Ideas sought for poverty agency

from The Columbus Dispatch

State holds hearings to better define the mission of CMACAO’s successor

Barbara Carmen

Donald E. Harrington has lived in one of Franklin County’s most poverty-stricken communities for 65 years.

So his question to state officials yesterday, as they pondered what services a new anti-poverty agency would offer, was a practical one.

"What’s going to happen to us out here? We have a lot of seniors, and a whole lot of other people need help," Harrington said. Harrington lives in Urbancrest, where one-third of the 868 residents live in poverty, 2000 Census data show.

For the next hour, citizen after citizen at a meeting held Downtown at the Riffe Center filed up with a version of that same question.

About 30 people came to the first of several public meetings that the Ohio Department of Development is holding to collect ideas for a successor to the old Columbus Metropolitan Area Community Action Organization.

Ideas included offering a food pantry, a health and nutrition clinic, job-skills classes and employment services.

David C. Rinebold, executive director of Ohio Partners for Affordable Energy, suggested an additional mission for the new agency: combat predatory lending and help the poor avoid foreclosures.

A woman suggested that the new agency provide transportation for the elderly, given gaps in public transportation.

The new agency will, for certain, take over heating-bill assistance and weatherization programs, currently provided by a temporary agency set up as CMACAO declared bankruptcy in 2005.

A Dispatch investigation, followed by a state probe, revealed that officials of the antipoverty agency had spent thousands on fancy furniture, sent executives on trips, hid debts in carefully crafted budgets and billed the federal government for children it did not educate. Meanwhile, preschoolers were given half a hot dog for lunch and employees found their health-insurance policies had been canceled.

No public accounting was ever made for mismanagement and missed money. The agency’s former chief, George Yirga, died last month.

One questioner yesterday wanted to know why the state didn’t do more to prevent CMACAO’s collapse.

"We’ve changed our monitoring methods," said Amy Kuhn, a deputy director for the Ohio Department of Development. She said that the new anti-poverty agency would answer for its $4.17 million in coming state funding.

The state will monitor and fund the new agency. But its board and services will be determined by a community task force set up by Columbus Mayor Michael B. Coleman.

A list of potential board members is still being developed, said Carla Williams-Scott, the city’s assistant director for community affairs.

But the countywide task force, charged by Coleman with setting up a new anti-poverty agency and naming a board, hopes to attract a school board member, a suburban mayor, an Ohio legislator, business leaders and academic experts.

The task force — which includes AEP President Kevin Walker, YMCA President John Bickley, attorney Aaron Granger, the Rev. Leon Troy and Columbus Board of Education member W. Carlton Weddington — is looking to appoint board members with backgrounds in accounting, organizational skills and fundraising.

The new agency, yet unnamed, is expected to be fully operational by next July, Kuhn said.

Additional ideas will be gathered at future community meetings, or by e-mail at caaquestions@odod.state.oh.us.