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Working for an organization that serves low- to moderate-income older adults and persons with disabilities, I’ve seen the uptick in food insecurity, emergencies and essential services some of them are experiencing.
While some of these issues have been direct and in your face, i.e., Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), there are others coming down the pipeline that could negatively impact these groups but may not be obvious until it’s too late.
I recently reached out to our local elected leadership about one potential example: Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funding. I’m sharing what I sent to them, so that you may also have this on your radar:
Snohomish County manages the CDBG funding that comes from HUD. Edmonds is part of the Urban County Consortium that receives funding:
The Snohomish County Urban County Consortium (Consortium) has received federal grant funds under the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program since 1975. This program is administered by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Snohomish County is the lead agency and grant recipient for the Consortium.
For CDBG funds, the Consortium consists of 18 of the 20 cities and towns within Snohomish County (which includes Edmonds), with the exception of the City of Everett, Marysville, and the King County portion of Bothell, which receive their own CDBG allocation. The funds may be used for various public service activities which principally benefit low- and moderate-income persons.
Specific to the organization that I work for, we apply for these grants to help fund Meals on Wheels, congregate dining (we provide lunch meals to all of the senior centers in Snohomish County, including the Edmonds Waterfront Center) and home repair.
The reason I wanted to put this on your radars is due to some of the regulations that are coming down from the federal level, mainly citizenship verification.
- In a nutshell, before any services, emergency or not, could be provided to a resident, the service org would be required to collect citizenship information not only from the person requesting the service, but the entire household.
- Then, the governing body (city/consortium) would have to create protocols to verify this information, then let the serving org know if it’s okay to provide said service.
- Each city/town/consortium can elect whether to abide by the “suggested requirement,” though no guidance has been given from the federal level on how to accomplish this.
At this time, we are not sure what the County’s (or other jurisdictions) decision around this will be. However, I anticipate an answer will come soon. Either way, we could be met with a reduction of services to those in Edmonds by either the citizenship verification requirement OR a reduction in funding to deliver the services should the County choose not to abide by this new requirement.
Let me reiterate that we do not anticipate lack of home repair service to be due to lack of citizenship. Rather, it’s how difficult it may end up being for older adults who may be citizens but may have a challenging time finding birth certificates, active passports and documentation on names changes after marriage/divorce/death of spouse. The processing time to gather, submit to org, submit it for citizenship approval and obtain approval to begin work worries us, as when you have a leak or no heat, time is of the essence.
Nonprofits that provide these services and others are doing their best to raise awareness of, and funding from, individuals and organizations, instead of relying on federal funds. This will help organizations like ours alleviate this issue. Stay informed, vigilant and prepared.
Alicia Crank is an Edmonds resident and director of philanthropy at Homage Senior Services
Very helpful information. Thank you, Alicia.
I am sorry to hear this. When I was a court social worker we had to verify identification of folks in custody in order to get them released to an appropriate level of care. Identification is needed to apply for medical coverage. People would lose everything while homeless. One man was born in another country from a union with a deceased foreign mother and deceased GI dad in the US. We worked with agencies that were skilled in overcoming these challenges. It took time and money to write to states to get birth certificates. Hopefully alternate forms of identification like SSA cards will be on a list of acceptable identification. People will be totally overwhelmed.