Gilroy
– Local nonprofit groups that provide family, food and housing
services received $125,872 in grants for the upcoming fiscal year,
but the groups may face tougher review in the future by councilmen
who say the monies are not being used as intended.
Gilroy – Local nonprofit groups that provide family, food and housing services received $125,872 in grants for the upcoming fiscal year, but the groups may face tougher review in the future by councilmen who say the monies are not being used as intended.
During City Council debate Monday night, Councilmen Bob Dillon and Russ Valiquette criticized a number of grant programs as straying from the city’s stated areas of support.
In particular, they questioned a $29,412 grant for tenant-landlord counseling services, a $5,000 grant to reduce transportation costs for elderly and disabled people and a $4,320 grant for a video that helps disabled people locate housing appropriate to their needs.
The film has an $88,000 total budget, Dillon pointed out.
“Who’s producing it? Steven Spielberg?” he asked. “I want to feed people, put a roof over their heads and provide help to families, and I don’t see [the video] having a direct bearing on any of that.”
Dillon suggests the city needs to reassert control over the grant allocation process, which now rests in the hands of a Citizen’s Advisory Committee. Under the current process, the director of the city’s Community Development Department appoints residents to the seven-member group. Appointees cannot work for any groups seeking grants, according to the city’s housing coordinator Marilyn Roaf.
Speaking before the City Council Monday night, Roaf said the committee fully funded – and in some cases exceeded – all grant requests for the current year. Her explanation that fewer groups applied for grants in the current year left Councilman Roland Velasco questioning the citizen committee’s level of outreach.
“I’m a little concerned because there’s so much need out there,” Velasco said. “I’m almost more comfortable the other way – when there are groups who don’t get funding.”
Walter Schinke, who serves on the citizen’s committee, disagreed with the councilmen’s criticisms.
“We did a very fair assessment,” he said. “Most of us on the committee are familiar with the organizations. Of course, we go over everything that is submitted to us. We evaluate it – we don’t just rubber stamp it.”
The grant monies, which the city doles out each year, come from a mixed pool of funds. While the ratio varies by year, the grants generally come from the city’s Housing Trust Fund and a community development block grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
City Administrator Jay Baksa explained that certain monies help Gilroy meet federal grant requirements. For instance, an $18,000 grant to Project Sentinel, which Valiquette initially questioned, helps the city meet fair housing requirements by offering legal assistance in housing discrimination cases.
Dillon and Valiquette joined other councilmen in unanimously approving the latest round of grant money for 10 nonprofit groups, but only after Mayor Al Pinheiro promised the city will take a hard look at which programs should qualify in the future. Dillon also said in an interview that he would like to see the council resume control of the grant process or, in lieu of that, take charge of appointments to the citizen’s committee.
Leaders of nonprofit groups urged city leaders to use caution before restricting support for community services groups.
David Cox, head of St. Joseph’s Family Center, said that city funds are vital for “leveraging” matching grants from other agencies and groups.
The agency, which provides food and housing services, has had to expand in recent years to fill in the void left by Mujeres Pueden, a job training program for welfare recipients that disbanded after the federal government discontinued its funding source.
Baksa acknowledged that “we’re seeing a lot of agencies either start to go under or start pulling out of South County. That’s a factor that money is so tight.”
Martin Eichner, the director of Project Sentinel for Northern California, defended the $29,412 grant to his organization for tenant-landlord counseling services after it came under fire by Dillon and Valiquette.
Eichner said that his organization has already fielded 310 calls for assistance in the first two quarters of the year and has opened more than 130 cases for in-depth counseling services.
“I would suggest that the city is getting a bargain from Project Sentinel,” Eichner said. “We cannot continue to stay here unless we have at least a portion of our project funded by the city.”
City Council has approved $125,872 in grants
Group Amount Use
• Catholic Charities $5,000 Respite and care-giver support
$6,000 Long-term care ombudsman
• Community Solutions $6,000 Domestic violence program
• Emergency Housing Consortium $10,000 Homeless housing
• Live Oak Adult Day Care Services $5,410 Adult day-care
• Outreach & Escort, Inc. $5,000 Reduce transportation costs for elderly, disabled
• Project Sentinel $18,000 To handle housing discrimination cases
$29,412 Tenant-landlord counseling services
• Rebekah Children’s Services $7,230 For the Teen Mom’s program
• Second Harvest Food Bank $5,200 Operation Brown Bag
• Silicon Valley Living Center $4,320 For a video to help disabled people locate housing
• St. Joseph’s Family Center $9,800 Housing, food services for homeless and income
$14,500 For employment services
