Lofgren Secures Community Project Funding Totaling $7.5+M for CA-19 in Government Funding Legislation

WASHINGTON, DC – Today, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 2741, government funding legislation, that included ten Lofgren-requested projects for California's 19^th Congressional District. When passed into law, the omnibus package will provide local projects with a total infusion of $7,510,000 from the federal government.

"The Santa Clara County projects included in the government funding legislation will make our community safer, more inclusive, more vibrant, and more resilient," said Rep. Lofgren. "I thank all the South Bay nonprofits, schools, and institutions that provided requests for my consideration that could make a difference in the lives of working men and women. I will continue to fight for our district to ensure that we get the federal funding we need to make necessary community improvements."

The twelve-bill government funding package will help middle class families with the cost of living, create American jobs, support the vulnerable, and work to help small businesses and restaurants that are key to our economic future. Taken together, the funding for CA-19 and the funding increases for critical government programs will reverse decades of disinvestment in our communities and strengthen our nation.

Santa Clara County Project Details

• Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center (San Jose State University) – $1,150,000
• Mobile Crisis Assessment Team (San Jose Police Department) – $1,000,000
• Opportunity Youth Partnership (San Jose Conservation Corps & Charter School) – $275,000
• BACH Comprehensive EHR Conversion (Bay Area Community Health) – $1,000,000
• Solar Panels and Energy Storage Initiative (Gardner Family Health Network, Incorporated) – $1,200,000
• After School and Early Learning Readiness Program (YMCA of Silicon Valley) – $1,200,000
• SJSU Healthy Development Clinic (San Jose State University) – $500,000
• eLABorate CET (Center for Employment Training) – $325,000
• Guadalupe River Park Restoration (Guadalupe River Park Conservancy) – $360,000
• Community Center at Quetzal Gardens (SOMOS MAYFAIR INC) – $500,000

Project Sponsor	Amount Included	Project Name	Project Description
San Jose State University	$1,150,000	Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center	SJSU created the Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center (WIRC) to conduct high-impact research so improved tools, workforce training and policies can be provided to communities and stakeholders in California and around the world. WIRC plans to develop four new facilities to build upon and strengthen current capability at SJSU: a National Wildfire Data and Computing Hub, a Remote Sensing Facility, a Fire Dynamics Laboratory, and a Community Wildfire Resilience Laboratory.
City of San Jose Police Department	$1,000,000	Mobile Crisis Assessment Team	The San Jose Police Department is working to transition the Mobile Crisis Assessment Team (MCAT) pilot program developed and implemented in collaboration with the County of Santa Clara Behavioral Health Services (BHS) into a full-time unit with dedicated officers to improve officer responses to incidents involving people with mental illness, minimize the victimization of persons in crisis, reduce recidivism among high risk individuals, and improve public safety through proper intervention. The program's purpose is to enhance and increase responses and outcomes for individuals with mental illnesses, and ultimately to save lives. The grant funds will be used to provide specialized training, and essential vehicles, equipment, and supplies to support MCAT.
San Jose Conservation Corps & Charter School	$275,000	Opportunity Youth Partnership	This project moves a successful multi-agency pilot to a permanent program. Opportunity Youth Partnership (OYP) trains a cohort of young leaders from historically marginalized and underrepresented communities in 21st century professional, leadership, and advocacy skills. The program is built on relational and experiential learning. Young leaders are matched with adult allies that provide individual mentorship and placed in small teams into public system oversight structures such as child welfare, probation, and education, to participate and ensure their voices are represented in these systems. This project makes a direct investment in our underrepresented communities and improves our public systems by allowing for an inclusive process and equitable participation through real-time feedback loops to users.
Bay Area Community Health	$1,000,000	BACH Comprehensive EHR Conversion	Bay Area Community Health is working to convert its electronic health records (EHR) across all 15 clinic sites in Santa Clara County. Health information exchange allows providers and patients to appropriately access and securely share patient health information electronically, improving the speed, quality, safety, and cost of care. The move from E-Clinical Works (ECW) to EPIC will enable BACH's care teams to provide improved patient care, build continuity between all 26 clinic locations, better track quality measures to reduce gaps in care, and improve population health management through better tracking of social determinants of health.
Gardner Family Health Network, Incorporated	$1,200,000	Gardner Health Services' Solar Panels and Energy Storage Initiative	Gardner Health Services plans to install solar panels and energy storage systems at four health care facilities in California's 19th Congressional District. The purpose of this project is to improve and ensure service reliability at Gardner's medical and mental health care facilities. Climate change has had devastating impacts and consequences across California, creating an urgency to provide a more reliable energy source for critical infrastructure. Public safety power shutoff (PSPS) events and rolling blackouts have become the norm during wildfire season in the region and traditional sources of backup power such as diesel generators create vulnerabilities in the system.
YMCA of Silicon Valley	$1,200,000	After School and Early Learning Readiness Programs	Approximately 2.4 million students in California are on waitlists as the demand for quality after school programming continues to grow. Children in low-income communities, specifically, are at higher risk of being unprepared for school and age-appropriate learning. This funding would provide many working parents with constructive, supervised care. The YMCA of Silicon Valley plans to expand capacity by 760 youth and grow the curriculum by adding anti-substance abuse/anti-tobacco curriculums to its after-school programs, and to equip caregivers with critical youth development skills needed to ensure young children in low-income communities are ready for kindergarten.
San Jose State University	$500,000	SJSU Healthy Development Clinic	SJSU and the East Side Union High School will partner to establish a Healthy Development Clinic to promote equity in access to high-quality, preventative, and family-centered interprofessional care for low-income, uninsured, and vulnerable populations. The Clinic, based on an expanded Adverse Childhood Experiences framework, will focus on promoting physical, psychological, and relational wellness. SJSU faculty and students from the College of Education and Health and Human Sciences will provide free and low-cost services as part of their clinical training, creating a model that is financially sustainable, supports strong interprofessional learning for future educators and health care professionals, and is grounded in the community.
Center for Employment Training	$325,000	eLABorate CET	The Center for Employment Training (CET) has an urgent need to modernize its classrooms, labs, and shops, and to acquire state of the art, industry-specific equipment to allow for hybrid modalities and prepare students for in-demand, 21st century skills. In a purely grassroots effort, the community saved an abandoned building and turned it into CET's training center, which is now classified as a historic building and a city landmark. In that vein, CET continues to be an integral part of the community – by providing our underserved populations with workforce training in stable and emerging industries and our local businesses with the skilled employees they need. CET was once rated "the most effective" training program in the nation among those funded by the Economic Development Administration at the U.S. Department of Commerce. Its comprehensive employment training has consistently been recognized for making a lasting economic difference in the lives of low-income individuals.
Guadalupe River Park Conservancy	$360,000	Guadalupe River Park Restoration	The Initiative will work to restore and enhance the Guadalupe River Park, the largest open space in downtown San Jose, and pilot a stewardship program to provide workforce opportunities in park maintenance for young adults and unhoused residents. The scope includes tree replanting, Historic Orchard and Heritage Rose Garden restoration, signage, and community coordination to leverage more volunteer expertise, public engagement, environmental education, and economic opportunities. San Jose's annual City Auditor's report showed that 90 percent of city resident respondents visited a park at least once a month or more last year.
SOMOS MAYFAIR INC	$500,000	SOMOS MAYFAIR INC Community Center at Quetzal Gardens	This project would provide for construction, equipment, and program services for a new Community Center on Quetzal Gardens Apartments' ground floor. The larger base building construction will be completed by January 2022 and these funds would be used to make it a livable space with fixtures, furnishings, equipment, and operations to provide services and programs to residents who include extremely low-income families, at-risk youth, and the formerly homeless. The Center will create access to resources and foster deep community connections that provide formerly unhoused and disabled persons, and extremely low-income families the necessary support to live independent, stable, and healthy lives. Scoring extremely well for tax credits and Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities funding as a Transit Oriented Development, Quetzal Gardens is a critical project to helping the City meet its goal of ending homelessness and is the first affordable project to be developed in the City's first approved urban village, the Little Portugal Urban Village. It is also an environmentally sustainable building with plans to achieve at least a LEED Green Point Silver certification and is GreenTrip certified for its proximity and resident usage of public transportation.

The inclusion of this funding in H.R. 2741 is one of the steps in the legislative process and does not guarantee a project will receive the allocated amount.

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