Posts tagged service
Sort yard community meeting scheduled for July 12 in Nederland
Jun 30th
Boulder County, Colo. – The Boulder County Forest Health Initiative invites Nederland-area residents to attend a community meeting to discuss the first year of operations of the Nederland Area Community Forestry Sort Yard program.
What: Community meeting for residents to provide input on operations at the Nederland Area Community Forestry Sort Yard
When: Tuesday, July 12, 7 p.m.
Where: Nederland Community Center, 750 Highway 72 North
The sort yard was opened this year as a new service for residents in the Nederland area, and the county wants to make sure it is providing residents with the most useful, best practices possible for collecting and processing logs and slash cut from their lands.
County staff will kick off the meeting with a presentation about sort yard usage, total days of operation and the amount of material collected during the first year of operation. The second part of the meeting will focus on gathering public feedback about how the first year of operations went for residents in the Nederland community.
No RSVP is needed to attend. Community members may email comments and suggestions prior to the meeting to pinebeetle@bouldercounty.org.
The Community Forestry Sort Yard program was established by Boulder County to help landowners fight bark beetle infestations, create better defensible space around homes and communities and to help create healthier forest conditions in the foothills of the county. Two sort yard locations are open each summer on a rotating schedule to provide residents a convenient free of charge location to dispose of logs and slash cut from their land.
For more information about the program, bark beetle management or general questions backyard forest management, contact Boulder County Outreach Forester Ryan Ludlow at 720-564-2641 or pinebeetle@bouldercounty.org.
Boulder County awarded Family Unification Program vouchers HUD program helps stabilize families and move them toward self-sufficiency
Jun 22nd
Boulder County, Colo. – In recognition of its effective, integrated approach to human services delivery, where children and families are offered a full continuum of early and preventative support services that increase their safety and their chances to be self-sufficient, the Boulder County Department of Housing and Human Services was recently awarded 50 Family Unification Program Housing Choice Vouchers by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Only 150 vouchers were awarded in Colorado and less than 2,000 nationwide.
By providing access to stable housing and supportive services, the Family Unification Program enables Boulder County to reunite children in foster care with their parents or to prevent children from entering the foster care system. Research consistently shows that children who are able to safely stay with their families have much better long-term outcomes than children who are removed from their homes.
FUP vouchers will be available for families whose inadequate housing is the primary factor in the separation or near separation from their children. Families and youths are permitted to rent housing from private landlords and generally pay 30 percent of their monthly income toward rent and utilities. County staff will refer eligible clients to the voucher program.
“We feel strongly that a lack of affordable housing is not a valid reason to separate children from their families,” said Frank Alexander, Director of the county’s Department of Housing and Human Services. “With these vouchers, we can ensure that families have a safe and affordable place to live and thereby remove one obstacle from parents who want to take care of their children but do not have the financial resources to do so. Providing short-term supportive services to at-risk families on the front end can make the difference for kids and families over the long term.”
According to the National Center for Housing and Child Welfare, it costs the federal government approximately $56,892 annually per family to place children into foster care. Yet the cost to provide housing and supportive services to one family averages less than $14,000 annually. Through this investment in FUP to reunify families who are separated due to a lack of affordable housing options, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, known as HUD, will reunite nearly 3,500 children with their parents, thus saving $74 million in annual foster care expenditures.
Cost savings are also considerable for young people aging out of foster care. The average annual cost of a FUP voucher for young adults is $5,600 – a 10th of the estimated costs associated with undesirable outcomes such as homelessness, incarceration, and residential treatment.
“Boulder County is proud to be leading the way in providing a highly integrated, locally delivered housing and human services system and appreciates HUD’s recognition of this innovative approach to service delivery,” Alexander said.