Social Services

Belle Glade Teen Center

April 30, 2019 by

The first Boys Club of Palm Beach County opened in West Palm Beach in 1971 providing young males a wholesome alternative to the streets. Today, BGCPBC is the largest youth development organization in the county and offers a robust portfolio of high-yield programs for $30 per child annually—or no cost; no one is turned away due to inability to pay.

BGCPBC members predominantly attend poor performing schools in a 66% -minority school district where 56% of students are eligible for the federal lunch program. Black students in particular have the lowest graduation rates state and county wide. For young low income Black males, finding meaningful employment is also extremely difficult. This troubling trend starts early with poor academic performance, particularly from ages 13 to 18; research indicates that children who live in poverty face enormous challenges to succeed in school.

Interventions are needed to halt the progression toward dropping out of school and being unemployed or under-employed, especially at the Belle Glade Teen Center where 70% of members’ families earn less than $19,000 annually; 77% of members reside in a single-parent family or other non-traditional households; and 90% of members are Black; 5% are bi/multiracial; 4% are Hispanic and 1% are White.

BGCPBC is committed to help its current 13-18-year-old members and alumni who have dropped out of post-secondary education and are struggling with joblessness and a lack of direction in their adult lives. The resultant Teen Employability Program (TEP), combining foundational education, job readiness training, structured employment in the Clubs, and career exploration, dramatically increased BGCPBC’s teen membership base by 176%–from 500 teens in 2013 to 1,381 today. Most importantly, the program has motivated academic success. In 2017, 99% of BGCPBC high school seniors graduated on time, and 75% are now entering into post-secondary educational programs (certifications, vocational, associates or four-year college tracts).

BGCPBC maintains six elementary school-based sites in the Glades allowing members to transition seamlessly to the Teen Center. This cohesion introduces younger members to programs and staff long before they are old enough to attend the Teen Center. It’s often heard that Teen Center members are anxiously awaiting the opportunity to join the Teen Center dance troupe, obtain coveted Junior Staff positions, and attend the College Tour—for nearly all, their first time on a college campus.

Unfortunately, the Teen Center in Belle Glade is turning away needy youth every day due to lack of the facilities and staff to accommodate them. So, instead of enjoying the nurturing environment and quality programs the Club has to offer, teens are going home to empty houses or worse, turning to negative influences of life on the streets.

In June of 2018, B&GC of Palm Beach County hired Crescent to pursue NMTCs in conjunction with its overall financing plan for the new teen center. Crescent worked to secure an investor commitment along with Federal NMTC allocation. In April of 2019, Crescent and the B&GC of Palm Beach County closed on $8.4M of Federal NMTCs provided by Florida Community Loan Fund, leveraging a NMTC equity investment made by US Bank.

Utilizing land donated by the County, $5.7M in capital campaign donations, and an estimated $1.3M in NMTC net benefit, B&GC of Palm Beach County began constructing the new 14,000 sf Smith & Moore Family Teen Center. The new Center will be nearly twice the size of the current Center, allowing a 300% increase in members — from 300-900 teens from the tri-city Glades area — with average daily attendance projected to increase from 125-150 to 300 – 350 post completion.

Dedicated workspaces and youth development professionals will provide the opportunity for Career Readiness programs including:
• Career Launch programs to introduce young people to the world of employment preparation, financial literacy, and internship opportunities.
• Culinary Arts program in a new teaching kitchen complimented with a Horticultural program so that students can learn gardening to table techniques.
• Performing & Visual Arts programs in areas of digital movie making, music composition and performance, and photography.
• STEM programs empowering youth to create new solutions to real-world challenges. From curriculum in App intermediate-level coding to hands on science and engineering activities.

Healy Murphy Child Development Center

December 6, 2018 by

Healy-Murphy Center (HMC) has been serving the educational and social needs of San Antonio’s underserved populations for over 125 years. Mother Margaret Mary Healy Murphy and the Sisters of the Holy Spirit opened what was then known as St. Peter Claver Academy in 1888, and was the first Catholic school and church for African-Americans in the state of Texas. In 1970, the Sisters of the Holy Spirit revised Healy-Murphy’s mission to focus on educating youth in crisis who were not being served by traditional school and community organizations. Today, Healy-Murphy continues to educate young people living in dire circumstances. Many have been the victims of violence and abuse; most are caught in a cycle of poverty and poor health. HMC helps students lift themselves out of generational poverty and low academic achievement through an accredited high school and GED diploma program, healthcare and wellness education, career and college readiness training, and on-campus childcare.

The Child Development Center is one of the many successful programs administered by Healy-Murphy Center. A longtime Texas Rising Star provider, a designation which recognizes centers that continually exceed basic childcare standards, the Healy-Murphy Child Development Center provides quality daycare and early childhood education to 200 low income children ages 6 weeks to 5 years old. Approximately half of these infants and toddlers are the children of teen parents attending Healy-Murphy’s high school program, which provides the added benefit of allowing parents to complete their high school education, while giving their children a meaningful head start in their educational life. The remaining 50% are the children of low-income families who qualify for the City of San Antonio’s Child Care Services reimbursement program. 80% of all children come from households with incomes of less than $15,000. On average, 73% of children served are Hispanic, 21% are African-American, and 6% are Anglo. The infant and toddler program has three key components:

Early Childhood Education: The Child Development Center infant and toddler program utilizes the best-practices in early childhood education to promote sensory, motor, perceptual and language skills. Teachers and caregivers introduce these skills through materials and activities that are both child-centered and teacher-directed. By regularly observing each child’s development, teachers and caregivers plan interactions and lessons that build on children’s strengths and individual interests.

Parent Involvement and Support: Healy-Murphy values the active involvement of parents in the infant and toddler program, both through committee and classroom participation. Parent Days help the children to see their parents as important and concerned members of the center’s environment, while providing parents with opportunities to view the child with teachers and other children.

Health Services and Wellness Education: Understanding the importance of healthy physical development in the earliest years, Healy-Murphy provides free weekly well-checks for all infants and toddlers. Through a partnership with the University of Texas Health Science Center, a nurse practitioner examines each child who may be presenting signs of illness and provides consultations to their parents. Additionally, she provides regular, broad-ranging health assessments, screenings and preventive care for all infants and toddlers.

The existing Child Development Center is located at a high-traffic intersection across from the main campus and consists of buildings that are inadequate to safely meet the needs of educating and caring for nearly 200 infants and toddlers served annually. The three main CDC buildings include a retrofitted historic limestone rock home built ca. 1850, a cinderblock building built in 1987, and a two-room portable structure that is over 25 years old. Each building is in need of extensive infrastructure repairs.

In 2016, the Healy-Murphy Center engaged LPA Architects and Malitz Construction to provide an estimate for upgrading the current facilities and an estimate for building a new facility. Because the construction estimates came in at nearly $4 million, HMC decided that it would be in the best interest of its clients and their families to build a new facility, utilizing the best practices for early childhood education facility design, and safely located on Healy-Murphy Center’s main campus. The site for the new Child Development Center has already been purchased by the Sisters of the Holy Spirit and Mary Immaculate, the founders of the school and the property owners for the entirety of the main school and daycare campuses. The Sisters of the Holy Spirit purchased the land with the intent of allowing Healy-Murphy Center to construct the Child Development Center on the site upon completion of the capital campaign.

In September of 2017, HMC hired Crescent to pursue NMTCs in conjunction with its overall financing plan for the new Child Development Center. Crescent worked to secure an investor commitment along with Federal NMTC allocation. In December of 2018, Crescent and HMC closed on $6.0M of Federal NMTCs provided by Capital Impact Partners, leveraging a NMTC equity investment made by Capital One Bank. The NMTC subsidy will allow HMC to complete the Child Development Center project and retain the existing 28 employees.

Community Partners of Dallas

October 29, 2018 by

Community Partners of Dallas (“CPD”) was established in 1989 by a committed group of Dallas County individuals. Today, the organization’s mission is to ensure safety, restore dignity and inspire hope for the abused and neglected children served by Dallas County Protective Services. Community Partners of Dallas’ programs have been replicated across the state, and exist in more than 155 cities in Texas.

Community Partners of Dallas served more than 20,000 children in 2016, through five unique programs:

• Rainbow Room – The Rainbow Room is an emergency resource center that provides critically-needed items for children such as clothing, shoes, beds, car seats, formula, diapers, cleaning supplies, hygiene items and birthday presents. The Rainbow Room has served more than 168,000 children since it opened in 1993.
• Kids in Crisis – Kids in Crisis provides emergency funds for transportation, housing, enrichment activities, clothing, therapy, and medical expenses for children in relative care or in their own homes. Kids in Crisis serves more than 4,500 of Dallas County’s abused and neglected children annually.
• Caseworker Appreciation – Caseworker Appreciation includes quarterly events to show appreciation and gratitude to the staff of Child Protective Services. Past events include catered lunches, cookouts, ice cream socials, catered breakfasts and cupcake distributions. Sponsored by Community Partners of Dallas board members, members of CPD’s women’s auxiliary and volunteers.
• The Heart Program – The Heart Program is an internationally-recognized program that provides therapeutic group treatment to child sexual-abuse victims and their non-offending family members. Victims of sexual abuse and their non-offending family members meet weekly for group therapy. Victims are encouraged to participate as long as the therapy is beneficial. Dinner is donated by groups, including Tolleson, Sammons, Love of Humanity, Hunt Oil, and National Charity League.
• Storyline (214) 446-2222 – Launched in 2006, Storyline is a phone line that children can call 24 hours a day to hear four different stories. More than 400 children call in per month to listen to a story. The stories change weekly, and are read by volunteers and local celebrities.

Among the 25,864 reports of child abuse and neglect in Dallas County last year, 6,242 cases were confirmed – up 38% from the prior year. Child Protective Services of the Department of Family and Protective Services investigates allegations and removes a child from their parent’s home if they determine the risk to their safety has reached a threatening level. Children entering the system of protective care often have only the clothes on their backs when removed from their homes. More than 79% of the children CPD serves live in families with annual incomes of less than $30,000. There are simply not enough resources between the state and these families to take care of the children’s needs.

Community Partners of Dallas had outgrown its space in the Meadows Foundation’s Wilson Historic District. Over the past 29 years, the number of children who are confirmed victims of child abuse and neglect in Dallas County has increased by 64% and the number of reports has grown 231% during the same period. Child Protective Services is downsizing its facilities and has transitioned their caseworkers to working as mobile employees.

CPD’s client base has grown in direct proportion to Child Protective Services’: in 1989, CPD served 3,500 children annually and today that number has grown to more than 20,000. In response both to the growing need for a physical space to support caseworkers and the ever-growing population of children in their care, CPD has developed a plan to construct a more child-friendly space that is large enough to house its operations into the future.

The new facility will provide extra space for CPD’s successful school supply, coat, and Easter drives, expand space for caseworkers, allow CPD to utilize 10,000+ square feet of Rainbow Room and Warehouse space, and provide offices for 2-3 partner agencies who will lease space from Community Partners of Dallas. The new 6,000 SF Night Response space will have a small break room, a play area, visit rooms and a nursery, showers and bath facilities, a TV gaming and lounge area for older kids, as well as a laundry and other services. Child Protective Services will be a tenant., with 24 employees housed on site for overnight, state holidays, and weekend work (4:00 pm until 8:00 am Monday-Friday and 24 hours on weekends and holidays).

The new facility on Elmbrook will also have approximately 10,000 square feet of space designated for other charitable agencies to lease at low market rates. This Collaborative Space will likely be leased to 2-3 non-profit partners, providing them with office space, a break room, and a conference room. CPD has had early discussions with groups such as Tex-Protects, Children’s Health, and others, and will turn its attention to finalizing these partnership arrangements once the facility is secured.

In June of 2018, CPD hired Crescent to pursue NMTCs in conjunction with its overall financing plan for the new headquarters. Crescent worked to secure an investor commitment along with Federal NMTC allocation. In October of 2018, Crescent and CPD closed on $7.0M of Federal NMTCs provided by Dallas Development Fund, leveraging a NMTC equity investment made by US Bank.

The NMTC subsidy helped CPD close its capital campaign gap, providing the organization with low-cost financing to complete a new headquarters that will provide a host of services that directly and indirectly address the needs of the most needy, at-risk children in Dallas, all in an environment that will promote the crucial sense of safety and security that these children need during one of the most traumatizing periods in their lives.

Ronald McDonald House Charities of Omaha

August 14, 2018 by

620 S 38th Ave, Omaha, NE 68105

In 1971, Kim Hill, the 5-year old daughter of Philadelphia Eagles’ tight end Fred Hill, was diagnosed with leukemia, and began treatment with oncologist Dr. Audrey Evans at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. In the wake of Kim’s successful treatment, the Eagles raised $100,000 through their Eagles Fly for Leukemia philanthropic program to support Dr. Evans’ team at Children’s Hospital. Dr. Evans gratefully accepted the donation, but she also requested that the Eagles consider funding a house in which families of the children in the hospital could get proper rest, away from the hospital. So in October, 1974, Fred Hill, Eagles General Manager Jim Murray and other Eagles teammates co-founded the first Ronald McDonald House, named for the partnership the Eagles organization forged with a local McDonald’s that participated in, and donated to, the Eagles Fly for Leukemia program.

More than four decades later, the Ronald McDonald House organization has expanded significantly, with 365 houses in 64 countries and regions. Given its proximity to one of the best pediatric gastroenterology surgical practices in the country, the RMHC in Omaha supports a much larger footprint than any other RMH in North America, having hosted families from 29 states as well as Mexico. Typical recovery times for these types of surgery result in an average family stay in the RMH of Omaha of around 25 days over the past four years, which is longer than average when compared to other RMH’s around the country

The RMHC offers a variety of programs that are not typically offered in other Ronald McDonald Houses, all of which are aimed at addressing many of the ancillary problems with families’ temporary relocation. The expansion of the RMHC in Omaha will double its footprint to 40,000 sf, as well as its capacity, from 20 to 40 rooms. The new facility will continue to serve a patient base averaging less than $14,000 in annual income, 1/3rd of whom are African-American or Latino families.

An 857 sf classroom will provide the space necessary for classes on GED preparation, financial planning, sibling tutoring, English language, new mother/new baby orientation, and stress and anxiety management. The facility will also offer informational seminars on gastro intestinal rehabilitation, pediatric cancer, pediatric transplants, traumatic injuries, autism, neonatal & premature babies, and pediatric eating disorders.

Once the expansion is completed, RMHC in Omaha will be the only RMH in the world with an on-site clinic, offering 4 infusion bed treatment rooms for children with impaired immune systems to receive their infusion treatments in a controlled environment, greatly reducing the risk of exposure resulting from ambulance transportation to and from the Medical Campus. Staffed and managed by Nebraska Medicine, the 2,995 sf clinic keeps the child on-site, where family and loved-ones are close at hand in a “home-like” environment, reducing the psychological stress on the patient before, during and after treatment.

The facility has partnered with Angels Among Us, a local non-profit that supports children and families affected by pediatric cancer, providing financial support such as covering rent or mortgage payments, utilities, car lease and insurance payments, medical and prescription drug costs, daycare and just about any other costs associated with families’ extended time away from work and home.

In May of 2018, RMHC hired Crescent to pursue NMTCs in conjunction with its overall financing plan for the expansion. Having already secured cash donations, pledges, and bank loan commitments totaling $8.5 million, Crescent worked to secure an investor commitment along with both Nebraska State NMTC allocation and Federal NMTC allocation. In August of 2018, Crescent and RMHC closed on $4.8M of Nebraska State NMTCs provided by Brownsfield Revitalization, $4.8M of Nebraska State NMTCs provided by Consortium America, and $6.0M of Federal NMTCs provided by Consortium America, leveraging a NMTC equity investment made by US Bank. The Nebraska State and Federal NMTC subsidies will go towards construction overruns, along with a variety of “wish list” items that would have been contemplated in subsequent phases, such as internal communications systems, support for transportation services, relocation costs, and tenant improvements for Nebraska Medicine and Angels Among Us.

Mesquite Library

December 20, 2017 by

Crescent Growth CApital (“CGC”) and the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District (“LVCCLD”) are pleased to announce the closing of a $10M NMTC financing, using allocation provided by the Clearinghouse CDFI, and a NMTC equity investment provided by Chase Bank. This new library project is one of LVCCLD’s new model libraries, aimed at providing a broad swath of community services and bringing the library into the 21st century.

The new 16,000 sf Mesquite Branch Library of the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District lies in the heart of the rural community of Mesquite, population 17,059, located in Clark County, an 8,000 square mile county in southern Nevada. The community is 82 miles from Las Vegas NV, 20 miles from the Arizona border, 40 miles St. George UT, and 35 miles from the Paiute Reservation in Moapa, NV. Mesquite serves as a regional center for many functions. Children from nearby Arizona towns attend Mesquite’s Clark County School District schools.

Mesquite has been designated a priority need area for city, state and regional economic development and workforce agencies. The library site is located on the only CDBG block in Mesquite. The site is located within the City of Mesquite-designated Enterprise Zone and is in a rural area identified by Workforce Connections, the southern Nevada agency for employment, business and career support, as high need/low resource. Workforce Connections has provided a full-time onsite staff person to start-up and expand employment, business and career development services to scale when the new facility comes on line. Plans are now in progress to combine federal education, labor and library resources to conduct specific job training and OneStop services from this facility, along with English language instruction and citizenship.

Workforce Connections will provide staff, instruction and career coach expertise. The Library District will provide public access computers, laptops, Internet, Wifi, printers, scanners, copiers, and other office equipment, as well as a wealth of physical and virtual materials, information sources, databases and apps that support economic development and education. Once complete, the project will give the public access to a new community meeting room, consultation and study rooms with monitors, computer and instruction labs, and access to physical materials and virtual resources that ultimately make this library facility a community hub for economic, education and social well-being.

In this way, this project will prototype a new library model that combines free public access to technology and services for learning, training, making, entertaining, and gathering. It will also prototype a new kind of intergovernmental collaboration. As indicated above, the facility will integrate local, county, regional and state services for workforce, education, social services, citizenship, and libraries. Services provided free to the public here will support OneStop workforce services; small business development support; social service and government agency connections; early childhood development; parent engagement; student support such as homework help; English language, High School Equivalency, and literacy instruction; public computer, Internet and Wifi access; community and cultural events; and job training and certification programs related to the early childhood education sector.

This project will create an estimated 7 positions, while retaining another 15 existing positions. Full-time Mesquite library employees will receive a full set of benefits, including health insurance and retirement (Nevada PERS), which is valued at roughly 30% of salary. Full- and part-time employees are covered by Worker’s Comp.

East Last Vegas Library

July 26, 2017 by

The Las Vegas-Clark County Library District (“LVCCLD”) currently serves 1.5 million people over 8,000 square miles—an area larger than the state of Connecticut. Despite its broad reach throughout the Las Vegas area, in early 2016, the LVCCLD issued a new strategic plan, “Vision 2020,” aimed at modernizing its libraries to adapt to the new digital world.

With the tagline “We don’t library like we used to,” LVCCLD’s Vision 2020 plan aims to give the District the flexibility to adapt quickly to a changing digital landscape by implementing new layouts, technologies, methods of communication, and models of service in all its existing and new libraries. They recognized that, on the one hand, libraries are being urged to go national and international as a platform for digital content creation and exchange. On the other, libraries are urged to be a bridge for local social, economic and education connections that are critical to well-being and to be local hubs for learning, creativity and community engagement.

Vision 2020 has become a guide for deploying library assets – virtual and physical – in ways that advance and amplify the talent and vitality of the region, making even more people successful, happy and engaged in learning, discovery, achievement. In an area that is coping with a plethora of post-recession challenges such as affordable access to food, housing, clothing, employment and education, the new LVCCLD library will address each of these issues by focusing on the four pillars of the Vision 2020 model: Limitless Learning, Business & Career Services, Government & Social Services and Culture & Community.

The new 40,000 sf East Las Vegas Library will be the model for all Vision 2020 libraries going forward. The building’s open layout will give the Library the flexibility to adapt to the changing needs of the community, while providing a wide array of resources and services including traditional and digital literacy programming, parenting support, early childhood development services, school readiness, K-12 academic support, out-of-school learning, making, STEAM activities, entrepreneurship, career pathways, employment search and training, access to computers and Wifi hotspots, English language and citizenship instruction, digital media production, and space for cultural performances and community celebrations. The concept for the new facility is the result of a long and collaborative partnership between LVCCLD and the surrounding community: a series of community outreach meetings yielded a number of new library features which were incorporated into the design. These new features, unfortunately, increased the project budget from $18M to $22.6M, leaving a $4.6M funding gap with no readily available source of funding.

In July, 2017, CGC and the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District Foundation closed on a $17M NMTC financing, utilizing NMTC allocation provided by the City of Las Vegas through its CDE, Las Vegas Community Investment Corporation, and NMTC equity provided by Capital One. The NMTC subsidy generated by this financing was sufficient to close funding gap and round out the development budget for the new East Las Vegas Library branch. The new facility is expected to create up to 400 construction and 8 new, permanent FTE positions, while retaining the existing 38 employees.

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