After a year of research, the city of Sammamish’s Human Services Committee discussed the recently completed needs assessment at its March 14 meeting.

This assessment will help members in their decision to fund local organizations providing important services to citizens.

Sammamish funds human service organizations and nonprofits through its biennial grant program. The program exists, like in many cities, to provide support to organizations that provide support and services to those who many need assistance with things such as food, child care services, mental health, special needs care and housing.

For the 2017-18 funding period, the city awarded a total of $249,670 to 51 organizations including Hopelink, Congregations for the Homeless, Friends of Youth and the Sound Generations Meals on Wheels program. The funds are a percentage that come from the city’s general fund.

Sammamish spokesperson Kellie Stickney said the city had never done a needs assessment before and that the committee wanted to take the opportunity to get more modern data on the types of services that are needed and the structures in place to provide them. The city contracted BERK Consulting to perform the data collection for the assessment in early 2017. The city formed a seven-member task force to work with BERK on the project.

“We want new data when making those decisions. The community has experienced tremendous change recently. It was a good time to reassess our needs and demographics,” Stickney said.

With an updated needs assessment, the committee will be able to make more informed decisions on who to award funding to.

In the assessment, two regional priorities and five local priorities were established. On the regional level, affordable housing and transportation were noted as the biggest concerns regarding the impact of human services. The five local priorities were mental wellness, seniors, domestic violence, basic needs such as food and medical care, and cultural inclusion.

“Now we know what is most needed by our residents and how can we make sure our funding is addressed for those specific needs,” Stickney said. “It’s also information useful in other areas as we look at police services study and housing strategy moving forward. This information can be used for a wide variety of planning areas.”

The next steps in the process are the development of a strategic plan. BERK will work with the city to plan out how to best address the identified needs with the funding it has. Some of the plans may include working with service providers more closely. Stickney used student support services such as suicide prevention programming at schools in the city as an example.

Once the strategic plan will go to the committee in the summer and is planned to be complete sometime this fall.

Applications for the 2019-20 human services funding are currently open and can be found on the city website in the grants section under the community involvement tab.