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.