Council promises to look for social services money

Spokane City Council members Monday promised supporters of several social service agencies they would try to find money in the 2005 city budget to help them deliver services to low-income residents.

But the council did not come up with any extra money immediately, leaving some agency supporters unhappy about the city’s commitment to the poor.

Council members voted unanimously to approve $900,000 in human services grants for 2005, even though 19 programs were denied funding. Requests for funding had totaled $1.9 million.

Councilwoman Mary Verner won support for an amendment calling on the mayor’s staff to study the 2005 general fund budget to find at least $53,000 for eight key organizations not included in the 2005 allocations that were approved Monday night.

“I just think there is $53,000 in flexibility somewhere in this budget,” Verner said.

Councilman Bob Apple said, “We are not talking about a large amount of money.”

Sophie Tonasket, director of the American Indian Community Center at 905 E. Third, said after the council vote, “I am very disappointed.”

City grant money last year helped provide prescription drugs to medically indigent patients through The Native Project. The $18,000 grant went to people who had been treated at local hospitals as charity cases and then released with unfilled prescriptions.

The Native Project was one of the groups left out of the 2005 funding recommendations from the city’s Human Services Advisory Board. Last year the city gave out $950,000. The total was reduced for 2005 as part of the city’s wide-ranging budget cuts this year.

“I think our citizens of this community deserve better,” said Susan Fabrikant, executive director of the Spokane AIDS Network, in an interview following the council meeting. She said she hopes council members come through on their promise to seek more money. Her agency received $12,000 in 2004, but was denied funding for this year.

Kim Wilcox, executive director of the Dining with Dignity program of Shalom Ministries, said nearly 400 people showed up Monday for her organization’s weekly evening meal.

The Dining with Dignity program at Central United Methodist Church downtown served 38,000 meals last year, but only after getting help from volunteers and raising its own emergency funds. The city cut its grant to the dining program in 2004 because of a glitch in the program’s application.

The city had given the dining program more than $30,000 a year from 2000 through 2003. Its supporters were seeking to restore some of the funding for 2005.

Dining with Dignity serves breakfast and lunch on Mondays through Thursdays, in addition to the Monday evening meals.

Wilcox said without city help the dining program will either close or be severely curtailed. About 85 percent of the diners are homeless, and of those who have homes, many had been homeless at one time, she said.

Supporters of the programs appeared for a second week in a row to seek help from the council.

Several years ago, human services supporters considered seeking an initiative to require the city to provide 3 percent of its general fund to programs serving the poor. Initiative proponents dropped the proposal when city officials agreed to allocate one percent of the general fund to human services.

This year’s allocations are nearly $300,000 below the one percent threshold, said Louise Chadez, who had pushed for the initiative.

In an interview after the council meeting, Verner said council members should take a more active role in human services funding. She noted the city cut its equity office in 2005. “These are things that go to the heart and character of a city government,” she said.

Suzi Hokonson, a volunteer for Shalom Ministries, said after the meeting, “I think the process really needs to be looked at.”