Racial Equity Impact Analysis (REIA)

The Racial Equity Impact Analysis helps the City consider racial equity outcomes when shaping policies, practices, programs and budgets.

Great Streets Facade Improvement Matching Grant Program updates and Cultural Districts Interior Improvements Pilot Program guidelines - REIA

Section 1: Background

Does this impact one of the City's Goal Areas

Policy Goals

Operational Goals

Public Safety	No
Housing	No
Economic Development	Yes
Public Services	No
Environmental Justice	No
Built Environment & Transportation	No
Public Health	No
Arts & Culture	No

Workforce	No
Spending	Yes
Data	No
Community Engagement	No

Describe the impact on selected goal areas.

To update the Great Streets Façade program to align with current City policies and address the recommendations brought forward by the Small Business Program review conducted by CPED staff in late 2019. The goal of the program is to fund and support commercial district revitalization across the City. The Cultural Districts Interior Improvements Pilot Program aims to reduce barriers to maintaining the commercial building stock and financing interior improvements for small business tenants.

Who participated in completing this analysis?

Miles Mercer, James Terrell, Judy Moses

Section 2: Data

LIST THE SPECIFIC GEOGRAPHIES THAT WILL BE IMPACTED AND THE RACIAL DEMOGRAPHICS OF CONSTITUENTS IN THOSE AREAS:

The intent of these programs is to serve commercial areas throughout the City, but also to prioritize businesses that are in greatest need of support. Resources for the Great Streets program target areas of the City guided for commercial use in the Minneapolis 2040 Plan. The Great Streets program priorities the following areas of the city: Promise Zone, Green Zones, Cultural Districts, and ACP50 areas. The Cultural Districts Interior Improvements Pilot Program will be targeted to commercial properties in the seven designated Cultural Districts.

What does available data tell you about how constituents from BIPOC communities currently relate to the desired outcome as compared to white constituents?

Historically, resident’s purchasing power in the areas identified in the Great Streets program as Priority is lower relative to the City as a whole. This makes operating a business more difficult. Loans for improvements to property can be more difficult to attain because of these conditions. Priority areas are based on previously identified geographies that were determined through varying processes, but with a unifying intent to document and address the disparate negative impacts experienced by BIPOC communities. These areas (Promise Zone, Cultural Districts, Green Zones, ACP50 areas) tend to have a higher percentage of BIPOC residents, with higher poverty rates and higher unemployment rates than the City as a whole. This reality underscores the race equity need to serve these communities at a higher level.

What data is unavailable or missing? How can you obtain additional data?

Data disaggregated by race is particularly difficult to come by for commercial properties, both in terms of ownership and tenancy. However, we know that businesses in the Priority and Cultural District areas defined in this action are more likely to have BIPOC ownership and employees, and serve surrounding areas where a greater percentage of residents are BIPOC.

The City does not uniformly collect information on all businesses located in Minneapolis, but rather what data the City has on a given business is highly dependent on whether or not it requires a license. Given this lack of uniformity, City staff’s ability to inventory local businesses for analysis purposes has been limited. Improvements in internal data management and reporting capabilities, combined with access to new external data sources, has reduced but not eliminated barriers to such analysis. Continued efforts to improve methods of utilizing different data sources is needed in order to create regularly repeatable reporting products useful for understanding the conditions for businesses in Minneapolis.

Section 3: Community Engagement

Using the International Association of Public Participation (IAP2) Public Participation Spectrum, which participation strategy(s) was used when engaging those who would be most impacted?

Inform	Yes
Consult	No
Involve	No
Collaborate	No
Empower	No

Describe the Engagement and what have you learned?

CPED conducted a review of its small business support programs in late 2019, which resulted in several recommendations to improve the facade program:
• Open up geographic eligibility to all commercial areas identified in the new comprehensive plan.
• Consider lowering the match amount in certain districts.
• Examine the 2-bid policy to determine if it is legally required or if alternate means of ensuring a
a fair price could be used instead.
• Encourage and support collaboration among administrators about effective practices for
promotion, project evaluation/approval, and contractor lists.
• Improve data collection on recipient demographics and the property owner or tenant data.

The 2019 program review included extensive community outreach to program partners to gain insight into program strengths as well as opportunities for improvement.

Staff shared the proposed terms for the façade program updates and the Cultural District interior improvements pilot program with community-based partners in spring 2021.

Section 4: Analysis

How does the outcome for this ordinance, amendment, or policy help the city achieve Racial Equity?

Maintaining a healthy local business environment is key to creating Complete Neighborhoods, a goal identified in Minneapolis 2040. This goal is tied to a number of indicators that lead directly to outcomes that residents do not experience uniformly across all demographics. Business districts can be community wealth-building tools and are important for providing employment opportunities, retail services for residents, access to healthy foods, and places of cultural and social significance. Doing so at a scale that serves people who can walk, bike, and bus is also an important consideration as auto ownership rates in the City are lower for BIPOC residents than white residents. To maintain access to all of the above-mentioned amenities in a racially equitable manner, businesses need to be supported near where BIPOC residents live.

Section 5: Evaluation

How will impacts be measured? What are the success indicators and process benchmarks?

Program requirements are reviewed regularly and proposed amendments to the programs are brought to the City Council for review on a yearly basis or as needed. Any proposed changes are informed by
annual reports created and share publicly on the program website and at City Council meetings. Staff will collect demographic information on a voluntary basis on program participants.

How will those who are impacted be informed of progress over time?

Future calls for proposals are sent to neighborhood groups and partner organizations. Reports on the progress and impacts of these programs are presented to the City Council on an annual basis. CPED
publishes the Small Business Newsletter – Plan, Launch, Grow with updates on the Great Streets program; updates are made to the Great Streets webpage; while email announcements go out to Great Streets contractors, applicants, partners, business associations, and neighborhood groups.

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