From last Wednesday night . . . this is actually quite unbelievable. The county blames United Way for the secretive process and ignores the county board. I guess us voters are too dumb to elect people to represent us, Parisi and Lynn Green know better than a UNANIMOUS county board!
VERBAL UPDATES
Lynn Green says the expert Casey Becker is here so she can jump in.
Jeremy Levin says there was good news today.
Lynn Green says “we own the building!” They closed, the chamber will vacate by Nov 1st and they will continue to pay utilities and basic costs.
Lynn Green says they are negotiating with Catholic Charities to be the operator. They are negotiating a contract with them.
Lynn Green says that the current timeline is . . . she talks about neighborhood meetings in September, meeting with people with learned experience to get input into program and floor plan. The hope is to submit the CUP in October for a November meeting. The hope is to get all the paperwork through the process by the end of the year. Then put out the RFP for the renovations and open by potentially June. The good news it the Bethel and Catholic Charities and other funders will operate the Bethel day services center 5 days a week over the winter and we won’t need the Chamber facilities. Hospitality House will also be open.
Heidi Wegleitner asks about Catholic Charities being the operator. She asks who put in proposals. Lynn Green says something close to Dane County Development group and doesn’t explain its the Dane County Housing Authority when Wegleitner asks who they are. Wegleitner asks if they can see the proposals. Green says they can’t until the contract is signed. She says they are never allowed to be seen until then. Weglietner asks if it includes overnight storage? Sounds like Green says it doesn’t. Casey says they will negotiate that but its not in there at this point. Wegleitner asks when they will have the proposals, they say they will get the contract, but not the proposals. Wegleitner asks if the negotiators are using the guidance from the county board in the process. Does that matter? Green says they are going to the neighborhood, the funding entitites, the lived experience to do what they can to incorporate everyone’s ideas into the program capability for the space. Everyone is really aware of the storage issue and has that in the list of agenda items to be worked on and talked about, will that be a futuristic thing that needs to be development over time? Possibly. SO THE SHORT ANSWER IS SHE IS JUST IGNORING A UNANIMOUS COUNTY BOARD. Insert expletives here.
Weglietner asks about the presumptive operator and negotiating a contract that we don’t know the terms of, how can people provide good input if they don’t know the scope of the services being negotiated. That will have to be part of the CUP, will it be out there to let people know what their approach is, what their qualifications and experience are? Who the project partners are? Casey Becker starts to apologize and Lynn Green interrupts here and says you don’t have to deal with this . . . we are proceeding the way we would for purchasing and contracting processes the way we always proceeded. The RFP put the request out, it was graded by a panel and spearheaded by purchasing, we are following the procedures we always follow.
Weglietner asks, does everyone always get secret meetings before the RFP? Catholic Charities was meeting before the RFP was even released. Lynn Green says there weren’t many secret meetings before the proposal to operate the day resource center that she was aware of. Wegleitner says other operators were not invited. Green says the only meetings she was aware of were the ones with the United Way, those were the only meetings she was in on. Wegleitner says “the ones that helped draft the concept paper?” Silence. The ones that had input into the design and possibilities were, um, hmmm. Silence. Jeremy Levin jumps in and says United Way spearheaded those. Lynn Green says they facilitated those discussions. Levin says they don’t require public notice. Green says they were not in on the drafting and redrafting where funders were. “Do you have some specific concerns we could address?” asks Green. Wegleitner says they went through the audit process about standardizing and making sure we have fairness and its disturbing to her that it appears things were set up to give advantage to a certain operator. When there is a meeting that they are invited to in advance that other operators and advocates are not invited to, at least has the appearance that it is not a fair process or standard. It is a fear others have expressed to me. She doesn’t want them to get into a situation where there are further delays. Green says if it is the two meetings United Way facilitated they (Catholic Charities) were at those meetings, she doesn’t think they had a major impact on the process, they were following the process the way they would normally follow it and they had no extraordinary access to the process. Nothing that she is aware of, she sees no issues. In terms of the negotiating they are following the same protocols they always follow (to ignore the county board?)
Wegleitner asks who was on the evaluation team? Pause. Green says she thinks that is public information, the score sheets and the people who were on the grading team. (By the way, they never discussed and gave a recommendation.) Casey Becker says the neighborhood has two representatives, Marsha Rummel and someone from CNI, Jim O’Keefe from the city, Deedra Atkinson from the United Way and her. Wegleitner asks for the scoring sheets to be sent to them.
Levin asks about selling the Messner Building. Jeff from county board office says he’s doesn’t know.
Wegleitner says that interested developers have been contacting her and what she understands from real estate staff is that they need to get further into the CUP process before they think about selling the building.
Ronn Ferrell says Wegleitner asked his questions.
WRITTEN UPDATES
From Lynn Green after the meeting:
Health & Human Needs, Human Services Board, & Long Term Support Committee members –
In addition to sending the attached electronic versions of the documents I distributed at the meeting last night, here is the information on the other items that I was asked to address:
Salvation Army Program Change:
Salvation Army is transforming their emergency sheltering program for families at both their facility and through motel vouchers into Rapid Re-housing. Rapid Re-Housing means that the household is assisted to obtain permanent housing as quickly as possible. There is no universal deadline or time limit that defines “rapid.” It may take days or weeks to find a vacancy in housing an individual or family can afford, with a landlord who will accept their rental history. The important point is that permanent housing is the immediate goal. Households are not required to wait in temporary housing while they attend classes, acquire skills or otherwise demonstrate a given level of “housing readiness.” They move directly into permanent housing. If there are skills and information they must learn to sustain their housing, those things are learned in their own housing.
The Salvation Army’s goal is to place families into apartments rather than emergency shelters and support them financially and with services until they can be self sufficient in that apartment. The Salvation Army is working with landlords who are willing to make apartments available for these families for this purpose.
Dane County has agreed to support this effort by redirecting the money previously contracted to them for hotel vouchers and some of their 90 day programs funding into rent support for DAWNS, their new Rapid Re-housing program.
As a result, the Department’s 2017 budget proposal reflects the following change:
– Rapid Rehousing for Families – EASHLSAV EMSHAA – $206,300
– Emergency Overnight Shelter for Women and Families – EASHLSAV EMOFAA – $733,031Below are more details about the budget proposal:
Rapid re-housing background:
The Salvation Army is requesting that the amount of money previously used for hotel vouchers, and some funding from their 90 day program, be re-directed to rent support for DAWNS, their new Rapid Re-housing program.Assuming a fair market rent of $900 for a 2 bedroom apartment, with an average of six months of rental support ($5,400), the county’s funds could help safely and permanently house 38 families in 2017.
The figure above is a general estimate from the Salvation Army based on the national average of how long people in Rapid Re-housing require assistance. Some families may be able to use their own income for rent, and some families may need more than 6 months of assistance to become ready to take over a lease.
Comparatively, using funds for hotel vouchers provided only temporary shelter for fewer families at a higher cost. Smaller families could stay in a hotel for $5,850 for 90 days (the program limit). Larger families required two adjoining hotel rooms at a cost of $11,700 for 90 days. Often, vouchers were used for larger families due to capacity at the Salvation Army’s Warming House.
Overnight Shelter Background:
The Salvation Army is converting their 90 day family shelter program to a drop- in shelter program. This change will give them more flexible space at their East Washington facility to accommodate the great need for emergency shelter. Currently, even with the overflow program at First United Methodist Church, the Salvation Army is still denying some families due to capacity.The Salvation Army will not have a shelter stay limit for their drop-in program, allowing families in need to more consistently access shelter if they need to.
The drop-in program for single women will continue, serves 45 women, and has a 90 day shelter stay limit.
Cost of a POS COLA:
The cost of a 1% COLA for the Department’s purchased services is approximately $1,500,000 ($420,000 Revenue and $1,080,000 GPR).Day Resource Center Operator RFP Results:
Casey has asked Dane County Purchasing to share with you whatever information they can regarding the recent Day Resource Center Operator RFP and selection process. The Purchasing Agent overseeing this process has indicated that Purchasing cannot release any documents submitted for this RFP by vendors or any documents that are a part of the evaluation and negotiation process until a contract has been fully executed. Therefore, the only information available right now is who submitted proposals for this RFP which is indicated on the RFP Summary online.Hopefully this covers all the follow-up requests from last night’s meeting. Let me know if you have any further questions or concerns. See you at the Public Hearing on the Department’s 2017 Budget Proposal on Thursday, September 15th, at 6:00 pm at the Alliant Energy Center.
