Connecticut’s nonprofit community provides services to children, disabled and elderly and while the state shutdown during the pandemic, they never closed their doors.
With their revenues suffering as a result, the state is stepping in with millions of dollars in funding.
“We never closed down. We were more needed than ever,” Gov. Ned Lamont said.
Lamont visited with the Children’s League of Connecticut in New Britain today to hear about the work nonprofits focused on kids have been doing since before the pandemic hit.
“Although the state was shut down, we have not been shut down. We’re there every day, all day. We’re not nurses, we’re not doctors, but we’re also on the frontlines too,” Naomi Yaidom, a therapeutic group home supervisor, said.
Lamont said there’s about $125 million in federal CARES Act funding to be distributed to nonprofits.
“It’s one of the things we’re trying to do to supplement the incredible needs we have. We need you more than ever and we need the support more than ever,” Lamont said.
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Gian-Carl Casa, head of the Connecticut Nonprofit Alliance, said revenues have declined while expenses have increased.
“They’ve incurred all of these costs at a time when they’re often in many cases not making the revenue they had been making so the revenue is going down and the costs are going up,” Casa said.
If the federal government doesn’t come through with additional funding, “we could be having a perfect storm for nonprofits,” Casa said.
Nonprofits were already underfunded by the state.
“We were already $461 million behind and then COVID hit, with its costs, with its revenue losses, with all of the attendant uncertainty about what’s going to happen,” Casa said.
He said nonprofits need to provide services until the federal government can act again, which looks like it will be after a new congress is sworn in next year.
“Our industry itself has been underfunded for many years and we haven’t ever received consistent funding increases as a nonprofit system. In more than 15 years we haven’t gotten an across the board living adjustment so it’s a bigger systemic issue,” Alyssa Goduti, director of public policy at Ädelbrook Behavioral and Developmental Services said.