001simultaneous Espanol presence Facebook live YouTube hello everybody good afternoon uh welcome to this meeting today and we're going to be here transmitting this meeting in the bilingual format our interpretation simultaneous interpretation into Spanish and English if you are here in person we invite you to use uh just to be aware that there's going to be a Spanish interpretation and that if you have any questions or something that you may want to add or say or comments please be mindful there are interpreters here that would like to be doing their best job so remember to use a pace that is appropriate for interpretation and remember that we have to do this in a simultaneous manner thank you for being here and we know that we're all live in Facebook and YouTube and on the EOC personal
002website if you have any comment we invite you to your comments in your uh language of preference thank you oh she did a great job I think she did my job for me appreciate it good evening uh welcome to Fresno eoc's 2023 Community needs assessment Community Action Plan public hearing my name is Isaiah green I'm our community impact manager and we're gathered here today at our local Conservation Corps neighborhood Youth Center here in Southwest Fresno as a Vibrant Community to actively listen to one another so I say thank you for being here I'd like to take a moment to extend a warm welcome to all of you that came here today in person uh and took your time out to join us there online we say thank you your presence is a reflection of your
003commitment to making a difference and ensuring the well-being of our communities also I want to extend a welcome to those of you reviewing on Facebook live YouTube and thank you our partners at CMAC that will also be translating this event from English to Spanish via Zone so it is through these conversations that we can identify the challenges we Face explore potential Solutions and work towards a shared vision for our community's future we'll have three speakers this afternoon Emilia Reyes our CEO who will go over who we are as an organization Kevin Williams director of equity and impact who will present our communities assessment findings and Jack lazarini Chief programs officer who will share how our programs and services address and identify Community needs and the main purpose of this public hearing is to do exactly
004that hear from you the public our community action plan has been online for the last 30 days for public View and also up for public comment our hope is to utilize his time and space to create opportunities for public engagement if you're looking to leave a comment online please do so via Zoom or online Link fresnoeoc.org which is closing tomorrow June 15th at 5 pm so Rules of Engagement if you're leaving a public comment we will first call on the individuals here in public and each person to participating will get three minutes a piece when all speakers are complete here in person we will call on participants via Zoom and call on them an order of requests and we'll be given three three the same three minutes to speak we ask that speakers be civil
005and courteous in language and presentation insults personal attacks accusations profanity vocal language inappropriate gestures or other inappropriate behavior will not be tolerated comments should be related specifically to our community needs assessment and Community Action Plan presented so with that said I want to thank you again for your participation and your feedback and without further Ado I'd like to present Amelia Reyes our CEO foreign thank you community members who are here in person and also for the individuals joining us via Zoom um and also for the individuals who have already submitted comments on our website on our community action plan again my name is Amelia Reyes and I serve as the CEO of Fresno EOC who is Fresno EOC Fresno EOC is one of the largest community action agencies in the country and was established through
006the economic opportunities Act of 1964. it was created to strengthen supplement and coordinate efforts to end poverty as a Community Action Agency we believe that it is our responsibility to create opportunities for all people to thrive to build strong and resilient communities and ensure a more Equitable Society throughout this presentation you will learn about the different ways that we are doing this work and what we hope to accomplish for the years to come when we were founded we were founded with a promise a promise to the community this is the promise of Community Action which is Community Action changes people's lives embodies the Spirit of Hope improves communities and makes America a better place to live we care about the entire community and we are dedicated to helping people help themselves and each other what
007is our mission pretty simple actually very difficult as well it is to end poverty with this we do this with a vision of a strong Fresno County where people have resources to help their future free from poverty we have committed ourselves to working together to accelerate change centering our work around equity and inclusion being trustworthy and transparent being led by Community voice that's us being here and give us Direction and doing this work with empathy compassion and the human connection as a Community Action Agency every three years we conduct a community needs assessment to determine the underlying causes of the conditions of poverty and identify available resources to address these unmet needs to share some key highlights of our needs assessment I would like to introduce Fresno eoc's director of equity and impact Mr Kevin
008Williams thank you Amelia and thank you Isaiah as well for the introduction so living living into our value of being led by communities voice and direction and also as a requirement of our federal funding we complete a community's assessment every two to three years and through that process as Amelia said right we make sure that we know what the current needs of communities are establish our goals and objectives related to those needs right and then gather information from community on what other priorities that need to be addressed and so as we can see from this first slide the property rate in Fresno County is 48 percent for All Families I'm sorry it's 17 and with a female household leader is 48 percent these are excessively High rates of poverty right overall right and so the
009work we do to fight to end poverty is starts with understanding how many people in our County are experiencing poverty we also understand that health and wellness impacts physical mental and emotional health this is especially true for people experiencing poverty in Fresno County about 21 of parents have reported that their child has been exposed to two or more cases which is adverse childhood experiences which is our experiences that are potentially traumatizing and can lead to future health risks so this includes witnessing violence experiencing violence substance abuse problems mental health problems family separation things of that nature also it's challenging is a limited access to health care services right and that leads to things such as lower birth rates higher infant mortality rates higher rates of sickness particularly in communities that are experiencing poverty the price
010of the average meal in Fresno County is about 3.32 cents which is actually about 10 cents more than the state average the rate of food insecurity in Fresno is at 14 but this number doesn't include immigrant and undocumented workers particularly in rural communities it is estimated that more than 142 000 people are food insecure in Fresno County and an additional 23 percent of children are food insecure and through this map we can see with a highlighted and red the darker colors indicate in where the concentrated levels of food insecurity exist in our County now although we know that educational achievement significantly increases one's ability to find higher paying jobs many people in our communities don't have access to that education from this chart we see that about 46 percent of Fresno has a high school
011diploma and only about 22 percent have a bachelor's degree or above again the significant limits the ability to move out of the cycle of poverty and gain access to employment higher levels of employment opportunities Fresno County has a crime rate that exceeds most California counties the rates of gun violence continue to be high with 442 shootings reported in 2022. between 55 and 60 of all shootings in the City of Fresno involve gang members and highly social vulnerable areas which are highlighted in dark blue on the map also on the rise unfortunately for us have been hate crimes especially targeting race sexuality and gender identity and in 2020 7535 families reported some form of violence against them in the county again you see what the the map the darker areas are indicating where there's a high
012social vulnerability and more likely for these things to exist just having employment doesn't actually mean that you make enough to live from this chart we see that although employment rates are overall down almost half the people with employment are not making enough to support their basic needs we recognize that people don't just need jobs they need jobs that pay them a living wage while overall the Fresno County average for housing is lower than the state there are communities in both rural and urban sections of the county where the burden significantly exceeds that of the state in this slide we see that about 38 percent of fresnians are spending over 30 percent of their income in rent alone with the highest rates of severe housing burden which is spending 50 or more on camera your housing
013are in Biola Orange Grove in Huron but again our value is being directed by community's voice and so while we see all this data on where we need to focus it was important for us to ask the community where are the places that we need to address what does the community think is urgent and oppressing when we ask this this question communities said that the most urgent needs include reaching family goals attaining food and physical emotional health so in all of this we ask ourselves how are programs doing this work our programs and services respond to all the needs of communities on the foundation of these four principles equity-based practices which means directing Services intentionally to meet the needs of those most impacted by poverty conditions holistic support which is providing for the whole person
014understanding that poverty impacts the community in multiple ways advocacy using our platform to amplify the perspective and experiences of people experiencing poverty and lastly as we've said and we'll continue to say being Community directed creating programs and services that are able to respond to the changing Community needs and priorities and so with that I will ask our chief programs officer Jack lazarini to come and talk about exactly what our programs do foreign well thank you Kevin and uh it's a pleasure to be with all of you today and for those of you visiting us and and being representatives of the community I want to give a special thank you to you for being here today and being our voice so we're going to get started and I am here to talk more about the programs
015but before I do I do want to reiterate a few things the community action plan that Kevin just spoke about covers six areas of service Focus that EOC looks at and so to recap those we're talking about health and safety Wellness food insecurity education housing insecurity employment and Community safety so next up what we're going to do is take a look at each of these focus groups the goals that we have for each of the areas as well as some of the associated programs here at Fresno EOC so let's do that whoops I think I went the wrong way no all right here we go so in the blue you will see that we have listed here some of the goals for Health and Wellness and first one is increase accessibility of programs and services
016improve referral and intake systems and increase in community outreach and engagement so to highlight a few of our programs which are listed on the white or right hand side of the screen we have our family adolescent Live program this is a program that Works providing pregnancy education and parenting skills for our teenage population the community health center and California prep programs provide education counseling treatment services to those a reproductive age regardless of insurance status our Dental and school based sealant programs work to increase Dental Care access and improve oral health and then our rule tobacco education program provides education to communities about the dangers and increased risk of tobacco related diseases and advocates for smoke-free policies moving on to food insecurity all of these programs seek to address the most immediate food accessibility needs particularly
017in rural communities and they also work to support good health so these programs include food distributions which provide weekly food pantry events through rural and urban Fresno County home delivery of meals to our senior population we have our Food Express buses which provide free meals to Children during off school sessions and then through our WIC program clients are not only provided with healthy food they also receive nutrition education and breastfeeding support all at no cost employment opportunities many of which Services take place right here where we are today these programs focus on providing participants with education with training certification and support to increase their job prospects Readiness and placement so as you can see these programs include our local Conservation Corps our summer youth internship program our Valley apprenticeship connections our Workforce Connection young adult
018program moving on to housing insecurity so as most of us are aware housing insecurity is Big throughout Fresno County and although Fresno EOC doesn't manage any housing we do provide services to meet immediate housing needs so let's talk about those one is our Bridge housing program this is for individuals and families that have been identified or that actually have identified a housing plan for themselves but just need a safe place to live until the Housing Opportunity is actually realized other services assist chronically homeless individuals and or families with permanent housing and supportive services in partnership with Fresno Housing Authority are other programs around housing and security are actually focused on supporting people managing housing costs so our Energy Services includes probably familiar with LIHEAP programs that provide utility payment assistance for energy and water bills
019and then our weatherization and free home solar programs provide housing improvements to increase a home's Energy Efficiency and help the families lower their PG e bills something I think we all can appreciate right alrighty educational achievement is next so these Services begin early in childhood all right and so starting with our Head Start zero to five program which prepares children and families of preschool children um giving them a solid foundation for academic success throughout their schooling years our school of unlimited learning more affectionately known as Seoul provides a comprehensive high school learning experience that enables students who may otherwise not do well in Traditional School environments it helps them obtain skills knowledge and the motivation they need to be self-directed lifelong learners our youth build charter school is a competency-based Dropout recovery school and provides
020high school education for students that come from low-income families and underserved communities who have not found sources or success I should say in Traditional School settings all righty Community safety last but not certainly not least as you can see by the list of programs that are listed here um safety within our community involves many layers including battling social isolation stigmas related to Identity and both physical and emotional forms of violence Fresno EOC has several programs to limit the impact of adverse conditions and supports community members and feeling safe our goals speak for themselves create Community spaces of safety encourage and develop positive communities excuse me I have to read Around the uh the flag here and increase Community safety through violence reduction so starting with Advanced peace this is our gang Intervention Program our lgbtq
021Resource Center Central Valley against human trafficking we have our foster grandparent program and I just want to give a personal shout out to those of you who are actually participants of our foster grandparent program welcome thank you for being here next is our Pops parenting skills program this is parenting program for new fathers very essential wish I would have had that growing up safe place well safe place is actually a designation of over 20 partner organizations with over 250 physical and Mobile locations throughout Fresno County this is where youth can actually turn to when in need of help and safety and finally our transit systems Transit provides a lot of Transportation Services specifically to our youth our seniors and to disabled individuals so I hope this helps to paint a better picture and understanding what
022Fresno EOC is all about and next step we want to hear from each of you so I'm going to turn this back over to Isaiah who's going to facilitate the next steps thank you thank you Jack Kevin Amelia first of all again I want to extend another thank you um to everyone who is participating here today who showed up today to allow your voice to be heard we want to say thank you so as we open up for a public comment again we will start with those that are here in person first every individual will have three minutes and we will give you a signal the last 30 seconds of those three minutes we will have um Karina come and uh hand you a microphone and we will start from here so if anyone has
023a public comment feel free to raise your hand and Karina will meet you with the microphone our plan is being executed currently um I am uh really not obligated to have a dialogue with uh answering questions at the moment but if you do have a public comment regarding the plan we'd love to hear that So the plan is currently on our website if you would want to go to our website at fresnoeoc.org our plan has been up for the last 30 days and it will be up on our website uh for viewing thank you uh the plan will be up there it should be up there for as long as the website is there no deadline for the plan to be visible correct now public comment will end uh tomorrow June 15th at 5 PM
024but the plan will be visible on our website so we did public uh we did publicly announced that our plan has been on the website for the last 30 days um so it has been visible and we have invited folks to view the plan online understand thank you for your coming and thank you for your feedback yes absolutely if you like to leave a public comment uh we will uh allow that absolutely and the schools don't know anything about I have a teacher that thought I was applied from downtown in her classroom so Transit public bus puts kids off the bus when their machines don't read the passes that they have or you wear that you don't see I don't know exactly what exactly what we'll be doing and when you're supposed to be doing
025it now that's just me thank you we appreciate your public comment thank you does anybody else want to leave a public comment if you will please raise your hand state your name not today but the public comments will be added into yes absolutely yes thank you for we're going to ask you to use the microphone please what about is that can you hear me yes thank you what about people like me I don't know anything about a computer I can't complain about nothing oh no Facebook or whatever that stuff y'all are talking about because I already know how to get on how could I complain I have something to say about something I don't know how to do foreign we say thank you for being here today to allow your voice to be heard um
026it's valued and we thank you for that comment yes we were the microphone is headed your way good afternoon afternoon my name is Hester Hensley and I appreciate you all offering us the opportunity to come out and voice our comments how we're going to know if they're being addressed uh when will we know they're being addressed will someone let us know are we just coming out making comments and we'll never know what happens to them will they be addressed at a certain time or will we know that they've been addressed so our plan is to take the public comment that we hear tonight and we are putting together a plan in order to address the things that we hear tonight in order to make change for the future okay thank you thank you I just
027like to say to um Amelia I like that you're with your statement also Mr Kevin Williams and Mr uh Jack all the comments everything they said was on T but even though even things that you showed us you didn't give us no detail into what each thing was uh you know was gonna take transpire all the information you had on the board you didn't have no comments on what was going to transpire with that and Miss Amelia I just want to say to um committee there's two things that I like to State one is that you spoke about the property and there's a lot of poverty here in Southwest Fresno that really need to be taken care of and the other issue was you spoke about is a community at the entire Community with Southwest
028Fresno has been left out a lot I asked some of the work people that work over at uh Franklin Head Start I said why are you only just clean up Franklin they said because they're part of EOC I said well he'll see he's in Southwest Fresno community and all these alleys and all these areas that need to be cleaned up you can't you know I see you out on Hernan I see EOC workmen's the that's what the I see them all over north and east side of Fresno cleaning and raking and picking up all the debris and everything but I don't see anyone in Southwest Fresno doing that and that kind of you know it kind of bothers me because EOC is right here in our community and we don't get that type of health
029and we have a lot of things that need to be cleaned and and get away anyway one of the young men and Esther we have 30 seconds remaining on three minutes okay one of the young man stated is that you have to be a part of the EOC to have these things and to contact the city and let the city I'm so okay the city knows too now you'll see no if you hear and you're here to work with the community and work with the property then those are the two things that really need to be taken care of especially the Alleyways and the South you know a lot of debris thank you Esther for your for your comments thank you hello y'all uh thank you for the opportunity to speak my name is Pedro
030Navarro Cruz I've been living in Fresno for the last 22 years it's my first time attending something like this with the EOC um it was cool listening to the to the presentation it brought it actually I remember that I was a part of the POPS Program like like a century ago when I first became a dad I was like more like eight seven years ago um and so yeah those were good times it was very helpful when it came in the right time in my life so appreciate the work that you all do I don't I don't have any uh other uh really critique for like program for program because I I don't feel like I've uh observed enough but I do have one recommendation um and it does pertain to to the housing situation
031they all were talking about it's uh well I mean there's a lot of things that's really out of our control that have changed over the last couple of years and uh I've just wondered if you all have considered a minimum wage for uh for all of the EOC employees that's uh like a livable wage with all the changes that have happened um it's just it's just really tough out there right there's a lot of people that are bunching up trying to make ends meet um there's not enough affordable housing um the interest rates are ridiculous to buy a house and so I mean again things out of your control but uh the things that you can do to uh ensure a work the workplace just being better for folks right um essentially these folks are
032the ones that make all these great programs run um and so just just fruit for thought that I wanted to share but thank you all thank you again this is a time for public comment for those of us who are here in person if you'd like to make a comment please raise your hand and we will meet you with the microphone staying no more public comment here in person we will take this time to switch to our viewers on Zoom and we will take a few seconds to switch over uh there it is again thank you all for being here in person and thank you all for participating uh via Zoom if you have a public comment please hit the icon at the bottom uh and raise your hand and I will call your name
033and you have three minutes to speak at the one minute Mark I will let you know uh your one minute Mark is arriving and at 30 seconds I will also give you a heads up again if you are viewing online we want to thank you now is the time for public comment via Zoom if there is anyone who wants to make a public comment via Zoom feel free to hit the icon at the bottom raise your hand and we will call on you to make comment we see that Balin van Wagner excuse me if you'd like to make a comment would you please no comment okay thank you good well thank you for those who uh joined via Zoom thank you for those who joined um via YouTube live via Facebook live and that will
034conclude our public comment section thank you all again for participating in this public hearing transcripts and our testimonies from this public hearing will be included in our final draft of the community action plan and available on our website following the board approval of our community action plan a public comment will be open until again June 15th 5 p.m I'll say that again June 15th 5 p.m if you would like to go on our website fresnaleoc.org we will receive approval from our plan from the board and we'll submit the plan on June 30th 2023. again thank you for your time this evening those of us those of you are joining online and those of you taking your time out to join us in person uh thank you for your participation in this process good evening