DHSTF: Extra Innings

Revised: January 2019

By Sarah Owens and Michael Livingston

The Downtown Homeless Solutions Task Force, which was supposed to wrap things up following meeting number four last Wednesday, looks like it will be going into extra innings, as they were unable to decide which proposed "solutions" they should recommend.  According to Neal Kern, CANDO's rep on the task force, Urban Development Director, Kristin Retherford will be taking the list of ideas back to her staff, and contacting other City departments to get estimates on costs and staffing needs.  He also said that there was a lot of a discussion of the "sit-lie" ordinance, but no decision.

Despite good intentions, it seems that the task force chair, Cara Kaser (Ward 1, City Council) was unable to keep things on track.  But, the group was almost too diverse, and it was definitely too big.  There wasn't time to build a shared base of knowledge or experience, and, for whatever reason, those who should have taken a leadership role, didn't.  So, it's taking longer than it should have for them to figure out what the answer wants to be. 

It's the Mayor's task force (remember the Mayor Peterson's Safe Streets and Parks Task Force?).  Whatever recommendations are made will have to go through him to be implemented.  He might very well conclude a toilet program is still too costly.  The downtown might end up with little more than a "sit-lie" ordinance and a few low-impact tweaks to "clean team" program.  Safe to say, people need to limit their expectations.

If you missed the a meeting don't want to listen to the entire audio, you can listen to an interview with Councilor Kaser and recaps of the first three meetings here, here and here.