Both nonprofit organizations provide services to people in need. However, the Adult Care Center has grown accustomed to receiving all the Community Development Block Grant funding for public services allocated by the city each year. That amount came to $38,611 this year. This year Cupertino Community Services Inc. applied for the first time for a portion of the funding. CDBG funds are provided to the city from the Department of Housing and Urban Development for eligible projects and activities.

The Adult Care Center, at 19655 Allendale Ave. next to the Saratoga Senior Center, provides care and stimulation for frail adults. Currently, the center serves 39 people. Twenty-two live in Saratoga, while 17 are from other areas in the West Valley. It costs $55 per person per day to provide services at the center. Fees are subsidized based on income, with a sliding scale that starts at $18.

Jeff Nickel, a Saratoga resident, told the council that his wife suffered a brain hemorrhage in 1985. He had also lost his job at that time. He and his wife have used the Adult Care Center since then. He said he commutes 130 miles a day to his job at a biotech company in Berkeley. He makes the commute because he wants to stay in Saratoga so his wife can have access to the center. "The Adult Care Center is critical," he said. "It would be tragic if the money were cut back."

City staff recommended the council allocate $30,000 of CDBG funding to the Adult Care Center and $8,611 to Cupertino Community Services Inc. However, after public input and discussion, the council voted to change the allocation amounts to $33,000 for the Adult Care Center and $5,611 for Cupertino Community Services.

"While we didn't expect to get everything we requested, we had not realized we would get substantially less," said Ethel James, president of the Saratoga Area Senior Coordinating Council. James said the budget of the Adult Day Center is built around funding provided by the city. She found out about the city's plans to cut funding to the center a week before the council meeting.

The decision has the center scrambling to figure out how to pay for services before the fiscal year ends in June. "We are a nonprofit, and we struggle to break even. That size of a [cut] makes it difficult to figure out what to do in only three months. A fee increase is probably not going to help us and will probably hurt the people we serve."

Kimberly Ferm, a program director at Cupertino Community Services, said last year her organization provided 61 Saratogans with emergency rental and utility assistance. The organization provides money to West Valley residents who need one-time financial assistance to remain in their residences without being evicted. Sixty-eight Saratogans were also provided 16,715 pounds of food from the organization's food pantry.

"We provide the same services to Saratoga residents as we do to everyone in the West Valley area," said Naomi Nakano-Matsumoto, executive director of Cupertino Community Services. She said nonprofit groups are seeing their funding sources decrease across the board at the state, federal and local levels of government and from private donors.

"We've been able to help Saratoga residents in the past, but now we're at a point where, because of funding cutbacks, we are asking other cities to partner with us to help serve their residents," said Nakano-Matsumoto. "We're not saying our need is greater, but we are serving Saratoga residents and we need help to continue to do that. The money we asked for does not provide for expenses to cover everyone we serve in Saratoga."

Ferm said there are hidden pockets of poverty in every city, including Saratoga. The Saratogans her organization serves are mainly fixed-income seniors who are renters, single mothers with children under 18 and single adult renters between jobs. "Saratoga residents receive 6 percent of all food from our food pantry," she said.

Members of the city council agreed that the Adult Care Center provides a vital service but that Cupertino Community Services deserved a portion of CDBG funding. Councilman Nick Streit said it was time for Saratoga to pony up and provide funding to Cupertino Community Services, which is serving a forgotten segment of Saratoga residents.

For the Adult Care Center, the question now is how to make up for the drop in funding. "We have a very strong commitment to the Adult Care Center," James said. "It is an enormous success. We are going to do whatever it takes to keep it viable and affordable."