The Roundup: Does the WA Government Really Cut Blank Checks?
From the Editor
What's up, South End?
The news that caught my eye this week was the conversation surrounding the "blank check" King County wrote for the Best Starts for Kids program.
To be clear — those are The Seattle Times' words. Not mine.
However, those are words, and a sentiment, that have echoed throughout my adult life. Sometimes, it feels like every penny aimed at grassroots organizations with boots on the ground trying to support our communities comes under immense scrutiny.
That's not at all my attempt at saying these groups should operate without oversight — in fact, as someone who worked as a program manager in a City of Seattle department, personally tasked with distributing funds to BIPOC nonprofits, I would actually say the opposite.
These groups are saddled with an immense amount of responsibility to report on programming and expenses, and sometimes they turn down critical funds because they don't have the staff to follow up on all the reporting.
Some groups misappropriate funds. That should always be addressed. But the idea that most groups do, or that the government is handing out blank checks to these nonprofits, is not only false, it's dangerous. These are the groups working hand in hand with the people in our communities who need resources most.
And most of these groups would tell you that not only do they not receive "free money," but they also often don't have enough money and find ways to continue work while being underfunded.
To get a clearer picture of what I mean, I reached out to one of these organizations. Collective Justice is a restorative-justice-focused group working to create community-based healing responses that center the dignity and resilience of people on all sides of harm.
I spoke with Tyra Edwards, the org's community engagement director, and Jess Rock, the strategy and sustainability director, about what Collective Justice does and how they feel about government funding.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
MD: Can you tell me about Collective Justice, who you are, and the type of work you do?
TE: Collective Justice is a collective of circle keepers born out of conversation entirely nurtured by survivors who are most impacted by interpersonal and state violence and oppression that involves the carceral system.
And when we define "survivors," we're expansive with that. So, it is both the people who you typically think of and also criminalized survivors — the folks who are currently and formerly incarcerated. We're breaking down that dichotomy between people who have caused harm and people who are experiencing it, knowing that they're often the same folks.
At Collective Justice, we know that survivors have identified overwhelming challenges and barriers and harms that aren't baked into the infrastructure of our criminal legal system. Really, people are looking for something different, so in response, we create community-led responses to harm.
MD: What is a circle keeper?
TE: A circle keeper is generally someone who brings folks together in a space where they can be in conversation with one another, in a space with no power dynamics. They create a space where both parties or people can be heard in an environment where there can be safety, agency, dignity, and belonging.
MD: What does justice really mean? What does it look like?
TE: Currently, our society has justice as something that is equated to punishment. It really dehumanizes people, isolates them, removes them from their families. That impacts families and impacts our community. It does not value people.
What justice really should mean is recentering people, centering humanity. What that could look like is asking, how do we connect with people, and how do we restore community? How do we create spaces where we can allow people to process what's happened? How can we allow space where people can really heal?
In our current system, when someone goes to jail, that family might not actually get to process what's happened. But when you look at restorative processes or circles, you allow an opportunity for conversation to happen where family can understand the person who caused harm, and the … person who's experienced it [or their family] can actually sit in the impact of what's happened. You can have an opportunity to heal. You can have an opportunity to process, and the person who caused the harm can take accountability.
MD: There was recently violence in Rainier Beach. Two teens were killed. The shooter, who is also a teen, is likely to be charged as an adult, which will potentially mean life behind bars. Where does justice live in this situation? What does this mean for our community?
TE: For the people who have been lost, I would want their family to be able to sit and be held in community and asked this question for themselves. Because I can't speak for them. But I would want them to be able to name their needs. And I would ask what justice looks like to them.
And then, just thinking about us as humans in wholeness — we need safety, agency, dignity, and belonging as a community. How can we restore those things with the loss of those young people and with this young person who's potentially going to be getting this life sentence? Our current system doesn't meet those needs. But how can we as a community come together to work together and meet these needs as much as possible?
MD: What do you say to the idea that organizations like yours have received a "blank check" from the government?
JR: I can't speak for other organizations, but I can speak to our own experience receiving public funds. We have not received any blank checks. The reality we've experienced is really extensive oversight and accountability. So public funders like the County put a lot of burden on community-based organizations to prove both that we need the money and exactly how we're spending it. We submit extensive applications that force us to compete against other partner organizations, where we have to articulate exactly what we do, what we're going to do, how much it's going to cost, and we're often encouraged to undersell the true cost of the work. And then, if we are selected, to which it's becoming more and more competitive, we have to regularly submit general ledgers to prove exactly where each dollar has gone. Depending on the contract, we also have to provide monthly or quarterly data reporting and complete annual audits. So we have to prove that we need the money and then prove how every dollar is spent. And often, the money we receive is significantly less than we actually need.
The Roundup Rundown
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Her big takeaway: This bill isn't designed to hurt the rich. It's designed to help the needy.
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Mike Davis is the newsletter editor and Voices editor at the South Seattle Emerald. Born and raised in Seattle's South End, Mike is a longtime journalist who's covered everything from arts and culture to sports to politics.
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