Recommendation to receive and file a presentation from the Long Beach Center for Economic Inclusion on their progress and activities in their first two years of operation.
And we still have item 12 of the content calendar as well. I know we're going to go to 19/1 and then we're going to do 12. Item 19 Communication from Vice Mayor Richardson, Councilwoman Sarah Member Councilmember UNGA Recommendation to receive and file a presentation from the Long Beach Center for Economic Inclusion on their progress and activities in their first two years of operation. Thank you. So I wanted to invite Long Beach Center for Economic Inclusion here to our Long Beach City Council for an update on their progress over the past two years. And while they make their way forward for the presentation, I just want to say we're incredibly proud of the impact that they've had and they'll share more details . But it's been, you know, over $2 million the port deployed into our communities to make a real difference in people's lives. And at the end, we're going to recognize Julie Lee, who's played a major role in the Long Beach Food Support Network. And so that's it. We're going to pass it over to Julie. Excuse me, Jimmy. Vivian Juliano. Julie's over there. Vivian. She Miyama. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor Richardson. And thank you to the city council, her city officials and the members of the public here today. Hi, I'm Vivian Chumo, Jamar, and I'm the vice chair of the Long Beach Center for Academic Inclusion. And I'm going to maybe share a little bit more about our managing director, Arthur Ashe in Tech. But also I wanted to make sure and behalf of the Board of directors that we thank you for your support through the past two years. From the blueprint of the Economic Development Commission to Lombard Center for Economic Conclusion was formed. And so in the past two years we have been very busy even during COVID and to Northridge and talks going to share more about the work that we've done, but a little bit more about to do it. She's our managing director for BCI. She's also recently been been named the national CEO and president for London's The Center for Island History through to new US leadership. In the past 17 years, she has worked with LISC, L.A. local initiatives to support cooperation. She's also worked with the West Angeles CDC as the executive director. And maybe many of you heard about $250 million funding that came to our region through Wells Fargo. That, to know, was very instrumental in bringing that to our region as a seasoned executive director, economic development practitioner. She's worked in only not only nonprofits, but also private for profit for profits. She has a lot of strength in bringing communities together, advocacy, and she has worked specifically in real estate development and neighborhood revitalization. So through that work, she's been able to focus on affordable housing, she's focused focus on commercial development, entrepreneurship, and she has managed an asset portfolio of about 150 million over at West Angeles CDC. So not only did she manage that, but she grew that portfolio. And one other accomplishment I was on the board of was the Angelo CDC. And when she was able to bring to the community there a it was a 24,000 square foot commercial office project, the West Angeles Plaza. So as you can see, she is able to not only collaborate but also to bring resources to a community. Her awards can range free to many. But I want you to know that she serves on the Federal Home Loan Bank in San Francisco. She's also been on the Affordable Housing Council with the state of California. She serves on advisory boards not only for Southern California Edison, but Union Bank of California. And she also has worked with the Housing Commission, which is with the state of California to new was a graduate of M.I.T. She's a graduate of UC Berkeley. She we are very proud and honored to have her to be our managing director. And also, I want to thank Vice Mayor Richardson. During the time in the past two years, he's worked very closely with our board, as well as worked with the City Council on not only the everyone in, but the economic and equity initiatives that are bringing our city forward. So thank you very much for your support. Please join me to Noah and share more about the work of ABC. I think it's clear. Thank you so much to Viviane, who is the vice chair of the Long Beach Center for Economic Inclusions Board of Directors. I'm Tina THRUSH, intern and just so proud that the board asked me to not only come and join their ranks of the board, but to assist as their managing director. Today, what I'll be providing is just a brief overview of some of the accomplishments of the Long Beach Center for Economic Inclusion. And you'll get to see that that work is not done by one but a group of people, including our board of directors and our staff. Some of you may know a few years ago the city partnered with various council members here to make sure that we had an everyone in implementation plan that built upon the city's blueprint for economic development. You'll see here several reports that are listed there. And we're happy to say that not only did we meet with the community, engage with city stakeholders, as well as those from across the region to identify strategies around economic inclusion. Next slide from there. The Long Beach Center for Economic Inclusion was born focusing on issues of small business and entrepreneurship, workforce and youth development, housing and homeownership, as well as economic resiliency and connectedness. We wanted to make sure through our work that we serve those communities that have historically received a little less investment than other parts of the city or were in need of additional support for a variety of reasons, not the least of which included being low and moderate income communities. Those listed there include the north, central and west part of Long Beach. So over the last couple of years. Next slide. More than $2 million in resources have been leveraged to ensure that the Long Beach entire community had access to those. The pictures that you see listed here represent some of the activities of BCI. So how does that work get done? Next slide. With the help and support of our Board of directors at this moment, I'd like to ask our board of directors to please stand and be recognized. We have the Honorable Yvonne Benitez, Johnathan Chief Coleman, Sharon Diggs Jackson, Carl Kemp, Suni Chang, Eric Romero and Vivian Shimura. A round of applause for our board of directors. These folks have worked tirelessly, some of which we've started with the organization and getting it going. We also want to thank our staff who are here as well. Emily Kazim We have Jeff as well. Many of you know, please stand and Julie Leigh as well. Next slide, please. So I was hoping the vice mayor would talk about a number of our programs, but we're really excited about the small business work that we're doing. And I want to point out our CEO Small Business Forum that we held in 2021, focusing on entrepreneurs here in Long Beach, making sure that they're able to really get through during this tough time during the COVID pandemic and to create a peer network among them. We have also created several other networks for restaurant owners, owners and other support for small businesses throughout the city. We also next slide have our financial literacy programs. This program we're really proud to have partnered with Farmers and Merchants Bank on providing services in both English and Spanish, as well as stipends for those who were able to complete the program so they could really establish a credit, a bank account to get on the road to homeownership. Next slide, vaccine and COVID education. We know that parts of our city and some of our residents were falling behind and accessing the vaccine. And we took effort to make sure that community members had access to that next slide. This year, in 2022, we're very proud to announce a partnership with Wells Fargo, which we call the Black Wealth Initiative, really a response to the need to increase homebuyer education and access to employment resources in our city. We've already started hosting our first home buyer education class that sold out and look forward to additional work later this year. So next slide, where's I close for today? When you think about where you were during the pandemic, what were you doing? How were you supporting your community? One of the things that Lisa I can be proud of is that we pivoted our programs to make sure that everyone was fed. We led a collaboration of more than 25 local nonprofits and organizations, secured more than £600,000 of fresh food and produce and serve more than 4500 households. That network, we believe, served about 25,000 people, about 5% of the Long Beach population. And we helped those organizations access resources. Today, we're very proud to say that the leader of that work within I with Julie Lee. Yes. Julie Lee, a force for good during a time when people needed it most, brought her experience of more than 30 years to BCI and helped to lead this coalition. We list some of the organizations here who applaud and stand with BCI under Julie's leadership today. We look forward to working with this council to be able to recognize Julie for her heroic efforts and work during the pandemic and making sure that all of Long Beach was fed. Thank you. I'll turn it back over to the vice mayor. All right. Let's hear it again for Long Beach Center for Economic Inclusion, Inclusion and their brave board of Directors. Councilmember Turanga. Thank you, Senator, for including me in this. I think it's a wonderful program. You do a lot of great work. And I was out there for some of those food distribution events that you had out there, and the response was just absolutely wonderful to see a lot of people that were in need and to get the free food that they had. And you have a wonderful board Director-General, many of them very committed individuals who are basically all about Long Beach and thank you for all the work that you do and thank you for your leadership. Fantastic. Thank you, Councilwoman Ciro. Thank you. Yes. So I just want to congratulate you on two years, especially when you started I think you started during the pandemic. So just really hit the ground running and really doing what's true to your mission. And I'm looking forward to the ways that to seeing the work on the ground and this recovery period, because if you made it through and did great work during the pandemic, I can't wait to see what you all do in this process of after the pandemic. So just, you know, very excited to hear about the Black Wealth Initiative. I think it's very much needed in light of the conversations that we've had. And this is one I think, Julie, I've seen her at all of these food giveaway events and also doing digital divide work, I think bridging the digital divide, getting the word out with the cities program. So thank you very much. Looking forward to the work ahead. All right. Thank you, Councilwoman Zendejas. Thank you. Very smart. Your congratulations. I just couldn't be more proud of you guys. The thing is, everyone in implementation plan is based on a concept that, though shouldn't be new, is new to us. And congratulations on everything that you've been doing with it. It is it embodies the concept of inclusion and a power of the power that exists that when when something is created with such a powerful concept behind it, where it really focuses on everybody being able to thrive, I also valued the opportunity to discuss and receive this presentation on the on the operation of the center, because it is important that we all know what is going on behind the scenes. We are see you guys out in the community Bitcoin as the results showing us the numbers, the data and all the progress that you've made in these short two years just gives me so much hope for what this program can do in the next five years. So I know that we're in good hands and we're in good hands because this this this organization is powered by so many amazing people that really care about the future of Long Beach. And for that, I thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman Allen. Yes, I thank you, Vice Mayor, for bringing this item forward. And thank you, Mr. Mueller, for your awesome presentation. It's definitely great to learn all the incredible work that the Long Beach Center for Economic Inclusion has been doing and just how many resources were provided during especially during the pandemic. It's it's just incredible to see all the work that you have done in two years. And the the center is just literally hit the ground running and in definitely serve so many of our underserved neighborhoods in Long Beach. You already know this to know about organizations like the center really make a difference in our communities and and have a positive impact on all of our residents. So just thank you again for your presentation. Thank you for being here. And just thank you for all of your hard work. Thank you. Councilman Price. Thank you. And I wanted to thank you, too, for the presentation and the opportunity to see everybody that's working on the board and behind the scenes. I learned a lot tonight from the presentation. There are a lot of people involved in this effort that I didn't know were involved in this effort. I've had the privilege and the honor to work with Julie Lee, of course, in her work at UCO, and she's fantastic. And so and I welcome you to your new position. That's pretty awesome. Your new title, I guess. I don't know. It's is sort of a new position. Leadership role. Well, that's welcome. Yeah. I don't know what to call it, but. But there was a nice introduction of yourself. Welcome and thanks for the presentation. Fantastic. Thank you. We do have one public comment, so I can say if you want to come forward now. Hm. So I can be District six resident. Big fan of the work that's coming out of LPC. I, um, I partnered with a couple of, uh, religious entities during the COVID response to the Food Support Network that they have. So, uh, they help feed a lot of hungry people during the, this last year and, uh, a lot of communities that wouldn't have had access to a lot of the, you know, those boxes without the aid of ABC. I so appreciate her value their work. As my Councilperson reiterated, I'm much excited about the Black Wealth Initiative. I saw the, uh, good opportunities that are coming along with the relationship the LPC has with with Angela's and excited to see the first time homeowners that come out of this that are locally here in Long Beach. So thank you. All right. Thank you. So we're going to invite the group up. And if the council wants to come down, we have a recognition for Julie Lee and I'll just say thank you to two years in. Right. You answered the call. You stepped forward at a very difficult time. And I'll tell you, the sky's the limit. Continue. You stepped up when the city called and said, we need a community development corporation to step forward and meet all of these needs in our city. And you stepped forward to do so. And so I can't wait to see what the future holds. So thank you so much. And we have this proclamation for you now. Thank you. Members, please cast your vote. Councilman Santo has. Councilman Zandi has.