I’m stealing everything on this blog post from Ed Kuharski’s facebook update – thanks for the updates ED!!!! But I also included another meeting tonight that wasn’t listed on Monday . . . so if you missed the presentation, you can hear Catholic Charities spin on it tonight.
Informational meeting tonight at Immanuel Lutheran re: Progress on planning/programming for “Comprehensive” Homeless Services Day Center. The design scheme looks pretty good overall. Except for the glaring absence of any provision for storage except for use by “patrons” while in the building. No dotted lines or notes indicating how storage can be added when the Storage Committee gets done with the hurculean task of studying the subject.
Since there was no one else there to do it, I brought up the subject and went a few rounds with Lynn Green about it. Casey Slaughter Becker was moderating and took notes and someone else piped up to agree that this was a widespread concern among expected users (I didn’t get her name). Of course Lynn Green stuck with her story that it is a really difficult and complicated issue and needs careful study. I suggested it wasn’t that complicated; the main problem with the Social Justice center storage space is that it is about 8 blocks too far away. Requested that the architects include a dotted line indicating where an addition is possible (there is an obvious place to do this) so as to not close off the possibility of having an actual “comprehensive” center.
Another item not addressed was 3rd-shift sleepers. I pointed out that a moderate sized “multipurpose” room in a quiet corner of the second floor would be quite suitable, especially if the door to a rest room adjacent were changed to make it more directly available to that space. No one had thought of that, or apparently, the issue at all.
One more item of lively discussion had to do with pedestrian and bike access. Everyone acknowledges that the adjacent stretches of Blair and E. Wash. and intersections are not pedestrian friendly.
The Catholic Charities people made a pretty good presentation, mostly about their general experience pertinent to a Day Resource Center. They claim Catholic Charities operates quite a few centers but none of the people at the meeting have actually run one. I offered a tour of OM Village to the newly named center director, Kathy Stellrecht, and shared some of the points worth learning regarding the Shine 608 model that worked so well at the temporary center.
I have the schematic floor plans & site plan and will scan them and post separately.
Oh, That is Todd Violente, Director of County Planning & Development. He is one of our best allies. He is in charge of managing the Conditional Use Permit process with the city. I gave him some tips on how to try to keep the schedule for this process as concise as possible and offered to help in any way I can.
615 E. Washington – Day Resource Center Site Plan. Plenty of parking + No overnight storage = Bureaucratic Bullshit.
615 E. Washington – Day Resource Center Schematic Floor Plans. There are several places in the very generous circulation in these plans to develop indoor storage. Also an obvious place to add to the rear of the building to create an enclosed storage area or other program area that could be accessed from either indoors or outdoors. (Below the rear entry walk labeled “Existing Brick Pavers”.)
This isn’t stolen from Ed’s facebook page – but another meeting that wasn’t posted on Monday was the CDBG meeting and they will be getting a presentation from Catholic Charities tonight – they are the ones that are going to be running the day resource center.
5:00 PM – Community Development Block Grant Committee, Madison Water Utility, 119 E Olin Ave, Madison, WI 53713
– Catholic Charities – presentation regarding the new Day Resource Center
