PORT TOWNSEND — Jefferson County commissioners unanimously approved an application from Olympic Community Action Programs for a Community Development Block Grant, even though it is one of the programs on the chopping block next year in President Donald Trump’s proposed budget.
“I can’t say I’m not concerned,” said Dale Wilson, Olympic Community Action Programs (OlyCAP) executive director, “but we have a long way to go, and it won’t affect this year’s cycle since we’re already into it.”
The Community Development Block Grant has been steadily shrinking in past years, Wilson said. Currently, Jefferson County is expected to get roughly $101,000. Funding for this year would not be affected by changes in federal budgeting.
Because OlyCAP is contracted with the county to handle the grant, the county charges about $3,500 to cover county employees applying for the grant each year.
“That’s been a fixed rate,” Wilson said. “So we’ve been looking at $97,500 in actual funding.”
The money is allocated by the federal government to the states, which disburses it to counties. In Jefferson County, it goes to OlyCAP.
“It’s fairly flexible funding that comes to us through the county,” Wilson said. “It supports other programs that aren’t fully funded. That’s really what it was designed for: bolstering those programs that need the help.”
In Jefferson County, Wilson said the funding is used to supplement a variety of programs including affordable housing assistance, meals for seniors, day care for dementia patients and low-income winter heating assistance programs.
Wilson said it also helps OlyCAP coordinate the thousands of volunteers who help with those programs each year.
“It gets spread around pretty thin, but it does a lot,” Wilson said. “Without the grant, our jobs would be a lot harder, if not impossible.”
As a nonprofit, Wilson said, and without the money to help out organizations that don’t quite break even, OlyCAP would have to cut back to just the few programs that are currently fully funded.
“That’s just a select few,” Wilson said. “Without that money, we’d be very limited in what we’d be able to do.”
With more than 33 percent of Jefferson County’s population older than 65 and the number of people on food stamps increasing in both Clallam and Jefferson counties, according to OlyCAP’s community needs summary, these programs are vital to the community.
Clallam County also has used Community Development Block Grants in the past to help fund public services, mainly affordable housing for the Makah, Lower Elwha, Hoh and Jamestown tribes as well as homelessness prevention.
Without that money, those programs could suffer in both counties, Wilson said.
“We’re just concerned with getting low-income people in both counties the services they need,” Wilson said.
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Jefferson County Editor/
