King County Journal  - April 20, 2005

Community's safety net is in jeopardy
By Pamela Mauk

"Old age isn't for sissies," my 85-year-old dad said as he moved his arthritic body up a set of stairs.

At Family Resource Center, we are getting ready for our 8th annual Eastside Volunteer Fair on April 23 at Crossroads Bellevue. While volunteers of all types are the backbone of most nonprofit agencies, today I am considering our need for community leaders.  My dad's expression keeps jumping to mind:  "It isn't for sissies."

A new economy began several years ago to seriously impact our ability to maintain services. First, King County's human services budget was cut dramatically - hundreds of thousands of dollars in program funds were lost. The State's troubled budget was then balanced with huge losses to childcare, among other services. Federal funding has eroded steadily, and Community Development Block Grants may be lost in 2006.

"We had an 18 year old staying overnight in her car in the parking lot," my co-worker informs me, "with her two-month-old," she adds. In this case, "the two children," as she calls them, found assistance, but emergency beds are all filled now. One mother of two kids has called for ideas for the past month, but there's simply no space for the homeless now, even an abused mom with kids.

In fact there is a flood of women without a place to go in similar situations. More than 13 of 14 requests to stay at domestic violence shelters are turned down due to lack of space. As for the homeless, 4,000 find shelter each night, while another 4,000 are left to sleep in the streets or parks.

More?  Washington State has the highest rate of hunger in the whole country. Troubled teens can wait six weeks to talk to a counselor.  There is a 40% increase in uninsured people using community health centers in King County since 2001.  We could go on and on.

Literature from Friends of Youth calls this economy The Perfect Storm. Sweeping cuts from government have come at the same time the economy has seriously limited donations and service demands have skyrocketed.

I keep thinking of another disaster: the recent tsunami.  My attention is not so much on the impact of the tsunami on local giving as on the placing of warning buoys. Why would the nations of the world allow some nations to opt out of the warning buoys? Why didn't we simply pick up the costs, so minimal compared to the later rebuilding costs, so unimportant compared to the horrific loss of lives?

The warning buoys for our human services infrastructure are already bounding and ringing. They've been doing so for a few years now. Without significant community leadership, we are moving quickly toward a time when critical community supports will be lost.

We need you to step up.  Join other leaders in the work of the Eastside Forum (www.eastsideforum.org) or the South King County Human Services Forum (contact humanservices@ci.kent.wa.us or call 253.856.5070).

Come to the Eastside Volunteer Fair at Crossroads Bellevue this Saturday, or search for leadership positions through the Volunteer Center at www.uwkc.org/volunteer.

We need help now before our losses overwhelm us. It's work that takes courage. We need your strong leadership before we are all sitting around asking ourselves: "How could this have happened?"

Pamela Mauk is executive director of Family Resource Center. Readers can contact her via email at pamm@familyresourcecenter.org or 425-869-1174.

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