MWV Homeless Alliance Launches in Pandemic

By Sarah Owens and Michael Livingston

As reported in Street Roots, the City of Salem, Marion County, Polk County, the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde, the Salem Keizer School District and several other  municipalities are creating  an intergovernmental entity under ORS 190.010 et seq. to operate the Mid-Willamette Valley Homeless Alliance (Alliance), the new name of the Marion-Polk "continuum of care." Aside from the Street Roots piece, there's been almost no press coverage.  See Holman, A. "Photos: Life as a leader in the pandemic, Commissioner Colm Willis."  (10 May 2020, Salem Reporter.)

The Street Roots article contrasts this latest government effort with immediate need, using quotes from advocate Jean Hendron and the director of the Mid-Willamette Valley Community Action Agency, Jimmy Jones, who holds a non-voting position on the Alliance Board.  See Henderson, T.  "Homeless residents, advocates, in Salem area take issue with government response."  (22 April 2020, Street Roots.)

Such comparisons are inevitable, even in a pandemic, when circumstances force a shift in priorities and resources to avoiding contagion.  "COVID-19 Returns Campers to City Parks";  Radnovich, C. "COVID-19: More than 100 medically vulnerable unsheltered homeless placed in Salem hotels." (12 April 2020, Statesman Journal.)  Neither the City nor Marion or Polk county have contributed to the hotel program, but the City did provide chemical toilets and hand-washing stations for the park camping program, which is popular with downtown businesses and unpopular with park neighbors.  See "Has Council 'moved the needle' on Homelessness?"; Woodworth, W. "Salem City Council votes to extend emergency declaration for COVID-19."  (28 April 2020, Statesman Journal.).

Alliance Board Chair Cathy Clark and Vice Chair Chris Hoy 2/13/20

The Alliance Board met for the first time in February.  Most of the meeting was spent approving organizational formalities.  Details in meeting minutes here.  The March meeting consisted of some more approvals (consent calendar), a round-table "Coronavirus Update", and an overview of the strategic plan adopted in 2017 by the Mid-Willamette Homeless Initiative Task Force (Task Force), which Alliance Board Chair Cathy Clark and Alliance staff lead Janet Carlson have urged the Board to revise and adopt as its own.  Both  held key positions on the Task Force and its successor, the Mid-Willamette Homeless Initiative Steering Committee.

Carlson is a former Marion County Commissioner who retired in January 2019, after 13 years in  office, and now lives in Idaho.  The push for the Alliance to adopt some form of the Task Force plan is seen by some as Carlson's "legacy project."

The other two staff are Jan Calvin, an 18-year veteran of the City's Community Services Department who "codified" the 2017 plan after it was adopted, and Carla Munns, former Director of Quality and Transformation at Willamette Valley Community Health (the regional Coordinated Care Organization prior to 2020).

Carlson, Calvin and Munns are acting as consultants to the Alliance under contracts with the Mid-Willamette Valley Council of Governments.  They're paid $85/hr + expenses.  None has expertise in federal housing or homelessness programs, but the cost of hiring qualified, full-time staff is considered prohibitive, a judgment that may prove costly in the long run.

As readers know very well, this is not the region's first experience trying to build an effective, competitive housing and homeless services delivery system, aka, "continuum of care" or CoC.  By "competitive" is meant a system that meets HUD's high standards.  (For more on the region's CoC Program experience, scroll down to CANDO Archive Issues below, and click on "ROCC: Leave or Remain.")

What's fundamentally different about this newly formed CoC -- about the Alliance -- is the direct involvement of local government.  The experience of CoCs across the U.S. is that local government involvement is crucial to ensuring reliable and consistent leadership, community support, staff expertise, transparent processes and accountability for outcomes.  But, while local government involvement is definitely necessary to success, it's no guarantee.

Building a competitive organization will certainly take years, but that doesn't mean the Alliance can take its time.  The Alliance is decades behind where it needs to be in building an effective homeless services delivery system, and decades behind CoCs like the ones in Lane and Clackamas counties.  This means, in effect, that the Alliance is headed into senior finals having completed only the seventh grade.  HUD rewards outcomes, not "best efforts."  There is no "most improved" award for homeless services delivery systems.

One idea is to adopt a strategic plan that works backward from the CoC Program funding competition, which rates CoCs across the U.S. against HUD standards and priorities.  The goal of every CoC is to score above the weighted mean, which is the break point for funding.

FY 2019 Competition "Debriefing Document" for OR-505 (ROCC)

Above is the summary from the Rural Oregon Continuum of Care (ROCC)’s 2019 Competition debriefing document (Marion and Polk counties were in this CoC until March, when the Alliance was formed).  This is a HUD-generated “scorecard” that goes to all CoCs to let them know what they need to work on.  The Alliance will receive a similar document after the 2020 competition.

As you can see, out of 200 available points divided into 6 categories, half (100 points) are for  “System Performance” and “Performance and Strategic Planning.”  ROCC scored only 56 points in those categories, for an overall total of 134/200.  That’s 16.5 points below the median, and 23 points below the weighted mean.  It's also 4.5 points below ROCC's FY 2018 score.  See "ROCC Fissures Continue to Grow."  The debriefing document focuses on HUD’s high priority areas (for more detail, see the FY 2019 NOFA, which set forth the competition's rules and guidelines).  

 

Scoring above the weighted mean needs to be the Alliance's first priority in the coming years, which means the board should focus on the categories that offer the most points, namely system performance (60/200 or 30%), coordination and engagement (56/200 or 28%), performance and strategic planning as defined by HUD (40/200 or 20%) and project capacity, review and ranking (29/200 or 14.5%).  For more details on these categories, see the FY 2019 NOFA which lists the priorities (p 5-7), scoring matrix (p 50), and defines “system performance” (p 53) and “performance and strategic planning (p 58), among other things.

To succeed at what's counted, the Alliance needs an extremely focused plan, not some mish-mash of a wish list that includes every idea or project that in some way touches homelessness, which is what is on offer.  The Alliance's plan should be carefully tailored to this moment and this organization's immediate needs.  The Alliance charter states that "The COC is organized to carry out the purposes of the U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Continuum of Care program as defined 24 CFR Part 578."  Yes, it's true that the program is broadly designed to promote community-wide planning and strategic use of resources to address homelessness.  But, for the foreseeable future, the Alliance Board needs a plan that carries out its most basic function, which is "to assist individuals (including unaccompanied youth) and families experiencing homelessness and to provide the services needed to help such individuals move into transitional and permanent housing, with the goal of long-term stability."

Collaborative Committee 29 April 2020 virtual meeting

Times are hard.  The pandemic has forced Oregon and the rest of the world into a massive shift in priorities and resource allocation, but it hasn't changed the Alliance's basic function, which is to provide the services needed to help stably house the homeless.   

Under the Governor's Stay Home, Save Lives order, the board skipped its April meeting while staff and committees worked kinks out of the virtual meeting process.  There's some good work going on in committees, but a lot of it's political, and the board needs to understand the work and actively support it. To do that, data, work product and meeting notes need to be readily available -- to the board, to the public and to other members of the Alliance.  A website is not much use if it's not kept current (and it's not).  The danger of not making information available without having to ask for it is that, without a constant flow of accurate, timely information, the Alliance loses credibility, people lose interest, and those that are left are just going through the motions.  It's happened over and over and over.    

The April meeting of the Collaborative Committee had 60 people in attendance.  The May meeting was half that.  After skipping April, the board held a virtual meeting in May, barely making quorum, with no decisions taken.  Declining attendance is never a good sign.  Maybe the answer is fewer meetings, more work outside meetings or more meaningful work inside meetings, less time cheer-leading and updating.  Whatever adjustments are needed, now's the time for the board to dig in to their new roles and learn how to exercise reliable and consistent oversight of the region's homeless services delivery system.  Active leadership is needed, now more than ever. 

MWVCAA's Cold Weather Shelter 2019-2020

By Sarah Owens and Michael Livingston

First Presbyterian Church on Chemeketa Street, one of four 2019-2020 shelters

The 2019-2020 winter warming effort began in late October with "[a]n unexpected cold snap" that "sent Salem's warming shelters scrambling to open early."  Radnovich, C. "Salem's warming shelters serving homeless scramble to open early for cold snap."  (28 October 2019, Statesman Journal.)

Typically, the season runs November 1 through March 31.  Mid-Willamette Valley Community Action Agency's Ashley Hamilton told Statesman that, "The biggest hurdle [to opening three days early was] having each location cleared by Salem's fire marshal."

The Salem Warming Network, as it's now called, added a fourth warming center last year -- Capitol Park Wesleyan.  Total mat capacity of the four locations: 140.  The "primary" location was First Presbyterian (photo above) (capacity 78), with "auxiliary" locations at South Salem Friends Church, Church at the Park, and Capitol Park Wesleyan.  Auxiliary locations were opened, or not, based on how many volunteers signed up for a shift.  To open all four locations in one night required 70 slots to be filled.  The network was never able to open the fourth location.

Fortunately, last winter was mild; warming was "activated" a mere 17 nights. (Activation occurs when overnight lows of <33 degrees Fahrenheit are forecast.)  But, the network had other challenges.

In December, City Council banned camping on City-owned property and rights-of-way.  See "Camping Ban for Christmas."  Responding to criticism, Council allocated $113K to keep the warming centers open every night for the rest of the season, beginning January 1, 2020, to give campers somewhere to spend the night.   

Unfortunately, only one location was willing to participate in this "duration warming" model:  Church at the Park, which could accommodate up to 30 (some had to sit up) under an emergency declaration.  The effort required that 12 volunteer slots be filled every night, but the volunteers came through 72 nights in a row, and the program likely would have continued past March 16, but for the coronavirus pandemic.  See "COVID-19 Returns Campers to City Parks."

The continued presence of the coronavirus will require the network to make drastic program adjustments for the coming winter, and, quite possibly, the one after.  Add to that the fact that the network's primary (paid) coordinator, Kaylynn Gesner, recently announced she was leaving MWVCAA.  Fortunately, the City is making plans to address the situation.

Former DMV building at 2640 Portland Road NE to be a warming center

According to the most recent City Manager's Update (dated 13 May 2020), the City plans to locate a warming center at 2640 Portland Road NE (see photo at right).  According to that update:

"The building is currently leased by the Urban Renewal Agency to MERIT, an organization that provides economic and business development services to disadvantaged populations. MERIT is unable to make lease payments, has gone through leadership changes, and wishes to terminate the lease effective August 31. [MWVCAA's] ARCHES [Project] would have a couple of months to get the building ready for use before winter. The shelter use is limited by DEQ rules to no more than 18 months. Opening this winter would allow use for two winters. By then, the building [acquisition and rehab] discussed in executive session [likely 615 Commercial Street NE] would be ready [renovated to accommodate a few overnight, low-barrier shelter beds]. This all predicated on the state funding for navigation centers." 

We asked City Manager Steve Powers if, in fact, the use of the Portland Road building as a warming center is "predicated on the state funding for navigation centers" but have not yet received a reply.  Likely, the City just needs state nav center funding to operate the ARCHES overnight shelter/nav center, because the Urban Renewal Agency/City Council are almost certainly going to approve using $4.4M of RDURA funds for the necessary acquisition(s) and rehab.  See "DAB Says NIMBY to Nav Center."

We asked MWVCAA Director Jimmy Jones about future prospects. He told us:

1. Even if there is a navigation center or low barrier shelter, it is absolutely NOT going to be sufficient to support even 1/10th of the people who are outside.  
2. There is no money coming from the state for navigation centers this year or likely next.  Gov’s office is projecting a revenue reduction of $2-3B, though it could be as low as $1B and as high as $5B.  Each department has been told to prepare a budget that has a 8.5% reduction just in case.  
3. The viral situation is going to shift focus away from congregate shelters to motels or organized camping.  
4. Rooted in all these [FB] comments [on recent Council actions] (and some on the Council too) is the general belief that most of the people outside WANT to be homeless, and that there is a choice involved.   
5. Redwood [Crossings] is not going to be a panacea.  It’s only 38 spots, and because of the design (shared bathrooms) we will have many very high needs people who can’t go there because they won’t be able to share a bathroom.

Jones says "we need a city-wide strategy that does more than rely on these housing projects which (while important progress) will not solve the issue of unsheltered homelessness."  He says the most important question facing the City on the homeless front is, "What do we plan to do with the large numbers of unsheltered after the COVID crisis is over, the ones who either cannot or will not be served by these new projects?"  The response, he believes, will prove "where we are as a city, in our leadership, our social services, and our respect for human dignity."

Jones has asked the Mid-Willamette Valley Homeless Alliance (the name of the new Marion and Polk County Continuum of Care or CoC) to form a workgroup to develop a regional plan for winter warming.  In his request, he asserted that the issue wasn't only Salem's.

Unsheltered homelessness affects [] Marion and Polk counties, too.  I think making this more of a CoC planning level element will get us to a better winter warming policy, and one that shares the burdens across all agencies and governments. 

The Alliance Board met this past week, but the request was not discussed.

6/17/20 Update:  The Alliance's Collaborative Committee created a subcommittee to coordinate winter warming shelters, see meeting minutes here.

DAB Says NIMBY to Nav Center

By Sarah Owens and Michael Livingston

Excerpt from Downtown Advisory Board's meeting minutes for 12 March 2020

The Downtown Advisory Board does not want a navigation center downtown, and it's made its position known through a recommendation to the Urban Renewal Agency Board not to spend Riverfront Downtown Urban Renewal Area funds to acquire and rehab a building for that purpose, suggesting doing so would be "reactionary."  See Memo from DAB to the Urban Renewal Agency Board dated May 2020 (at p. 4 of the document).

This issue first arose at DAB's February meeting where consideration of the Draft 2020-21 RDURA Budget led to concerns about using RDURA funds "to address the challenge of homelessness and concerns regarding the financial burden and concentration of services within the RDURA" See Memo from Shari Wahrgren to DAB dated 12 March 2020 re RDURA Draft FY 2020-21 Budget, (at p. 4 of the document).  See RDRUA Draft FY 2020-21 Budget (at p. 7 of the document)..

Part of DAB's problem with the proposal was not being allowed to know precisely in which building downtown the City's planning to site the nav center (this is standard practice to avoid driving up the purchase price before a contract's been signed).  But, while DAB's memo classified its concerns as having to do with "location", "equity" and "strategic planning", its main concern was "location", as in, not in our back yard ("Will this negatively impact adjacent neighbors, businesses?" "What measures would be taken to ensure that neighbor concerns are being addressed?" "Is this part of a homelessness ‘strategic plan’ and/or will it drive additional services to this area?" "A downtown location will further concentrate those with housing challenges into a small area of the city, which could be detrimental to their recovery and further intensify the density of high needs populations and make it worse.")  

In case DAB's memo didn't drive the point home, DAB member Linda Nishioka wrote a letter of her own, claiming, without evidence, that "placing a navigation center within the downtown area could have dire consequences.  A navigation center would not support the objectives of sustaining and improving the economic vitality of downtown."  (Emphasis in original.)  Her letter closed with "No one wants to see downtown decay."

Memo from DAB to the Urban Renewal Agency Board dated May 2020 (at p. 9 of the document)

Other members of DAB as of March 2020: Aaron Terpening, Vincenzo Meduri, Dana Vugteveen, Joshua Kay, Tyson Giza; Brad Compton, Hilary Holman-Kidd, Laurie Miller, and Scott McLeod.

Staff brought DAB's concerns to the attention of the Citizens Budget Comittee in the form of written comment, presented at its May 6 Meeting. The Committee consists of all the members of the City Council, plus a rep from each of the wards, plus one "at-large."  Former City Councilor Steve McCoid, who's also a member of the MWVCAA Board, represents Ward 4.  City Councilors all know the location of the proposed site, having been told in executive session.  It's likely McCoid also knows the location. 

RDURA, lower dot = MWVCAA, upper dot = New UGM

Committee member Kaser asked Urban Development Director Kristin Retherford to explain to the Committee that it was a "typical City process" not to disclose the location of potential real estate purchases, which opened the door for McCoid to ask why, given that constraint, the City would seek DAB's approval?  Retherford then had to explain that DAB advises City Council on the RDURA budget, and that DAB had been told that there had been an appraisal and "discussions" with the owner, but no agreement has been reached.

As to whether and when the public might weigh in on the location of the nav center, Retherford told the Committee that siting depended on "operational needs", "proximity to other services and to those who would be managing the navigation center" (i.e. the Mid-Willamette Community Action Agency), with emphasis on proximity to the latter.  Other siting considerations included the size of the building, its suitability for the intended use, and compatibility with building (fire, safety) and zoning codes, "so there are a lot of constraints about where such a building could be located."

As previously observed, the City cannot realistically count on the state to fund its low-barrier shelter/nav center, at least not in the near future.  See "Has Council Moved the Needle on Homelessness?"  But, the City will need to be prepared when and if state funding does come through, which preparation includes making substantial investments of its own, aka having "skin in the game."  Everyone knows the City lacks sufficient General Fund flexibility for such an undertaking, which is how the City wound up inserting the recommendations of the Downtown Homeless Solutions Task Force into the plan for the RDURA so that RDURA funds could be used instead.  See "Urban Renewal to the Rescue."  This was a very creative move, and one that DAB approved, by the way, in the full knowledge that RDURA funds must be spent on properties within the RDURA.  So it's more than a little disingenuous for DAB to get all huffy at the prospect of a nav center downtown.

Has Council "moved the needle" on Homelessness?

By Sarah Owens and Michael Livingston

Councilor Nordyke sure thinks so.  Monday night, she praised City Council and staff for "helping move the needle on a crisis that has been decades in the making" by prohibiting loitering and public gatherings of three or more, opening Cascades-Gateway and Wallace Marine Parks to overnight camping, and passing a sit-lie ordinance.  See "COVID-19 Returns Campers to City Parks."

"If you look at our downtown streets, you can clearly see the results", Nordyke told Council.  "You can tell by how clean the streets are."  (Find a transcript of her complete statement at the end of this post.)     

Nordyke's comments were made during the opening segment of Monday night's meeting of the City Council, the first meeting since sit-lie was enacted (March 23), just as the City was going in to "lockdown" under a statewide order to "Stay Home, Save Lives."  Monday night's meeting was the first to occur in novel corona virus format:  the video conference.

We asked Jimmy Jones, Executive Director of the Mid-Willamette Valley Community Action Agency, if he thought sit-lie had cleaned up the downtown streets, or that "the needle" had been moved, as a result of the City's recent actions.

Jones told us by email that "[s]it-lie had nothing to do with cleaning up the downtown" because it isn't being enforced and that "giving people a place to go cleaned up the downtown streets."

By "place to go", Jones was referring to the parks, because the pandemic shrunk all available shelter spaces and torpedoed the City's plan for a tent day shelter in Marion Square Park.  "We asked the city to open the parks for camping because of public health concerns centered on COVID", he said, explaining that, up until summer of last year, authorities had tolerated camping in Wallace Marine and Cascades-Gateway Parks. 

So what about the idea that clean streets show that the City's "moved the needle"?  There might be fewer complaints from downtown businesses, Jones responded, "but nothing fundamental has changed."

The City has, however, received dozens of new complaints from SEMCA and residents of Paradise Island Park, a 55+ manufactured housing park with 214 homes located on the southern end of Cascades-Gateway Park.  See their written comments here, summarized in a letter from Cory Poole, SEMCA's Chair and the park's owner-operator:



The letter urges Council to make five changes to "the current camping policy", including the immediate establishment of a "post-pandemic homeless camping policy."

Monday night, Council briefly discussed the situation in the parks before voting unanimously to extend the City's emergency declaration.  See here at ~1:20:00.  As usual, the discussion focused on the City's response to complaints. 

Hitherto, City Manager Steve Powers typically would call on Kristin Retherford, Director of the Urban Development Department, to give Council a status report on the City's response.  But ever since the state of emergency went into effect, the City's homeless point person has been Gretchen Bennett.  Bennett works in the Mayor/City Manager's Office and is not related to the Mayor.

Before Bennett gave her report, Powers told Council that Bennett, Parks and Transportation Services Manager Mark Becktel and Police Chief Moore made regular inspections of Cascades-Gateway and surrounds.  They had arranged to tour Cascades-Gateway Park with Poole on Wednesday, and Mayor Bennett asked to go along, as did SEMCA's three councilors (Andersen, Nanke and Leung).

As part of her new responsibilities, Bennett has been writing formulaic, empathetic-sounding emails to individual complainants.  Councilor Lewis praised Bennett for her "personal touch."  Example:

  
Councilor Lewis told Council that the situation in Wallace-Marine Park "necessitated bringing the police army vehicle over to Roth's West Salem parking lot last week."  Mayor Bennett said he wanted to send the "command vehicle over to Cascades-Gateway and give it a couple of days as well."  There were no questions about this "command unit" strategy, and it was not discussed further.

Councilor Hoy said he wanted "to remind folks that homelessness is an issue throughout the City", that the population had recently "exploded", with "people camping on the sidewalks on Market, on Lancaster, all over the place."  He exhorted Council to "be more assertive" and to "keep reminding our friends at the State that they created a lot of this problem through the de-institutionalization of folks without proper community support."  Councilor Kaser agreed with Hoy and said "We should be sending a letter a week", and "we should be bugging the dickens out of the state legislature to actually do something."

There the discussion ended.  If the City is working on a plan for the coming winter, they've given no indication of it.  In all likelihood, pandemic-related social distancing requirements are going to limit the availability of shelter space, including emergency warming, and the hoped for low-barrier shelter funding is nowhere in sight.   The City needs to prepare, now, to deal with this reality or people will die.

As for the park camping, Jones predicts that "[t]he same thing will happen here as has happened before, both in Salem and every other small town in Oregon."

A critical mass will be reached and the Council will react by evicting them from the park[s]. At that point, they will disperse again throughout the neighborhoods and in the downtown. New complaints will emerge. City government will consider how this could have happened again, and new plans will be crafted to deal with the same conditions again. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

And not just in Oregon ------->

Jones says "command unit" strategies, like the camping, loitering, gathering, sitting and lying bans, don't work because they don't house anyone.      
 
"There is one undeniable fact here", Jones told us by email.  "No criminalization approach stands any chance of succeeding.  The Council can rule as they like and the Police can enforce as they may, but that will not reduce homelessness so much as one person in this city."

Such approaches also don't make people leave town, Jones told us.

"We can gravitate toward a law-and-order approach as they have in Grants Pass, but it will not drive anyone out of Salem to Eugene or Portland.  Eventually someone is going to have to realize that these are American citizens and they are in need. Our proper response is to serve and house them, not scapegoat them for their poverty." 

About the impact of the camping on the parks, Jones feels the "concern over the environmental impact of poverty" is "telling."

"When people are cold, they make fires.  When people are hungry, they cook food.  When they are wet, they build shelter.  All of these things have an impact on the lived environment the same way as our cars, factories, and landfills do for housed people."

Salem Reporter is running a series on the May election.  As ever, homelessness is the top issue in Ward 1.  See Harrell, S. "In downtown Salem ward, council candidates cite homelessness as defining issue."  (30 April 2020, Salem Reporter.)  Jan Kaluweit says he "envision[s] the city’s role as that of a strategic partner and collaborator coordinating and streamlining services between government, nonprofits and the business community."  Virginia Stapleton believes "Councilor Kaser has been a terrific councilor in Ward 1" and that, "[a]s we care for those less fortunate than us we create a culture as a just and caring community and this will have a positive effect on all our residents."  Kaluweit can be held accountable for progress toward his vision.  It will be much more difficult to hold Stapelton to account for hers.         

& & &   

Councilor Nordyke's comment Monday night:

I want to say that it's been a little over a month since we declared a citywide state of emergency [March 17, 2020] and about a month since we passed the sit-lie ordinance [March 23, 2020].  If you look at our downtown streets, you can clearly see the results of passing the ordinance and you can clearly see the results of having passed our citywide state of emergency.  I still firmly believe that our sit-lie ordinance strikes a balance between the needs of our unsheltered and the needs of our business community.  And you can tell by how clean the streets are that you can tell that difference.  We have a number of folks who are in shelter or in camping areas because we've been working diligently with our community partners, with business owners, talking to all kinds of stakeholders.  Do I feel like we have the problem solved?  No, but this is a step in the right direction and I want to commend my colleagues and our city staff for helping move the needle on a crisis that has been decades in the making so I thank my colleagues for their support of these programs.  I look forward to addressing our next steps in addressing homelessness in our city. 

Jimmy Jones' email reply to our question:

Sit-Lie had nothing to do with cleaning up the downtown. It isn’t even in effect yet.  We asked the city to open the parks for camping because of public health concerns centered on Covid, as they had unofficially been for years until the Summer of 2019.  Giving people a place to go cleaned up the downtown streets.  If at some point in the future they reverse course and close the parks we will have the same outcome (people living on the streets in the downtown, whether sit-lie is in effect or not).  The needle may have been moved for some interests, but nothing fundamental has changed.  This nearly year long debacle wasn’t caused by our homeless. It was caused by poor policy decisions.  If Salem doesn’t learn from its mistakes they will repeat them again and our homeless community will again suffer for it.  The best course of action is to leave them be and for government to practice enough patience to give our evidence based efforts the time to work.

5/3/20 Update:  The City Manager's "Update" for 4/28 states:

Staff continues to work on being ready for state funding for a navigation center to serve homeless individuals. The state funding is expected to be considered when the legislature holds an emergency session.  If the funding is provided to the City, there will be an urgent need to begin implementation of the shelter and coordination of services in one location.  Staff will have updates and recommendations for council consideration this summer (timing will be guided by when the legislature meets) for an interim (90 day) and a permanent location for a navigation center.