News from the Continuum

By Sarah Owens and Michael Livingston

"Homelessness", sighed the Mayor, midway through his recent State of the City address, "this is one of the most difficult issues faced by cities across the U.S. and around the world."

He was speaking before an audience consisting largely of City staff, officials, and Rotarians, who sponsored the annual luncheon event, which opened with prayer.

"The problem," he said, was that removing barriers to recovery from homelessness -- for example, addiction, health and mental health conditions -- "have not been part of the menu of services offered by city government."  But, faced with a "crisis in the streets", a situation that was "untenable" and "appalling", he felt he had to act.  He recounted how he'd asked the City to launch the Housing Rental Assistance Program (HRAP), and he explained why he chose to target the chronically homeless, which he prefers to call "the hardest to house."  He spoke of the 89 units being set aside for HRAP clients, defending the investment in permanent housing against the need for temporary shelters and referring to it as a "cure" that was "fiscally responsible", and not some "gimcrack idea."

Mayor Bennett at the Rotary-sponsored, 2019 State of the City event

This was the Mayor's third State of the City address.  In each of them, he has spoken of HRAP with pride.  The program has been successful by any measure and has housed more than a hundred people who would never have been housed otherwise.  So, why in 2019 did this part of his speech come off defensive, instead of triumphant?  Is it because, as a friend put it, "he's taking a lot of sh*t for targeting the chronically homeless."?  Sadly, we suspect so.

The truth is that there are a lot of important people in this City that just do not like the idea of helping addicts and broken old men and women with bad credit and criminal histories, as long as there are others whom they perceive as more deserving who also are in need of assistance.  They understand almost nothing about homelessness, but they think they do.  Nothing unusual about that.  Almost everyone thinks s/he understands homelessness.

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"[J]ust in case anyone says the City of Salem isn't stepping up on these issues, we housed 3,474 low income residents [households] in a variety of programs, including homeless families", he said, suggesting that people are, indeed, saying the City isn't stepping up on these issues to the extent it should be.

And it's true, people are saying the City doesn't do enough.

In fairness, Mayor Bennett has demonstrated a  deeper understanding of homelessness than did his predecessor, Anna Peterson.  But, it's a problem he seems to have grown tired of talking about. 

In closing this section of his speech, the Mayor dutifully ran through the recommendations of the Downtown Homeless Solutions Task Force, twice lapsing into anecdote, praised as "exhaustive" the "resource map" that cost the City $45,000 last year, and thanked a "whole range of religious private and non-profit organizations" without whose assistance "the significant progress we are making would not have been possible." Only, he didn't sound at all as if he really believed we are making "significant progress." 

Notable omissions from the speech included the faltering sobering center project and the City's plan to purchase 615 Commercial Street using Urban Renewal funds.  See Brynelson, T. "Salem considering buying ARCHES building, bankrolling more services for homeless."  6 February 2019, Salem Reporter.)

The City is accepting applications through March 14, 2019, for about $1,050,000 in City of Salem Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) and HOME Investment Partnership funds (the City's entitlement grant from HUD, less $425K set aside for Yaquina Hall and the Fisher Road project) and for $400,000 from the City’s General Funds.  See, Brynelson, T. "Salem to offer less federal money for social services, housing projects in 2019."  (31 January 2019, Salem Reporter.)  The Fisher Road project has been named "Redwood Crossing."

Volunteer labor has not proved sufficient to meet the demands of running even two cold-weather, emergency shelters using the lower activation criteria of 32 degrees.  So, the Mid Willamette Community Action Agency (MWVCAA) announced this month it's hiring 8-10 "Warming Representatives" to help out until the season closes at the end of March.  So far, the shelters have been activated an average of seven nights each month (November through January).

Cornerstone Apartments is no longer using SMI to manage the property.  They are using Avenue 5 Residential (as in the famed 5th Avenue in New York City?) instead.  The Cornerstone wait list reportedly has been or will be eliminated.  Efforts to obtain Avenue 5's eligibility criteria have not been successful.  Word on the street is that it is not less restrictive than SMI's eligibility criteria.

MWVCAA completed its first ever seven-day Point in Time homeless count last week, netting a record number of unsheltered homeless individuals.  See "Seven-day PIT Count Nets Record Unsheltered."  (6 February 2019.)

HUD announced recently that it will not be funding MWVCAA's rapid rehousing program in 2019-2020 (about $389K) through its Continuum of Care (CoC) Program.  Despite the program's being funded for many years, the 28-county Rural Oregon Continuum of Care (ROCC) (aka Balance of State CoC) gave it a low priority in last year's grant application to HUD, virtually guaranteeing it would not be funded.  MWVCAA Executive Director Jimmy Jones had this to say about the loss of funding:

Last fall, the agency learned that the ROCC review and ranking committee chose to push our rapid rehousing grant to the bottom of the Tier 1 rankings, straddling some of the dollars between Tier 1 and Tier 2.  We strongly disagreed with the placement at the time, and still believe that the decisions that led to that placement were fundamentally flawed.  

Oregon CoCs, circa 2010

Programs serving Marion and Polk County will still receive about 20% of ROCC's $3.2M grant, which will fund Family Promise (formerly Salem Interfaith Hospitality Network)'s permanent supportive housing program (~ $161K), Shangri-La's rapid rehousing and permanent housing programs (~ $311K), and a new rapid rehousing program for domestic violence survivors, to be run by the Center for Hope and Safety (~ $189K).  For more about the ROCC and for last year's awards.  See "News from the Continuum." (18 January 2018.)

Based on the 2018 Point-in-Time homeless count figures, Marion and Polk County programs receive only 2% of the HUD CoC funds going to Oregon, despite the area's being home to 8% of the state's homeless population. 

The Mid-Willamette Homeless Initiative steering committee expects to receive a preliminary report on the costs and benefits of remaining in ROCC at its next meeting on February 28.  See "Homeless Coordinator Position Empty, Iffy."  (25 January 2019.)