If you are counting beans in City Hall and the beans are coming up short, The Bean Counter’s Playbook likely says “Step 1: Cut the non-profits first.”
How else to save City jobs?
But there is a non-profit that has done more to combat homelessness in GNV than any number of police officers, emergency workers code enforcers or administrators on the City payroll.
There was a time when GNV’s approach to homelessness largely consisted of harassing panhandlers, rousting people sleeping in downtown doorways, making it tougher for churches to feed the needy and deploying similar tactics that proved more mean spirited than effective.
Grace Marketplace is literally on a mission to end homelessness. In a decade, Grace has managed to cut GNV homelessness nearly in half. It’s found housing for more than 2,600 people and served more than a million meals.
The City Manager is proposing a 50 percent cut to the $1.7 million it currently funds Grace, plus elimination of funding for Grace’s street outreach program. The “savings” gained by such Draconian cuts would be a classic example of a “false economy.”
Reducing Grace “services and care for our neediest citizens will not only increase human misery but necessarily increase costs for emergency services, police, fire and public works,” argues Grace Treasurer Bob Ackerman.
He’s right. Given Grace’s track record – not to mention the City’s own poor history in regard to homelessness – commissioners would be foolish to try to balance the budget on the backs of GNV’s neediest neighbors.
GNV needs more Grace, not less.
FreeGNV 