Pacoima : Visitation Center Loses United Way Funding

In a rare move, officials from the San Fernando/Santa Clarita Valley region of the United Way have stopped providing funding to the Home Visitation Center, a nonprofit outreach agency that has provided food and clothing to some of Pacoima’s poorest residents since 1979.

Last month, a United Way volunteer committee charged with reviewing the center’s status ruled that the Home Visitation Center did not comply with administrative, management and oversight criteria required by United Way.

The center, located on Van Nuys Boulevard, received about $36,000 of its total budget of approximately $60,000 last year from United Way. While the decision removes funding for at least a year, it does not preclude the group from reapplying for funds in the future, officials said.

Despite the loss of more than half of its total annual budget, the agency is still providing food, clothing and other services to about 800 poor Pacoima residents each week, Robin Baxter, president of the center’s board of directors, said. But, she added: “We’re down to zero in our bank account.”

Baxter admitted that the center failed to provide timely and complete information in response to United Way requests, but said that the center experienced personnel problems during the review period. And, she said, board members were not fully informed by center employees of United Way’s requests.

Baxter said the center is actively exploring the possibility of a merger or absorption by another Pacoima-based service agency.

United Way officials said the decision to withdraw funding is not a reflection on the center.

“These people care,” Greg Buesing, regional vice president for United Way, said. “But I feel we did the right thing. Usually, agencies do respond,” he added, noting that only a handful of nonprofit organizations in Los Angeles in the last five years have lost United Way funding because of administrative or management problems.

Buesing said that United Way will distribute the funds that would have gone to the center to other Pacoima agencies.