For 30 years, Hope Unlimited has assisted victims of family violence in and around Iola.
For the first time, the organization is asking for help from the city.
Council members obliged Tuesday, agreeing to provide Hope Unlimited $3,000 to help supplement the group’s budget for the rest of 2014.
Michelle Meiwes, a long-time Hope Unlimited staffer, spoke about the agency’s needs.
Hope Unlimited provides an emergency shelter for sexual and domestic violence victims and their children, provides outreach services outside the shelter programs, serves as a child exchange and parenting center and provides child advocacy during investigative interviews.
The organization relies on grants and private contributions to provide the services — all of which are offered free of charge.
But, when the economy soured, financial contributions dried up. Likewise, grants have been increasingly difficult to attain, Meiwes said.
“Our grant funding has been declining pretty consistently over the past four or five years,” she said. “Our main grant provides us about half of what we received in 2010.”
But while funding has plummeted, demand has not. In a letter penned by Hope Unlimited director Dorothy Sparks, she said the agency provided shelter to more than 70 victims in 2013 — who stayed at the shelter an average of two months or longer — and provided outreach assistance to 217 Allen Countians.
The group’s request sparked a two-prong response by council members.
First, City Administrator Carl Slaugh noted cities normally don’t dabble in social service programs. Those are usually county functions.
Secondly, the city would need to determine where to draw funds from if the request were approved.
“We’ll find it somewhere,” Council member Beverly Franklin replied in making a motion to approve the request.
Meiwes said Hope Unlimited was appealing to other governing bodies for funds, most notably Allen County.
Approval from the Iola council members was unanimous, 5-0. Three members, Steve French, Nancy Ford and Jon Wells, were absent.
