Seattle Sun Newspaper - Vol. 6, Issue 12, December 2002

Copyright 2002 Seattle Sun. Please feel free to use the article and photos below in your research. Be sure to quote the Seattle Sun as your source.

Family Center could lose funding

By LEAH WEATHERSBY

The Meadowbrook Family Center got a short reprieve recently, when the City's Human Services Department decided to extend all current funding agreements through June, 2003.

The nonprofit center, which provides a variety of services to families, had been faced with severely reducing its programing in January and possibly charging for classes that are currently free, had a City plan to change the way family services are funded gone through.

Some Meadowbrook services may also have been moved off-site to low-income housing buildings.

Now, Human Services is holding off changes until next June so that it can make sure grants match up with new Mayor Greg Nickel's priorities.

The Meadowbrook facility, located at the Meadowbrook Community Center, is one of two family centers in the Lake City area run by the Children's Home Society, a statewide nonprofit organization. The other is the North Seattle Family Center at 3200 NE 125th St. Families of all income levels go to the family centers for language classes, parent support groups, story times and other programs.

In the past, Human Services has continually funded family centers for a decade at a time. However, earlier this year, the department requested new funding proposals from all of its service providers. At the same time, the City decided to change the way funds are distributed to family centers.

Pat Wells, manager for family support programs with Human Services, said in the past the City has focused on dividing money geographically. Now, she says, the City wants more money to go to low-income and immigrant families, and census figures show that more of those people live in South Seattle.

Cathy Garland, a regional director for the Children's Home Society, said because her group knew more money would be going south, they decided to only request funds for the North Seattle Family center (the larger of the two facilities) putting what they felt was their best foot forward given the new guidelines.

Currently, both family centers get about 80 percent of their funding from the City.

Garland says her group still has a wait-and-see attitude towards reapplying for funding for Meadowbrook.

"We want to see what the priorities are before we make a decision," Garland said.

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The Meadowbrook Family Center is located at 10517 35th Ave. NE. For details on City funding for family services, call Pat Wells at 684-0524.