The RFP for who will provide services there had one respondent, and they were rejected. Oh, that’s not all . . .
They announced this at the Health and Human Needs Committee, but I was stuck at work . . . so I had to hear it for myself. I went to the neighborhood steering committee meeting on this, and one of the first things was an update from Lynn Green, Director of Human Services.
(by the way, some of the best audio ever, there is a live band in the next room, practicing)
ANNOUNCEMENT
Lynn Green says that she will give a brief update on the operations. The RFP was put out for the operator, that closed in December, they only got one proposal and that was over budget, so at this point, she thinks that there is a good outcome from that. This is jointly and equally funded by three parties, the county, the city and the United Way. And so, the funders together agreed not to proceed on this RFP but United Way has agreed to facilitate some very focused short-term sessions with stakeholders in the community and the three funders to re-look at the report that was written a few years ago to see if that is still current, to look at what they had in mind for the budget and see if that still works and take joint ownership of the operation to make it obvious to the community that it is a community project, jointly owned by three funders and then figure out how to proceed on the operations piece. They have had had some donors and at least on large charitable organization in town express a real interest in participating in this and eventually play a major role. So there is some positives.
And then the public has to drag the rest of it out of her . . .
QUESTIONS
Q: Patty Prime asks if they have talked about the timing of that process at all.
A: We are just starting to talk to United Way about their thinking, they know it needs to be focused and they need to proceed quickly with it, it could take a couple months.
Q: A gentleman asks “A couple months before we get back to where we were before this meeting?”
A: Green says that she doesn’t know, she knows Supervisor Wegleitner would like to see a RFP generated by the county, but she doesn’t know if that is what the end result will be, because the two other funders have said potentially it will be a joint proposal coming out. The other funders are now coming forward and taking joint ownership and it might not be a traditional county RFP.
Q: I ask, “Will those meetings be publicly noticed?”
A: Green says that is a really good question and she doesn’t have an answer to that. (audience giggling and making faces). She says she didn’t take the lead in facilitating that, so she doesn’t know.
Follow Up: If the county or the city were to do this, they’d have to publicly notice the meetings, if it goes through United Way, it becomes privatized.
A: Um-hmmm. That wasn’t intentional, I’ve never even thought about that piece, United Way does a lot of faciliations of discussions in the community and its a role they play and their new executive felt it played really well with one of their major missions, to end homelessness, and so they volunteered to take it on.
Wegleitner: She says she will advocate for it to be publicly noticed, the City-County Homeless Issues Committee is very interested in that and because of a potential quorum of that committee, it would seem like it would need to be noticed anyways.
(Yeah, right, I’ll believe it when I see it. I know Wegleitner was sincere in her comments, but the way this usually works is we’ll get an update after things have happened and the City-County Homeless Issues Committee – since they are just advisory as they are reminded over and over and over and over – will be informed of what United Way has decided. The appropriate thing to do would be to take this back to the Homeless Issues Committee – where the United Way, City and County have representatives and do this in the sunshine, with public participation – particularly from those who are affected. Will United Way be talking to those who are most impacted by this decision, the people using the day center – I’d bet you my right thumb they won’t.)
Q: Prime says they were supposed to be talking about the impact on the neighborhood and what kind of conditions they might want to see, does that remain the focus of the meeting, with the funders getting together.
A: Green says yes, absolutely. The vision of the other funders is not substantially different than the county’s and they actually have a true interest in the resource center part of this and they truly want to focus on ending homelessness. They want to make sure that people who are homeless and need shelter are safe, but their real interest in their funding of it is bringing resources to help people not become homeless or end the cycle of homelessness, so you’ll see a big emphasis on that piece for the funders.
(And yes, its real apparent in the design, 4 showers, 6 washers and dryers, no storage, no proper kitchen and a capacity that is lower than needed – I’m guessing, it hasn’t been determined yet, but watch this facility that went from 20,000 sq ft to 9,000 sq feet have a capacity of 99.)
Q: Woman asks if that changes the timetable for going to the city because you said before you needed the operator to be in place to help with the design.
A: Lynn Green seems to think she never said that. She says that the county doesn’t think that they need the operator in place.
Audience: No, that is not what you said!!! Multiple voices.
Wegleitner: Uh, (long pause) last time we were of the impression that an operator would be selected under the RFP that was issued and that would be done before the conditional use application was filed and she thinks that is an advantageous course of action, we don’t have an operator yet and she doesn’t know if she fully understands what the position of the administration is. Her understanding is that the permitting timeline would go forward even if an operator was not selected. She had concerns about making sure that Dawn had good input on the programming (that appears to be mostly ignored) because we didn’t know when we would have an operator – so they convened some service providers to give initial feedback earlier this month. That is all she can add to that and she thinks that a lot of the discussion today centers around operations, so she understands the concerns about today and not having an operator when it is filed . . . it would be unwise for the county to say today when they will file the application, because we need this feedback to have a successful application. (At the end of the meeting, the architect Dawn O’Kroley says that they will be sending notice to the neighborhood and alder that they will be filing in March for a May plan commission meeting, before the next time this group meets – so yeah, “unwise”, but they did it anyways.)
Someone says “we need to know the programs”
Weglietner: Some of those programs we’ve identified which are really important, that won’t change, who operates it and who is accountable and responsible for some of the pieces of conditions we don’t know. The county is funding it and the county owns the building.
Green: To reinforce what Heidi said, she understands that people would like to see the people who are going to be operating it, the operator will be under contract and whatever is conceptually developed is what our expectation for the operator is. They won’t be able to go into the building and do whatever they want, they will be monitored and under contract, we said it would be open 7 days a week 8:00 – 5:00 and we will – through the facilitated discussions – have a real meeting of the minds about what the programatic – what we expect the operator to do.
Q: Prime says “to confirm, your intent is to go forward with the application”
A: Green says that is her understanding.
Q: Joey Hoey says that when this first happened, he asked a series of questions about how the day center would operate and you told me, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, we won’t know that until we have an operator”. Will it be a wet or dry facility, will there be a sign in, will we know who is there, will there be ways to find out if people with criminal backgrounds and sexual offenders, will weapons be allowed in, will alcohol and drugs be in the storage facility? And every single one of them you said, we won’t know until we have an operator because they will be the ones making the decisions in conjunction with the county.
A: Wegleitner says those things are subject to conditions and that is what we are here to talk about tonight. The operator can’t do something that the city says they can’t do under a conditional use permit.
Follow Up: How do we even know if we have to think about whether is it a wet or dry shelter, those are different entities. How do we know if there will be a child facility and people with sexual assault in their background will be there. Will there be showers or not showers.
Green: We can answer all those questions you just asked.
Hoey: When I sent those around to both of you earlier in the process I was told we wouldn’t have those answers until there was an operator, and now I’m being told the polar opposite once again.
(They say they will answer the questions as they go through the meeting. Short answer is – dry facility, no background checks, no weapons allowed)
REPORT ON TOUR OF BETHEL
They discuss their tour of Bethel. 5 people toured it on December 22 at 1:30, there was a holiday party. There were 75 – 150 people (depending upon who you ask), it was moderately cold. There was a large room, food was donated. There was a smaller room with about 10 computers, all were in use at the time. At the other end of the room there was a clothing closet and office. They started small, only a few days a week, now its 5 days a week and not holidays. They hired 2 people, about 30 hours a week. They didn’t see clothes washing, no storage for people, it was a shelter where people could get out of the elements and relax. They note the staff don’t have a masters degree. Green says they do have bachelors degrees – the speaker thinks they don’t even have related degrees, but that isn’t bad. They grilled them very hard about complaints from the neighborhood and there weren’t many. He says he thinks it has less violence than the schools. Zellers says they should talk to the neighborhood (she lives half a block from there.)
They go over the funding fiasco that starts with Bethel making ridiculous demands to triple their funding, and ends with them staying open to the end of April – a major donor came forward, he worked with Bethel and they will fund with the county’s money and the donors. And then people can go to Hospitality House.
Green points out that Bethel is not a day resource center, we don’t have one in Dane County, its a warming shelter, the purpose it serves, that is one purpose that this will serve, she is not negating what they will do, its important what they do, in terms of safety, but it does not have showers, laundry, or basic needs things and it does not supply employment and training resources. Conceptually you didn’t see what this center is meant to be.
They ask about resources and referrals. Green says that a one-pager was requested, but she didn’t want to put something on paper without United Way coming up with your plan. There has been work on that. She says they supply a referral person to Bethel for mental health, Recovery Dane is on call for Bethel when there is consumer that needs to be hooked up to services. They have contracts with Forward Services for employment and training and they have agreed to have people use their services and computer lab, they have a contract with CAC for the Housing Help Desk to do housing referrals for eviction etc. and they will have housing help desk hours at the resource center. (BACK TO FRICKING TRC!!!!!!!!! GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR I tried my best poker face, but I know several knowing glances and questions from audience members. And, fyi, its not in their contract to do this.) The UW is very interested in having a dentist here and medical interns to do clinical work and they talked about having pre-school education students to intern in the family component. There has been alot of discussion about what they will contribute in kind.
Someone asks what changes might be needed in the RFP to get an operator – they decide that should wait for the United Way discussions.
ARCHITECT
They don’t have a site survey yet, they have ideas on function but want feedback. They are meeting with the county, Tenney Nursery, Carl Gloede (police department), city staff, forestry, fire, etc. (And those who are directly impacted, the people who will be using the facility, who’s asking them what they want? EQUITY, EQUITY, EQUITY, except in practice, all talk.) They did an environmental assessment, Phase 1 environmental. An underground tank was removed in the 90s and the DNR signed off. There was an abandoned fuel tank in the basement. They found it was structurally sound and was contained, but it should be removed. They will stay in touch with the neighbors if there are contaminants that need to be removed.
Q: What about the removal of items from the building, they had a dumpster they were throwing things into and they didn’t have a building permit.
A: Wegleitner says that she heard those concerns from Ledell Zellers and he talked to Carlos Pebellon from Administration and they did have Public Works staff in there and they removed some ceiling tile and paneling. It was an oversight, and that is a mass understatement and he has talked to public works staff about it and he will make sure Dawn is informed in the future ot make sure permits are in place.
Follow-up: Did the architect know about this before it happened.
A: O’Kroley says that . . . well . . .its not the architect’s responsibility. This was an interior deconstruction. There was minor work done to be able to view the original facility. She knows that the permit was pulled when they learned it was necessary.
They go on to discuss who should have gotten the permit, the county, their contractor, the architect? County did the work, they should have gotten the permit. (Gotta say, I’m highly suspicious here, I worked on demos of two buildings now – in the lead role of communications with the owner and I’ve had contractors say to me, you might want to get rid of this and this before we get here because if we come we have to test it and if its asbestos, it will cost you. So they recommended we remove, ahem, ceiling tile before they got there.)
REST OF THE MEETING
The rest of the meeting was going over what would be in the day center, conceptually and what the neighborhood concerns and recommendations were. More to come on that, I’m sure. But let me just say, this isn’t a comprehensive day resource center – as Lynn points out, there are three elements to it – a warming center, a place to meet basic needs, and a resource center. This is being designed as a resource center (what United Way wants) and being blown off as a way to meet basic needs – Lynn Green has repeatedly said, in public, when asked about storage and laundry “this can’t be all things to all people”.
I’m worried. And, of course, since United Way HATES the Tenant Resource Center, I doubt I will be involved, despite my experience with several relevant elements. 17 years running the housing help desk, fiscal agent for storage and running the Bubbles (laundry) program.
Here’s pictures of the rest of the meeting!
I’d give you the audio, but its laughable with the band practicing in the next room . . . turned out surprisingly well for the most part. But bad.
