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After more than two years providing services to local residents, the Community Action Organization of Delaware, Madison and Union Counties has officially been declared the permanent provider of the social services programs.
The Marysville-based DMU began taking over services in Logan, Champaign and Shelby counties as early as 2013 as the Ohio Development Services Agency began identifying financial mismanagement and improper handling of grant funding at the Tri-County Community Action Commission.
The DMU group took over operations of the home weatherization program early in the process but other services remained with Tri-County.
By March 2014, the Tri-County board learned it no longer had enough money to pay its employees wages or pay bills and debts and immediately ceased operations of all its programs except the Transportation Logan County transit system.
DMU assumed temporary responsibility for the Home Energy Assistance Program, and by June 2014 was named the temporary grantee of the Community Services Block Grant funding that forms the backbone of a community action organization’s federal funding source.
In July 2014, the organization opened a Logan County office at 1653 N. U.S. Route 68 and has been serving local clients there since.
DMU has now resumed many of the social services once handled by Tri-County while other services are provided by new organizations, including RTC Industries, which now runs the TLC transit service, and LifeCare Alliance that operates the Meals on Wheels senior meal delivery and congregate meal sites in Logan and Champaign counties.
In addition to seasonal heating and cooling assistance and weatherization and energy efficiency programs, the Community Action Organization offers employment assistance programs, financial education, free income tax assistance, parenting courses and other services to individuals who meet federal income guidelines.
Over the past two years, DMU has filed the necessary paperwork to be designated by the ODSA as the permanent grantee of the block grant funding for the three counties once served by Tri-County. Numerous local municipalities and other government entities sent letters in support of the agency’s request to handle the area’s community action services.
Rochelle Twining is the executive director of the six-county organization and Shelley Harmon is the Logan County manager.
For more information, see the website www.ourcap.org or call the local office at (937) 404-9203.