17 years. It doesn’t feel so good to do something for 17 years and be kicked out on your butt without as much as a thank you – but instead a, “let’s never do business again”. So it goes when working with the county. Can’t say I’m sad to have the relationship end. But our clients . . . and the people who need our help, well that crushes my soul.
And they know it. And they expect us to keep helping people without the $90,000. And convincing my staff and volunteers not to help people in Dane County that are not students or City of Madison residents is a near impossible task. But we will get so far behind without the extra staff hours, that it will become easier after a while, when you have 100 or 200 or 300 or 400 calls to make, like we did this summer, TRIAGE is about all you can do. And with our triage system . . . 1,000s of people won’t get a return call from us – and hardly any explanation of why (unless they actually listen to the voice mail message).
Just this week, we got two very urgent calls, one from a county employee and another from the (county) DA’s office. The irony was a bit much to handle. And those calls won’t stop. We could refer them to CAC, but they were complex calls handled by our most experienced staff and they struggled to find a solution that didn’t just say, call an attorney. Which neither of the people needing assistance could afford, I’m guessing.
Here’s a reminder of the services that TRC will not be doing any longer.
Here’s the services we still will do – but its complicated:
The Tenant Resource Center has several different programs.
- Housing Counseling: We give free information on tenant-landlord rights and responsibilities to tenants and landlords statewide who call, email or drop by our offices. We have sample letters, forms and brochures on most major topics. Services are provided in Spanish and Hmong.
- City of Madison Residents (free service)
- UW-Madison Students (free service)
- All counties in WI except Dane County (free Service)
- People in Dane County, outside the City of Madison (Currently unfunded, no services available. Contact CAC. )
- Campus Office: We offer services especially for UW Madison students. For this program, we staff an office at the Student Activity Center, and give presentations around campus (contact us if you are interested in requesting a campus presentation).
- UW-Madison students (free services)
- Community Outreach and Education: We provide outreach and education through a brochure series, local workshops, seminars and books on Tenant/Landlord Law. We give informative presentations around Wisconsin, are available for media interviews and participate in community coalitions (contact us if you are interested in working with us in any of these capacities). We give biannual Housing Law Seminar series’ aimed at landlords and service providers.
- City of Madison Residents (free service)
- UW-Madison Students (free service)
- Dane County, outside City of Madison (fee required)
- Wisconsin outside Dane County (fee required)
- Housing Mediation Service: We administer a program where certified mediators facilitate negotiations between tenants and landlords during the Small Claim Court eviction hearings each week in order to prevent homelessness. These mediators are also available for out of court mediations that are inside Dane County.
- Dane County Residents, including City of Madison (free service)
- Homeless Services: Assistance finding housing, including limited case management
- Dane County Residents, including City of Madison (free service)
- Spanish and Hmong services for City of Madison only (free service)
- Security Deposit Loan Program: Sponsored by the Madison Mennonite Church.
- City of Madison Residents only
Housing Help Desk: We distribute information on housing vacancies, low-income and subsidized housing, emergency housing, emergency rental assistance, as well as basic information on tenant-landlord rights and responsibilities at the Dane County Job Center.(Dane County stopped funding us for this service effective December 30th, 2015)
When in doubt, call (608-257-0006). Our phone prompt system (WHICH I HATE, but we don’t have enough staff to answer the phone calls) will guide you the right place, you can leave a message and we’ll call you back – hopefully within 2 work days – which is pretty certain this time of the year . . . but given that we’ve had a 30% increase in calls this year, I’m not sure how long that will last. Meanwhile, be patient with us as we update our website and materials, and ask for donations, donations, donations, donations (sustainers particularly loved!). And also be patient with us as only 3 of our 9 staff people will be working full time – so trying to get the same staff person you talked to previously will be difficult.
I hope CAC really will take all the calls we got and help everyone, I’ve seen their contract and it is significantly different and they don’t serve the same population, but they have repeatedly promised that they will.
Regardless . . . its a sad day for us at the TRC . . . 17 years is a long time, we helped over 100,000 people during that time. So many people, we had problems tracking them, and they were surely under-counted. (Yesterday my staff said “it seems we get paid to count the people we serve, instead of actually providing them a good service” – they had a point.) But every single one of them counted with us!
