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Nonprofits tapped for grant funds
New Horizons is among the winners after lobbying city housing group not to reduce its allotment.
By Jason Wells
CITY HALL — Lobbying season for federal grant funds is officially closed after the Housing Authority on Tuesday made its allotments to 25 nonprofit social service programs offering everything from homeless outreach to free dental care for lower-income children.
A set of unpopular funding recommendations handed down in January by the city’s Community Development Block Grant Advisory Committee — which evaluates applications for federal grant funds — had set into motion a lobbying effort to increase allocations that some applicants called unfair.
Those efforts paid off Tuesday for some of the most vocal program administrators who were facing reduced, or even zero, funding as the Housing Authority — which comprises all five City Council members and two other commissioners — cut from other recommended allotments in order to backfill.
New Horizons Family Center saw its $30,000 recommendation for fiscal year 2008-09 restored to its current $45,000 funding level after a full-court press from single mothers with children enrolled in the south Glendale childcare and development center with letters to the editor and comments at public input meetings.
“I really thank the City Council for recognizing the needs of the people in south Glendale and children that we serve,” Maria Rochart, executive director of the center, said after the meeting. “They heard their voices.”
But since the authority had just $503,000 to work with — an allocation from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development that was 3.7% less than last year — New Horizons’ gain was another program’s loss.
Eight other nonprofit organizations saw their recommended net funding gains over what they received last year cut 25% so that New Horizons levels could be restored.
The remaining $3,750, in addition to another $1,250 pulled from other net increases, was allotted to HASK Armenian American Community Center for its Media For You program, which provides mentoring and training programs for low-income youth in media technology.
The authority also approved use of the city’s general fund to reinstate $35,000 to help pay for the city’s anti-graffiti program.
Administrators of the programs that saw reductions expressed their frustration after the meeting Tuesday over what they said amounted to arbitrary cuts that failed to take their repercussions into account.
Arsineh Hovannisian, who directs the Intervention/Prevention Clinical Group Counseling Program for the Committee for Armenian Students in Public Schools, had been looking forward to having her grant funding doubled to $20,000 this coming fiscal year so that she could expand the program to include another campus outside of Columbus Elementary School.
After her program went through Mayor John Drayman’s formula, that $10,000 net gain was reduced to $6,300, for a total of $16,300 — not enough to make the program leap, she said.
“They’re not taking that into account,” Hovannisian said.
Councilman Dave Weaver protested the modification of funding recommendations from the Community Development Block Grant Advisory Committee for that reason, arguing that it undermined the hundreds of hours committee members put into the evaluation of the applications and proposals.
“In my humble opinion, we play politics,” he said.
But accusations of playing politics were not restricted to the City Council this year after a member of the advisory committee, Gary Cornell, sent an e-mail to at least two council members lobbying for the New Horizons increase and a reinstatement of graffiti removal funding.
Weaver publicly called for the commissioner’s resignation after reading portions of the “insulting” e-mail in which Cornell wrote that his fellow committee members were “not that sophisticated in the budget process.”
Chang Lee, the advisory committee’s chairman, has put the matter on the May 7 agenda for discussion after several of his fellow commissioners called for some form of censure.
Cornell on Tuesday said he regretted the manner in which he made his appeal, but said he had done so as a private citizen, and not as vice chairman of the advisory committee.
Drayman referenced the issue before opening deliberations on the funding recommendations Tuesday, saying it wasn’t the time to “get into personalities.”
He also said the City Council and Housing Authority had a more “broad purview” to make changes to the funding recommendations as they saw fit.
More than $2.38 million worth of capital improvement projects, including a new elevator for the Armenian Cultural Foundation and the curb and sidewalk improvements to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act, were also approved and will be attached to the city’s overall action plan to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
JASON WELLS covers City Hall. He may be reached at (818) 637-3235 or by e-mail at jason.wells@latimes.com.
A set of unpopular funding recommendations handed down in January by the city’s Community Development Block Grant Advisory Committee — which evaluates applications for federal grant funds — had set into motion a lobbying effort to increase allocations that some applicants called unfair.
Those efforts paid off Tuesday for some of the most vocal program administrators who were facing reduced, or even zero, funding as the Housing Authority — which comprises all five City Council members and two other commissioners — cut from other recommended allotments in order to backfill.
New Horizons Family Center saw its $30,000 recommendation for fiscal year 2008-09 restored to its current $45,000 funding level after a full-court press from single mothers with children enrolled in the south Glendale childcare and development center with letters to the editor and comments at public input meetings.
“I really thank the City Council for recognizing the needs of the people in south Glendale and children that we serve,” Maria Rochart, executive director of the center, said after the meeting. “They heard their voices.”
But since the authority had just $503,000 to work with — an allocation from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development that was 3.7% less than last year — New Horizons’ gain was another program’s loss.
Eight other nonprofit organizations saw their recommended net funding gains over what they received last year cut 25% so that New Horizons levels could be restored.
The remaining $3,750, in addition to another $1,250 pulled from other net increases, was allotted to HASK Armenian American Community Center for its Media For You program, which provides mentoring and training programs for low-income youth in media technology.
The authority also approved use of the city’s general fund to reinstate $35,000 to help pay for the city’s anti-graffiti program.
Administrators of the programs that saw reductions expressed their frustration after the meeting Tuesday over what they said amounted to arbitrary cuts that failed to take their repercussions into account.
Arsineh Hovannisian, who directs the Intervention/Prevention Clinical Group Counseling Program for the Committee for Armenian Students in Public Schools, had been looking forward to having her grant funding doubled to $20,000 this coming fiscal year so that she could expand the program to include another campus outside of Columbus Elementary School.
After her program went through Mayor John Drayman’s formula, that $10,000 net gain was reduced to $6,300, for a total of $16,300 — not enough to make the program leap, she said.
“They’re not taking that into account,” Hovannisian said.
Councilman Dave Weaver protested the modification of funding recommendations from the Community Development Block Grant Advisory Committee for that reason, arguing that it undermined the hundreds of hours committee members put into the evaluation of the applications and proposals.
“In my humble opinion, we play politics,” he said.
But accusations of playing politics were not restricted to the City Council this year after a member of the advisory committee, Gary Cornell, sent an e-mail to at least two council members lobbying for the New Horizons increase and a reinstatement of graffiti removal funding.
Weaver publicly called for the commissioner’s resignation after reading portions of the “insulting” e-mail in which Cornell wrote that his fellow committee members were “not that sophisticated in the budget process.”
Chang Lee, the advisory committee’s chairman, has put the matter on the May 7 agenda for discussion after several of his fellow commissioners called for some form of censure.
Cornell on Tuesday said he regretted the manner in which he made his appeal, but said he had done so as a private citizen, and not as vice chairman of the advisory committee.
Drayman referenced the issue before opening deliberations on the funding recommendations Tuesday, saying it wasn’t the time to “get into personalities.”
He also said the City Council and Housing Authority had a more “broad purview” to make changes to the funding recommendations as they saw fit.
More than $2.38 million worth of capital improvement projects, including a new elevator for the Armenian Cultural Foundation and the curb and sidewalk improvements to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act, were also approved and will be attached to the city’s overall action plan to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
JASON WELLS covers City Hall. He may be reached at (818) 637-3235 or by e-mail at jason.wells@latimes.com.
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