BLAINE, Minn – (May 25, 2017) – Twin Cities United Way has made some recent cuts in its “Safety from Family Violence” initiative. Those cuts have left local shelters like Alexandra house with large gaps to fill for funding. The non-profit will lose $238,000 a year over a three year period. Executive Director, Connie Moore said the cuts came as a shock.
“We expected that we might get a reduction in our funding knowing that they had this shortfall they were dealing with and we had been notified that we were going to be having a conversation so I anticipated that but I had not anticipated that our entire grant would be cut,” she said.
The news of these cuts came with only 10 weeks notice. If those funds aren’t replaced, Alexandra House may have to face some tough decisions in the very near future.
“If we’re not able to fill that funding gap, we’ll be looking at, are we going to need to eliminate positions, which means eliminating services because as a service agency, the majority of our budget is salaries for staff who provide services to those who need our help,” Moore explained.
The Alexandra house services go beyond the shelter, reaching over 22,000 people a year.
“Most of our work is out in the community, providing education, we’re providing a lot of services to student in the schools, whether that’s education, support groups, one-on-one advocacy, so we reach a lot of folks through our community education and our training,” she said.
Moore said that although United Way exceeded their goal by 2.2 million this year, a lot of their donors asked for funds to be directed to specific causes, leaving a 6 million dollar shortfall. Now Alexandra house is focusing on other ways to make up that loss.
“I think it’s just really important for the community to know, whether that’s individuals local businesses, corporations, local government, we’re facing this loss, a significant loss of funding and we’re looking to our community for help and to fill in that gap, and we’re here.”
United way did release a statement from president Sarah Caruso stating, “we are heartbroken that we do not have the resources to fund all of the programs we have in the past,” Caruso said.
The Pohlad foundation has reached out to offer up to $1 million transitional funding to some of the non-profits impacted by the cuts.
