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Shuttered Venues LOCAL COVID-19 RECOVERY FUNDS

Let's try to round-up and update from this NY Times report from 04 February 2021:

"In December, Congress created a $15 billion grant fund for clubs and performance spaces, recognizing that thousands of cultural institutions were at risk of closing permanently because there is no safe way to attend a rock concert or Broadway musical in a pandemic.

Now comes the hard part: doling out the cash.

The list of eligible recipients is large, and the Small Business Administration — the agency in charge of creating rules and systems for the initiative, the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant — has never run a major grant program. Its biggest pandemic relief effort, the $800 billion Paycheck Protection Program, was an extension of a long-running loan program, and even then it was plagued by confusion, complexity and inequities.

Shuttered Venue Operators Grant

This grant provides emergency assistance for eligible venues affected by COVID-19.

The Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG) program was established by the Economic Aid to Hard-Hit Small Businesses, Nonprofits, and Venues Act, and amended by the American Rescue Plan Act. The program includes over $16 billion in grants to shuttered venues, to be administered by SBA’s Office of Disaster Assistance.

Source: https://www.sba.gov/funding-programs/loans/covid-19-relief-options/shuttered-venue-operators-grant

Eligible applicants may qualify for grants equal to 45% of their gross earned revenue, with the maximum amount available for a single grant award of $10 million. $2 billion is reserved for eligible applications with up to 50 full-time employees.

Content

• Program details
• Supplemental documents for applicants
• Who can apply
• Grant amount
• How to apply
• Allowable use of funds
• Video tutorials
• Get technical support with the SVOG portal
• What to expect after you have applied
• Information for awardees
• Program reports and data

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CITY OF MESA NEWSROOM

Stay Cool, Inspired and Engaged This Summer at Downtown Mesa Museums

June 28, 2021 at 4:35 pm

More BLOGGER insert > Does this work for you and The City of Mesa? INCLUSIVE

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TICKET ADMISSION PRICES
Find timed entries on each museum's website. Reservations are strongly recommended during busy summer months. You may also buy tickets at the door.
Admission

> Arizona Museum of Natural History is $7 for children ages 3-12 and $13 for ages 13 and up; museum members are free.

>  i.d.e.a. Museum, admission is $9 for ages 1 and up. Members and babies 11 months and younger are free.

> Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum is free, but reservations are recommended.

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Three exciting new exhibitions are opening in Downtown Mesa on July 1.

1 Travel back in time to ancient Arizona to walk with dinosaurs and then go behind the scenes to develop a deeper understanding of our past at the Arizona Museum of Natural History (AZMNH).

2 Next, explore the world of robotics through art and hands-on activities at the i.d.e.a. Museum.

3 Finally, stop by the Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum and check out Angel Cabrales' reimagined SciFi-inspired parallel universe in The Uncolonized: A Vision in the Parallel exhibition.

ALL THREE - AZMNH, i.d.e.a. and Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum -

WILL BE OPEN DURING THE 4th OF JULY 4 HOLIDAY
Saturday, Sunday and Monday????

 "Families throughout the Valley are seeking fun ways to engage and inspire their children this summer, and our museums offer a great, indoor adventure for children of all ages, and a special respite from the sizzling Arizona heat," said Cindy Ornstein, Director of Arts and Culture for the City of Mesa.

"The visually stunning and educational exhibitions at our city museums will provide the community another reason to get out of the house and escape the heat through our cool experiences."

AZMNH presents 75,000,000 BC, walking visitors through southern Arizona and northern Sonora 75 million years ago. Learn about the giant volcanoes that shaped the economy of our state and the dinosaurs that lived in their shadow.

Additionally, Ologies!: The Science of Anthropology and Paleontology is the museum's first bilingual exhibition.

Visitors will learn more about the museum's anthropology and paleontology research departments to discover the kinds of objects in each collection, how objects become part of the collection, and how objects help scientists study the past.

At the i.d.e.a. Museum, the Robo Art exhibitions lets kids of all ages explore the design, engineering and technology of robots. Enjoy building a 3D bot, playing coding games, and learning about a variety of robots, the history of robotics and more!

Also, several hands-on activities and experiences have returned, including the jungle-themed Black Light Room, cozy Zen Den and the Magnetic Wall, featuring balls and chutes.

Plus, the HUB Gallery has added a Puppet Theater, storybook floor game and new art activity, featuring fairytale characters.

More times to explore & create!
Both museums also are extending business hours this summer to provide families more opportunities to stay cool, be inspired and experience fun learning. 
> Beginning July 1, AZMNH, located at 53 N. Macdonald, will be open

10 a.m. - 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and 12 p.m. - 5 p.m. on Sunday.

See dinosaurs that roar and so much more. Take a stroll through time from the birth of Earth through the age of the dinosaurs, visit a village of the Ancestral Sonoran Desert People and try your hand at gold panning.
> The i.d.e.a. Museum - 150 W. Pepper Place - returns to operating 9 a.m. - 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and 12 p.m. - 4 p.m. Sunday.

Enjoy creative experiences that support early learning, nurture creative thinking, and engage families in quality time together throughout the museum.

Check out ArtVille - a colorful town featuring imaginative play activities aimed at little ones 4 and younger (socks required). 
 > While visiting Downtown Mesa, families also are encouraged to visit a third Mesa gem:

Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum, located at 1 E. Main St.

Business hours are
10 a.m. - 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and 12 p.m. - 5 p.m. Sunday.

Explore works by sculptor and mixed media artist Angel Cabrales, known for his provocative social commentaries on the Latin-American experience.

Also on exhibition are:

Passage, a collaborative site-specific installation of 7,000+ unfired clay beads symbolizing lives lost on the US-Mexico border

The Myth of the Incomplete Self (El mito del yo incompleto); and

Docents Select: Indigenous Americas.

 

Museum activities, tickets and more at arizonamuseumofnaturalhistory.org, ideaMuseum.org and mesaartscenter.com/museum.

Contact: Yvette Armendariz
(480) 644-4129
yvette.armendariz@mesaaz.gov

at Thursday, July 01, 2021

More  

YES The Housing Market is "On Fire"

The Fed is scarring up a large share of all newly-issued mortgage-backed securities. 

Unknown is the unclear answer to this question (or so it was spoken): Why, again, is The Federal Reserve adding $40 Billion a month to its holdings of MBS [Mortgage-Backed Securities] when the mortgage market doesn't seem to need any federal assistance?

The Real Lender on Your Mortgage Could Be the Federal Reserve

By Peter Coy @petercoyMore stories by Peter Coy

Bloomberg.com

". . .When you get a loan from a bank or a nonbank lender, there’s a good chance it will be packaged into a mortgage-backed security and sold to investors, and there’s a good chance the ultimate holder will be the Federal Reserve. Which means the Fed could be financing your mortgage. 

In the week ended June 23, the Federal Reserve owned $2.35 trillion in MBS, according to the Fed’s H.4.1 statistical release. The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (Sifma) reports there were $8.44 trillion in the securities guaranteed by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, or Ginnie Mae at the end of 2020, meaning the Fed owns more than a quarter of the MBS market.

The Fed bought 47% of the net issuance of MBS in the fourth quarter, if you go by its $120 billion quarterly increase in holdings and Sifma figures showing that the total of outstanding MBS grew by $257 billion. True, not all mortgages are packaged into agency securities the Fed buys. The government-sponsored enterprises’ share of first-lien mortgage originations in the third quarter of 2020 was 61.9%. That share fluctuates, as does total issuance. Back of the napkin, though, multiplying 47% by 62% gives you about 30% of the overall U.S. mortgage market being financed by the Federal Reserve. 

On June 29, Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller said it might be time to start cutting back on the Fed’s support for housing. . .“I think it’s an easy sell to the public,” he told Bloomberg Television. “The housing market is on fire. We should think carefully about doing MBS purchases, and if we were to taper those first that wouldn’t necessarily be a big issue.”

Fed Chair Jerome Powell is trying to keep the Federal Open Market Committee united behind continuing to buy MBS and Treasuries as a way to hold down interest rates and promote economic growth. The recovery, he says, is incomplete. . .But he hasn’t done a wonderful job of articulating why buying MBS is the right medicine for the economy. It is not, he says—not—a way to support the housing market.

Read this somewhat confusing excerpt from the Fed’s official transcript[MOVED LINK TO ‘TRANSCRIPT’] of the FOMC press conference in April, where Powell responds to a question from Greg Robb of MarketWatch:

CHAIR POWELL: Yes. I, I mean, we’re—we started buying MBS because the mortgage-backed security market was, was really experiencing severe dysfunction, and we’ve sort of, sort of articulated, you know, what our exit path is from that. It’s not meant to provide direct assistance to, to the housing market. That was never the intent. It was really just to keep that as—it’s a very close relation to the Treasury market and a very important market on its own. And so that’s, that’s why we, we bought as we did during the Global Financial Crisis. We bought MBS, too. Again, not, not an intention to send help to the housing market, which was, which was really not, not a problem this time at all. So—and, you know, it’s, it’s a situation where we will, we will taper asset purchases when the time comes to do that, and those, those purchases will come to zero over time. And that time is not yet.

A better argument might have been, “Look, we’re a big player, so we try to spread our money around. Yields on Treasuries and MBS are linked, because investors choose between them. Buying MBS helps hold down interest rates on Treasuries and vice versa. All kinds of other interest rates consumers and businesses pay are pushed down when we buy Treasuries and MBS.”

Or something like that. A market intervention as big and enduring as the Fed’s in housing finance requires a strong and understandable justification.