An Office of Human Resources was established in 1971 in the Executive Department to develop, implement, and manage social services for low-income and disadvantaged residents of Seattle. In 1973 it was replaced by the Department of Human Resources. DHR administered family and youth services programs, senior citizen services, community service activities, the Seattle Veterans Action Center, and the Comprehensive Residential Weatherization Program. Federal, state, and local grants comprised two-thirds of the department's operating budget. Passage of the 1986 Low Income Housing Levy increased the City's funding and policy role in housing issues. In 1991, the agency name was changed to the Department of Human Services. A year later, the Department of Housing and Human Services was created, incorporating the City housing programs and Community Development Block Grant administration from the recently abolished Department of Community Development. DHHS programs included aging services, family and youth services, housing and community services, human services, and the City's education office. In 1999, the Office of Housing was established as an independent agency and DHHS was reorganized as the Human Services Department.
Seattle SafeFutures was a five-year grant-funded program whose goals were to prevent and control juvenile violence and delinquency in targeted communities; to develop effective service delivery systems for at-risk and delinquent youth and their families; and to build community capacity to institutionalize and sustain that service delivery. Funded by approximately seven million dollars in grants from the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, SafeFutures was a multi-jurisdictional, public-private initiative. Governmental partners included King County Department of Youth Services, Seattle Police Department, Seattle Public Schools, Seattle-King County Department of Public Health, and Seattle Department of Housing and Human Services, the grantee. A community planning board was established consisting of leaders from public and private organizations that provided funding, planning and policy development, and service delivery to youth and families involved in or at risk of becoming involved in the juvenile justice system.
Among the SafeFutures programs was funding community-based agencies involved in a variety of approaches to reducing youth involvement in crime. A significant portion of this funding went to programs whose efforts were directed at populations underserved by existing preventive and juvenile justice services: girls, recent refugees and immigrants, and serious and violent youth offenders. Among the projects funded by SafeFutures were Cambodian Girls' Group, Big Sisters Mentoring Program, Sister to Sister Project, Sibling Support Program, Save Our Sisters, Asian/Pacific Islander Diversion Parent Outreach and Support, SafeFutures Youth Center, King County Work Crew, Back to School Program, Back to School Youth Employment Project, and Juvenile Rehabilitation Administration Mentoring.
The SafeFutures records include nine broad categories of materials including organizational records and correspondence, grant applications, Community Planning Board meetings, Interagency Staffing Group meetings, strategic planning files, reports on community-based projects, records related to collaboration on the King County Juvenile Justice Operational Master Plan, miscellaneous reports, and local and national evaluation reports.
Records are open to the public.
[Item and date], SafeFutures Program Records, Record Series 3620-03. Box [number], Folder [number]. Seattle Municipal Archives.
This collection is indexed under the following headings in the online catalog. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons, or places should search the catalog using these headings.
The following section contains a detailed listing of the materials in the collection.