The Sky's The Limit for Community Economic Development

This month we have a guest post from Sherry Early-Aden, CANI's Vice President of Operations

CCED offers a business planning course
called Foundations.

In 2010, CANI created a Community Economic Development (CED) department. This department was established to create positive economic opportunities and improve social conditions for disadvantaged individuals living in CANI’s service area.  CANI acts as an agent of change by providing Small Business Loans, financial education, building Low Income Housing Developments, and through empowering neighborhoods and communities to develop and create Quality of Life Plans.

In 2012, the CED department became CANI’s Center for Community and Economic Development (CCED). The Center is a supporting agency of CANI and operates to expand its mission.  Since its inception, The Center staff has worked hard to increase awareness of its programs and secure funding for the activities mentioned above.

In 2013, the Center had several signifigant accomplishments. We received Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) certification, and Small Business Administration (SBA) Intermediate Micro Lender status. Each of these will allow greater access to funding to further our efforts in Community Economic Development.

So, what will we do in 2014? The Center is excited about all the new opportunities awaiting us this year. Our goals include: pursuing a new housing development project, providing $250,000 in small business loans, launching a housing program in Waterloo, Indiana, and from there the sky is the limit.

Watch for CANI in a neighborhood near you!

What are the needs in our community?

Last month, CANI released our annual Community Needs Assessment. This is a critical study for us because it is truly the basis of what we do here at CANI. Our board and staff utilize the assessment to build plans for the future and design our programs in a way that best meet the needs of our community. It is an important read for anyone who is working to help people in Northeast Indiana.

The assessment attempts to look at a number of different areas that impact poverty. While we do not have the resources to be fully comprehensive, it is an excellent tool that helps us see the issues families and communities face.

Our findings this year are consistent with what we’ve been seeing over the last several years. The majority of low-income families are working, but are not earning enough money in their jobs to be economically self-sufficient. These families generally have lower education levels, which is a primary indicator of how much income families have. In fact, if someone has just a high school diploma or GED, it is simply not enough education to earn a self-sufficient wage.

Housing continues to be a critical issue for low-income families as well. While over two-thirds of the entire population owns their own home, two-thirds of low-income families do not. Five percent of those served by CANI have been homeless in the last twelve months. The majority of low-income families pay over 30% of their income on housing, which robs them of the ability to meet their other needs.

Single-parenthood continues to be a major indicator of poverty. This not only deprives a family of the potential for two incomes, but it also creates issues with transportation, child care, and other barriers to self-sufficiency. In our communities, reliable transportation is simply critical to get to a job. If a family does not have child care, they cannot be employed. That is why transportation and child care are two areas that need to be addressed if we are going to help families become self-sufficient.

What we have seen over the last five years is a dramatic increase in unemployment and poverty rates. The damage that our economy has suffered has been felt by our most vulnerable citizens. The CANI Community Needs Assessment illustrates the poverty issues that we face in Northeast Indiana. It is an excellent resource as we continue our work, but we hope it will also be informative for the entire community. I invite you to use it and share it with others. The full study can be found on our web site and at the link here:

http://www.canihelp.org/WhoWeAre/Documents/CNA,%202013.pdf

Fighting Homelessness - Fighting Poverty

I am really excited that CANI has launched two new programs in the last couple of weeks. Well, they are technically new, but are very similar to work that we've started over the last couple of years. The programs are very similar in nature. Both are modeled after the Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Rehousing Program (HPRP), which CANI has administered for the last couple of years in our region.

HPRP was started as a pilot program across the country using ARRA stimulus funds through the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Those funds of course have come to an end, but HPRP was so successful, that HUD has shifted some of its traditional funding into starting a new program using this model.

The goal of HPRP was to prevent long-term homelessness by rapidly rehousing homeless families (or preventing them from becoming homelessness in the first place) by providing short-term rental assistance. This is obviously an important stabilizing benefit, but of more importance was that the rental assistance was combined with intensive case management services. The goal of the program was to make families housing stable by the time their rental assistance ended, which was around nine months.

CANI has served hundreds of families with HPRP across eleven northeast Indiana counties. These families are basically the hardest to serve, because of their homeless situation, and the vast majority of these families left the program with stable housing. It was imperative that we find a way to maintain this program locally, and nationally as well.

I am excited to say that after a gap of about 10 months, CANI is once again serving families using this model. The program does not have an official name yet, although we have been referring to it as ESG (Emergency Solutions Grant) because of the funding from HUD that goes by this name. The program is smaller than before. We can only serve Allen County now, instead of all of the counties in our service area. And the funding mix is much more complicated, but still we consider it quite a victory to have been able to piece this program back together.

We have many partners to thank for this effort. Most notably, the City of Fort Wayne has combined funding from several of their programs to serve clients from inside the city limits. The Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority (IHCDA) is providing about half of the funding. Our fantastic partnership with Lutheran Social Services continues with this program, as they will be helping us provide the case management for the program.  Our local United Way, through its 211 program, will be providing initial screening on potential clientele. And we will be working with area housing shelters in close partnership, as they help families move from their crisis situation into our program.

In total, this is a unique collaboration that combines the services of many different organizations, and provides clients with two vitally important pieces in their quest to become self-sufficient: housing and case management. I am proud that CANI has a key role in providing this program in our community.

The other program that has started is nearly a carbon-copy of the program I've described above. It is called Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF). It too combines rental assistance with case management, but with less rental assistance and heavier emphasis on case management. I am really excited to be working with Veterans. I am a Veteran myself, and I feel that communities need to do much more to help these families with their very unique issues. We have long wanted to do more for Veterans here at CANI, and this is a significant step.

I have written many times about the need to help families meet their basic needs so they can focus on developmental goals. Shelter is at the top of that list. I also believe that case management, and especially CANI’s own Family Development model, is one of the most successful poverty fighting programs that we have. Starting two new programs that combine these vital services is a truly exciting step for our organization and the communities that we serve.