An agency that provides assistance to local low-income residents has been awarded $3.9 million in stimulus grant funds.
Pierce County Community Action, a division of the Department of Community Services, received a $723,247 Community Service Block Grant (CSBG) to continue providing numerous health, education and transportation services. The agency received an additional $3,148,473 in low-income Weatherization Recovery Funding to weatherize an additional 600 homes throughout Pierce County.
“These dollars give us new opportunities to provide service to the county’s most vulnerable residents and create new partnerships with local organizations to spread the benefit,” Cindy Gorgas, manager of Community Action, said.
Last year, $654 million was allocated throughout the county to organizations and Tribes. This year, Washington received nearly $8.3 million in grant funding. The Yakima and Lummi Tribes and the South Puget Intertribal received nearly $4.9 million.
The funds provide a range of services and activities targeted to low-income individuals that may be unemployed or receiving public assistance, including Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), at-risk youth, custodial and non-custodial parents, residents of public housing, people with disabilities or who are homeless and individuals transitioning from incarceration into the community. Pierce County Community Action’s 2008 Pierce County Low-Income Needs Assessment reported that 9.8 percent of all residents served by the organization were from the Puyallup/Milton area.
The Community Action agencies are part of a national network of organizations, created at the federal level in 1964 under President Johnson’s War on Poverty. There are 31 Community Action agencies in Washington State. Most are private, non-profit 501(c) 3 entities. Pierce County is one of five Public Community Action agencies in Washington operated through a local government. The agency employs 60 people at five locations throughout the county who provide early childhood education services, weatherization, information about employment and transportation and housing assistance.
CSBG is awarded through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families.
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