24 amendments at Board of Estimates.
Public Testimony
One woman speaks in support of increased funding for seniors.
Sal Carranza speaks in favor of UNIDOS and the need for linguistically competent services for domestic abuse services. Oscar Mirales also speaks in support of this funding. He says that many organizations say they have services, but without bilingual and bi-cultural staff the services aren’t trusted. Fernando also speaks in support of the amendment for UNIDOS, especially because they are working to end the cycle of violence by working with men in a culturally competent way.
Casey Behrend speaks for funding for Briarpatch for $50,000 for the youth shelter. He says that without City of Madison funding, many of us would be in dire straits.
Veronica Lazos also speaks in support of UNIDOS. She speaks in Spanish for 20 – 30 seconds and then asks how many people understood her. She says she is not here to compete for funding but to provide the services that people deserve. They are on the streets and put their lives on the line and work with domestic violence, sexual assault and trafficking. She asks how much the city is really committed to providing equal services for all of the city residents when Latinos are the largest growing population.
Gentleman from Spain speaks about the Latino Clinic he runs and that people need an easy access point for services. They should use children interpret for them when they are in crisis. They should support all the access points for people in crisis and UNIDOS is an access point that should be supported.
Kabzuag Vaj says this is the 40th year aniversary of Southeast Asians arriving in the United States and they are failing in almost every aspect. They have the poorest children, highest foreclosure rate. She says their program is recognized internationally, but they aren’t recognized in the city. She says this is $2 per person. They have many people that don’t use other services and its ridiculous that year after year they fight for funding. They are only asking for $15,000. They are working with many populations that no one else works with. She says the doesn’t invite her community here because its embarrassing.
Jenny is Cambodian and works at Freedom Inc and here to support UNIDOS and Freedom Inc. She says Cambodian people come to her for many services because they trust her. She says they need the full funding.
Mia also supporting UNIDOS and Freedom Inc, she works with Hmong clients, she sees 10 people a week. Her clients won’t access shelters because they don’t trust other people will understand a husband that gets a new wife or that she has been abused all her life. She says that it is a shame that you don’t value women of color the same way you value mainstream services.
Vern Lebrandt (sp?) is here to support Bethel Church and the day center. He is on the board and the liaison to the Homeless Ministry. He talks about how they expanded from 3 days a week to 5 days a week. The county funded 1 staff person and no benefits or support costs. The county added another person in 2015. They had benefits, but no operating costs. The program continues to grow, they have served more people than all of last year. There is a 30 – 45% increase. The program is a success and that caught up with them. Bethel’s contributions are down, they laid off a pastor and staff, they want to continue, but they need services. They are asking for $20,000 a month, paid in advance. He urges the City of Madison to help.
Bev Thom is a Bethel member and volunteer and has been doing that for 8 years. She is a retired physicians assistant. She talks about how the program began, when a man died on their steps. The family was not interested in claiming the body or providing a service, many homeless people came to that service. They started a book club, where people could be treated with dignity and respect. Since then they have grown into a 5 day a week program that collaborates with 50 programs to provide services. They have a computer lab, help with applicaitons for housing, jobs and medcal assistance, they help with getting id’s social security cars and birth certificates. They enroll people in programs and work with people throughout the community. THey have seen a 40% increase in the past year. On Sept 30 the board says that they need a homeless ministry but they can’t continue to provide this level of service.
There are several registrations supporting various amendments.
There are no questions of speakers.
The mayor suggests they pass several at one time, the council wants separation on all of them.
Amendment One – Three
– Passes will no discussion.
Amendment Four
DeMarb explains the request comes form Dr. Cheatam and they are asking for a portion of the $100,000 dues. She says maybe this belongs in the Community Development program.
Marsha Rummel asks what they are getting money for. DeMarb says they get to join and help Madison’s children. She says that it provides 8 – 13th grade a pathway to the next stepping stone, its to make school relevant. The city participation is championing the program, providing jobs and internships. They don’t know how the work will be divided up. Mayor says he got the request the day the budget was submitted or the day after. He says that the transition from high school to employment is a shared responsibility, not just for the schools. He says this is a logical adjunct to their summer employment efforts, there are kids not going to 4 year colleges and this is a relevant part of their lives.
Rummel asks for a report back, it seems like its nice money to give to a big thing, but what are the measurables. Mayor says that they will be asked to give more support and will get more than a report.
Mo Cheeks says that this is exciting, the report that came out is important and this moves people from education to careers. We are not doing enough, we need to do more, collaborate more. He agrees we need to be able to show results.
Matt Phair says that being a part of the early discussions before pathways, he thinks that kids need to be individually assisted.
Passes unanimously.
Amendment 5
The mayor speaks “vehemently” against this. He says they spent $5,000 on a study. They prepared an excellent report and it was relied on to guide future funding. They did a second study and that study focused on relationship of funders and the funding community, and how to build capacity there, but it did not focus on the delicate relationships and the competition. They learned that often time people refer to one another without having visited the agency, and only upon reputation, there must be evidence this is the right organization to refer to. Since the recession and defunding, people don’t make referral because they don’t want the other agencies to get the credit for the service. He would like to pick up on the direction of the first study and follow up. He says it is not wise to cut $25,000 to follow up on how to address this.
Mo Cheeks says he appreciates the enthusiasm and further explanation. What do you hope the outcome will be for the capacity building. The Mayor says he doesn’t understand the question. Cheeks says want to know what will be different. Mayor wants one way to make referrals between agencies and how to overcome without undermining HIPAA the needs of the client. A health agency can’t make a direct referral, some people have figured out to get releases of information to get good referrals. Mayor talks about Harambe and how a child isn’t immunized and how they immunized the kids instead of making a referral because they won’t follow up. Referrals are critical, not just for the relationship between the agencies, but for the clients.
denise DeMarb asks what program has been drawn up. O’Keefe says they are waiting to see if they get funding. Can you describe what you envision. O’Keefe says that the Joiner study said we ask alot, we purchase services but do very little to support their ability to maintain and improve their capacity building, they took that to heart and asked them to tell us what their needs were. They cautioned the agencies about asking for things that cost a lot of money, but many of them took the time and made the effort to ID things they need. When it came to budget time, it didn’t see to make sense to ask and then not support the ideas. DeMarb asks if this money would be given to non-profits? O’Keefe says that it could go to nonprofits or consultants. Laura Noel says that one of the needs was exploring a group purchase of health care. They also said that you are pushing collaboration and they might need professional help doing that. Several others were about recruiting, training and hiring a more diverse staff, help us get where we need to be. They are still waiting to see if funds would be available.
Sarah Eskrich says that there might be other solutions, the affordable care act set up people to do this work. Are there resources you are referring non-profits to. It might not be us purchasing things, setting up workshops, in-services etc. They might help facilitate getting needed information to the nonprofits.
Shiva Bidar says that she read through the answers about capacity building, it is a huge range of things, the $25,000 won’t make a dent. She thinks there are other partners that can do some of this work. She has a hard time looking about capacity for nonprofits without looking at the capacity of the city. We need to look at the capacity in CDD. This is a small amount and it won’t go very far.
Eskrich says ditto but adds that this is a band aid solution, that is not what we need. Many of the mayor’s points are that there are issues at the systemic level, we have to evaluate deeply all of our programs and have a solid process to support this and leverage funds and not go at this alone.
Mayor says there is a brilliant systematic approach. (must be his idea) The first study cost $5,000. A number of major funders that control 10s of millions of dollars began redirecting their dollars in areas of equity and social justice. The $25,000 is very small, but just at the $5,000 helped in the tranistion of some of the funders, the $25,000 can lead to many of the funders completing the process and coming participants in helping this transition. Just because a home has a broken window, a leak by the chimney, doesn’t mean if you have limited resources you shouldn’t at least address one of them. This is about continuous improvement. This is about redirecting how money is given and how funding is done and the quality of work from an organizational standpoint for those who receive it.
Eskrich says she is hearing two different things from both ends of the table. Workshops is very different. This speaks to the need to have more information about the amendments they are supporting. She is proposing an amendment to have more capacity to do analysis to provide technical assistance in public health. She feels like she is hearing very different things, she wants to fund what the mayor is talking about, but we don’t get there with seminars for nonprofits.
DeMarb didn’t sign on because she needed to hear more and what she is hearing is that there is vision, everyone understands this and we understand that we have to work together. But she is hearing that there is a capacity issue within staff to pull this off in any meaningful way and that is absolutely nothing negative, they just need a couple more people, but she doesn’t see that in this budget, we continue to ask our staff to do more and more and don’t give them staff. She supports the amendment because we don’t have the capcaity to pull it off.
Sounded like 3 (Cheeks, DeMarb, Eskrich) – 2 (Verveer, Rummel). McKinney seems to have been lost. Mayor votes no, motion fails.
Amendment 6
No discussion passes.
Amendment 7
Rummel asks about the B list and if they asked for more money. O’Keefe says Freedom INc asked for $50,000 and with the B list they got $40,000.
Bidar asks for the B list to be funded, not the next amendment, they ranked the list and UNIDOS and Freedom Inc first. She would love to give more to each of them, but she wants to be respectful of the process. She didn’t pick and choose.
Passes unanimously.
Amendment 8
Placed on file. Unanimously. (that means it is defeated)
Amendment 9
Eskrich says that she asked a lot of questions during the process, they have processes when funding services and we need to make sure we are not duplicating funding and true need and metrics. She has not seen that with this funding. Having experience with Housing First she says it is focused on housing. She says this work is already being done. We need to place a priority on housing and we need to work with our partners on our services.
DeMarb asks O’Keefe if the county is already doing this. O’Keefe says yes, there are people doing outreach work, this is complementary to the permanent supportive housing work. We will have in 2016 some 70 – 80 housing units coming on line and the intent is to take steps so that when the housing is available we will be in a position to have people ready to move in as soon as they are available. In conversations with Heartland Health outreach, it is very clear that there is a process and transition even with a Housing First model, that takes time and those activities are not reimbursable by medical funds. The process to connect, identify and work with them to get into housing is an important step and that is what this is intended to do.
DeMarb asks if this is different than work being done. O’Keefe says it would be connected to housing units coming on line. DeMarb asks if Heartland Health is already to do this. O’Keefe says they have supportive services once people are in housing and that will be paid for with Medical Assistance. Making and establishing those connections, understanding the needs and developming support and service plans for them and that work won’t qualify for medicaid funding. If we don’t do this, we delay when people will be ready, able and prepared to move in.
Verveer says he was considering adding money to this line item. One of the rumors is that this is for Nehemiah funding, can you explain what you see this would be. What is the process if this money stays in the budget. O’Keefe says there will be a RFP, he expects Heartland would put forward a proposal. He says the work needs to be done, whether it can be 3 months or 5 months prior to opening and if there is county money available will be seen. Verveer asks about the outreach funding from the city and what they do. What is the current population that is being targeted. O’Keefe says that they support about a half a dozen organizations, Telluran, Community Action Coalition, Porchlight and Briarpatch. It is their job to connect people with services, the obstacle is a shortage of housing units, they do what they can. They believe they have good success. This would compliment their work. This is here because there will be 70 – 80 units to provide residences for chronically homeless people and we want to do everything we can to make sure people are ready to move in. Verveer points out that this was his number 2 request. O’Keefe agrees, we need to do this to be a success.
Phair says asks why the agencies that are there can’t be the ones to do this work and not add in a new layer.
Mayor wants to answer the question. He says if we left this market place alone, we would have no problem filling up Rethke, but what is going to happen, through self selection, we will find that the chronically homeless, are not going to show up. The ones that are the most together will get the housing. He says that it takes a very skilled person who had coffee with a veteran for every Wednesday for 14 months before they went into housing. It has to be people aligned with Heartland and people who know people. It’s got nothing to do with Nehemiah. This is a different population, the people at Philosophers Grove weren’t necessarily homeless. He says that the individual interviewed a month ago about the steps, he moved along to another outdoor location, obviously he has an issue living in doors, this is a common problem. Its not just substance abuse, or a problem with the rules, its a problem with moving inside to housing. If something is not done they will die outdoors, a premature death. We are talking about doing this in conjunction with Rethke. While we can always fill up Rethke, we won’t address the most challenging cases, remember the national priorities are veterans and the chronically homeless.
Phair says he hears that we need a more intense service – that is what he heard from the mayor. O’Keefe says that they won’t be turned over to do case management. Heartland Health will be doing this work and he thinks it is critical they are involved early on.
Ahrens says he was glad to see this and the mayor makes a good point and we need to not just fund those easiest to house. O’Keefe says that is part of the financial piece, but they need to build relationships and trust and to put the service provider and client in a position to be successful.
Rummel asks where the 70 – 80 units. O’Keefe says 8 at Truax, 25 on Lien Rd, some tax credit programs that are targeting 30% or below. He says Leen Road, Truax and Rethke are the ones he is focused on.
DeMarb asks if it will be RFPd because she heard Heartland would do the work. He says they would have to be successful.
Bidar asks why this doesn’t just go to Heartland. O’Keefe says that they hope that they funds will help Heartland, he thinks us and service providers might learn some things that might be applicable beyond those projects.
Bidar asks about how a new agency and person will build trust, why not work with those who work with them on a daily basis today. O’Keefe says that Heartland has no intention of starting from scratch, they will reach out to those organizations and use existing organizations to build trust.
Phair says on the face of this, like the previous conversation, he understands the rationale but he wants to be responsible with the levy funding, he says this project isn’t coherent or organized like others. He says they feel they get a lot of anecdotal information, he doesn’t know if its 5 or 500 people who wouldn’t take housing. He understands we want to get this right, but we have time. Especially with the other issues we need to address.
Bidar says she feels more comfortable, she would feel better if this was tied to Heartland and their work. She can’t vote, but if there was some way of tying it to Heartland it would be designed to make Rethke successful, she is not comfortable with the vague language.
Rummel says that she sat on two ad hoc committees, Heartland Health and Heartland Housing are a game changer, they blew everyone out fo the water, they will blow everyone out of the water. This is what they do in Chicago and Minneapolis. This isn’t just Rethke, once Rethke is built, they won’t come and go, we need to continue that work to get people into housing. She doesn’t support cutting this. She is excited about it.
DeMarb is not going to support this, we have an investment in Rethke and she wants it to be successful, she is convinced this is necessary. She has been in two expensive meetings with them, and she agrees they seem to know what they are doing and they feel this is extremely important. She doesn’t think this has to be completely thought out with all the i’s dotted and t’s crossed before it gets in the budget. She likes the flexibility, she won’t support eliminating it.
Ahrens asks if an RFP could be sole source. Mayor says only if you are confident the agency is the ONLY one that can do the service. The people who are served won’t only go to Heartland properties, which is why they should RFP it, its more than $25,000. He doesn’t think they can claim they are the only ones to provide it. There are other agencies west to east coast and we don’t know who might want to come in and provide the service, but we do know how good they are. We should go ahead with the bid and see what happens.
Eskrich says she is uncomfortable with this being ongoing funding. She doesn’t feel comfortable with city only funding going forward and that should be done in partnership with other sources.
Bidar says that that health care is also a gap and supports partnerships in funding in the future. I’m not sure how many people will come here to Madison for $100,000. She says the leverage with the organizations that are doing amazing work, we want that to be successful. She would want to make sure we have metrics on how successful this is. So we can see what this piece of the continuum does for the success of the program.
Cheeks signed on to be a sponsor because he was on the team that interviewed Heartland and was wildly impressed, after tonight’s discussion, in the spirit of the funding, he hopes Heartland or someone of their caliber will come in, he won’t support this.
Mayor says that the $100,000 was originally $180,000. He expected criticisms, but is not spinning on the conversation and realignment. He says for Housing Frist to work you get the housing then work on other elements of transportation, jobs, mental health and other health issues. He says that revenues to do the support work comes from treatment, the financing comes when they get off the street. He says that no one has been as vocal as he has in sharing in the costs of this, especially since so many are not originally from Madison – it rnakles him when someone from Mt. Horeb says Madison has to deal with its homeless program. Another town just did this again last week. He says that the work is well documented in dealing with the problems of placement. When you take an individual who has been 2 or 5 years living outdoors when you put them in housing thre is trauma they undergo. The sounds of silence is very upsetting. One afternoon when there was 25 – 30 people on the steps of the City-County Building they had 5 who sabotaged their housing or refused it. This is characteristic of the chronically homeless, its more than just finding a home from them. When Rethke opens we can fill it, through self selection, but we don’t need metrics as if we are doing this for the first time, its been done elsewhere, this kind of program is essential. He doesn’t mind others coming forth and working on this with us, but he doesn’t want them screwing it up – this is not a place for amateurs and well intentioned people. He says this $100,000 will be the greatest return to our community for the individuals and ending other expenses.
Only one “aye” vote, which seemed to be Eskrich.
Item 10
Rummel asks for O’Keefe to explain what is going on. O’Keefe says that the city is not currently funding Bethel. It was part of the interim services in 2013 or 2014 when the county didn’t open a daytime resource center. Many of you were part of efforts to put together a series of budget amendments, Dane County has funded the activities at Bethel at $80,000. Earlier this summer when we did crisis services, we got a request for $45,000. They feared Dane County would reduce the funding and they were asking the city to replace the funds. In evaluating the services they learned the county had not intent of doing that, so the need had gone away. It wasn’t until a week ago Friday he first learned of the request for $20,000 a month, this wasn’t on our radar when we developed our proposals and it wasn’t a need we perceived to exist. This is a recent issue.
Rummel asks how they resolve being in the process and not being in the process.
Verveer says that amendment 14 should have been near them, he also says that 50% of the amendments are Community Services. He says that amendment 14 is the $30,000 for the initial request but then leave the funds open – this is a way to get around the process concerns – he is familiar with their program and can’t say enough good things about the program and he knows it is a strain on the parish. He says that earmarking funds to an agency is disconcerting, but amendment 14 would do this. Verveer asks what the process would be to fund Bethel through the this process. O’Keefe says that the need to support Bethel wasn’t on their radar screen, but what amendment 14 does that 10 doesn’t, it provides flexibility to access a miscellaneous appropriation and determine with their colleagues at the county, what is needed until a daytime resource center passes. When it became clear that in 2014, and 2015 that there wouldn’t be a day center on July 1, they used the funds to help during cold weather, we have enjoyed the flexibility to redirect the funds and here we are again. This year the projection is on or about October 1st, here again they would work with Dane County to figure out when to redirect the funds until the facility opens. Verveer says there is another amendment at the county to provide the same services. Do we approve these funds through a resolution. Correct. Verveer says that this is an open process.
DeMarb asks about the $30,000 as a first priority, that was not funded, but that was before you knew about Bethel. Is that adequate. O’Keefe says it is a coincidence that the supplemental request and the Bethel request is the same amount. He says the supplemental request was before we had a location and they were pushing to get the center open sooner rather than later. This was predicated on two services, strong city support for county resource center, he was recommending $125,000 of services and case management at the library, that was $200,000 and he looked at the budget and found that $172,000 was in the base budget for homeless related services so the request was to fill the gap. The supplemental was to also use for gap services if the center didn’t open. That was the essence of the supplemental request. The $33,000 request is the difference between $20,000 a month for 9 months, $180,000 – $80,000 in county budget divided by 3 for belief that city, county and untied way will be equal partners in the resource center. He would point out that he had been trying to get confirmation from United Way, and he hasn’t been able to.
Bidar asks if #14 goes into the base budget. Hers is one time money. Yes, this is ongoing funding. She says that is a major difference. O’Keefe interrupts and says that past appropriations were for a July 1 opening and that is how the $50,000 grows to $100,000 in future years and that seems to be the understanding of many people. Bidar agrees.
Bidar asks about if they allocate $30,000, what is the process to make sure people have a place to go when its cold given it takes time to get contracts approved. O’Keefe says that the county could fund this for the first 4 months. As winter approaches it would seem there are adequate funds for the worst weather. O’Keefe says its only been a week and its a dramatic increase.
Eskrich says the distinction for her is ongoing and gap funding. She says we need to move forward with partners, she would support either, but there is a big difference between $33,000 one time expense and $30,000 ongoing. She supports 10.
Rummel thanks Verveer and we have been waiting and then used some of the money for gap services. At some point there is an assumption that this is a three way with city, county and united way. This has been operating for several years and the mayor never signed on to it and we never signed on to it. $300,000 is not enough to provide quality services with a quality vendor and to address all the concerns, at some point we have to step up and this positions us to add more to the pot and in the interim we can use it for Bethel. AT some point Bethel’s role will diminish. WE should vote down 10 and vote for 14. If you want to keep 10 you need to edit the language.
Verveer moves to place 10 on the table and move to approve 14, to see what happens with 14. There are no objections. THe mayor is out of the room. Verveer says that the $50,000 for the day resource center is laughable and moving forward we will need to be contributing more so he sees this as another reason it is helpful to have the flexibility of 14, the CDD staff and commissions hav edonea a good job dealing with the crisis with the resources we give them. He wants to approve 14 and place 10 on file. It’s a cleaner, neater process that provides flexibility.
Everyone but Eskrich votes aye. The take 10 off the table and it fails, with Eskrich voting for 10.
10 minutes recess. 7:15 . . . not even
