Amendment 3: How it could impact non-profits

Well, first up here at 10 o'clock, we've shared a lot about Amendment 3 this election cycle, and the impacts are really far-reaching for homeowners and local governments. What may be unexpected, though, is to how this affects non-profits. United Way Suncoast spoke with Fox 13's Brianna Ardondo today about what this could mean for the communities that they serve, and she joined us now in studio. Hi there, Brianna. I know United Way is not taking a stance on this, correct? Correct, Mark. They are not taking a stance on it. How they see it is that it could benefit homeowners that they serve, but also the proposed changes could shake up things for those same families and also for renters. Now, United Way Suncoast says that it does not rely on funding from... local government, but the other nonprofits they work with do. So any cuts that local agencies would trickle down. And ultimately, that can affect the communities that United Way serves. Although there aren't public school cuts anticipated with Amendment 3's passing, there are services, wraparound services, that Alice families rely on through public schools. Whether that's before school care, after school care, our Alice families living paycheck to paycheck can't miss work. They rely on that paycheck Now, ALICE stands for Asset Limited Income Constrained Employed, and United Way says that to pay their bills and survive. their ALICE homeowners and possibly even seniors would get relief through this amendment, but many ALICE families are also renters, and they would not see any benefit through Amendment 3. Now, it's not just educational programs here, Mark and Allie, that nonprofits could see this change happening with, but also other neighborhood programs, too. Yeah, so how would, if this does happen, how would those gaps be filled if this does pass? Right now, I know the polls are still We're still showing about 50%. 10 more percent. 60% is hard to get, but how would they bridge those gaps if we do get 60%? Yeah, there's just a lot of unknowns here. And they said that they're going to have to work through some things. They do have a call of action that they're working on. And here's what else the CEO had to say. There's definitely surprises ahead for what gaps will be created, what gaps that already exist will only widen for our Alice families. And so that's when we look to our nonprofit partners to come in and help. And that burden will certainly be passed to our donors, our philanthropists in our community who support and fund our nonprofits that will then have to provide those services. Yeah, and that's CEO Courtney Sanchez. She says that the philanthropy, of course, will not be able to feel every gap. Um, some of those things that they're anticipating maybe ended up passing on to the non-profit. So it's really just kind of trying to educate voters and make sure that they know the impacts both ways. Sure. Okay. So let's talk the numbers a little bit. Polling on Amendment 3 is kind of limited. But based on what we have seen from the Tampa Bay Times, it's going to be close on election night. It needs 60%. Yeah, I know. And Mark was just saying about that 50% thing. So one, I was looking at the James Madison Institute and they found that out of seven polls, only one of them actually showed a majority passing with that 60% threshold. However, there are, there is another poll or several other ones that were kind of in that too close to call. There are so There are a number of people who are kind of undecided, and so those voters could end up swinging things one way or another. Most have those who are already decided against it only in the maybe 30% range, so there's still another almost 15% out there that could easily sway this either way, which is fascinating. So they've got about what, less than a week to make a decision. Just a few more days, really, and then you can't do anything on Monday. Yeah, well, no Tuesday. Okay, Brianna, thank you. Brianna, thanks so much.