Santa Cruz County proposing cut to Community Bridges funding

SANTA CRUZ COUNTY, Calif. (KION-TV)-- The Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors is proposing cutting funding from Community Bridges.

They provide senior and child care services, food for low-income communities and family resource centers, among other services in the community.

"It's gonna have a devastating impact on the family resource centers locally. We usually serve about 6 thousand people a year. We're going to only be able to serve about 3 thousand a year," Raymon Cancino, a spokesperson for Community Bridges said. "We're going to have cuts across the board. Seventy-six percent of all our clients are people of color. They're people from the south county, and the reality is, is that losing that funding is going to negatively affect them."

Santa Cruz County funds Community Bridges through its CORE Program, and this year they asked for $1,469,000 but will only receive $436,222, according to them. They usually receive between $1 million to $1.4 million in annual funding.

The loss of funding means the risk of programs and services ending.

Community bridges say the immediate impact will be the closure of all four of their Family Resource Centers. One in every ten families in Santa Cruz County seeks these services.

Community Bridges plans to speak at the June 7 Board of Supervisors meeting to ask the board to reconsider their proposal.