What has F.A.I.T.H. Accomplished?
Crime & Drugs: FAITH was successful in getting the City Commission and the Chief of Police to double the size of Daytona Beach’s street level narcotics unit. Also, FAITH has developed a Hot Spot Card, an anonymous tip card, which allows residents to report criminal activity, as well as code violations, without fear of retaliation.
Education: FAITH continues to work with the Volusia County School District to improve reading ability for at-risk students. Direct Instruction, a proven curriculum for teaching reading, has become a tool for children reading below grade level. It was implemented in Westside Elementary and Palm Terrace Elementary (both in Daytona Beach) in 2001. After seeing the success of the program in other schools, Starke Elementary (in DeLand) added Direct Instruction to their kindergarten curriculum in 2006.
Healthcare: F.A.I.T.H. was successful in convincing Halifax Hospital to open new facilities where the uninsured or underinsured of our community can gain greater access to primary health care.
Night Bus Service: This is a service many groups in the community, including Votran itself, had been trying to get for 6 years. F.A.I.T.H. was successful in getting a secured commitment from the county to run the bus service until midnight, which enabled many to work in the service industries. This service began in January, 2003 and Votran reports that the ridership is up nearly 400 riders per night.
Affordable Housing: In 2005, FAITH won 2 out of 11 incentives for builders to develop more affordable housing in Volusia County. We are still working with the county to adopt and implement the other 9 incentives in a Workforce/Affordable Housing ordinance that would use a variety of tools to provide housing that our community can afford.
Mental Health: In 2008, FAITH ensured that a local provider, ACT/Stewart Marchman, is providing adequate care for our mentally ill inmates.
Treatment Program in County Jail: A substance abuse treatment program was implemented in May, 2001. In 2007, the county eliminated the program. So in 2009, FAITH won commitments to reinstate a new and improved substance abuse program (through Serenity House) for inmates in our jail that also provides diversion and continued treatment in a residential facility upon release.
Unemployment: In 2009, FAITH won local hiring agreements in the cities of Ormond Beach and Daytona Beach giving local workers an advantage when looking for jobs. In 2011, FAITH won a local hiring ordinance for all county contracts where local businesses can an up to 5% preference over other businesses.
Youth and Family: In 2010, FAITH won the extension of a funding process from a pilot program that could only use 10% of the budget for youth and family organizations and agencies to a full program using the full 2 million dollars allocated each year. This means that the county is going to be better stewards of the tax dollars we spend on our most valuable resource: our children.
Homelessness: F.A.I.T.H. won a program called the S.A.V.E. Docket where a case manager and a judge will work with homeless people with misdemeanor offenses on an alternative to jail, fines, and fees saving the county an estimated $375,000 a year. Our Hot Spot Cards are being translated into Spanish to more efficiently report crimes that often lead to homelessness.