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Grants For Programs Helping Teens And Women On Council Agenda

ohiohealth.org

Columbus City Council tonight is expected to approve spending 450-thousand dollars on two programs that help underprivileged youth and pregnant women. 

Jim Letizia reports.

Council is expected to approve a 150-thousand dollar grant for OhioHealth to replace an aging mobile clinic truck that serves pregnant teens and women in homeless shelters and schools. The rolling ob-gyn office is called the Wellness on Wheels or WOW program. The city is buying the truck, but OhioHealth will retain ownership, because it will expand its work to support the efforts  of Council President Andy Ginther's Greater Columbus Infant Mortality Task Force, designed to reduce infant deaths and address the racial disparities that result in African-American infants being more likely to die. It will soon begin serving pregnant adults at the Community Shelter Board's Van Buren Center on Van Buren Street, which provides single adult women emergency shelter, job, health and counseling support, and assistance in finding stable housing. Nearly 16 percent of the 385 women now in a local shelters are pregnant. The truck also serves hundreds of economically disadvantaged women and Columbus City Schools students. Council is also expected to approve a 300 thousand dollar grant for Star House to help the organization purchase a new building to replace the city's only drop-in center for homeless youth. The non-profit organization says the current center on North 4th Street in the OSU campus area is in very poor condition. The money will help the organization raise the necessary 1.8 million dollars. The state has provided 665 thousand dollars a year for the program to expand hours and services. The program provides social services, shelter, basic needs and referrals for people ages 14 to 24. Officials want to move to a building in an industrial portion of the near-North side.

Editor's Note: Council approved the measures at its 11/10/14 evening meeting.

Jim has been with WCBE since 1996. Before that he worked as a reporter at another Columbus radio station, and for three newspapers in Southwest Florida.