1%, that is.
The goal of this campaign is to convince the Spokane City Council to allocate 1% of the total 2009 budget to human services. Thus, the "All for One!" rallying cry. As it stands right now, we are just under that mark at .008%, to be precise (source). The only way that this will happen is if you -- yes, you --contact your City Council representatives and let them know how critical -- and efficient -- it is to keep our homeless housed, our hungry fed, and our abused given nuturing support.
Here are your City Council members. Contact them and tell them that you are "All for One!"
Joe Shogan, City Council President
jshogan@spokanecity.org
District 1
Al French
afrench@spokanecity.org
Bob Apple
bapple@spokanecity.org
District 2
Richard Rush
rrush@spokanecity.org
Michael Allen
mallen@spokanecity.org
District 3
Nancy McLaughlin
nmclaughlin@spokanecity.org
Steve Corker
scorker@spokanecity.org
If you don't know your district? Who cares! Contact the entire Council. Or be a stick in the mud and check here: http://www.spokanegis.org/default.asp
Select "Council Districts" as one of the map layers and then click "redraw map."
Phone calls are always welcome at the Council chambers as well, 625-6255.
Oh, and don't neglect letting Mayor Verner know how you feel as well. mayor@spokanecity.org
Why is this so important, you ask? Well, I have my own reasons but I'd love to hear what your's are...
5 comments:
If you would like to be added as an author for this blog so that you can post your own entries, just fire off a message to me at libmark -at- gmail.com and I'll add you to the list.
I am a board member of the Interfaith Hospitality of Spokane. We house homeless families in our local churches. I have been a volunteer for seven years and I have seen our families go from resource consumers to resource providers. They volunteer their time and they pay their taxes like the rest of us. It is in our interest that we have the 1 percent.
Thanks, Joe!
Indeed, giving a family the support they need to get their feet back under them so that they can in turn help others, seems to be a perfect combination of "doing good now" and looking at the long term.
I am completely in favor of this idea. As a "child" of the welfare system here in Spokane, I grew up with a profound respect and deep understanding of the role that Human Services plays in our community. I have no doubt that if we hadn't received those services at that critical stage in our lives, my siblings and I would have struggled greatly to make good decisions and ultimately become productive members of society. I'm not saying that everything was perfect, but I do know that my mother never had to compromise her values or place us in harms way just to put food on the table or clothing on our backs. I feel that we really need to come together as a community to ensure that our neighbors don't have to struggle or compromise when it comes to having their basic needs met. When you think about it, what is 1% anyway? If the price of gas goes up 1%, we all say "Thank God! It only went up 4 cents this week!"
Heya Jimbubba --
Thanks for the comment. This is just the sort of story that the council needs to hear...
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