Tenant Resource Center's funding dwindles
Something's got to give at the Tenant Resource Center, says longtime executive director Brenda Konkel.
Hit by dwindling funding and a growing demand for its services, the nonprofit agency providing assistance on housing issues to low-income tenants -- and landlords -- has cut operating costs to the bone and is looking for new sources of funds, Konkel said in a recent interview. The center even is considering opening a Milwaukee office to expand its service and funding spheres.
The agency, at 1202 Williamson St., was hit with a double whammy last year when it learned it had lost some $96,000 in funding for an operation with $313,000 in expenses in 2007. One loss was $55,000 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which decided to cut funding to organizations that are not student-led. That loss was compounded when the federal department of Housing and Urban Development did not award a $41,000 grant that the agency had received for years.
The cuts rocked an agency perhaps best known for its public statements on state law on security deposits and campus moving day warnings about bedbugs in curbside furniture. But it also provides assistance in finding and retaining housing to thousands of low-income people every year and is a major source of education for Dane County landlords.
In a year dedicated to "regrouping," a staff that at one point numbered 10 was cut back to four, leaving the agency to rely more than ever on its volunteers, said Konkel, who also represents the east side District 2 on the Madison City Council. The agency additionally scaled back its toll-free information number that serves the state, and committed to raising another $30,000 on top of its usual $40,000 fundraising goal.
Like many nonprofit agencies, the Tenant Resource Center relies on a patchwork of public and private funding sources. One major donor is Dane County, which gave the center $106,000, primarily for its Housing Help Desk service located in the Dane County Job Center on Aberg Avenue for low-income residents.
The city of Madison is another source, but some of that money is in question. The agency requested $13,000 in Community Development Block Grant funds from the city this year, but the city's CDBG Commission recommended $10,000, and Mayor Dave Cieslewicz has penciled in $8,000. The $42,000 that the center requested from the city's Office of Community Services remains in limbo, as the mayor departed from past practice and gave the advisory Community Services Commission the job of divvying up some $3.19 million in funding to nonprofit agencies.
"I find it ironic at a time when the police are saying landlords should be licensed, here we are, a tremendous resource in the community that's not being supported," Konkel said.
The center won a Housing and Urban Development grant this year, but only for $23,369. A spokesperson in the Milwaukee field office said program quality was not a factor in either the failure to fund last year, when the Tenant Resource Center grant proposal lost out in the national competition, or this year's smaller award, which reflects the total pot of money available for housing counseling programs.
"It's death by 1,000 cuts," Konkel said.
Meanwhile, the demand for services is growing, she said. As the economy falters, more people have difficulty paying their rent, and they seek eviction prevention counseling or mediation.
New problems emerge as well. "More and more people are coming in to ask, 'What happens when the landlord says he was foreclosed on?' " she said.
The agency serves about 9,000 people a year at the Job Center help desk, 6,000 people at its Williamson Street offices and 700 through a mediation program that aims to resolve tenant-landlord disputes, usually over eviction.
Landlords pay $15 for Tenant Resource Center mediation services, which Kerry Widish, chief deputy of the Dane County Clerk of Courts office, says is a very valuable service. The agency sends postcards to the parties involved in scheduled eviction cases and offers mediation. Typically, agency mediators try to set up a payment plan, and failing that, a move-out date agreed to by tenant and landlord. "They end up assisting in quite a few of these cases, and definitely help move them through the system," Widish said.
Konkel said she will ask the university to resume funding the center from a source other than the student fees that fund student organizations. The university tightened allocation of those funds in 2006, restricting it to campus-based organizations. But a Student Tenant Union, which won UW funding last year, is not operating this year because the students who ran it moved on, Konkel said, so the Tenant Resource Center is serving students who would otherwise be served by an on-campus tenant organization.
In fact, the agency merged with a former Student Tenant Union organization at the request of the university in 1995, the year Konkel assumed the role of executive director, she recalled. The resulting influx of university funding touched off a period of growth and expanded services that came to a halt with the elimination of those funds.
"We're sitting here with no money and providing service anyway," Konkel said. "We either need a service on campus that's functional, or we need some support for the services we're providing."
The board also will look at whether to open a Milwaukee office. "It sounds funny when you're struggling to think about expanding, but there's a great need, and we've got some connections there," Konkel said. The larger city also would bring with it potential funding sources that could help stabilize the organization.
But for this year, the center scaled back its spending and focused on strengthening its local base of private donors. The organization also wants to build the capacity of its board of directors to raise money.
"Every nonprofit board needs to expand its fundraising capacity, and it's always a challenge," said agency board member and real estate developer Chris Laurent.
Laurent said the board will work to attract more members from the business community. Doing that will involve getting out the message that the Tenant Resource Center serves not only tenants, but landlords as well. "A core part of our work is educating both folks."
Part of that education for landlords takes the form of seminars on housing law, which earns the agency about $20,000 in fees. Sales of booklets on landlord-tenant law net another $5,000 a year.
Konkel acknowledges her agency is navigating difficult times but says she's confident it will weather the storm. "I keep getting told 'this doesn't work,' but we keep making it work," she said.
Pat Schneider/Capital Times
Tenant Resource Center executive director Brenda Konkel says the agency has had to cut back to four employees from 10 in response to budget cutbacks.
