Community Outreach Partnership Centers Program FY 1999 Grantee

STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK COLLEGE AT CORTLAND, CORTLAND, NY -- $400,000

The State University of New York College (SUNY) at Cortland will receive a Community Outreach Partnership Centers Program New Grant for $400,000 to significantly expand a one-stop service center in Cortland, New York, operated by a consortium of public and private social service agencies. Like much of Central New York, the Cortland area has been in a steep decline for more than 20 years, due mainly to industrial downsizing, relocation, or plant closings. In order to address these problems and the challenges posed by welfare reform, Cortland's economic and human services leaders began a process of establishing community priorities and strategies to implement them. SUNY Cortland's COPC project comes out of this process.

Among the activities SUNY Cortland will undertake are:

• Design and development of a community management information system to support local needs assessment and program development;

• Creation of a Women's Project to provide transitional housing with support services and job training to women who are separating, divorced or victims of domestic violence;

• Creation of a teen shelter to provide transitional emergency housing, with similar social services;

• Using both of these shelter projects to help the residents start up their own commercial ventures;

• Offering entrepreneurship training and development, especially for "low tech" businesses, such as landscaping. and

• Linking curriculum development and internships to the service center and its projects.

Content Archived: January 20, 2009