Grant funding up to council

CITY HALL — City commissioners sent $487,920 in federal funding recommendations to the City Council on Monday with an appeal to resist altering the figures when they come up for final review in March.

The unanimous recommendations for 16 social service programs — from after-school child care to low-income food assistance — came after a roughly nine-hour public hearing Monday, in which members of the Community Development Block Grant Advisory Committee struggled to reconcile more than $1 million in funding requests against an available $487,920.

Requests typically outstrip Glendale’s annual federal grant allotment, but this year, nonprofits that serve low-income clients have seen a precipitous increase in demand for services — a situation made worse by a harsher fundraising climate.

City Council members publicly appealed to the advisory committee to give added weight to “safety net” organizations that, due to the recession, have had difficulty keeping pace with the demand.

The advisory committee bumped up its funding recommendations for homeless services, after-school child care, senior meals and food assistance while reducing allotments for heavily city-subsidized programs, like the library’s Bookmobile and youth employment services.

With a budget capable of funding just 46% of the requests, committee members said the list was “balanced” between the City Council’s directive and the desire not to completely decimate historically funded programs.

“I think we’re on solid ground,” committee member Alec Baghdasaryan said after the vote.

All day Monday nonprofit administrators came before the advisory committee in an endless pitch for help in accommodating their growing client rolls.

Telling the advisory committee that nonprofits “needed their own bailout,” Moeed Khan, a regional director for Catholic Charities of Los Angeles Inc., said demand at his Loaves and Fishes food bank on San Fernando Road had jumped 40% in the last few months.

“Every day, you get woefully sad stories,” Khan said. “This is a very, very critical time.”

Loaves and Fishes, along with the city’s senior meals program, received immediate grant allocations Monday of $6,400 each from money that went unused or returned for this fiscal year, which ends June 30.