News from the Continuum

Revised: January 2019

By Sarah Owens and Michael Livingston

Photo Courtesy Landlordology.com

The Salem Housing Authority (SHA) this month completed the purge/update of its Housing Choice Voucher (aka Section 8) waitlist that we reported on a while back.  As expected, the waitlist has been reduced substantially -- from ~9,000 to ~3,660, and the wait has been reduced from >3 years to around 2 years.  That reduction, along with the proposed modifications to the PHA plan, is likely to inspire more households to put their names on the list and cause the list to grow again.

The proposed PHA Plan modifications are intended to lower some of the barriers that low income households in this area have faced in trying to access public housing assistance.  They include standardization of criminal history criteria, changing the definition of "family" to include an individual person and changing the waitlist preferences from a points-based system, to date and time plus local preferences.

SHA is not proposing to modify  existing local preferences, which include referred veterans, chronically disabled homeless individuals, households victimized by domestic violence and homeless households (see left).        

The Statesman Journal is reporting that Home for Heroes, WestCare's 30-bed facility for homeless veterans (located where the former Salem Outreach Shelter used to be before it closed in 2013) will be opening "soon." 

ROCC meets monthly by video-conference.  This is a typical meeting.

In other SHA news, Pamala Garrick, SHA Grants Coordinator, was elected to the ROCC board of directors at its April meeting.  At that meeting, the ROCC, aka OR-505 Balance of State CoC, also voted to adopt "basic HMIS policies" to support implementation of a system of coordinated entry in each of its regions by HUD's January 23, 2018 deadline.  Judging by the directors' comments and questions, during the meeting, there is not universal enthusiasm or buy-in for this project, which is supposed to begin May 1st, and basically just expands the "system" that MWVCAA and Jimmy Jones are trying to implement in Marion and Polk Counties, without noticeable success.

Whether everyone on the ROCC board even understands what a coordinated entry system is, remains to be seen.  There is still widespread confusion in the community about what ROCC is, and isn't.  This is Keizer Mayor Clark and City Councilor Kim Freeman, both members of the Mid Willamette Homeless Initiative Task Force, talking about the ROCC during a recent work session on the MWHI Strategic Plan (at ~36:00):

Mayor Clark: Talking about the continuum of care, and this is working with the uh, uh, Marion Polk CCO, uh, [makes face] help me with the acronym.

Kim Freeman:  Are you thinking ROCC?  With Jo?

Mayor Clark: Yeah.

Kim Freeman: I know it as ROCC, so, [pause] regional...

Mayor Clark:  That's rural, that's the rural, uhm...

Kim Freeman: Yeah.