ADMINISTRATIVE REPORT
Date: March 15, 1996
TO: Vancouver City Council
FROM: Director of Community Services, Social Planning
SUBJECT: 1996 Community Services Grants Allocations
RECOMMENDATION
A. THAT Council approve 87 grants totalling $2,706,572, as
listed in Appendix A, including conditions on the grants,
where noted in Appendix C.
B. THAT Council approve the following reserves (listed in
Appendix A as No. 204 - 208) to be reported on, with
specific allocation recommendations, at a later date:
1) United Way - Partners in
Organizational Development $15,000
2) Emergencies, unforeseen circumstances $19,428
3) Cross-Cultural Expertise $25,000
4) Support to Multicultural Families $30,000
5) Youth Work Coordination $20,000
C. THAT Council approve a rent subsidy grant of $22,610 to the
B.C. Coalition of People with Disabilities, and that the
Community Services Grants budget be increased accordingly.
D. THAT Council approve a rent subsidy grant of $7,980 to
Central City Mission for the Dugout, and that the Community
Services Grants budget be increased accordingly.
E. THAT Council approve a rent subsidy grant of $5,205 to End
Legislated Poverty and that the Community Services Grants
budget be increased accordingly.
GENERAL MANAGER'S COMMENTS
The General Manager of Community Services submits A to E for
CONSIDERATION.
COUNCIL POLICY
On September 30, 1993, Council adopted, as policy, the criteria and
priorities which are used in assessing Community Services Grants
applications. These were amended by Council on October 24, 1995.
On June 8, 1993, City Council decided that rent subsidies to social
service or cultural organizations occupying PEF-owned property will be
funded from the Community Services or Cultural Grants budgets, and
that these budgets will be adjusted to accommodate the subsidies
approved by Council. Applications for rent subsidy grants are to be
assessed for eligibility on the same basis as applications for
Community Services or Cultural Grants.
Approval of grant recommendations requires eight affirmative votes.
SUMMARY
With this report, Social Planning staff are recommending approval of
87 Community Services Grants, at a total cost of $2,706,572. We are
also recommending continuation of the Partners in Organizational
Development reserve ($15,000) and the creation of three other reserves
(with a total value of $75,000). There is a difference of $19,428
between the total value of the recommended allocations (including the
reserves) and the grants budget established by Council on February 1,
1996 - we are recommending that this balance be kept aside for
emergencies or unforeseen circumstances.
Two applicants have advised us that they disagree with our
recommendations, and have requested reconsideration. Consequently,
these two applications have been removed from the list of
recommendations contained in this report, and will be dealt with at
the completion of the reconsideration process.
PURPOSE
This report recommends the 1996 Community Services Grants allocations
for all applications which have not been referred to the
reconsideration process. It also provides an overview of this grants
program.
BACKGROUND
The 1996 Community Services Grants budget was set by Council on
February 1, 1996, at $2,826,000. Not included in this budget are any
rent subsidy grants, as Council has directed that the budget be
adjusted after the fact by an amount equal to any rent subsidy grants
which get approved.
Social Planning received 95 regular grant applications and 3 rent
subsidy grant applications. Staff have reviewed and assessed these
applications on the basis of the criteria and priorities which have
been established by Council.
All applicants have been informed, in writing, of Social Planning's
recommendations, and were given the opportunity to request
reconsideration if they disagreed with the recommendation. Two
organizations, listed in Appendix B, have requested further review of
their applications and the proposed recommendations.
RECOMMENDATION'S SUMMARY
Social Planning staff made preliminary recommendations for approval of
88 Community Services grants and 3 rent subsidy grants. The two
applications which have been referred to the reconsideration process
will not be dealt with at this point; therefore, staff are now
recommending approval of 87 grants, at a total cost of $2,706,572.
Following is a summary of the recommendations, with comparative
figures from previous years:
1996 1995 1994
Recommended at the same level 28 17 33
Recommended increase:
- inflation adjustment 46 39 0
- other increase 7 21 29
Recommended new grants 5 5 10
Recommended decrease 2 9 19
Recommended terminating grant 0 1 22
No grant recommended 7 20 29
95 112 142
Appendix A lists the grants which are being recommended at this time.
Applications which are in dispute (i.e., requests for reconsideration
have been received) are not included in this list.
Appendix B lists the applications for which requests for
reconsideration have been received - these will be considered by
Council on March 28th.
Appendix C lists all applications for 1996 grants, and provides
information on last year's grants (if any), the initial staff
recommendations for this year's grants, and any conditions and/or
comments related to each application.
Appendix D lists all applications, sorted by the target group which
they primarily serve. Most organizations serve more than one group,
so a completely accurate picture of the allocation of City funds to
each target group cannot be given when organizations are shown only
within a single category. However, this table does give an indication
of funding changes within sectors.
Finally, Appendix E lists all grant applications in separate tables
that show how the 1996 recommendations compare to last year's.
A copy of the front pages of all applications has already been
distributed to Council. These contain more detailed information on
the applicants and the programs or services for which they are seeking
City funding.
DISCUSSION
The 1996 Community Services Grants review process was one of the least
contentious or complicated in many years. There were no big
surprises, and no strong objections to the grants program regulations
or staff's interpretation of them. The two primary reasons for this
are:
1) the criteria and priorities, adopted in 1993 for the 1994
program, are now well established and understood. There seems to
be growing support in the community for the direction we are
taking, particularly in regards to the Guiding Principles of
collaboration, inclusion and participation;
2) there is considerable anxiety and fear about the probable effects
of impending federal and provincial cuts to social services.
Most of the groups we talked to are directing their energies
towards "battening down the hatches", to ensure that they survive
the storm that they feel is about to sweep in. Some funding
changes have already taken effect, and the consequences are being
felt, but there seems to be a consensus that we are only seeing
the very tiny tip of a very large iceberg.
As a result of this stable, very cautious environment, staff are
recommending grants that are the same or only slightly more (adjusted
for CPI) than last year's grants for more than three quarters of the
applicants. Similarly, the number of decreased or terminating grants
is the lowest its been in years. As funding mandates, particularly at
senior government levels change, the number and types of services that
we fund may similarly change; however, these changes have not been
implemented, so the "wait and see" mode continues.
RECOMMENDED RESERVES
In addition to the usual reserve for "Partners in Organizational
Development" and a modest hold-back for emergencies or unforeseen
circumstances, we are recommending that funds also be set aside in
three separate reserves. Following is a brief explanation of the
reserves:
1. Partners in Organizational Development - this program was
initiated in 1989 as a jointly funded partnership of the
Vancouver Foundation, United Way, Secretary of State and the City
to help non-profit organizations deal with common organizational
problems. In 1994, additional Federal and Provincial partners
agreed to also provide funding to this program.
Staff are recommending that $15,000 be reserved for P.O.D. - this
is the same amount that has been approved each year since the
program's inception. A report seeking Council's approval of
specific P.O.D. grants will be submitted later in the year.
2. Cross-cultural Expertise - on March 28, 1995 Council approved a
reserve of $18,000 in the 1995 Community Services Grants budget
for Cross-Cultural facilitation. The City had received requests
from several immigrant-serving groups for funding to support
their work with "mainstream" groups on cross-cultural issues.
Staff recommended the reserve rather than immediately funding the
applications at hand, because while we believe that the work was
important, we thought it was necessary for the prospective
partners to develop a shared understanding and objectives for
such work.
Staff met over several months with a group of immigrant
integration agencies, community service organizations and other
funders. It was agreed that grants should be given to provide
short-term, result-oriented funding to help groups undertake
projects which will increase cross-cultural
expertise/understanding. Criteria for these special types of
grants were developed, and applications for them were received
and reviewed late last year. On February 22, 1996, Council
approved Cross-Cultural Expertise Grants to Frog Hollow
Neighbourhood House, Big Sisters and SUCCESS.
Staff are recommending a similar reserve in the 1996 Community
Services Grants program for the continuation of the Cross-
Cultural Expertise Grants. We will monitor the progress of the
first round of grants and use the feedback received to make any
needed modifications to the 1996 program. We anticipate being
able to make an assessment of the effectiveness of this approach
by the end of 1996.
3. Support to Multi-cultural Families - last year, two groups
applied for funding to support family counselling to people who
do not speak English. Council approved a reserve of $20,000
(part year funding) to allow time to clarify priorities and
strategies in this area. After consulting broadly, staff have
concluded that additional preventive family support services are
badly needed in the Vietnamese community and for some of the
smaller, newer communities. More formal services such as family
therapy are also lacking or in very short supply. Since this is
an area where services must be in the language of the
individual/family, the lack of services is exacerbating both
family and community problems.
Council recently approved a small Cross-Cultural Expertise grant
to SUCCESS and Family Services, which will support a closer
partnership between these organizations, to improve family
therapy services in Cantonese/Mandarin. As well, in this 1996
allocation report, we are recommending a grant of $15,000 to
Immigrant Services Society to provide family support to newer
smaller communities - at present, people from former Yugoslavia.
We are recommending a reserve of $30,000 in the 1996 Community
Services Grants budget, which together with the $20,000 from 1995
(total $50,000) will help to address some of the remaining
priority family counselling needs.
We are currently working with community agencies to finalize a
proposal for an additional full-time family outreach worker for
the Vietnamese community A report on the details of this
proposed grant of approximately $35,000 will be submitted
shortly. We are recommending that the balance of about $15,000
be reserved to support further work on service improvement in
this area over the balance of the year. Staff have been meeting
with other funders to discuss our findings and recommendations,
and believe there is a reasonable chance of their additional
participation in this area.
4. Youth Work Coordination
One of the implementation tasks of the Civic Youth Strategy has
been to assess and coordinate the direct services provided by
youth workers in the city. Involved in this effort are the Park
Board, Community Centre associations, and non-profit
organizations.
It is becoming clear that there is a need for someone to oversee
the provision of all these youth services, to coordinate them and
to address service quality issues. Social Planning and Parks
staff will continue to meet with service providers and funders to
develop the most appropriate mechanism for providing this needed
coordination and support to youth workers. We are recommending
that $20,000 be set aside in a reserve to ensure that funding
will be available once the coordination model has been developed.
Specifics on allocation of this money will be reported to
Council, hopefully within the next few months.
CONCLUSION
The 1996 Community Services Grants will continue to provide support to
non-profit organizations which deliver social services worth many
times the City's contribution.
There is a great deal of concern and fear in the social services
community about the affects of the anticipated cuts in supports to the
social security system. However, most groups are preparing themselves
by devising ways of working smarter, working together and by ensuring
that they are delivering relevant, needed services. The Community
Services Grants program's Guiding Principles of working together,
being inclusive and operating on a participatory model have proven to
be a solid framework for these efforts.
* * * * *