DOWNEY — Stay Arts has submitted a new three-year, over half million-dollar proposal to the city of Downey that would see the city stop subsidizing Stay Gallery’s rent and instead pay for programming outright.

Stay’s newest proposal includes six admission-free art exhibits, one month-long residency for the Downey Arts Coalition, and 12 Stay Young: Family Paint Days per year, as well as the Stay Public arts incubator program (eight micro-grant projects per year awarded to creative professionals and community partners for the production of workshops and events in the gallery space), at the cost of $167,930, or $519,055 for three years.

They’re hoping the city will agree to front that bill in lieu of the rent.

The city of Downey has covered the cost of Stay Gallery’s downtown space since 2012, in exchange for Stay’s community programming. The original two-year agreement has been extended several times over the years, most recently with the city agreeing in March to provide the gallery with $28,000 to operate through July.

In total, Downey has invested over $313,400 in Stay Gallery over 10 years.

Still, the gallery has struggled to make ends meet.

“That money goes directly towards the lease payment; no money comes to the people who run it, and those programs and those costs,” said Gabriel Enamorado, executive director of Stay Arts. “In 2017, that agreement from 2017 to 2020 did provide for $4,000 per quarter for those overhead costs. In 2020 to now, this current agreement that goes to 2023, from the previous agreement it was cut by over 52%, meaning no operating funds, and we are now, for the first time in the history of Stay, responsible for about $12,000-$13,000 per year for the lease, during the pandemic when there’s almost no revenue.”

Enamorado said that the around $31,400 per year investment doesn’t cover a lease, people, and “costs to curate.” Stay has even gone as far as reallocating funds from grants – originally intended for their administrative stipend – towards paying their end of the lease.

He described it as “living at a loss, permanently.”

It is Stay’s hope that their newest proposal – which Enamorado said was “completely new approach” to the relationship between Stay and the city - will help solidify things at the gallery.

“In our proposal, it essentially says we want to rethink our agreement with the city, and we no longer want the lease to be subsidized in exchange for our services,” said Enamorado. “Rather, we would like that to end, and here’s a proposal with our programs we already do – our exhibitions, workshops, even a micro-grant opportunity for creative professionals – to be funded by the city so we can continue our services here.”

Programs Director Juliana Canty added the city would be funding “exhibitions for local artists that are accessible and free for the public to come see,” and “art workshops for families at a very low cost.”

“Our whole mission as an organization is to provide accessible arts programming at low-cost, free admission,” said Canty. “That’s really what this funding with the city would allow us to do, is to keep our programs as accessible as possible for the community.”

Should the city accept its proposal, Stay would still continue to apply for grants and create its own streams of revenue.

“The funding that we’re asking for doesn’t cover 100% of our annual budget, it would only be a portion of it,” said Canty. “We’re still bringing in our own streams of revenue in different ways, it’s just now it’s focusing more on the mission rather than us trying to make the space a rental space, or focusing on things that aren’t really mission driven.

“This will allow us to really propel our mission forward and provide that accessibility and professional development for artists and really propel that economic development in the downtown.”

Stay would also be able to pay for their space themselves.

While no official decisions have been made at the city level, Enamorado remains confident that he will have the support he needs to push the proposal through.

“There’s a value being provided back. There is something that can be measured; there is a measured outcome,” said Enamorado. “It’s in our proposal: If this funding is approved, this is what you get and there’s all these metrics.”

Stay is hoping that official discussions may begin as early as next month.

“We are between a rock and a hard place; I think that’s the reality for us,” said Enamorado. “We do face a really hard decision if it doesn’t go through, a really difficult decision. As an organization, we might have to make a very difficult decision to close this space permanently.

“Even though we have technically a year left in our agreement with the city where they’re funding the space, it kind of leaves us in the same position that we’ve been in since 2012, of not knowing where the next steady source of revenue to continue operations [is coming from].”