Raising Connections
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Raising Connections
Community Action Council of Howard County 06-22-2026
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The Community Action Council of Howard County (CAC) is the county’s designated anti-poverty organization, a non-profit designed to meet community needs. CAC is dedicated to fighting poverty by helping people become economically self-sufficient. Tracy Broccolini, President of the CAC talks with Rachann about their five core services of Early Childhood Education, Energy Assistance, Food Assistance, Housing Assistance, and Weatherization Assistance established to create a holistic approach to empower families on their path to social and economic stability.
Community Action Council | Helping Diminish Poverty in Howard County
www.raisingconnections.com
The beauty of relying on an organization like CAC, we are so heavily monitored and audited. So every red cent that passes through a donor to us is accounted for. There is a federal law that mandates us to exist here and to address these needs in this community. Even a lot of churches rely on us. Like churches will donate to us so that we can do what the church would have been doing because churches get requested all the time. Like, I can't pay my rent, I can't pay my car note, I can't do this. They'll be like, just go call CIC. We'll make sure that the dollars are going to the intended person.
SPEAKER_01Today's podcast is brought to you by Mariah Bellmanor Kennel, offering dog boarding, bathing, and daycare in an eco-friendly environment. Our pet care with a personal touch is not just a motto. It's really what we do. Our touch extends to the food without preservatives, quality and natural shampoos, inclusive boarding, and a green living environment. Sounds like I might want to check in. Visit us anytime on our Facebook page, Mariah Bell Manor Kennel, or Mariah Bellmanor Kennel.com. Enjoy your program. Welcome to Raising Connections, connecting your community to others through critters, companions, commerce, and agriculture. I'm Ray Shan Mayer. Let's raise some connections. Here we go. Today, as always, we have a fun and interesting guest, Tracy Broccolino. Welcome.
SPEAKER_00Oh, thank you. Thank you for having me. Where do you spend your days? Every day I show up at the Community Action Council of Howard County. I am the president of the Community Action Council of Howard County, so I have the pleasure of serving the Howard County community. That is a big job. Yes. CAC, what is that? The Community Action Council of Howard County is the local anti-poverty organization. Community Action was created in 1964 as part of President Johnson's war on poverty, and every jurisdiction in the United States has a community action agency. Most of us are nonprofits, as is CAC of Howard County, and we are designated to identify the causes and conditions of poverty in our community and to address those conditions.
SPEAKER_01That's a heavy lift job. Yes, it is. How did you end up in this position? Did you wake up one day and say, I want to be the president of the community actions council?
SPEAKER_00Well, my background is in education. I graduated from college well over 30 years ago. I started teaching elementary school and did that for a little while. And then I became a reading specialist and went on to get a neuroeducation degree, Proud Hopkins alum.
SPEAKER_01A neuroeducation degree?
SPEAKER_00Yes, neuroeducation. So I have a graduate certificate on top of my reading specialist master's in the mind, brain, and teaching.
SPEAKER_01Interesting.
SPEAKER_00It was fascinating. And I'll tell you, like in this role where I am now, it is very useful. Highly useful because I've learned a lot about not only the way people learn and children learn, but how our brains work and how adults behave and why they might behave this way or make choices that they do, or the way that our brains adapt to experiences. And in the work that we do every day serving folks who are in crisis, oftentimes you wonder, well, why would they make a decision like that? But if you understand the way the brain works, you can say, well, I totally understand why they would make that decision.
SPEAKER_01So your past and your present come together and they're interwoven. Absolutely. Education is never wasted.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely not. And being a teacher, that never ends.
SPEAKER_01Do you consider yourself a lifelong learner or a lifelong teacher?
SPEAKER_00Yes, both. We actually at CAC spend a lot of time developing our staff, and we are big fans of Clifton's strengths, and my number one strength is learner. There you go. So works out well.
SPEAKER_01So I'm going to tap into your inner teacher for a moment. I had an aha moment when we were prepping for this, and I bet a few of our listeners would have that same really moment. Now I'm going to date myself about 30 years ago when I was in history class. I learned that all this wonderful stuff happened in World War II and around the depression. And that's the New Deal. And that's where I thought social services came from. In my mind, Community Action Council and Social Services comes out of the Depression era, not out of the 60s and LBJ.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, you know, like during World War II and the 30s, right? The Great Depression, those programs were sort of fixed. The WPA that was out there building bridges and went through the Truman administration and to build our roads, that was a fixed period of time. What was happening in the 60s, the early 60s, even before President Kennedy was assassinated, you had Sergeant Shriver, you had RFK, you had that whole group looking and saying, What's going on in our country? Why do we have poverty in such a wealthy nation? And Sergeant Shriver, which I believe was JFK's brother-in-law, he went out into communities and saw things. He was like, this is ridiculous. Like, why is this happening? And actually, the creation of community action in 1964, which was part of the Economic Opportunity Act, which came very shortly after the Civil Rights Act, was a big controversy. A huge controversy. Huge controversy because it was the first step of the federal government skipping over state government to go local. And they brought federal dollars to address poverty. There were other things, obviously, like building roads and things, to address poverty. And people were mad. And our incorporation papers here in Howard County say October 13th, 1965, and the week after, in the Baltimore Sun or Howard County Times version of it back then, there is an article that echoes today. The sentiment is still thought of today. We don't need community action in Howard County because there is no need in Howard County.
SPEAKER_01So I have to ask this question: what is the need that you're filling today?
SPEAKER_00I would enjoy a low poverty rate, but that is a misnomer. It is. Because it's based off of an arbitrary number that is set by the federal government. It's about 5.6%. Sometimes we'll hop up to 6%. It just sort of varies in that neighborhood for a little while. But it's based off of a salary that most people in the entire world cannot live off of. This year, the federal poverty rate for a family of four is $33,000. That's impossible. Like no one. So you're looking at 5.6%. Let's just stick with that number. In Howard County are living and earning $33,000 or less. So that's why it's so low here, because no one can afford to live here that are making that or less.
SPEAKER_01One of the things we hear is Howard County is one of the richest counties around. Montgomery County, Maryland is one of the richest counties around. Does that number change based on county in Maryland?
SPEAKER_00It does. You have an area median income, which is regional sometimes, but then you can look specifically at the county. Howard County and Montgomery County often change places as the wealthiest county, and they often sit within the top 10 wealthiest counties of the nation. Howard County, the median housing cost right now, according to the Housing Affordability Coalition, is $619,900, the median house price. I just use that kind of as a proxy for understanding how much it costs if you wanted to live here. The other thing to note is that market rent here has gone up 23% since last year. It's about $2,900 average. And the rental vacancy, so a healthy vacancy rate in any given jurisdiction to have competition and to have prices that are reasonable is 5% to 8%. Ours is 2.8.
SPEAKER_01And is that increase being seen as the good old-fashioned supply and demand?
SPEAKER_00Yes, it is. So when you have low supply, the cost goes up. And with people who earn less, the house is eating first. And the people who earn the least, more obviously, of their income is going towards their rent. And the very first thing that happens is that you're going to pay your rent. And if you're employed, you're going to keep your car. Guess what else you're not going to do? You're not going to eat. You're not going to make sure that your children have three meals a day, or you yourself as a parent might not have three meals a day. You'll make sure they do, but you won't. You're not going to take care of your health care. You may not be able to work at all because the cost of childcare rivals the cost of housing. So an infant off-market, like full prices, is about $2,700, $2,800 a month. So if your rent is $28, your childcare is $2,800, that's your net, right? How much are you netting to bring home? How much do you need to earn? So the gap that community action here in Howard County is filling is very much upstream. We have strong partnerships with organizations like grassroots, which is our coordinated entry partner, where homeless or unhoused families come through. That is where they start.
SPEAKER_01Is that the upstream, the unhoused families?
SPEAKER_00No, we would be upstream. We're trying to keep them from going downstream and being homeless. Got it. So upstream would be prevention. Yep. Prevention. If we can address these needs upstream, keeping families housed, keeping them fed, providing low to no cost childcare, then they're more likely to stay employed, they can afford their rent, they can gain farther education, then you have the ability to live here and contribute to the Howard County community and the economy.
SPEAKER_01There's a whole lot that you just unboxed right there. Upstream, downstream, and on the beaches, both. Yes. Lots of things. Is it families that you're focused on or is it folks with limited income that the CAC is focused on?
SPEAKER_00Well, it's both. One of the cornerstones of community action is the whole family approach. So if you're helping the parent, you're helping the child. That doesn't mean we don't help singles or the aging population or a young adult who doesn't have any children. We help everybody, obviously. But a cornerstone of community action is making sure that our services are comprehensive. We are the sole Head Start grantee and have been since 1979.
SPEAKER_01And Head Start is means the kids going into kindergarten are prepared and ready.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. So when you present a kindergarten ready child to Howard County Public Schools, they're more likely to be successful in the long run. We know Head Start's been around since 1964 as well. So we have gobs of data about how successful Head Start is. So we provide Head Start. We also are the largest partner of Howard County Public Schools pre-K expansion. So the Universal Pre-K that's part of the blueprint for Maryland's future. Yes. We are the largest provider of those community partner seats. So those seats actually reach families who earn up to 300% of federal poverty. So that family of four at Head Start, Head Start caps them at 33,000 because it's a federal program. The state says you can earn up to 99,000 and still enroll, and that's free. It's all year-round, it's all full day. Most of our families across all of our programs, so food, housing, we do eviction prevention, energy assistance, early childhood education from birth to when they go off to kindergarten, and we're also the state's largest weatherization provider. Most of our families are employed.
SPEAKER_01That's something that I think you need to say again. Would you say that again?
SPEAKER_00Most of the families that we serve are employed. And the ones who aren't are either of retired age and living on a fixed income or they have a disability.
SPEAKER_01If you are employed, why can't you make it on your own?
SPEAKER_00Well, you have wages that don't match the cost of living here. It's a gap. It's a huge gap. So that same family, I keep talking about that $33,000 a year family of four, we like to use in the Community Action Network. We're part of Maryland Community Action Partnership. There are 17 community action agencies in Maryland, over a thousand in the country. We lean heavily on the self-sufficiency standard, which is a standard that's developed and maintained by the University of Washington Center for Women's Welfare. That is a measure that is used to show how much it actually costs to live in a jurisdiction. So here in Howard County, federal government says $33,000 for that family of four. Our self-sufficiency standard that is maintained, you know, by an independent party, that same family has to earn in order to be totally self-sufficient, pay their taxes, pay their rent, pay for childcare, food, all of the things. You're in car insurance, all of it. That same family to live here has to make over $146,000 a year. So that giant gap is huge. That's like over $100,000 gap. So we have programs that allow us, as I described with pre-K, allow us to reach families who are earning above the federal poverty level so that they can stay stably housed, so that they can put food on their tables, so that they are able to continue to work full-time. And we have partnerships with Howard Community College where families can gain certificates to increase their employment, increase their earning capacity, all of that. So again, those upstream measures to keep them from falling off the cliff, if you will, downstream.
SPEAKER_01So there's a lot there. The amount that you earn, the amount that you're supposed to earn, the services that are available on slide rule structures, that's a lot of variables. Yes. And that means there needs to be someone there helping people through and helping understand. And the connection I really want to make here is a connection that was an aha moment for me. The first time that we met was at the Farmers and Hunters Feed the Hungry Parade, which is based in Lisbon where the studio is. We're all sitting here in the dining room today. It's beautiful. At Christmas, there's lots of Christmas things going on. And that was talking about food insufficiency. We talked a lot about numbers and what those slide rule numbers are depend on our area and income and costs. Are there other forms of poverty or richness that we may not be seeing?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think folks who struggle and who have lived in in households perhaps for generations, and we see that where I just grew up going to the food bank. That's what I'm going to do. They may not know that there's another choice. For us at CAC, we have community workers, we have family service workers, and we have community navigators. And their role is to look at folks and say, let's look at your whole life, not just this need for food over here. What else can we do so that you don't need us anymore? Do you realize that you can go to HCC for free? We can help you do that and become a CNA or a vet tech or whatever they offer.
SPEAKER_01So HCC would be using the community college to make sure that you're getting education to sustain themselves.
SPEAKER_00Yep. Lifting people by putting our arm around them, not looking at them and going, I just don't understand why you don't just go get a job, go get educated, go, go do this. Sometimes people don't know how to navigate systems. We do purposely, I think, my opinion, is we make it sometimes difficult to get to services. And because we do that, and I I understand why, because there's a limited amount. So you have to say, we want to make sure that the intended recipients are getting the services. I understand that totally, that's how we operate, obviously, but people need help getting to that. So making sure that the folks who may not know that they have the resources available to them, making them aware so that they no longer need that assistance. On the other end, if you are not living in a community that is overtly showing struggle, then it's hard to know what you're supposed to do. And I don't think that people are not generous. I think we live in the most generous nation on earth. And there are communities in this county that have shown up like we've never seen before. Like government shutdown. I've the amazing generosity.
SPEAKER_01And that was one of the pieces that I was a little surprised about when we were getting ready to do this interview. That when federal governors were furloughed, CAC stepped in.
SPEAKER_00We do. Anytime there has been a crisis in this community, the Ellicott City floods, the tragedies that individual households have faced, the government shutdowns, furloughs, whatever it happens to be, we are leaned upon as a reliable agency to step in and help. And that's where we have the ability to be flexible and say, this is our rule. We can't budge. We can budge because our community is so generous. Because we can say we have these unrestricted dollars that allow us to help this strange scenario that no one else can help. But because we have generous neighbors who support us financially, we are able then to support families who wouldn't be able to get help anywhere else.
SPEAKER_01Why would it be important to support families that couldn't get help anywhere else? If there weren't help, where would they go? What would happen?
SPEAKER_00Just like we were talking earlier, you plan your life a certain way. You graduate from college a certain way and you think, oh, I'm gonna be this. That's what I'm gonna be. I'm telling you, however many years later, what I'm doing now is absolutely not what I thought I was gonna be doing. The same thing happens in life. You face crises, it's guaranteed. If it's not happening today, it will happen some other time. And if there is not a place like community action for people to come to, those families will fall so hard. We operate as a safety net. And if a family needs a hand up with their mortgage for a month because something happened to them or car accident driving them out went to work. Exactly. I mean, it is not unusual for us to hear from folks, I had a job and I became sick and now I can't pay my rent. No one ever expects to ever get sick. I'll give you an example. We have a huge partnership with Johns Hopkins Howard County Medical Center. And if you're not aware, I want to say a couple of years ago, the centers for Medicaid and Medicare services at the federal level required patients who are Medicare and Medicare recipients to be screened for social determinants of health. They're factors in people's lives. Like, do you have employment? Do you have a community around you? Do you have health care? Are you food secure? And so this hospital is evaluating these patients. And if they indicate that they don't have any food at their house, they let us know. Mary Smith, we'll make up Mary Smith. Mary Smith, 35-year-old woman, has no food at her house. She's receiving Medicaid. So we know what her income level is. She's not going to be able to run out and go to the grocery store. She just had surgery. We are able to deliver $200 worth of groceries to her. It's there when she gets home. If it's a diet restriction or she can only open a can of soup, it's there and it's ready for her. And we talk to them on the phone. The reason we're doing this is because we're reducing readmission rates in partnership with the hospital. So we have reduced readmission rates by around 40%. And if we can take one thing off of your worry plate, food. You don't have to worry about it. There's food at your house. You'll be fed. There's nothing to worry about. We can do that for you. You can focus on these other things.
SPEAKER_01Question. And I'm sure we have folks listening out there that may have the same question rolling around in the back of their head. Isn't that what the community groups and the church groups and the food trains are for? There's websites where you download on Monday Sally's taking dinner on Wednesday, Joe's taking dinner on Tuesday, Martha's taking dinner. Why aren't we relying on those? Why do we need a service for this?
SPEAKER_00So you could rely on those. You can. There's nothing wrong with those things. My job here is to be devil's advocate. Yes, absolutely. I've relied on those. I had babies and I had lasagnas coming out my ear. And I was so grateful for all those lasagnas with those years. Yes, yes. Yes. The benefit with us being able to provide this is we can bring you food, but we can also ask you the question: do you think you're going to need help paying your rent? How about your utility bills? How about I'm able to connect you to our community navigator to make sure that we get you signed up for SNAP? The beauty of relying on an organization like CAC, we are so heavily monitored and audited. So every red cent that passes through a donor to us is accounted for. And I'm not saying that any other organization, I'm not trying to say that that doesn't happen elsewhere, but because of what we are, there is a federal law that mandates us to exist here and to address these needs in this community. Even a lot of churches rely on us. Like churches will donate to us so that we can do what the church would have been doing because churches get requested all the time. Like, I can't pay my rent, I can't pay my car note, I can't do this. They'll be like, just go call CIC. We'll make sure that the dollars are going to the intended person. So it's not someone just sort of taking advantage.
SPEAKER_01That's a tough job to be in. Yes. That is a tough screening. I'm assuming that's where the teaching with the rubric comes in. And there are the folks that are intended. Yes. One of the things you hit on were the working poor. And again, this was something that came not as a surprise to me, having been in the Midwest through the 80s when people were losing farms. This is when John Cougar Mellencamp was singing about things, and farmers were committing suicide. And those farming communities, much like our urban communities, have a sense of pride. It's the working poor that want to hide what's going on behind. Are there strategies and ways to reach those folks? Are there signs that you're looking for? Are there things that we can be aware of?
SPEAKER_00Well, some of our strategies are to go where people are instead of expecting them to come to us. So we'll have mobile pantries. We partner with Roving Radish. I know you know James, our very good friend. So he'll go wherever he is. He goes to the community schools, and then we show up and bring the stuff that he doesn't have. That's the neighborhood. So we'll go to them instead of saying, Well, we're gonna sit over here and wait for you to come to us because you need help. So that's a big deal. And it provides some dignity to those folks. And there's no need for me to say, Well, prove to me that you have need before I you shop here at this roving radish.
SPEAKER_01You know what I mean? I get it. A dignity thing is a big part of it because saving pride, saving dignity often goes with a statement that give your best away. Yes. Because someone may need it more than you do.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, especially in our community where not looking affluent has a stigma too.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. Every area has a culture to it. Otherwise, we wouldn't all try to fit in. Yes. We've talked a lot about working poor, but there's a child component. And something really interesting that CAC has done, you finished your first cohort group of the Guaranteed Basic Income Pilot Program.
SPEAKER_00What is that? So Guaranteed Basic Income Pilots have been around for a very long time. They take different flavors, they've been all over the country. And the point of them is to show with a few extra dollars what can a family do? What happens to that? And we've partnered with the Howard County government, Dr. Ball's office, and we just finished our first cohort, which was 20 families. We just had a lottery for 25 more for the Second cohort, the purest form of guaranteed income is we're giving you money, no questions asked, no strings attached. Bye. Our first round, we had the 20 families, they were getting a thousand dollars a month, and the only thing they had to do was fill out quality of life surveys for us. Now, let me pause and tell you who they were. The working families that were making between 150 and 300% of federal poverty level.
SPEAKER_01Now we've talked earlier about so that's about $100,000 to $120,000.
SPEAKER_00Ish, right? Depending on household size. They had to be working, right? Like I said, working families. They had to have a child 17 and under, so it had to be a whole family. They also could not be receiving any housing subsidies because this is income. And if you're on a housing subsidy, if you get more income, you lose your subsidy. So we didn't want to hurt them, you know, obviously. What we learned from these families that we are now putting in place for the second cohort is that obviously goes without saying a little extra money improves your quality of life. These folks were getting out of debt, went back to school, they ate more than one meal a day, they spent time with their children. Their mental health was stable because they were less anxious. What they told us was we really think we need more help managing our money. I can understand where that might come from. Yes. So this second cohort of 25 families, we did a lottery. It was put out to the public. We had over 500 applicants that had to meet the same criteria. They obviously also have to live in Howard County because it's Howard County dollars. These families will receive $500 a month, and then $500 a month will go into a bank account for them to have a rainy day fund at the end of the program. They have to participate in financial wellness work with our financial partner. And it's the same qualifications. They have to have that level of income. They have to have a child 17 and under, they have to be working, and they have to not have a housing voucher.
SPEAKER_01One of the questions that pops to my mind immediately is if there's extra money that comes into the family budget and then it leaves after a point of time, that second cohort with a financial education piece will be treated differently. It's a growth opportunity. It's a piece. Getting in early is different than getting in a little bit later. What happens to those first families when they hit that, I think the word is the cliff where the money ends and now they are upstream, but do they migrate downstream off that cliff? What happened?
SPEAKER_00We offered to those families if they would be willing to participate in financial wellness, that we would extend their program for another six months with that same 500-500 split. So this original group will be weaned off, if you will. So they'll get 500 in cash and then they'll have 500 put in a savings account for them. But to get that, they have to participate in financial wellness because they told us we need help making sure that we can sustain this level.
SPEAKER_01That's a really interesting piece. And let me put a couple connections together from other parts of Howard County. Some areas of Howard County are really looking for folks to come to the community, to be part of the community and work in jobs that are meaningful to keeping their lives together. And when I say that, I think about dairies, I think about farms, I think about Hague being put up, I think about the folks who can work in the ice creameries, the agritourism. But the transportation factor comes in. Yes, it does. And in the urban areas, it's different transportation opportunities that outside into the more rural areas of the counties. Does this come to play in any of the studies or programs that are there?
SPEAKER_00One of the features of community action is by law, we have to conduct a community needs assessment every three years. The goal of that is to, with a qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis, we have to identify the top conditions and causes of poverty. And transportation often comes up, and it came up last time for us. So we as a community action agency have to say, all right, are we providers of that thing or do we advocate for provision of that thing? Or do we support a partner that does that thing that would address this cause or condition of poverty? There's been movement in different parts of the county to have shuttles running up and down Route One, for example, where there are transportation needs. I'm not aware of something coming out here, though, in the western end. Short answer is transportation is always an issue. This is a very car-based community. And if you don't have a car, you're kind of stuck unless you live right next to where you work.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. It's a lot of different moving parts. And housing, I think, comes into that because it's easy to think that three times base level, 900 to 120,000. Wow, that sounds like a lot of money to someone who might be listening to us in the Midwest or in a very rural area, but in an urban area, that might be a very small amount. It comes down to game of percentages. Yes. But we've talked about this guaranteed income and how it made such a difference and the cliffs and what the parents are learning. And it's almost what I would term or I have heard termed a social initiative. Yes. The folks that are in this program, they need to have a rubric box checked for having children. Do those children that are part of this program seeing these changes the parents are making, are they able to make a generational change?
SPEAKER_00It's that whole family approach, right? So if you're securing the family and you're making the household more secure, then you're ending up taking those children out of what would have been an impoverished situation. So the guaranteed income is teaching these families, this is what it's like to be able to earn more. We want to keep this. We provide them the resources to say, this is how you keep this. And then you have a child in that home who will see this, and then you're breaking that cycle of poverty in that household.
SPEAKER_01With the child component, there's so many kids that are getting ready to go on summer vacation. And that means there may not be a morning meal, there may not be an afternoon meal, but summer camps may be filling different needs, there may be different opportunities, or there may be no opportunities, depending on where you are and work shifts. In programs that CAC offers, is there a way that the children are being reached to break cycles and break through to new opportunities?
SPEAKER_00Yes. We have a few ways that we approach that to reach older than our Head Start kids. We've got those littles there. Our partnership with Howard Community College is a huge one. We work with new parent scholars over there that we can help reach as well. Teen parents at Wild Lake, their children are at the Children's Learning Center at HCC, which we operate. That's part of our partnership with HCC.
SPEAKER_01So let me make sure I've got that right. The Community Action Council actually operates the daycare at the community college. Yes. That's huge.
SPEAKER_00Yes. It is the only Head Start program in the state of Maryland operating on a community college campus. And we have the student parents that are students at HCC. We take care of their children because our requirements are that their children have to be with us all day. That's part of a Head Start requirement. They get three meals, they've got their meals, they got their snacks or their formula and their diapers. It's all taken care of. So that alleviates that pressure on those parents. We also have a partnership with the Harrow County Public Schools teen parenting program. These are just small vignettes of places where we are infusing our assistance for small groups of people. When it comes to whole households, though, we know it used to be pre-pandemic, like our food bank, for example, we were seeing mostly older folks.
SPEAKER_01Fixed income retirement changes.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, they're much younger now. And most of the families that we see at the food bank are families with children.
SPEAKER_01Is that a demographic because folks cannot afford to live in the Howard County area? Or is it a demographic change because of what can be afforded in the area and who's living in the area? Is it a demographic change?
SPEAKER_00I think it is. It's a demographic change, but it's also, as I mentioned earlier, that food is the easiest thing to give up. Yes. And SNAP benefits, if you are eligible for SNAP, the benefits are very small. And SNAP doesn't cover things like feminine products or diapers. So there's other things like that that you have to use your own money for. We have all that at the food bank. When it comes to bringing up the children in the household and breaking that cycle of poverty, poverty is never just one issue. It's not just you can't afford your car. It's a multitude of issues. So the services that CAC offers is to address that multitude of issues in a family, which includes lifting up whatever is happening with the whole family and the child, then you're bringing the family back upstream so that they're farther away from crisis and that as a result, any children in that home are brought with it.
SPEAKER_01And that must link back to your teaching years. Because if you put an idea into a young person's head, that idea can spread back to the home. Yes. And oftentimes that link between home and living situation into thought processes is vital.
SPEAKER_00Yes. When you help families change their way of thinking about their situation and they see that there's hope, if I can do this and someone is walking with me to get this done, then I can do the next thing and I can do the next thing. Whether it's getting a certificate or getting better employment, you aren't stuck. That's where we serve as that companion to walk with the families.
SPEAKER_01And once that walk comes to an end, that weaning period, how do you measure success from there?
SPEAKER_00So we are required to measure outcomes for a number of our programs. For example, for housing assistance, we do eviction prevention, as I mentioned. We contact families to make sure they're still housed. And generally speaking, an overwhelming majority are still housed at different periods of time. That's just one example. Our early childhood families, we survey them to say, what's better in your life because you were enrolled here? What changed in your life?
SPEAKER_01By providing stability, you provide support. And that support provides love, and that love provides brain development, which means you're making different choices.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. And I mean, that's one thing from the guaranteed income pilot that we learned. These families with that guaranteed income, they reported, I am able to better care for my child. I am able to provide emotional support to my children because I'm less worried about my ability to provide for them.
SPEAKER_01The guaranteed basic income, the children, the families, generational cycles, making things happen, making healthy families that support healthy communities, and healthy communities are generationally tied. Yes. That's a heck of a job with a heck of a legacy. I know why you didn't go, yeah, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life. You have to grow and mature into this position, I would think. 100%. There's a lot going on that families are coming to the Columbia area and they are displaced from their normal residences and their normal ways of life and coming into the Columbia area. There's a lot of mixing and melting going on in the area. There's a lot of kids, there's a lot of families, there's a lot of culture in there. How do you spread the love and the support through that?
SPEAKER_00Well, I grew up in Columbia. Went to Howard County Public Schools, and it's always been that way. The community has been celebrated for decades for how diverse it is, how welcoming. I'm not naive to think that it's that way for everyone, because it's not. For us at CAC, we help anyone regardless of what their needs are or what they look like or how they present. It doesn't matter. If you have a need, we help you. There is a need in every zip code in this county. And we show up in every zip code. If someone in 2171 needs energy assistance, we're gonna give it as soon as we give to 21043, right? That is where we are. We're everywhere, and the need is everywhere in response to what we know our community needs through that data collection and where the most needs show up, that's where we go.
SPEAKER_01Is that the Route One corridor and the kids?
SPEAKER_00Yes, it is. So through lots of data collection, looking at where our clients are coming from and where there are no human services, for the last several years, our board of directors, our planning and program committee has been examining that data. And all along the Route One corridor for many generations, there has been need. And so we have been fortunate enough to purchase land on the corner of Montevideo and Dorsey Run that was already zoned for food banking and early childhood education. So we will be building a purpose-built food bank co-located with a low-to-no-cost early childhood program that will have Head Start and pre-K expansion there. The reason we are doing this is number one, to show up in that community where, again, there's no fixed human services there, but also because we own the Howard County Food Bank, own and operate. And that building, though CAC bought it 10 years ago, has passed its prime. Prior to the pandemic, we saw 80 people a week. We see up to 120 a day now. Seven parking spots. Seven parking spots and two one-stall bathrooms for that many people, plus staff, plus volunteers. We are at the end of sort of a strip, so we can't receive 18-wheelers that want to bring in donations. So we have to turn things away. And we don't have the storage that we need. We have a very robust food delivery program to homebound seniors, people with a disability. We can deliver food to them. We need a picking and packing, you know, like to do that for them. We don't have the ability to do that. We want to design a food bank that will outlive all of us and to be in a neighborhood where we know there's need, and that's where we're going. And it's a beautiful place.
SPEAKER_01Change comes in all forms and supporting the units that support the families. That's important stuff.
SPEAKER_00It is. And providing them dignity. Always. Our food bank is like a little grocery store. Just because you're struggling doesn't mean that I'm gonna force you to eat beans and rice. Good luck. You should pick what you want to eat, just like I get to. So our food bank, you get a shopping cart and you pick your fresh fruits and vegetables, your milk and eggs. That's where our friends in the farming community in Howard County come in. They are very generous to us through the parade, but also through the summer, the donations that we get. I'll never forget a couple years ago we got like four gay lords of neck pumpkins. It was great. Everybody loved them. But just that generosity that comes from all over the county.
SPEAKER_01But that generosity and that education of what it looks like. If you're living on a farm, you have access to an oven. If you're living in transitory housing, the pull tops on the top of a can are really important.
SPEAKER_00Yes. For example, Thanksgiving, we distribute thousands of turkeys. But not everybody needs a whole turkey because they only have access to a microwave. So we can do like a turkey breast. We've learned over the years we shouldn't make assumptions about what people have available to them. And that's what we try to adapt based off what people need.
SPEAKER_01Adapting, loving, teaching, training, catching, and then throwing in the air to be successful again. Yes. And changing where the cliff is. That's right. I appreciate you joining us and putting some humanness, some studies, some education behind this and making the connections for us. Absolutely. I'm happy to have the opportunity to do that. We'll see you at the Farmers and Hunters Feed the Hungry Parade, and we'll see you down on Route One very soon. Yes, thank you so much. I hope the connections we've raised today stay with you as you engage your community through critters, companions, commerce, and agriculture. Join me again next week. We'll make some more connections. This program is a production of Raising Connections Media Company, hosted and produced by Rashan Mayer, coordinated by Beverly McElroy, and edited and mixed by Robin Temple.