First Lady Jill Biden came to Amazon’s HQ2 in Pentagon City today and touted her husband’s record on women’s health issues.
Speaking this morning at the Amazon Web Services Imagine: Nonprofit conference, Biden emphasized the President’s recent allocation of $100 million in federal funding for the ARPA-H Sprint for Women’s Health, a program focused on advancing research and development in the field.
“ARPA-H, the agency Joe created to pursue breakthrough health research at lightning speed, launched its first ever ‘sprint for women’s health,’ which will invest $100 million in life saving research on women this year,” she said.
The First Lady attributed the scarcity of research and effective treatment for women to their historical exclusion from medical studies. She emphasized the administration’s commitment to changing this by exploring new methods to advance existing research.
On Monday, the Presidentsigned an executive order aimed at advancing women’s health studies through enhanced data collection and increased funding for biomedical research.
“Joe is directing his administration to find ways to use artificial intelligence and other technology to advance research on women’s health,” Biden said at the conference, amid the 2024 presidential campaign.
She also noted that recent advancements in technology, including artificial intelligence, play a crucial role in the progress of women’s health.
“The solution they need could be the watch on their wrist or the app in their pocket,” she said. “It could be getting access to specialized care quickly to a virtual doctor’s appointment or it could be artificial intelligence that analyzes more information faster to predict and prevent diseases.”
Other speakers at the Imagine: Nonprofit conference had similar thoughts about using technology, AI and analytics to create a new world of research for the goals of nonprofit organizations. The event featured several nonprofits that had received the Imagine grants to focus on further research of issues such as the rainforest and Epidermolysis Bullosa.
The conference “brings together nonprofit leaders, purpose-focused technologists, and impact innovators to discuss how technology can help drive a positive impact for both people and planet,” according to Amazon.
Undocumented low-income residents might someday become eligible for housing grants in Arlington.
The county is “almost done” reevaluating immigration status requirements for its Housing Grants Program, Arlington County Board Vice-Chair Takis Karantonis said at a Board meeting late last month.
“Stay tuned,” Karantonis told Nady Peralta, an attorney from the Legal Aid Justice Center, who advocated for the change. “This is coming very soon, and I believe that you will like what you will hear.”
Until recently, Arlington maintained that it legally could not offer housing subsidies to undocumented applicants under Virginia law. However, according to a county study published last month, county staff reversed their position following a letter from the Legal Aid Justice Center outlining ways this could, in fact, be legally possible.
“The County Attorney’s Office… determined that there is a viable legal argument for Arlington County to be able to provide Housing Grants to undocumented households,” the study says. “This marks a significant change in the program and is currently still under review for a final decision to be made by the County Manager and County Board.”
The county did not provide an estimate of how many fully undocumented households would become eligible for support under revised requirements but the study noted that an extra 50 households would cost around $421,800 each year.
The change would also increase subsidies to homes with mixed immigration status. As of last month, 54 such households received grants and altered documentation requirements could increase additional yearly housing subsidies by a total of $143,920.
Not everyone supports this proposal. Fewer than half of respondents to a telephone survey (40%) agreed with lifting documentation restrictions, according to the county study.
Peralta, by contrast, argued that restricting housing-grant access tends to force undocumented and “under-documented” families out of Arlington as rents increase.
“Housing subsidies directly reduce housing cost burden and help people stay in their homes, neighborhoods and communities,” she said. “These subsidies are key to preventing displacement as more long-term housing supply is built.”
Peralta told ARLnow that undocumented households are “particularly disadvantaged by the cost of living in Arlington, even as compared to non-immigrant low-income families.”
Arlington County awarded $225,000 in grants to five local startups working to solve problems in their respective industries, from keeping track of freight trucks to helping veterans with disabilities.
The five winning startups are the first to receive grants — of $25,000 to $50,000 apiece — from the Arlington Innovation Fund. This new pot of money, which the county approved last year, is intended to support early-stage tech companies, particularly those owned by women, veterans and minorities, while pushing down office vacancy rates.
Arlington Economic Development (AED), which oversees the fund, says it selected the five startups from 22 applicants because of “their executive and and technical capabilities, as well as their potential for significant revenue growth and societal impact.”
The companies are as follows:
- Dispatchr Technologies, LLC, which developed software to reduce the energy costs and carbon emissions of power plants.
- Freely Payments, LLC, which aims to cut processing fees when businesses accept credit card payments from customers.
- GenLogs Corporation, an artificial intelligence company that tracks freight trucks and tractor-trailers.
- Phalanx AI, Inc., a cybersecurity company that helps protect sensitive documents in online products such as Office 365 and Google Workspace.
- Seamless Transition, a medical device company that helps wounded veterans transition from active duty to civilian life through use of “a prosthetic knee that mimics the movement of natural human limbs.”
“We are excited to support these innovative companies in their startup journey as they launch, scale and advance out-of-the-box solutions right here in Arlington,” AED Business Investment Group Director Michael Stiefvater in a statement. “Their dedication to innovation and entrepreneurship aligns with Arlington’s vision as a leading technology hub offering a dynamic and inclusive business environment for startups.”
The grants can be used for business expenses such as hiring employees, leasing office space, and purchasing equipment. Many recipients told AED they plan to add new hires, enhance current features of their products and increase their marketing presence.
One entrepreneur, Seamless Transition CEO Sarah Malinowski, said she plans to patent the design of the prosthetic knee.
“With these resources, we’ll be able to secure a full patent for our innovative design using the current provisional patent,” said Malinowski. “This grant propels us forward on our trajectory, eliminating any potential delays and allowing us to focus unwaveringly on out mission.”
AIF still has $425,000 to award, having received $650,000 in the county’s 2024 budget. A second round of applications opened yesterday (Monday) and will close on March 10.
Depending on how many approved in the second round, there may be enough funding for a third, AED spokeswoman Destiny Esper told ARLnow.
This weekend, the Arlington County Board adopted a new agreement governing how Arlington’s public access station, Arlington Independent Media, can request funding.
AIM has a claim on Public, Educational and Government (PEG) funds that Arlington County receives as part of its franchise agreements with Comcast and Verizon. It competes with Arlington Public Schools and county government initiatives for this pot of money, which is dwindling as people end their cable subscriptions.
The new agreement establishes rules for requesting funds, a heretofore ad-hoc process. It requires AIM to maintain and present a detailed capital budget and make PEG requests only as part of the annual budget process, though emergency requests will be considered.
AIM has to provide a host of supporting documents for PEG requests as well as receipts demonstrating it is not using the funding on salaries, rent and utilities. The county reserves the right to audit the nonprofit’s records or require a third-party audit as often as necessary and will take back PEG funding if AIM uses it improperly.
The agreement was approved as AIM prepares to move its headquarters from Clarendon to Courthouse and, to stay afloat, has furloughed staff and will be selling equipment and memorabilia.
“AIM staff is currently on furlough throughout the holidays and thus only working on critical assignments,” the organization said in an email to supporters today, recapping its annual meeting earlier this month. “This has been structured to minimize producer impact, however we ask for your grace & patience while we transition to our new spaces.”
Periods of unpaid work are not a new issue, according to one source close to a former staff member, who had been asked to work without pay before.
Meanwhile, AIM’s current lease ends at 2701 Wilson Blvd, next to the Beyond Hello dispensary in Clarendon, is up on Dec. 31. The organization will make a new Green Valley satellite location, in a county-owned building at 3700 S. Four Mile Run, its home base until the Courthouse location is set up.
The new “AIMLive!” radio and TV broadcasting space in Courthouse is part of AIM’s goal to have a number of locations across Arlington, “with an eye on a new HQ sometime in the next 2-3 years,” the email said.
Despite the upheavals, Board President-elect Chris Judson remained upbeat in his remarks to supporters.
“This year presents a new beginning after a long effort to reinvent the organization,” he said in an email. “We owe tremendous gratitude to AIM staff for the extensive planning and execution that saw this plan to completion.”
During the annual meeting earlier this month, nonprofit leaders were frank about the organization’s financial status, detailing the furloughs and saying AIM was in survival mode. Still, they dismissed recent criticism over financial management from some people previously affiliated with AIM as a bad-faith attempt to defund the nonprofit.
They also addressed mixed public opinion about the role and importance of a primarily cable TV and radio-based nonprofit going forward, in an increasingly online world. Outgoing board president Demian Perry said he read the comments on ARLnow’s most recent article about AIM and they stung him but they were “nothing new.”
As for the new agreement governing PEG requests, AIM CEO Whytni Kernodle has told ARLnow in several interviews that she has pushed for this document to improve accountability — both for AIM and the county.
“They weren’t giving money to the ‘P’ or the ‘E’ and the PEG. So when I came on board, I recognized that… I’ve been asking for this memorandum,” Kernodle said. “What I’m saying to the county is, ‘You took us out, and now you’re not giving us money, and then you’re acting as though you don’t have to give us money when you have… an ethical obligation to your own public access center.”
Arlington County is slated to accept a $95,000 grant to place two older adults with serious mental illnesses in community-based treatment once they leave state psychiatric hospitals.
The money will pay for housing costs, medications, transportation, or other associated costs as part of their treatment plans.
Their discharge, treatment and funding plans are approved by Arlington’s Community Services Board. These county-appointed community members oversee how the county Dept. of Human Services provides services to people with mental health challenges, developmental disabilities and substance use disorder.
The one-time grant funds come from the Virginia Dept. of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services. Not having this grant would mean longer wait times for these two individuals set to leave a state hospital, says DHS spokesman Kurt Larrick.
“If we did not have this funding available right now, they would need to wait until a slot in the [Regional Older Adults Facility Mental Health Support Team (RAFT) program] became available or clinical staff identified another option,” Larrick said.
RAFT is a grant-funded program that discharges older adults from psychiatric hospitals to long-term care and, where possible, diverts them from hospitals in the first place. Arlington County DHS manages it for Northern Virginia, says Larrick, and partners with assisted living and nursing home facilities throughout the region.
The 10-person team works to provide community treatment options to people ages 65 and older who have a diagnosis of serious mental illness or dementia and who either have been hospitalized in a psychiatric facility or are at risk of hospitalization.
It served 106 clients last fiscal year, up from 73 the year prior, a 45% increase attributed to the launch of a dementia program in January 2023. Through this program, the team helps ensure people with dementia can live at home or with a caregiver by providing specialized dementia training to caregivers.
The team also provides on-call support to assisted living and nursing home facilities to prevent psychiatric hospitalizations or oversee discharge when a client is hospitalized.
RAFT has a 90% satisfaction rate among clients and partnering organizations, according to a recent survey, in which several people shared their gratitude for the program and its staff.
Each year, RAFT receives $500,000 from DBHDS. While the program faces budget pressures, due to factors such as inflation, Larrick says running the program remains tenable.
Individuals who receive treatment through RAFT are asked to contribute what they can to their care, he said. To keep costs down, the program also leverages community partnerships and other resources for older adults.
A dozen historical preservation projects across Arlington, from historically accurate home renovations to community-based projects and research, have received county funding through a new program.
The county doled out roughly $256,000 to 12 of the 19 applicants for the inaugural round of the Arlington County Historic Preservation Fund.
This is part of a new effort to give incentives to residents, property owners, developers and community organizations to take on historic preservation work — rather than leaving these efforts and advocacy to the county, the Arlington Historical Society and two citizen commissions.
These entities either have limited ability or few, bureaucratic tools to stem the tide of redevelopment, casualties of which include the historic Febrey-Lothrop house and Fellows-McGrath House.
“From big picture storytelling and research projects to individual building preservation, this inaugural group of Historic Preservation Fund recipients demonstrates the breadth of Arlington’s unique history and many ways we can preserve our story for generations to come,” County Manager Mark Schwartz said in a statement.
A few recipients and projects include:
- The Green Valley Civic Association, which plans to highlight local landmarks that contribute to Arlington’s African-American culture with signs, tours and workshops. It will also be digitizing records and adding more educational resources to its website.
- We Are Barcroft: A 60 Acre History of People & Place, by local artist Sushmita Mazumdar, who plans to chronicle the cultural heritage of the Barcroft Apartments.
- An Arlington Historical Web & Mobile App, administered by Arlingtonian Peter Vaselopulos, where he will publish community histories by local authors, artists and community members.
- The Dominion Hills Civic Association, which will create three historic markers near the former location of the Febrey-Lothrop Estate, or Rouse estate — demolished for new single family homes to the chagrin of local preservationists — so residents and visitors can learn about the site’s “forgotten history” spanning colonial America to the 20th century.
“The grantees represent a wide range of creative projects, several of which have a strong focus on cultural heritage, and we are excited about the opportunity to financially assist these recipients and further the County’s historic preservation goals,” said Historic Preservation Section Supervisor Cynthia Liccese-Torres in a statement.
A review committee selected these projects based on their quality, equity and inclusion, community impact and managerial competence, per a press release.
Most of the grants amounted to $20-25,000 but the two largest grants will help homeowners preserve their Cherrydale and Maywood homes, which are each more than 100 years old. The capital improvement grants will assist the homeowners in taking on what can be dollar- and time-intensive work.
“Historic district renovations often entail meeting specific design and preservation standards to ensure alterations are done in a sensitive manner,” says Rachel LaPiana, a communications specialist with the Department of Community Planning, Housing and Development.
George Mason University is set to receive a $25,000 grant from Arlington County to study Black demographic shifts and migratory trends in Arlington.
The Fairfax-based university, which has a campus in Arlington, proposes to develop a “database of research that documents Black displacement, migration, mobility, and the legacy of the Black diaspora that remains today in Arlington County,” according to a county report.
GMU envisions the database serving as a “significant learning source for Arlington and lead to future meaningful artistic projects focused on African American history,” the report says.
A team comprising GMU’s University Curator, Don Russell, visual artist Veronica Jackson, as well as several university librarians and historians, will sift through hundreds of primary documents to create the database.
This includes:
[M]aps, oral histories, census data, photographs, historic Black newspapers, travel guides, land surveys, Black businesses, real estate transactions, churches, cemeteries, schools, and related examples of Black cultural life in Arlington County, historically and contemporarily.
The grant is part of Arlington’s Historic Preservation Fund. It was established in April 2022 to support individual and community-led projects that preserve “Arlington’s history, built environment, or cultural heritage” per a county webpage.
In December, the County Board approved a form for applicants seeking either a $25,000 non-capital grant or a $100,000 capital grant. This June, GMU secured a grant earmarked for projects such as historical research and educational outreach.
The university, however, says it cannot agree to the terms of the grant as written, and is requesting a few changes. These changes are set to go before the County Board for approval this weekend.
GMU requests new wording clarifying it, as a public university, is not responsible for the county’s legal fees if the county faces a lawsuit. It also requests the ability to use the funds for an extra 90 days after the current deadline of June 30, 2024.
The university expects about $8,000 would go toward personnel costs, nearly $6,000 toward travel expenses and nearly $11,000 for general costs, including equipment, supplies and an artist fee for Jackson’s work.
Eleven other organizations and people received grants for capital projects — such as restoration, cleaning and repairs — and non-capital projects, says Historic Preservation Program Coordinator Cynthia Liccese-Torres.
She told ARLnow the county plans to share more details “once all of the grant agreements have been finalized and signed by all parties.”
Local activist Anabelle Lombard was awarded $36,000 for her leadership work with Generation Ratify, a youth organization aiming to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment.
The prize comes from the Helen Diller Family Foundation, which awards the prize annually to 15 Jewish teens who have made outstanding contributions through service and leadership.
In an interview with ARLnow, Lombard said receiving the Diller Teen Tikkun Olam Award is “monumental and also just so encouraging.”
“Getting that recognition now and saying that, yes, young people can make change, and we have supporters from who aren’t just young people, that’s really very encouraging,” the Wakefield High School graduate said.
Lombard started Generation Ratify with a group of friends in 2019 after learning that Virginia was the last state needed to approve the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA).
The ERA, introduced in 1923, would prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex. Since its founding, Lombard’s organization — which calls itself “the young people’s feminist movement” — has expanded from Arlington to all 50 states.
In January 2020, Virginia voted to ratify the amendment, thus crossing the three-quarters threshold necessary to pass an amendment.
“After Virginia did become the final state necessary to ratify, we moved towards the national struggle to finalize the Equal Rights Amendment as the 28th Amendment, and enshrine gender equality for all people in the Constitution,” Lombard said.
The effort hit a snag, however.
The vote came nearly 40 years after the 1982 ratification deadline imposed by Congress. The U.S. Department of Justice held that it could not become part of the Constitution, even with Virginia’s vote.
Now, Lombard and Generation Ratify are on a mission to lobby for bills that would extend the deadline and make it possible to pass the 28th Amendment.
Doing so requires education and advocacy, she says.
“There’s not a ton of people talking about the ERA,” she said. “I think that’s the first struggle, is that most people think that we actually have the ERA or some version of it.”
To raise awareness and put political pressure on lawmakers, Generation Ratify has hosted virtual workshops to teach young activists about the amendment and shut down Constitution Avenue to demand the ERA’s addition to the Constitution.
Lombard and her peers have organized lobbying days, walkouts and filed two Amicus briefs.
Lombard emphasized that Generation Ratify represents a new era of young activists from all backgrounds.
“Before we started to get involved, the ERA activism world was not diverse at all,” she said. “It’s a lot of older white women, really, and they often push queer liberation and reproductive healthcare to the side when talking about the ERA to really appeal to a wider crowd.”
The young activist contends these issues are “pivotal” to how intersectional this amendment could be. She says Generation Ratify is the only ERA-specific organization that is vocal about involving the LGBTQ+ community, and that inclusivity was on display at the ERA Centennial Convention in Seneca Falls, New York on July 21.
Generation Ratify partnered with two other ERA organizations to put on the event, which celebrated those who have fought for the ERA for 100 years and are finalizing the federal ERA and launching the grassroots fight for a New York state ballot initiative.
That members of Generation Ratify now number more than 13,000, and that the organization co-hosted a national event in the historical home of women’s rights activism, is a far cry from its humble origins.
“It’s really grown from a couple of kids in Arlington, so that’s pretty amazing,” Lombard said.
Sponsored by Monday Properties and written by ARLnow, Startup Monday is a weekly column that profiles Arlington-based startups, founders, and other local technology news. Monday Properties is proudly featuring Three Ballston Plaza.
Arlington County will pay early-stage tech startups money to keep their operations in Arlington.
The intent is to support new tech startups, particularly those owned by women, veterans and minorities, while pushing down office vacancy rates.
The Arlington County Board gave the Arlington Economic Development (AED) the go-ahead to enact this program, dubbed the Catalyst Grant Program, last Tuesday.
AED will be using $650,000 of the $1 million it received in the 2024 Fiscal Year budget for its Arlington Innovation Fund, an initiative by AED to entice companies to fill vacant offices in the county.
“What we are trying to achieve with this is to provide capital to early stage tech startups that are based in Arlington currently,” Ryan Touhill, director of Arlington Economic Development, told ARLnow. “[The goal is] to really help them in the early stage of their company formation when when they’ve raised the money, and try to give them a boost to really accelerate their growth and to entice them to stay here in Arlington.”
Companies will receive anywhere from $25,000 to $50,000 in funding from the program, contingent on them remaining in Arlington for at least two years. By attracting smaller businesses, AED hopes to drive down vacancy rates, which reached 23% in the first quarter of 2023.
“We know that tech companies are one of the drivers of job growth,” Touhill said. “We have a good number of tech companies here in Arlington, and we want to grow the number of home based companies that form here and grow here.”
He noted that AED is targeting these smaller, newer companies because larger, legacy ones are not looking to relocate at this time.
AED is focused on what it calls inclusive economic development. To that end, it says it is focused on generating interest in this program among entrepreneurs from underrepresented communities and would like to see half of the Catalyst Grant Program applications come woman-, veteran- and minority-owned businesses.
“If you look at the trends, you’ll see that underserved communities receive way less in terms of the number of deals and the amount of venture capital they get compared to their white counterparts,” Adam Henry, a senior business development manager at AED, told ARLnow.
“We really want to make an intentional, concerted effort to reach out to our underserved communities to make sure that we can become a model for other communities to have the inclusive economic development approach,” he continued.
The county economic development division says it will partner with various community universities, organizations and groups to reach out to entrepreneurs and small businesses, according to a report. The application period could open as early as August.
Winners could be announced this fall. If any funds remain, there will be a second application cycle this winter or next spring.
The grants can be used to pay for costs such as salaries, benefits, training and recruitment, research and development, commercial real estate and equipment, the report said.
Sponsored by Monday Properties and written by ARLnow, Startup Monday is a weekly column that highlights Arlington-based startups, founders, and local tech news. Monday Properties is proudly featuring 1515 Wilson Blvd in Rosslyn.
A relatively new app that helps startups navigate the labyrinthine government contracting process, collaborate with each other and land contracts has recently nabbed its third state funding round.
The goal of the app, called FedScout, is to improve the outcomes for companies that set out to work for the government. Of the 120,000 companies that register to sell to the government each year, about 60% drop out after the first year because of how difficult the process is, according to the app’s founder, Geoff Orazem.
Orazem founded the Eastern Foundry — a coworking incubator for government contractors that has since gone out of business.
“Ever since I left the Marine Corps and McKinsey & Company, this is what I’ve been trying to do: Make the federal government work with startups more effectively,” he tells ARLnow. “This is just the new chapter toward that goal.”
Orazem founded Eastern Foundry in Crystal City in 2014, later expanding to Rosslyn, adding space to its Crystal City location in 2017 and expanding to North Carolina in 2019. While these coworking spaces fostered collaboration between tenants of each space, he said Eastern Foundry just couldn’t encourage “cross-pollination” from Crystal City to Rosslyn for which he had hoped.
“It turns out, even though [Rosslyn and Crystal City] are only 15 minutes apart, people are busy and it’s hard to convince people to drive, find parking and then pick up kids from soccer,” he said, adding that fostering collaboration between Virginia and North Carolina was an even taller task.
Then came the one-two punch of the rise and fall of WeWork — which, supported by large foreign investors, was able to pump out offices while hemorrhaging money — and the remote work shift caused by Covid. But by 2021, Eastern Foundry closed a checking account that contained $0 and court records indicated the coworking company had no cash and neither owned or leased any commercial property, according to the Washington Business Journal, which reported the company’s bankruptcy filings in 2022.
“WeWork distorted a market. The wake off their bow put a hole in us and then we went straight into Covid. I don’t think there’s a world where we could stay open. We were one of many operators that went under,” he said. “[That] was eight years of my pride, love and personal money. Eastern Foundry’s demise was a huge loss.”
His saving grace was a separate company he founded in 2016, called Federal Foundry.
Arlington County is applying for regional funding to run buses every six minutes between Fairfax County and Amazon’s second headquarters in Pentagon City during peak hours.
The Arlington County Board on Saturday authorized staff to apply for up to $8 million in Northern Virginia Transportation Commission funding. Funding would offset the operating costs associated with running 10 buses per hour during peak times for two years along a new Metrobus route dubbed the 16M, connecting the Skyline complex in the Bailey’s Crossroads area of Fairfax County down Columbia Pike, to Pentagon City and Crystal City.
The report suggests that the county is preparing for an increase in ridership after the opening of the first phase of Amazon’s HQ2, despite work from home trends.
“The 16M service will provide a direct connection to Amazon HQ2 with its first phase of construction (2.1 million square feet of commercial space) coming on-line in Summer/Fall 2023,” per a county report. “This service will also take advantage of the recently built portions of Columbia Pike and [eight] new transit stations located on Columbia Pike.”
But recommendations to increase frequency along this route date back well beyond Amazon’s decision to move into Arlington, says Dept. of Environmental Services spokeswoman Claudia Pors.
She says the request acts on a 2016 study, which “recommended creating a route connecting Skyline with Crystal City through Columbia Pike in anticipation of growth in Crystal City.” That followed the cancellation of the Columbia Pike streetcar project, which would have followed largely the same route.
“The study evaluated ridership forecasting, current service patterns, like bus and seat availability, and travel patterns, like trip lengths, ridership rates and traffic volume in the area to make the recommendation to increase frequency,” Pors said.
Sometime this spring, the new 16M route will begin revenue service with a base frequency of buses every 12 minutes during the service day. The new route will replace existing 16G/H service.
Pors said the average weekday ridership for the last four-and-a-half years along the 16G/H line peaked at a little over 4,500 average weekday riders before Covid, and is now about 60% recovered compared to pre-pandemic levels.