The latest on TRC

Late yesterday afternoon, Personnel and Finance posted that they would be having a meeting today at 5:00. Scuttlebutt is that there will be a whole series of amendments to remove Huber fees and then take money from some non-profits and get rid of the housing position, and TRC may have an amendment too. Here’s what I know.

I sent this email two days ago:

from: Brenda Konkel
to: “Green, Lynn”
cc: #County Board Recipients ,
Tenant Resource Center date: Tue, Nov 11, 2014 at 10:05 AM
subject: P&F 14 – Changing from Tenant to Homeless Services

Lynn –

I heard you say last night that you were going to change the focus of the funding that TRC currently gets to coordinated intake. I also understood that because tenant services are not “mandated” you were moving away from them. Currently the funding Tenant Resource Center gets justifies us helping people with any tenant issue outside of the City of Madison but in Dane County. If you switch the focus of this funding to coordinated intake/single point of entry (homeless or at risk of homelessness services, focused on the chronically homeless) does that mean you will not be funding housing counseling (security deposits, repairs, breaking a lease, heat, etc.) information or mediation services for people outside the City of Madison? As you know, housing services provided at the job center is also a “best practices” of HUD and removing these tenant services from the job center seems to be running counter to that “best practice” (which serves 1,000s of people) in favor of a “best practice” for a much smaller group of people (100s).

Additionally, if you are looking at using this money for Coordinated Intake, while TRC may be able to apply for the funding, since Community Action Coalition is the point of entry for Dane County, I don’t see how TRC would be able to effectively compete. It is essentially changing the program to give the money to a sole source vendor. TRC is not the coordinated intake point for Dane County and would not qualify for the funding.

I may have misunderstood you, but this appears to not be about looking for new vendors for the same service (tenant services), but changing from tenant services to homeless services. Is that correct?

No response.

This morning I sent this:

from: Brenda Konkel
to: “Green, Lynn”
cc: #County Board Recipients ,
Tenant Resource Center date: Thu, Nov 13, 2014 at 8:29 AM
subject: Re: P&F 14 – Changing from Tenant to Homeless Services

I haven’t received a response to this. I understand Personnel and Finance are meeting again tonight and there might be an amendment, anyone care to tell us what it might say?

This was the response I got:

from: Sharon Corrigan
to: Brenda Konkel
date: Thu, Nov 13, 2014 at 8:36 AM
subject: Re: P&F 14 – Changing from Tenant to Homeless Services
Amendments will be posted online with the agenda as soon as they are prepared this – likely early afternoon.

I replied:

from: Brenda Konkel
to: Sharon Corrigan ,
#County Board Recipients ,
Lynn Green
date: Thu, Nov 13, 2014 at 8:47 AM
subject: Re: P&F 14 – Changing from Tenant to Homeless Services

Anyone care to talk about what any amendment might say, since we can’t give public input?

Crickets.

That is what I know. I guess we’ll wait til this afternoon to see what we find out. My understanding is that the amendment will say that TRC will be bid out with all the other agencies and it will be for tenant services, but until I see the amendment, I have no idea. I have to laugh, because they keep saying this is about meeting HUD requirements, TRC is the only HUD approved Housing Counseling Agency that is funded by the county. Sigh . . . . I guess we’ll see what happens. No testimony tonight, I’m assuming. You can still sign this SECOND petition. We have a second petition because the second amendment they made changed things. Here’s hoping we don’t need a third! 🙂