Dear Community Partners:

This afternoon, Mayor Mike McGinn announced his 2014 Proposed Budget, and I'm very pleased to report that the budget reaffirmed the Mayor's commitment to human services for the city's most vulnerable residents. The proposal maintains existing funding and provides just over $6 million in adds to the Human Services Department for a total department budget of nearly $130 million. Highlighted below are several areas of human services budget support.

• Homelessness: $1,027,107 of new General Fund to support day center services, shelter capacity, and services for people living in their vehicles. These investments will continue to support our department's work to end homelessness in our community.
• Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault: $438,000 to support additional housing services for survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault; the implementation of a domestic violence response center; and a manager position to provide leadership to the department's Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Prevention team, investments, and systems work in the region.
• Outreach as a Public Safety Strategy: $1,708,000 to support a two-person outreach team and expansion of the Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) program. As part of the Center City Initiative, this outreach team will work closely to complement the continuum of strategies designed to address public safety issues in the downtown core, including the Multi-Disciplinary Team and the LEAD program.
• Career Bridge: $800,000 in Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funding to support the steady state implementation of Career Bridge. This investment will allow the department to bring on board a community-based development organization that will be responsible for providing the job training and readiness services, as well as other critical wrap-around supports to the target population. This increase is included in the 2014 Endorsed Budget.
• Early Learning: $398,500 to support early learning services for homeless children and family child care provider outreach and quality improvement.
• Youth and Young Adults: $558,000 to support youth employment and training, gun violence prevention strategies and other violence prevention efforts for young people ages 18 to 24 years old.
• Older and Vulnerable Adults: O$841,000 to both mitigate the impact of state and federal funding cuts and provide additional community capacity to support nine City-funded senior centers.
• Basic Needs: $50,000 for technology upgrades for the Utility Discount Program that will allow for increased efficiencies in enrolling individuals for utility and other rate assistance benefits.

The Mayor's Proposed Budget is a recognition of the important work that HSD, in collaboration with our many community partners, does on behalf of vulnerable children, families and adults in our community.

For more information about the Mayor's Proposed Budget, please see the news release or this summary.