FTA-HUD-NCMM Region 4 EnVision
Center Webinar
Mon, 6/21 3:14PM

1:07:45

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

transportation, community, service, partnerships, funding, manatee county, pandemic, mobility,
program, region, grant, fta, center, area, support, housing authority, mobility management,
transportation department, provide, fund

00:04
Well hello everyone and welcome to today's webinar building partnerships. How HUD
envision centers are leveraging mobility and transportation to support community needs.
My name is Brandon Rocio. I am a project associate for the National Center for mobility
management Technical Assistance Center at Easterseals. Before we get started withtoday's session, I just want to take a few moments to go over some housekeeping items.
Please do add your name and affiliate in the chat. please mute yourself if you are notspeaking, a recording will be made available on the MC mn website. Please add yourquestions in the chat box throughout the session. Closed captioning is turned on for thissession in please enjoy and learn from one another. So due to an unavoidable schedulingconflict owlbear cruttenden HUDs regional for regional envisions and our coordinator was
unfortunately unable to speak today. However she did ask them to say a few words on her
behalf. owlbear would like to thank the Federal Transit Administration and the National
Center for mobility management for partnering with HUD to provide key and essential
information and reads resources to support region fours envision centers ongoing efforts
to help those we have Julie sir, especial thanks so Grange housing authority under theleadership and CEO Zaza heard for her willingness to share their experience addressing
transportation challenges. Everyone resourcefulness with the other region for envision
centers and today's participants. She would like to thank all the participants are joining
today. HUD appreciates the partnership with FTA and MC mn. As part of the continuingcommitment sport the vision Center's ongoing efforts to make available opportunities
and assistance to those most in need. And I would just like to mention owlbear played a
key role behind the scenes to make this session happen. So thank you all there. The lack of

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accessibility or accessible mobility options for both vulnerable populations. It's an issue
that is continually being addressed through creative and innovative partnerships acrossfederal and state agencies. Unfortunately, the coordinating council on access andmobility see cam at the federal level has been an impetus for increased coordination
activity. The partnership between the FTA and HUD has created an opportunity to identify
networks and services that can be leveraged by HUDs envision centers to facilitate theEconomic Education and leadership attributes of all communities supporting
independence, prosperity and empowerment that all of us deserve. presenting today is
Lagrange housing authority on partnerships they have built to address mobility concerns
in their communities. So we will now hear from Zaza her Chief Executive Officer, the city of
Woodbridge Housing Authority, just sighs Edmonton transportation director, the city ofwoodgrains housing authority in Sabrina Allen, Boys and Girls Club of West Georgia.
colleagues in session is now yours. Thank you.

03:13
Good afternoon, everyone. And I just want to thank Brandon for a fifth in putting this
together. I want to thank aveer for putting this together. And what I really want to say cuz
I think Mr. Edmondson is gonna give us this fantastic presentation is that I don't actually
do transportation, I was fortunate enough to find good people to work to do ourtransportation. And the reason we have transportation at the Lagrange Housing
Authority, because we're not unorthodox here. We wanted to find a way that our residents
and community didn't have excuses as to why things don't happen while they can't get
somewhere. And we're intentional about everything that we do. And when we say that
we're fighting poverty, we're fighting blight, we're fighting Matt changing mindsets. So wewere fortunate enough to get a grant to partner with our county to help persons thathave drug issues, and in turn turned into this massive, massive, marvelous transportation
department that Mr. Emerson put together himself. But transportation and a rule small
town like ours is huge. That means that we're curbing some of the problems, we're dealing
with them and we still have more, but we set out to do that we set out to just really target
the problem, fix it, so that people really have a way of living just like some of us on thiscall. Some of us are very fortunate to have a car or two cars or one. It's not easy to walk in
an area like where we were there, not always sidewalks, but we do what it is that take careof this community. So without further ado, I'll let you hear from Mr. Emerson.

04:57
Thank you Miss Hurd and hello Everyone. Once again, I'm just sighs Edmonson, thetransportation director for the West Georgia store, Lagrange Housing Authority and the

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vision center. Just to go ahead and a little bit more in depth about what Miss Hart was
speaking on. This transportation started out in 2015, was roughly 25 to 30. Transport
weekly. And it quickly quickly grew to over 300, monthly to 1000. I'm sorry, 1000 monthly.
And just starting this off, I would like to just share a little video with you all to just express
a little bit what we've been doing down in this area.

06:15
I think there's a little problem with the audio here. But just going along what we do here atWest Georgia star is simply what the Housing Authority is all about. And that's servicing
our community. We misheard I mentioned that we partner with the accountability court.
And what we do for accountability court is we service DUI court, mental health court, drug
court, felony drug court, family treatment court. And they're recently added veterans partto this year. All of this here is done to attempt to rehabilitate our community and givethem those necessary transportation needs. That's such such it's just a need for it in thecommunity. We take these clients to requite court appearances, drug screens, self help
meetings, and counseling services. And once again, all of this is done to help aid thecommunity and have a healthier community for our clients and everyone that we serve.
The accountability court goes along with addition to after school programs, the summer
program, we also do an MLK basketball tournament, the warming center, and nonemergency medical transports breaking those down. After School enrichment program,what we do there is we get kids from the neighboring schools in the community. And wetake them to a centralized location, which is now the Envision so the day after school
program which they get tutoring, educational field trips, and just exposure to things thatthey wouldn't get exposed to on a daily basis. summer programs goes along with wepartner with the police department here to which they have summer program. We
transport the clients there, the students there, so they could get whatever the police
department is offering during that time periods in the summer. We cover the team work
programming, to where we get teams and we've partnered with different businesses
around in the community to get Saudi going and get a little bit more job opportunities forour students and our teams in the community. The basketball tournament that we service
is the MLK tournament. And this is an opportunity for our kids to actually travel out ofstate be a part of a team and be able to accomplish certain things that they may not beable to accomplish on a daily basis. Nothing is is forced upon them and everything is an
educational component to this here. I would like to add that we've also been the winners
the past couple of years and everything in the tournament. So we have a pretty goodteam that also addition to all of those services, we do the warming center. The warming
center here is a program for the city to get the homeless to a safe, warm location during
the winter months. So during the winter months, wants to inclement weather once it gets
below 30 degrees or below. My transportation department and I we go out through the

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city in the county and we to transport the homeless to one central location to where they
have a warm meal and a nice shower. This is done all after hours, and is usually roughlyaround 10 to 20 clients likely didn't know that it was a need for such a transportation inthis area. And it's such a blessing to be able to be a part of that. And going along with thewoman in center addition to that, we developed our non emergencies to ourtransportation department to serve as clients with Medicaid. And we take those clients todoctor's appointments, dialysis and rehab services. And again, all of this is to provide

10:49
help your community and just give an opportunity to get outside of the areas because westay in, we're in the low income area, businesses don't want to come set up in the low
income areas. So our transportation department allows our residents to be able to have abroader opportunities and be able to reach different areas and without in and out of thecity. Just moving along, I have the slide show here. We had an opportunity back in theearly 2020s. When the covid 19 pandemic hit COVID-19 took a tremendous toll on thetransportation industry as a whole. We were fortunate enough not to be down, I think it
was maybe it was a total of through the whole thing, maybe a week, we had theopportunity to partner with wellstar. They contacted us, because wellstar Medical Center,the local hospital here, contacted our transportation department, because they were
having problems with basically transporting the positive COVID patients to a safe
location. We were challenged with this here and miss her is just so gracious to allow me tojust open my mind up and figure out ways to help service our community and help service
these clients. My team and I'm we did some thinking and we decided to modify ourvehicles. This modification really wasn't easy, because it was new. And no one really knew
how this disease was transacted before or what was causing it. So we felt as though wewould modify these vehicles and we went through extensive tests to make sure that it
would be safe enough for the drivers, high wind speed to ensure the negative flow, thestructural sturdiness of it, and the trust traffic visibility. So I just want to share a little bit ofthis slide here. So you all can see the transformation that we all made. And we were able
to transport over 30 clients to a safe location keeping all drivers safe at the same time. So
we successfully did this. And I was just so happy and just blessed to be a part of this. And I
believe that, once again, we're here to serve as our community and help out. So this was atime period for us to step up and help our community. So it's just a blessing to be a part ofthat. And to wrap everything up on this, I would just like to show you all the slides and themodifications that we did. So you can go to the next slide please. This here is the structurethat we decided on and it's actually a thick Plexiglas there. This structure is not
permanent to the vehicle is able to be removed at any point in time. But it does havesturdy structure to where no leaks or anything was able to get through. And it was tested
several different times. Next slide please. The psyllid on here we tried to do different

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silicone things to test the silicone here and nothing actually would give us that proper sealaround the corners that we needed. So we ended up using this window wrap that worked
perfectly for Next slide please. This here is the test that we did with the drive It was, it was
several different tests. Actually, I failed to mention, but each time we transported clients,
each vehicle went through extensive extensive disinfecting process, that particular vehicle
would be taken out of the rotation, and it will be disinfected several times before it was
put back into the rotation like Sally's.

15:31
This here, we decided to put a type of material that could be easily wiped down fromdroplets sprays, or any type of material, or spills or anything that could be attracted tothe sides of the structure. So we decided to use this type of material that is easy to becleaned and removed also. Next slide, please. As you can see, this is just one of my coworkers here, he's hard at work. And we actually change this periodically, just to ensurethat we're having just the safe protocol going on. Next slide, please. Once again, this is
showing the whole full structure up here. And the sides here, it's welcome. Sorry, you can't
see that. But the sides, everything, like I say is able to be removed from this structure. And
nothing is permanent to this. So we're able to remove this and put it in at any point intime. But we're actually keeping it up until the pandemic is over because we're stilltransporting clients at this time. Next slide, please. This is actually positive client here. Thisis the process that we went through with picking up the clients, we would give a call or
receive a call from the hospital, and everything was confidential. So we would actuallytake these clients to a safe disclose location for the recovery process. And this was done
because family members were the only ones that were picking them up. And it wascausing huge spread in the COVID pandemic. So I've really believed that we played a big
part in cutting down the spread in this area. So I'm really excited and just proud of myteam and the job that they've done. Next slide, please. And this also is the client, anotherclient that was transported to the safe location. Next slide, please. Next slide, please. And
this is the Envision center. And I just wanted to sit back in, wrap everything up by saying I
come to work each day with try to make a difference, not knowing what I will if I want, if I
want make a difference. But I come to work each day trying to make a difference. And it'sa blessing that I get to present like this here. Because each time I present, I look back andI get to see the difference that my team and I we've made. So I appreciate you guys
listening to me and I just aesthetic and appreciate the opportunity to just get to sharewhat we all do here at Westwood to start the visitor center. Thank you.

18:44

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Absolutely. And thank you all so much for sharing such incredible information insights.
You've clearly shown how innovative and creative thinking can help address difficult
mobility challenges. I do apologize for the audio on the video, but I would be happy tosend a link to all participants following the webinar. And now I'd like to introduce Danielle
Nelson, of the Federal Transit administration's Office of program management to talk alittle bit about the coordinating council on access and mobility. Daniel.

19:18
Hi, thank you, Brandon. And I just have to say to the previous presenters, you guys are a
hard act to follow. I wanted to share with you all the slide here is that Coordinating
Council and access mobility or C cam for short, that's really helped to engage morecommunities and states with coordinating and So in short, I want to just share that it's aninteragency partnership that was established by executive order. And it includes 11 federal
agencies that fund together 130 different pro federal programs that can fund Human
Services transportation, similar to the type of transportation you've just heard about. And
the target is for three specific populations. Older adults, people disabilities, individuals orfamilies have limited or low income. And so it's chaired by where I work, which is the US
Department of Transportation. And the Secretary of the term transportation hasdelegated my operating division, which is the Federal Transit Administration with leading
it. And then there are 10 other agencies that formed the council. And of course, the US
Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD is one of our most active
partners in this effort. And so the mission is to issue policy recommendations andimplement activities that improve the availability and efficiency of transportation for
those targeted populations. And on this next slide, it's, in essence, the goal is really topromote encourage transportation coordination. And so I thought it'd be important just to
have a slide, what is transportation coordination. So it's coordinating transportation thatinvolves multiple entities, such as the housing entity and the public transit entity to work
together to deliver transportation services, so that together, they can increase theircapacity of providing trips, rather than doing it in a more siloed fashion. So coordination
activities can range from anything from sharing passenger trips, to sharing vehicles, to colocating facilities or resources like staff, or even collaborating on driver training to savemoney, or collaborating on vehicle purchasing, or vehicle maintenance to save money.
And so why is transportation coordination beneficial? Why does the C cam exist?
coordination supports increased efficiency of transportation. So you can provide more
options for those end users for the community and serve more people in regions bystreamlining whether it's state policies or encouraging collaboration and saving dollars
that way. Coordination also promotes looking at that middle box for her efficiency. It
promotes efficiency by allowing states and local communities and other funding
recipients to save funds by sharing resources such as vehicles, and reducing redundancy.

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Transcribed by https://otter.aiAnd then that last little box there, but innovation, coordination supports innovation, whichleads to improved customer service. And let me take you now to the next slide. So I cangive you an example of how we are at the C cam level. I'm trying to incentivize
coordination. So since 2016, we have been funding what we call the sea cam pilot
program. This was created by Congress in our fixing America's Surface Transportation Act,or the FAST Act for short. In Section 3006. b, it was a new pilot program that was createdthe FAST Act. So we've had three years of funding so far. And this slide maps thoseprojects we have funded across the different regions and states. And this year, the 2021
Notice of Funding Opportunity. We're aiming to publish that this year in late summer, so
stay tuned for that it's coming soon. In the pilot program, which as you can see on theslide here has had many different names. In the previous administration. It was created toemphasize the importance of partnerships between transportation and other community
service providers, like housing, for example. And the funds must be used for mobility
projects to improve the coordination of non emergency medical transportation, like you
just heard about in the target are those same three transportation sort of disadvantaged
populations that I mentioned earlier. And so to date, the program has funded more than
30 state and regional pilot projects totaling over $18 million. And it's helped the sea cam
to continue to achieve its strategic goal of demonstrating that innovative coordinatedtransportation. And then my last slide, the sea cam is supported by several technicalassistance partnerships that provide a range of services and resources to assist
community stakeholders at all levels, including they provide community planning andimplementation grants, which are sort of small seed dollars to help bring together non
traditional partnerships. They have capacity building trainings and webinars, information
briefs, helpful newsletters, and what do these centers on the slide here do? So the first one
there, the National aging and disability Transportation Center, that one is a partnershipwith us the Federal Transit Administration, and the Administration for Community Living.
And that center promotes the availability and accessibility of transportation options thatserve the needs of people with disabilities, older adults and caregivers. And it has a focus
on our Federal Transit Administration or FTA, enhanced mobility for seniors and people
with disabilities program. The second one you see here, the National Center of mobility
management is who was putting on today's webinar. So they're a great center that works
to help communities adopt transportation strategies and mobility options that empower
people to live independently and advanced health and well being economic vitality andself sufficiency. The National Rural transit Assistance Program lives up to its name andaddresses the training and technical assistance needs of rural as well as tribal community
programs. And then the last one on the slide here is the National Center for Appliedtransit technology. That's our newest center we fund and they translate emerging
transportation technologies to rural small urban and tribal communities. And with that,that is my last slide. And I want to pass this along now to one of my FTA colleagues in our
regional office Maribel.

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25:45Well, thanks so much, Danielle. For that very important overview of C. Kim certainly an
incredible initiative that fosters partnerships and coordinated transportation forvulnerable populations. As you just mentioned, up next is up marybel Perez maribo is atransportation specialist for region for the FTA and has played a key role in advancing
transportation and partnerships across the region. Welcome marivaux.

26:12
Hi, good afternoon, everybody. And welcome. Thank you, Brandon, for that introduction.
As you mentioned, I'm a transportation product specialist for FDA. Reynolds, you can pass
the next Next slide, please. region four is located in Atlanta, Georgia, but we have asatellite office in Puerto Rico. And that's the office that is currently hosting me. So I'mlocated in in someone. Next one. I want to just to give you a brief overview of what ofregion four and where we are. Our regional administrator is Dr. Eva Taylor. Unfortunately,
she was not able to join us today. So we apologize for that, due to a conflict with previous
commitment. And the same way our DPS Deputy Regional Administrator is largely white.
And we serve eight states, US state in the South East region area and two US territories
Puerto Rico and uspg Island. And in the region. Our mission is to improve public
transportation for American community by administering our federal funding, and also
providing technical assistance to support every idea of locally planned and constructed
operating public transportation system throughout the southeast region. Next one. As partof our responsibilities, we currently have 180 recipients that we serve. We have around
1797 active awards that provide funding for those transportation system. Last year, weawarded around 483 grants for a total funding of 3.6 billion. That money included the kid
recently cares funding that was allocated last year 2.22 point 2 billion of dollar of curesfunding that went to our communities to help them facilitate the transportation. Other
oversight activities that we do on the region include planning certifications, reviews,
trainer reviews, to make sure that the federal requirements are being put in place properly.
Other specialized reviews and we serve around 122 year when I sat. Next one. That was asummary of what we do on region four. Here's my contact information and my coworker,
Robert sacmi. He's also here within the audience, we can we are committed to help you
and support in any needs. We can also provide your contact information about ourrecipients in Region four use cases needed. So you can click on them and try to coordinate
this effort to improve mobility within our region. I know this presentation is going to beprovided to us so you will have this information in the package. And now it's my pleasure
to introduce to you Mr. Jonathan Roberson. He's the transit planning manager with theManatee County area transit in Florida. Prior to joining m cap. He previously held aplanning leadership position at Broward County Transit in the South Florida Regional

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Transportation Authority and the rapids in the Grand Rapids, Michigan. Before his current
career path in public transportation, he spent eight years in the community development
field in the Midwest and Northeast. He received his ma degree in geography and planningfrom the University of Toledo and his bachelor degree in geography from WesternMichigan University. Please welcome Jonathan. He's gonna talk about that a great effort
that is being going on in multicam.

30:06
Wow, thank you. Thank you, Mirabelle. Thank you, Brandon. And thanks everybody with
FTA, HOD and in CMM, for this great opportunity. It's really nice to see community
development and public transportation and community service all meet up in a relevant
way. Moving on. And, again, I'm Jonathan Roberson. I'm with Manatee County Area
Transit or MCAT. I wanted to talk to you real briefly about a transit, a small transit
operating agencies perspective on working with the community in time in the times ofpandemic, but also kind of the programs and projects we tried to do all the time to get
out to our most vulnerable populations. Next, again, we're we're a smaller transit agency
with about 142 employees. We're in Manatee County, the county just south of Tampa,
Tampa Bay, we have 17 fixed routes, we operate some mobility on demand and shuttle
services. And of course, provide the door to door transportation disadvantaged and Ada
service for the county ridership over 1.2 million and normal times. We we started back tofull service in August 2020. During the pandemic, really starting in March 2020, we weoperated about two thirds to 70% of our service, we kept service as much as we could out
on the street. And we kept all of our drivers employed. During that time. We also
reinstated our full fares in December 2020. And we're finding ridership is slowly returning
to pre pandemic levels. But we can't wait to get back to normal times. We have in stay
kept our mask, masks on board for all passengers. And also did a similar thing to lookarranged with the bioshield for the drivers. And that's worked out well for us. Moving on.
One of one of the highlights and things that evolved real quickly for us was was working
with our health department in the county in our Emergency Operations Center inproviding vaccine trips for free to customers. So what would happen is somebody would
call up the county to get their two vaccine trips booked. And then the county would hookthem up with our paratransit customer service department and we would we would get
their two books, two trips booked. And here's some pictures showing you how that works.
We would actually go to the county site and get the vaccines for everybody on the bus. So
through May, through early May of 2021, we did nearly 460 vaccine trips. And we're
finding now that the trips are waning a little bit and people are going to the to thepharmacies or the grocery stores. So but we're on call for if you know any kind of vaccine,
regime returns or some kind of booster shot thing. We're ready to pivot to that and readyfor whatever happens with this pandemic. We hope we can help moving on. Another thing

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that happened to real quickly when the pandemic health insurer started in March 2020
was

33:49
suddenly we saw the food pantries are partners with churches and food pantries and eventhe port needed help with food deliveries. A lot of the local food pantries and local
churches they their biggest problem was the heavy lifting of these pallets of food or, or the
distribution of the food from a food warehouse or the port to the smaller churches orcommunity centers. So MCAT we got out there with in this was with some of our drivers
who were idled due to due to the slight service reduction, went out with our lift trucks, ourgate trucks and lift lift gate trucks. And we're able to deliver this food and forklifts as wellunable to unload this food to people and in many cases help distribute and unpack thepallets for these smaller food pantries and churches. At one point we were seeing we were
helping deliver 1500 meals a week at the height of the pandemic. We're still doing this forsome food pantries as we speak. And we remember I remember one one pantry talking
about You know, it started out slow the the families coming for food 20 maybe families.
And by the end of end of the day, it was 90 families coming and getting food. So we also,
the port called us early in the pandemic and had this piles and piles of boxes of fruits andvegetables were a Delmonte ports. And so you can see the picture down there, we wereable to go there and get boxes and boxes of pineapples and bananas and distribute thatto these pantries as well. So again, none of us saw this coming. But it was great to be able
to help and pivot our resources to such needs. Moving on during the pandemic, and evento this day, we we add named cat work with our neighborhood services department inManatee County, on the inclusive manatee initiative. Now this is a bit of a longer term
project but and this was a pre pandemic project, but we were still able to do something
related to this during the pandemic inclusive manatees a multi team multi year projectproject looking to help the most disadvantaged citizens in our county. And in this case, thedisadvantaged residents in our Santa set neighborhood. This is a program connecting
Manatee County government service providers, a lot of nonprofits and the residents in thisneighborhood to do as you can see in the box to the left, all sorts of different ways to
impact poverty. And I won't go into all of these, but it's a lot of different neighborhood
community development and nonprofit programs that many of you are familiar with. And
and really down to the individual level, including job training, early education anddaycare. But what we found in this inclusive manatee initiative, what there was there wasan impact of lack of transportation access for people in particularly in this neighborhood.
So we came up with a enhancing samma set neighborhood transportation study, which
we completed in late 2020. Next, and so we went out even in August, September, October
to the community and had public meetings had had citizens sat at some grocery storesand some neighborhood centers, and really got an idea of what people were asking for.

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Transcribed by https://otter.aiAnd one of the first things that came up and we hear this a lot is, you know, I wish yourbus was more frequent. It was just an hour the bus that went through this neighborhood.
And what could you do about that. Also, a lot of people just didn't know about ourprograms. And, and I'll get to some of those later. But we we found that we need to be out
there more talking about our programs. We also heard time and again, that access todaycare as part of a person's trip to work or trip the job, job training was critical andlacking.

38:15
So we we came up with, at least initially, the best The first thing transit could do was try to
get more service on the bus, the bus route that goes into this neighborhood and connects
to one of our transfer centers and two jobs in the region. That would be our route to we'realso going to expand our travel training program in the community. I'll talk about that alittle bit, then a little bit. And we're also looking at some kind of flexible shuttle, a service
that goes to the daycare from somebody's home or the community center to the daycare
centers in the neighborhood and to the important Transfer Center and job sites. We'relooking at right now county funding to start this service in 2022. And maybe a state grantusing our existing services the match next. We're also kicking off a service next week,
similar to what you just saw for Santa said. We mobility on demand service to our port
port manatee. We heard last fall and I'm sure you've all heard this one one way or theother how folks are having trouble finding workers. How do we get more workers? We
can't get enough workers at the ports in this case, Port manatee working the ships and thedocks at Port manatee. And so the port officials and actually the large employers in andaround the port contacted us and and our Commissioner accounting Commissioner
Reggie Bellamy, and we all got together and thought why don't we try our existing
mobility on demand type of service for this area and connect more People in northern
Manatee County to two jobs in the port. So starting Monday, we're going to start a service
that gets folks to the port, we were told, I expect, especially in the morning shift, and thenthe afternoon shift picking those folks up, we're going to be doing a demo predemonstration project to gauge the long term interest in such service. And if it's
successful, we're going to try to promote an institute a fixed route and on the route you
see on the map here. So again, we were really starting this off with local money. But we'requite excited about it. Our board passed, you know, the step last week. And, you know, I
think one of the main challenges for us is, how do we keep contact as a transit agency
with the employers, the job training folks, the neighborhood groups, the nonprofit groups,
and so on, I did a presentation on this service and other services to about 5050
individuals, a network called hold child, manatee, from all these organizations, and family
and child wellness, food, every tie type of program and social worker, and last week, andFTA-HUD-NCMM Region 4 EnVision CenterPage
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so we're starting to get the word out. But we think this is a start. And we can only can only
network better. Next.

41:31
Release related to this, we just kicked off a summer pass for any of our youth in Manatee
County under under 19. For $25. couldn't ride our bus, all of our buses, unlimited rides forJune, from June through August. We started this project a few years ago, based on aschool based employment program, and a real community activist by the name of
Barbara Harvey. But we started it up again, because what we were seeing was it was justsimply the right time, of course to have this again. But we're seeing that summer programs
are getting kids getting back to work. Kids are getting to their summer camps orprograms or to food programs that will continue through the summer that that neverended. So this is just a shot of how our pamphlet looks what the past looks like. And, youknow, we want to see these teenagers using their phone to use this ticket here. So maybe
they'll use their phones for good purposes here. And, and but Next slide please. And it's as
the community transportation coordinator for for Manatee County, we've we've managed
the transportation disadvantaged program, this allows somebody to, you know, meetingthe 2021, federal poverty guideline level of 200% or more to, to ride our service at a
discounted rate of $15, monthly pass for all of our services instead of a $40 Pass. So wemanage that program and finding that the more we outreach to our nonprofit and otherpartners, which I mentioned earlier, the more legs this gets. So we we offer this program
constantly. And we would love to see more folks participating in this next slide. Kind oftying this all together is another thing we do is we have a travel trainer onboard. And thisis a person who goes out with anybody in the community, wherever they are in life, if
they're transitioning to work, if they're transitioning, if they're disabled, but looking to getsome independence, if they're a senior looking to get some independence or some
activities, we have a person that goes out and kind of shows folks how to ride the system,
how to access the system, how to access the fares, where they what what routes they
may need to take, how they how they might use the system. You know, it's not always
easy when you see one of these buses riding by you can't one can't assume that it's easy
for someone to just jump on board especially especially when they're transitioning. So are
we work with voc rehab, careersource suncoast cross rock easterseals. And lately thesuncoast Partnership to End Homelessness, to assist clients on transitioning to ride ourservices and get comfortable with it and see where they fit. Often they just folks don't
know about this projects, programs and discounted fares. And again, a lot of this is fundedbecause of FTA partnerships. So I hope we're getting the word out and we could only
enjoy we hope we have more access and participation. Next slide please. Just to wrap it
up, I thought it would be best to wrap it up from a transit operating agency perspective.
And looking at those partners here that I think these are my opinions, but I think agencies

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like us or anybody providing transportation, and any of these envision areas, we can best
assist you by increasing service frequency, I think and coverage, I mean, the more service
that's out there, the better providing equitable fair programs like you saw before, and so
people can get into the system affordably. And I think as you saw, we tried to enabletransportation independence, wherever someone may be in life. And and I think we dothat, and we'd love to do more of it. And as you saw, we were proud in manatee, we wereable to pivot to so many different community needs that came up in the next year, noneof us saw this coming. But such as vaccine trips, and increased Food Bank and deliveries,
and the daycare trip, they might be kind of our next pilot project, the hope I'm talking to
you about someday.

46:14
The inclusive manatee type of partnership with other neighborhood and community
organizations, it's critical for an organization like that, like us, these are the folks that areout there. And the more we talk and interact, the better for all. We think this actually thisinclusive manatee approach is portable to other communities in the manner in Manatee
County and elsewhere. And we would shamelessly love to plug that more just let us know.
And anybody I guess my last thought is anybody that has a HUD envision center, consider
your transit agency or agencies as as maybe a partner that might have a deep bench,maybe maybe there's some programs you didn't think about before. We don't have a HUD
envision center right in our service area. But I think our partnerships here might mightprovide similar tools that could work in many places. But thank you all for this opportunity.
And here's my contact information. And please feel free to contact me at any time. We'dlove to I'd love to talk to any of you more about this. Thank you. Thanks, Brandon.

47:23
Well, thank you, Jonathan. Really so many great examples, what MCAT is doing to build
partnerships and support and bring together the community really appreciate you
sharing. I would like to remind the audience that if you have any questions, please enter
them into the chat box as we will have time with our speakers momentarily. Before we get
into our speaker q&a, I just wanted to touch on the National Center for mobility
management, its resources and the benefits of coordinated transportation in CMM, thatwas founded in 2000 to 2013 as a National Technical Assistance Center funded throughcooperative agreement with the Federal Transit Administration is operated throughconsortium with three national organizations. Those include the American public
transportation Association, the community transportation Association, Association ofAmerica, and easterseals. And really, the primary mission of ncms is to pro customer

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centered mobility strategies that advance good health, economic vitality, self sufficiency,
and community. So mobile mobility management is about creating community
connections. In essence, this means thinking innovatively about transportation, service
and coordination. So looking at potential local and regional solutions to community
needs, assisting those that face transportation challenges, such as youth, people withdisabilities, aging populations, and other vulnerable citizens or vulnerable populations
and the community. And the goal of mobility management is to create a network ofpartnerships across public transit, private operators, cycling and walking volunteer drivers,and deliver transportation options options that best meet the community needs. So MC
mm has a range of products and supports that you can access. They are all free of charge,
including our research products and tools, our blog mobility lines, you can participate inany of our events. You can also share our online elearning modules, take advantage of ourgreat programs, and encourage your mobility management colleagues to join mobility
management connections, which is a peer to peer online learning platform. Then you canalso connect with your regional liaison. This is my supervisor Judy Shanley, who supports
FTA HUD regions one in five. Well, I support a TA and Hud regions four and seven. So I
really encourage you to reach out to us anytime, as we are both here to provide help withresearching answers to your questions, facilitate community meetings, deliver trainings
that inform your work and provide any other types of customized technical assistance. So
here are more outcomes associated with mobility management and coordination. Lower
trip costs for traveling, aimed for human service agencies shared funding. Extended
service offers services to new areas or new communities into more people, more trips
made by persons easy transportation services, more responsive to schedules, points oforigins and destinations for customers, greater emphasis on safety and customer service,
more door to door service and more flexible payment and service options and enhance
relationships with non traditional partners. So really increase efficient efficiency,
reliability, and effective effectiveness of transportation minimizing the means of services
that are out there. As a high or FTA, grantee or program administrators, here's what you
can do, you can either identify either the hood or mobility management contacts in yourcommunity, share these resources in examples with them to affirm potential activities, you
can contact your NCM regional liaison, Judy's region five, and I am then I have reachedseven, you can learn about grant programs offered through m CMM, and other FTD
centers, and sign up for a newsletter for MC mn other TA Centers, which Daniel had
mentioned earlier. So that concludes the presentation portion of this session. And we will
now address any questions you may have. So please submit your questions to the chatbox. We also have an evaluation posted there. So when you have a few moments, pleasetake some time to fill that out. I know that my colleague Judy has been looking at thequestions coming in. So now I will ask all of our panelists and presenters to come on.

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51:57
Fantastic. Well, Jonathan, you know, I'm gonna start off with a question with you, or foryou, what are the biggest challenges for public transportation provider in trying toenhance mobility options in a distressed or economically disadvantaged area?

52:11
Thanks, Brandon. Good question. I think I might have said this, but it's sometimes when
you're, we get busy operating buses, maintaining buses, making sure they're safe, making
sure they're on time. So and when we're a we're a smaller agency. So it's not always easy
for us to find the time to get out there to the community, and really reach out to all theorganizations that are especially the ones we're finding that are so deep into thecommunity for different services and needs. So it, I think it's about finding the partnershipsthat are organized best and starting there, like the inclusive manatee option, project. So
that's, that's the biggest challenge is staying in contact with the community as a andreaching out a little bit beyond our normal operational, you know, habits. Thank you,
Jonathan. Thank you, Brandon. Yes.

53:24
This is Judy Shanley, can I ask a question of Josiah Josiah is just, you know, you amazing
work. Thank you. Thank you for what you do. Um, I have two things. Is it common for a
HUD ambition center to provide transportation to own their own vehicles and provide
transportation? And kind of corresponding to that is how are you paying for the trips likethe nmt service that you provide in other destinations? So you're partnering with otheragencies to support those trips?

54:00
Well, that's a good question. Also, it's not very common. But the partnerships thepartnerships is a big thing on that with the accountability court. With that we get funding
and from from those types of partnerships, the non emergency Medicaid, that's areimbursement process, to where we go through a broker, and we're scheduled withcertain clients that has the needs, and we match the vehicles according to that client's
needs.

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54:33
So you're you're partnering, not only partnering to provide the rides but pervert
Partnering for the funding.

54:41
You're trying to partner in trying to get them to where they need to go by any means
necessary on that and safely suggests just exposed to more opportunities in and aroundthe community.

54:54
Nice and if you have excess seat capacity in any of your vehicles. Do you Allow thecommunity non Housing Authority residents to use those seats.

55:06
Recently, well before, it started out as a pilot, with only just the Housing Authority
residents, just to see how it would go. And it quickly grew. And before, just withconfidentiality purposes, we don't mix clients. We have the court clients and mental healththat they have certain issues that you don't want to mix with the other clients and havethose type of problems. So we strictly don't mix just for the confidential purposes. And now
during this time period, before we we have a bus that's large enough to hold quite a large
number of 25 passenger. But since the covid, 19 pandemic hit, it's mainly down to single
transports, it's a little bit more on us, but the clients are able to be safer, and it's
disinfected after each client. And at the end of each workday.

56:16
Sabrina Allen, thank you that those were great questions I just wanted to chime in with Mr.
J. So we were fortunate enough that West Georgia star which is the nonprofit arm of thecity of the housing authority, the French Housing Authority, they already had thetransportation department put together. So once it became an envision center, it was justperfect partnership for Mr. J and his team provide transportation for the after school
program for the kids, for the parents, if they need assistance getting to and from work,
you know, just a weekend, just remove some of those barriers and help them become self
sufficient. So a lot of these things that the hazards are already had in place. And we were
just so thankful and blessed to be able to utilize those through the invasion center. And

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that includes with the Boys and Girls Club, Mr. J and his team. I mean, they are just a hugeasset as far as just the community. And do you ask about the if we offer to just the
Housing Authority, anything that we do, like Mr. Jay mentioned, prior to the pandemic,
this community, our resources that we often provide, with envision center for the girls,
whatever it is that you're doing, we offer for the entire community, not just for our
residents. Wonderful, thank you so much.

57:33
So Jonathan, it looks like we have another question for you. So it looks like inclusive vanity
is important to a variety of state agencies, such as HHS, US Department of Agriculture,labor, etc. Have you tried to knock on their door for funding transportation?

57:51
Well, I I'm not quite sure I don't manage the program. But from what I understand it's
mostly funded by local money. And it's a it was a TIF district, a Southwest economic areaof distress type of district was kind of organized so they could get TIF funding and otherfunding directed to the area. So I don't know if there was any grant that started it. I
believe it was self started. But I can I can get back to you on that. But it I think the idea isit's going to be portable as well to other distressed areas in the county after thisSouthwest district one which Southside neighborhood is in. Now, it's probably worth
checking into grant opportunities. intent. Any anybody on the call, but yeah, we'll we'll be
I'll check into that more for the person who asked the question and, and but again, I
believe it's a stealth kind of a local, a local initiative first.

59:02
Sure. Thank you, Jonathan. So I'm seeing a lot of compliments in the chat box for all of ourspeakers of duty. I don't know. Do you see any other questions? Does anyone in theaudience have any more questions?

59:19
It looks like Glenda had a comment. I'm reading it. She's in West Tennessee. She isemployed by the Area Agency on Aging. She has his service called my ride for 60 year
olds, older adults managed by volunteers. So it's a volunteer driver program. No one ispaid to drive older adults. It's a one of a type service the volunteers use their personal

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vehicles. They're getting grants from the Tennessee Commission on Aging. How can weapply for grants to the federal level? We would be in Region four. That sounds like an FTAquestion. Danielle meribel others

1:00:05
did just paste in the chat box, the Tennessee Department of Transportation's public grant
webpage where they've listed, we call everything by the section of the law, which is a bit
confusing. So the program you're interested in is called the section 5310 program. And
that's a section of the law. It's enhanced mobility for seniors and people with disabilities
program. And it's a formula grant that we send down to the state level and the stateadministers. But I would definitely suggest meribel is the expert in Region four. But if you
want to start with the Tennessee webpage there and read about their 5310 program, I see
there's a listing of all of the grants they've made annually to other community programs
like yourself, and then Maryville you want to add to that,

1:00:53or Thank you. Thank you for sharing that that link. I think the best way to start is therewith a VOD, but with this presentation, you're gonna have our contact information. And
you certainly can send us an email to put you in contact with any grantee that we may
have in that area, to be able to get funding additional for 5310, if possible. But as Daniel
mentioned, that is managed by the state God soldiers, but feel free to reach out to see wecan support it any superview any further.

1:01:27
And Glenda, this is traditionally from NC Mmm, Brandon can also help you, Hey, youknow, he's the regional liaison for Tennessee. So he potentially could put you in touch withdifferent grants. But what we found out doing this work for so long is think out of the box.
For instance, we're working a lot with our health and human services colleagues and their
grantees to have them support funding. In the the theme of social determinants of health,
we know how important transportation is to health overall. And so even though a grant
program a foundation program from a state, a private foundation may not explicitly say
they would fund transportation, sometimes they're broad enough. For instance, a grant
may have a goal of economic development for individuals or facilitating economic self
sufficiency. Well, that lends itself to a focus on transportation because we know how
important transportation is to economic independence. And similarly for health related
grants, because transportation facilitates access to health care, access to community

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inclusive settings. There's many programs that even though they overtly don't say thatthey fund transportation, the grant would support transportation. So on our n CMM
website, we've got many examples of funding out of the box, I call it, you know, nontraditional funding. So it's not traditional do t Federal Transit Administration funding, but
it's funding from other agencies and the Envision centers are prime examples of places
that have kind of capitalized on thinking out of the box and being creative about
partnerships and funding and even in the program that Jonathan talked about, andgetting funding from across different federal and state agencies. That's kind of what thistakes.

1:03:30
Hank, and, Glenda, I would, I would consider, make make sure you see with your statecommission, it looks like the Tennessee Commission on Aging and Disability as your, yourstate's body that kind of oversees these funds, I'm guessing and I would double check tomake sure if this is a one time grant, you know what, what the permanent options are? I'm
not sure what region you're in exactly of West Tennessee, but a lot of these programs startwith the state. And it looks like it's this commission, but I I would exhaust all opportunities
with with the state commission as well and see, see where you lie in the funding andoperational funding aspects of things. And it that that would be a good place to start. I
hope it works out. Well. One more thing. Sorry.

1:04:27
This is Judy. I just wanted to Danielle touched upon it and so did Brandon. Many of our TA
Centers have grant programs. In fact, we have a grant program currently, I'll get the URL
and I'll put it in the chat. But you know, their community level grants to identify and build
mobility solutions. So check out all of the TA Centers that were listed on the slide as aplace that might have grant funding support as well. Sorry, Danielle. You know, I,

1:05:01
those programs I showed earlier on that slide, all four of them provide community grants
annually. So every year, so right now, the ncms grant is open, the National Rural transit
Assistance Program, their grant just closed, but will be open again next year. And thoseare for community level planning and implementation small grants. Because a lot of times
coming into the Federal Transit Administration, or grant requirements are pretty
cumbersome and tough. So it's a good place to start with those TA Centers first. But since
Glenna, you mentioned you get funding from the Older Americans Act, I just wanted to

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point out the fact that Congress gave us FDA the ability to accept other federal funds asmatch. So you can buy a vehicle with 100% federal funds, even though usually it's a 20%,
local match requirement to buy a vehicle under that 5310 program. So I just wanted tomention that the Older Americans Act, title three, B, which is the supportive services
program can be used as match. And the Administration for Community Living and acid
FTA developed an FAQ about that. So I will find that and put that in the chat. Since you
receive Older Americans Act funds, that's an option for you.

1:06:18
All right, well, very engaging conversation. And I can see there's a lot of resources being
posted to the chat box. So I encourage all of our participants to take advantage of those.
I don't know if any of our speakers have any final comments, any of our participants haveany final questions as we wrap up?

1:06:42
All right, well, I would certainly like to thank all of our speakers as well. So I decided tobring Sabrina Danielle marybelle, Jonathan, Judy working behind the scenes, as well assome of my collaborators for this session. marybelle, and Robert, for all of their hard work
and, and for everything they shared as well as our participants. We hope that you foundthis session, very valuable. We will have a recording, as well as the slides posted to the
National Center for mobilities of management's website soon. So we encourage you to go
to that website and view the resources that we have. I think that thank you so much,
everyone. I really appreciate your time. everyone have a great thank you, friend. Thankyou. Thank you, everybody. Thanks. Great.

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