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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCity of Bozeman RFP Response - MIJA SEPTEMBER 29, 2021 RESPONSE TO CITY OF BOZEMAN REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS American Rescue Local Government Funding, Up To $500,000 - To Address Negative Economic Impacts Caused By The Public Health Emergency To Workers And Households September 29, 2021 City of Bozeman P.O. Box 1230 Bozeman, MT 59771 Re. City of Bozeman Request for Proposals To Whom It May Concern: The Montana Immigrant Justice Alliance (“MIJA”), a 501(c)(3) doing business in Montana is excited to submit the attached response to the City of Bozeman’s Request for Proposal. MIJA, which is based in Bozeman, is the only organization dedicated exclusively to serving the immigrant community throughout the state of Montana. Many members of the immigrant community in Montana, which is predominantly Hispanic/Latino, experience various bases of marginalization and, as a result, are particularly vulnerable to both medical and economic precarity. Compounding this vulnerability is the tenuous working situation of many of these individuals, who work multiple part- time jobs to support their families, which prevents their qualification to receive full-time benefits. During this unprecedented global pandemic emergency, MIJA has responded to the emergent and varied needs of the community it serves: providing rental assistance, groceries, translating medical information, warm winter clothes, assistance for utilities, and various other services to its members. Despite the vigilance of MIJA and its volunteers, and the generous funding provided by various organizations and entities, need has outpaced MIJA’s available resources. As outlined in the attached response to the City of Bozeman’s request for proposals, MIJA has provided information about the organization and its emergency relief program, as well as endeavored to provide information regarding the outstanding need of the community. As an organization, MIJA sincerely appreciates your consideration of American Rescue Local Government Funding to address the economic instability many community members are facing here in the City of Bozeman. We would be happy to answer any questions you have for us or discuss any information that we’ve provided. Please do not hesitate to reach out to the undersigned at saludycomunidad@gmail.com or Susie Rodriguez, MIJA’s Executive Director at (406) 577-2376. Thank you, Amanda Dalmendray Galvan Board Member, Development, Grant Writer saldycomunidad@gmail.com Montana Immigrant Justice Alliance P.O. Box 4803 Bozeman, MT 59772 I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OF THE PROGRAM Montana Immigrant Justice Alliance (MIJA) is committed to supporting immigrants and their families during these times of insecurity, increased deportations, family separations, racial profiling, and hostility. MIJA primarily serves individuals of Latin/Hispanic origins, many of whom are immigrants from South American and Central American countries. During the Covid- 19 pandemic, in addition to its regular services, MIJA has also provided emergency support to individuals and families through its Emergency Relief Program. MIJA’s approach to administering its Emergency Relief Program has evolved considerably as the global crisis continues. In its current form, the Program involves MIJA offering emergency relief in three forms. First, MIJA provides direct payments to qualifying families for emergency relief, predominantly in the form of rental assistance and utility payments. Second, MIJA purchases and distributes other vitals, such as groceries, winter clothing and other essentials. Third, MIJA provides health resources in the form of translation services and free Spanish-language public announcements as well as fosters connections between community members and resources outside of MIJA to assist these community members in understanding and making health-conscious decisions related to their health and well-being and the health and well-being of those around them. MIJA’s Emergency Relief Program has assisted dozens of families and hundreds of individuals. Without this relief, many of these community members would face food insecurity, housing insecurity, and poor health outcomes. MIJA hopes to continue administering its Emergency Relief Program for the duration of the global pandemic and projects the need will continue for at least three (3) more years, until 2024. The attached response to the City of Bozeman’s Request for Proposals outlines the high-level needs of the community MIJA serves through its Emergency Relief Program. We also present MIJA’s approach to meeting the identified need, and other information related to compliance with the requirements of the American Rescue Local Government Funding Program. Our Executive Director, Board, and volunteers want to offer our sincere gratitude for your consideration of providing funding for MIJA’s Emergency Relief Program, which, if adequately funded, will impact several hundred lives and prevent further suffering in a vulnerable, but vibrant, community in Bozeman. II. FIRM/INDIVIDUAL PROFILE Montana Immigrant Justice Alliance was formed in 2012 as a statewide non-profit organization working for immigrant rights. MIJA grew out of immigrant justice work previously led by individual immigrant rights activists, the Gallatin Valley Human Rights Task Force (GVHRTF), and its community advisory board (CAB) called Salud y Comunidad made up of Mexican migrant community members and bilingual community organizers. MIJA joined together all of these entities under one unified “roof”. Since its inception, MIJA has continued to be the only organization in Montana dedicated to work on immigrant justice. MIJA's primary purpose is to educate the community regarding their rights and to connect community members to vital legal, health, and financial resources. MIJA also coordinates events in the immigrant community in order to stem the feelings of isolation that many immigrants feel living in Montana. Through a vetted and private social media page, MIJA is able to reach vulnerable individuals in the immigrant community without compromising their safety or sense of security. Though MIJA’s services are offered statewide, due to MIJA’s office location in Bozeman, the organization primarily serves individuals and families within the City of Bozeman and Gallatin County. This proposal for funding will be directed towards individuals and families who are residents who live within the City of Bozeman or who work within the City of Bozeman. MIJA’s structure reflects our commitment to the community we serve. Our community advisory board (CAB) includes a majority of community members who are immigrants and directly impacted by immigration injustice and poverty, ensuring significant immigrant involvement in organizational leadership. Our Board of Directors (BOD) is comprised of two members who identify as Hispanic/Latino. Two CAB members serve on the MIJA BOD to ensure connectivity from the community “up.” Interested individuals can learn more about MIJA by visiting our website, www.mijamt.org, or emailing us at saludycomunidad@gmail.com. III. MOST RECENT FINANCIAL STATEMENT AUDIT REPORT AND MANAGEMENT LETTER AND MOST RECENT SINGLE AUDIT REPORT IF ONE HAS BEEN PERFORMED IN THE LAST 4 YEARS MIJA has been a volunteer-run organization until 2021 when we hired our first Executive Director, Susie Rodriguez, and Accountant, Heide Arneson. MIJA has not had an annual audit due to the small fiscal size of our organization and we do not have an audit report or management letter to submit. Upon request, MIJA would be happy to provide internal financial statements for your review. A snapshot of our finances: With the support of generous partners, MIJA has raised $66,559 to date in 2021 and has distributed $29,151 during the summer months for direct financial assistance and food/goods to MIJA members. In the prior fiscal year of 2020, the total operating expenses were $25,303 with $20,089 of that amount going to direct financial assistance and food/goods distributed to MIJA members. IV. RELATED EXPERIENCE WITH PROJECTS SIMILAR TO THE SCOPE OF SERVICES Throughout the global pandemic, MIJA has received grants to fund vital services and meet the emergency needs of MIJA’s members. Funding partners in our work over the past 12 months have included the State of Montana ($10,000), Social Justice Fund ($3,000), Morgan Family Foundation ($25,000), Morgridge Family Foundation ($25,000), Dennis & Phyllis Washington Foundation ($9,750), Greater Gallatin United Way ($5,000), Mysun Charitable Trust ($5,000), Town Pump ($1,000), and the SWMT COVID-19 Response Fund managed by Greater Gallatin United Way and One Valley Community Foundation ($17,099). MIJA has distributed these funds and met all reporting requirements for each of these programs. The funding MIJA is requesting from the City of Bozeman would be utilized towards an extension of these emergency services. To paint a picture of MIJA’s recent funding distribution of Emergency Relief Program funding for housing rent assistance, utility bills and food/supplies - MIJA has distributed $29,151 to individuals and families during the summer months 2021 with only minimal promotion of the program. The need is much greater and we would promote our program more robustly with the confidence of having adequate funding available to distribute over the next three years. V. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PROGRAM Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, MIJA has run an Emergency Relief Program that has provided invaluable emergency support to members, including rent support, groceries and other necessities, warm winter clothing, educational services in Spanish regarding the current medical crisis, and personal protective equipment. A. How the program addresses the negative economic impacts caused by the public health emergency, including economic harms to workers and households MIJA has coordinated emergency relief for individuals experiencing job loss, illness, domestic violence, and mental health crisis caused and exacerbated by the global pandemic. Many of the individuals MIJA serves do not qualify for various forms of government aid because they do not hold full-time jobs, but, instead, multiple part-time jobs. Many of MIJA’s members have been directly impacted by the financial, emotional, and medical strains associated with the pandemic. Examples of negative impacts are numerous and heartbreaking, but a handful are offered here for demonstrative purposes. One example of the economic impacts of the pandemic on MIJA’s members is that many of the community members have lost income when they have become sick or are quarantined. MIJA serves many individuals who have jobs that do not offer sick leave. If these community members are quarantined, either because of their own exposure to Covid-19, the exposure of a family member, or their need to care for a sick family member, they will lose any income they would have otherwise brought in during that period. Similarly, because so many of MIJA’s members hold jobs in the hospitality and restaurant industry, many individuals’ hours were cut or they were laid off during government-mandated shutdowns that occurred in 2020. Moreover, many of MIJA’s members are unable to take full advantage of government aid, as they are unable to access foods that they are comfortable preparing, or are unable to access these services because they only speak Spanish and announcements are often only offered in English. As a result of this gap in services, many of these community members have experienced an increase in food and housing insecurity. A high percentage of MIJA’s members experience a language-barrier as they do not speak English. These members are particularly vulnerable to misinformation as they have been unable to consistently access reliable, local information related to pandemic restrictions, risks, and precautions because these resources are infrequently translated into Spanish. It is likely that some community members contracted Covid-19 because of a lack of reliable information and suffered negative economic impacts as a result. B. How much funding is being requested ($500,000 or less, inclusive of administrative fees.) MIJA requests $260,000 total from the City of Bozeman as follows: $100,000 for its emergency relief program for year 2021-2022, $85,000 for 2022-2023, and $75,000 for 2023- 2024. For the period occurring from 2021-2022, the funds would be divided between: ● Rental assistance ($40,000 per year - in allocation amounts of approx. $1,500 for one month’s rent per household - supporting approximately 25 households ) ● Administrative expenses for MIJA to operate the Emergency Relief Program ($20,000 per year) ● Winter clothing ($15,000 per year) ● Food/groceries ($15,000 per year) ● Utilities ($5,000 per year) ● Other unique needs of families and individuals ($5,000 per year) At the end of the 2022 cycle, MIJA would reevaluate the need for each category of funding and budget accordingly. MIJA would undertake the same review, reevaluation, and budgeting adjustments in 2023. C. How the funding will be distributed to households and or workers. MIJA will divide its disbursements between direct payments to families who apply and purchases made by MIJA that are then distributed to members as follows: Rental Assistance: MIJA will provide rental assistance in the form of direct payments to cover all or a portion of monthly rent for families who apply to MIJA and meet the requirements for rental assistance (namely, immigrant families whose financial situation has been impacted by the global pandemic.) MIJA’s Executive Director and volunteers are routinely in contact with various members of the community, both in-person and through MIJA’s closed social media page, and will convey this opportunity by word-of-mouth and virtually in both English and Spanish, Winter Clothing Assistance: MIJA will directly purchase and distribute, likely from a large retail distributor such as Costco, winter clothing in various sizes to distribute to its members. MIJA will prioritize clothing for children, but will also purchase one-size-fits-all mittens, socks, and hats for general distribution to both adults and children. MIJA will distribute these winter clothing items at clinics and social gatherings as well as have them available for pick-up in the MIJA office in Bozeman. MIJA will notify families of these opportunities through word-of-mouth and MIJA’s social media page with announcements in both English and Spanish. Food Assistance: MIJA will likely purchase food in bulk, and repackage it into food boxes, as well as make available smaller denominations (between $15 and $150) for grocery store gift cards. MIJA will also explore additional opportunities to purchase food and distribute it directly to households. Currently, MIJA has observed that many families have had mixed results using the local food bank for their supplemental food needs during the current economic crisis. MIJA has identified a gap in services in the form of a lack of options for Latino/Hispanic families, available at food banks in Bozeman, specifically a lack of the foods that these families are comfortable preparing, including: rice; beans; tortillas; corn products, such as hominy; specific vegetables including bell peppers, onions, and tomatoes; meat; etc. MIJA has observed that food banks are not receiving donations of these specific foods in our community. MIJA will notify community members of its food assistance through word-of-mouth and its social media platform, with announcements in both English and Spanish. Utilities Assistance: MIJA will provide checks in the amount incurred for utilities (electricity, gas, water, sewer, and garbage) for qualifying families. MIJA will notify the community of this assistance through word-of-mouth and its social media platform, with announcements in both English and Spanish. Other Emergency Assistance: MIJA will also make available funds in the form of direct payments or distributed purchases to qualifying families on an as-needed basis. MIJA’s Executive Director and other delegated program volunteers will use their best judgment to determine which expenses qualify for this extraordinary funding. Examples might include, but are not limited to: emergency childcare support, expenses related to relocation for displaced families, and emergency shelter for displaced families. MIJA will work with community partners such as MT Racial Equity Project, HRDC Housing First and HRDC Gallatin Valley Food Bank as possible to support MIJA members’ needs. In many cases, community partners have been restricted in what they have been able to offer MIJA’s members due to the specific cultural needs of our members. An example is that the food offered by the Food Bank is not the food that our community members are comfortable knowing how to prepare and eat and unfortunately donations to the Food Bank do not include our ethnic and cultural foods. D. What, if any, administrative fees will be charged to the program. $20,000 for 2021-2022 or approximately 20% of funding awarded will be used for administrative fees. This will help cover the costs of our bookkeeper’s and Executive Director’s time to administer this grant. Additional admin support will hopefully be provided by Greater Gallatin United Way (GGUW) who is applying for an AmeriCorps VISTA who will likely begin their service in early 2022. The purpose of this particular VISTA program is to alleviate food insecurity for people of color. GGUW has heard they will likely be approved for a full-time VISTA. The VISTA will work closely with MIJA and will be able to contribute at minimum 20 hours per week to provide administrative and programmatic support for MIJA’s Emergency Relief Program including food shopping, organizing volunteers for food repackaging, and food distribution. This in-kind contribution will support MIJA’s administrative costs to administer City of Bozeman grant funds and enables MIJA to keep our admin fee at $20,000 for 2021-2022 or approximately 20% of the funding awarded. If the admin fee we propose is too high and would disqualify our request, please consult with us as we may be able to adjust to a lower admin fee if necessary. E. How it will comply with Federal Requirements MIJA will comply with all Federal Requirements with the funding award including only using the funding for the intended purposes of addressing the economic instability of workers and households, keeping detailed records of its disbursements, including receipts for any purchases, and submitting invoices and any reports required by the City for its federal reporting, in a timely manner. MIJA will make available its financials upon request. F. How it will comply with requirements for City reporting. MIJA will comply with all City of Bozeman requirements associated with the funding award including, only using the funding for the intended purposes of addressing the economic instability of workers and households who reside or work within the City of Bozeman, keeping detailed records of its disbursements, including receipts for any purchases, and submitting invoices and any reports required by the City for its federal reporting, in a timely manner. MIJA will make available its financials upon request. G. How the program (or firm?) addresses equity and the intersectional impacts of COVID-19 for any or all of the following: households below poverty level, people of color, people with disabilities, LGBTQ+ individuals, and people with limited English proficiency. Since its inception, MIJA has remained the only organization dedicated exclusively to serving the immigrant community. This population necessarily includes folks who exist at the margins of society, including households below poverty level, people of color, people with disabilities, LGBTQ+ individuals, and people with limited English proficiency. Many of these individuals sit at the intersection of multiple of these marginalized identities and circumstances. MIJA has been able to reach and support these communities through intentional trust- building and consistency. MIJA hosts a closed social media page that admits only verified members of the community and vetted volunteers. This social media page currently includes 2,100 members, with the vast majority of members living in Gallatin County. MIJA uses this social media channel to reach its members, offer educational videos in Spanish, coordinate free legal and medical clinics, coordinate social gatherings (when safe to do so), and connect community members with others like them living near them to help mitigate feelings of isolation that many immigrants experience in Montana. The social media page posts, both from MIJA and its members, are almost exclusively in Spanish. VI. Proposed Schedule for program and funding distribution (must be fully distributed before July 31, 2024.) MIJA has observed that the needs of the community are constant, so there would be an initial announcement of funding availability in MIJA’s closed social media page providing a form (likely a Google survey) that will ask questions related to funding eligibility and other sources of funding solicited by the individual form submitter. MIJA will work with Greater Gallatin United Way who has experience with grant allocations to ensure a good system is set up. MIJA will review the completed forms and follow up with the submitters to verify the financial need. For rental assistance, specifically, MIJA will explore opportunities to write checks to the landlord directly, but won’t deny funding where a verified family requires a direct check. In most cases, food and clothing will be a purchase by MIJA with disbursement to individuals. In some limited instances, MIJA will give out gift cards for grocery stores. MIJA will announce opportunities for families to secure these food disbursements through its social media page. MIJA will track the recipients and amounts. MIJA would be interested in coordinating with other grant recipients for this funding, such as Montana Racial Equity Project and HRDC, to ensure quality control and avoid duplication of funding with other organizations. As far as a timeline, MIJA anticipates that 75% of the funding ($75,000 of the $100,000 for year 1) for the 2021-2022 cycle will be distributed in the first 6 months upon receiving the award. MIJA would like to reserve 25% of the funds for disbursement during the last few months because of the ongoing volume of needs anticipated during that time. Montana Immigrant Justice Alliance Montana Immigrant Justice Alliance