MWVCAA's Community Resource Program

Revised: January 2019

By Sarah Owens and Michael Livingston

The news from the continuum this week is about "the best", the "all", the "every" and the "enormous" "monumental" and "never before possible" that is the Mid Willamette Valley (MWVCAA)'s Community Resources Program (CRP).  At least that's how it's described in the August report of the MWVCAA's Community Resources Program (CRP), which the website describes as a "two-pronged program consisting of rural resource centers and housing services (RENT, ARCHES, Tenant-Based Assistance, Housing Stabilization Program and Housing Collaborative."

Since March, the CRP has been headed by Jimmy Jones, who succeeded Carmen Hilke, who held the post for less than a year.  Hilke's predecessor was Amber Reeves, who ran the program for several years before stepping down in May 2016 to accommodate her husband, Jon Reeves.  Reeves became Executive Director in May 2015.  Before Amber Reeves, CRP was headed by Carla Cary, who worked on the Marion and Polk County 10-Year Plan to End Homelessness, and is married Jon Weiner.  Weiner is the vice chair of the MWVCAA Board of Directors.   

In 2016, CRP's budget was around $2M.  It more than doubled in 2017, thanks in part to the Oregon legislature's decision to push out more funds for housing and homeless assistance.

To get a feel for what the CRP does with all those resources, we took a look at its monthly report to the MWVCAA Board of Directors.      

CRP claims to be helping Municipal Judge Jane Aiken (sister of United States District Court Judge Ann Akiken) is make progress on her project to create a homeless diversion program.

CRP claims their staff have agreed to enter clients from area shelters into ServicePoint, Oregon's Homeless Management Information System software application.

Just how CRP staff will accomplish this task isn't clear.  Will shelter staff have access to their clients' information in ServicePoint?  Will HUD recognize the arrangement with the shelter as "participation in HMIS" for purposes of the Housing Inventory Count?    

CRP makes strong claims about the benefits of what CRP calls its "Coordinated Entry Program", which has been funded with CoC Program dollars.  The year-old program, which is apparently not "signature" enough to be listed on the CRP webpage, consists entirely of consultation (across the other 26 counties of ROCC) and data collection services (here in Marion & Polk)(referred to in the report as "the research project").  The claims (for instance, the claims that the program has demonstrated "the social utility of a data-driven, research based approach to homeless services" and "had enormous impact on homeless services around the state") are not supported by any data in the report.        

A functional coordinated assessment and entry system (CES) is required for certain HUD programs, and for the effective delivery of homeless assistance.

However, here in Marion and Polk Counties, homeless housing providers as a whole have yet to agree to, or implement, a CES, in part because implementation essentially requires participating providers to use ServicePoint, which, for various reasons, has been a sticking point.  CRP's alleged workaround, whereby CRP staff will enter enter non-participating providers' data themselves, would seem to be both impractical and unsustainable.

In addition to the Community Court project mentioned above, the ServicePoint participation workaround, the Rapid Rehousing, Coordinated Entry, and Veterans Rental Assistance Programs, the Westcare Veterans Home, HRAP and Dallas Resource Center support, the planning/development of the Commercial Street project, RENT tenant education and tenant-based rental assistance to the rural areas (not discussed above), CRP is a "partner" in delivering reentry services in Marion County, and, perhaps more importantly, is supposed to deliver nine different state homeless/housing programs (Emergency Housing Assistance (EHA), EHA-Document Recording Fee, EHA Vet-DRF, Emergency Solutions Grant (ESG) (federal pass-through), Housing Stabilization and Fresh Start Housing Programs (delivered in partnership with DHS), Low Income Rental Housing Fund (LIRHF), State Homeless Assistance Program (SHAP) and Elderly Rental Assistance (ERA)) worth over $2M annually (a rough estimate based on incomplete information), and see to it that MWCAA fulfills its "lead agency" responsibilities to the City of Salem and ROCC Region 7 CoC grantees by ensuring compliance with HUD CoC and ESG program regulations, including homeless outreach efforts (e.g., visiting known homeless encampments and participating in Community Connect, Veterans Stand Down and extreme weather shelter events), expanding ServicePoint participation, establishing a local coordinated assessment and entry system, conducting and reporting on the annual Point in Time Homeless Count and Housing Inventory Count, and making regular program reports to HUD and OHCS.  In addition to all that, CRP staff are expected to lead or participate in community meetings (e.g., Coordinated Entry Work Group, Health and Housing Committee, Salem Homeless Coalition, Emergency Housing Network, as well as meetings like Silverton Together out in the rural areas) and fundraising activities (car washes, golf tournaments, fun runs, etc.), maintain contact with the media (CRP report cites Salem Weekly and The Guardian), and manage an internship program.  All this with a full-time staff of 29, according to the CRP Report.

Should we be impressed?  Well, certainly, CRP is trying to do a very great deal.  But, what everyone really wants to know is whether all this effort and activity is having any effect.  Unfortunately, that question cannot be answered, because, for all its claims about the enormous impact of its programs,  the August CRP report did not include any year-end program information or analysis, but only the last quarter's raw data on individuals served by the state programs, which is just not very informative.  Here's the kind of report you'd expect to see:

      
Here's a sample of the raw data in the report:

If CRP truly believed in "the social utility of a data-driven, research based approach to homeless services", it would be reflected in their current reporting and analysis.  The community doesn't need more hype.  Neither does MWVCAA's Board of Directors.  The August CRP report is mostly hype.  It doesn't begin to provide the information or analysis needed to make a serious assessment.