it. So I think that's a situation where, especially if it was a new a brand new applicant, we would definitely want to work with you to help you refine the project and, you know, help you give it as best as possible in order to be reviewed well by the by the subcommittee. Great, thank you. You're welcome. Jack, I see that your hand is raised go ahead. So, so the question I have is so the state allows us a certain amount of capital funding on an annual basis, and they call it formula funding. Would that be considered a leverage source of funding in regards to CDBG. Definitely. Yes. Okay. So pretty much any funding it could be our, you know, operating. It could be any type of funding as long as we have an outside source of funding. Yes, if it's, and I should clarify if it's intended to be used for the project. If it's operating. If it's, you know, for example, covering staff time on that project, then that might be where it would be considered leveraged. Okay. Then the other question I had, which, so for the 501c3, I don't think that applies to to us. I have to look at that a little bit more because that's that's for a nonprofit correct so I'm on what type of, I mean I could talk to you about that later I could maybe be a little bit nitpicky, but I can talk to you about that later. Yes, so there are. Yes, of course, other forms of nonprofits and that the housing authority would be eligible. Perfect. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay, are there any other application related questions or any questions pertaining to the CDBG program in town. Okay, well, if there aren't additional questions at this time. Thank you very much for attending. I do want to make just a couple quick announcements or notices. If you have questions, as you're putting your program together. As you're putting your application together, please feel free to send me an email at any time we can schedule a call or a zoom session to talk through any of your questions. So if you're an Arlington resident and you are inspired by this presentation and are interested in serving on the CDBG subcommittee, we do have two openings for resident members. And the application is on the town website on the committee openings page. So I would encourage you to take a look at that if you're interested. We'll be right on for a few more minutes. If you have a question you want to ask one on one. But otherwise, thank you very much for joining tonight, and have a good evening.