Los Gatos Town Council approved<\/a> a $20,000 increase to the town\u2019s sustaining grant program on June 2 and allowed applicants to amend their proposals for the increased funds. In a split vote at its Aug. 4 meeting, the town council approved the allocation of $6,200 to the St. Vincent de Paul Society for towel and laundering vouchers and emergency rental assistance for unhoused residents alongside Live Oak Nutrition Center\u2019s application for $10,000 for senior-centered programming. However, the council rejected the Los Gatos Anti-Racism Coalition\u2019s application for $3,000 to support storage unit rentals and security deposits for people facing homelessness. The coalition works with the St. Vincent de Paul Society to administer the rental assistance program.<\/p>\nQuestions surrounding the program stemmed from an Aug. 2 letter from town finance commissioner Phil Koen. He argued that it\u2019s against the town\u2019s rules for the coalition to disperse the money between itself and the St. Vincent de Paul Society to run the rental assistance program. Koen also took issue with the coalition\u2019s financial record-keeping and said its rental assistance program is redundant to West Valley Community Services\u2019 program.<\/p>\n
\u201cSplitting rent relief by arithmetic spreads the money thin and spreads accountability thinner,\u201d Koen wrote. \u201cDividing the work among three organizations does not by itself produce a higher-quality program, and a higher-quality program is what the town should be aiming for.\u201d<\/p>\n
Councilmembers Matthew Hudes and Mary Badame, who voted against the grants for the St. Vincent de Paul Society and Live Oak Nutrition Center, raised the issues in Koen\u2019s letter at the Aug. 4 meeting.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are stewards of the town\u2019s money, our residents\u2019 money, and there\u2019s hundreds of thousands of dollars that we have spent on grants and we\u2019ve got budget issues,\u201d Badame said during the meeting.<\/p>\n
Mayor Rob Moore said he doesn\u2019t share Koen\u2019s concerns about the coalition\u2019s accountability.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s really important that we\u2019re not overly onerous,\u201d Moore said. \u201cReceipts and standard accounting is totally reasonable, but I\u2019m not interested at all in going through and auditing a bunch of small nonprofits that serve the Los Gatos community. I think that is totally antithetical to the purpose of this.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Badame asked why the coalition is the main fiduciary on checks received by the town for the rental assistance program, library director Ryan Baker, who oversees the community grant program, explained that it was his decision to allow the coalition and St. Vincent de Paul Society to split the money among themselves to prevent him from having to do two sets of paperwork. Town attorney Gabrielle Whelan said the arrangement was included in the coalition\u2019s proposal and aligns with the grant agreement.<\/p>\n
Baker added that the coalition\u2019s financial reporting was \u201cpretty good.\u201d He said the coalition provided line-by-line expenditures for all the grant funds used, as well as disclosures and copies of canceled checks, and confirmed that the grant money was used to aid town residents.<\/p>\n
\u201cLos Gatos Anti-Racism Coalition\u2019s reporting is a good example of reporting,\u201d Baker said. \u201cIt\u2019s probably what I\u2019m going to use as a template for the other organizations of what we would like to see.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Hudes asked why there were three organizations that provide rental assistance in Los Gatos, Baker explained that they all meet different needs in the community. He added that West Valley Community Services receives $15,000 annually from the town, but not through the community grant program.<\/p>\n
Baker also said West Valley Community Services\u2019 program is more expansive than that of the Los Gatos Anti-Racism Coalition and St. Vincent de Paul Society in that its services include mediating a possible eviction and offering emergency financial assistance to cover utility costs as well as rent. The Cupertino-based nonprofit works with the Santa Clara County Homelessness Prevention System program, which provides temporary financial assistance, legal support, case management and other services.<\/p>\n
Los Gatos Anti-Racism Coalition president Jeff Suzuki.said his group\u2019s rental assistance program is \u201cthe most adaptable\u201d when compared to the others.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is strange to have a lot of concerns that are effectively unsubstantiated presented when each one of them is really easily addressed,\u201d Suzuki said of Koen\u2019s letter and the council\u2019s response.<\/p>\n
Some circumstances that would qualify a person for assistance from the coalition include receiving an eviction notice; losing the household\u2019s income-earner or the income-earner becoming unemployed or receiving a cut in hours or pay; encountering an extraordinary, non-routine expenditure, such as a car accident or acute medical condition expenses; or a rent increase.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are often people who are experiencing very niche situations where it would actually be very difficult for them to receive resources, because rental assistance programs are among the most difficult resources to apply for,\u201d Suzuki said.<\/p>\n
During the Aug. 4 meeting, Hudes proposed allowing the finance commission to review the rules related to the community grant program before making a decision, a motion that was rejected 3-2. His main concern had to do with making sure the money went to its intended recipients and \u201cisn\u2019t going to people\u2019s friends or family.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you have a program that is issuing cash or cash equivalence, that\u2019s a little different than a program that\u2019s supporting services, like transportation or counseling or things like that, because their cash or cash equivalence goes directly to individuals, so I raised a question about how to ensure that that is being done on a fair basis,\u201d Hudes said in an interview.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Los Gatos Anti-Racism Coalition is facing scrutiny of its rental assistance program by a few town council…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":430822,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[184,7,8,1493,1011,181,23,205,190,100,5466,13,88,90,89,198,200],"class_list":["post-430821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-bay-area","tag-california","tag-california-news","tag-homelessness","tag-housing","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-local-politics","tag-los-gatos","tag-news","tag-nonprofits","tag-politics","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news","tag-santa-clara-county","tag-south-bay"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=430821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430821\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/430822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=430821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=430821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=430821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}