The
CTC VISTA Project
Peter Miller, Project Director
Reebee
Garofalo, PI
The
CTC VISTA Project is a collaboration among:
AmeriCorps*VISTA
The Community
Technology Centers' Network (CTCNet)
The College of Public and Community Service
at UMass/Boston
The CTC VISTA Project provides coordination, recruitment, training
and support for more than 100 AmeriCorps VISTAs who work in
community technology centers (CTCs) across the country. Participating
VISTAs attend a training and orientation institute at the UMass
Boston College of Public and Community Service, integrated with
the developing CPCS program in Community Media
and Technology, and the national CTCNet conference in June.
The CTC VISTA MetroBoston Project began in the Fall of 2000
and serves as the pilot resource for the national project component
that began in February 2001.
Earned
Income Tax Credit (EITC) Grant
Terry
McLarney and Joan Arches are co-PIs on a Dept. of Commerce,
TOP (Technology Opportunity Project) grant.
Dorie
Krauss, Project Coordinator.
In Boston $9 million of the federal Earned Income Tax Credit
(EITC) went unclaimed in 1999 and thousands of Boston residents,
who did claim their EITC credit, paid high fees for tax preparation
and exorbitant interest rates for Rapid Access Loans. Mayor
Menino and the Boston EITC Coalition spearheaded a public awareness
campaign to ensure that residents were informed of the benefit
and offered free tax preparation at 16 neighborhood sites across
the city. The EITC Electronic Filing and Technology Access Project
will develop a network of Community Technology Centers (CTC)
as outreach, referral, and processing sites to supplement the
city EITC Coalition’s free tax help sites. Targeting the
63 CTCs that are Boston affiliates of CTCNet, the country’s
oldest and largest association of technology access centers,
the project goal is to return an additional $1,000,000 in federal
and state taxes, including $300,000 in Earned Income Tax Credits,
to low-income citizens and neighborhoods of Boston for the 2003
tax year.
The project will expand and customize the I-CAN! Online filing
system developed by the Legal Society of Orange Country, California.
I-CAN! is a web-based application that allows taxpayers to claim
their Federal Earned Income Tax Credit and complete their returns
on their own or with project support personnel for free. Designed
with multi-lingual, multi-media features to be easily accessible
to low-income, low-literacy and ESOL users, I-CAN! supports
the majority of taxpayers who are EITC-eligible and not currently
being reached, and program support personnel who can be trained
with minimum effort.
The UMB College of Public and Community Service will serve as
the project coordinator to be joined by partners representing
a cross-section of public and private entities as well as non-profit,
community based organizations. Partners include Survivors, Inc.,
a 16-year-old low-income women’s organizing and advocacy
project that will provide outreach and publicity about EITC.
The model used by the Boston EITC Coalition campaign in tax
year 2002/2003 demonstrates that if you
can provide additional financial services to EITC eligible taxpayers,
you can help to integrate them into the financial mainstream
and provide community-wide economic empowerment. The project
will also establish partnerships with local banks to integrate
and formalize a financial literacy component.
Working with the Commonwealth
Broadband Collaborative (CBC), an innovative cable
and web broadcast system, and CBC partners in Cambridge, Somerville,
Malden, and Lowell, the project will expand the outreach efforts
to launch a statewide EITC Electronic Filing and Technology
Access Project.
Department
of Housing and Urban Development: Community Outreach Partnership
Center (HUD COPC) Grant
Joan Arches and Rob Beattie, Co-PI's
The
COPC Grant is a $150,000 federal grant from the Department of
Housing and Urban Development (HUD) written with advice and
support from CPCP staff, provides funding for projects that
will beautify Columbia Point and help residents, neighbors,
workers, and students plan for its future. The grant will support
three distinct projects. Two of those initiatives – a
community-based art project and a community gardening project
– will allow people who live, work, and play on Columbia
Point to directly improve the environment on the Point. The
third project is called a “planning charette.” A
charette is a day-long exercise in which a group of people works
together to develop a shared “plan” for a particular
space – in this case, Columbia Point. The grant will pay
for an education and training process for residents and neighbors
of Columbia Point as well as representatives from companies
and institutions on the Point. According to the grant proposal,
the training will be designed to help the participants be more
effective, articulate, and thoughtful participants in the charette.
