Greenbelt ARPA Funds – Greenbelt Racial Equity Alliance

Appendix A: Treasury Expenditure Categories for Recovery Fund Reporting
Appendix B: Program and Services Ideas Related to Addressing Equity and Poverty from Treasury

Recognition

We appreciate the city’s quick response to allocate $1.4 million from its share of the American Rescue Plan Act funds to help prevent evictions, address food insecurity, and support local businesses through the Greenbelt Business Improvement Fund.

And we applaud the Council’s considerate approach to use Raftelis as a consultant to assist in gathering public feedback from all parts of Greenbelt on how the ARPA funds can best be spent.

Need for Clear Equity Goals

We ask the Greenbelt City Council to allocate at least 50% of Greenbelt’s ARPA funds ($11.4 million) to directly address worsening racial disparities from the pandemic, especially for those in poverty, who are disproportionately People of Color.

Without clear equity goals, we are concerned that the City will be tempted to move most funds in easier-to-manage directions like revenue recovery, water and sewer capital projects, and public safety, where fiscal frameworks already exist.

The city has no comprehensive approach to identifying racial disparities and addressing the roots of poverty here. Compiling metrics and developing new programs to address disparities will require developing new fiscal and public service frameworks. This will be hard work, and we encourage Council to make the reduction of racial disparities here a clear priority.

Need for Timely Response

We appreciate and support Council’s intention to give residents ample time to offer feedback on the best use of ARPA funds. We look forward to using the Raftelis feedback process to make ongoing comments and see what other residents are recommending.

We also note that people in poverty in Greenbelt need immediate help in many areas. We strongly encourage the city to immediately begin making assessments on where need is greatest. Gathering current metrics on poverty will be a new direction for Greenbelt and a critical step for responsibly using ARPA funds to meet ongoing emergency needs.

Thus we ask Council to balance immediate need with caution and make $3 to $5 million available as soon as possible to supplement the funds that were quickly disbursed in the last few months.

Discussion

Equity and Poverty

Addressing racial disparities in Greenbelt will run somewhat parallel to addressing poverty, as Greenbelt Residents of Color are disproportionately affected by poverty.

The highest poverty rates within racial and ethnic groups in Greenbelt are for those identifying as “some other race” (18.7%) in census.gov surveys, followed by Hispanic or Latino (12.5%), and black or African American (12.1%). Compare with white (6.6%) and Asian (5.1%). (See A Closer Look at Greenbelt Demographics)

For Greenbelt as a whole,

10% of residents are below the poverty line (1.3 times the rate in DC metro area; 10% higher than rate in Maryland)
for children under 18, the rate is 15%
for adults over 65, the rate is 12%.

(See Census Reporter Greenbelt Profile)

More than half of Greenbelt renters are “rent burdened”:

“Households that pay thirty percent or more of their income on housing costs are considered cost-burdened. In 2015-2019, cost-burdened households in Greenbelt city, Maryland, accounted for 24.9 percent of owners with a mortgage, 11.8 percent of owners without a mortgage, and 52.6 percent of renters.” (Census.gov Narrative profile for Greenbelt)

Treasury Focus on Equity

The U.S. Department of Treasury has been clear about priority use of State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds to address disparities as a path toward equity.

Recognizing the disproportionate impact of the pandemic-related recession on low-income and economically disadvantaged communities, the Interim Final Rule encourages recipients to direct Fiscal Recovery Funds toward disproportionately impacted communities. Recipients are encouraged to design projects that prioritize economic and racial equity and promote equitable outcomes.
(See Treasury’s Compliance and Reporting Guidance: State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds)

Address systemic public health and economic challenges that have contributed to the unequal impact of the pandemic on certain populations.
(See Driving Equity with State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds)

President Biden has been equally clear that addressing systemic racism is a goal for all federal programs.

“Our country faces converging economic, health, and climate crises that have exposed and exacerbated inequities, while a historic movement for justice has highlighted the unbearable human costs of systemic racism. Our Nation deserves an ambitious whole-of-government equity agenda that matches the scale of the opportunities and challenges that we face.” – President Biden

Three key principles should ground agency activities pursuant to EO 13985:
Advancing equity must be a core part of management and policy making processes.
Successful equity work yields tangible changes that positively impact American lives.
Equity benefits not just some of us, but all Americans.

(from Executive Order On Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government)

Our Local Challenge

Greenbelt faces several challenges in addressing poverty and disparities by race and ethnicity. We see ARPA funding as an important opportunity for Greenbelt to develop programs, policies, and new perspectives for addressing disparities and poverty and to focus more broadly on the health and welfare of its residents. Key opportunities include:

Developing metrics on disparities by race and ethnicity and the demographics of poverty in Greenbelt, especially since the pandemic. Greenbelt Racial Equity Alliance has compiled some initial metrics based on 2019 Census data.
Setting clear goals for broadly addressing the impacts of poverty and structural racism.
Creating comprehensive policy, program, and fiscal frameworks to 1) address the complex roots of disparities and poverty that manifest in challenges for housing, food and nutrition, jobs and income, healthcare, education, transportation, and wealth and 2) measure improvements.
Connecting to leaders within neighborhoods most affected by the pandemic to understand needs, challenges, and opportunities.
Identifying and supporting existing groups that are showing leadership in broadly addressing poverty and disparities.

Treasury suggests a special focus on programs for “qualified census tracts” (where 50 percent of households have incomes below 60 percent of the Area Median Gross Income [AMGI] or have a poverty rate of 25 percent or more). In Greenbelt, there are two: 8067.14 (Franklin Park west, including Greenbelt Station) and 8067.13 (Franklin Park east).

Specific Approaches

More specifically, Treasury suggests these approaches to address racial disparities:

assistance to households, small businesses, and non-profits to address impacts of the pandemic, which have been most severe among low-income populations. This includes

assistance with food, housing, and other needs;
employment programs for people with barriers to employment who faced negative economic impacts from the pandemic (such as residents of low-income neighborhoods, minorities, disconnected youth, the unemployed, formerly incarcerated people, veterans, and people with disabilities);
and other strategies that provide disadvantaged groups with access to education, jobs, and opportunity.

services to address

health disparities and the social determinants of health,
build stronger neighborhoods and communities (e.g., affordable housing),
address educational disparities (e.g., evidence-based tutoring, community schools, and academic, social-emotional, and mental health supports for high poverty schools), and
promote healthy childhood environments (e.g., home visiting, child care).

(See Compliance and Reporting Guidance: State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds)

Other specific ideas for uses of ARPA funds from Treasury guidance are listed in Appendix A and Appendix B.