By John Estridge
Franklin County Commissioners gave their approval and endorsement of an application for Safe Passage to receive a $103,320 Office of Community and Rural Affairs (OCRA) Grant.
According to its website, Safe Passage is an 501 (c)3 non-profit organization whose mission is to “provide, help, healing and hope for a community free of domestic and sexual violence. Through extensive services and support to victims of domestic and sexual violence and innovative community-based prevention programming, we strive to build safe, stable nurturing relationships and communities.”
Southeastern Indiana Regional Planning Commission Executive Director Susan Craig talked some about the grant. SIRPC is the grant writing company for the county.
“This gives amazing opportunities (to Safe Passages),” Craig said.
This is considered emergency funding due to the situations, in part, caused by the pandemic. Craig said it is highly competitive with 119 entries at this point. She said she did not know how many of the applicants OCRA will be able to fund; thus, it is a highly competitive grant application process.
Safe Passage Executive Director Jane Yorn discussed the nuts and bolts of the grant in greater detail.
“The scope of the project is to provide additional advertising both locally and in the Franklin County area to make people in Franklin County more aware of the services we provide through a variety of media sources,” Yorn said. “A big chunk of it is to have additional office space in downtown Brookville where we could conduct support groups and client meetings and still stay social distant and be able to provide those resources right there in the community.
“It also will involve a transitional housing, two-bedroom apartment in the downtown area so the clients can move more quickly out of shelter and into a transitional but stable environment while they work on saving their money and get into a more permanent housing situation,” she continued.
By doing this, Safe Passage could keep the clients in shelter moving so the most critical clients can be in the security of the shelter, Yorn said. However, even in the transitional and permanent housing situations, Safe Passage continues to case manage and help people move forward in their processes to the goal of stability, she said.
According to Yorn, there is a community partner who will assist in getting employment for the clients, and there will be additional hours for the case management team to be in the Brookville office and provide more services.
Craig said the application is due by March 11.
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