Stimulus dollars help local organizations

    The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that the U.S. Congress passed more than a year ago has provided funding for a number of programs in Washington County and southeast Iowa. Mitch Finn, deputy director of the Hawkeye Area Community Action Program (HACAP) in Hiawatha, said that the amount of money his organization has received from the recovery act is in the millions of dollars.

    ?We have received an additional $10 million because of the stimulus,? said Finn.

    Finn said that HACAP?s annual budget jumped from $25 million to $35 million courtesy of the recovery act. He said that there are a number of ways in which HACAP spends the extra $10 million. Nearly half of the $10 million, $4.7 million has gone to a weatherization program.

    The subsidized weatherization program is available to low-income households as a way of reducing their heating bills. People whose income is 200 percent of the poverty level are eligible for the program. Finn said that HACAP had received $1.6 million in previous years, so the additional funds may be available by the stimulus were a marked increase. He also said that the stimulus expanded the eligibility of the program to a broader range of income levels. He said the extra dollars from the federal government has meant that HACAP will more than double the number of homes weatherized.

    ?In a typical year, we weatherize about 200 homes,? said Finn. ?We hope to weatherize 400 homes this fall and by 2011 we hope to reach 500.?

    Another program aided by the federal stimulus is HACAP?s homeless prevention program. The stimulus gave HACAP an additional $2.5 million to prevent homelessness or to quickly find housing for someone who has just become homeless.

For the full story, see the May 25 edition of The Washington Evening Journal