Issue 9, the Hamilton County Children’s Services Levy is on the ballot this November. 

Please join Lighthouse Youth & Family Services in supporting Issue 9, a levy that funds critical services to ensure the safety, permanency, and well-being of children in our community.

These services include:

• Operation of 241-KIDS, a 24-hour hotline to report abuse and neglect.
• Investigating allegations of abuse, neglect, and dependency. When significant risk exists, forwarding case to provide ongoing services.
• Providing services so children can remain safely in the home, including substance abuse and mental health assessment and treatment, emergency housing, parenting training, and domestic violence programs.
• When necessary for safety, placing children in temporary care with relatives, foster care, or in institutional settings.
• Seeking protective, temporary or permanent custody through court.
• Supplying medical aid and food assistance
• Arranging kinship care, foster care, and adoption
• Providing pre- and post-adoption services.
• Teaching older teens independent living skills.

Community Impact

The 1.98 mill levy costs the owner of a $100,000 home about $69 per year. This funding is leveraged to bring in at least $30 million more in matching state and federal funds.

In 2017:

• More than 20,000 abused and neglected children received help, that’s 1 in every 9 Hamilton County children.
• The number of children being served by Hamilton County Children’s Services jumped to 20,204 up from 15,780 in 2015.
• Hamilton County Children’s Services served its highest number of children in at least 20 years.

These are Our Children

Issue 9 supports the system of public and private agencies that protect disadvantaged children in our Hamilton County Community. This system includes Jobs and Family Services Children’s Services division, Child Support Services, Hamilton County Juvenile Court, Hamilton County Prosecutor’s Office, and private and public child-serving agencies, such as foster placement, mental health services, emergency housing, and parenting services.

Issue 9 is critical to ensuring the safety, permanency, and well being of our community’s most vulnerable children.