Lack of funding forces VYFS to close basic-needs program

Published 12:07 pm Tuesday, September 22, 2015

More than two years after Vashon Youth & Family Services (VYFS) lost a large annual grant, it has closed a program that offered assistance for low-income islanders’ basic needs. The agency plans to continue offering some of the services the program provided, while looking to other island agencies to help where they can.

Beginning in 1996, VIVA served islanders who were homeless or at risk of becoming homeless, providing assistance with rent and utilities, emergency housing and access to social services, as well as food and medical vouchers. After repeated attempts to find financial support for the program, VYFS Executive Director Kathleen Johnson has reassigned VIVA coordinator Debbie Rieschl and closed the VIVA program.

“We really worked very hard to find sources of sustainable funding,” Johnson said. “Nothing came in to replace what we had lost.”

VYFS has not been able to fund the progam since June, and  Rieschl has been working in the behavioral health program at VYFS, where she continues to offer case management to some former VIVA clients, with her services covered by Medicaid. Not all VIVA clients are eligible, however.

“It is going to hurt some people,” Johnson said. “We are trying not to leave people in the lurch.”

Through a grant from Granny’s Attic, VYFS is continuing to provide a variety of vouchers for people in need.

As of Sept. 1, Catherina Willard of VYFS has been providing vouchers for medical appointments and medications at the Vashon Pharmacy, as well as vouchers for the ferry and the bus.

The clients that will be most affected by the loss of VIVA are some of the most vulnerable on the island, Johnson said, and while the agency is looking to other social services on the island to step in, it is likely not all the services will be replicated.

Emma Amiad, of the Interfaith Council to Prevent Homelessness, spoke to the difficulty VIVA’s closing creates, particularly because social services on Vashon receive little financial support from government agencies.

“It is a real blow,” she said. “The other agencies will have to raise more money and help more.”

Rieschl previously coordinated with other service providers for her clients, and each would help where it could, Amiad said.

“We parse out the parts of the family needs. We are losing a piece of that, and we are not really sure what it is going to look like when it is done,” she said.

Last year, VIVA served 181 island  households, according to its annual report, and 97 percent of participants were considered extremely low income, with incomes of less than $18,500 for an individual.