News from the Continuum

Revised: January 2019

By Sarah Owens and Michael Livingston

Turnout for Hands Across the Bridge 2018 was strong, in the hundreds, perhaps five.  Music was strong, too.  Too much, maybe, for some in Marion Square Park.  Not everyone was there to celebrate recovery.  Some were just there, and they were not having a good time.

But a lot of them were.  Hear some of the voices in this Willamette Wake Up podcast, and check out more photos over on the Recovery Outreach Community Center's FB page.

Also in September, Salem added a "real news" source to its media mix.  Salem Reporter (accessible thru a few freebies, a 30-day free trial or by subscription) started publishing in earnest on September 10th.  The Statesman Journal initially accepted Salem Reporter ads but later canceled.

Salem Reporter met w/ non-profits for coffee in August

Its first week, Salem Reporter ran stories about schools (7), politics (1), city gov't (3), state gov't (2), business/crime and homelessness (1 each).  Alexander, R. "Salem puts roof over chronically homelessness, then adds care." (29 September 2018, Salem Reporter). 

The Statesman Journal ran a piece by Natalie Pate -- "Salem homeless risk early death, data show" (5 September 2018).  Aside from not providing or even citing to any actual data, it seemed to do a pretty fair job capturing what Jimmy Jones and Stephen Goins have said  about the barriers to recovering from homelessness and to developing an effective response to homelessness.  It featured a participant in Salem's Homeless Rental Assistance Program (HRAP) and mostly avoided sentimentality.

Still, there's lots of room for improvement in local coverage of this complex issue, and let's hope Salem Reporter will perform as promised and not avoid touchy inquiries, like why Mountain West, Inc., is using a notoriously hard-nosed company like Shelter Management, Inc. (SMI) to manage its heavily publicly subsidized $24M low-income housing project out on Portland Road ($4.9M LIFT, $8.9M LIHTC, ~$1.8M North Gateway URA, and $300K HOME) (see Bach, J. "Apartments give hope to families." (18 August 2018, Statesman Journal).  The project targets households with annual income < ~$34K, which is 60% of AMI.  As many providers have observed recently, it's an unusual low-income/homeless family that can meet SMI's standards. 

SMI is also managing Catholic Community Services' 18 low-income rental properties.

Readers will recall that, about a year ago, CCS took over St. Joseph Shelter, the only shelter serving families outside of Salem, and put it  "under a rehab program."  Soon, however, the shelter will be available only by referral from DHS and will give priority to those "at imminent risk of losing their children to foster care if they cannot find safe, drug-free housing."  Funding considerations appear to be influencing CCS's decision. 

Salvation Army property at 1950 Water Street

The Salvation Army announced Wednesday that they are "working on possibly building a family shelter in this community."

Dan Williams made the announcement at the first meeting of the Salem-Keizer Collaboration, which is the successor to the North Salem Service Integration Team, one of three teams piloted by Salem Health from September 2017 through June 2018.

Williams said they were looking at a 38- to 59-unit facility that would be called "William Booth Family Housing."  He did not say where TSA planned to build it.

The news wasn't supposed to come out for a few more weeks, Williams said, because TSA hadn't yet got its "final stuff" from the City.  "But", he said, "since it was in the paper this morning, I figured I might as well tell you."

Williams was apparently referring to Lynn, C. "Fate of historic house on Water Street in Salem is unknown." 4 October 2019, Statesman Journal), which concerns Water Street property TSA bought in 2007 for $175K with plans to build a family shelter there -- plans the article says TSA "has ditched."  The article does not mention any current plan to build a family shelter, but it does say that TSA has been cited for nine code violations related to maintenance and upkeep of the Front Street property and has until 5pm October 8 to come into compliance. 

Union Gospel Mission is (re)launching the capital campaign to build the new Men's Mission in October.  The "Hope has a New Address" event on the 12th starts with lunch and inspiration, followed by dessert.  The dessert event is sold out.  

The state Housing Stability Council/OHCS are talking about "outcome-based strategies" and "outcome-based contracts" with Community Action Partnership of Oregon (CAPO), which is the lobby for all of Oregon's Community Action Agencies (CAAs).  Readers will recall that, by law, all state and federal anti-poverty funds must go to local CAAs.  The CAAs don't have to compete for the funds, and they don't have to perform.  Not in any meaningful sense.       

The conversations are in response to a budget note connected with HB 5201's appropriation of an additional $5M in EHA funds to OHCS (at 31).  The note  told the HSC to make recommendations to OHCS on how to prioritize EHA and SHAP funds "to ensure that funds are being spent as efficiently and effectively as possible", and, "to consider how the use of funding incentivizes...best practices and outcome-oriented strategies, to create a more effective system."  OHCS must present the recommendations to the legislature by the end of February 2019.      

If the legislature and OHCS get serious about creating more effective homeless delivery systems (one can only hope), the change could be good for Salem and Marion and Polk Counties, if it brings performance pressure to bear on the Rural Oregon Continuum of Care (ROCC), of which Salem and Marion/Polk are, sadly, members.  According to the minutes of a recent HSC meeting, OHCS is taking a "look at strengthening the Rural Oregon Continuum of Care", which is code for "ROCC is on the radar", as it certainly should be.