News from the Continuum

Revised: January 2019

By Sarah Owens and Michael Livingston

Inaugural Mtg of the North Salem SIT

Better than expected turnout for the very first meeting of the North Salem Service Integration Team this past Wednesday at Center 50+.  We counted over 50 people (continuing arrivals) and 34 organizations (not counting the programs, just the orgs).  The teams are modeled on the long-lived Polk County program.  (Polk County Service Integration staff generously assisted in the development of the pilot program in Marion County.)

As we reported earlier this year, the North Salem SIT is a Salem Health pilot project.   

In addition to Center 50+, participants at the North Salem SIT meeting included Salem Heath, Shangri-La (fiscal agent), Easter Seals, Options Counseling, Catholic Community Services, Northwest Human Services (Clinics, HOAP and Info/Crisis Hotline), the Salvation Army, the Salem Police Department (Crisis Response Team), Marion County District Attorney's Office, Marion Polk Food Share, the Oregon Department of Human Services, West Valley Hospice, the Salem YMCA, PH Tech, Mano a Mano Family Center, Family Building Blocks, Cherriots, Northwest Seniors and People with Disabilities, New Horizons In-home Care, Mid-Willamette Valley Community Action Agency (The ARCHES Project and Head Start), Salem Free Clinic, West Valley Community Health, Childhood Heath Associates of Salem, Yakima Valley Farm Workers Clinic/Lancaster Family Health Center at Beverly, Houck Middle School, CANDO, KMUZ Community Radio, Salem Leadership Foundation and Salem Alliance Church.

Yesterday, Saturday, the Salem City Council met in a work session to discuss the strategic plan goals and to "get to work and review all of the input we have received", most recently during the "Community Open House" on June 1st.

All the Council except Councilor McCoid attended the session, along with the City Manager, 12 staff, 2 consultants, and 11 members of the public.

Of most interest to us were the goals and strategies to address affordable housing, social services and homelessness issues.  According to the staff report, "There is greater community need for social services, specifically for homeless shelters and food assistance, than there are currently services and funding to address [it].  There is also a lack of service coordination, strategic funding and accurate, comprehensive data."  Linked to the staff report are two long lists of affordable housing and social services strategy ideas, color-coded to indicate which strategies the work group was most interested in pursuing.  The goals to be implemented are pretty simple:

The staff summary of the work group's strategic plan recommendations:

The last paragraph about engaging the Urban Development, Community Services and Housing Commission was not discussed.

During the work session, Councilor Kaser had this to say about the "maximize resources for and coordination of local social services" strategy:

This is actually something I've been asked about a lot, at least in Ward 1, at my neighborhood groups, and just people contacting me.  They always want the City -- "What is the City doing about homelessness?  What is the City doing about...whatever.  And I -- this is just personally -- I feel that we need to make sure that people understand that it's not just the City's responsibility to take care of people, that it's a community-wide effort. 

I think there's a misconception...in the community that the City's responsible for housing people who are homeless, or the City needs to provide that money or that funding and those staff and all of that stuff -- those buildings.  There's a saying..."Do what you do best, and network the rest."  I don't necessarily think the City's a great -- there's things the City does very very well, and there's things the City doesn't do well. 

So, I think making sure we have those connections and can empower those organizations and resources already out there to continue doing that kind of work is really good.  I think it's important that we highlight that as a City when we're talking to folks.  The City can provide funding and support and all of that stuff, but it's really these places, these entities that are providing the actual work on the ground.  There's a big misconception that there's absolutely nothing out there.  And all they see is homeless and people who don't have access to all these services, and they think, "Well, what is the City doing about that?"  So, I'm glad that[the recommendation]'s in there.    

We've heard those "What's the City doing" questions, too, but have a little different perspective on the message, and how to respond.

In our experience, residents mostly know about UGM, The Salvation Army, the Center for Hope and Safety, MWVCAA, etc.  When they ask about "the homeless", they're asking about the visibly homeless, meaning the chronically homeless.  Here in Salem, the percent of homeless that are chronically homeless is at least twice the national average -- so they really stand out.  The appropriate housing program for chronically homeless individuals is permanent supportive housing, of which Salem has almost none, which is one reason for the higher-than-average population of chronically homeless.  There is federal money for permanent supportive housing, but that money has not come to the Salem area, for reasons we've discussed at length elsewhere.    

So, we suspect that people aren't asking Councilor Kaser what the City is doing because they think no one's doing anything, but because they can see very plainly that, whatever area providers are doing, it isn't working very well for the people they are coming in contact with.

Who else should they complain to, after all, than the City?  It's not like there's a functioning coalition of service providers they can go to.  There's only the ROCC -- a 28-county Continuum of Care -- and the City's "lead agency", MWVCAA -- a private non-profit that is accountable only to its board of directors. 

In sum, people probably don't need to be told that homelessness is a community effort.  What they need/want to know is that it's a City effort, because City leadership, to a very large extent, is what's been missing for many years now, and the City has a crucial role to play (funding, support, etc.), as Councilor Kaser acknowledged in her remarks.  Thus, when a constituent asks, "What's the City doing about homelessness", they should be told about the City's Strategic Plan goals and strategies, including HRAP, prioritization according to need, and, hopefully, the effort to reform the local CoC with ongoing City support and oversight.  These are the sorts of things that the City does very well, and the providers simply have not.

Below, Councilor Andersen finishes up the "dot exercise", whereby counselors were asked to use dots to  indicate what strategies they thought should be implemented in the coming year.  Strategies under the "Housing Stability" goal received eight dots and those under "Health & Social Services" received ten (the latter all target the chronically homeless).  The sobering center, redoing the budget process and comprehensive plan and a climate action plan were identified (gold dots) as "most urgent."  Councilors will go through a slightly different prioritization exercise after the Open House on September 19th.  The Council is set to vote on the final strategic plan at their regular meeting on October 23.