News from the Continuum

Revised: January 2019

By Sarah Owens and Michael Livingston

The plan to remove benches from outside Liberty Plaza has been executed.  Still have no information on the process used to make the  decision, or who at the City made it, or, for that matter, where the benches might have ended up.  On the up side, the alley just east of the photo to the left now sports a mural and three toilets.

On the City Council's agenda for Monday night is an information report ("paper") on the sobering center the City hopes one day to have, likely, but not necessarily, somewhere in CANDO, modeled on the one in Grants Pass.  Interestingly, the City projects that the center's annual operating costs will be more than twice ($600-$700K) what Grants Pass says its annual operating costs are ($250K-$300K).  The centers look to be about the same size, so its not clear what, other than location, makes the Salem center cost so much more.

There was talk that the sobering center might co-locate with The ARCHES Project at 615 Commercial Street NE, just north of Marion Square Park, in the building that the Mid Willamette Valley Community Action Agency (MWVCAA) recently purchased.  Even assuming that the co-location of sobering and day centers somehow makes program sense (which we would not have thought), the project seems iffy.  The building requires extensive renovations to the first floor (SWAG $1 to $1.5M), for which -- as of two weeks ago -- there was no money or plan.  Then there's the problem of having to partner with MWVCAA.

Despite the fact that Oregon law established community action agencies as the delivery system for all federal anti-poverty funds, they do not have a good track record.  Through the years, MWVCAA has tended not to plan, or not to plan effectively, which means it's tended to make decisions in crisis mode, like when the lease is up,  the money is gone, a deadline looms, or freezing temperatures are forecast.  As the public's partner, MWVCAA lacks transparency and accountability.  That's somewhat the fault of the City, the larger community, and, of course, the MWVCAA board, for not expecting more than we do.  But, is it really that hard to publish the occasional program management report?

For a long time, we didn't even know such reports existed.  However, federal regulations (effective last fall) started requiring the meetings of Head Start governing bodies (e.g., the MWVCAA board) to be made public, including access to meeting materials.  Before, the only way we were likely to hear about a program involving MWVCAA was a casual oral "update" at some meeting, or through one of its partners, e.g., this report from the Salem Housing Authority on the Veterans' Rental Assistance Program or VRAP. 

So, as there are, presently, no partners and no business plan for 615 Commercial Street NE, let's talk about what people are hoping for.  ARCHES staff are hoping for more showers and laundry facilities than they had at the Madison Street location and that renovations be completed by the end of summer.  Dan Sheets is hoping to move Meals Under the Bridge indoors, at least during the winter.  CANDO is hoping for a locker or other secured storage program.  Let's guess that the SPD are hoping for a medically controlled space where the dangerously intoxicated can be monitored until they come to their senses.  Probably, everyone is hoping for a one-stop homeless resources center modeled on the Dallas Community Resource Center in Polk County.    

As if we needed reminding how challenging any of that will be, last Sunday night, a compressor on top of the Academy building -- home to the Dallas Community Resource Center -- malfunctioned and flooded the sprinkler system on the third floor.  The water eventually reached the lower floors, soaking walls, carpets, floors/sub-floors and anything absorbent in its way.

That's the sort of thing people don't plan for, and yet they must.  The point is that hosting a resource center is major, major undertaking, even when it's well-planned, and contingencies are backed up by other county departments.