It’s been a brutal year,” Tacoma Community College President Pamela Transue told a room full of people who knew it all too well.

It was quite the opening line for the first-ever Community Needs Forecast gathering put on by the United Way of Pierce County, held last week at The Evergreen State College’s Tacoma campus.

But who better to grasp the message than the people who have been trying to catch folks falling through what’s left of the social services safety net.

To regroup under dire conditions, a community needs a clear picture of how things are and where they are likely to head, said Pam Duncan-Pierce, who organized the Tuesday event.

The self-proclaimed data geek admires the Chamber’s annual economic forecasts. She figured the community needed a similar meeting with a wider group of nonprofits and government agencies.

“People have to be talking,” she said. “I consider this a companion piece to the economic forecast, bringing together people who don’t usually talk.”

Rick Allen, president of United Way of Pierce County, led with the lousy numbers. In two years, calls to the agency’s 211 emergency services line have nearly doubled.

In May, 976 people called needing help with utility bills. Another 975 needed rent or mortgage assistance; 215 were desperate for affordable housing; 200 needed emergency shelter, and 137 needed food.

In this economy, money is going to emergency services, food and shelter, instead of prevention and what Allen called “long-term, visionary work.”

So United Way is developing a network of advocates to support that work as funding becomes available. It’s building a strong volunteer corps, from teens to seniors. Last year, he said, those volunteers delivered $5 million worth of work to the community.

Federal anti-poverty money has the same effect, but only if it’s used, said Leo Ribas, director of the Department of Social and Health Services’ Community Services Division.

The federal food stamp program distributed $1.2 billion to 400,000 families state-wide last year, Ribas said. The money went straight and fast to grocery stores, and their suppliers. It fed hungry kids, and generated economic development from agriculture to retail.

Statewide, 80 percent of eligible families get food stamps.

“Twenty percent of families who need these benefits aren’t accessing them,” Ribas said. “That’s 100,000 families who could bring in $270 million in federal funds.”

Get the word to these people, he said. Do it through libraries, food banks, schools. Be innovative.

Better yet, said Linda Nguyen, CEO of Workforce Central, give people skills to hold the jobs of the future. That future is green, with emphasis on energy-efficient products, renewable energy and pollution prevention.

She sees keeping kids in school, and graduating them with solid math and science skills, as crucial. Tom Hilyard, director of Pierce County Community Services, concurred. So did Bill Dickens, economist with Tacoma Public Utilities.

Cutting the dropout rate led Dickens’ list of Pierce County priorities. Using public transportation ranked second. Keeping Russell Investments in Tacoma was a strong third.

Tom Spilman, president of KeyBank’s South Puget Sound District, agreed.

“We have to put every effort into keeping Russell,” he said. “The loss of Russell could put the Pierce County economy back 10 years.”

Tough as it’s been, Dickens sees a rosy light down the tunnel.

“I’m fairly optimistic about our short-term economy,” he said. “We will see growth occurring in 2009.”

So what does a community do with this kind of thinking, once it’s on the table?

United Way will take it on the road.

Duncan-Pierce is organizing Community Road Shows sponsored by United Way, the DSHS and the U.S. Census Bureau. They’ll post the cities and dates on the United Way Web site, www.uwpc.org.

Beginning July 22, they’ll host a monthly Community Cafe every fourth Thursday from 7:30 to 9 a.m. at Tacoma Urban League, 2550 S. Yakima Ave.

It has been a brutal year. But work’s under way to fix that, and we are all welcome to be part of it.

Kathleen Merryman: 253-597-8677

kathleen.merryman@thenewstribune.com