Yost Answers My Funding Question In The Rhino
I’ve asked the question on my blog and to journalists, county staff and Commissioners: Who decided which CBOs to fund and which to cut in the 2007-2008 budget? Billy Yow did return my call and talked to me a bit about it, but I got the best answer when I picked up a Rhino this evening and read Scott Yost’s article, “Gang of Six Takes Control of the County.” About the CBO funding for human services, Yost says:
“McNeill and other county staff worked for months with department directors to determine which non-profits performed a service necessary to the county’s operations, and those groups were identified, placed in a separate category and they did get funding again this year.”
[Not yet online.] Yost’s article is online here.
Thanks, Yost and Rhino. Now, if you could just become a daily and deliver that paper to my driveway…
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Talking To Billy Yow About CBOs
Earlier, I posted about Guilford County Commissioners’ budget cuts to a family homeless shelter and three residential drug treatment programs and the $1.4 million in community-based organization (CBO) funding that wasn’t cut, and I wondered about how the decisions were made on which programs to fund. Commissioner Billy Yow returned my phone call Friday afternoon and we talked about CBO funding.
I didn’t get the sense that Yow was heavily involved in the decision-making process about which CBOs to fund or cut, although, he did mention that he thought the funded organizations were providing services that “if they didn’t do, the county would have to do,” And Yow was clear on his feelings about CBO funding in general, and that he sees this year’s cuts as a beginning, not as the end.
The most intriguing part of the call, and what we spent the most time talking about, was Yow’s idea to link economic incentives with the creation of jobs for homeless people. It’s a novel idea (to me, at least) and one I hope to explore further.
Today, as I was reflecting on my conversation with Yow, I wondered if there was a mission statement or policy about CBO funding for Guilford County, so I searched the web and found this video clip from a County Commissioner meeting on 03/15/2007. It’s a discussion of the CBO policy. A part of the discussion:
Davis: “I’m hearing that if we took the maximum of three years off… that would open it up…”
Yow: “I think that if you do that, then you’ve defeated the purpose of your whole committee, because your committee was sent to study what the State recommended for the purpose of CBOs. CBOs are typically funded as an effort to get a group started and assist them to get on their feet. It’s not supposed to be a sole dependent, that we continue to fund them and keep them up from now on. And if you change the language, then you’re taking things totally back to the way they were, where they’re just going to be a dependent of the County to keep them up, such as so many has. But if you leave it like it is, it inspires them more to take that money and get on their feet, versus knowing they’re going to get it again in two more years.”
Davis: “Well, again, the intent was to know and to be able to project the next three years. I don’t think that was — it was to help them look down for other, ah, sources of funding, and, but, it was not to preclude them from coming back, because the program may be delivering great results… [audio unclear] … And if it’s leveraging county dollars to get other dollars you don’t want to take that away.”
A later comment by Yow: “To get it just right is to get rid of it.”
I also found a proposed CBO funding policy document from 03/29/2007, which appears to include changes from the meeting in the video linked above, as well as this link to a Commissioner meeting clip from 04/19/2007 with further discussion about CBO policy. There is a diversity of thought among the Commissioners on the subject of CBOs.
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Fair Housing Laws & Homeless Shelters
From the new blog of the North Carolina Coalition to End Homelessness:
“Often, agencies providing shelter to the homeless don’t realize that they fall under the Fair Housing Law or the American Disabilities Act. But in fact, whether you are providing short or long term shelter, chances are one of these laws apply to you.”
In order to be compliant with the law, shelter staff must give disabled persons access to programs, and cannot use questions about disability (physical or mental illness, including alcoholism) during the intake process to screen a person out of the program — but, after accepting the disabled person into the housing program, shelter staff may then ask questions about disability, in order to determine service needs and offer reasonable accommodations. The article also discusses the difference between “reasonable accommodations” and fundamental program changes. Much more in the article, including links to further resources.
This blog is definitely going to be a must-read! I’m excited to see another non-profit (and one focused on homelessness!) enter the blogosphere! It’s a great way to further their message.
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Send Me
“We Christians must pray for our nation and its people. Our love for our Saviour and our neighbour demands nothing less than fervent, united prayer. Such prayer needs focus. We need to see things not as the world sees them, but as God sees them. We have to filter our experiences through the word of God, not the other way around, so we pray with the mind of God. On top of that, our prayer has to be more than: ‘Lord, do something!’ It needs to be: ‘Lord, what can I do?’ Or as Isaiah said, ‘Here I am, send me.’ It is said, ‘When we work, we work. When we pray, God works.’ From what Christian Voice has seen, we know that when we do both, God works miracles. That is good, as it will need a miracle for our sad, dysfunctional nation to turn from its belief that mankind knows best and to trust in God again. What was written 3,000 years ago is still true: ‘Blessed is that nation, whose God is the Lord.’ (Psalm 33:12)
From Christian Voice in the U.K., but true for us in the U.S., as well.
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Here I Am To Worship
Lyrics after the jump… Read more
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The $1.4 Million Commissioners DID Give To Non-Profits
Today’s News & Record has an editorial defending the cuts to non-profits that County Commissioners made in the new 2007-2008 budget, including cuts to community-based organizations such as a family homeless shelter and three residential drug treatment programs:
“The bottom line: The county’s tax base hasn’t grown enough to offset what is owed. The answer, however, isn’t passing the buck to beleaguered property owners and expecting them to underwrite nonprofits… Thankfully, the door has been left slightly ajar. Commissioners could provide some limited nonprofit funding later this year…”
But what the editorial doesn’t say is that the Commissioners did fund other non-profit, community-based organizations — to the tune of almost $1.4 million. (I’m not sure how they define “limited.”)
My question (and I’m not alone in asking this one) is what was the rationale behind the cuts? From an economic perspective, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to cut funding for programs that save taxpayer dollars in the long term. I left messages for both Commissioners Paul Gibson (Chair) and Billy Yow, architects of the adopted budget. I assume they had a plan. I’d just like to hear their perspective on how they chose who got funded and who didn’t.
Note: Commissioner (Vice-Chair) Skip Alston plans to revisit the topic of non-profit funding at the July 19th meeting. If your non-profit funding was cut, you might want to mark this on your calendar. (Non-profits received little or no notice of the budget cuts and did not have a chance to speak in support of their agencies before the cuts were made.)
| Community-Based Organizations Funded by the Guilford County Commissioners in the Adopted 2007-2008 Budget | |
| Non-profit Human Services Organizations | |
| Adult Center for Enrichment | $8,403 |
| Black Child Development | 18,000 |
| Children’s Home Society | 55,500 |
| Family Service of the Piedmont | 123,000 |
| Family Services of the Piedmont | 109,623 |
| Guilford Center for mental health/psychological services (matching funds) | 20,317 |
| One Step Further | 60,000 |
| Senior Resources of Guilford County (for outreach and case assistance) | 40,000 |
| Senior Resources of Guilford County | 107880 |
| Sickle Cell Agency | 55,000 |
| Triad Health Project | 120,000 |
| Women’s Resource Center | 15,000 |
| Youth Focus | 135,785 |
| Human Services CBO Total | $868,508 |
| Economic Development Organizations | |
| Total of eight (8) economic development nonprofits funded | $529,143 |
| TOTAL NON-PROFIT CBOS FUNDED IN GUILFORD COUNTY 2007-2008 ADOPTED BUDGET | $1,397,651 |
NOTE: I see some familiar non-profits who do great work (some of them with homeless people!) in the “funded” list above. Good for you! 
P.S. I didn’t get the names of the economic development organizations because that’s really not my area of interest. But if you want to know, call the county budget office. They’ll tell you. They’re nice.
[Update, 06/30/07: Billy Yow returned my call. More here.] Scott Yost answered my question above in this week’s Rhino. Details here.
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What You Need To Hear About Crack Cocaine
Cardwell C. Nuckols, Ph.D.
There are audio gaps in a few places (present in the original recording) and the recording ends a few moments before Nuckols’ talk did. Those flaws aside, this audio recording is an excellent resource for revealing truth about crack cocaine and crack addiction.
>> See also, “The 7 Stages of Crack Cocaine Use”
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