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Home My WebLink About2012-06-25 Homelessness Steering_MIN Draft Minutes June 25, 2012 Ad-Hoc Homelessness Steering Committee Siskiyou Room 4:00 - 6:00 p.m. Attendance Ayars, Parker, Hopkins-Powell, Lewis, Rohde, Sohl, Morris (Council liaison), Reid (Staff) Absent Saldana, O’Bryon Agenda Item #1: Call to Order Parker called the meeting to order at 4:10 p.m. Agenda Item #2: Approval of Minutes Hopkins-Powell/Rohde moved to approve the minutes with changes. Voice Vote-Motion passed unanimously. Agenda Item #3: Outreach to Faith Community th Four of the letters mailed on the 20 have been returned. Parker and Lewis will hand deliver those letters which were marked undeliverable. a. Review Letter: Reid pointed out the changes to the letter in order to make it fit on City letterhead. b. Divide Phone List: Hopkins-Powell-Unity in Ashland Trinity Episcopal Church Church of Latter Day Saints Rivergate Church Parker Alliance Bible Chapel Simple Faith Fellowship Seventh Day Adventist Chabad Jewish Center Sohl Foursquare Church Jehovah’s Witnessess Christian Science Church Walsh Memorial Newman Center Rohde Ashland Bible Church Ashland Christian Fellowship Ashland Gracepoint Nazarene Ashland Zen Center Christian Church of Ashland Christian Science Reading Room Ayars Dechen Ling First Baptist Church First Presbyterian Church Grace Lutheran Church Jewish Community Havurah Lewis Our Lady of the Mountain St. Gabriel the Archangel Mission Temple Emek Shalom First United Methodist Church Page 1 of 3 Possible Questions for follow-up phone calls: Did you receive the survey? Are you planning to fill it out? Are there any other things that you would like to talk about? Are you planning on attending the Meeting? rd c. Plan Meeting: The meeting will be held on July 23 in the Siskiyou Room of the Community Development building. Parker will bring refreshments. Sohl volunteered to facilitate the introductions; HCS members will provide a brief history of the committee and talk about how the committee has gotten to this point. HSC members will talk about community needs including a day use center and rotating shelter, present the survey findings and encourage discussion, networking and leaning about what others are providing to hopefully avoid duplication. Agenda Item #4: Update on Day-use center/Business Plan The committee members looked over and discussed the business plan presented by committee members Lewis and Ayars. Lewis is working on getting in touch with the Job Council to learn about their programs and see if any of them would be appropriate for the day center. If there were a day center here then the patrons could have the opportunity to get comfortable with the space then they would be more likely to utilize the services offered there. Ayars spoke with several service providers who attended the June Homeless Task Force Meeting, Easter Seals, and Access said that they would be willing to outstation a person from their organizations at a day use center in Ashland periodically. The Addiction Recovery Center said that they would be willing to hold monthly addiction meetings in Ashland. Ayars has an appointment scheduled to meet with Rita Sullivan of OnTrac. Committee members asked staff to look at state resources for funding day use centers and to research what funding mechanisms other communities have utilized to set up and operate day centers. Rohde suggested that the committee draw up a list of the tax incentives for property owners that sell property to a non-profit for below market rate, to provide to owners of prospective day center properties. Parker will talk with Deanne Everson from the United Way to see if she knows anything about incentives and ask her if she would come before the group to speak about them if it is appropriate. Hopkins-Powell suggested that everyone should just working on it, keep the day center on everyone’s minds. Parker reminded the committee that a property that had a housing unit attached could help to provide transitional housing and provide some assistance through rent. Parker asked the Committee if they would be interested in hearing a presentation on a plan drawn up by one of the coalition members for turning the old Talent Wal-mart building into a homeless resource center. The committee members felt like it might be a good regional solution and asked Parker to invite the coalition member. Agenda Item #5: Report on Project Community Connect Event The Project Community Connect Event went well; there was a good turnout, the largest in the event’s four year history. Transportation for people with dogs did not work out well, and some Ashland people were not able to get to the event. Reid will bring this up with the event planning committee at the debrief meeting on Tuesday. Parker suggested looking at trying to recreate the event at uncle foods, asking volunteer service providers to come on a rotating/monthly basis. Agenda Item #6: Jackson County Homeless Task Force Update Page 2 of 3 Access, the lead agency for the Point in Time homeless count released the data from the county wide count. Overall the homeless numbers county wide were down from the previous year. Agenda Item #7: Plan for quarterly report to the City Council Reid will type up a schedule for the quarterly report, and coordinate with the City administrator on the potential date for the next report in late August or early September. Committee members decided that two items which should be in the report are the outreach to the faith community efforts and the day center proposal. Public Comments None Announcements None Adjourn-6:00 Next meeting: July 11, 2012 4:00-6:00 P.M. Ashland Library Respectfully Submitted by Linda Reid, Housing Program Specialist Page 3 of 3