Philadelphia Community Access Coalition
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MS. RICHARDSON: My name's Linda Waters Richardson, and I'm the President of the Black United Fund of Pennsylvania. Today I'm speaking on behalf of the efforts of the Black United Fund to establish telecommunications access on behalf of the communities we serve. I'm going to be brief because many of the things in my testimony have already been stated, but I do have copies for the record.

I just want to say two things briefly. First is that last year, the Black United Fund of Pennsylvania provided help to more than 137,000 individuals and families. Our work to improve the communities in north central Philadelphia resulted in completing the first Avenue of the Arts North Project. This project included rehabilitation of five vacant properties, retained ten jobs, created six businesses, and created ten new jobs. In addition, our work continues, and some of the development, when completed, will bring approximately 500 jobs to the community.

The creation of public access facilities would provide free training and equipment to individuals and groups. The structural support for these facilities in the franchise agreements, which have been stated, are with the city cable companies. And according to these agreements, one citywide public access training center and two neighborhood training centers in each of cable districts are to be created.

The centers will instruct citizens and community groups on the proper use of television equipment. And the previous person testified and talked about the impact in the community.

In other cities, as we've also heard, the access centers offers access and training for the Internet. Equipment is made available free of charge, or at a very low cost.

Our organization has been working to ensure that our community can access the wealth of information that is available on the Worldwide Web.

My second point. Statistics show that there's a significant divide among ethnic groups regarding online access and P.C. ownership. White households are more than twice as likely to own a P.C. than African-American and Latino households. In fact, statistics show that there's a 41 percent versus 19 percent in the African-American and 19 percent in the Latino households. A community training facility would certainly narrow the gap in access to technology.

The location of public access training centers should be in the similar areas in which we work, which is at Broad and Susquehanna, order to close gap and the inequities of technology in our community. It was spoken earlier that public access can provide free time for neighborhood block captains, local community groups to televise public meetings, inspire collective action to address community problems, and educate the general public about community service opportunities.

We, the Black United Fund, certainly look forward to working with City Council to ensure that this program is implemented for the City of Philadelphia.

Thank you.

COUNCILMAN ORTIZ: Thank you.

(Applause.)

COUNCILMAN ORTIZ: Next.

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