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good afternoon my name is toby parch davies and i'm joined today with my colleague dr dewanda farmer to provide a workshop on cdfis community development financial institutions and the role they play in addressing economic disparities and this is part of a webinar series with the project e3 educate empower and employ project i'm the project director on poverty and disability at the unh institute on disability i focus on rigorous applied research and evaluation in the areas of social determinants of health with specific content expertise in the applicable areas of workforce development supported employment and asset building i have a long established partnership with vocational rehabilitation agencies and community rehabilitation programs having worked for 30 years as a service provider developer researcher on collaborative employment health care and policy initiatives designed to improve employment outcomes and social mobility of persons with disabilities my current projects include a randomized controlled trial study in partnership with the national disability institute the virginia department of aging and rehabilitation services and syracuse university in addition i'm the principal investigator for the granite state transition and post-secondary program for students with intellectual disabilities recently i provided instruction for the community development financial institution funds training designed to increase capacity of cdfis to serve people with disabilities i hold an mams and phd in community economic development and policy from southern new hampshire university and with that i'd like to pass it over to dr jawanda farmer to give some more information about her background i'm so happy to be here participating in this training today i'm dr jawanda farmer and i am the founder and owner of a small boutique consulting firm specializing in community development my primary clients are community development corporations and community development financial institutions i am the ced doctor and i focus on affordable housing finance and real estate development small business development for women and minorities in low-income communities i've worked with the us treasury for probably the last 16 years on a variety of the programs under the community development financial institute which provides resources to low-income communities in addition i'm the co-founder of a national nonprofit smart alec which is responsible for affordable housing uh economic development environmental policies that impact despair the disparities in low-income communities across the united states and i have also part of the executive uh leadership team for an international organization called addie addi which stands for the african diaspora development initiative which is probably a two trillion dollar initiative in business economic development across the united states and finally i also serve as an executive leader a thought leader in the hbcu community working with historically black colleges and universities across the country helping them to develop ecosystems that support entrepreneurship particularly in stem environments so i too have a phd in community economic development from southern new hampshire university which is how dr davis and i have been connected for over a decade and i'm so happy to work with her today thank you for having me today's session will provide information about an important resource in local communities which is largely untapped in trying to solve the problem of persistent poverty community development financial institutions today's session will help you understand the following first it will provide some problem analysis and context for why we need an expanded theory of change around redressing persistent poverty the cdfi fund and its role in mobilizing economic development in local communities that are understanding what cdfis do in communities the types of resources they and strategies for exploring new partnerships with cdfis also it's really important to know what cdfis want and need to know from you you do fundamentally different things but for the same reason to help provide better economic opportunity to persons with disabilities finally we'll provide resource links to other resources that you can follow up with after today's session so the context for today's discussion um you know goes back to the aims of project e3 which is is to improve employment and address poverty but in improving employment and addressing poverty it's important to acknowledge that poverty in being persistent and pervasive indicates multi-layered needs of economically disadvantaged targeted communities so while working to ensure employment opportunities for people with disabilities is critical employment alone is not enough to address economic disparities now even more complicated given the implications of covid and other social determinants for example prior to covid the employment rate nationally of persons with disabilities was significantly different from the population rate of the general population without disabilities we won't know the true impact of covid for some time but it is safe to assume that workers with disabilities are among those who have suffered more layoffs experience health vulnerabilities and are likely at risk more financially than before given the high prevalence of poverty pre-coveted thus it is important to address issues related to social inequality at the community level through new financial instruments and new partnerships to promote systemic change in economic opportunity for persons with disabilities so first i'd like to share with you a little background information on some of the statistics that inform the policy challenge problem as illustrated in the 2019 annual report on disability statistics and demographics multiple disparities exist when it comes to economic indicators and social determinants of persons with disabilities when compared to the general population of people without disabilities in the us in terms of high school 16.7 percent of young adults with disabilities had not attained a high school diploma compared to 7.7 percent of their peers without disabilities reflecting a less than high school gap of nine percentage points in terms of college 15.6 percent of people with disabilities had not attained a high school diploma compared to 38.4 of their peers without disabilities reflecting a college or more gap of 22.8 percentage points in terms of employment the employment to population ratio for people with disabilities with 37.5 percent in contrast the employment to population ratio of people without disabilities was 77.8 percent nearly double that of people with disabilities this amounted to an employment gap of 40.3 percentage points and then earnings are also a problematic in that the median earnings gap represents of 5796 difference in income for full-time workers when comparing people with disabilities to people without disabilities in the us and then poverty again was also significantly different for persons with disabilities compared to the general population for persons with disabilities 26.9 percent of people live below the poverty line compared to people without disabilities which was estimated at 12.2 percent this means that the poverty gap between people with and without disabilities was 14.7 percentage points and getting to other characteristics that are really important to today's conversation has to do with the extent to which people with disabilities are banked or underbanked according to an fdic dc study that was conducted in 2015 people with disabilities were found to be more likely to be unbanked or underbanked in that 28 of people surveyed were unbanked or underbanked compared to 46 of people without disabilities reflecting a difference of 18 percentage points the same is true when it comes to trust in financial institutions people with disabilities are are more likely to indicate a distrust of financial institutions eight percent point difference compared to the general population that participated in the survey in addition persons with disabilities are less likely to own a savings account are less likely but are more likely to use alternative financial institutions alternative financial institutions are things like check cashing outlets such as money orders bill paying services payday loans prepaid credit cards and rent to own transactions 38 percentage 38 of people with disabilities report using alternatives to banks compared to 25 of those without disabilities in addition also reflecting the poverty problem we've previously discussed is people with disabilities are more likely to report a lack of funds to keep in bank accounts so it's not just not having access or utilizing a bank account but they don't have the resources to put in the bank account in addition they report a higher likelihood of banks and feeling as though banks are not interested in serving them and their banking needs as well as just not having access to credit as you know credit is really important not just for qualifying for a loan a credit card but also other really important life aims like being eligible for an apartment qualifying for a job using car rentals as needed and other really important issues so people with disabilities are more likely to not have access to credit as reported in this fdic dc study slide so given the pervasiveness of poverty we're proposing a comprehensive theory of change as a means to change condition while employment and income are critical components to financial security and well-being as the data suggests earnings alone may not be enough to move people out of poverty a combination of inputs are suggested here and are needed to help transform the situation so critical and good rules of thumb obviously for those of you who are vr counselors and employment providers is this whole issue of public benefit protections so many of the people that you serve are people that are eligible for ssi and ssdi so supplemental security income and social security disability insurance those are really really important income supports for people with disabilities in addition health insurance that may be attached to those benefits whether that's medicaid or medicare really critical needs to to maintain those health care protections that are so important to the quality of life of people with disabilities but there are other important services whether that is access to affordable housing through housing and urban development or the section 8 program community-based human service programs for more longer-term supports that people may need and access to transportation resources for accessible transportation those are all really important programs that um we we know and much of our work in the last decade has really been focused on securing access to those things for people and while those are important those resources alone as we know are not enough to affect poverty so the vr program clearly is critical for access to employment access to the services that people need to be able to work and and work at competitive levels and integrated employment but work alone is not enough it's how to use and maximize that earned income so that people have livable wages and or are able to accumulate the resources they need for greater financial security and well-being and so what i mean by that is leveraging as many work incentives as possible as well as accessing other resources that exist in the community such as tax credits so an example of that is the earned income tax credit also other savings programs that help to build financial well-being and one of one example of that is the able account which is a new relatively new provision available to people with disabilities who qualify to save money while not disqualifying them from ssi ssdi or medicaid programs not a lot of people utilize all of these things in combination but our comprehensive theory of change really is about promoting access to all of those things and braiding them together so that people are better off financially and then another piece of that is being financially informed consumers um knowing you know how to navigate the public benefit programs benefits specialists and work incentive specialists it's an important part of the rehab program but what about financial literacy how do you build credit how do you access these tax credit programs how are you a savvy financial consumer and avoid scams and pitfalls when it comes to solicitations that you may receive so all of that is really important and what we're proposing today is that you know community development financial institutions are a big part of it because what what those organizations do and as dr jawanda farmer will share more with you about today is how they affect change at the community level a lot of what we've talked about thus far in terms of public benefit protections and participation in the vr program are things that we assist people with on an individual level basis and what cdfis do is really look at the local community what is the community need and how can cdfis help local communities become economic empowerment drivers so the purpose of today's session is exploring those new partnerships with cdfis to address systemic challenges in local communities through impact investing in local communities to promote workforce development affordable housing and access to affordable credit and banking services such as community development credit unions to offer credible financial services to underserved people with disabilities so having explained and and contextualized this more comprehensive theory of change combining income support programs health insurance vr services and now exploring partnerships with cdfis i want to bring us back to a slide that's been used before on some of these webinars that indicate the top five concerns that are limiting service provision or economic opportunities for people with disabilities that e3 has addressed in their technical assistance package this lack of employer networks lack of self-employment pervasive poverty stressors educational disparity and lack of transportation all of these factors or concerns are things that potentially community development financial institutions have a role in addressing at the community level with the proper partners so with that we're going to move on to the next slide and talk a bit about what the cdfi fund is which is a part of the u.s treasury department the mission of the cdfi fund is to expand economic opportunity for underserved people and communities by supporting the growth and capacity of a national network of community development lenders investors and financial service providers the fund achieves its purpose by promoting access to capital loans local economic growth in the following ways so it directly invests in and supports and trains cdfis that provide loans investments and financial services in ta to underserved populations and underserved communities it provides new market tax credit program by providing an allocation of tax credits to community development entities which enable them to attract investment from the private sector and reinvest these amounts in low-income communities it also facilitates a bank enterprise award program by providing an incentive to banks to invest in their local communities and in other cdfis and through its native initiatives by taking action to provide financial assistance technical assistance and training to native cdfis and other native entities proposing to become or create native cdfis it also has a cdfi bond guarantee program which issues bonds to support cdfis that make investments for eligible community or economic development purposes and finally it provides a capital magnet fund which offers competitively awarded grants to finance affordable housing solutions for low-income people and low-income communities nationwide so these are all resources that you're not familiar with these are these are untapped resources in local communities but as you can see there is a lot of opportunity through the cdfi fund and through cdfis that could be leveraged to address some of the problems that that we see related to persons with disabilities so with that i'm going to move on to the next slide and dr farmer is going to talk more about what cdfis are and the services and products that they offer the community thank you dr davies good afternoon ladies and gentlemen um let's start with what are ces and i'm going to tell you a little bit about the cdfi fund and what are cdfs so the us department of treasury community development financial institutions fund also known as the cdfi fund helps to promote access to capital and local economic growth in urban and rural low-income communities across the nation through monetary awards and the allocation of tax credits financial institutions certified by the cdfi fund are eligible to apply for monetary support and training to build organizational capacity the cdfs funds model is competitive and each of its programs provide cdfas with the flexibility to determine the best use of limited federal resources in their community cdfs are specialized financial institutions that provide financial products and services to populations and businesses located in underserved markets these institutions have community development missions and a reputation for lending responsibly in low-income communities cdfis include banks credit unions loan funds micro loan funds and venture capital providers the cdfi fund through its monetary awards provides funding as well as technical assistance to support cdfis so the cdfi program is designed to provide a variety of financial products and services in the market and these include both financial assistance and technical assistance awards to empower cefas to grow to achieve organizational sustainability and to contribute to the revitalization of the communities they serve these competitive awards support the enhancement and the ability of these organizations to meet the needs of the communities they serve technical assistance grants are offered to community development financial institutes and certifiable agencies to build their organizational capacity technical assistance awards are limited to a maximum of 125 thousand dollars and are used for capacity development that is integral to the organizational sustainability and success of their financial program cdfs often use these flexible awards to purchase equipment to hire consulting or contracting services to pay salaries and benefits or to train staff or board members in addition to the direct benefits of these awards most cdfis are able to leverage their cdfi program awards many times over by partnering with traditional financial institutions private foundations and other funders right and then the second type of assistance they offer is financial assistance these awards are available at a maximum of two million dollars and may be made in the form of loans grants equity investments deposits and credit unions shares which cdfs are required to match dollar for dollar with non-federal funds if they are a core um cdfi which means they have assets over five million dollars they also have ceco what they call small and emerging uh uh credit agencies and these zika entities they don't have to have matching funds and matching funds are not required for technical assistance so i just wanted to make that clear but these um cdfis are able to make investments in low-income communities in housing in small business loans micro enterprise loans as well as us financial literacy and coaching opportunities and so i would like to just mention that um these uh cdfis have began to try to focus some of their lending on disability and so in the last three years the cdfi fund has a set aside of disability assistance dollars this year i believe it was four million dollars and so some examples of how these products and services would have a primary purpose of benefiting individuals with disabilities could include loans to purchase or renovate a building that would house a school that provides educational or social services to children and young adults with disabilities or maybe a loan to renovate an independent living home for individuals with disability pre-development loan for community service organizations that provide transportation services housing services and job training for individuals with disability working capital loan for business that primarily employs individuals with disabilities loans to purchase assistive technology such as hearing aids stair glides seat lift chairs wheelchairs scooters computers specialized software home modifications like ramps and rolling showers and lower counter tops widened doorways and adapted vehicles lowered floor ramps hand controls things of that nature in addition there's financial counseling and transitional planning assistance for individuals with disabilities and their families so the next slide i would want to talk just a little bit um about affordable housing but before i do that let me just say that the cdfi can provide a range of financial products and services for people with disabilities and they mainly focus on four basic products and services those are asset building strategies that support asset building development like 529 able accounts which i'm sure most of you are familiar with um assistive technology um for lending to ensuring that everyone has access to assistive technology business lending and housing and i want to start now by talking about affordable housing and the way that the cdfi fund is able to support key housing initiatives affordable housing and accessibility affordability are key issues and discrimination for people with disabilities people with disabilities experience unique challenges in the housing market this population not only requires quality affordable and accessible housing but they also need additional supports and services that make it possible to live work and play independently in the community research has demonstrated that costs incurred by people with disabilities cycling through public institutions are far greater than the cost of providing rental assistance with supports and so the cdfi invest in housing loan funds that may provide pre-development loans bridge or gap financing uh property acquisition loans construction loans and again these might be used for home modification and rehabilitation right and so um people with disabilities are probably going to have a greater impact due to covet than um those other low-income people who for sure are facing a tsunami of potential evictions uh once the emergency uh temporary restrictions on evicting people has been lifted and so i think that this is a great time for community-based organizations and community development corporations to work with cdfs to identify what their needs are for the dis people in the disability disability community and to help people with disabilities to get the support that they need to sustain their um housing so we really need to think about how cdfs can help um with those efforts of housing organizations so that they don't continue to just build segregated housing and really integrate uh people with disabilities into uh communities uh holistically and if we'll go to the next slide i'd like to talk about uh small business lending and so uh the cdfi is investing in two types of funds they're either housing funds housing loan funds or their business loan funds and under the business loan funds you have small business lending and you have micro enterprise loans micro enterprise loans are generally under 50 000 in some programs it's capped at 35 000 but file purposes here today the cdfi considers loans under 50 000 to be micro enterprise loans micro enterprise loans are often used for startups for self-employment opportunities where people have a skill or a craft that they might do that they could actually turn into increasing their financial uh wherewithal and that is true of people with disabilities as much as it is the general population and so um i believe that if disability organizations create linkages with community development financial institutes you will find a willing partner with financial resources to invest in small and micro business opportunities for the disabled community small business loans may be given from you know ten thousand up to a hundred thousand maybe two hundred and fifty thousand at some cdfis and these loans are usually used for real estate maybe the acquisition uh rehabilitation or new construction uh sometimes businesses use this equipment for equipment loans to purchase new equipment particularly in manufacturing or um some kind of production right maybe if you're a printer then maybe you need new equipment to you know do all the latest and greatest and maybe um 3d printing or something of that nature would be a kind of investment that the cdfi might make in a small business in terms of the equipment loan and then sometimes there's operating capital loans that might be extended to businesses who for example a business that may have a federal contract that's maybe worth three million and sometimes you have to wait 90 120 days to get your payment from the federal government you may be able to access the operating capital loan to float you the first 90 days expenses so these are the type of um lending that the uh cdfas are are looking to do and each loan is going to create at least one job right so this whole idea is to create employment opportunities either self-employment or employment through a business so [Music] it may be excellent idea to see how in your community you can create an ecosystem where you convene disability providers and the community development financial institutions in your market local banks even and talk about ways or the needs you know of your um community what do people with disabilities in your community need is there a need for you know home modifications in which maybe you know the need to get a ramp you know so someone in a wheelchair can get in and out of their home and maybe they don't have five thousand dollars to finance that but they could get a low interest rate from the cdfi whereas maybe the bank might provide them a loan at 18 maybe the cdfi will provide them a loan at 15 and that will feed on the cost of it and the payment might be more affordable and so the whole point of cdfi's is to provide low-cost capital for those in need and low and low-income communities so cdfis are good partners that you could work with now they are seeking ways in which they can increase their lending among people with disabilities so trust me they're anxious to make a connection with you so i want you to um not be shy about identifying uh what your needs are and how creating a collaboration with cdfi's in your market could create high impacts for the people with disabilities find your local vr and understand how their programs the supports and resources that they provide for people with disabilities could be integrated into a cdfi could they provide technical assistance that's unique to people with disabilities that would support a borrower pipeline could they participate in funding advocacy for people with disabilities to increase the amount of funding the cdfi puts out in the market for people with disabilities but the way that that's going to happen is by increasing the demand and so then lastly i think we need um to work with these collaborations and talk about uh what measurements we will be um collecting to determine what impacts are happening with people with disabilities and if the relationships are a good mission fit and are producing real benefits for people with um disabilities and so i would like to take you over to the cdfi website and show you exactly how you can identify the cdfi near you and so there is a searchable database you can find the cdfi at www.cdfi so lucky for all of us out in the public the cdfi has a searchable awards database this is a magnificent tool that's free and available and it's so easy for you to use i'm going to demonstrate for you right now just how simple it is to find out who has the money well first we'll find out where are the cdefs so here's several ways you can have this searchable awards database and there are historical awards documents in the historical awards document you can just go from year to year for a um synopsis and i'll just show you real quick while we're doing this and it'll show you who won the money and so we'll just open this one real quick and it's just an awards book this is the new market tax credit program and it just tells you everyone who won an award how many applicants there were how many geographic locations won how much money they put out right and where and then who all got the money so you can see here everybody who got the money for new markets tax credits right but today what we're going to do is focus on this award searchable database right and so let's just say that you live in new hampshire so we are going to see if there are some cdfi's in new hampshire right so we'll select new hampshire we'll select the cdfi fa program and we'll hit the search we'll hit apply and it will search and so now do you see this there are actually at least 26 entities so i'm going to just make sure we can see them all and so the new hampshire loan new hampshire community loan fund has received many awards as you can see from 1996 they had a million dollar award and let's come on down to the more recent awards and you will see that in 2020 they received 557 000 dollars in an award if you click on them it will show you their contact right so you can see right here um where their website is and you can go over there and you can visit that website and find out you know what they are doing in terms of what kind of loan products they have now i'm going to show you um also another way and i'm going to actually this time really use the award book from the cdfi program okay so we have the cdfi award program book from 2020 and you will see that they made 357 awards at 187.3 million dollars 207 um grants went to loan funds 108 credit unions received funding 36 banks and six venture capitalists um received funds now out of those 17 organizations received money specifically for a disability and um those organizations were 16 loan funds and one bank and 14 of them serve major urban markets two primarily serve minority urban markets and one was in a rural community and so uh what i want to share with you is the list okay so if you look in the awards book it's going to show you who got the money who where they're located what their base fa award is now you must receive a base award in order to be eligible for persistent poverty counties a disability financing healthy food financial um uh finance initiative and uh you can never get both a ta and a base fa you must have one or the other okay now um let us just find out where the disability money is by coming down this column and seeing who has some and so we go here and we find blue hub fund inc right so blue hub fund include see if we can find them in a searchable database right so we go back to the searchable database all right here we go so you see bluehub has 268 750 dollars for disability assistance and you can see here 17 entities like i described received this funding and so just this simple you now have a record of everyone who received funding in 2020 and exactly how much disability funding they have okay so here are all the 17 entities and so here in massachusetts we have the blue hub loan fund now i happen to have looked up blue hubs loan fund and they are an affiliate of blue hub capital which is a national nonprofit community finance organization with a 35-year history of building healthy communities where low-income people live and work and since 1985 they have invested over 1.3 billion dollars to create and preserve 2 100 21 500 units of affordable housing uh 13 000 jobs health care services for 197 000 patients and education and child care for 50 000 children um blue hub received a total of three million seven hundred and sixty eight thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars from the cdfi fund in the 2020 round 650 000 was for financial assistance to expand lending um in texas which is a new geography for them and 2.7 million for healthy food finance and what you're really interested in is the 268 750 for disability fund finance financial assistance for increasing financing for supportive housing projects that serve homeless individuals and peopl with disabilities including physical mental and behavioral health challenges so if you are a disability agency that serves uh provides housing in some way or um with supportive services then you they might make a good partner for you to attract additional investments to make uh new investments here are some some resources that can help you gain additional information about the cdfi um and some of the research that has been done around uh the needs of people with disabilities um the able national resource center is a good connector and there's a lot of work that has been happening with disability providers about expanding the cdfi funds impact in the disability community and the cdff fund is developing a catalog of all of that training and making it available through their access for all program and so while covit has impacted the delivery of that the cefi is working diligently to bring those resources online and make them available to you so dr davies i'd like to just spend a few minutes you and i just talking about um ways in which the disability community can develop an ecosystem that would include cdfis that could really be a collaboration to help um create that ecosystem you know because the linkages already exist or or the organizations exist what is needed is the linkages to be made exactly because you have entities that serve people with disability in the housing arena and workforce development you know job skill training and things of that nature and what we have to do is to convene all of those providers and see how we can develop a continuum of care for a capsule where we all know that if um i'm working on something related to workforce development then these are the disability providers who may be able to help me further that and um really this money is available to any cdfi if i had gone through the database and just searched cdf ads in the state of new hampshire you would be able to see all of the cdf ads in the state of new hampshire right and you could just um pick any of those cdfi's that's close to you just because they don't have access to disability financing today that's your opportunity to work with them to help them identify what your needs are and to develop a financial product that will support your borrowers you know people with disability as borrowers and they will need you to understand the impacts that um lending in communities with people with disabilities has because they don't understand you know able or some of the other restrictions on income that are sometimes barriers to people with disabilities accessing capital exactly and if i could if i could i'd just like to share um that you know those of you um in the training audience you know the workforce pieces is a huge component right because your vr agencies and and vr service providers you have already have a statewide network of agencies that deliver employment services or regional networks of providers um you know the same is true with cdfi so we all sort of operate in our in our areas of influence and dr farmer is absolutely correct what is needed is a convening so by by conducting some of that analysis of the networks you know logging into the searchable database finding out who are the cdfis in your area and then translating what you do which we're attempting to do here today um and and how cdfis can help you accomplish your mission at addressing issues of poverty and economic opportunity so it's really bringing people together it's not asking the vr agencies or employment service providers to become cdfis but rather use the pre-existing infrastructure that exists in local communities that cdfis already provide and then develop the pipeline i think that was an excellent point that you just made i would like people who are in this training today to understand that you do not have to create a cdfi for yourself but you can create a cdfi for yourself if you believe that's the best way for um your people with disability to be served but the thing is you may have to change your mission because the cdfi is only going to provide funding to entities that actually provide financial tools or products and services to businesses or individuals right so um you will probably need to have at least one product and just say for example maybe there's a person or or group out there that already works in this space uh providing um financial support to people who need um assisted technology right so let's just say you already you know you work with people who are deaf and you provide them telephone equipment so that they're able to you know compete communicate with their computer or their phone or whatever and so you already have been providing that then you might already be providing a financial product right and a good example of that um that those of you um in the training audience may be aware of are the assistive technology loan fund programs there are actually some models in and i believe i saw one listed um in the searchable database when you pulled up the disability fund allocation from the cdfi fund but some of those programs including in pennsylvania um those assistive technology loan funds have have morphed into and become cdfis because it started out with a financial product and then when they realized that people don't just need assistive technology loan funds they actually would benefit from self-employment funds so that was a natural evolution that occurred of that assistive technology loan program so it's really getting to know the people in your community the organizations in your community that work in the cdfi arena educating them using your vr data your aware data any qualitative data that you can get on let's say the people who have an individual plan for employment goal of self-employment and finding out what might their needs be and if you don't know what questions to ask like if you don't know what kind of loan program would work best for them that's the expertise the cdfi could bring to you if you can learn and provide as much information about the potential borrowers and the characteristics and the things that they might need and have that convening with these partners it's a really it's a perfect union of you know of content expertise the the cdfi industry knowing the the products and loans that that might best fit how to structure those and then then you knowing your customer base of people that use vr services right right so dr davies let's show them an example they can search by state and by the program and what year so just so that we have a short list that only did cdfs that are funded in year 2020 that are in the state of california and we came up with a total of 20 19 entities you'll see here there's 19 entities this is the way that you identify who the cdfis are now once you identify them you just click on them and then you see okay so beneficialstate.com right so i just copy the link i open up a new window that pop the link in there and i go right over to their website okay and then um we can find out who they are what they do so again if we just look at the cdfis who received funding in 2020 to serve people with disabilities we come down to 17 providers across the country now what we have to do is look at who currently has money but that's not the end if there's a cdfi near you that does not currently have disability financing that's a wonderful opportunity for you to work with them to build their capacity to be able to provide financing for people with disabilities and for them to attract additional resources it's a win-win for your organization for people with disabilities and it is a win-win for that cdfi and the us treasury who has one goal and that is to increase access to affordable capital for low-income people across the united states so what dr davies and i is suggesting is that you work collaboratively maybe convene the disability providers and the banks the cdfis and other financial um like philanthropists even some of the grant providers and get them all in one room and say to them these are our needs so this is the current situation and give providers the opportunity to talk about ways in which the policies right are um uh create barriers for them so you know we start off with where we are today this is the landscape this is the policy that sets out the funding and um these are the rules that may impin for example uh sometimes there are income restrictions on people with disabilities that would present prevent them from earning an income beyond a certain amount but you have to see from state to state those vary in state like california it might be as much as 65 to 150 000 and in other states like nebraska it could be as low as 19 000 right it's the maximum so you have to those kind of things that the cdfi would never figure out without your help so you're a critical piece to bringing resources for people with disabilities so i want you to try creating an ecosystem where you convene the disability and financial partners in your community once or twice a year or quarterly in the beginning until you can develop a financial product that meets the needs and you can demonstrate the true demand right because the need might be building a ramp so i can get in and out of my back door uh it may be you know um some type of equipment that we talked about previously it may be putting people to work what if one of you out there who provide workforce development type trainings right um to uh people with disabilities had the opportunity to partner with someone who was looking to create a new business and would hire people with disabilities right and so how awesome would that be for you to be able to do that or maybe you have you know you work with individuals helping to teach them how to make crafts well what if you could create a retail opportunity for them you know a maker space maybe and they could sell their waste it's just so many your imagination is the only thing that can limit you from developing solid partnerships and creating real impacts for people with disabilities thank you dr farmer um and i just i just want to emphasize a few of the points that you made and and emphasize this one in particular which is you know vr systems are are excellent at helping to um you know uh cultivate um employment opportunity for people with disabilities right um and what cdfi's really specializes in is in economic development right so um like i said before you know you don't need to become a cdfi maybe that's something that down the road that you'll want to explore but this is really about being proactive it's not just necessarily working with the supply of jobs available today but planning for the jobs tomorrow and some of those other really critical aspects of living in the community that need to be addressed in order for people with disabilities to participate as fully as possible in the workforce housing um transportation all of those things um so uh to move forward in in terms of convening you know getting the partners together is really important and then leveraging your networks dewanda talked about um you know build bringing in foundations and banks um all really important players um and another uh content expertise that is really critical especially if you're going to engage in direct lending for self-employment or some other sort of product is the benefits specialist the work incentive specialist that vr will will pay for to help people navigate the benefits because many of these cdfis aren't going to to know how to um navigate those benefits they're going to rely on vr and disability service providers to provide that content expertise so um it's all about the partners and all about making use of the best sources and uses of those funds to accomplish that development goal and we we firmly believe that cdfis are untapped and they're they're a great partner in the future for vr systems we want to thank you today for participating in the session um and we hope to be a resource to you our contact information is available and both my email and dr farmer's email and phone numbers are there let us know how we can help you and we look forward to entertaining some questions from you