Agendas and Minutes

Homelessness Steering Committee ad hoc (View All)

Homeless Steering Committee ad hoc Regular Meeting Minutes

Agenda
Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Minutes
July 11, 2012
Ad-Hoc Homelessness Steering Committee
Ashland Library
4:00 - 6:00 p.m.
 
Attendance
Ayars, Parker, Lewis, Rohde, Sohl, Saldana, O’Bryon, Morris (Council liaison), Reid (Staff)
 
Absent
Hopkins-Powell Saldana,
 
Agenda Item #1: Call to Order
Parker called the meeting to order at 4:10 p.m.
 
Agenda Item #2: Approval of Minutes
Rohde/Lewis moved to approve the minutes as presented.  Voice Vote-Motion passed unanimously.
 
Agenda Item #3: Report on Calls to Faith Community 
Ayars:  Spoke with Dechen Ling, The Ashland Zen Center, and Kagyu Sukha Choling, and the First Baptist Church, all said that they will not be attending the meeting.  The First Presbyterian church will send the Associate Pastor, Adam Walker Cleveland to the meeting.  Both Grace Lutheran and the Havurah acknowledged receipt of the survey and said that they will look at it.
                                                                                   
Sohl:  Was unable to reach anyone who could answer the questions.  Left messages, has yet to hear back, will try again later.
 
Parker: Reported that Hopkins-Powell is on vacation, but before she left she made several calls.  She said that Rivergate was very responsive. Parker spoke with the Seventh Day Adventist.  They dispense food once a month, and clothes every day.  They will be sending a couple of people to attend the meeting.  Parker has yet to speak with anyone from the Chabad Jewish Center.      
 
Rohde:  Has not made any phone calls yet.
 
Lewis:  Spoke with the Methodist church, it is a busy time of year for them, they will fill out the survey and may send someone to the meeting.  Lewis has not made any other phone calls yet.        
 
Saldana spoke with Alliance Bible Chapel; they are filling out the survey, but not planning on attending the meeting.  She has been unable to reach someone from the Simple Faith Church.  She has left messages.
           
Agenda Item #4: Plans for the Meeting
The meeting will be held on July 23rd in the Siskiyou Room of the Community Development building.  Parker will bring refreshments.  Sohl and Cleveland will talk about their trip to Bridgetown in Portland where they took a youth group to work with homeless populations. Sohl will also facilitate the introductions.  Lewis will provide a brief history of the committee and talk about how the committee has gotten to this point.  Rohde will facilitate a brainstorming session where meeting participants will go over existing resources and programs that are available in the Ashland Community to serve homeless populations.  Discuss barriers to providing more/different services.  Ask the meeting participants to add to the solutions list (i.e. day center, rotating shelter).    It was suggested that the committee members designate a time limit for this activitiy and create an inventory of services.  Lastly, it was suggested that the HSC members allow some time for networking, discussing service coordination, and leaning about what others are providing to hopefully avoid duplication.  Lewis stated that what he would like the participants to take away from the meeting was what the HSC was working on, and to help make connections to the faith community so that the HSC can work toward building support for the church programs/efforts.  Lewis wanted to hear the faith communities input on solutions to homeless issues and to hear from them what issues that they are seeing, in order for the HSC to work with the churches to pose solutions.
 
Agenda Item #5: Update on Day Use Center/Business plan etc.
Lewis gave a brief update on the donation boxes.  The first pickup will be August 3rd.  The different locations will be kept apart and counted individually in order to get an idea of how each different location is doing.   
 
Ayars met with Rita Sullivan of OnTrac.  She said that OnTrac would be willing to do outreach at a day center in Ashland.  Ayars is also working on contacting RCC’s education/employment outreach program. 
 
Parker spoke with someone from DHS who stated that they would be willing to come to Uncle Foods to do education and outreach about their programs.
 
Public Comments
One member of the audience spoke regarding the donation boxes.  He is very supportive of the donation boxes but thinks that in order for them to succeed a few changes could take place.  ----The boxes should be a brighter color, be more noticeable, they should have a more brief and concise message.  Business owners should put signs in their windows about using the boxes.  Brochures should be posted in hotel rooms that tell tourist about the boxes.
 
Sohl added that in Berkley there are resource cards with the donation boxes so that someone donating to the box can take a card and give it to a pan handler instead of money and the card would let them know where the money is going to and where they can go to get some assistance. 
 
Announcements
None
 
Adjourn-5:40
 
Next meeting: July 23, 2012 4:00-6:00 P.M.
Siskiyou Room-Community Development building
 
Respectfully Submitted by Linda Reid, Housing Program Specialist
 
 

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