March 6, 2007 Minutes (City Commission Room, City Hall)
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MEMBERS PRESENT: |
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Hubbard Collinsworth, Katherine Dinsdale, Phil Hemphill, Rick Marquez, Shirley Martin-Smith, Mike Monroe, Robert Mosely |
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MEMBERS ABSENT: |
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Jane Faubion, Kim Gouge, Helen Hartnett, Loring Henderson |
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STAFF PRESENT: |
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Alicia Ellingson and Lesley Rigney |
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PUBLIC PRESENT: |
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Jeannette Collier, Wes Dalberg, Charlotte Knoche, Norm Scraper, Bill Simms, Teresa Staskal |
Martin-Smith called the meeting to order at 8:35 am.
Introductions
Members and public introduced themselves.
Approval of the February 13, 2007 Minutes
Collinsworth moved to approve the February 13, 2007 minutes. Mosely seconded the motion, which passed.
Community Cooperation Committee Annual Report
Sara Taliaferro, Chair of the Community Cooperation Committee (CCC), said the group has built an action plan and set several goals. They have started mediating the Good Neighbor Agreement between Oread Neighborhood Association, Lawrence Community Shelter and Downtown Lawrence, Inc. The group is putting together a description of the mediation process, getting trained as mediators, and will be available to organizations with a need or interest in their services.
Martin-Smith asked what the goals for the CCC are in 2007.
Taliaferro said the focus is mediation - the group said even before being asked to facilitate the Good Neighbor Agreement that this was an emphasis. It will entail time, training, and money. As the CCC is putting together an outreach packet, they will want CCH involvement. Their current activity level is not something they can sustain for the long term, with the meetings and the homework in between, but the materials they are developing will help with future agreements.
Martin-Smith thanked Taliaferro and CCC members.
Shelter and Housing Options Discussion
Martin-Smith said she met last week with several people – Teresa Staskal, Charlotte Knoche, Krista Lee and NR staff. They put together the table that was handed out. She asked Rigney to explain the handouts.
Rigney said at the last CCH meeting, the group reviewed the numbers from the homeless count. After manually checking surveys and eliminating all duplications the numbers are slightly changed. The newest count summary is correct.
Knoche clarified that the chronically homeless number is based on disabilities?
Rigney said yes, the HUD definition for chronically homeless was used.
Knoche reiterated that HUD only qualifies someone as chronically homeless if they have a disabling condition.
Rigney said with regard to the other handout, the small group reviewed these latest estimates and considered the best possible housing options for the population. This was the result.
Collier said the largest challenge is getting people from the emergency shelter into homes.
Rigney explained that the emergency temporary housing is a way to bypass the emergency shelter. These are some people who may not move right into transitional housing but the emergency shelter is not the best option either.
Knoche stated that many eligible people do not actually use the voucher to get housing. A lot of people on the transitional housing list are terrified and many do not have the financial means to afford their housing. They just will not use the voucher. They get two opportunities for the voucher and if they do not use it, they are dropped from the waiting list and have to start over in the process.
Dalberg asked how long is temporary?
Rigney said it has not been defined. It may be differing lengths for different people.
Krista Lee stated that with damages, if there is a case worker that can visit every week, they will know if there are damages occurring or if they need additional help. One of the main points with the vouchers is it does not have the stigma that a particular location might have. But if another source of funds can be identified, it would make more sense to invest in bricks and mortar, than vouchers.
Knoche agreed that if it could be sustained, vouchers would be best. But with a voucher, you have $100,000 and then it is gone. Those funds could be invested in a permanent unit.
Dalberg clarified that only 45% of the time are applicants using the TBRA vouchers.
Knoche said that is where the outreach team has been so helpful. LDCHA wanted everyone in a service of some sort from the time they apply. There are other things they have to do, like pay utilities, or apply or reapply for Social Security. These are things that they just let lapse, but with some assistance from the outreach workers they can get back on track.
Dalberg said it takes a lot of time.
Dinsdale said that her church recently helped a woman through WTCS. They are helping get her funds and have her in a Section 8 approved apartment that they will pay for until she receives a Section 8 voucher. So that puts her in emergency temporary housing as described in the handout.
Knoche said the CCH needs to get an RFP out and ask groups to come forward and say what they would offer.
Dinsdale said her church group is not truly providing the services and counseling, but are helping with friendship and assistance.
Knoche said the community needs a scattered-site model. That would work best for the families. A lot of people who come in need housing now, and find out that they have to wait 18 months to two years.
Martin-Smith said she does not think that each category needs to be described in detail. With these numbers, we can see how many units are needed in general. For the emergency shelter, we know we do not need a 200 capacity facility; we have a pretty constant number. We have the concepts; now we can see who in the community can help address them.
Rigney said that another point to consider is that these numbers could be off. There is a high margin of error with these types of counts and even if the group agrees that the community needs a shelter with a capacity of only 50, it can only be done if the other units described are available.
Martin-Smith said that the point is to move towards housing and away from emergency shelter.
Knoche said as a community, we need to be sure not to institutionalize the shelter. Some people are in shelters for years and years. Then it has become a halfway house, not a shelter.
Martin-Smith said we came up with an emergency plan. We had a temporary emergency fix, which has become the plan. We need to find a real plan.
Marquez asked if 50 to be served by a shelter is high or low?
Rigney said possibly low. There are people who have been there so long that they do not want to consider leaving, but that could be avoided in the future if there was a plan to get them moving out before they sit down and get attached.
Dalberg estimated that there is a current need for 100 shelter beds but he stated that there will not be many families who do not want to move out of the shelter. That would be rare.
Rigney asked how many of the 100 would not want to move out of the shelter and into the emergency temporary option?
Collier said she does not know - many people would consider the temporary emergency housing if it was available. The community needs that option.
Dalberg said that there are some that cannot be on their own due to problems or chronic homelessness.
Martin-Smith said we are not going to succeed at moving 100% of people out of the shelter even with the rehabilitative model.
Knoche stated that the support aspect is important here. If services are available, they may help people get to where they want to move on.
Dalberg said that service providers cannot say how many people would really want to move on because right now it is not an option.
Rigney asked what would be a good number of units to start with.
Knoche said 10-15 rooms for the housing first model.
Collier suggested considering what the needs truly are and to consider that there are currently no funding streams for emergency temporary housing.
Rigney said the group is going to have to think outside of the continuum for funding opportunities. In April, there will be a grants specialist available to talk to the group. She is with e-Civis, the city’s grant search program. She said the last time she was here that there are more funds available for the bricks and mortar. If there is a concrete plan in place, we can start searching for funds.
Martin-Smith said the CCH needs to get a plan and go to the city with it and say “this is what we need.” But we cannot worry about the City Commission. We need a plan and to figure out how to sustain it. While housing first may not be the right answer, the conversation is moving in that direction. The community does not know what we can do with the services we already have. We need to integrate homeless at all different stages in the community.
Rigney asked if it would be helpful to define the next step. Does the group want to come up with all the ways this temporary housing could look so people can see options? Or do they want to complete the emergency shelter component, with everything that is needed for it?
Martin-Smith said first, we need to see if this is a model we want to start with. Is this handout the basis for our discussion, or are we leaving out parts?
Collinsworth said this is the best idea that has come forward in any meeting he has been in. Whatever you name this plan, it works. He can name people who have been in the shelters, who if this program were in place, problems and all, they would be out the door.
Knoche asked what the group needs to do to create this action?
Collinsworth said we need to get Bert Nash, DCCCA and the jobs component to the table. Job training, vocational, education - all of it is needed. He knows it is going to take time, but if the CCH brought this to the community, they would say let’s go.
Martin-Smith said if we assume these services are available, which we know they are, then is the discussion first around the emergency temporary housing? How do we build this and the emergency shelter services to start?
Knoche said we need a better coalition to contact groups to help them match up.
Dinsdale said her group does not currently do this for more than one family at a time due to the uncertainty of when a voucher will come through. They feel comfortable helping for 6 months – but what if it is 10 or more? It is scary to commit to helping if we do not know how long.
Scraper suggested the group consider the Shelter + Care model that Topeka is currently using.
Enoch said there are two specific things the CCH should do. If it will only take $500,000 to house the waiting list, it could be raised from the community by writing letters to get the money now. Second, we could bring enough people of good will together, from organizations like Bert Nash and DCCCA and realtors who might give units. She urged the group to set up a committee for fund raising today.
Mosely asked if anyone is working with the landlords’ association. We have enough vacant housing in the city right now. We need to do something now.
Collier said we need to find a way to subsidize it. People are spending money to pay for hotel rooms. We would save money having a more permanent place or apartment building in place.
Knoche asked about tax credits.
Collier said we either need lower rent, or to be able to subsidize the remaining amount, or tax credits.
Hemphill said the reason landlords do not get involved is if someone trashes the apartment, who pays for it? If that happens one time, the landlord will never come back.
Knoche said the Housing Authority has seen this time and time again. We have picture after picture of people who move out of a shelter into a home and the first thing they do is trash it. They have a celebratory party and it is ruined.
Staskal said she deals with this by staying very involved with her tenants. She is holding their hands walking them through it. She is very close with Pelathe tenants, and is in their units one or two times a week.
Knoche said we have got to have that component. If we do this scatter method, we have to have that contact.
Staskal said if they know that they have someone coming through all the time, they will keep it in better shape.
Martin-Smith brought the discussion back to the CCH. She stated that in June, the group has to go with a start to the CC. What do we do to get there? What do we do at our next meeting? Where do we go from here in terms of the housing component?
Rigney said she thinks the group is getting to the outreach component that they placed in their timeline. They should be getting ready to do focus groups with landlords and whoever else to find out what they can help us with. If this is a community project, others will be more likely to jump on board. We need to find out what others in the community are able or willing to do.
Collier asked Dalberg if emergency temporary housing is something that could be supported by the Salvation Army, if project based.
Dalberg said he likes the concept.
Collier asked if the organization overall would support this idea of temporary housing?
Dalberg said sure.
Collier asked if there are Salvation Army models elsewhere?
Dalberg said he would have to do some research.
Rigney said if 100 emergency temporary units is the ballpark figure, the need will not be served by one or two organizations.
Collier agreed and stated that we need to provide different options, for people with different needs.
Hemphill said landlords may take more interest if they see the training people have gone through. If they go through training first and it works, and we know people will not get to us until they have some preparation, it might work.
Collinsworth asked for a list of HUD requirements for Section 8 properties. If we go out with a list and say can you do this, or what would you need to do this, would that be helpful?
Dinsdale clarified that we do not need that for the emergency temporary housing units but we would need that for them to stay with a Section 8 voucher.
Knoche said if we are going to ask landlords to offer up properties, maybe we offer landlords funds to renovate the property, for improvements. That can be the incentive.
Martin-Smith said if we are looking at the concept for the temporary emergency housing. We need to forget the number, and look at the concept. If we need the shelter component, we need to work on it fairly quickly along with the other piece.
It was decided to hold committee meetings (emergency shelter and emergency transitional housing) before the next CCH meeting March 27. Rigney will send out meeting notices.
Adjourn
The meeting adjourned at 10:16 am.