San Bernardino Declines to Give Gay Center Funds

The San Bernardino City Council’s decision last week to deny $10,000 in funding for a group that counsels gay men and women led to charges against the city of bias, and questions about the group’s legitimacy.

The council stripped the Gay & Lesbian Center of the Inland Empire from a list of 21 groups to share $300,000 in federal money the city doles out to public service programs.

Council members said they gave priority to returning applicants and were wary about giving money to an organization that didn’t have a proven track record with the city. It was the first year the center had applied to the city for funding.

One council member said the denial was discriminatory.

“This has nothing to do with the excuses [council members] came up with. It has to do with Stone Age ideas about gay and lesbian people,” said Councilman Gordon McGinnis, who cast the lone vote to fund the group.

The council allowed the Highland Senior Center and the YWCA of San Bernardino to split the $10,000 that a citizens advisory panel had recommended for the gay counseling group.

Councilman Neil Derry said he was wary of subsidizing a group whose address was a post office box and that had no history with city officials.

“Frankly, I haven’t even heard of them, and I’m not going to dole out taxpayer funding to a place that may not be there in six months,” he said.

The San Bernardino group is among 150 or so centers nationwide that serve gays and lesbians with counseling, health services or support groups. Experts said such groups tend to lean heavily on government grants but struggle to get them because they are less established.

The Gay & Lesbian Center of the Inland Empire was among 24 groups that applied for Community Development Block Grants, which support organizations that eliminate blight, aid disaster victims or help people with low to moderate incomes.

A small citizens panel suggests which groups should get money, but the seven-member City Council made the final decision last week in a 4-1 vote, with one member absent and another declining to vote.

“I was shocked,” said Linda Gomez, the Gay & Lesbian Center’s secretary, who submitted the grant application. “This was an attack on our credibility, but we’re as credible as any other organization.” The center’s application had asked for $20,000 to expand hours for its hotline and hire a part-timer to counsel gay and lesbian seniors and people contemplating suicide.

The group, without headquarters for two years, recently rented an office near downtown San Bernardino in anticipation of the funding. Gomez said volunteers would probably vacate the space this month, and the center’s weekly support group will continue meeting in homes and restaurants.

The center assists about 3,000 people -- two-thirds from San Bernardino -- each year, Gomez said. It subsists on about $6,000 annually, raised from raffles and membership fees. Gomez worried that losing the funding would harm the center’s chances of snagging other grants.

“It’s a denial that there’s a gay population here,” she said.

Council members said they supported gay and lesbian causes by allotting $10,000 to the Foothill AIDS Project and $15,000 to the Central City Lutheran Mission.

The two groups serve some gays as part of programs serving a broader clientele. The mission’s application, for example, said it would target inner-city kids with a peer advocate program.

“We should look at the real reason for the decision and not try to play the race card or any of those labels,” said June Durr, the spokeswoman for Mayor Judith Valles. “This is not an issue over gays and lesbians. This is an issue over funding.”