In downturn, more seeking help, in more ways

By Timothy Pratt

Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Last year, fewer than 300 people showed up at the West Las Vegas offices of the Foundation for an Independent Tomorrow looking for help with bus fare or the gasoline they needed to get to work or to school.

But the tally for just the first six months of 2008 was 572, according to Janet Blumen, president of the nonprofit agency.

Yet another sign of the times, said Dan Goulet, director of United Way of Southern Nevada, which provides grants to Blumen’s group.

The category of “immediate needs” the local United Way is trying to cover in the Las Vegas Valley includes far more than just food and shelter, and Goulet’s organization just doled out $2 million to 39 groups in an attempt to meet those needs — twice what it spent last year.

But requests had come in for more than four times that amount.

Goulet said the current economic situation leaves many public and private social service agencies stretched beyond capacity, with many seeing middle-class people who have lost jobs or face foreclosures. This forced Goulet to consider proposals that went beyond offering a cot or a bowl of soup. Although the demand for that kind of assistance continues, charities are finding that people also desperately need vouchers for gasoline or shopping at Goodwill, diapers and baby food.

The Foundation for an Independent Tomorrow got money from United Way to help people with services that might not have been considered critical in the recent past. Blumen said the $46,000 she got for such needs as transportation and child care will soon be exhausted.

“This has become an immediate need now,” she said.

One of those people is Sadiyyah Diaab, who relies on $50 a month from the foundation to get to and from the temporary jobs she has worked to sustain herself for the past nine months.

She is cleaning time shares for $10 an hour — but that will last only a couple of months. Then it’s back to looking for work, which can use up that $50 gas voucher in less than a week.

The recent round of funding was United Way’s first under a new policy in which committees of community members evaluate proposals based on the valley’s pressing issues rather than favoring the same groups year after year.

The new funding policy has also resulted in some organizations’ being denied. Goulet said 50 groups submitted proposals seeking $8.4 million for “immediate needs” — but United Way had only $2 million to divvy up. Another $3.5 million will be available before January for projects in education, financial self-sufficiency and health care, he said.

In the meantime, staff members at some agencies were left scratching their heads after United Way recently rejected their applications.

Duane Sonnenberg, who writes grants for the Salvation Army Las Vegas, noted that his agency sought $451,000 from United Way, but received less than half that amount. Services such as daytime shelter for adults were among those that didn’t get funded. This left Sonnenberg wondering what “immediate needs” means.

Teri De La Torre, executive director of the Nevada Association of Latin Americans, had an application rejected. Her group had sought $112,000 for such services as rent and utility assistance and helping teenagers in danger of dropping out of school.

Goulet said he will be talking with all 70 agencies United Way certifies for funding to ensure there’s some agreement about the concept of bottom-line, emergency needs in the future.

For now, Goulet said, “our goal is to prevent more people going further into debt and being forced out of their homes.”