Statewide Call Sept. 11, 2019 Summary

Introductions

• Facilitated By: Kiki from Seattle, WA
• Notetaker: Emily Strange from Seattle, WA

• Emily is originally from the San Francisco Bay Area and has been working for the Housing Alliance for 3 weeks now as a community organizing fellow sponsored by QuEST. The QuEST program is put on by the University Friends Meeting (Quakers) in the University District. Emily is really passionate about housing and is excited to be here.

• Dana Briggs from Bellingham, WA
• Mindy Woods from Edmonds, WA
• Renee Kimball-Rouse from Port Orchard, WA
• Nicholas from Seattle, WA
• Ren Autrey from Vancouver, WA

Local Updates

1. Dana Briggs, Bellingham

1. He and the Whatcom Human Rights task force had a summit in July with both public and private organizations in order to discuss emergency weather shelters and more housing development in Whatcom county. Part of the need for this discussion is that Whatcom County has one of the worst average costs of living in the state, with the average cost of housing versus the average salary being terrible. Another part of this issue is that Whatcom county has the lowest vacancy rate in the state, so that even people who can afford housing are having a hard time getting into any housing.
2. He has been part of a multi-government work group that have been meeting for the last two months. They have been working with Whatcom County, City of Bellingham, Port of Bellingham, Non-Profit agencies, private entities to discuss emergency shelters for the upcoming winter. This has been particularly important because for the longest time the only emergency weather shelter in the area was affiliated with a religious organization, which would kick people out or people refused to go for religious purposes, so another shelter has been needed.
3. The first tiny home village in the history of Bellingham is opening Saturday, September 14th. They built 21 tiny homes in 25 days, and all of them are already occupied. They are hoping to get an allowance that will allow people to stay in these tiny homes for up to 2 years, the request was made at a public meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 10th.
4. Dana is running for Bellingham City Council! He is the only person running for office in the county who also homeless. He made it beyond the primaries and is now in the general election. He came in second in the primaries, and typically those who came in first in the primaries win, but he does still have a chance of winning.
5. The primary overriding goal right now is the climate emergency and emergency shelters.
6. Whatcom county council are working on 1406. He doesn’t know when the ordinance will pass, but they are working on it.
7. He’s planning some homeless summits where they hand out appropriate clothing and gear.
8. Bellingham has a large Sikh community who feed the homeless for free.

2.  Mindy Woods, Edmonds

1. Tomorrow (Thursday, Sept. 12th) is the first meeting of the new Housing Affordability Regional Task Force (HEART) in Snohomish County. It is a new group of county executives, council members and elected mayors within Snohomish county.
2. Mindy invited people with lived experience of homelessness to meetings ahead of this and worked to determine an agenda along with elected officials. They came up with three categories of issues then they split into subcommittees along these issues and worked on them for three months. There was a total of 35 people on this committee comprising of non-profit partners, mental health clinics, etc. They will be presenting their final report to elected officials. The goal is to do something similar to what King County did with the Regional Government Authority in Snohomish County. This was from 3-6pm at the County Admin Building in Everett, WA.
3. She brought HB 1406 up to the Edmonds city council and last week the city council approved the ordinance required in order to access those funds.
4. Curtis is currently in Skagit county, working with a city council up there on ordinances that are currently getting a lot of press. KOMO 4 is hopefully going to show up.
5. Mindy told Congresswoman DelBene about what RAP is going and she’s going to meet with RAP members up there.

3. Renee Kimball-Rouse, Port Orchard

1. She is on the Kitsap County housing and homeless task force, and they are talking about 1406. If the county agreed to go plus all the municipalities, they’d get a lot more money than if they just went individually. Port Orchard is the hold out on passing the required resolution then ordinance. They’re going to talk to Bainbridge city council, and they’ll probably come on.
2. There’s going to be a fundraising event called Over the Edge. They’re going to be repelling over the Norm Dicks Building in Bremerton wearing their RAP tee shirt.
3. They received some money from the Bill Gates Foundation in order to build permanent supportive housing. It should be opening in around 2 years.
4. They are also in talks about the building of a navigation center. In order to get around the “Not in my backyard” (NIMBY) people, they’re hoping to build a strong, but non-permanent structure so that it can be moved around.

4. Nicholas, Seattle

1. He has been engaging with the coordinated entry program of King County’s conference call on the first Friday of every month. This call is for people who directly work the with coordinated entry program. Very few people actually call in, the last call was just Nicholas and Joanna.
2. Tomorrow (Sept. 12th), coordinated entry is hosting a Q&A feedback session. They are trying to get the client’s point of view in order to give the direct service program feedback, since they aren’t doing well.
3. Nicholas is currently working the graveyard shift in direct service.

5. Ren Autrey, Vancouver

1. City and county are moving forward with their 1406 plans and they are coming along nicely. Both Vancouver City and Clark County have passed their resolution.
2. She is getting prepared for the social justice fair this coming Saturday. They are going to have a local RAP table where they are going to pass out information about the census, do sign-ups for RAP and give out flyers for RAP. Kiki needs to send Ren a flyer about RAP summit.
3. She let us know about a Walk a Mile in Our Shoes awareness walk on October 6th in support of the local navigation center. This is because there has been some trouble with the neighborhood where people aren’t happy with the center. This is due to a series of unfortunate events beginning with the day center being relocated, a fire in the main shelter, the construction of another building. All of this drastically cut back the amount of shelter being provided in Vancouver. This sent a flood of people into the streets, causing residents to be very upset and threatening to shut down the navigation center. The Walk a Mile in Our Shoes event will be where people walk en masse together, talking to neighborhood associations, advocates, people in the recovery community, city council members, and people who are going to read messages aloud from folks who can’t be there. There will also be a barbecue where they will be serving hot dogs to the community. The goal is to create a space that talks to a population, rather than about a population.
4. They are also beginning the process of getting volunteers lined up and trained for the winter season.

6. De-escalation Training Brainstorm

1. The topic of giving RAP members de-escalation training was brought up with several different ideas floated in order to do it in a cost-effective way. Someone brought up the fact that if you have health insurance through Nonprofit Insurance Provider, you can get trained in de-escalation for the cost of a workbook. Dana brought up that in Bellingham the local police department offers free trainings in de-escalation. Due to the need to respect others’ trauma having a RAP training done through a police department wouldn’t work, however we can reach out to see if they know of any other affordable trainings out there.

7. Landlord Retaliation?

1. If they bring up experiencing retaliation from landlord: Email John, the WLIHA member organizer, to document these: johns@wliha.org
2. If they want to get in touch to document other instances, email Kiki at kikis@wliha.org 

RAP Summit (Priority)

• RAP Summit dates & location have been chosen! We’re only one month away!
• When: Oct 11 - 3-6 p.m. (opening reception & mixer); October 12 from 8 am-4 pm (main event “strengthening skills for building a housing justice movement” - policy updates, discussing next steps for RAP, equity training & mini-back to basic workshops at the end of the day)
• Where: St. Joseph’s Parish in Vancouver WA (exact address will be email to folks after registering)
• Don’t forget to sign up if you haven’t already! Priority registration closes on September 23rd.  Sign up at the RAP website here: www.residentactionproject.org  or here.
•  There’s also a Facebook event for it, which has been posted in the RAP group.
• If you’re able to drive down and can also drive others, there are reimbursements available, just be sure to let Kiki know you can when you register.
• Shout out to Ren who has been a big help with RAP summit!
• Phone banking for RAP Summit

• Phone banking happening Tuesday 9/17 from 5:30-7:30 at the WLIHA office in Seattle. Goal is to contact all the members on our list and invite them to attend RAP summit. If interested, please RSVP to Kiki at kikis@wliha.org. 
• If you want to help out from home/remotely, let Kiki know and you can be set up remotely.
• If you have already registered for Summit, you won’t be getting another outreach call.
• The goal is to invite all 900+ members to RAP Summit. It is also to update the information on our members and build off the phone banking from earlier this year.
• Kiki wants feedback! If you were a part of the phone banking earlier this year, please let Kiki know your opinions. What went right? What should she know? How should it go differently? Anything you would like to add!

Conference on Ending Homelessness

• Registration and Scholarships

• Scholarships have been awarded
• You can still sign up to attend without a scholarship at www.wliha.org
• If you have any questions, Kiki will direct you to Teresa who will be able to answer those questions.
  

Rap Website Updates

• Kiki updated the website! She is flexible on the changes and all feedback is welcome. Let Kiki know what you think about it!
• We need bios for the steering committee, most members of the steering committee don’t have bios up.
• If you have ideas for what should be on the website or you would like to write for the website, fill out the form on the website under the “share your story” button at the bottom of the page. After that Kiki will connect you with Jamala.
• We need more resources for the resource page. Here are some ideas:

• We also need to develop a resource teaching people how to share their story if they’ve never done it before.
• Some websites to model after: Columbia Legal Services, Northwest Justice Project
• Someone is building a resource database through Medicaid that is connected through 211 Washington and other community health worker portals. This is to give ways to connect with other community advocates. It’s called health bridge and it’s a statewide project.
• Anyone can give feedback!

Legislative District Lead Opportunity

• Want to take your advocacy to the next level in your district? Looking for a new leadership role? Consider becoming a Legislative District Lead with the Housing Alliance!

• What Legislative District Leads do:

• Email, call, and/or meet with state lawmakers to urge action on legislation;
• Build relationships with lawmakers and serve as a trusted source of information;
• Serve as a leader in your district and share advocacy opportunities with your neighbors, families, friends, coworkers, etc.
• Serve as a district lead at Housing and Homelessness Advocacy Day in early 2020, exact date coming soon!
• You will also receive support throughout the year from the Housing Alliance to ensure your success! Here is the Role Description.

• If you are interested and want to learn more details about the role, please fill out a brief Interest Form. (we can post this on our Facebook page, or you can message us to get the link) and John Stovall, Member Organizer, with the Housing Alliance, will follow up with you! Questions in the meantime? Email johns@wliha.org .

•  Call next Wednesday (September 17, 2019) 11-12:30 p.m.
• Mindy is an LD Lead, her perspective (mostly a quote, but not perfectly):

• “It’s a wonderful opportunity to connect with legislators during their off time and to talk to them about what your community’s agenda is. Opportunity to work on possible legislation together, work on pre-meetings, you’re the go to person during Housing Advocacy Day. You’d be the liaison between the alliance, RAP, and advocates in your district. It’s a one on one channel with lawmakers.”

HB 1406 Implementation

• For folks who don’t know - 1406 is a bill passed this year that would allow local jurisdictions to use a portion of an already-collected surplus sales tax and keep it in the community to use for housing, instead of that funding going back to the state. We are pushing for every county across the state to opt in and pass a resolution claiming these funds in their region - that way we have this funding throughout the state.
• There is officially a MAP on the WLIHA website that shows you where counties and cities are at with the passing and implementing 1406!
• Light green is local resolution, but no ordinance, dark green is both, grey means they haven’t done anything, however conversations are happening in those grey areas. If you click on the county you can see what your city’s progress as well. We’re taking over the state with housing affordability funding! Half of the counties are on board so far!
• Shout out to John Stovall for organizing the creation of this map! It was 100% donated to us.
• If your county is not in the green on this map and you want to get involved advocating for 1406 implementation in your region - email johns@wliha.org to get connected with other advocates in the area
• And you can see the webinar on the WLIHA website (resources > webinars tab); https://wliha.org
• Local 1406 Updates

• Mindy brought 1406 to attention to Edmonds city council last week city council approved ordinance
• Renee- Kitsap Port Orchard is the hold out, Bainbridge is going to talk to the council and they’ll probably come around
• Whatcom county council are working on 1406. He doesn’t know when the ordinance will pass, but they are working on it.

Contact Kiki if you have any questions, concerns, updates, etc.!

THANK YOU!

Statewide Call, September 11, 2019

6:00-7:00 pm

Dial: 866-792-9154

Access code: 7417896549#

Pin number: 1991#

Additional prompt: 1#

Facilitator - Kiki Serantes

Notetaker - Emily Strange

Agenda

1. Introductions - start section by 6:05

• Name, Pronouns, What community they’re calling from?

• Dana Briggs, Bellingham
• Mindy Woods, Edmond
• Renee Kimball Ross(?) Port Orchard
• Kiki, Seattle
• Emily, Seattle
• Nicholas Seattle
• Ren Vancouver

• Emily Introduction:

• From the san francisco bay area
• 3 weeks, Quest fellow. Its basically an internship. Sponsored by the quakers. Really passionate about housing.

• Check-In question: What’s one word for how you’re doing today?

2. Local updates (Priority)

• Asking the group 2 questions:

• What local things are you working on?
• What local issues are happening / being experienced in your community?

• Dana Briggs

1. Whatcom human rights task force had a summit in July with pri/pub to discuss emergency weather shelters and development
2. Cost of living in Whatcom cost of housing vs salaries are terrible
3. Whatcom county has the lowest vacancy rate of the other counties
4. Multi gov’t work group met for last 2 months btwn county, belllingham, port of bellingham, nonprofit, private discussing emergency sheltering. Used to just be a religious based organization (many folks refused to go/kicked out)
5. First tiny home village in history of Bellingham is opening saturday- 21 tiny homes built in 25 days, all occupied
6. Asking for allowance for people to stay in these homes for up to 2 years, request made at a public meeting on tuesday
7. Running for Bellingham city council, only person running for office in the county who is also homeless, made it passed the primaries, he’s in the general, came in 2nd
8. Member of bellingham tenants union
9. Primary overriding thing is climate emergency

• Mindy Woods

1. Tomorrow-snohomish county new group of county executive, council and elected mayors w/in county HEART (housing affordability regional task force)
2. Invited person who has experienced homelessness to the meetings, worked on agenda with the elected officials
3. 3 categories of issues, split into subcommittees and worked on these issues for 3 months (35 people who have been on these committees, comprising of nonprofit partners, mental health clinics)
4. Will be presenting final report to elective officials
5. Hoping to do the RGA like King county in Snohomish County
6. A to Nicholas’s Q: Event from 3-6pm in Everett in County Admin Building
7. Brought 1406 to attention to edmond city council, last week city council approved ordinance (see 1406 section)
8. Skagit Co., Curtis is currently @ their city council, working on different ordinances - getting media attention

1. KOMO 4 hopefully will be up there
2. Told congresswoman del bene(?) about what RAP is doing, she’s going to meet with the group up there

• Renee

1. On kitsap co housing and homeless task force -talking about 1406. If they went together, they’d get way more money from 1406 than going seperately
2. Port Orchard is the hold out, bainbridge is going to talk to council and they’ll probably come on (see 1406 section)
3. Over the edge fundraising event - repelling over the edge of the Norm Dicks Building (going to wear RAP shirt - so cool!)
4. Will be giving permanent supportive housing, got some money from bill gates foundation, should be opening in 2 years
5. In talks about a navigation center, put it in a strong building but one that can be moved around in order to take care of NIMBY problem

• Nicholas

1. Been engaging with coordinated entry program of king county conference call on first friday of every month, very low amount of people who engage.

1. This is for people who directly work with coordinated entry program
2. Last call just him and joanna

2. Tomorrow coordinated entry is hosting a Q and A feedback with a direct service provider, trying to get the client pov. Trying to give the direct service program feedback because they aren’t doing well
3. Working graveyard shift in direct service

• Ren

1. City and county is moving forward w/ 1406 plans, it’s moving right along
2. Getting prepped for social justice fair this coming saturday, local RAP has a table, passing out info about census, sign ups for RAP, giving out flyers for RAP
3. Kiki: send Ren flyer about RAP Summit (talk offline about this-deeper convo needed)
4. She saw kate budd for council for homeless, see what’s all coming together
5. Awareness walk, walk a mile in our shoes in support of local navigation center
6. Neighborhood trouble, day center was relocated, fire happened in main shelter, construction of other building happening in summer time. Flood of people needing services, loss of infrastructure, people in neighborhood not happy- threatening to shut down center
7. Walk en masse together as a show of empathy, talk to people in neighborhood association, advocates, people in recovery community (bringing bbq bringing hot dogs), city council members, people who could come they sent messages to read out loud
8. Rather than talk ABOUT a population, talk TO a population
9. Going to neighborhood meetings that happen at nav. Center, inviting people to converse, to the walk
10. October 6, walk a mile
11. Getting volunteers lined up and trained for winter season.
12. Looking for sign ups to add to our mobilization of people for shelter and housing justice

• Dana again

1. Whatcom county council, they’re working with 1406, don’t know when they’ll get ordinance, but they’re working on it
2. Homeless summits, hand out appropriate clothing and gear,
3. Have large sikh community, they feed people for free to the homeless around Bellingham.

• Kiki

1. Movement for housing justice! Woo!
2. Train RAP folks in deescalation (task for another call)

• Not certain who

1. If you get Health Insurance through NPI, you can get trained in de escalation for the cost of a workbook
2. Want this to bring to RAP
3. The volunteers get deescalation training for free in Bellingham, from police dept
4. Ask other police depts for free de-escalation training
5. Cops may cause trauma, so we should look at other stuff.

• Note for facilitator: IF they bring up experiencing retaliation from landlord: Email John, the WLIHA member organizer, to document these: johns@wliha.org
• If they want to get in touch to document other instances, email Kiki at kikis@wliha.org 

3. RAP SUMMIT (Priority)

• RAP Summit dates & location have been chosen!
• When: Oct 11 - 3-6 p.m. (opening reception & mixer); October 12 from 8 am-4 pm (main event “strengthening skills for building a housing justice movement” - policy updates, discussing next steps for RAP, equity training & mini-back to basic workshops at the end of the day)

• One month away from RAP summit! Sign up if you haven’t already!
• Almost to housing advocacy again
• Panel? Discuss with Mindy &?
• Equity training and what does it mean to organize around housing justice?
• Priority registration closes on 23rd of this month
• S/O to Ren is helping with RAP summit
• If you’re able to drive down, if you can drive other people that’d be amazing, reimbursements available
• Dana had to leave at this point :(

• Where: St. Joseph’s Parish in Vancouver WA (exact address will be email to folks after registering)
• Registration is OFFICIALLY OPEN! You can find the registration form under on our website residentactionproject.org
• There is also a facebook event for it soonThe link has also been posted in the facebook event

• https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScfqlnzp1FtoN8-B8P0yOxT8Rb50jzGgGjdVq06Pwwi6Tq_UQ/viewform

• If you are planning to drive and can drive other people, make sure to let me know when you register
• Phone banking happening tuesday 9/17 from 5:30-7:30 at the WLIHA office in seattle. Goal is to contact all the members on our list and invite them to attend RAP summit. If interested, please RSVP to Kiki at kikis@wliha.org.

• If you want to help out from home/remotely, let me (kiki) know and we can set you up remotely  
• If you have already registered for summit, you won’t get another outreach call for summit
• We have 900+members, invite them to RAP summit
• We’re also wanting to update information on our members, build off the phone banking earlier this year
• Those previously involved in the phone banking, please give Kiki feedback, what should she know

• QUESTION FOR THE GROUP: What sorts of skill-building training would you want to be incorporated to RAP Summit this year?

4. Conference on Ending Homelessness

• Scholarships have been awarded.
• You can still sign up to attend (without a scholarship) at wliha.org.

• If you have any questions, Kiki will direct people to Teresa, who will be able to answer those questions
• If you aren’t registered yet, you can register on WLIHA.org

5. Updated RAP Website - check it out and let me know what you think!! :)

• Flexible, all feedback is welcome. Let kiki know what you think
• Some bio updates for steering committee - most of steering committee don’t have bios up
• If you have ideas for what should be on the website, if you would like to write for the website (share your story button), if you feel like sharing your story, fill out form and Kiki will connect you with Jamala.
• Resources for resource page, pages for telling people how to share their story for people who maybe haven’t done it before.
• Propose a resource list on the website (ie Columbia Legal Sources, NW Justice Project)
• Building a resource DB connected through medicaid. 211 washington, through other community health worker portals to give ways to connect w/ other community advocates. - called health bridge, statewide project
• Anyone give feedback, link to other stuff

6. Legislative District Lead opportunity

• Want to take your advocacy to the next level in your district? Looking for a new leadership role? Consider becoming a Legislative District Lead with the Housing Alliance!
• What Legislative District Leads do:

• Email, call, and/or meet with state lawmakers to urge action on legislation;
• Build relationships with lawmakers and serve as a trusted source of information;
• Serve as a leader in your district and share advocacy opportunities with your neighbors, families, friends, coworkers, etc.
• Serve as a district lead at Housing and Homelessness Advocacy Day in early 2020, exact date coming soon!
• You will also receive support throughout the year from the Housing Alliance to ensure your success! Here is the Role Description.

• If you are interested and want to learn more details about the role, please fill out a brief Interest Form. (we can post this on our facebook page or you can message us to get the link) and John Stovall, Member Organizer, with the Housing Alliance, will follow up with you! Questions in the meantime? Email johns@wliha.org.
• Call next wednesday 11-12:30 p.m.

• Mindy is an LD Lead, “it’s a wonderful opportunity to connect with legislators during their off time, talk to them about what your community’s agenda is. Work on possible legislation together, work on pre-meetings, you’re the go to person during HAD. Liason btwn the alliance, RAP, and advocates in your district. 1 on 1 channel w/ law makers”

7. 1406 implementation

• For folks who don’t know - 1406 is a bill passed this year that would allow local jurisdictions to use a portion of an already-collected surplus sales tax and keep it in the community to use for housing, instead of that funding going back to the state. We are pushing for every county across the state to opt in and pass a resolution claiming these funds in their region - that way we have this funding throughout the state.
• There is officially a MAP on the WLIHA website that shows you where counties and cities are at with the passing and implementing 1406!

• If your county is not in the green on this map and you want to get involved advocating for 1406 implementation in your region - email johns@wliha.org to get connected with other advocates in the area

• And you can see the webinar on the WLIHA website (resources > webinars tab); https://wliha.org

• Mindy brought 1406 to attention to edmond city council, last week city council approved ordinance
• Renee- Kitsap Port Orchard is the hold out, bainbridge is going to talk to council and they’ll probably come on

-1406status.com is a live map for. Light green is local resolution, but no ordinance, dark green is both, grey means they haven’t done.

-If you click on the county you can see what your city’s progress as well

-really neat map, 100% donated to us.

-S/O to John Stovall

-we’re taking over the state w/ housing affordability funding

½ counties are on board so far

-conversations happening in grey areas

Parking lot, Questions, Thoughts:

• None
• If you think of anything,
• Want to lead next call, let Kiki know!

8. THANK YOU!!!