COUNTY CUTS OFF SOCIAL SERVICES AGENCY

King County, Citing Paperwork Problems, Pulls Funding From A Program
That Cleans Up Addicts And Gets People Off The Streets

A nonprofit that passes out clean needles to heroin users and helps
tough cases turn their lives around has learned that being streetwise
can't save you from bureaucracy. On July 31, after missing some
paperwork deadlines with its county funding agency, Seattle's
16-year-old Street Outreach Services had its funding pulled and
ceased operations, laying off about 10 workers.

The organization plans to regroup and reopen, says SOS board
President Andy Ko. In the meantime, the group's two needle exchange
sites – one on Capitol Hill and the other in the University District
­ continue to operate. Public Health of Seattle-King County, the
agency that pulled the plug on this year's SOS funding of $400,000,
has taken over the Capitol Hill site. An all-volunteeer group called
the People's Harm Reduction Alliance now runs the U-District location.

Two more SOS staffers will be lost on Aug. 31, when Clean Dreams, a
city-funded outreach program that is part of SOS but has no apparent
program problems of its own, closes in the wake of a city decision to
kill it as well ­ an opportunistic move by the city, observers say,
to kill a grassroots program that's helping drug dealers and
prostitutes get off the streets in the city's Rainier Beach area.

The program, which started last September, is one of three street
outreach pilot programs that grew out of City Council President Nick
Licata's Civil Streets Initiative. After the health department pulled
SOS's funding for failing to meet audit deadlines, the city's Human
Services Department elected not to renew a contract that had provided
Clean Dreams with $140,000 in funding from Jan. 1 to Aug. 31, says
Eric Anderson, director of HSD's Youth Development and Achievement Division.

"The city decided to make the decision bcause we were not in good
standing with the county," says Clean Dreams Program Coordinator
Nature Carter-Gooding, who will lose her job at month's end."I don't
see why because we've meet every requirement" the program had with
the city, she adds.

Anderson doesn't dispute that, but notes that, with the county's
funding making up 70 percent of SOS's total budget, "there really is
not an agency there" to administrate Clean Dreams. Clean Dreams is
currently trying to find an agency to take the program, says Sunil
Abraham, a member of the program's community advisory board.

"We're focusing essentially on having Clean Dreams move forward
without SOS, because we're very concerned about the people who are
currently participants in the program," Abraham says. "Some would
become homeless, some would not have drug treatment and child care,
and others would have no support in their educational and vocational programs."

The program provides rental assistance to 22 individuals, says
Carter-Gooding says, but 14 of them currently don't have jobs and are
facing a return to the streets and their old lives. Clean Dreams is
also currently paying for four people to take drug rehab, four to get
daycare so they can take classes or look for work, and two to receive
mental health treatment.

Altogether, 54 clients will be affected. All were recruited to join
the program by word of mouth – and a promise, says Carter-Gooding,
that they would get help where they are, for whatever they needed, no
barriers, no waiting. Because of their criminal backgrounds, most
Clean Dreams clients do not qualify for state assistance programs.

"We've been that bridge, that beacon of hope for the young to even
have a way out," says Nature Carter-Gooding, who pulled herself off
the street six years ago. "These individuals are left with no other
alternative but to resort to their old means of survival."

Ruth Pearson could be one of them. After a 13-year stint in prison,
Pearson, 29, says Clean Dreams has helped her learn how to cope with
society and function. She's gotten a job, but still relies on the
program for rental assistance and worries about what will happen when
it closes.

"If you don't have structure, you don't have nothing," Pearson says.
"I think the program has turned my life around. It's a blessing."