Seattle Sun Newspaper - Vol. 7, Issue 9, September 2003

Copyright 2003 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 centers face funding crisis

By JAMES BUSH

At the beginning of 2003, five North End family support centers were receiving city funding. After the latest round of the Seattle funding process, that number is down to two (Wallingford's FamilyWorks and Lake City's North End Family Center).

But, even as the Meadowbrook and Bitter Lake Family Centers have shuttered their operations, the Ballard Family Center is vowing to continue without a dime from the city. "We do have enough funding to last for six months," says Ed Medeiros, director of the Phinney Neighborhood Association, the center's parent organization. "And, we're going to plan in that six months to replace that city funding and stay open."

The Ballard and Bitter Lake Family Centers were notified that they would not receive city funds in mid-July, and their appeals to Kip Tokuda, director of the Division of Family and Youth Services in Seattle's Department of Human Services, were denied in late August.

The centers, whose programming includes parenting classes, computer skills workshops, English as a Second Language (ESL) classes, and special events for families and children, have traditionally been funded through a mix of money from the city's general fund and the Families and Education Levy.

Tokuda says this year's new, competitive funding application process was mandated by the Seattle City Council and run by an city-appointed advisory board. The squeeze was on from the start: the total pot of available funding (about $1.6 million) was smaller than in recent years and a decision had already been made to add a new family center aimed at serving the city's immigrant population. Also, new standards for geographic distribution of programs were strict enough that the Children's Home Society of Washington, operators of Meadowbrook Family Center, had already decided to forgo a funding application and closed its doors at the end of June. The society still operates the North End Family Center, located a scant mile from its former Meadowbrook operation.

At Bitter Lake, the focus is on trying to replicate some of the programs offered through the center, says Julie Moore of the Bitter Lake Community Center Advisory Council. "They need the ESL classes, they need the parenting classes," she says, adding that her group is "totally devastated" with the city's decision to deny funding for the family center. "It was a wonderful partnership for us," she says. "This is something the community's going to miss."

Medeiros says the Ballard center, with seven years in operation and a file full of positive reviews from city regulators, was pretty confident of receiving money for the 18-month city funding cycle. While the total pot of money was diminished, there was enough funding to go around if each center took a small cut, he reasoned.

Instead, the city decided to fully fund some centers and give others nothing at all. That policy decision was debated extensively by the advisory committee, says Tokuda. "The committee said 'We are going to fund the highest scoring proposals at their requested budgets.'" As a result, the Wallingford-based FamilyWorks program, which had just a small amount of city funding and paid its bills through aggressive grant writing, foundation support and individual donations, wound up receiving its full $150,000 funding request, says Director Jake Weber.

The news that her program would receive funding while other centers would be eliminated from the city budget came as somewhat of a surprise, she says. "[The city] really did not provide us any indication of what the outcome would be," notes Weber. "We really had all hoped as family centers, that we'd be all be able to survive on some level."

Medeiros says he was also disappointed by the city's decision to rank centers solely based on written applications, without site visits or a serious review of a program's past performance. "We had a very long track record at Ballard, which was a very good track record," he says.

The numbers which the Ballard Family Center got back from evaluators raise questions about the fairness of the process, Medeiros continues. For example, in the area of programming, one evaluator gave Ballard 32 points out of a possible 35, while another gave the program just 15 points.

But necessity dictates that the Ballard Family Center move into the next phase of creating an operation that is sustainable without city funding. The first step will probably be to move out of its current space at 5449 Ballard Ave NW as a cost-cutting measure, says Medeiros.

State Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson, a longtime center board member, notes that the board has already put together successful fundraising events such as last fall's Ballard Majestic Evening, which raised about $12,000 (the center's current annual budget is about $150,000). "We do have some community funding already and we're currently exploring ways to increase that funding," she adds.

Medeiros points out that the reformed Ballard Family Center hasn't given up on adding some city money the mix. "We're going to take a political stance," he says, "and try working with the Mayor and with the City Council."