By Jeremy Twitchell (contact)

Mon, Dec 1, 2008 (5:29 p.m.)

The Henderson City Council has reappropriated more than $117,000 in federal money it received to help local nonprofit agencies, with Opportunity Village coming away as the biggest winner.

Each year, the city receives money from the Department of Housing and Urban Development in the form of Community Development Block Grants to fund low-income housing development and nonprofit agencies that provide valuable community service.

Henderson handed out slightly more than $1.2 million in grants this year. The $117,000 was reassigned Nov. 18 after some of the agencies receiving grants asked to use them for other purposes and other programs did not materialize.

The city has to reassign some funds most years, said Henderson Neighborhood Services Manager Skeet Fitzgerald, who oversees the grant program.

“It’s never very much,” he said. “Most of our organizations use the funds and need more money than they can actually get.”

Opportunity Village was granted its request to move more than $36,000 in funding for a remodeling project to the expansion of its Walters Family Campus, at Lake Mead Parkway and Burkholder Boulevard in Henderson. The city also gave Opportunity Village an additional $35,000 to help with the expansion.

Opportunity Village provides job training, employment and care for disabled individuals. The Henderson campus’ offerings include packaging and document shredding services.

Ed Guthrie, executive director of Opportunity Village, said the expansion probably won’t happen for three to five years, but the agency needed funding to protect the site.

Other groups the city helped with changes in funding:

• Catholic Charities , which was granted its request to move $21,000 it had received to help with the remodeling of its new Women, Infants and Children (WIC) Clinic.
• SAFE House, which operates domestic violence shelters, received almost $3,600 from a construction fund to help it acquire a site for a new facility.
• HELP of Southern Nevada, a homeless outreach agency, received $13,000 for a program working with the court system to help homeless people move into homes.

The remaining funds were moved between several smaller programs conducted by various agencies.

Jeremy Twitchell can be reached at 990-8928 or jeremy.twitchell@hbcpub.com.