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Pilot Group To Offer Help

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By LENORA LAKE

llake@tampatrib.com

Published: February 25, 2009

UNIVERSITY AREA - Twenty clients of the University Area Community Resource Center will be part of a pilot program to help people achieve self-sufficiency.

The plan, unveiled last week to the center's advisory board, is part of a countywide Community Service Black Grant Family Developmental Program. Each of the county's five neighborhood service centers is responsible for implementing the program, but each is preparing its own way to do so.

The countywide development program is a request from the Community Action Board, which advises social services, said the University Area center's advisory board chairman, Michael Dow, a University of South Florida professor. He is also a member of the board.

The board directed the centers to find ways to have more people become independent. This should diminish the need to rely on the social services department for emergency assistance, food donations or other emergency needs.

The countywide developmental program is funded by more than $165,000 in block grant funds, and additional funding is expected under the federal economic stimulus package signed in law last week, said Lucious Davis, manager of the center at 13605 N. 22nd St.

The University Area's plan is to assign four staff people to the project, which will begin by March 10. The clients will be selected from those who have received services and must agree to participate in the pilot program.

The staff will conduct intensive assessments of the clients' needs, such as additional education to secure a job or a better-paying position, child care, transportation, health insurance, financial literacy, social skills and housing.

The social services personnel will work with various agencies, programs and private businesses to help meet clients' needs. The clients will be monitored for two years, with progress reports due at 30, 60 and 90 days, six months, one year, 18 months and two years.

"Ninety days actually satisfies the grant, but we want to see what happens for two years," Davis told the advisory board.

He expects some participants will drop out of the program.

In other business:

• Davis reported that 98 clients used a free tax preparation service offered at the center during the program's first two weeks.

The program is available to people with household incomes of $56,000 or less from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays and 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturdays.

• The board proposed seeking partnerships with nonprofit agencies such as Catholic Charities and St. Vincent DePaul Society to avoid duplication of services to clients and to ask those private nonprofits to provide services unavailable through government channels.

• The board elected its officers for 2009-11. They are Dow, chairman; Glenn Brown of the Children's Board of Hillsborough County, vice chairman; Jennifer Durgee of 2-1-1, secretary; and Martine Dorvil of the University Area Community Development Corp., parliamentarian.

The board's next meeting, open to the public, will be 10 a.m. March 18 at the center.

Tribune correspondent Lenora Lake can be reached at (813) 865-4851.

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