As state, county slash support for essential human services, cities asked to fill the gap

The cities of Issaquah and Sammamish will be faced with a very difficult task over the next few months – how to say no to some of the nonprofits and charitable groups that provide core human services in our community, such as domestic violence counseling, medical treatment for sick children and seniors, and food and clothing for families in need.

April 29 marked the deadline for 2011 health and human service grant applications for 17 Seattle-area cities, united for the first time through a streamlined application system, HSConnect.

The next day, city staff awoke to a pile of grant applications higher than in any previous year.

In Issaquah, 61 Eastside programs are seeking $390,000 in total funding.

In Sammamish, 50 individual programs applied for almost $250,000 in funding.

The councils of Issaquah and Sammamish are not expected to set their human services budgets until the end of 2010. But it was suggested that both cities aim to maintain their budgets at the existing level.

Sammamish is considering 15 more applications this year than ever before, and will have to squeeze a wish-list of almost a quarter of a million dollars into a human service budget of probably about $160,000.

For Issaquah, that will mean almost halving requests to fit into an anticipated budget of about $218,000. While Issaquah and Sammamish have displayed an admirable commitment to supporting such services, there are organizations locally whose burden is growing much faster than the incremental increases in city funding.

Both these figures were far above what either city has handled in the past, a sign not only of an increasing need for low income support services and crisis counseling, but also as well as shrinking health and human service budgets at the county and state level.

The 2010 Washington budget passed last month cuts about $755 million from state programs, pushing an increasing burden onto nonprofit providers and agencies also dependent on government assistance.

Similarly, in King County this year health and human services suffered a combined cut of 37 percent from 2009, as interim King County Executive Kurt Triplett zeroed out all general fund support. The result is that these agencies are looking to cities to fill the hole.

Both Issaquah and Sammamish saw an increase in the number of groups asking, and the amounts they were asking for.

According to City of Issaquah Human Services Consultant Steve Gierke, the record grant request amount was due to a combination of factors.

“The agencies we have funded didn’t ask for a lot more – mostly just a 5 to 10 percent jump,” he told The Reporter this week.

“Rarely was there a huge increase. But there were agencies who did ask for funding for additional programs.”

For example, Hopelink, which last year was granted $5,775 for adult education programs, this year applied for $16,000 in additional funding for family development, and transitional housing, programs. Likewise, Friends of Youth, which the city has supported in previous years, submitted two new applications for previously unfunded programs for homeless youth, and young adult shelters.

Executive Director of the Family Resource Center in Redmond, Pam Mauk, said for the last 10 years King County had been steadily reducing its contribution to the provision of human services.

“This last go around was with the intention of getting out of it entirely,” she said. “We are talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding that has been cut from these organizations.”

Mauk said that at the state funding level too, nonprofit providers like Elder and Adult Day Services had lost large slices of their operational budget.

“Across the board its a very difficult time,” she said, adding the future didn’t look much brighter. “There really hasn’t been a solution as to where the dollars for these services are going to come from.”

According to Gierke, the new application system itself may have something to do with the increased number of applications.

“The HSConnect system is very efficient, in that it is very easy to apply to an additional city,” he said. Whereas before a city may have focused on grant applications at one city, the online, streamlined HSConnect system means that applying to a neighbor is as simple as ticking an additional box and rewording a few paragraphs, rather than submitting a whole new application and following different cycles of funding.

In this instance, Gierke said, it was imperative that agencies could show they served the Issaquah community.

“You don’t have to be situated here, but you have to serve Issaquah people,” he said.

City of Sammamish City Clerk Melonie Anderson agreed that the new system had introduced agencies to the city who might not have bothered to apply before.

“I spoke to one drug and alcohol counselor, who, as they were applying, realized that ‘hey, we serve people in Sammamish too,'” she said. “HSConnect did raise awareness in some organizations that probably didn’t think of Sammamish. But, to be honest, with the new system I was actually expecting a lot more.”

Anderson’s experience mirrored that of her Issaquah counterpart – “the increase was mainly due to new requests, not big increases in those we have funded before.”

For Issaquah, that will mean trimming $390,000 in requests down to about $218,000. While Issaquah and Sammamish have displayed an admirable commitment to supporting such services, there are organizations locally whose burden is growing much faster than the incremental increases in city funding.

One of those is the Catholic and Community Services (CCS), whose hot meal program serves about 25 dinners a night to low income residents at the Issaquah Community Hall.

According to CCS Volunteer Coordinator Adria Briehl, in recent weeks as many as 44 locals have arrived for a hot dinner, more than the service is typically used to accommodating.

CCS is seeking $6,000 in funding from the city, up from $4,000 last year.

Each month, about 140 local volunteers contribute more than 400 hours to prepare and serve meals, and clean up afterward. Do to under-reporting, the actual number of hours is likely double. Briehl said the grant money is used to provide cutlery, plates and napkins, with a small portion going to volunteer coordination.

It was declining health and human service funding in 2006 that brought Briehl to the Issaquah Meals Program, with CCS forced to reduce staff and combine roles for great efficiencies.

But any further reduction in funding would jeopardize what is a critical service, at a time when the demand for it is greater than ever.

“It is not uncommon for us to have more than 40 people come in for a meal these days. And more of them are younger people,” she said. “Not that long ago, we never had more than 32. That is a big jump when you are talking about that size group.”

Briehl said that losing a service like the meals program would make it very hard for low income people in the area to get a regular meal.

“Food stamps are going down, across the board,” she said. “In Issaquah, there is the Issaquah Food Bank, which is getting slammed, and then they have us.”

If they were to lose funding, Briehl said it would compromise their ability to provide the same service.

“There is really nowhere else to apply for funding,” she said. “We would probably have to spend more time seeking donations, or ask more of the volunteers.”

Among the other large increases from previously funded groups – Alpha Supported Living Services requested $9,000, double their 2010 allocation; and Issaquah Church and Community Services are asking for $10,000 for 2011, up from $3,000 this year.

The high numbers raise the possibility of many groups being denied altogether.

In Sammamish, Anderson said that in the past, by slightly reducing the amount granted to each organization, very rarely did a worthwhile program receive nothing.

“Are we going to have to turn down anyone? I would hate to say that right now,” she said.

Gierke said the growing demand for health and human services was a clear pattern, and that the poor economy was exacerbating the problem of having more need, and less resources.

“For the last year and a half, there has been a significant increase, whether its the food bank, or domestic violence counseling,” he said. “Is that related to the economy? Yes it is. People are under more stress, that are around each other more often, there are more pressures.”