Each year, Nevada receives about $20 million in community development block grants.
The grants come from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and they’re used to fund things like affordable housing, neighborhood improvements and job creation.
State and local governments distribute some of the funding to charitable organizations, such as the Salvation Army Southern Nevada.
So, what happens if those grants are cut, as outlined in the Trump Administration budget now in the hands of Congress?
Major Randy Kinnamon told KNPR's State of Nevada that the impact would be significant. The block grants go to cities and counties with very few restrictions on how they're to be spent. The cities then decide to which groups they are going to direct the money.
Kinnamon said this year North Las Vegas and the City of Las Vegas gave his group about $150,000 and then Las Vegas gave it another $50,000. The money is funding the Salvation Army's job training program. The program recruits people coming out of the Salvation Army's adult drug and alcohol rehabilitation program and provides them with job training, resumes writing, interview skills and jobs search help.
However, Kinnamon said many of the people in the program are staying at the Salvation Army's West Owen Avenue campus because they're homeless.
“So If the CGBD money goes away that means I’m really going to be strapped to pay for the other side of it – the housing and meals,” he said.
Finding money to pay for housing and for case management is the most difficult part of fundraising, Kinnamon said. He said the Salvation Army is already talking to one of their big donors to see if he could possibly make up the loss if the block grants disappear.
Michael Ayers understand exactly what the money means to people's lives. He went through the Salvation Army's culinary arts program and now works as a chef at the homeless shelter.
“CDGB funding is very important to the homeless community because without this funding they would not be able to take people off the street, send them to the culinary class, put them through some of the vocational training that we have and that’s basically what this funding is about,” he said.
Major Randy Kinnamon, head, Salvation Army Southern Nevada; Michael Ayers, chef, Salvation Army Southern Nevada; Huckleberry Wills, graduate, Adult Rehabilitation Center