Council Legislation

Proposed Resolution No. R2024-172s

Title: A Resolution of the Pierce County Council Approving the Homeless Housing Program 2024-2025 Funding Recommendations of the Pierce County Human Services Department and the Homeless Document Recording Fee Advisory Group; Requesting the Executive and Certain Departments to Take Certain Actions; and Setting an Effective Date.

Status: Passed

Sponsors: Councilmembers Jani Hitchen, Robyn Denson, Ryan Mello

Final votes

July 2, 2024
Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye Aye


Documents
Additional legislative records are available below Collapse All  Expand All
 

Public Comments

Name Date Comment
Jake Nau 6/17/24 10:45 PM Hello Pierce County Council Members. My names Jake Nau and I'm a homeless outreach case worker for St Vincent de Paul's CRC in Tacoma. I'm writing in support of the Comprehensive Plan to End Homelessness Goal 5, “Meet immediate needs of people experiencing homelessness,” and specifically in reference to proposed resolution No. R2024-172. I am struggling with the funding recommendations regarding St Vincent de Paul's Street Outreach Project. As a Community Resource Center we are a small team of 5 case workers with one full time and one part time staff dedicated to our street outreach project. We split our time between the street and CRC, are largely in Tacoma encampments but also spend time in Fife, Lakewood, Parkland, Spanaway, Puyallup, University Place and are actively learning the Key Peninsula. We go wherever the need is, have at least two of us working Monday-Saturday and will begin working Sundays as of this weekend. We prioritize survival, relationship and accompaniment in our work with the unhoused community and the results speak for themselves. If you will kindly reference the recommendation sheet, you'll see that we proposed to serve a higher number of households than any of the other Outreach applicants. (On an average outreach day we'll bring survival supplies to 50-70 unhoused individuals) while asking for less money than all but four of the other outreach applicants (188k is what we asked for). And perhaps most perplexing, out of the 10 Outreach applications, we have the second highest score at 90.25. (Out of the 56 different scores on all the funding recommendations before you in fact, only 4 are better than our 90.25! That score beats 52 other applications.) And we are recommended to get 0 dollars. Please help me understand that. We are doing the outreach work well, doing it currently without spending a dollar of county funding and have been for the last year. It only seems right to reward results, fiscal responsibility and not prioritize pouring money where it's always gone just because it's always gone there. The largest recommended funding amount for an outreach applicant you will notice is the outreach project ranked 7th (compared to our ranking of 2nd) with a 79.5 score (compared to our 90.25) and though their outreach team is 8 staff strong (compared to our 2 person street outreach team) they propose to serve less households. And they are recommended to get 590k compared to our recommendation of 0 dollars. Please make that make sense. Or help rectify the problem. I marked "undecided" on this comment form because I don't think it's responsible to vote to oppose this whole proposal if that opposition delays all the other necessary programs getting funded in time to start their new contracts on July 1. But I do want our County Council members to know what a slap in the face it is to daily do this work, meet all the metrics, submit the highest scoring applications that propose to help the most people for completely reasonable funding and then get recommended nothing. But also know that at the end of the day, regardless if we get funded appropriately or the 0 dollars currently recommended, SVDPs CRC Street Outreach team knows there's work to do meeting the immediate needs of Pierce County's people experiencing homelessness so we're going to do it. We'll find a way like we always do. Thank you for your time. Jake
Sharon Ourada 6/18/24 6:39 AM Good morning. My name is Sharon Ourada, a retired Business Operations Professional and now a volunteer at the St. Vincent de Paul CRC. I am requesting you revisit and reconsider the funding proposal for the CRC. The dedicated staff is fully committed to their mission which is shown by the success in the numbers of the people they are able to serve with minimal resources. Your scores on their applications show that. From a "business" perspective (my expertise) it would seem that your committee in your quest to obtain the best value (bang for your buck?) should be directing funds to those organizations (the CRC) that are providing the most value to our communities. I am certain all the organizations requesting funds are deserving, however your committee has to make the difficult decisions that ensure funds are distributed equitably to those providing the most value to our community. Please do re-review the application scores and consider increasing funding foe the CRC. Thank-you
Bob Vollbracht 6/18/24 8:34 AM In the past year, St. Vincent de Paul's Community Resource Center, Homeless Outreach Team and Centro Rendu have become significant service providers to our homeless and at risk residents and partners in our GH/KP Community. This has been achieved through their local Vincentian / St. Nicholas Catholic Church's group, working closely with SVdP CSC Team to understand the needs and challenges in serving "Communities of Focus", who strive to access basic living needs. The lack of funding support to SVdP's resource center, homeless outreach teams and Centro Rendu's Hispanic/Latino programs does not recognize the value and results provided by their efforts in underserved communities like ours. SVdP's CSC is our closest "inclement weather" supplies storage location and provides water, clothing and other items to support our community outreach to those in need. With the lack of any public transportation on the KP, we are finding ways to utilize volunteer drivers to take those in need to the CSC and SVdP outreach has offered to provide transportation as needed. The environment at the CSC is welcoming, supportive and creates positive relationships with our homeless/at risk residents in need. As we develop our local scope of outreach, case management and navigator services, we need experienced, collaborative partners who can work hand in hand with us, providing diversion oriented preventive programs. Services offered to "Communities of Focus" which are isolated and historically underserved need more specialized, community focused provider partners like SVdP who share our compassion and understanding that prevention is not only needed, it is by far the lowest cost solution.