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HOUSE
COMMITTEE APPROVES FUNDS FOR AREA HEALTH, EDUCATION, SOCIAL SERVICE PROGRAMS
WASHINGTON
– The House Appropriations Committee Wednesday approved $3 million in funding
requested by Congressman Jerry Lewis for nine Inland Empire health, education
and social service programs projects as part of the Fiscal Year 2008 spending
bill on health and human services and education. The bill is expected to be on
the House floor next week.
Among the programs approved for grants in the bill are family health centers,
after-school care for needy children, English-learning, nurse education, medical
technology and prevention of domestic violence, Lewis said. The programs will
serve hundreds of thousands of people in the two counties.
“Our two counties are experiencing some of the most explosive growth rates in
the nation, and these grants will help these wonderful local programs deal with
the growing pains that come with such rapid population increases,” said Lewis,
the senior Republican member of the House Appropriations Committee. “These
modest investments of federal dollars will help ensure that these services can
meet the demand into the future.”
The Committee agreed to provide $500,000 toward construction of a community
health center in Banning. The center will provide health services to a
growing population of low-income, uninsured adults, families and seniors in the
Banning/Beaumont region of
Riverside
County
. The estimated total project cost is $3 million.
Inland Behavioral & Health Services, which will open the new center, is a
Federally Qualified Health Center operating as a private, non-profit,
community-based organization providing comprehensive primary health care and
support services to low-income and indigent citizens of the
Inland Empire
. The organization was founded in 1976, and the main clinic is located in
downtown
San Bernardino
. The project is in direct response to the President’s National Health Center
Initiative, with the goal of expanding primary health care services to serve 6
million more people.
The WestCare Foundation has been approved to receive $500,000 to expand its
successful Batters Intervention Program in Needles, where it will serve a
tri-state area. The program focuses on coping strategies for the children
of families with domestic abuse. WestCare will partner with the Center for
Disease Control’s
National
Center
for Injury Prevention and Control in its efforts to develop a nationally
recognized model for preventing Intimate Partner Violence. The total
project cost is $2.5 million over five years.
Also approved was $500,000 to help St. Mary’s
Medical
Center
in the Town of
Apple Valley
create an Electronic Intensive Care Unit (eICU). The eICU will allow St.
Mary’s to connect with other remote hospitals in
California
to share intensive care doctors. The system, currently implemented in 25
other hospitals, has proven effective at reducing mortality by more than 25%.
The total first year cost of the project is $1.38 million.
St.
Mary’s will contribute the rest of the funds through Foundation fundraising
and from the Capital and Operating Budget.
St. Bernardine Medical Center in
San Bernardino
has been approved for a $200,000 grant towards construction of a Radiology
Special Procedures Room for angiography and other vascular interventions.
It will replace equipment that is 18 years old and prone to failure. The
total project cost is $1.6 million. St. Bernardine is a non-profit medical
center serving one of the most densely impoverished areas in
Southern California
.
The committee also approved a number of grants requested by Congressman Lewis
for education programs in the
Inland Empire
:
-
$250,000
for the
San Bernardino
County
Museum
to complete its creation of new exhibition space and upgrade the care of its
collections. The museum has been very successful in using past federal
grants and $6.4 million in local funds to create the Hall of Geologic
Wonders and provide on-line access to its trove of regional artifacts and
historical information. The current funding would help create Web Module
Technology presentations, an Earthquake park exhibition, and
Santa Ana
and Mojave River Watershed interpretative projects.
-
$250,000
for an English Learners Program through the
San Bernardino
City
Unified
School District
. The district plans to recruit 50 Teacher/Coaches for EL students and
Bilingual Outreach Workers for EL coaches who will provide training to
teachers of EL at each school site, K-12. The program will also facilitate
parental involvement in these programs. More than a quarter of the
district’s students are non-English speaking, and the entire
Inland Empire
has struggled to provide English-language training to meet demand. This
investment will contribute to national goals of encouraging assimilation by
immigrants.
-
$300,000
for the
Alliance
for Education Program – Project Lead the Way, sponsored by the San
Bernardino County Schools. Partnering with 1,400 local colleges, business
and community groups, the program is intended to increase the number of
students seeking careers in mathematics, science, technology and
engineering. The
Inland Empire
currently has one of the lowest rates of high school graduates seeking
science degrees in college.
-
$400,000
to
Azusa
Pacific
University
to launch a regional nursing program at the
San Bernardino
campus. By 2008, it is projected that another 450,000 nurses may be needed
to meet the demand, which will be most acute in rapidly growing areas like
San Bernardino
and
Riverside
Counties
. Local hospitals have agreed to help underwrite this urgently-needed
training program, as well as provide clinical sites to support it. This
program has received congressional approval for the past three years.
-
$100,000
to We CARE San Jacinto, a non-profit faith-based group providing
after-school programs that target middle school and high school students who
are at risk of gang involvement. The San Jacinto Assembly of God church
provides the programs under contract with
San Jacinto
School District
.
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