Show them the money

Dave Brooks

It was part field trip, part housecleaning.

Several dozen city employees and Huntington Beach residents piled

into a charted bus last week for a tour of local charities and

capital improvement projects. The four-hour excursion was a chance to

see how the city had invested nearly $1.6 million in federal grant

money to various projects aimed at bettering the lives of

underprivileged residents.

There was a stop at a state-of-the-art adult day facility for

Alzheimer’s patients and a brief drive-by of the Community Care

Health Center, a clinic that services low income patients.

The Alzheimer’s facility is a model for other facilities because

of its soft-toned, homelike design and emphasis on personal

creativity, Executive Director Dr. Cordula Dick-Muehlke said.

“We try to find people’s strengths and give them the opportunity

to achieve success without focusing on what they can’t do,” she said.

Each stop on the 11-stop tour were to programs that had received

federal Community Development Block Grant funds from the city.

Created in 1974 by President Gerald Ford, block grants are given

out to 1,000 American communities to better the lives of low-income

families. To date, more than $108 billion has been distributed.

To decide how funds will be allocated, Huntington Beach created a

Citizens Participation Advisory Board to make recommendations on how

the money should be spent.

Typically, nonprofits and charities are notified about the block

grants in November and the board holds two public meetings to take

input on the needs of the community.

In 2002, teenagers who live in the Oak View neighborhood

petitioned the city for a skate park in their area. The skate park

completed in March, is the third in Surf City. Board members visited

the small cement skate park in Oak View on the tour. They also took

tours of an Oak View Community Center and library that was partially

funded with block grant money.

The committee can only give money to a fraction of groups that

request help, staff liaison Luann Brunson said.

“We’re usually get requests for two to three times what is

available,” she said.

The city’s Economic Development Department also makes grant

recommendations. The groups typically agree on about 95% of the

allocations, Brunson said. During grant hearings this year, the only

disagreement was over a board-sponsored plan to partially fund

several projects that are not city-sponsored. The discrepancy created

a $22,500 funding disparity, which the City Council eventually opted

to fill with general fund money.

Most of that excess cash went to paying for a position at Project

Self-Sufficiency, a city service that provides benefits to

single-mothers attending school. A large chunk of grant funding

usually goes toward staffing, Brunson said.

“The grant helps us pay for positions and projects that normally

wouldn’t be covered by the general fund,” she said.

Street improvement projects are an example of a much needed use of

the funds. Grant money funded the removal of some old trees that were

destroying sidewalks on Elm and Fir streets. Engineers replaced the

aging ficus trees with less evasive purple plum leaf trees.