ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, March 28, 1997 TAG: 9703280086
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARY BISHOP THE ROANOKE TIMES
Neighborhood groups trying to emulate the West End Center's success dispute the city's decision to give them only 18 percent of what they asked for.
Parents, educators, children, business people and civic leaders rose up in protest Thursday night against the city's recommendation to give only $29,000 to organizations in four neighborhoods instead of the $163,900 that they had requested for poor children's programs.
"I'm begging that somebody look at those numbers again," said Sidne Campbell, board president of the West End Center, one of the groups that presented a detailed joint proposal to provide new after-school activities and other children's services.
St. John's Episcopal Church in Old Southwest, the Presbyterian Community Center in Southeast Roanoke and the YMCA Family Center in Northwest Roanoke applied with the West End Center for federal Community Development Block Grant money to run programs modeled after the long-running West End Center on Patterson Avenue.
The groups offered matching funds totaling almost $700,000 from churches, individuals, businesses, civic organizations and other sources. Thursday night's hearing was packed with people angry or pleading for the after-school programs, tutoring and recreation for children.
"This affects everybody in this room, no matter where you live. These kids Rodney Lewis told the audience at the city budget hearing at the Jefferson Center. The proposal also would have allowed West End Center, with a waiting list of 74 children, to add to its caseload.
On May 5 at the Roanoke Civic Center, City Council will hear residents' comments on Roanoke's $3.8 million budget for block grants and other money that comes from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Requests this year totaled more than $5 million.
Members of the audience questioned how the city decided to dole out the money among the 82 applicants and why the $250,000 the city spends operating its federal grants monitoring office comes out of federal money and not regular city coffers.
The fact that the Roanoke City Boxing Association, a youth program, would receive $50,700 of the $60,843 it asked for drew jeers from Kaye Hale, executive director of the West End Center.
"If you aren't going to fund programs that work," she said, "then you ought to give the whole $250,000 [set aside for human services] to the boxing program and let the kids knock each other out.
"For the past five or six years, we have been told by city officials, `If only we could clone the West End Center.' Obviously, they didn't mean that." She presented documentation that teen-age girls who attend the center avoided pregnancy and had higher school attendance and grades than a comparative study group.
Tom MacMichael, program director at the Presbyterian Community Center, said that without the money his group asked for, Southeast would receive no block-grant funds in the next fiscal year. His center's proposal to the city said 35 percent of residents in its neighborhood have incomes below the poverty level. The center gave emergency help to 1,330 families last year.
"We feel like we're about to be overwhelmed," he warned, referring to Southeast families who soon will be forced off welfare.
Glenn Radcliffe, the city's director of human development, acknowledged at the meeting that the city needs more money and social programs. "I would say all the services we need don't exist today," he said.
Other city organizations received no money at all for their proposals. Rebuilding Black Communities was turned down for $50,000 to buy, repair and sell two Northwest homes to families. The Arts Council of the Blue Ridge was recommended to receive no money for its Arts in the Park project. And the Melrose/Rugby Neighborhood Forum's plea for $38,300 to buy a community center was rejected.
The budget's big-ticket items included $556,156 for payment on the city's loan to restore the Hotel Roanoke, $200,000 for the city's Economic Development Investment Fund, $100,000 for demolitions and $252,000 for rehabilitation loans.
The city's report on how it intends to spend HUD money in fiscal year 1997-98 will be available beginning April 9 at the city clerk's office in City Hall, all city libraries, the Roanoke Redevelopment and Housing Authority on Salem Turnpike Northwest, and the city's Office of Grants Compliance in Suite 221 of Jefferson Center on Luck Avenue Southwest.
City Council will hold a public hearing on the recommended budget, tax rates and the city's draft annual update to the HUD Consolidated Plan at 7 p.m. May 5 at the Roanoke Civic Center.
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