Commissioners propose $1,234,000 to fund human services

According to a City Council 10/9 memo "Every other year, the City accepts proposals from human services agencies seeking grant funding in the next biennium. This past March, Redmond participated with 17 other King County cities, releasing a joint online funding application. This allowed organizations interested in requesting funding support from any of the participating cities to complete a single application. This year Redmond received applications from 91 programs, with requests for almost $2.2 million.

In 2016 Council approved the Mayor’s proposed budget to increase support to the human service fund from $13.25 to approximately $16.90 per capita. This resulted in tangible impacts and improved service delivery in our community. Adjusting for population and 3 percent inflation, the 2019-2020 human services per capita total is now expected to be about $1.21 million each year. Redmond also anticipates about $24,000 in Community Development Block Grant funding to allocate to human services in 2019, bringing total available funds to about $1,234,000/year."

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The Human Services commissioners recommended an additional $422,534 under "Option 1" to  fund some of the smaller non-profits and in response to community budget requests.  The Council left it up to the commissioners to vet the Option 1 requests.

The bulk of the funding was allocated to 12 non-profits, as follows:  Youth Eastside Services ($152,614) Friends of Youth ($138,227) Hopelink ($115,096) Congregations for the Homeless ($89,617) Sophia Way ($62,555) Health Point ($54,000) Lifewire - survivor advocacy ($50,570.) YMCA ($39,140) Chinese Information Center ($24,643) Catholic Community Services ($23,175) NAMI ($21,177.)

One of the commissioners noted Hopelink's large request even though they haven't added services from the prior biennium.  The same commissioner pointed to the $177,000 chamber video screen suggesting those funds could have been better spent in our community for human services.

The Council thanked the commissioners for their hard work and will vote on the requests at a later date. 

-- Bob Yoder

Sources:  Council Study Session memo, 10/9.  Joint meeting with Human Services Commission.
RCTV.