The Riverton City Council voted to allocate an extra $6,000 in unobligated funds to support Eagles Hope Transitions this week.
The council also passed an amendment allowing the city to distribute the remainder of Eagles Hope’s previously approved contract-for-service funding early this year.
Both decisions were made to help alleviate the cash flow concerns Eagles Hope is facing due to the loss of its Community Service Block Grant funding.
“Eagles Hope’s budget was severely impacted when the CSBG (program) was changed, as far as how it’s allocated to the community,” Riverton city administrator Kyle Butterfield told the council during a regular meeting Tuesday. “Eagles Hope was receiving significant funds from that block grant. When those funds were no longer made available to them, that’s where they’re finding an issue with some of their operations and their cash flow.”
The CSBG program provided Eagles Hope with about $107,000 in 2023, executive director Michelle Widmayer told the council this week – about 40 percent of the organization’s budget.
When that source of funding went away, Widmayer told the council, it was a “huge hit to Eagles Hope.”
“It’s been really tight,” she said. “We’ve coasted for four months – but we still have people we need to serve.”
Eagles Hope assisted 217 families in 2023, Widmayer said, providing almost 45,000 services including transitional housing, financial classes, parenting classes, sobriety support, case management, referrals and homeless prevention.
“My residents … need Eagles Hope,” Widmayer said. “I have one that was in tears for a week because she thought (she had) to go back out in the streets, and it’s scary out there. A lot of bad things happened to her. …
“I told her, ‘I’m going to fight so that you don’t lose your housing.’”
Community support
Widmayer approached the Fremont County Commission for financial assistance this week too, and they voted to allocate $60,000 in emergency funding to Eagles Hope.
That infusion of money “gives us hope that we’re going to make it to the end of June,” Widmayer said, and it “gives us time to secure more funding” through other programs.
Widmayer has also spoken with Riverton’s economic development entity IDEA Inc., which pledged a $6,000 matching grant to support the organization.
She explained that the $6,000 in unobligated funds the council allocated to Eagles Hope this week will serve as matching money to obtain that grant.
“I’m also speaking with other businesses (and) our donors and stakeholders … to continue their support,” Widmayer said. “(And) we’re planning a fundraiser in early March.”
She noted that IDEA Inc. contributed an additional $5,000 to Eagles Hope to go toward fundraising efforts.
“We do have … community support,” Widmayer said. “We’ve just hit a rough patch.”
For more information call the City of Riverton at 856-2227.