When the Santa Maria council voted to distribute grant money to as many as 26 community and public service groups in April, they didn’t know that they’d have several hundred thousand dollars less than hoped. As a result, the council revoted on the allocations, which meant good news for some groups and bad news for others.

The one sector of the community service economy that seemed to do better than the rest was affordable housing. One group, Peoples’ Self-Help Housing, received nearly half of all available money, with their $605k grant. A vocational training center received $300,000.

But groups like the Boys and Girls Club, Court Appointed Special Advocates, and Cabrillo Economic Development were cut entirely. In total, seven programs had their grant funds eliminated.

From the Santa Maria Times:

Affordable housing efforts were the big winners and seven nonprofit groups lost out completely Tuesday when the Santa Maria City Council doled out $1.4 million in grant funds.

The Peoples’ Self-Help Housing project Los Adobes de Maria III received a $605,000 allocation while Court Appointed Special Advocates was one of the seven agencies cut out of funding.

The council had to reconsider its April decision on how to allocate the Community Development Block Grant and Home Investment Partnership funds because the city received 16.5 percent less CDBG money and 12 percent less in Home Partnership funds than it expected.

Read the full article here.