TESTIMONIALS

The CAN Board and the residents of Hikone and Green Baxter Court would like to thank the following people for supporting us during this year's City of Ann Arbor Budget Hearings.

George Fornero • Joan Doughty • John Chamberlin • Karen A. Bantel • Kimberly P. • Sara Aeschbach • Joyce Meier • Kevin R. Karr • Marti Bombyk • Tina Bissell

George Fornero

Good morning John and City Council Members:

I am forwarding Joan Doughty's e-mail, supporting her request to restore the Community Action Network's full funding. I understand, first hand, the need to balance budgets and make expenditure reductions. However, I have also seen, first hand, the good work of the Community Action Network. Their efforts are vividly evident at both King and Allen Elementary Schools. Their attempts to strengthen and support the lives of our students and their families are desperately needed.

Whatever you can do to restore this budget will greatly impact the lives of some of Ann Arbor's most fragile and needy citizens.

Thank you for your consideration.

Dr. George V. Fornero
Superintendent
Ann Arbor Public Schools

John Chamberlin

Dear Mayor Heiftje and Council Members,

I am a volunteer with the Community Action Network (CAN), where I serve
on the finance committee and on a strategic planning committee that has
been working with the NEW Center to ensure that CAN is as effective as
it can be in furthering its mission.

Joan Doughty, the Executive Director of CAN, and a number of others have
written to you to express their concerns about the budget cut proposed
for CAN as a result of the smaller budget being recommended for
community development organizations. The proposed reduction will mean a
significant decrease in CAN's ability to serve the youth at Hikone and
Green Baxter. I join the others in urging you to restore the proposed
cuts in the community development budget so that CAN and other community
organizations can continue to their badly needed services to vulnerable
citizens in Ann Arbor.

I understand that budgets are tight and that everyone needs to shoulder
their fair share of the burden, but as good Democrats you must surely
know that the fair share for the poorest citizens of our community is
zero. From the White House to the State Legislature, policy choices
have placed greater and greater pressure on individuals below or near
the poverty line. It is unfortunate that the City's budgetary pressures
have been increased as a result of these choices, but it is vital that
the City Council not be one more governmental institution that
exacerbates the circumstances of the poor in the city.

I urge you to restore the community development budget to last year's
level (at least) and to find the solutions for the City's budget
problems elsewhere.

John Chamberlin

Karen A. Bantel

Dear Mayor Hieftje,

I am writing to express strong concern about the budget cuts in Ann Arbor's Community Development Department budget and the impact on a local organization - the Community Action Network (CAN) - for which I serve as a board member. CAN's budget has been reduced from $62,000 last year to $55,000 for the upcoming year. This represents a substantial cut for this small organization which will result in cuts in our summer camp program. CAN provides a range of programs and services for children and families residing at the Hikone and Green Baxter Court public housing communities in Ann Arbor. The children in these communities have benefited greatly from these summer programs - academically, socially, and emotionally. My teenage son volunteered last year with this program, involving the kids in computer and art projects. He was very impressed by how engaged and committed the kids were and how much they learned from the experience.

While we all understand the substantial impact of the state's budget on local budgets, and the need for commensurate reduction in city spending, I hope that you will reconsider this particular cut.

I would be happy to discuss this if you would like.

Best regards,

Karen A. Bantel, PhD, MBA

Kimberly P.

Dear Mayor and Council Members,

I am a Green-Baxter Court Resident, I would like to express my experience with receiving city funding for my family. My wonderful 8 year old daughter has participated in sports and numerous experiences with concerts, plays, summer camps through Community Action Network funding and support. I would never have the ability to give her these experiences and teach her what the world has to offer to her by continuing school and learn how to socialize and be an active part of the community and how to achieve this. These funds are very important for growth and development for children and adults who are living with low income, you don't want to make decisions about money like spending it on food, clothing or helping my child go to camp, play sports, experience other cultures. It is very important to allow us to feel like a part of the community and what the benefits are by learning to success.

Thank you,

Kimberly P.

Sara Aeschbach

Mayor Hieftje and City Council Members,

I am writing in support of Community Action Network, in the hope that
an additional $7,000 can be allocated from a discretionary fund to
continue their previous level of City funding. In the context of
federal funding reductions, as well as the serious state of City
funding, I understand what a challenge it is to maintain programs.
I've work closely with CAN on a number of projects and I am extremely
impressed with their effectiveness in providing services to the public
housing residents. I believe the accomplishments of this small
non-profit are outstanding, especially in light of their relatively low
level of expenses. In this financial environment, every dollar spent
by the City must be well-spent. I can assure you that allocations to
CAN guarantee delivery of excellent and necessary services to our
lowest income, most vulnerable citizens. I appreciate the City's
support of this organization.

Sara Aeschbach
Director of Community Education & Recreation
Ann Arbor Public Schools

Joyce Meier

Dear Mayor and City Council Members

Every semester for the past four years, I have sent 2-3 of my undergraduate students to work at Green Baxter Court and Hikone community centers, both low-income housing units overseen by CAN (Community Action Network). At each of these sites, my students tutored the children in their homework, taught art and cooking classes, and helped produce the resident newsletter. As witness-participants, my students consistently noted how CAN's interventive practices make a real difference in the lives of the children at the sites. Partnering with a range of other community agencies and university classes such as my own, CAN helps ensure these at-risk children have productive and enriching lives. In the academic year, CAN provides after-school programming (like the one my students participate in), and over the summer, it sets up multiple camp and employment opportunities. CAN's actions are positive and preventative in nature. What is good for the CAN residents is good for the community. I urge you to consider carefully the implications of the extensive budget cuts now proposed, which as standing will translate into cancellation of the on-site summer camps at both sites. Since the Community Development Grant to CAN decreased from $62,000 to $55,000, I ask that you adjust the human services allocation to make up the difference. Please consider using discretionary or whatever funds you have at hand to enable CAN to keep its summer camp program.

As a mother of a twelve-year-old myself, I know how important it is to keep a young person active and productively engaged over the long summer months. Idle and/or unsupervised youth create mischief. To counter this, CAN (1) seeks and obtains scholarships for "away" mainstream camps for its children; and (2) provides academic programming for the children through its on-site camps. Daily reading time and math activities help keep the children "on target"-a policy that is especially important for low-income children otherwise at risk for falling behind. CAN's summer camps also provide healthy lunches and occasional field trips (i.e., to the local library or swimming pool). Finally, CAN supports its older children by ensuring they obtain and keep summer jobs. These teens are mentored through the job application process, and then supported in their work after. In short, CAN is an exemplary program that integrates at-risk children (from school/camp to summer job to life work) and their families into our community.

Yet summer is also CAN's most challenging financial time. At the same time CAN children are home from school and thus in need of greater supervision, the organization cannot rely on the support of university work study students and others such as those from my fall and winter term classes. In short, this is a particularly onerous time for CAN to face dramatic budget cuts of 10%. The proposed cuts will result in a loss of CAN's on-site summer camp. Does Ann Arbor really want all these at-risk children on the loose while their parents are at work? How much better, instead, to keep these young people intellectually and physically active!

I write on behalf of CAN, but even more on behalf of the children whose lives will be severely impacted by the proposed budget cuts. My students and I have worked with at-risk children in Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti, and Detroit, and we can attest to the long-term savings for the community when we invest in organizations like CAN. Helping a child NOW leads all of us toward a mutually viable and productive future. A community as enlightened and as progressive as Ann Arbor should not do less.

Sincerely,

Dr. Joyce Meier
Department of English Language and Literature
University of Michigan

Kevin R. Karr

Dear Mayor Hieftje and City Countil Members,

In looking over the proposed budget for Human Services, it appears that the portion for the Community Action Network has been reduced significantly. It is my hope that you will reconsider the portion allocated for CAN and restore it to its higher funding level. As someone who works everyday with students and families living at Green Baxter Court, I can tell you the work that's being done by CAN is very, very significant. CAN's workers and volunteers have been able to positively impact the lives of children who live and learn in a world that is very different than that of almost all other Ann Arbor families. We should all do as much as possible for these families--and certainly should not entertain the idea of a reduction in funding for those who need it most.

Sincerely,
Kevin R. Karr
Principal
Martin Luther King Elementary School
Ann Arbor

Marti Bombyk

Dear Mayor Heifjte and Ann Arbor City Council Members:

I am writing to support the request by Dr. Joan Doughty (Executive
Director, Community Action Network) that the proposed $7,000 cut in
CAN's budget allocation be restored to fund the budget to the 2005
funding level at $62,000.

I am a Professor of Social Work at Eastern Michigan University, who has
spent many hours in the past year volunteering with the residents and
staff of CAN at one of its sites, Green Baxter Court. My role has been
to facilitate community building by developing the resident council. I
have also supplied a team of student volunteers to work with me on this
effort. My experience working with these residents, who are extremely
low income, has confirmed countless times that they are eager to work
together to empower themselves and their families so they can
eventually escape their poverty. They don't want to be dependent all
their lives on the charity of non-profits or the public sector, or
sterotyped and treated as second class citizens because of their
economic impoverishment. They want, most of all, a better life for
their children.

Moreover, contact with the staff, residents, and their children has
reinforced for me the importance of prevention in the role of anti-
poverty programming. CAN is working to break the cycle of
intergenerational poverty, and needs as many resources as possible to
achieve this goal. A $7,000 cut in funding will reduce the possibility
of providing free summer camps to the children CAN serves, and each
diminishment in their lives of supportive resources only enhances their
risk factors for continuing to live in poverty as adults. The risk
factors they need support in overcoming include low educational
attainment, high arrest and incarceration rates, increased risk of
substance abuse, increased risk of poor health, increased risk of early
parenthood, and impaired family functioning. The social costs of these
risks being actualized are enormous, not only in hard dollars, but in
the rending of the social fabric that harms everyone when segments of
our society are excluded from equal opportunities.

Keeping the CAN budget at it's current level during these hard times
will ensure that a minimal social safety net is still intact in this
progressive, wealthy city which celebrates diversity and tries to be
inclusive of all social classes. I urge the City Council to strive to
creatively pursue budget strategies to keep CAN at its current funding
level so that we can help lift the families and children CAN serves
into the economic and social mainstream. Thank you, in advance, for all
your efforts toward this worthy objective.

Sincerely,
Marti Bombyk, MSW, Ph.D.

Tina Bissell

Dear Mayor Hieftje and City Council Members:

I write to express deep concern about the impact of the recently passed city budget on a particularly vulnerable group of our fellow Ann Arbor residents. I am privileged to serve as President of the Board of Directors of Community Action Network (CAN), a local non-profit that provides services at two of Ann Arbor's family public housing complexes, Hikone and Green Baxter Court. These services include after-school and summer camp programs for children who would otherwise have no homework help, no enrichment programs like trips to the library, museum or theater.

Funding for CAN is a patchwork of grants, individual donations, Washtenaw United Way allocation, and especially support from the City of Ann Arbor through the Community Development Department. We recently learned that the allocation to CAN from this department's human services budget had to be cut by $7000. I am sure all involved in the difficult decision-making as necessitated by the current economic situation have done their best to be fair and efficient, but I suspect many do not realize how significant such a reduction can be for a small organization like Community Action Network. We manage on a shoe-string budget with virtually no overhead. We depend on University of Michigan School of Social Work interns and work-study students whose salaries are heavily supported by their financial aid. It is only during the summer that we must pay out a larger portion of our meager budget in salaries to part-time help without which we cannot run our summer camp programs. With a shortfall of $7000 next summer's camp is in serious jeopardy. (The 2006 summer program is assured because city funding, which arrives in the fall, has been carefully budgeted to cover the costs.)

But no summer camp 2007 for kids at Hikone and Green Baxter Court? This means more than kids missing out on some fun. Most of our children receive free or reduced lunch at school during the academic year and then a light supper at the community centers as part of Community Action Network's program. During the summer there is a federally funded lunch program, augmented by CAN. No camp? No lunch. And mom and dad do not get extra food stamps during the summer. They just have to struggle harder to make limited resources go further with the kids at home during the day. CAN summer camp programs help alleviate that situation by providing lunch and a light supper.

No camp also would mean that a group of children already dealing with a wide range of disadvantages will lose academic ground over the summer. University of Michigan research (http://www.summerlearning.org/research/sumloss.html) shows that low income children lose about 2.6 months worth of reading achievement over the summer. Participation in Community Action Network summer camps includes daily reading and regular math and writing exercises, as well as recreational and cultural experiences.

I realize that the city budget has already passed with an unfortunate 10% cut to the Community Development Department's budget. While I cannot bring myself to ask for reconsideration of CAN's lowered allocation of human services monies at the expense of other worthy groups I can - and do - ask that the city council seriously consider redress of the situation by means of the approximately $30,000 in discretionary funds available. For the sake of the children at Hikone and Green Baxter Court, I urge you to consider providing additional support to Community Action Network.

Sincerely,
Tina Bissell
CAN Board President