The charity question

Many, including a majority of the Costa Mesa City Council, don’t see social services as a function of government. Some organizations rely on government grants for help but are discouraged by what they perceive as a hostile procedure.For some Costa Mesa charities, the process of asking the city for federal grants has come to feel like stepping up to the chopping block, and it’s nearly time for them to face the ax again.

Every year, Costa Mesa doles out up to a quarter of a million dollars to social service organizations that serve the city’s residents. A committee vets the grant applications and makes suggestions to the City Council, which can accept them or change them.

The City Council gives out all the available grants, but the majority on the council has expressed a belief that social services are best handled in the private sector and are not the function of government.

In the last several years, some organizations have stopped bothering to apply for the grants. It’s not just the volume of paperwork that’s required for a relatively small grant -- officials with some charities say they’re tired of feeling punished when asking for money.

“The whole idea was to help people, and unfortunately in recent years the process has really been politicized,” said Jean Forbath, who founded Share Our Selves and is still on its board of directors.

The organization offers free medical and dental care and other services to Orange County’s poorer residents.

“The agencies are completely disillusioned, and I wouldn’t be surprised if more agencies don’t drop out,” Forbath said.

The grants in question, called community development block grants, are federal money the city is required to spend to benefit low- to moderate-income residents. They’re the string attached to money the city gets for public projects and the like.

This year Costa Mesa will receive about $200,000 for lower-income residents. The city gives the money to nonprofit groups rather than setting up its own programs to use the money, City Manager Allan Roeder said.

Roeder said applications for the federal grants always exceed the amount of money available, but the number of applicants has dropped significantly over the last several years.

“We have decided not to go after the funding primarily because we are not happy with the process that organizations are put through to request the funding,” said Veronica Escobedo, program director for Girls Inc.

The agency hasn’t applied for about three years.

Applications may have decreased by 50% over a few years, going from about 60 or so to about 30, said Bill Turpit, vice-chairman of the residential redevelopment and rehabilitation committee -- known as the 3R committee. The committee makes grant recommendations to the council.

Why are the charities so upset?

“We just get battered,” said Trevor Murphy, director of Save Our Youth, which offers after-school programs as an alternative to gangs.

Some groups are largely funded by private donations, and the grants are a small fraction of their budgets. But they’ve been questioned about staff salaries. The number of police calls to their addresses has been brought up as well.

“The inference there is that the service organizations are troublemakers or attract crime or attract criminals, which is very unfair and unsupported by good data,” Turpit said.

Others said it appeared that some committee members looked for reasons not to give them money rather than weighing applications on merit.

The trend is not a surprise to some. In their eyes, it’s part of Costa Mesa’s general movement away from providing services to the less fortunate -- another example is the closure of the Job Center.

When Mayor Allan Mansoor was campaigning for a council seat in 2002, one of his pledges was to end public funding of private charities.

“I believe that they should be privately funded and the focus of government should be on public safety and infrastructure,” Mansoor said.

When it comes to the grants, his emphasis has always been street repair and senior services, “because I think those areas were neglected for so long or given less for so long,” he said.

Mansoor said he’s heard some general complaints about the federal grant process, but the amount of scrutiny the city gives the applicants is necessary.

“I believe we’re being as fair as we can considering all the rules we have to follow,” Mansoor said. “I believe we’ve got to be as accountable as possible to the public.”

This year’s grant applications are in, and the interview process will begin soon. The committee is expected to discuss its recommendations in March.

“I anticipate good things, that the committee will do its work and make a recommendation to the 3R committee,” Turpit said.

But not everyone has a bright outlook. They fear that charities -- which some complain attract a bad element to the city or serve illegal immigrants -- will not only be discouraged from asking for grants, but also that they’ll ultimately be invited to take their services elsewhere.

“I believe the goal is to eradicate any provider of free social services -- it doesn’t matter what,” Save Our Youth’s Murphy said.

Share Our Selves doesn’t have as much to worry about because it owns its building and doesn’t depend on government funding, Forbath said.

But, she cautioned, “The nonprofits that do not own their own building are at risk if the situation doesn’t change.”20060129its2zkncDON LEACH / DAILY PILOT(LA)Day laborers wait for work at the temporary job center in one of Orange Coast College’s parking lots. The temporary site closed last week, and the city-run Job Center closed last month after 17 years of operation. Business, church and charity groups have picked up the cause of finding a new job center. 20060129its302ncDON LEACH / DAILY PILOT(LA)Day laborers wait for work at the now-closed temporary job center at Orange Coast College.