Mayor Avila presented the Office of Community Wealth Building's annual impact report to the Richmond City Council, saying the city's estimated number of residents living in poverty fell from about 51,800 in 2015 to about 41,000 in 2023 and the overall poverty rate declined from roughly 25.5% to 18.8%.

The report outlined why the trends matter for city budgeting, workforce development and housing policy and summarized OCWB's role in job placements, youth employment and guaranteed-income pilots that city officials said contributed to movement on the metric. "While these were incredibly ambitious goals, we're actually on track to achieve many of them," Avila said as he described OCWB's work since its 2014 founding. The presentation laid out next steps including a mayoral action plan to be released tomorrow and new data and coordination work in the office.

Avila framed the results against a broad city strategy that includes workforce training, youth employment and targeted housing interventions. He told council OCWB has supported roughly 2,420 job placements since the office began, with average wages for recent placements rising to nearly $19.46 per hour in fiscal 2025; 110 people earned high-school diplomas through the Dream Academy; and the YouthWorks RVA summer employment program placed 703 participants this year, paying roughly $1.1 million in wages. He also described the Richmond Resilience Initiative, a guaranteed-income pilot that provides $500 a month for two years to qualifying families.

OCWB Director Patricia Spellman told the council the office is building a results-management function and is expanding cross-department coordination. "The coordination piece is exactly what we're working on," Spellman said, adding that new capacity and DCAO support would allow OCWB to "plug those gaps" across housing, workforce and minority-business programs. She cited existing partnerships with the Office of Sustainability, economic development staff and the Office of Minority Business Development as examples of work already underway.

Council members commended the office and raised questions about how much of the poverty-rate decline reflects program effects versus population growth and geographic mobility. Councilmember Gibson asked for stronger tracking to separate residents who left the city by choice from those who were displaced; Avila and staff acknowledged longitudinal tracking is difficult without major new resources and said regional coordination is part of the response. Councilmember Jones and others urged stronger systemwide alignment so city departments and partner agencies "speak the same language" around outcomes and metrics.

Councilwoman Robertson and others praised OCWB's citizen advisory board and staff, and several board members were recognized during the meeting. Councilmembers and staff highlighted connections between OCWB programming and other city investments, such as the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, the code refresh to spur housing production, and workforce partnerships that channel trainees into active construction projects including the Diamond District.

OCWB presented a logic-model approach for programs such as YouthWorks RVA and said the office will produce dashboards and outcome reporting as part of the mayoral action plan. Spellman said OCWB will continue focusing on fewer participants with more intensive wraparound supports to move people to higher-paying, living-wage jobs and will align training with regional initiatives including RVA Rising.

The presentation closed with council direction to continue coordination work and to return with more detailed implementation and data products. The mayor and OCWB staff said they will publish the mayoral action plan and logic models and continue building the results-management position and cross-agency referrals that officials say will improve service continuity for residents.