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Published on 03/01/1999 All articles from this issue

Worker center may get city block-grant funds

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By Joanne Griffith Domingue / Town Crier Staff Writer

Los Altos City Council members face some tough choices: they have $58,000 of requests for $32,375 of Community Development Block Grant Funds.

At their meeting next Tuesday, they will make the final cuts. They gave indications at their Feb. 23 meeting of what these might be. Signs pointed to the local day worker center as coming out a winner.

Currently, St. Joseph the Worker Center on El Camino Real and Jordan Avenue in Los Altos receives no money from the city.

And that's a problem for the day worker board of directors when they approach other agencies for financial support.

"People ask, 'How much do you get from Los Altos?' And we have to say, 'Nothing,'" said Conrad Heintzelman, a board member and Los Altos business owner.

Council members agreed that it was important for the city to be on record as supporting the center, which provides an alternative to street corners for workers and employers to negotiate jobs.

Currently, 31 percent of the employers who use the center are from Mountain View; 23 percent are from Los Altos; 17 percent are from Palo Alto; 6 percent from Sunnyvale, 4 percent from Los Altos Hills; and the other surrounding cities each less than 3 percent, said Elizabeth Keller, executive director, in the application to the city.

The Worker Center requested $10,000 from Los Altos block grant money.

Council members indicated they could support a $5,000 award to the center, because "the worker center provides an extremely important service," said Councilman John Moss.

But giving money to the worker center means other recipients, who have been supported by the city for years, will get less.

Other agencies requesting funds include: Catholic Charities, Community Services Agency, the Support Network for Battered Women, Social Advocates for Youth and the YWCA rape crisis center.

The rape crisis center and the worker center are both new applicants that have not received funds in the past.

Some council members said if they supported a new project, it should be only one, "especially when cutting others to do it," Casto said.