A group of 43 people have sent a letter to Mayor Biff Traber, members of the Corvallis Budget Commission, and the Corvallis City Council asking for the money coming to the City of Corvallis and Benton County to be sent to five youth-focused service providers in the area. The funds in question are those coming from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) – a 2021 federal act which is providing millions in emergency funding for state, local, territorial, and Tribal governments.
Benton County will receive approximately $54 million. Corvallis will receive a total of $13 million, half of which is already in hand. All funds need to be committed by December 31, 2024, and all work done with the funds needs to be completed by December 31, 2026.
The Corvallis Budget Commission recommended that the full $13 million allocated to Corvallis be used for facilities improvements, as a way to offset revenue lost over the course of the pandemic.
However, Helen Higgins of the Boys & Girls Club of Corvallis called for the money to be used for social services. This letter, dated November 15, stands on the side of Higgins.
The Letter
People taking the side of Higgins include ten Reverends, one Brother, and at least three Doctors – all coming from places of worship, shelters, advocacy agencies, and other social service providers and educators. As a group, they are asking the City of Corvallis and Benton County to earmark this money “toward the social service agencies in our city and county that interact with the most COVID-vulnerable and impacted members of our community.” Basically asking that the money coming in due to COVID be used to heal the wounds made by COVID.
The letter reads: “Good stewardship of the ARPA funds means directing them with preference toward the humans who need support now – not facilities and revenue replacement. While local government officials have broad flexibility in deciding how best to use the ARPA funds, they should not ignore the Treasury Department’s recommendation to prioritize social services and Oregon legislative guidelines, which focus on shoring up support for social services – and only then determine how replacing lost revenue and facility improvement may also be an appropriate use of the funds.”
It goes on to say: “The Treasury Department’s recommendations include funding that establishes and enhances services for the houseless, such as crisis services, mobile response teams, respite and emergency shelter, traditional shelter, and a broad spectrum of housing support.”
Social services throughout the US are being stretched, and the numbers of people who will be evicted or foreclosed upon will grow as moratoriums expire. It seems inevitable that the number of houseless individuals and families will increase. These bleak facts have led this group to ask both the City of Corvallis and Benton County to allocate 30% of their ARPA funds “to be distributed directly to area nonprofit service organizations and begin releasing these funds immediately.”
The city is not traditionally responsible for providing and funding social services – a point they have made in the past. And yet, with “the confluence of global pandemic, economic fallout and a growing housing crisis,” the letter writers feel it may be time to rethink how things have traditionally been done.
The letter reads: “Before the decades following World War II, homelessness in America was seen as an issue of people working through problems that was met with communal concern and support from local and state officials. During the Reagan administration, homelessness became an issue of “problem people” and switched from a communal concern to a criminal issue. Redlining, gentrification of the inner city, deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill, high unemployment and the recession of the 1980s drove the socially constructed narratives that shaped the modern face of homelessness. Deep budget cuts to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development added to the crisis of an already inadequate supply of affordable housing options from which we have never recovered. Modern homelessness is a failure of the system.”
Ultimately, this letter to our local leaders can be summed up with this: “The ARPA funds represent an opportunity to do something new and bold, providing new funding to meet a need that is growing faster than we can respond.”
By Sally K Lehman
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