Order for a hearing on the state of Boston's non-governmental, nonprofit social sector and charting a post-pandemic recovery.
04360436 Council as Council agreed and offer the following order for a hearing on the state of Boston's non-governmental, nonprofit social sector and charting a post-pandemic recovery. The chair recognizes counsel Braden. Counsel Braden. You have the full. Thank you, Mr. President. Since the onset of the pandemic two years ago, it became clear how essential our city's community based, non-governmental, nonprofit organizations are. Many of these social sector organizations quickly adopted their direct services to meet the moment from a rapid dissemination of information, food and PPE and serving as mutual aid networks reaching thousands of our Boston neighbors. The nonprofit sector is also often known as the third sector because they fill gaps to reach underserved communities, often overlooked by private and public sector services. The past two years have shown the importance of local governments coordination with community based nonprofits to collectively need meet the needs of our residents. While many community nonprofits stepped up to serve our city, the entire nonprofit sector across the country has drastically taking a hit. With smaller, locally based organizations. Serving disadvantaged communities are often being most impacted. The country is experiencing what economists have dubbed the great resignation. Historic rates of workforce voluntarily leaving their jobs due to wage stagnation, rising costs of living and inflation and outdated workforce. Culture with smaller community based social services nonprofits being particularly impacted. The pandemic exacerbated many of the existing stressors with real estate speculation. Long standing nonprofits have struggled to remain in their office spaces. For example, the Brazilian Worker's Center in Allston is threatened because of increasing rents, among many others. I'm sure many of my colleagues can cite other examples. Meanwhile, support from from the philanthropic sector often limits foundation grants to specific programmatic work rather than general operating overhead costs, like rent and paying employees a living wage suitable for the city. In January, the Treasury Department issued the final rule, which outlined the specified eligibility uses eligible uses of ARPA funds to include charitable nonprofit organizations as both recipients of assistance, as well as providers of assistance to others on behalf of the city. That means our goals of achieving an equitable recovery must conduct and maximize impact through partnerships with nonprofits who have existing infrastructure as trusted messengers to hard hit communities. With federal funds, we have an opportunity to strengthen partnerships by supporting the incredible and incredibly important work infrastructure that is important infrastructure the community based nonprofit organizations in our city provide while also establishing infrastructure for long lasting, transformative government nonprofit partnerships that could be sustained beyond recovery dollars. This is an essential step toward equitable and sustainable relief, recovery and transformative future. And I look forward to holding a hearing to discuss envisioning that process for all for intentional investment in our city's nonprofit sector. I also just today and on a similar theme related related to this issue. Mayor Wu has just announced today that 38 million of a $3,038 million to support nonprofit organizations to provide services to individuals experiencing homelessness through by supporting 15 nonprofit organizations that deliver critical services to support our unsheltered residents. The homelessness and housing instability is one aspect of the work that our nonprofit sector does. We have many nonprofits working on supporting families, supporting food access, literacy and job training. There's a whole range of of different purpose, different functions that our nonprofit sector does, that I and our nonprofit sector have been providing essential support for our communities over the past two years. And at this moment in time, it's a timely opportunity just to reflect on what they have done and how we can support them going forward. Thank you, Mr.. Mr. President. Thank you, counsel. Bret. And would anyone like to speak on this matter? Through the share. Recognize this council. And here, council me. Here you have the floor. I just wanted to rise and thank Councilor Freedom for her intentionality. You know, our office during the height of COVID, ended up working with a lot of nonprofit organizations, many of which were small mom and pop shops, oftentimes under-resourced and really doing the work without any real capacity. And I think when we're thinking about equity and we were thinking about making sure that we're supporting folks, we also need to be super mindful of who gets on that list and who's getting that support. And I think that that is an area that we may need to lean in a little bit more to ensure that organizations who oftentimes are doing more with less have an opportunity to build their capacity. And I also think that in terms of some of the work that we've experienced and it's not just there are a lot of folks who are running organizations that don't know how to speak English but have managed to create miracles during COVID. And I think that as we think about how we support folks, we I always go back to this information, just the situation I'm in, making sure that people understand what's at stake and that we're doing our due diligence to build capacity. And so we're really looking forward to the hearing and leaning in and welcome any way that we are able to support. And please add my name as a spot in the sponsorship. Thank you. Thank you. Councilman here, please. That councilman here. Would anyone else like to speak on this matter? But anyone else like to add their name? Please raise your hand. Mr. Clarke pleased. Councilor Arroyo. Councilor Bach. Councilor Edwards. Councilor Fernandez. Innocent Council. Priority Council. Borough Council. Regional Council. Member Here Council. Murphy Council. Round. Plays out the chair. Talk of 0436 will be referred to the Committee on Boston's COVID 19 recovery. Mr. Kirk, can we go back to zero four, three five? I want to see if any of my colleagues want to sign on as a co-sponsor. Going back to docket 0435, I neglected to ask if anyone would like to add their name to that docket. If you would like to add your name. Would you please raise your hand? Mr. Kirk, please add Counselor Arroyo, please add Counsel of Counselor Edwards. Counsel of Clarity Counsel. LRA Counsel. Murphy Counsel. We're all pleased that the Chair. Thank you. Mr. Clarke, please read your. 404370437 Council upgrade and offer the following resolution in support of House 38 Senate 1874 and relative to payments in lieu of taxation pilot by organizations exempt from the property tax.