Tuesday, July 03, 2007
Re-examining Human Services
Here's information about an upcoming City Council meeting. At the council's July 9 meeting, we will re-examine, at Councilman Pad Finnigan's request, how the city funds human services programs for youth.
Since cityhood, the city has set aside one percent of the general fund for grants to groups that help people. Most of the funding, though not all, goes to groups that help youth. The funding supports what is generally known as the Lakewood's Promise movement. In 2007, the money went to help a variety of groups. You can see the actual amounts of money at this link.
By way of full context, I should quickly note that there are two pools of human services funding. The other pool comes from federal community block grants. Most of that money goes to fix houses or to housing-related expenses, or to the Tillicum/American Lake Community Center (which got $68,000 of federal grants passed through the city - you can see the full list of these grants here).
Some of you may recall we had a heated discussion some months ago about Pad's desire to deny funding to groups that otherwise met the published ground rules. A number of people criticized him for bringing this up after we had publicly stated months before what the grant criteria would be, and long after groups had applied in good faith.
The blank applications have not yet gone out this year. Two meetings ago, Pad asked to again bring up human services funding. This time, he said one thing we might do is make it easier for groups that help senior citizens to qualify.
Several council members worried that changing the ground rules would undercut Lakewood's commitment to America's Promise and youth, but I supported Pad's right to ask the question. This time, he asked the question before we sent out the grant applications. So you will see the council grapple with fundamental questions about human services funding on July 9.
Whatever your point of view, feel free to attend or feel free to write the council , and let us know if you think we should continue funding groups as we have in the past ... or if we should support Lakewood's Promise ... or whether we should do something different. And I should quickly note that the applications will be screened publicly by a citizens' advisory committee, so there will be other opportunities to discuss specific applications.
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Since cityhood, the city has set aside one percent of the general fund for grants to groups that help people. Most of the funding, though not all, goes to groups that help youth. The funding supports what is generally known as the Lakewood's Promise movement. In 2007, the money went to help a variety of groups. You can see the actual amounts of money at this link.
By way of full context, I should quickly note that there are two pools of human services funding. The other pool comes from federal community block grants. Most of that money goes to fix houses or to housing-related expenses, or to the Tillicum/American Lake Community Center (which got $68,000 of federal grants passed through the city - you can see the full list of these grants here).
Some of you may recall we had a heated discussion some months ago about Pad's desire to deny funding to groups that otherwise met the published ground rules. A number of people criticized him for bringing this up after we had publicly stated months before what the grant criteria would be, and long after groups had applied in good faith.
The blank applications have not yet gone out this year. Two meetings ago, Pad asked to again bring up human services funding. This time, he said one thing we might do is make it easier for groups that help senior citizens to qualify.
Several council members worried that changing the ground rules would undercut Lakewood's commitment to America's Promise and youth, but I supported Pad's right to ask the question. This time, he asked the question before we sent out the grant applications. So you will see the council grapple with fundamental questions about human services funding on July 9.
Whatever your point of view, feel free to attend or feel free to write the council , and let us know if you think we should continue funding groups as we have in the past ... or if we should support Lakewood's Promise ... or whether we should do something different. And I should quickly note that the applications will be screened publicly by a citizens' advisory committee, so there will be other opportunities to discuss specific applications.
