News From the Continuum

Revised: January 2019

By Sarah Owens and Michael Livingston

It's a sign of the times that the Salvation Army, which began as part of the temperance movement and still requires its members to refrain from drinking alcohol, participated in an invitation-only, $100-a-plate fundraising event at Zenith Vineyards last Friday night to benefit its programs for local, at-risk youth.  It's not known how much money was raised.  Salem Health was reportedly a major sponsor of the event.

As far as is known, traditional TSA standards continue to be maintained at the emergency overnight shelter on Front Street through regular UAs and breathalyzer testing of the guests.

Captains Dan and Kim Williams decided to discontinue the transitional housing program last August, along with case management for guests and meal services for non-guests.  For some time, they have  preferred to focus on The Kroc Center, and the word on the street has long been that they are seeking to get out of the business of providing homeless shelter and services; they just want to get out  gradually, so as not to offend the community.  As they say, it's "All About Kids."

On the agenda for last Monday's City Council meeting was approval of the 2018 Annual Action Plan, and disposition of an additional $256,400 ($190,000 in HOME funds, $66,400 in CDBG funds).  See staff report that additional CDBG funds will go to fully fund recommended projects, balance to Grace House, and that the Community Services and Housing Commission will meet in June to recommend allocation of additional HOME funds.  When the Mayor asked how that would be done, Chair Adam Kohler replied:

Chair Kohler:  It will be a fun meeting in June. To be honest with you, these are tough meetings, they really are, and we're making emotional decisions that are impacting people's lives, and so, every time we're done, we're grateful.  So to have more money is a blessing, but it's also going to be a challenge, because there are a couple of programs out there that are in consideration.  The way that it works with our commission is that we score all of our grants, but we use that as a starting point for our conversation.  For example, there was, for the General Funds, we awarded $400,000, with an ask of $436,000 I believe was the difference there, and we tiered it based on the scoring.  So the top scoring one was fully funded, and the lower scoring ones had a little bit of a haircut on it.  We will have to evaluate that, and see if it still holds true for the additional $190,000, because there was a program that wasn't fully funded, that could be fully funded, or Mid-Willamette Community Action Agency could be funded, but that's, to be honest with you, I have to go back and look at what our scores were, the comments of the Commissioners, and...

Mayor: I appreciate you funding Women at the Well...

Chair Kohler:  That was great to hear that, even though it was by email for us, but, the recommendation to fund them was well-received, and we supported that.] 

The "we" that Kohler referred to as supporting the decision to fund Grace House was not the full Commission, but instead, himself and (presumably) his Vice Chair, Kim Lemman, the Executive Director of St. Francis Shelter, a transitional housing program that receives General Fund grants through the CSHC process.  The regular members of the Commission, which include us, were not informed of the decision.

May 4 FB Post

A recent MWVCAA management report claims more than $1.1M "in federal, state and local dollars, public and private" has been raised toward renovating its Commercial Street building, which is roughly a quarter of this year's CPD budget, not counting the $2.1M purchase price at 6% interest.

Appropriately, MWVCAA doesn't think of its new facility as a shelter (which it is supposed to be and what the community desperately needs), but as a "triage facility."  The question is, triage to what?  A housing waitlist?

 

May 15 NAHRO Monitor

Last fall, the City of Salem was working with area PHAs on a joint plan to submit to HUD an assessment of their progress in addressing “significant disparities in housing needs and in access to opportunity, replacing segregated living patterns with truly integrated and balanced living patterns, transforming racially and ethnically concentrated areas of poverty into areas of opportunity and fostering and maintaining compliance with civil rights and fair housing laws” in accordance with federal guidelines.  This work to develop a fair housing assessment to assist us in "affirmatively further fair housing" stopped cold last January, after HUD Secretary Ben Carson extended the implementation deadline (for more, see here and here).  So, last week, the National Fair Housing Alliance and two groups from Texas of all places filed a lawsuit, challenging the extension.

Why should we care?  Because the process we were about to undertake -- the one that was interrupted when the deadline was extended -- could have, would have, created a conversation about equity and our vision for a collaborative, cooperative process.  That's something that takes time, resources and practice to do well.  That's why it tends not to happen unless, for some reason, communities are "forced" to gather relevant data/information and engage with one another.

Couldn't we do it anyway?  Well, yes, but we won't.  We've asked.  Nobody's being uncooperative, it's just not how this sort of thing is done.  For all practical purposes, we can't do our part to affirmatively further fair housing in this way unless and until HUD does its part.  That's why the lawsuit matters.

At the end of May, HUD announced it was withdrawing the assessment tool and the deadline extension issued last January.  See here for details.

Since May, HUD has continued to do what it can to weaken fair housing rules.  Read about the latest here (bureaucratic perspective) and here (advocacy perspective).