Guest Blogger: YouthCare Board Chair Matthew Turetsky, JD

While you may be making New Year’s resolutions, nonprofits are passing board resolutions. For instance, YouthCare’s board just unanimously resolved that in order to create a balanced budget supporting a thriving Washington State, our legislature must explore new revenue options.

YouthCare’s mission is to build confidence and self-sufficiency for homeless youth by providing a continuum of care that includes outreach, basic services, emergency shelter, housing, counseling, education, and employment training. We’re not public budget mavens or policy wonks. (We rely on the Washington Low Income Housing Alliance to help us sift through the policy details.) We are a service provider committed to helping homeless young people move off the streets and prepare for life. As our board took a deeper look at how budget cuts would impact the young people we serve, it was clear we needed to publically state that an all-cuts budget would be harmful for Washington’s homeless youth.

YouthCare’s Board Public Affairs Committee guides the organization’s public policy decisions. They reached out to the Housing Alliance Board Advocacy Project for help with crafting board resolution language. Based on a sample resolution that the project’s lead Ben Miksch shared with us, we were able to craft two statements supporting revenue. The next step was for the full board to discuss and approve. This was new territory for us, as we formed our Public Affairs Committee just three years ago. And this was the first big public policy discussion with the full board of directors.

Image Pictured l-r: Margaret with YouthCare's Pathways Transitional Living Program, Kate B., YouthCare Executive Director Melinda Giovengo, YouthCare Communications Coordinator Liz Trautman, Erin with YouthCare's housing programs, and Ben.

The full YouthCare board first reviewed the state budget process, identified key decision makers, and the budget outlook for the next biennium. (Who knew that board meetings could double as civics classes?) We discussed the state’s $4.8 billion revenue shortfall in the next biennium and the legislature’s obligation to address the McCleary decision to fund basic education. We also examined how the state might balance the budget without new revenue sources: by making deep cuts to vital human services.

Losing state funding for homeless youth programs like Street Youth Services and HOPE beds would lead to more young people on the streets and in unsafe situations. Cuts to TANF (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families) and the Housing and Essential Needs programs would be devastating to our clients who are parenting or working to access SSI benefits. When the state safety net frays, the youth we serve fall through the holes.

We believe that to improve the lives in our community, we need to do more than stave off cuts. Our state should invest in programs and policies working to prevent and end youth homelessness. That’s why YouthCare supports passing the Homeless Youth Act, which would establish an Office of Youth Homelessness for coordinating the state’s efforts to address the needs of our young people. Additionally, we support a robust investment into the newly renamed Washington Youth and Families Fund.

Board members were brimming with questions about the budget process. (And here I thought I was going to put them to sleep with talk of general fund revenues and pension obligations.) After a great conversation, the board unanimously passed a resolution affirming, “that YouthCare supports budgets that will create the most robust and stable revenue system needed to protect and strengthen the entire continuum of youth housing and human services.”

I am thrilled YouthCare is moving forward with support for changes to our revenue system. And, unlike my own New Year’s resolutions, which tend to fizzle out around February 1, this is a resolution that will endure and continue to shape YouthCare’s work throughout the legislative session and beyond. Happy New Year!

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Editor's Note:
Your board can be just as awesome as YouthCare's board. The Housing Alliance offers a number of ways for board members to be active in housing and homelessness advocacy:

• Sign onto this simple petition as a board member and as an organization letting the legislature know you support a budget raising revenue.
• Have your board pass a resolution supporting the Housing Trust Fund. Feel free to use this Sample Resolution and Sample Resolution with Sources. (Please let us know if you use either of these.)
  Need a refresher on the Housing Trust Fund? Go here.
• Join our Advocacy Action Network to receive timely information about our housing and homelessness legislative priorities, as well as how to send advocacy emails to your legislators.