A report from an oversight board found Eugene’s Community Safety Initiative is meeting its objective.
The CSI's Community Advisory Board reviewed expenditures from July 2019 to July 2020. Funding for this period came out of the General Fund to support safety services.
City spokesperson Laura Hammond says the board found the city is getting a good return for its investment and this includes expanding homeless services.
"We know that we added about 40 new locations for overnight parking, we were able to serve about 3,000 more people through the Lindholm Center, we were able to expand shelter accommodations at Dusk to Dawn and then we also worked with 15th Night to help prevent youth homelessness, so all those things were accomplished," she said.
Hammond adds the Community Safety Initiative is also independently audited in additional to being reviewed by the Community Advisory Board.
The city was given a budget of $6.1 million which was reduced from $9.3 million because of the pandemic. The city ended up spending $5.6 million.
A little over half of the budget, or $2.8 million, was spent on police services including funding for their Street Crimes Unit, Community Safety Officers, and Support Services. In comparison, $1.3 million went to municipal courts and about $912,000 went to homeless services, and
The Community Payroll Tax, which began this year, was passing in 2019 to support the initiative going forward.
The full report can be found here.
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