City Receives $1.5 Million from CDBG Program for the Construction of Family Resource Center
Today, City Officials announced that Woodburn has received a $1.5 million Oregon Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) for the purchase and creation of the Woodburn Family Resource Center (FRC) located at 970 N. Cascade Dr. Although awarded via the State, these funds are in essence passed through grant dollars from the Federal Department of Housing & Urban Development. The FRC will be a unified, one-stop Service Providers Resource Hub where individuals and families can access services to include: child advocacy and abuse, domestic violence, literacy, homelessness, senior and migrant workers services, mental health support, and other resources and referrals.
Mayor Eric Swenson gave praise to City leadership for the project saying, "Kudos to our city manager and staff for developing this project. It is a great example of innovative funding and partnerships that will directly help the most at risk in our community."
Partnering with Love INC, a Woodburn based non-profit service organization, the new facility will provide a variety of services to the Community in a one-stop-shop setting, including providing a permanent location for the City’s utility assistance program, houseless services and referral programs. This innovative approach will provide office and service delivery space for a variety of social service programs working for the residents of Woodburn, including space for other governmental programs that have no other opportunity to provide services directly to our community with little or no overhead expenses.
“We are truly passionate about helping the vulnerable and under-served in our community, and many times these folks don’t have the means to get to travel to all the various locations where agencies are housed,” said Love INC Co-Executive Director Bill Park. In addition to Love INC, Park says a number of organizations to include: A Ray of Hope, Lighthouse Child Advocacy, Capstone Counseling and more are all highly interested in moving into the FRC. “We are thrilled that we’re going to be able to provide a shared space for non-profits and other agencies to be able to have a presence in Woodburn.”
Fellow Love INC Co-Executive Director Curt Jones shared Bill’s sentiment, stating, “This is certainly not common for a City to partner with social services to provide these resources to the community, and we’re grateful for the innovation, vision and persistence of the City to make this happen.” Jones also stated that Woodburn “Recognizes that governments aren’t always equipped to do the things non-profits and social service sections do, and that not only does the City acknowledge this, they then ask how can we make this work?”
Jamie Johnk, Woodburn’s Economic Development Director, coordinated the City’s efforts working with the City Administrator, the City Attorney’s Office and multiple local non-profit and State agencies to develop the grant application. She says, "The Woodburn Family Resource Center Project will provide a much needed resource to the community. Putting together the complex application and supporting documents required the collaboration and support of numerous city staff and regional and state partners.”
According to Woodburn City Administrator Scott Derickson, who noted how extensive and sometimes costly submitting a CDBG Grant Application can be for smaller jurisdictions, it was never a guarantee that funding for the project would be awarded. “It’s a little risky, and it took quite a bit of heavy lifting from our community partners, and an unwavering dedication from our staff, to successfully get these dollars," Derickson said. The project received nearly 70 letters from resource partners, agencies, and community members expressing their support and recognition of the need of the FRC. Derickson also noted that this project fulfills a top City Council goal. “After not being successful in the first round of funding last fall, instead of giving up like a lot of other communities would have, we doubled our efforts and took another shot. We put a lot of folks on notice that we were not going to take ‘no’ for an answer and that this project was so good that we would just keep coming back.”
