ROCC vs. Maximum Feasible Participation

Revised: January 2019

 

By Sarah Owens and Michael Livingston

The principle of maximum feasible participation in our publicly-funded institutions is forever under threat, and the Rural Oregon Continuum of Care is no exception.

Maximum feasible participation is a bedrock principle of the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, which created "community action agencies" around the country to fight poverty by empowering the poor, and later, to offer assistance to the homeless under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act.

The reason maximum feasible participation is under attack is because it works.  Or it did, while it was allowed to do so.

Community Action, and its promise of maximum feasible participation of the poor, was about both recognizing the poor as able and perhaps better qualified to make judgments on their needs, as well as recognizing the participatory process itself as a powerful lesson in self-agency and self-respect. However, for many among the poor and among social activists, this recognition of individual capacity to make change translated into capacity to make demands of the state. This part did not jibe so well with many politicians, because to the poor, fighting poverty had to mean more than transformation of the individual into one that was fed, clothed, and educated—people wanted to transform the system. It meant ending discrimination, it meant more jobs and better pay, and it meant pushing local government to improve public services and infrastructure. It was perhaps a passionate desire that could not maintain federal support in a context where the urban poor also happened to be mostly black, and where therefore mobilization of the poor was colored by race and politics. This was how Community Action lost those initial explicit, legal foundations for a different kind of participatory promise, and was molded into a vehicle for service delivery.

For some comfortably well off (a designation that could include homeless housing and services providers with relatively stable funding), empowerment is groovy until people stop being helpless and needy and start wanting to participate in decision-making that affects their community.  Even when participation means no more than attending meetings and observing (which, these days, is what "maximum feasible participation" has come to mean), some will perceive it as threatening.  Thus, the right to attend meetings and observe has come under attack.

At the last meeting of the Rural Oregon Continuum of Care (aka, the Oregon Balance of State CoC), it was announced that the Board of Directors' "retreat" would be closed to non-board members -- meaning non-board members would not be allowed even to observe.  Asked how the decision to close the meeting to non-board members, which appears to have been made not by the board, but by staff, squares with the principle of maximum feasible participation and Sections 1.3, 2.5, 2.7 and 7.2.1 of the ROCC bylaws (which establish a clear and strong policy of transparency, member participation and inclusiveness), staff told us, "the CoC is not a registered non-profit nor does it have any other 501(c)(3) designation.  The CoC is entitled to conduct its meetings as necessary."

The ROCC Bylaws were substantially amended in June 2017.  See here.

That, in legal circles, would be referred to as a non-responsive answer, because it doesn't address the question.  It's also a non-sequitur, as it's irrelevant whether the CoC is "registered" or has a designation under the federal tax code -- it's still responsible to follow its bylaws.  The  answer is also a tautological, in that the decision can't be justified by claiming that the CoC is "entitled" (the claims are essentially the same).

In fact, the decision can't be justified, period.

There is no principled reason not to allow members -- and any other interested persons -- to attend a "retreat" with an agenda that looks like this (at left), and no one with any knowledge or experience in coalition building would dream of excluding from a meeting such as this members of the community who wanted to be included. 

The ROCC board's apparent willingness to sacrifice basic principles, the abdication of its authority to staff, and staff's heavy-handed and arbitrary manner in handling this matter all reflect very badly on ROCC and will no doubt weigh in the decision whether or not Salem/Marion and Polk Counties should re-form a local CoC.  Certainly, ROCC is giving the community little reason to want to stay.

MWHITF: Meeting 10 - Still No Backbone

Revised: December 2018

By Sarah Owens and Michael Livingston

Of the eighteen members still listed on the letterhead, only nine were present for most of the Task Force's January meeting -- not even enough for a quorum.  

For the better part of two hours,  Commissioner Carlson and others went over 20 recommendations, which the Task Force dutifully adopted, except for three that went back to staff to be "reworked."

After directing the Task Force to her January 4 memo, "Implementation Structure Concept" (last two pages), Carlson said Karen Ray was coming back to facilitate the Task Force's final meeting in February.

We're starting to talk with some organizations about where this home might be for this new governance structure, so I'm just going to whet your appetite for what we'll be talking about next time, because Karen Ray will be back to actually facilitate our last meeting [on February 7].  We will be adopting our strategic plan, which Jan Calvin [Marion County Reentry Initiative Project Manager] is helping us put together.  It will include all the recommendations we've voted on so far, plus the few that we said we were going to bring back and work on next time, and any other 'at large' recommendations.  We have tasked the PACE Team to take a look at other communities' plans to end homelessness...and may have a few recommendations to add in, based on what their analysis tells us, and then we'll spend the balance of the meeting talking about pivoting to implementation.

Neither Carlson or Mayor Clark gave any hint who, among those they'd spoken to, had shown any willingness to have their organization play the role of "home" (or "backbone", as it was originally referred to) (or, "Switzerland", as Mayor Clark put it). 

"Implementation Structure Concept"

However, the "Implementation Structure Concept" calls on "participating jurisdictions" to create a "housing commission" and share the cost of a "project manager", which seems to suggest the search for a "home" in an existing institution may have been abandoned.

Salem currently has the Salem Housing Authority Board of Commissioners, which is advised by the Salem Housing Advisory Committee.  There is also the Marion County Board of Commissioners, which oversees the Marion County Housing Authority, the West Valley Housing Authority Board of Commissioners, the Grand Ronde Housing Department, and the Polk Community Development Corporation.  (Salem's Urban Development, Community Services and Housing Commission  (CSHC) was eliminated in January 2018.) 

The podcast of the Willamette Wake Up report on the meeting can be found here. 

Out of the Cold

By Sarah Rohrs

Warming Center at 770 Commercial St

A warming center is, obviously, a place to get out of the cold and warm up. The very name conjures up something temporary, a place to take refuge for a bit before heading back out into the weather.

For more than one hundred homeless people in Salem, a warming center set up in the former Oregon Department of Energy was exactly that – a place to get out of the cold for a few hours.

It was certainly not ideal but it was better than nothing in the recent cold snap when temperatures plunged.

The primary purpose of warming centers is to prevent homeless people from freezing to death.  Last year the Community Action Agency activated the warming shelter only four nights. So far, this season the center has been activated 17 nights.

The decision to activate has something to do with where the mercury falls on the thermometer and for how long. But for anyone sleeping outside, I image that kind of criteria means nothing. If the temperature is just above or below freezing hardly matters.

Most of us could, conceivably, call our homes “warming centers.” After we’ve been outside running errands we can go inside and warm up. The big difference is that we have access to our homes 24/7 . We have hot water, food, a bed with plenty of blankets, plus our possessions under one roof. For the homeless their access to the warming center is restricted to nighttime hours only.

I contemplated all this and more when I volunteered for one four-hour shift at the Salem warming center. As a KMUZ Community Radio volunteer I had heard announcements about the center opening up in late December when the temperatures turned frigid. A fellow radio volunteer posted on Facebook that the centers could not operate without volunteers. Then I saw a notice on this blog about volunteers. I figured I could leave my home for a few hours to help out.

I picked a 7:30 to 11:30 p.m. shift rather than the 11:30 p.m. to 3:30 a.m. shift, or the 3:30 a.m. to 7:30 a.m. shift. I go to bed early. I have no idea how volunteers in the later shifts could stay away in the wee hours of the morning. When I arrived around 7:20pm, I saw a long line of people with their shopping carts, bicycles, pets and other belongings up against the building. It was already freezing outside but they had to wait until all the volunteers were ready inside.

So, I went inside and stood around feeling pretty stupid and useless until our shift’s crew leader, Pam, assembled us all together, showed us around and told us how things operated. She told us that each guest got a number and a bracelet like the kind you get at the hospital. They had to leave their shopping carts and other large items outside, and then got a large plastic bag with a blanket in it to use when they went to sleep. I looked around a large room and saw thin, narrow mats like yoga mats lined up in long rows.

I got assigned to the hot beverage area, a long table with large containers of hot decaf coffee, and hot water for tea and bullion. Two of us in that area also had to clean off tables where people ate, and also straighten out piles of donated jeans, sweaters, coats, gloves and hats. It was easy. Other volunteers had to keep the bathrooms cleaned, check people in and monitor the crowd outside.

Pam had told us about guests with incontinence problems and said adult diapers would be available. One man named Dave clearly had this problem. Both his pant legs were deeply soiled. We had been told to offer to help such people like Dave, coax them to take a shower and put on clean clothes. But I was afraid when I saw him and didn’t do anything.

Other guests finally complained about him smelling so bad. Pam asked a couple of men to help her convince Dave to get cleaned up but they declined. I saw her walk over to where he was laying on a mat but he was apparently asleep and she left him alone.

As people checked in and got their blankets, the room quickly filled up with people claiming their mats on the linoleum floor. Some of the people clearly suffered from mental disorders of various kinds and degrees, such as paranoia and schizophrenia. Some paced around the tables while others sat and laughed and talked to themselves. One man believed he was the owner of the Raiders and spent hours trying to corral garbage bins and other items into one area of the room for the football team. He yelled at me when I told him he couldn’t take an entire box of knitted hats away from the clothing area. To distract him I offered him a pair of clean socks I found and he sat down on the floor to put them on. Then I saw he had a flexible cast on one leg which he laboriously unwrapped and then wrapped up again. When not on his crusade to keep things safe for the Raiders he was quite pleasant and coherent.

Warming Center at frmr DOE Building

As I tried to stay busy, I remembered a recording a fellow KMUZ volunteer made of a woman at the Polk County Connect saying that she had been afraid of homeless people but then came to realize they were just people like everyone else. I kept those words in mind as I talked to guests. I offered to help them find pants in their sizes, or talked with one man about dry skin after he showed me the deep cracks in his chapped fingers. I accompanied one lady to the bathroom because she was afraid someone was hurt inside.

At one table, a group of Latino men laughed and talked. It was nice to see the warming center a spot for laughter and socializing. Someone had given them a cake at “the bridge” which I assumed to mean the Marion Street Bridge, and they seemed to be enjoying themselves as they talked and passed out slices of cake. I assured them I’d clean up after them which I gladly did. At another table, a young couple sat close to one another sharing a container of Ramen noodles they had heated up with the hot water. They huddled together at the table with their hoods and jackets tightly cinched and closed. They looked cold, and tired to the bone. After they ate their meager dinner, they kissed briefly and that kiss seemed more sad than sweet.

At 10 p.m., the lights dimmed. Most of the guests were already settled on their mats, some even in some semblance of night clothes. I watched one woman writing in her journal and her male companion reading a book. Some guests snored and others fidgeted and complained about their neighbors.

Center volunteers continuously walked up and down the lines of mats, often settling minor disputes and asking people to quiet down. Around the front door, some guests had a last smoke before trying to get to sleep and others kept going outside, worried about their shopping carts.

I was grateful when my shift was over but felt vaguely guilty as I got into a car, blasted the heat and then drove to my “warming center,” a home I found conspicuously well heated when I got inside. Other than keep sugar bowls full and tables clean I felt I did very little to help the guests out in any meaningful way. I was grateful they were able to get out of the cold, and grateful for the more experienced social workers in the room who were able to work with them on a more one-on-one basis.

I certainly had no say, nor input into the welcoming center, nor did I do anything to help get it started, staffed or stocked with a myriad number of donated items. Still, I was a bit sad at the narrow, thin mats the guests slept on, and how close those mats were placed together. It seemed heartless that the guests would be back out into the cold in the morning. It took the city of Salem and social service organizations weeks to get this temporary facility open and running. I’m glad it was available, but it’s hardly any kind of solution to the large number of homeless people outside in the winter. What will it take for something more permanent or at least more comfortable?

Minutes 1/17/17

January 17, 2017

Minutes

p	Bruce Hoffman, Chair	e	Woody Dukes	p	Brock Campbell
p	Michael Livingston, Vice Chair	p	Bob Hanna	P	Bill Holmstrom
p	Sarah Owens, Secretary-Treasurer	p	Neal Kern	e	David Dahle
p	Erma Hoffman	p	Rebekah Engle

p=present a=absent e=excused

Residents: Hank Stebbins, Rob Uplinger

Organizations: Andrew Tull, 3J Consulting, Inc; Dan Edwards; Brian McMahon; Alan Alexander, Salem Parks Foundation

City and County Representatives: Officers Kevin Hill and Josh Edmiston, SPD  

Guests: none

The regular meeting of the CanDo Board of Directors was called to order at 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday, January 17, 2017, at the First Christian Church at 685 Marion Street NE, Salem.  The Chair and Secretary-Treasurer were present.

The minutes of the November meeting were approved by unanimous consent.

Officer Hill reported that the holiday season downtown was thankfully uneventful and that during the recent periods of severe cold, his officers were actively looking for residents living outside, under bridges and on the street to move them into the shelters and warming centers, often providing transportation.  

The Chair reported that Councilor Kaser had written the board to say she could not be present for the meeting but would attend in February.  (Note: her email included information about several  community events, including the Salem Reads program, the City’s strategic planning open house, and the appeals to LUBA of the Council’s decision to expand the Urban Growth Boundary.)

There followed presentations by Alan Alexander about the good work of the Salem Parks Foundation, and by Andrew Tull, Dan Edwards and Brian McMahon about “Emerald Garden Estates”, a new memory care and independent living facility being planned for 901 Front Street NE along the Willamette River.  The plan calls for the 2-building, 98,000 sf facility, which will require a conditional use permit, to replace warehouses on 3.88 acres and be oriented toward the river.  The plan also includes some form of public right of way along the river on the west side of the facility, and from Front Street to the river along Mill Creek. The board was generally receptive to the plan as presented.         

There being no other business before the board, the meeting should have been adjourned at 7:04 p.m.

Beyond the PIT Count

Revised: January 2019

 

By Sarah Owens and Michael Livingston

Marion and Polk Counties are preparing for the 2017 Point-in-Time Homeless Count.  

Out in Polk County, they're getting ready for another Polk Community Connect event.  They're also going to hold a community forum on homelessness on January 19 out in Dallas (same location as the Connect). 

The PIT Count exists because the federal government seeks to allocate resources based on data.  To help us understand how we as a community might better meet the need for data, we've been corresponding with Jimmy Jones, who told us the PIT Count methodology used in Marion and Polk Counties needs some attention.

He pointed us to Yakima County, WA, and a pretty good story about the struggles Yakima County has had in getting good PIT Count numbers.  He said their population is about 250,000—which is smaller than what we have in Marion-Polk (about 400,000).  He told us, "It’s a very rural county in most regards, and getting folks in a central location to count them has been a struggle—not unlike what we’ve seen outside the urban footprint here in Marion-Polk." 

He also told us that, nationally, the counted homeless population in an urban area is between about .3 and .6 percent of the total population, and that using those figures, Marion-Polk should be counting between 1,200 to 2,400 homeless -- which are the “hard homeless”, meaning people living outside or in shelter.  He said, "assuming Marion-Polk has a roughly low-to-moderate [homelessness] rate (let’s say .38 percent), we should expect to count about 1,520."

"The actual number of 'hard homeless' is very likely closer to 2,000-2,200.  A full picture of homelessness in Marion-Polk would include people at all levels of vulnerability", he wrote.

Vulnerability is measured using intake assessment tools with names like "Vulnerability Index - Service Provider Data Assessment Tool" and "Vulnerability Assessment Tool", about which we've blogged previously.

And, Jones said, for every "literally homeless" individual (Category 1 below), one should expect to find another in Category 3 or 4.

"I think we can say that, at any given point, there are between  4,000 and 4,500 homeless folks (under all definitions) in Marion-Polk, which would make the homeless exactly .1 percent of the total population, which is a very conservative and reasonable estimate."

Jones also told us that Yakima has managed to cut their numbers considerably for several reasons:

1. They embraced coordinated entry and created a homeless network provider service.
2. They partnered with the housing authority, which gave them 100 vouchers for homeless clients,
3. They developed a good diversion plan, which targeted non-chronic populations (temporarily homeless folks). 

Jone wants to see Marion and Polk providers  embrace coordinated entry, and work collaboratively to improve the way they deliver of homeless housing and services.  To do that, though, they require data to assess need, both the type and the severity, and to support the allocation of additional resources.

Jones says good PIT Count numbers aren't sufficient.  So, since October 2016, he's been gathering other data by conducting intensive interviews with everyone seeking homeless services in our area.  He's assessed more than 450 residents (both counties), and expects to assess another 1,200 within the year.  Read more about his work and what he's finding here.    

Competing for Salem's Federal Funds

Revised: December 2018

By Sarah Owens and Michael Livingston

[Originally posted under the title, "Salem's Social Spending."]

Former Ward 6 Councilor Benjamin

"The Council needs to find out who's getting the [City's social service] funds and what they're supposed to be doing with it."

--Daniel Benjamin, August 2015

The holidays are over, and it's the time of year that area housing and social services providers who've applied to the City of Salem for funding start getting anxious, as the Urban Development Community Services and Housing Commission (CSHC) begin reviewing and ranking their applications.

Funding recommendations are usually completed in February and thereafter incorporated in a draft Annual Action Plan.  In May, the Plan's approved by the Council for submission to HUD.

Despite the public nature of the review/approval process is, it's not all that easy to follow where this money goes, as Councilor Benjamin's comment indicates.  But it helps to know that the same organizations and programs tend to be funded year in and year out.

There used to be two advisory boards to review grant applications, but since 2015, there's been just one -- the CSHC.  Last year, CSHC had about $2M to allocate among all the applicants.  That was $643,090 in HOME funds and $748,579 + $201,950 in CDBG funds, plus another $398,000 from the City of Salem General Fund.  The funds to be allocated are always divided into two big pots.  Think of the biggest pot being for housing and economic development, the smaller pot for social services.    

The Big Pot

The 2016-17 pot for housing and economic development was about $1.4M ($643,090 in HOME funds and $748,579 in CDBG funds).  As best we can determine based on minutes, staff reports and the Annual Action Plan, $440,710 of the $1.4M went to rehab Jason Lee Manor, a senior housing facility; $340,000 went to rehab Shelly's House, a women's transitional reentry housing facility; $320,000 went to Salem Interfaith Hospitality Network for a tenant-based rental assistance program called "Fresh Start"; $125,790 went toward Salem Housing Authority's South Fair apartments to convert under-used daycare space into two housing units; $30,000 went to operate Catholic Community Services Foundation's Community Housing Development Organization, and $288,770 went to four "economic development" programs to provide technical assistance to 32 small businesses, 9 people welding training and job placement, and at least 6 small business loans.  The balance went, we think, to administrative costs and reserves.

The Small Pot

This is the pot Councilor Benjamin wanted to know about.  The pot that concerned Mayor Peterson  August 2015, because it goes to social service agencies that, in her mind, "draw people into the downtown area" and yet "don't feel a sense of responsibility for the result" (panhandling).  Put another way, this is the pot that some see as a giant handout for which there is no accountability.  

2016-17 pot for social services was about $.6M ($398,000 in General Funds and $201,950 in CDBG funds).  Of the CDBG funds, the Center for Hope and Safety received $87,990 (case management), Congregations Helping People received $56,480 (subsistence payments), and Salem Interfaith Hospitality Network received $57,480 (case management).  Much of the General Fund allocation went, as usual, for case management: Mano-a-Mano received $30,000, Mid-Willamette Valley Community Action Agency received $30,000, St. Francis Shelter received $30,000, and Northwest Human Services - HOST received $35,000.  In addition, NWHS received $110,000 for their crisis hotline, Marion/Polk Food Share received $142,000 for food, and Congregations Helping People received another $20,000 for subsistence payments.  This distribution is pretty typical. 

2017 Competition

As the CSHC prepares to make its 2017 recommendations, it will have substantially less to work with from the big pot.  Recall that last fall, the City Council committed $400,000 in 2017 HOME funds to Mountain West's affordable housing project on Portland Road.  Tonight, they will commit another $500,000 in 2017 CDBG funds for the Salem Housing Authority's affordable housing renovation of Yaquina Hall.  Investing in affordable housing is definitely what the City needs to do, but this does leave only about half a million in the pot for other projects, including tenant-based rental assistance.

2015-19 Con Plan Goals

The City's Consolidated Plan priorities place promoting economic development above ending homelessness and providing affordable housing.  That's one element of the competition.  But housing and homeless providers also have to compete against each other.  It's become part of the social services culture in Salem.

Last November and December, Chief Moore observed that, among Salem's non-profits, "it's survival of the fittest.  They may all be trying to do the same thing, but they're battling each other, and they're not really coordinating amongst themselves."   Jon Reeves and Bruce Bailey, directors of Mid-Willamette Valley Community Action Agency and Union Gospel Mission, both nodded in agreement when he said that, even as Commissioner Carlson and Mayor Clark were laughing, as if someone had just said something funny.

MWVCAA Dir. Jon Reeves

"It's not just the non-profit organizations", Reeves said.  "If the government doesn't change its practice, if our local jurisdictions don't come to the table in a different way, we're never going to get anywhere with this issue."

It would have been helpful for him to have said what, exactly, change he was looking for, but he didn't, and, typically, no one asked him.  But let's guess he was calling for government to hold non-profit housing and social services organizations accountable for the resources entrusted to them, which would include requiring them to coordinate, which is demonstrably not what they're doing now.  That would be a good start.

It's too late this year to incorporate preferences and performance measures -- the applications are all in and the review process has begun.  But it's not too late for next year.

The Oft-Ignored Duties of the CSHC under SRC Chapter 20G

As it happens, the City Council has already charged a commission to carry out this sort of function -- the CSHC.  No entity is better positioned to know the strengths and weaknesses of  programs, or use that knowledge to favor the most effective/collaborative, than the entity responsible for resource allocation.

So why has the CSHC not been seen to be fulfilling these duties?  The Commission was never even mentioned in MWHITF proceedings, much less consulted as to the "social service needs of the community", or the efforts it's attempted "toward exchanging information for the purpose of coordinating social service delivery systems..."  That's partly because it hasn't actually done those things, but followed in the footsteps of its predecessor, the Social Services Advisory Board, who also failed in this regard, because they claimed not to have the time.  Imagine the Planning Commission trying to get away with that.   

It comes down to this.  The real reason the CSHC hasn't fulfilled its duties is because City staff and the City Council haven't required them to.  Maybe, that's some of what Mr. Reeves meant -- that government has to change its expectations of housing and social services providers by asking more of boards and commissions like the CSHC, on whom they depend to do what would otherwise be their work.

If the CSHC requires more guidance from the Council to get them started, then the Council should give it to them.  But, unless the Council asks the CSHC to fulfill all its duties under SRC Chapter 20G, the CSHC is probably going to continue to meet only its "minimum requirements" as dictated by staff.  If the Council isn't willing to work with CSHC to raise the standards of its work, it probably doesn't need another commission, either.

Does Salem Need a Homelessness Commission?

Revised: December 2019

By Sarah Owens and Michael Livingston

The Salem Breakfast on Bikes blog  reports that, according to a recent phone survey, homelessness ranks high in the list of concerns that Salem residents want the City to address.

The survey also said that, "When asked in an open-ended format what issue is most important for city leaders to address, 21% mentioned an issue relating to housing or homelessness.  This is a 13 percentage point increase since this question was asked in May 2016." 

SBOB was given a copy by "a reader", but were eventually posted to the City's website.

The increased concern between May and December is pretty predictable, being attributable at least in part to the onset of cold weather, charitable holiday activities, and media attention.   Happens every winter and dissipates every spring.

Statesman Journal

Salem has a new mayor.  According to a recent interview with him on KMUZ's Willamette Wake Up and the Statesman Journal, Bennett is thinking of creating a commission on homelessness.  Does Salem need another commission?  Can such a commission replace, enhance or coordinate any existing  organizations? 

SRC Chapter 20G

The Urban Development, Community Services and Housing Commission (CSHC) is charged under SRC Chapter 20G to execute certain duties that it does not currently fulfill.  Would those duties be given over to the new commission?  Why? 

Salem's Ward 1 has a new councilor.  Cara Kaser also takes an interest in homelessness, but her interest, according to the Statesman Journal, is in "tackling homelessness in the downtown area", taking "action as opposed to planning for a silver bullet solution."  What "action" does she have in mind?  What did she mean by "silver bullet solution"?  Is she talking with the mayor about his homelessness commission idea?      

Statesman Journal

Governor Brown told the Statesman Journal that our new mayor "gets how government works" and has priorities that include affordable housing and the needs of the homeless in Salem.  

That's good to know.  

Whether the City should work through an existing board or commission or create a new one remains to be seen.  We just want to see the City do more to live up to its responsibilities to address the needs of its homeless residents by ensuring effective housing and homeless services delivery.