Durbin Calls for Renewed Funding for Community Development Block Grants
DURBIN CALLS FOR RENEWED FUNDING FOR COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT BLOCK GRANTS
President's Budget Puts City's Youth Services, Other Programs in Jeopardy
Friday, February 18, 2005
[CHICAGO, IL] - The City of Chicago's youth services programs and the kids they are intended to serve will be at risk if the President Bush's proposed cuts to the Community Development Block Grant Program are approved by the Congress. The program, which provides funding to state and municipal governments and empowers them to allocate the funding to local projects in low to moderate income areas, faces an unprecedented 34 percent cut in the President's 2006 budget.
The City of Chicago will receive $95.5 million in fiscal year 2005, which is a reduction of $14 million over the last three years. The cuts would also reduce many other neighborhood development initiatives including affordable housing, shelter and emergency services and employment programs in the City of Chicago. The CDBG program was created in the 1974 to address the unique needs of the nation's urban areas.
"Now, the president wants to all but abandon the Community Development Block Grant Program, cutting the program by $1 billion, eliminating funding for 17 other programs and than asking cities like Chicago to make do," said Durbin. "That's simply unacceptable. The disadvantaged children and families in this city deserve better."
Durbin said he is also concerned that the Head Start program in Illinois, which offers early childhood education for disadvantaged families, will suffer under the Bush Administration's proposed budget. The President proposed level funding, which fails to keep pace with inflation and would mean as many as 1,100 Illinois children (25,000 nationally) are at risk of losing their place in Head Start schools this year.
"Now that studies have proven the importance of a child's early years, we should guarantee our young children more and better services, not less. Today, states across the nation - including Illinois - are facing more difficult economic conditions than they have in years," Durbin said. "I don't want programs offering child care, early education and pre-kindergarten to compete against each other for rapidly diminishing federal dollars. This is about more than education. It's about nutrition and health care and social development."
Durbin said forty percent of kids eligible for Head Start across the nation are not enrolled because the program is not fully funded. He said he hopes to convince his colleagues in the Senate to fully fund the program so that every eligible child is able to participate in Head Start.
Durbin said he also opposes the Bush Administration's efforts to shift control of the Head Start program to the states. "Head Start has always had a home at the federal level and that's exactly where it should stay."
http://durbin.senate.gov/releases.cfm