Tenants outside the City of Madison will have no where to turn come January 1. Case management is more important than helping tenants understand their rental rights and responsibilities and doing mediations at eviction court? Tough budget choices. Does this reflect Dane County’s Values? Does it reflect yours?
From: Brenda Konkel
Date:07/21/2015 8:21 AM (GMT-06:00)
To: “Parisi, Joseph” ,”Kostelic, Jeffrey”
Cc: “Becker, Casey” ,”Green, Lynn” ,#County Board Recipients ,”O’Keefe, Jim” ,”Wallinger, Sue” ,”Noel, Laura” ,Mayor ,All Alders
Subject: Cut mediation and housing counseling services to tenants outside the City of Madison?Dear County Executive Joe Parisi
Yesterday we received the news that the county has chosen to not have TRC provide mediation, housing counseling, housing placement and search services for Dane County. I haven’t seen the scores from the RFP yet, which may be further illuminating, but I’m wondering if you would have time to meet to discuss this?
Obviously, this is devastating for us to lose 1/3 of our budget as an agency and it will require a complete restructure – which we can do. Obviously, the new vendor (whomever that is) will take on the task of providing weekly housing lists of housing that is available and they can provide the walk in services at the Job Center. And apparently, they are also going to provide housing case management services as well – I wish them luck with that, as there simply isn’t time in the day to provide those services with 1,000s of people coming through the doors each year. We serve thousands of people there. We do all of the above, and all of the below services, for only $90,000 a year, a great deal for the county. It actually costs our agency $120,000 a year or more to provide these services. We did that for 17 years with never a review of our contract. No complaints from county staff about our services. No discussions with county staff about what they would like to see us doing differently.
I can accept losing a contract to another agency, and I can accept not providing the services at another location. What I am struggling with, is, the mediation and housing counseling services to people in Dane County outside of the City of Madison.
Do you really intend for us to stop providing housing counseling services to tenants outside the City of Madison? To stop helping them get their security deposits back, helping them with getting repairs done to their units or helping them understanding the eviction process? Or what their lease says and how the law changes impact them?
Do you want us only doing mediations at eviction court for City of Madison residents only? Do you intend to have this other agency come in and have us both providing services at small claims court, us for inside the City of Madison and one agency for those outside of the City of Madison?
Was this a policy change, determining that case management for a few is preferred over the housing counseling and mediation services listed above for Dane County residents who don’t live in the City? And do you just want us to stop doing the services where there will be gaps? Or was this not thought through? Who are we to refer people to who are seeking eviction mediation services at small claims court or information about rental rights and responsibilities, because we know of no other agency in Dane County that provides these services. Are tenants who don’t live in the City of Madison, but live in Dane County just being cut off from our services?
Please contact me as soon as possible to discuss this, so we can understand your intent.
Sincerely,
Brenda K. Konkel
Executive Director
Tenant Resource Center
The question you are all asking yourselves now is, what can I do to help?
Well . . . there isn’t anything we can do about the RFP process, there is no appeals process. I haven’t seen the scores, I suspect some foul play, but that is besides the point. It’s now up to the politicians.
– Lynn Green, Director of Dane County Human Services could put it in her budget proposal to the County Executive. Green@countyofdane.com
– The County Executive Joe Parisi could put it back in his executive budget.
parisi@countyofdane.com
– The Health and Human Needs Committee could make an amendment.
– The Personnel and Finance Committee could make an amendment.
– Or, anyone on the county board could make an amendment.
county_board_recipients@countyofdane.com
Beyond that, we have a volunteer training coming up. If you want to volunteer to do housing counseling.
No time, you can always donate, no matter how big or how small. Consider it a birthday gift to me! 🙂
