The president of the Manitoba Association of Friendship Centres is disappointed that a review of how Friendship Centres in Urban areas are funded was not included in yesterday's provincial budget.
\Swan RIver's David Gray admits the government had some tough choices to make with regards to its budget.
But he feels Friendship Centres have been forgotten about for over two decades.
"In 2000, when the funding was last reviewed, we were getting a significant amount of money from the province in terms of the budgets for most Friendship Centres. And now that number has dropped significantly and actually the Federal Government provides way more money. Here is the problem though.... the two programs that the province does fund are now working on 67-cent dollar's, because the value that they have funded has depreciated by 33 per cent in that time because of inflation. But we are expected to do the same things."
Gray adds this will continue to force Friendship Centres to have to make choices on what programs they can fund.
"An example is in Swan River, where the Friendship Centre was happy to partner with the province in housing, but have now discontinued that because the province, through several massinations - ended up trying to force the same process by reducing available resources. And so the board there just cut that program and said we will not manage your program anymore."
MAFC represents Friendship Centres in 11 Manitoba communities, including Dauphin and Swan River.
