THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 24, 1996 TAG: 9603220196
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 04 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JO-ANN CLEGG, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 67 lines
After a month of intensive fund raising, Samaritan House, the private, nonprofit organization that provides temporary shelter for homeless families and victims of domestic violence, has raised 20 percent of the $500,000 it needs to keep operating at its current level.
``We've raised $101,000 as of today,'' said Ellen Ferber, executive director, ``and we'll be running fund raisers throughout the year to come up with the rest.''
With luck, the amount left for Samaritan House supporters to raise by next March will be reduced by $200,000 once the city's Fiscal Year '97 budget is final in May.
A total of $200,000 earmarked for property acquisition by Samaritan House was included in the proposed Virginia Beach Department of Housing and Neighborhood Preservation budget presented at a public hearing Wednesday evening.
Half of the funding will come from the federally funded $3.2 million Community Development Block Grant program. The remainder will be provided under the $1 million Federal Home Program.
If the Housing and Neighborhood Preservation budget is approved by City Council, Samaritan House will be well over half way toward its $500,000 goal.
``We really commend the city for being responsive to a crisis situation and for their flexibility in allocating those funds,'' Ferber said.
The money is needed to purchase five homes, which Samaritan House has been leasing from the Department of Housing and Urban Development for the past several years.
Citing an overabundance of HUD-owned homes in the Hampton Roads area, the federal agency put Samaritan House on notice last fall that the leases would not be renewed beyond March 1997.
Also included in the Housing and Neighborhood Preservation budget for the upcoming fiscal year is $300,589 for the annual installment on a three-year-old $2 million loan for housing rehabilitation in the city's target neighborhoods; $130,000 for the winter homeless shelter program; $45,000 to the homeless emergency program operated by Social Services; and $190,000 for the Community Development Corporation's Transitional Housing Program.
The Community Action Resource Empowerment program, which provides recreational, educational, counseling, referral and prevention services in 11 neighborhoods throughout the city, will receive $232,565 to continue its work.
Although a 20-year-old program that provided expanded city services and low income loans for rehabilitation of a dozen target neighborhoods is winding down, money is included in the proposed budget to extend similar programs to other areas of the city.
Among the appropriations are funds for clearing vacant, dilapidated housing and a program of low interest loans for exterior improvements to homes in specified neighborhoods that are beginning to show signs of deterioration.
Attendance at the departmental hearing was light. Fewer than a dozen citizens attended, and only two spoke, both in support of Samaritan House.
The small crowd did not surprise Andrew Friedman, Housing and Neighborhood Preservation director, who indicated that many of those interested in the department's budget make their comments on a regular basis.
``We have a lot of committees and citizens' groups which meet regularly,'' he said. ``We hear from our people all the time on what we're going to do.'' by CNB