Closing the Gap: Investing in Youth

The 2019 Closing the Gap: Investing in Youth report shows the MPRB’s investment in youth has increased slightly but not enough to address prior periods of decline in service levels. At the time the report was written, the MPRB had been held to current service level funding, without additional funding, to address youth programming and while general park service demands grew as the city’s population increased.

The MPRB’s commitment to youth services is supported by knowledge of community needs gained through extensive community engagement and prior citywide survey results indicating high public support for youth services. A draft 2019 Closing the Gap: Investing in Youth report was shared at the Sept. 4 Board meeting and finalized in December 2019. The report states that almost 20 percent of the Minneapolis population is children and youth under age 18, and that almost 30 percent of those youth are experiencing poverty. The report shows how current resources fall short in meeting service levels by approximately $2 million annually for youth.

The report identifies several city and MPRB reports that outline the needs and desires for Minneapolis residents and leaders to support youth and youth programming: 2013 City of Minneapolis Blueprint for Violence; 2015 MPRB Closing the Gap; 2016 Memorandum of Understanding between MPRB and Minneapolis Public Schools; and 2018 MPRB RecQuest. In addition, the 2020 City Youth Coordinating Board Master Plan, which was working through approvals when the Closing the Gap: Investing in Youth report was written, echoes the call to better serve youth.

According to Superintendent Al Bangoura, there are ten years of community input and plans, but without additional funding these plans aren’t implemented and annually more than 80,000 Minneapolis youth go without the needed services that have been identified. We need to accept the good analysis that has already been done and get to work, or we will miss the current generation.

The 2019 Closing the Gap: Investing in Youth report addresses:

• Who are our youth?
• What is the state of the MPRB’s investment in youth programing?
• What investment is needed?
• What do we know about the needs and desires of Minneapolis residents to support youth programming?
• How will we fill the Gap?