Our world has dramatically changed over the past few months. All of us, even if we’re just staying at home, are addressing the COVID-19 pandemic. And all of us are striving to adjust to the “new normal”.

For MACDC, this means we haven’t changed our mission or vision, but we have responded to the crisis by increasing the work we do to help ensure that our members have the resources to respond to the needs in each city and town in which they work.

We wanted to highlight our activities since mid-March.As the pandemic continues, we will continue to update and modify our activities in response to the needs of our members and the communities they serve.

CLICK HERE to see our full report (PDF)

Factors to consider in Reopening CDC Offices

On May 18^th, Governor Baker released his much-anticipated Reopening Massachusetts plan. Governor Baker’s plan divided businesses into four phases indicating when they could expect to re-open, often in limited capacities. Phase II began on June 8.

Reopening Massachusetts allowed offices outside of Boston to reopen at 25% capacity beginning on May 25^th and offices within Boston to reopen at 25% capacity as of June 1^st. Offices’ ability to reopen is predicated on their adopting necessary precautions, such as screening, social distancing, and requiring personal protective equipment, such as masks. Further, Reopening Massachusetts encourages offices to allow employees to continue to work from home when feasible. Just because a business has the legal green light to reopen doesn’t necessarily mean that the inherent risks and necessary precautions are worth the advantages of “going back to business as usual.”

As the state has begun to move toward reopening, MACDC has convened CDCs to engage in a discussion about how they are going to approach this process.  While all CDCs face some of the same challenges, there are also significant differences – CDCs range in size from two or three employees to two or three hundred employees; some CDCs have plentiful free parking and others have employees who rely on public transportation; some CDCs offer programs that are difficult to sustain remotely such as child care and youth programming; and, of course CDCs, have different physical offices and different abilities to physically distance staff.  As with so much in community development, one-size won’t fit all. 

That said, there are many reasons that CDCs, and other offices, are exercising caution before reopening physical spaces:

• Even if an organization has done everything it can to ensure social distancing while in the office, employees still need to get to the office. While some workers have access to private cars or can commute by foot or bicycle, many rely on crowded buses and trains;
• Until daycare and other activities for children resume, parents and guardians may not be able to leave their homes during the day without adequate childcare;
• Benefits to a limited reopening may be minimal: with staggered schedules and necessary social distancing, colleagues may not have significantly more opportunities to collaborate than they would working from home. Potential for in-person collaboration will be further limited because of necessary restrictions on outside visitors.

Beyond concern for employees, it is important to consider the role that reopening offices will have on community spread of COVID-19. In addition to essential businesses, which could remain open even before Governor Baker’s reopening plan was in effect, many retail businesses cannot thrive and succeed without reopening. It is incumbent upon organizations that have found productive and sufficient ways to operate with employees working remotely to continue to do so, in order to prevent and slow community spread.  These are among the reasons that MACDC employees are going to continue working largely at home until the beginning of September and all MACDC meetings and events will be done remotely at least through Labor Day.

Despite all of the reasons to be cautious in reopening, we know that some CDC activities cannot be done remotely. Construction, construction oversight, repairs, childcare, resident services and other functions cannot be done from home – or at least cannot be done fully from home.

 We also know that for some CDCs and other organizations, bringing employees back to the office is important from a racial equity perspective. The jobs that can most easily be done at home are often the positions that have a larger percentage of white employees and vice versa. Therefore, for some CDCs, equity means bringing all employees back to the office, regardless of their job description.

It is important that every CDC carefully weigh all of the factors in determining when and how to reopen its offices.

Operating in the “new normal”

In mid-March 2020, the way we worked changed significantly. Home laptops suddenly started logging remotely into servers for most of a workday. Office voicemail was updated with away messages and notices that it’s being checked regularly. Video conferencing didn’t become an extension of an in-person meeting, but it became the primary way we collaborated.

It’s likely that even as our offices reopen partially, we won’t go back to operating our organizations as we did in February.  Until there are effective treatments and maybe a vaccine, the COVID-19 pandemic will require many of us to continue to work remotely, at least partially, for some time.  To ensure we are successfully achieving our organization’s mission and vision, we must evolve our business practices and embrace the current IT model of cloud-based computing.

To be sure, many organizations have already made significant strides toward, if not fully adopted, new operation processes that allow for less interruption.  Laptops, cloud PBX phone systems, online file storage and databases allow for incredible flexibility in our ability to work collaboratively while we are physically distant from each other.  Many organizations are using Salesforce or another CRM to help them support and streamline their day-to-day work functions.  Other organizations moved away from office-based servers and embraced cloud file storage years ago.

The initial capital investment in new computers can be daunting, but funds can be raised for these costs.  Grants and solicitations should be made expressly for this purpose.  Migrating to online accounting systems and learning more about cloud PBX phone systems, secure email protocols to replace faxing of private information should all be addressed.  It is also critical to adopt new transmission and storage protocols to ensure control of client, resident, and employee confidential information. These investments will pay dividends long after the pandemic is over.

All of this may seem overwhelming, but many organizations are already well on their way to accomplishing their IT and operations goals. And it’s not something to do on your own. Many CDCs already contract for outside IT consulting.  Call them first to put together a plan that can be adopted in phases.  Providing options for distance work that can address an organization’s needs is vital for long-term productivity.  Efficient utilization of this technology can ensure that the organization’s focus is maintained as neighborhoods and towns reopen, while facilitating remote work to limit community spread of Covid-19.

Those interested in learning more about how CDCS are navigating the reopening process should contact Elana Brochin, MACDC’s Program Director of Health Equity, (elanab@macdc.org) or John Fitterer, MACDC’s Director of Operations (johnf@macdc.org).

MACDC stands with those protesting the murder of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and countless other African Americans in our Country. 

We see these events as manifestations of centuries of white supremacy culture and institutionalized racism upon which this country was founded and which clearly persist to this day. We share the anger, frustration and sadness that these events provoke and the determination to help find a positive path forward.

We recognize that the structural racism, and the individual-level bias and bigotry, that we see in our criminal justice system is not unique. We see it in our public health and health care systems as the COVID-19 pandemic inflicts disproportionate harm on communities of color. We see it in our economic system as people of color once again bear a disproportionate share of the pain in our current economic crisis. We see it in our educational, housing, transportation and environmental systems. And, of course, all of this is directly connected to the inequities in our elections and political structures where voter suppression and unequal representation reinforce the status quo.

In recent years, MACDC has updated its mission statement to reflect a commitment to racial equity. We’ve adopted racial equity as an explicit organizational value and made it a priority in our strategic plan. We have mandated anti-racism training for our staff. We have held forums and launched programs to reverse inequities in our own organization and field. We have campaigned for policies that would reduce racial wealth and income inequality. Yet, all of this feels inadequate to the challenge. We ask ourselves - what more can we do? How do we need to change – individually and organizationally? What’s our role? We look for answers, or even steps toward possible answers. Can this moment and this pandemic be the impetus for something new?

The truth is that we don’t know. 

What we do know is that all of us and each of us must commit to doing the hard work before us. So amidst our grief and anger, we take strength from being in community with all of you and in solidarity with the broader movement for justice sweeping our Country. And we will take heed of the words of our friend and teacher Mel King:

“Love is the question and the answer.”

The Department of Housing and Community Development announced on Friday, May 15, 2020 that they would be using newly available CDBG money from the CARES Act to support housing relief, micro enterprise grants and social services.  The funding notice calls for $10 million to be used for rental relief in non-entitlement communities (largely rural and suburban communities) and to be delivered through the existing RAFT program network. This advances one of the core policy recommendations for which MACDC has been advocating since the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis.

The notice also invites municipalities to submit collaborative proposals – potentially in partnership with CDCs – to offer micro enterprise grants to businesses impacted by COVID-19.  This is also aligned with one of the top policy priorities for which we have been advocating. We’re also pleased that municipalities can apply for funding to provide vitally-needed social services, including food assistance, to people impacted by the Covid-19 crisis. The inability of families and individuals to access healthy food has been noted by several CDCs, who are involved in efforts to respond to this burgeoning need.

We thank Governor Baker, Secretary Kennealy and Undersecretary Maddox for listening to our recommendations and responding with concrete action that will help families, business owners and communities across the state. (Note – cities in Massachusetts already received a direct allocation of CDBG earlier this year).

DHCD has also received an additional $26 million in CDBG money in Round Two of the CARES Act program and will be releasing that money in the coming weeks. This second round of funding will be available statewide, including our cities.

One of the many reasons that I appreciate working at MACDC is that our work is, by definition, responsive to current events in our communities as well as in the larger world. While many people are struggling to transfer their “normal” work to a virtual platform, at MACDC, we are looking to re-evaluate our priorities in the context of the current situation.

On March 11^th, our President and CEO, Joe Kriesberg shared a story with and issued a challenge to the MACDC staff:

In 1986, Joe was a junior staff person working for Ralph Nader at the Critical Mass Energy Project in Washington, DC focused on nuclear power issues when the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded.  Joe asked his boss what he should do? How should his work priorities change? His boss responded, “you work on safe energy issues; a nuclear plant just blew up; figure out how to do something productive.”  As Joe tells it, that was the end of the guidance. Joe reached out to Ralph Nader to schedule TV appearances for him and brief/prepare him for those appearances.  It was Joe’s first opportunity to work directly with Ralph and see him in action. It was an amazing learning experience for him that left him with stories and lessons that he calls upon to this day.

Through sharing this story, Joe made clear to me and other MACDC staff that the world has changed and that the status quo no longer applies. Joe emphasized that it is each of our responsibilities to figure out how best to leverage our particular role, skills, and knowledge to support our mission, our members, and the larger community during this time.

Joe’s challenge was both exciting and unsettling – and it has been particularly interesting for me as the “public health person” on staff at MACDC. In the midst of a global pandemic, everything is related to health. Accordingly, my days these last few months have involved keeping my ear to the ground on many different conversations, including:

• A weekly gathering of large affordable housing managers in Boston, in which they discuss concerns surfacing at their properties;
• An offshoot of the group of housing managers who have recently convened to discuss issues particular to mental health issues in our communities;
• A weekly call in which folks surface issues specific to elderly populations;
• Concerns specific to immigrant populations that have surfaced among our members;
• Ways in which our members are involved in food distribution in their communities.

These conversations have enabled me to better understand issues that many of our CDCs are encountering and to understand what resources are available to address these issues. And they are pushing me and MACDC into networks, issues and challenges that are new for us.

The current situation has also highlighted importance of partnerships in the public health space, in particular MACDC’s partnership with the Massachusetts Public Health Association (MPHA). MPHA has been one of MACDC’s key partners for many years and in the last year since we’ve had a full-time staff person dedicated to health equity work (that’s me!), our partnership has deepened. When MPHA announced that it was convening an Emergency Task Force on Coronavirus and Equity this past March, it was a no-brainer that we would be actively involved.

The Task Force met for the first time on March 17^th. For many of us, this was our first week of working from home and convening over Zoom, so this virtual meeting which drew staff from over 50 organizations, was particularly noteworthy. At this first meeting, the group efficiently broke into groups according to issue area. Each group then identified two or three policy priorities for which they wanted to see action by the state in the next week. When participants re-convened as a whole, participants voted on the identified priorities, narrowing the list down to four priorities, which included:

1. Enacting a Moratorium on Evictions and Foreclosures
2. Passing Emergency Paid Sick Time
3. Providing Safe Quarantine for People Experiencing Homelessness
4. Ensuring Immigrants Have Safe Access to Testing and Treatment

Following the initial meeting, organizations interested in becoming members of the Task Force were asked to affirm their support for the mission of the Task Force to drive equitable policy change to combat the ways in which racism, poverty, and xenophobia are furthering marginalization in the face of COVID-19.

As of mid-May, the Task Force is comprised of close to 80 members, has added three new priorities, and has actively advocated for and tracked progress on the original four priorities. The Task Force saw early successes with the state’s moratorium on evictions and foreclosures which was enacted, and the emergency paid sick time legislation that was filed – both at the end of April. I am part of the Task Force’s Strategy Team which meets weekly to guide the work of the Task Force and plan full Task Force meetings.

Through the Task Force on Coronavirus and Equity, MACDC is pushing the state to act quickly on crucial policy issues that are outside of our traditional wheelhouse. The Task Force’s priorities are, however, in clear alignment with our mission and affect the communities in which our members work. Sitting on the Task Force on Coronavirus and Equity, together with participation in a broad range of conversations on COVID-related challenges, is my response to Joe’s invitation. During this devastating time, I am leveraging my role to strengthen MACDC’s relationships with partner organizations and the broader public health community, to effectively respond to issues affecting communities throughout Massachusetts.

MACDC joined with community-based organizations, CDCs, CDFIs, and advocates across the state to send recommendations to the Small Business Administration (SBA) for improvements to the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). The recommendations focused on two broad areas: 1) recommendations to simplify and improve the implementation of PPP Rounds 1 and 2; and 2) recommendations for the next phase of small business assistance. Nearly sixty organizations collaborated on these recommendations and sent them in a letter to the SBA and the Massachusetts Congressional Delegation.

The coalition is calling for the following modifications to the program:

• To provide businesses with more time to use PPP funds and to extend the program until December 31, 2020;
• To provide businesses with more flexibility on how to spend the funds by reducing or eliminating the requirement to spend 75% of the dollars on payroll;
• To clarify and simplify the forgiveness requirements;
• To automatically forgive small loans;
• To allow businesses to refinance the unforgiven portion of a PPP loan into a longer term loan;
• To collect demographic and geographic data of PPP participants;
• To recycle dollars recouped through loan repayments; and
• To expand language accessibility.

The group further called on the SBA  and Congress to design future small business support efforts in a way that more directly addresses racial inequities and targets resources to the businesses that need it the most.

Read the full recommendations in this letter.

In April, DHCD announced $7.7 million in allocations to 46 CDCs and two Community Support Organizations (MACDC and LISC Boston) through the Community Investment Tax Credit (CITC) Program. (See table below for list of organizations and amounts allocated)

In the program’s first six years, over $55 million was raised for community development programs across Massachusetts. These funds are helping CDCs to work with residents in their communities by providing vital affordable housing options, access to services for families, and support for aspiring entrepreneurs, as well as programs to help ensure that community residents can not only become stabilized, but also thrive and benefit from our Commonwealth’s economy.

Commenting on the 2020 CITC allocation, John Fitterer, MACDC’s Director of Operations, said, “the CITC program is very important to the community development movement in Massachusetts because it’s helping drive support into neighborhoods and town across the Commonwealth. As we navigate the COVID-19 crisis, support for the field is even more critical than before. The CITC program will help ensure that communities have access to the resources they need.”

MACDC has teamed up with the Massachusetts Growth Capital Corporation (MGCC) to support Massachusetts small business owners, including those with limited English proficiency, by providing multilingual translation and application assistance for the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).

Since PPP applications are only available in English, these services are critical for small business owners in Massachusetts impacted by COVID-19, who would otherwise be unable to tap into the SBA’s economic relief resources. All small businesses in Massachusetts are strongly encouraged to use these resources when applying to the second round of PPP at their local, participating bank once available. Please be advised, MGCC and MACDC are not eligible lenders for the program. A list of participating PPP lenders can be found here.

This initiative brings together 49 Technical Assistance (TA) Providers located throughout Massachusetts, and organized under the Small Business Technical Assistance Grant Program to utilize their skills. The PPP application has been translated into 19 languages and is available to download on MGCC’s website, along with a list of TA Providers sorted by language proficiency and communities serviced, that small business owners can connect with for guidance on the application process.

Languages include: Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese, French, French Creole, Italian, Russian, Vietnamese, Greek, Arabic, Cambodian, Somali, Amharic (Ethiopian), Filipino, Nepalese, Korean, Japanese and Thai.

“When MGCC recognized the opportunity gap for minorities, immigrants and other small business owners with limited English proficiency to access the Paycheck Protection Program, we immediately knew we needed to tap into this strong small business support team of TA Providers,” said Larry Andrews, President of MGCC. “With their participation, access to PPP suddenly becomes inclusive and encourages diverse businesses to explore relief possibilities in this difficult time.”

“Every day we see examples of how long standing racial and economic disparities are disproportionately impacting communities of color. That is why our economic relief and recovery efforts must reach our entire small business community, including communities of color, immigrant, and lower income communities,” said Joseph Kriesberg, President of MACDC. “Thankfully, Massachusetts has a network of dozens of community-based organizations with trained staff who can deliver culturally competent and multi-lingual assistance to help these business owners access public and private resources to help them survive and recover from this crisis.”

On March 23, 2020, MACDC issued a set of initial recommendations for state policy makers with respect to helping small businesses, tenants, homeowners, and communities deal with the economic fallout from the pandemic. While there is much more to be done at the local, state and federal level, we have seen some important progress over the past month. Some of the key policy wins include the following.

• The Federal CARES Act provided essential funds to address the crisis that were consistent with our initial recommendations.

  • Unemployment Insurance:  The CARES act made important expansions to our Unemployment Insurance program both to ensure more generous benefits (an extra $600 per week) and coverage for contractors and self-employed individuals.

  • Small Business Assistance: The Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), despite its flaws, will help thousands of businesses and nonprofits across the state, including dozens of CDCs (and other nonprofit organizations) who have (or will) received funds to help stabilize their operations during the crisis and to avoid layoffs.  More than 47,000 loans totaling over $10 billion were made in Massachusetts in the first round and we expect to see similar numbers in the second round.  Unfortunately, the program has not done enough to support very small businesses and businesses of color and this needs to be addressed both in the implementation of Round 2 and in future small business relief efforts.

  • Community Development:  Congress provided an additional $5 billion in Community Development Block Grant Program (CDBG) resources that can be used for a variety of purposes, including emergency grants to small businesses.  Indeed, several cities across the Commonwealth have already begun to offer such grants using CDBG dollars, including Boston, Worcester, Cambridge, Northampton and others.

• Eviction & Foreclosure Moratorium: The legislature has passed, and Governor Baker has signed, a strong eviction and foreclosure moratorium that will protect residential tenants, homeowners and small businesses during the health emergency.

• Housing assistance: Governor Baker was able to secure $5 million in new funding from MassHousing to provide an immediate boost in funding for the RAFT program, which helps lower-income households cover their housing expenses.  Several cities are also using public and private dollars to help tenants pay their rent.

• State Small Business Assistance: Governor Baker secured $20 million for emergency loans to small businesses.

• Mortgage Assistance: Mayor Marty Walsh secured commitments from 12 mortgage lenders in the City of Boston to provide borrowers impacted by COVID-19 with forbearance on their loans.  Meanwhile, state and federal banking regulators issued guidance encouraging lenders to provide forbearance and other relief to homeowners.

The above actions represent good progress, but there is more to do.  Clearly, the federal government needs to lead the way because it can provide substantially more money than local or state governments. We are advocating with our Congressional delegation on a range of issues related to small business support, affordable housing and community development.  We have also issued an updated version of our policy recommendations for state policy makers.

MACDC has partnered with community-based organizations, community lenders and advocates to form a statewide Small Business Coalition, which is calling on state leaders to adopt a Small Business Relief and Recovery Program to address urgent and unmet needs in the small business community. 

Seventy-nine organizations, including dozens of organizations that work every day at the local level with entrepreneurs impacted by this crisis, made this request in a letter to Governor Charlie Baker, Senate President Karen Spilka, and House Speaker Robert DeLeo.

MACDC has been convening weekly discussions with community-based organizations that work with small businesses from across the commonwealth on strategies and best practices to support small businesses in this time of crisis, as well as collaborating on advocacy for state policies that would help these businesses weather the pandemic.

“We are heartbroken watching hard working men and women fight to save their business and their families from economic ruin – a situation that has nothing to do with their skills as business owners, but is entirely due to COVID-19, and the public health necessity to close their businesses. They are suffering immense economic harm to help keep all of us safe, so we believe all of us have a shared responsibility through our state government to help keep them in business,” the letter states.

The proposed Small Business Relief and Recovery Program is particularly focused on those small businesses that are most vulnerable during this economic crisis, including those from historically underserved communities, such as African American, Latinx, Asian, people of color, immigrant, and women, as well as businesses located in rural towns, Gateway Cities, and other low-income areas. 

The letter recognizes that the federal government is providing significant resources to small businesses through the Payroll Protection Program, but points out that many small businesses, especially very small business, and those owned by people of color, are not benefiting equitably from that program.  In a survey of nearly 500 small and micro businesses released by the groups with the letter, 58% said they did not think the Federal CARES Act would meet their needs over the next three months.  Further, “42% said they were surviving on personal savings, an unsustainable strategy, especially for many people of color who, on average, have significantly less accumulated wealth than their white counterparts”. 

The letter calls for a “state-level strategy that is focused on reaching those who continue to be left behind” both to better access federal dollars and to strategically use state resources to plug gaps in the federal response.  Segun Idowu, Executive Director of the Black Economic Council of Massachusetts and one of the signatories of the letter, noted “If Washington can’t get it right, our leadership needs to.”

The Coalition includes many organizations from rural communities, which are struggling. “Our economy is built on small businesses, including many very small enterprises, that have trouble accessing federal resources,” said Amy Shapiro from Franklin County CDC.  “By providing customized technical assistance at the local level, flexible financing, and small grants, we can help more of our rural businesses access federal dollars, survive the shutdown and recover in the months to come.”

The coalition offers the following recommendations for programs and policies that should be part of the state’s Small Business Relief and Recovery Program:  

1. $10 million in funding to support community-based organizations that deliver culturally competent and multi-lingual technical assistance and coaching to small businesses;
2. $30 Million in emergency relief grants to help businesses cover rent, mortgages, and other fixed costs;
3. $35 million to Community Development Financial Institutions, Community Development Corporations, and other community-based lending programs to help them offer grants, zero/low interest loans, loan deferments, and other assistance to small businesses;
4. $75 million to the Massachusetts Growth Capital Corporation for a revolving loan fund to help businesses unable to access SBA financing, with a focus on communities of color, immigrant communities, rural towns, and Gateway Cities;
5. A statewide Small Business Assistance Task Force charged with ensuring the effective delivery of support to small businesses during the economic shutdown and through the recovery; the task force should have a laser focus on equity and inclusion.

Read the full letter to Governor Baker and Leaders of the General Court