Mayor Barlow announces RFP for $400,000 Anti-Poverty Initiative in Oswego
The City of Oswego was awarded funding to participate in the Empire State Poverty Reduction Initiative (ESPRI). Mayor William J. Barlow, Jr. organized and appointed the City of Oswego Poverty Reduction Steering Committee to take charge in alleviating poverty through the establishment of a platform for developing innovative initiatives, solutions and programs to begin to shift the pendulum of a bottom heavy socioeconomic demographic to provide a higher quality of life in our community. The Steering Committee with the City’s Poverty Reduction Taskforce “LIFT Oswego” worked with the Center for Governmental Research (CGR) to develop a comprehensive city-wide poverty needs assessment, and through this needs assessment has prepared a Request for Proposal (RFP) to provide funding up to $400,000 for projects aimed at reducing poverty in the City of Oswego.
“This is a tremendous opportunity for the City of Oswego to work collaboratively with the community partners to identify innovative solutions that will help improve the quality of life for residents in the City of Oswego. I want to thank Governor Cuomo and New York State for selecting the City of Oswego as one of the cities to participate in the Empire State Poverty Reduction Initiative,” said Mayor Billy Barlow. “As a community, we have an obligation to address poverty and do our best as local government to create programs that can lift a person out of poverty. We’ve centered our discussion on providing our residents a program with the tools to help lift them out of poverty by arming them with the opportunities to gain skills, search for a job and keep a job. We want to maintain that focus moving forward and will work to implement programs that will do just that”, Mayor Barlow said.
The City of Oswego with LIFT Oswego is seeking proposals for projects in the areas of Child Care, Education, Housing, Services & Support Systems, Transportation, and Workforce Development that will measurably impact poverty in the City of Oswego. The ESPRI funds provide the City of Oswego with an opportunity to undertake opportunities that focus on such needs and to identify innovative and sustainable solutions that are tailored to the uniqueness of the City of Oswego that can successful in improving outcomes for the residents and will help individuals and families achieve their full potential. The RFP is enclosed and proposals are due by October 30, 2017.
“I want to thank the members of the Steering Committee and the Taskforce for working collaboratively with the City of Oswego and with the consultant in preparing the Poverty Needs Assessment as it helped paved the way to create this Request for Proposal to solicit proposals for this unique funding opportunity, which is the next step as part of this initiative. I encourage anyone that has an idea to attend the Technical Assistance Workshop scheduled for October 5, 2017 as outlined in the RFP so that we can help you as together we are helping the community,” said Justin Rudgick, Community & Economic Development Director and Chair of Oswego Poverty Reduction Steering Committee.
