Welcome
- James Pogue, Comprehensive Life Resources
- 2 week hiatus – coming back on January 4th
Presentation
Year End review
- James – I thought we’d peter out last year – but we kept going strong. We accomplished a lot. (you know, “peter out” is kind of an odd phrase. Peter, as you may know, comes from the Greek petros, meaning “rock”. So how did the word meaning “rock” come to mean “cease, or stop”? Rocks seem pretty unchanging. The answer is miners. In the early 19th Century, when a vein of ore ran out, the miners aid it petered out –they ran out of the rock they were looking for. Anyway, James is right - that didn’t happen here; we kept hitting pay dirt. –ed)
- I want to thank everyone who does this work. I don’t do work – I just talk about it to everyone. You all are responsible for the amazing work happening. I’m thankful for that work.
- I do this thing with my kids every day when I drop them off for school. I say: “You be great today”. They say: “I already am”. We all need to reflect on the greatness we already are.
- Last year we came back and we learned about eviction – and wanted to support folks – and evictions became the topic du jour. Our coalition was ready to respond with folks new to the field and those excited about the publicity, and did work around evictions. We also did workforce development, advocacy, alternative housing, and more
- The City of Tacoma and the County have committed to this meeting, and have sent regular staff and have been great partners and major funders of our work in Tacoma
- We are now breaking up into groups – we’ll spend 20 minutes writing down all the things we’ve accomplished as part of this Coalition
- Group Report Outs
- Group 3
- 75 total housed with Tacoma Community College housing programs - housed and insecure
- 15 at risk youth enrolled in Fresh Start
- 4 household member employed
- 135 housed with Comprehensive Life Resources outreach
- Participated in 6-part play to raise awareness about homelessness – put on by the City of Tacoma
- 65% of enrolled client stayed engaged
- Revamp of SPRUCE program served 85 students in 2018
- 100,000+ Molina members in Pierce County – received TPS Gold Star award for Community Service to Students.
- Joined an awesome non-profit to make a difference in the world
- CHAP won Harvard Kennedy School award for excellence in Government Collaboration
- Forum on homelessness at Tacoma Convention Center
- Tacoma Community College and the Tacoma Housing Authority brought the Tiki apartments on board for subsidized housing for homeless and housing insecure college students. (and the project won a Razzie for overall most traumatic affordable housing project in 2018. –ed)
- Comprehensive Life Resources engaged 1,000+ clients in their homeless outreach program
- Comprehensive Life Resources outreach team doubled in size over 2018 (maybe eat a little less and exercise more in 2019? –ed.)
- Tenant rights strengthened – vouchers rights strengthened and increased
- Established funding for displaced tenants.
- 369 days clean and sober.
- Revamped electronic communication
- Both grandchildren graduated college with MA and BA.
- Son 6 months from becoming a carpenter
- Paid off student loans
- Got through the year.
- Trusted myself and support system
- Went from intern to employee
- Joined Comprehensive Life Resources family
- Mentored next generation of human services workers
- EHR funding
- Started dating again.
- Working on second house
- Lost 45 pounds à Stephanie found it (Jim Mead, one of the pastors in the church I grew up in, had a theory that there was only so much fat in the world. If you lost it, it was because someone else picked it up. –ed.)
- Group ?
- Collection of resources – TPU Grant/Financial Education
- SOAR Academy
- Providing shelter
- 99 stocking, plus 33 plus 80 = some 200+ stockings
- Landlord Liaison project rebuilt and launched
- Shelter253 – (run by volunteers)
- Made some best friends.
- Rental housing code changes
- Tracked City and County money for homeless programs (follow the money… -ed)
- 1,000+ people attended hire253 – 32% employed
- Changed Goodwill’s eligibility for homeless policy
- Youth Shelter thriving
- Held Candidate forums
- Valeo Vocations launched (Wooh Hooh!)
- Maureen musings
- Increased attendance at Quarterly Meetings
- Established ourselves as a Coalition
- Grew Friday Provider Meeting from just the City to County-wide.
- Community organizing
- We do stuff
- The listserv
- Made my best friends – I was lonely, now I have a posse. (how cool is that. –ed)
- 253Works job club
- Read Gerrit’s minutes – and ate lots of new foods
- Transportation project
- Collaboration beyond meetings
- Formed a list of collaboration
- I met Al (can we get some t-shirts made that say this? –ed)
- Group
- Candidate forums
- Pierce County resource portal
- Listserv improvement
- Networking and ripple effect
- Education
- Equity
- Needs fulfilled by listserv
- Working to get affordable transportation (like a ’79 Pontiac Firebird Formula 400 WS6? Burt Reynolds awesomeness, but cheaper than a new Toyota Corolla. I think that is what they mean. –ed)
- 600 attended, 200 jobs, 180 retention – looking towards 90 day transportation for attendees.
- Personal Accomplishments (there were a lot of explanation points on this list – but I just couldn’t look myself in the mirror if I put them all in the notes… -ed.)
- First solo hike
- Trained 2 people
- Got Deputized for Coordinated Entry
- Produced a circus show (I don’t think this person was talking about the Coalition, but I can’t say that I fully recollect the context… -ed)
- Organized blue team – 26th district democrats – new woman leadership.
- Important advocacy work for women experiencing homelessness
- RISE program = 50 people from chronic homelessness to sustainable living.
- Advocacy work in growth & grown (x2)
- Hire253 being a part of the solution
- Relationships with landlords
- Gonna be a Great-Grandma
- Public speaking
- Visited 8 National Parks
- Team 5
- Personal Growth
- Broken down barriers to help the homeless population
- Loving what we do - bringing agencies together
- We are all working together in this coalition and bringing our experiences to do great work
- Started up from the bottom and gone to the top – like a metamorphosis into a butterfly
- Tent city, Valeo Vocation, Molina, Safe Streets, Tacoma Fire Department Chaplain, Pastor from Street outreach, Salvation Army
- Working on another Tent City
- Have grown and learned and are like a family (again, you can’t help but love that sentiment. –ed)
- Team ?
- Catholic Community Services received a $5 million grant to be spent over 4 years (we have some exciting plans for that money, let me tell you. –ed)
- Comprehensive Life Resources started Positive Interaction in Puyallup
- Coalition listserv
- 5 candidate forums
- Became a foster parent
- Connecting folks to resources
- Human Rights Commission hospital charity work
- Comprehensive Life Resources M-CIRT Team expanded
- Trueblood did amazing work
- Coordinated Care and health department did flu clinics
- Managed Care Organizations (MCOs) go to Pierce County jails
- Artist in residence – “In our backyard”
- Stability site has 90 day stay with extensions
- Communication with Pierce Transit
- Comprehensive Life Resources housed over 100 people
- Comprehensive Life Resources now running the youth shelter
- Catholic Community Services and Valeo working together at Stability site - and a bunch of other partners
- Comprehensive Life Resources at Court Resource Center
- Comprehensive Life Resources doing eviction mitigation work with Tiki and Merkle
- RAIN does pathways – Pierce County juvenile court
- Lots of us started new jobs
- Went on vacation
- Another team
- Outreach to Key Peninsula
- Valeo – about a year ago, Sheri dragged me into the idea of creating an organization using a temporary staffing model to move folks into employment jobs and permanent jobs. We are on track this month to pay about $20K in wages. One person is close to moving into Permanent Housing with their wife and 2 children. This thing is crazy – we have 1 contract with the City, but 75% of revenue is coming from the work we do – not dependent on grants – we are bringing new money to the table. This is a product of this organization. You don’t know how much you encourage people to dream and think outside the box and support folks and make things happen. (kind of warms the heart, doesn’t it. This is why we love Greg and Sheri and Mitch and all the amazing energy they put into creating something out of thin air. –ed)
- Sheri made a new person this year
- Improving technology skills – we are supporting people and helping them to grow
- Juvenile rehabilitation with the State – Christina Valera – Juvenile Rehabilitation. Going to merge into Department of Children - Kids from 13-21 committed . Homeless prevention Program specialist
- Shelter253 – grassroots, community involved, helping everyone in our community to love their neighbor. Trained 25 – have a 2019 goal of 200.
- Welcome Home after care program
- Hire253 – this is powerful
- Collaboration – a lot of advocacy – telling story to our community and to our leaders.
- Resource List – that is hopefully evolving into a needs bank.
- Eviction mitigation
- Maureen’s Musing – talking about tenants’ rights
- James
- PIT count was improved with some technology
- Had much better collection.
- $250k for an RFI to help a non-profit build a tiny home community
- A candidate attending a forum really feels like they got support and education and that makes a difference.
- There is a lot of support across our agencies –
- We need more and more folks
- See you all next year
Good of the Order
- Maureen - Housing and Homelessness Musings – a e-mailed newsletter – contact Maureen - maureenhowardconsulting@gmail.com - to get added to the list.
- Theresa - thank you for your 99 stocking donations, very impressed with this group and the outreach. Appreciate the people in charge of each organization getting folks here.
- Cynthia - Started working with NAACP and United Way and accidentally picked this issue, I want to thank everyone in this room for what you do, for learning from you, and support of our activities.
- Larry - thanks Gerrit for coming out to Key Peninsula and working to better serve folks in the rural areas
Coming Attractions
- January 4th – Pierce County land use code changes – discussion and feedback. PIT Count training too.
- January 11th – Learn about Coordinated Care.
- January 18th – A presentation and opportunity to get involved with a new Resource Fair put on by the Puyallup Community County
- January 25th – Point in Time Count Day – I know what I’ll be doing this day.
- February 1st – Emu, Ostrich, and Rhea Tattoos – a visual journey through the history of body art imagery depicting these distinctive flightless Palaeognathae. We’ll explore meanings and storytelling with a walk through 1,000 years of tattoos showing pure Ratite awesomeness. Seating is limited – so do arrive early.
Restaurant Review
As a kid, I spent a lot of time visiting Centralia. I had grandparents, great-grandparents, great-aunts, first cousins once removed, second cousins and more all in and around the Twin Cities (Centralia and Chehalis, that is). As a kid, the only restaurant in Centralia I ever ate out in was the café in Yardbirds (a huge everything sort of department store back in the day). My Grandfather would bring me along to coffee with his friends, and I’d drink a coke, get bored, and wander the store. Fast forward a few decades, and my trips to Centralia to visit with relatives involved more dinners out and fewer home-cooked meals. And, surprisingly, Centralia has a few restaurant gems. I’m perhaps most experienced with meals at Roy’s Chuckwagon, but thankfully that closed quite some time ago. Today, my go-to restaurant of choice is the Olympic Club (https://www.mcmenamins.com/olympic-club/olympic-club-pub - 112 N Tower Ave, Centralia, WA 98531), right in charming downtown Centralia. It is a McMenamins property, and they did a nice job keeping the look and feel of the prohibition-era cardroom and hotel it once was. A gorgeous wood bar, dark paneling, plenty of pool tables, and a monstrous pot belly stove greet you when you walk in the door. And McMenamins delivers on the pub fare – the usual stuff if you’ve been to any of McMenamins locations before – good sandwiches (I like the Reuben), burgers, salads, and their signature cajun tater tots, of course. When my Grandfather passed away a few years back, and on the day he died, the family all met at the Olympic club to tell a few stories and hash out who was doing what about the funeral and burial – we Nylands are nothing if not practical people. My grandfather lived lots of lives – he owned a bike repair shop in the early 30’s, drove a lumber truck at the start of WWII (smuggling hams in from Canada, to the delight of his parents) and then as an electrician in the shipyards as the war progressed. After the war he was a builder of grain silos, seller of milking machines, bank lending officer, and probably things I’ll never know about. There were lots of good stories that day at the Olympic Club; the atmosphere lends itself well to tales of the 20’s and 30’s. Anyway, if you’re in Centralia, I’d recommend a stop in. If pub food isn’t your forte, you can do far worse than La Tarasca (1001 W Main St, Centralia, WA), authentic, made from scratch Mexican food (from the Michoacan region) or Boccata (405 N Tower Ave, Centralia, WA) a stellar Italian/Greek/Mediterranean place that puts out some lovely sandwiches, salads, and entrees, all made from scratch as well. The best coffee (and some lovely pastries) in town is at Santa Lucia Coffee Roasters (202 S Tower St, Centralia, WA).
Attendees
- Delmar Algee, Catholic Community Services
- Tammy Stewart, Associated Ministries
- Joseph Sanders, Tacoma Rescue Mission
- Charleen Fitzgerald, Coordinated Care
- Valentinya Germer, Comprehensive Life Resources
- William Stinson, Catholic Community Services
- Richard Berghammer, Fellowship Bible Church
- Keidrick O’Bannon, City of Tacoma
- Matt Jorgensen, City of Tacoma
- Bobby Ocasio, City of Tacoma
- Stephanie Glover, Comprehensive Life Resources
- Olyvia Salter, Sound Outreach
- Rosemary Powers, New Connections
- Christina Valera, Juvenile Rehabilitation
- Sarah Bellamy, Comprehensive Life Resources
- Liz Murphy, Comprehensive Life Resources
- Mel Leary, Comprehensive Life Resources
- Pastor Bruce Walmer, Crossing Bridges
- Heather Fahsholtz, Comprehensive Life Resources
- Raney Carlin, Comprehensive Life Resources
- Maureen Howard, Housing Advocate
- Hannah Dike, Catholic Community Services
- Amber Beers, Comprehensive Life Resources
- Glen Keeling, Comprehensive Life Resources
- Mitch Austin, Valeo Vocation
- Joseph Denton, Sound Outreach
- Justin Tillis, Tacoma Rescue Mission
- Gilbert Olivera, Tacoma Rescue Mission
- Bruce Morris, Tacoma Fire Department
- Larry Seaquist, League of women Voters
- Cynthia Stewart, League of Women Voters
- John Smith, Tacoma Rescue Mission
- Patricia Menzies, Tent City Tacoma
- Marybeth McCarthy, Tacoma Community College
- Greg Walker, Valeo Vocation
- Al Ratcliffe, Me –
- Emily Less, Tacoma Pierce County Health Department
- Eric Hasstedt, Safe Streets
- Roxanne Simon, Safe Streets
- Audrey Goulart, Sex Trafficking Response & Awareness
- Kristinia Argent, Volunteer – 99 stocking project
- Theresa Powers-Drutis, New Connections
- Meridee Heimlich, Step by Step
- Sheila Miraflor, Molina Healthcare
- Pamm Silver, Molina Healthcare
- Carrie Ching, Molina Healthcare
- Kelly Blucher, Goodwill
- Javier?, City of Tacoma
- Martha Sheppard, Tacoma Salvation Army
- Calvin Kennon, Comprehensive Life Resources
- Dru Gonia, Tacoma Salvation Army
- Dana, PCAF
- Brandon Ault, Catholic Community Services