HomeMy WebLinkAbout011325 email - For the recordALERT: BE CAUTIOUS This email originated outside the organization. Do not open attachments or click on links if you are not expecting them.
Comments on CHG award January 2025
I’m speaking today on the matter of awarding the consolidated homeless grant as a community member. As anyone who has invested a lot of time in a cause, I care about the outcomes.
I want to see the development of an equitable, accountable and transparent homeless crisis response system, first and foremost for the sake of everyone experiencing homelessness or
housing insecurity in Jefferson County. My sense is that the decisions you make today could have a major impact on what we - as a community - are able to achieve in service of seeing
everyone in our county has a fair shot at housing security.
In that regard, the question before you today is not only who has the capacity to do the essential work of developing and managing the homeless response system but also who has the responsibility
to develop the necessary capabilities. By the way, an equitable, accountable and transparent homeless crisis response system is a key objective laid out by the Department of Commerce
for our next 5 Year Plan to End Homelessness.
My belief is that development, management and oversight of the system is a shared responsibility between the city, county, service providers and Commerce. We cannot just outsource system
management to OlyCAP. It clearly isn’t working and not just because OlyCAP’s new management hasn’t had time to prove itself. Where we have seen progress is when we have collaboration
across service providers for building a homeless response system.
From my own all-be-it limited perspective, the Consolidated Homeless Grant structure is not designed for one service agency in a multi-stakeholder system to have all the responsibility
and decision-making power over how the support systems work. By support systems I mean the data collection, financial management, performance metrics and planning activities. We need
investment from all the service providers in how these support systems are run and for that we need everyone’s involvement in decision-making. In other words, how can we make the system
work for everyone, not just OlyCAP?
It is apparent from both the accounting and the performance metrics that the support systems are in collapse. Whoever rebuilds the support systems will have to invest major resources.
The question is not only who has the capacity to do this but also who has the responsibility?
I would hope that any decision made today supports OlyCAP in focusing on its direct service responsibilities. Managing a continuum-of-care facility the size of Caswell Brown is a tremendous
undertaking, one that the new leaders in OlyCAP look immensely qualified to undertake. But the responsibility of managing the homeless response system as a whole must fall to the county
and city as well as all of the service providers.
You are here today to solve an immediate problem and I ask that in solving this problem, you don’t just kick the responsibility for developing a fair, transparent and accountable homeless
response system down the road.