Bike, Walk, and Wheel Week

In an effort to prepare for full participation in Bike, Walk, and Wheel Week, and an ongoing commitment to reduce my carbon footprint, improve my health, save gas money, and be a role model for my son, I rode my bike to work today. Hayden asked why I was doing that as I rolled out of the driveway and I hollered over my shoulder, "To save the planet!" I love that he still thinks I'm a hero. :) As I was riding in, I thought about all the things CMCA is doing to model "green living." First, we have an informal, internal agreement that anything we build from this point forward will include elements of energy conservation and "green" strategies. From the transitional housing unit we are designing in Columbia to single family homes in Vandalia and everything in between, we're considering the materials we use, the facing of the facility, the "tightness" of the housing stock, and the carbon footprint. Our weatherization program itself is designed to create energy efficiency in an effort to decrease utility bills and increase the housing quality for the families we serve. When an eligible families applies, we do an energy audit to determine where repairs and renovation would have the most impact and then seal the home up based on those recommendations by replacing and caulking windows, fixing holes and leaks, adding insulation to floors, walls, and attics, etc. Savings generated from these efforts are nearly $350 per home (around 30% of their utility costs!) and return about $1.40 for every dollar we spend. We also partner with various volunteer groups to wrap water heaters and take minor steps to reduce energy use in senior housing and have an air conditioner replacement program with the City of Columbia to replace worn out, inefficient window units with Energy Star units. Our energy department is getting in the act too. While the idea is to help pay utility bills for low-income clients, we know that high utility rates are disproportionately effecting the poor. The most effective way to help folks to be self reliant is to help them decrease their utility bill (unfortunately the State only provides enough Weatherization funding to serve less than 1% of eligible households). Ironically, they are also the least likely to afford expensive CFLs so we're helping to provide these energy efficient bulbs to our clients. Do your part by pledging to change your own lightbulbs as part of our campaign to Change a Light, Change the World. Lastly, we're looking at our own habits. By turning off lights in unused spaces in our offices, recycling everything possible, and promoting constant thought about where to reduce energy consumption, CMCA is joining the ranks of organizations that have already made this a priority.

So back to my original subject, Bike, Walk, and Wheel Week is next week. Please consider signing up and committing to schedule more activity in your life. Here's a comment from Ian Thomas, Executive Director of the PedNet Coalition,

"The seventh annual Bike, Walk, and Wheel Week (BWWW) starts on Saturday, and we're hoping to break last year's record of 3,450 participants. If you can build some walking or biking into your schedule during the week of May 3-10, please go ahead and sign up at www.pednet.org or www.getaboutcolumbia.com. The kick-off event this Saturday (May 3) features the dedication of the new Flat Branch Park pedestrian bridge at 1:00 pm followed by welcoming comments from Mayor Hindman and Richard & Patty King (this year's BWWW honorary chairs), the Celebrity Bike-Car Challenge, the "Float your Boat" children's activity, Ironweed Bluegrass, ArtCycle, and $1 off admission to the YouZeum with your BWWW t-shirt. Friday, May 9 is Breakfast Stations Day when you can pick up a free breakfast at any of eleven locations around town if you're biking, walking, or wheeling. And if, in these times of increasing gas prices, you're thinking about giving bike commuting a try, check out the various classes on safe cycling, commuter tips, and basic bike maintenance."

Board Challenge

The CMCA board met last night and had some excellent discussion. Thanks to all who attended. The general theme for the evening revolved around our housing responsibilities, most of which fall under our first and third strategic commitments. 1. Engage the community to assure that all people have their basic needs met; and 3. Build community capacity to enhance economic and community assets. Some of the board members expressed some concern over our involvement in tax credit development deals. In a nutshell, the state of Missouri created the Missouri Housing Development Commission to support the development of affordable housing throughout the state. Developers apply for tax credits to fund their development, they sell those credits to syndicators (investors) that turn the credits into cash for the building project. The developers are required to have non-profit partners to keep the playing field level. That's where we come in. As non-profit partner we generally get some small portion of the developer fee (the profit from the development) and have the responsibility of certifying that the new development makes apartment units available to tenants with low-income and that rents constitute less than 30% of their household income. Generally there is a sense that developers are getting rich by taking advantage of these arrangements and that not enough of the tax credit dollars actually make it into the project itself. A couple of things come to mind when I hear that. First, without this arrangement I do not believe that we would see the development or rehabilitation of quality affordable housing in Missouri. If a developer can't make a profit, why would they do it? Also, the developers are the ones taking the risk. Their entire profit comes immediately after the completion of the building phase. Apartment rents are kept so low that there is little or no profit to be made managing them over the life of the structure, unlike market rate developments where the rent provides ongoing profit. Most importantly, the conclusion I have come to (and more importantly, that the board has endorsed), is that as a non-profit with commitments to provide affordable housing, WE should be in the driver's seat on these developments. If CMCA acts as the developer, the "profit" goes back into our programs and services to serve our communities even better. That leads me to the challenge the board presented last night. One of our directors attended the Community Action Capitol Development Enterprise conference with two of our staff and came back fired up about new opportunities and thinking outside of the box. She challenged us to follow through on our Transformation Plan (more to come on that) by generating revenue for the agency in all new ways. Federal funding for our programs has been stagnant or declining for years and we have to think differently about our revenue options if we take our mission seriously. I heard that message loud and clear and am excited to continue moving our organization in that direction.

The Great Funding Roller Coaster

Funding for community action agencies is like a roller coaster. Six months ago I was worried that we were going to use more than $300,000 in agency reserve funds to account for deficits in Workforce Investment Act (WIA) programs, Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), Community Services Block Grant (CSBG), Head Start, Weatherization, and Foster Grandparents. Today, I am confidant we will make it through the year with a balanced budget for the first time since I have been at CMCA. We have leveled the roller coaster through tireless advocacy, innovative and responsible management and budgeting, and a little bit of luck. Let me explain. Two of our programs experienced "rescissions" this year. Essentially that means our federal funders decided that they can't really afford the contracts we have in place. WIA experienced a rescission of more than $100,000 and Foster Grandparents experienced a $7,000 rescission. Our employment and training department was already spread thin by hiring freezes required by our contractor and ever increasing demands. We planned to maintain our current staffing and absorb the deficit from our CSBG reserves to see if funding is restored next year while seeking additional grants elsewhere in the meantime. Joyce Davis was relentless in her pursuit of additional funds and worked with Anita Sanderson and the Central Region Workforce Investment Board (CWIB) to restore the entire deficit last month. LIHEAP and CSBG were written as deficit budgets last year because there is just more work than we have staff to accomplish. In January and February however, Missouri granted more LIHEAP funds that both filled our staffing needs and compensated some of our CSBG staff who had been doing LIHEAP work. Angela Hirsch and Anita worked diligently to rework the budget with these changing parameters to live within our means. Head Start funding has been stagnant for years. The only increase we have seen in the last seven years has been a 1.5% cost of living increase that didn't even come close to catching up to all of our rising costs. During that time more of our teaching staff has earned degrees and national accountability measures have squeezed our budget tight. Mernell King is a brilliant manager that has been able to re-organize our Head Start structure (twice in the last two years) in a way that both makes our budget work and maintains a high level of quality. Significant grants have been written and awarded to her team for Healthy Smiles, Connect for Kids, and Fathers First, and more are on the way. The initiatives help to support our administrative costs and enhance the quality and comprehensiveness of our Head Start program and agency. Our Weatherization program (Wx) also experienced a budget hiccup that was just bad timing. The state changed one of its regulations about how we are funded and the end result was the $47,000 from a '07 contract with Ameren got lost in the shuffle. After going around and around with Ameren and the Department of Natural Resources (our Wx funder), Teresa House found a solution that everyone can agree on. It is not a perfect solution as we still feel like we are losing $47,000 but it won't hit us until next year when we can at least plan for it. The point of all of this is that this is no way to run an organization. Our state and federal governments are not supporting our programs consistently and I believe that we have to find revenue from different sources that at least give us some control over how much we get and how we use the funds. To that end, we continue to plan for fund raising strategies and social enterprises that will generate revenue we can use to plug holes in our grant budgets and ultimately move us closer to our mission of empowering individuals and families to achieve self-reliance.

Inflation Hits the Poor Hardest

I realize how difficult it is to keep up with a blog each time a month slips by and I realize I haven't posted anything!

Today's entry is easy. We are all feeling the pinch of rising costs (it shouldn't cost $50 bucks to fill the gas tank of a HONDA!) but who feels it the most? You guessed it, those who can least afford an increase of bread, milk, and gas. What's worse, the price for these staples is going up faster than the price of items that we can cut back on like cars or restaurant meals. This article from the front page of the Washington Post a couple of weeks ago provides some excellent food for thought. This article was brought to my attention by the Community Action Partnership, our national Community Action presence. They are doing a great job of bringing the reality of poverty to our national leaders.

For those of you who have been following my school board exploits, you might wonder how I can feel good recommending a tax levy increase in Columbia despite the situation described above. First, I don't feel good about it. Ultimately though, education is one of the best ways to mitigate the effect of recession. A strong public education system provides an important draw to employers who are looking for qualified employees, prepares students for higher paying jobs and post-secondary education options, and increases the quality of life for everyone in the community. Supporting education is the right thing to do for our economy and everyone effected by the current economic climate.