Funding for Pennsylvania family centers restored for 2 years

Funding for family centers in Pennsylvania has been fully restored for the next two years, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Human Services said Thursday.

A change in how state money is allocated that would have caused eight of Allegheny County’s 10 centers to close generated widespread concern and opposition, including from lawmakers who called on Gov. Tom Wolf to intervene.

“I shared serious concerns with the administration about the funding allocated for Allegheny County,” said state Sen. Jay Costa, D-Forest Hills. “I look forward to the alternative they will propose.”

Great news! @GovernorTomWolf & @PAHumanServices will rescind its RFA for Family Support Centers. I shared serious concerns with the administration about the funding allocated for Allegheny County. pic.twitter.com/3H9i6expib

— Senator Jay Costa (@Senatorcosta) May 22, 2019

Marc Cherna, director of the Allegheny County Department of Human Services, said they are “very gratified the governor’s office was very responsive and they reconsidered this.”

“They’re solid now for the next couple of years,” he said.

Highlands School District Superintendent Monique Mawhinney said the centers are critically important. Highlands is served by a center in Tarentum.

“I am thrilled that our center in Tarentum will remain as a valuable resource to the families and children of the Highlands School District,” Mawhinney said.

The centers provide early-childhood education services and support to parents and young children, prenatal through age 5. All provide home visiting services, while many offer literacy programs, job training and placement, child care programs, parent support groups and child health screenings.

The Allegheny Intermediate Unit, which operates the centers in Allegheny County, said it was facing the loss of at least $1.3 million. In addition to Tarentum, centers are located in Pittsburgh’s Hazelwood neighborhood, Clairton, Duquesne, Homestead, McKeesport, McKees Rocks, Penn Hills, Wilkinsburg and Wilmerding.

A request for applications issued by the state Department of Human Services earlier in May would have limited each county to two applicants and a maximum of $561,200 in funding.

The centers, first opened in the early 1990s, “provide highly effective and desperately needed services, but many Pennsylvania communities do not yet have access to them,” department spokeswoman Erin James said.

The Department of Human Services canceled the request for applications “in order to revisit the approach in a way that both broadens dispersion and continues to provide the important investments that need to be made in existing family centers,” James said.

The department’s Office of Child Development and Early Learning “will renew the existing grants at the current level of funding for two additional state fiscal years,” she said.

Cherna said he understands the need for more services in other parts of the state, but said taking them away from families in distressed communities is not the way to do it.

“I would argue all counties are underfunded for this. We need so much more. The demand is great,” he said.