Rockford Sun

City of Rockford Community Action Agency Board met Sept. 12.

Here are the minutes provided by the board:

I. CALL TO ORDER 

Meeting was called to order by Director Parham at 4:00pm.

A. Roll Call 

Attendee Name	Organization	Title	Status	Arrived
Karen Hoffman	City of Rockford	Alderman	Present
Gina Meeks	City of Rockford	Alderman	Absent
Gina Delrose	City of Rockford		Present
Dorothy Redd	City of Rockford		Excused
Jeremiah Griffin	City of Rockford		Excused
Laura Snyder	City of Rockford		Excused
Mary Yoho	City of Rockford		Present
Markayla Herbert	City of Rockford		Present
Mary Cacioppi	City of Rockford		Excused
Ken Oliver	City of Rockford		Present
Jeffrey Bailey	City of Rockford	Alderman	Present
Tiana McCall	City of Rockford		Present

II. NEW BUISNESS 

1. Approval of Community Needs Assessment, CAP Plan, and Work ProgramApproved 

a. Anqunette Parham: Item up for approval is the Community Needs Assessment, Community Action Plan, and Work Plan.

b. The Community Needs Assessment, Community Action Plan, and Work Program were sent to members of the board prior to the meeting for review.

c. Te’Airia Robinson: The Community Needs Assessment has been completed. Surveys were sent out from May to August 31. 301 Survey responses were received back. Surveys were distributed via flyer, email, or in person. The flyer & email contained a QR code to access the survey. This was sent out to residents, clients, and stakeholders.

i. Strengths identified by the survey were education, transportation, and childcare services.

ii. For the family and individual surveys, those responded with needing housing, financial stability, affordable childcare, affordable medical and mental health providers.

iii. Items also identified to be community needs are mental health due to lack of providers, employment, and adult education.

iv. Customer Satisfaction surveys responded with satisfaction of the services provided by Community Action. This received 292 responses. Collection of these surveys started January 2 and continue through today. We are still taking surveys.

v. Residents identified a few areas to improve such as extending hours of operation to include evenings and weekends, online applications, and more staff to have more available appointments.

vi. For the CSBG Work Program, the process largely remains the same.

1. There is one new program being introduced in the new program year. Both Community Services and Head Start will be working on this program. It will be called “Getting Ahead in a Just Getting by World.” This program is a workshop containing 10 sessions. In these workshops, participants will learn ways to stabilize their situation and build resources to restore their lives. Participants would receive a $250 stipend at the end of the series of workshops. These workshops will be led by trained staff. Funding for this is from Bridges to Prosperity.

d. Christopher Greenwood: Housing costs are up. Community Services tries to set up clients for success by helping house residents in need with their deposit and future months. This allows for households to stabilize because they can save money during that time.

i. We cannot influence the cost of housing but we can help offset the cost of moving in.

ii. Childcare has been an issue for the community. Our office cannot directly provide childcare but we can either make referrals or help with the cost of childcare for a short period of time.

iii. For one of our programs, we have been able to help some residents who needed help with mental health costs. The resident could not meet their copay. This allowed for those residents to continue receiving health services.

e. Vote to approve the Community Needs Assessment, Community Action Plan, and Work Plan.

i. Motion by Karen Hoffman. Second by Gina DelRose.

ii. Ayes: Gina DelRose, Jeffrey Bailey, Karen Hoffman, Markayla Herbert, Mary Yoho, Tiana McCall, Ken Oliver

Nays: (None)

iii. 7 Ayes. Motion passes.

III. ADJOURNMENT

The meeting was closed at 4:30 PM

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