Allan Appel Photo
Voting members of the management team raise yellow cards to vote yes.
Fair Haveners gave the thumbs up to six nonprofits in their quest to nab a share of federal funding for local social services.
First they wanted to know how the work specifically benefits people in the neighborhood.
The unanimous votes to provide a formal letter of support for the nonprofits’ applications for community development block grants (CDBG) — federal support administered through the city —occurred Thursday night at the regular meeting of the Fair Haven Community Management Team (CMT) at the branch library on Grand Avenue.
The CDBG application derby is an annual — and for small nonprofits critical — fund-raising ritual in which nonprofits make their case before the Board of Alders. Management team letters of support strengthen an applicant’s case.
The well-organized Fair Haven CMT board officers gave each applicant’s spokesperson three minutes to make the case in the library’s community room before about 30 attendees, of whom 22 (based on minimum attendance) were voting members.
• Clifford Beers Cllnic Deputy Director for Outpatient Services Yohanna Cifuentes asked for support for bilingual and bi-cultural clinicians. They treat kids and their families, many in local Fair Haven schools, if the kids evince signs of depression, trauma, or other mental health conditions.
• Fred De Pourcq’s homeless housing and support agency, New Reach, is building a new service and administrative center on the now-defunct Pasquariello Electric Company site on Peck Street. It’s a big $2 million project, complete with solar arrays. De Pourcq said the CDBG request is, for $106,000 for the repaving and landscaping and re-fencing of the parking area at the new center.
Fair Haven CMT Chair Michelle Lee Rodriguez with Mayor Elicker, who attended meeting.
• Jennel Lawson of the Community Action Agency of New Haven requested a letter of support for her group’s Smart Women’s program, which helps single women re-enter the workforce. The total CDBG ask is for $51,000. Of the approximately 10,000 people who benefit from all the agency’s programs each year, including their fuel and energy support, about 1,000 hail from Fair Haven, she said.
• Paola Serrecchia of the HOPE Family Justice Center asked for support so that her one-stop center for victims of domestic violence can continue to receive services — therapeutic, legal, child care and more — without charge. In the six months since the center opened in August on Temple Street downtown, she reported, the center has had 505 visits, including 157 walk-ins.
• Mary Wade Home Development Director Lisa Hottin reported that the senior residence, an anchoring institution in Fair Haven, is building an addition with 84 assisted living residences on Pine Street. Last year, however, it had to discontinue transportation service on the weekend for local seniors to come to Mary Wade for programs. Her CDBG request, in part, is for $22,000 to restore that program, with the money largely going to pay the weekend driver’s salary.
• Officials from Catholic Charities Centro San Jose on Grand Avenue sought support to the tune of $19,000 for sports, counseling, and other after-school youth programs. An example of what the money would support: Atrip for the kids to the Basketball Hall of Fame.
By nearly unanimous votes, expressed through the raising of yellow three-by-five cards, Fair Haveners voted to approve the management team’s writing official letters of support for all six non-profits.
