Three years ago, founders Robert and Wanda Dickerson submitted a several-hundred-page application for a $1 million grant from the recovery fund to renovate a 6,000-square-foot former auto shop that was donated to the group. A $1 million request for a Boys & Girls Club and $5 million for a Salvation Army center had already been approved.
Although the UCC proposal never came up for a vote or public deliberation, officials say the organization wasn't financially viable, so it was rejected.
There were tax liens from outstanding water bills at the new property, which UCC says are erroneous - because there are no pipes. There were property taxes owed because UCC had failed to submit its tax-exemption form for a couple of years (it is current now).
And there were repeated questions about matching funds. Officials favored projects with other funding sources, which residents complained effectively eliminated grassroots groups.
"It's like we're really living in an illusion, it's a mirage," Gigi said. "And to have $175 million come into the city - $175 million! - and we haven't gotten any support? . . . You go to one part of the city, by the waterfront, and you think you're in Hollywood. You go to another side of the city and it's Beirut, a war zone."
Former Camden COO Davis said that he worked with the group but that it failed to get its paperwork and finances in order: "A lot of people are more hell-bent on crying and complaining than doing something."
UCC has never relied on government funds to operate. Its leaders say they tried to adjust their application to accommodate concerns over their expansion proposal.
The City Council approved a resolution this year absolving UCC of its liens, and the Camden County sheriff - who is in charge of tax sales - even appeared to show support. Each City Council member then handed a signed copy of the resolution to a UCC child.
In state-run Camden, though, a city councilman's signature is just an autograph. A week later, Davis called the council's resolution "meaningless."
UCC is now trying to raise private funds to renovate its building, which it got in 2000. It puts on more than 400 performances a year, but those fees go back into the program, not the building.
"This is a powerful story to show how government went astray in the process of helping poor people," said Roy Jones, an activist who wrote UCC's application.
Contact staff writer Matt Katz at 856-779-3919 or mkatz@phillynews.com.
