Pubdate: Wed, 22 Aug 2007
Source: Real Change (WA)
Copyright: 2007 Real Change
Contact:  http://www.realchangenews.org/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2637
Author: Cydney Gillis,
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?137 (Needle Exchange)

COUNTY CUTS OFF SOCIAL SERVICES AGENCY

King County, Citing Paperwork Problems, Pulls Funding From A Program 
That Cleans Up Addicts And Gets People Off The Streets

A nonprofit that passes out clean needles to heroin users and helps 
tough cases turn their lives around has learned that being streetwise 
can't save you from bureaucracy. On July 31, after missing some 
paperwork deadlines with its county funding agency, Seattle's 
16-year-old Street Outreach Services had its funding pulled and 
ceased operations, laying off about 10 workers.

The organization plans to regroup and reopen, says SOS board 
President Andy Ko. In the meantime, the group's two needle exchange 
sites – one on Capitol Hill and the other in the University District 
­ continue to operate. Public Health of Seattle-King County, the 
agency that pulled the plug on this year's SOS funding of $400,000, 
has taken over the Capitol Hill site. An all-volunteeer group called 
the People's Harm Reduction Alliance now runs the U-District location.

Two more SOS staffers will be lost on Aug. 31, when Clean Dreams, a 
city-funded outreach program that is part of SOS but has no apparent 
program problems of its own, closes in the wake of a city decision to 
kill it as well ­ an opportunistic move by the city, observers say, 
to kill a grassroots program that's helping drug dealers and 
prostitutes get off the streets in the city's Rainier Beach area.

The program, which started last September, is one of three street 
outreach pilot programs that grew out of City Council President Nick 
Licata's Civil Streets Initiative. After the health department pulled 
SOS's funding for failing to meet audit deadlines, the city's Human 
Services Department elected not to renew a contract that had provided 
Clean Dreams with $140,000 in funding from Jan. 1 to Aug. 31, says 
Eric Anderson, director of HSD's Youth Development and Achievement Division.

"The city decided to make the decision bcause we were not in good 
standing with the county," says Clean Dreams Program Coordinator 
Nature Carter-Gooding, who will lose her job at month's end."I don't 
see why because we've meet every requirement" the program had with 
the city, she adds.

Anderson doesn't dispute that, but notes that, with the county's 
funding making up 70 percent of SOS's total budget, "there really is 
not an agency there" to administrate Clean Dreams. Clean Dreams is 
currently trying to find an agency to take the program, says Sunil 
Abraham, a member of the program's community advisory board.

"We're focusing essentially on having Clean Dreams move forward 
without SOS, because we're very concerned about the people who are 
currently participants in the program," Abraham says. "Some would 
become homeless, some would not have drug treatment and child care, 
and others would have no support in their educational and vocational programs."

The program provides rental assistance to 22 individuals, says 
Carter-Gooding says, but 14 of them currently don't have jobs and are 
facing a return to the streets and their old lives. Clean Dreams is 
also currently paying for four people to take drug rehab, four to get 
daycare so they can take classes or look for work, and two to receive 
mental health treatment.

Altogether, 54 clients will be affected. All were recruited to join 
the program by word of mouth – and a promise, says Carter-Gooding, 
that they would get help where they are, for whatever they needed, no 
barriers, no waiting. Because of their criminal backgrounds, most 
Clean Dreams clients do not qualify for state assistance programs.

"We've been that bridge, that beacon of hope for the young to even 
have a way out," says Nature Carter-Gooding, who pulled herself off 
the street six years ago. "These individuals are left with no other 
alternative but to resort to their old means of survival."

Ruth Pearson could be one of them. After a 13-year stint in prison, 
Pearson, 29, says Clean Dreams has helped her learn how to cope with 
society and function. She's gotten a job, but still relies on the 
program for rental assistance and worries about what will happen when 
it closes.

"If you don't have structure, you don't have nothing," Pearson says. 
"I think the program has turned my life around. It's a blessing."
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman