Welcome

• James – great to see everyone here.

Presentation

Tacoma Rescue Mission - https://www.trm.org/

• Noah Baskett, Sr. Director of Community Engagement, Tacoma Rescue Mission, NoahB@trm.org
• History
  • Founded in 1912 – going on 106 years - by a travelling evangelist – Gypsy Smith – with the Salvation Army.  Came on an evangelistic route – when Tacoma was becoming a City and at a time when they were struggling with severe poverty.  Mr. Smith challenged business leaders to take care of the poor in the area.  He helped found the Tacoma Commons Mission – located on Pacific Avenue – serving the poor and vulnerable in Tacoma.
  • Gypsy Smith didn’t try to bring all faiths together to agree on what to do – simply helped folks decide to serve together.  Their work is in the spirit of what you are doing here today. (a recent biography, Gypsy Smith: The forgotten Evangelist by Bill Curtis, looks to be an interesting read – I’m curious how he handles the 78 year old Gypsy’s second marriage to a 27 year old… -ed.)
• Mission
  • Work to meet the essential needs of our neighbors
  • Scriptural mandate to serve the needy
  • We want to treat everyone with the deep dignity they deserve
  • See ourselves as a catalyst for change in the entire community. 
• Have around 5,000 to 7,000 volunteers giving their time at the rescue mission every year on behalf of poor and vulnerable people (wow, that’s a lot of people. –ed.)
• Video: homeless Households with kids is a growing demographic.  (we didn’t get the video going, and I was looking for what Noah had planned and found this recent video that I rather like - https://www.trm.org/2015/05/i-am-video/ , but I’d recommend https://www.trm.org/2015/05/sample-video/ because it has a good over view of their programs and a cameo with the Sonics Guy -ed.)
• 800 - 1200 meals a day across all campuses – breakfast and dinner are open to any community member.
• 32,000 bednights last year (I’m sure I heard this wrong – I suspect the number is more like 80,000 to 100,000 – ed.)
• Recently expanded the Adams Street Family Shelter – a great facility for kids.  We want the stay at the shelter not to add to the trauma.  Can serve 32 households at any given time. 
• Every single day, the Adams Street facility is over capacity. We put cots up in open spaces – because the need is so much higher than current capacity.
• Invested in early childhood and youth education center.  Run a preschool out of the center.  Early childhood education is very important.  Parents can have their kids in a safe, nurturing place so they can work on housing and such. 
• Afterschool education program – looking to expand mentor program.  Have 115 youth being seen in the shelter.
• New Life Program – residential substance use recovery program
  • One at downtown shelter
  • One at Tyler campus
  • Have space for 15-20 people at any given time
  • intensive program where we nurture body and soul  with counseling and case management.
  • Just shy of 70% of graduates have 2 year sobriety rates – about double the national average. (it is great that they are even tracking 2 year success rates – many agencies give you no success rate or just the rate of people completing the program – nicely done TRM –ed.)
• Al – do you have medication assisted recovery?  Noah – no, don’t have the facility for this.
• Challenge Learning Center
  • Open to community members
  • Community-based organization licensed by state board of technical colleges – clients can work towards their high school diploma.
  • Work closely with Bates technical college
• Search and Rescue (not helicopters or any dog teams that I know of, but if you define Search and Rescue as “Search for and provision of aid to people who are in distress or imminent danger”, then they certainly hit the mark. –ed)
  • Byron Corzo
  • Important part of our work – proud of our efforts in this past year
  • Go out 3 days a week – two evenings and one Saturday
  • Go out with community members
  • Build trust and relationships, break down barriers to why folks aren’t choosing to access emergency shelter. 
  • Provide basic resources
  • Question – is this Pierce-county wide?  Noah – yes.  Part of growing our street outreach.  Use a model from Seattle, which is volunteer run, but we have staff with them as well.
  • Question – do they record people? Luis – depends on the level of engagement people want to have.
• Working with the City in their emergency declaration – working with the County as well every day a week in addition to our Search and Rescue program with volunteers
  • We are being successful in getting folks to access services. 
  • Had a big month with 98 folks coming out of formal encampments in the van to come to a shelter or a facility to get resources (it would take a lot of trust building to lure me into a van – just saying…-ed).
  • Story form someone:  Byron came in the other day beaming – found a family, invited them to come to the van, called Adams street but had no room, Salvation army waited late to do an intake to get the client into shelter. 
  • Brian – getting lots of 85 and 90 year olds.  Any ideas to work with Seniors?  Luis – we are seeing that same increase.  Brian – many of these folks are losing their faculties and need to work with the City on some options Noah – thanks, we’ll take a look at better serving that population.
• New initiative about a year and half ago – enterprise initiative
  • Getting back into the job market can be challenging
  • If no great job experience or resume or a felony or any items on a long list can make getting work challenging.
  • Looking to create small, scalable businesses, hire clients, give them a good wage, and work on developing skills Currently have 3 businesses:
    • Painting business
    • Junk removal
    • Pressure washing business
  • Have been very successful giving the clients skills
  • Sherri – can you hire folks coming out of this initiative?  Noah – yes, we can. 
  • One client is looking to start his own business in King county.  These folks often have untapped abilities
  • Sherri – pay? Noah – starts at $15/hour (clapping and general appreciation showered the TRM staff – ed.)
  • Fellow that start this program was from a temporary labor market company.  Saw that temp laborers weren’t getting development or a path to better employment. Started this program to provide a path to living wage jobs.
  • VADIS - How to apply?  Noah – only employ 5-10 people, so no formal application process. 
• New life – 12 month residential program
  • Must stay at downtown campus or Tyler square campus
• Martha – We are all direct service providers.  Do you take coordinated entry referrals?  How do families get in your Adams street shelter?  Answer - Single adult men can walk up and get services.  Families can’t just show up at Adams Street shelter.  Noah – working with County to figure out how to engage with the Coordinated Entry system.  Martha - How do we refer folks to Adams Street? Luis – 253-383-4493 – ext. 1500  Call Dwayne or one of the case managers who between 8am-10am.  No drug use – if notice drug using behavior, will intervene.  Drug test at intake, but depending on drug and behavior may get in with positive.  Luis – if they are screened and vulnerable may go straight to a room bypassing folks on cots. 
• Al – the Downtown campus had earthquake problems with nearby railroad – did those get resolved?  Noah – yes, that was resolved.  We are long-term viable.  Built to serve 60 people, currently serving 120-150 individuals (if you don’t remember the details, info on their woes, with a headline I suspect the editors are still pleased with themselves about, is at https://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/matt-driscoll/article32707131.html -ed.             )
• Phone – is there a back phone line or a provider phone line?  Noah – no, we don’t.  We know that is an issue and are working to address (we all need provider phone lines, -ed) 
• Effran – shout out to TRM – they have helped many people coming out of prison and jail with housing and food – without that support, many would end up back in prison.
• Maureen – as you reassess capacity, are you looking county wide?  Are you looking at alternative housing models?  Are you looking at empty buildings and empty strip malls.  Noah – I can’t answer all that – we have our executive directory Duke Paulson – who has county wide experience. We see our prevue as Pierce County – we have expertise in Homelessness across the County where were are in the process of planning more projects. (a bit of a teaser, there.  –ed.)
• Duke Paulson – after the newspaper article about becoming the new director.  Got calls from councilmembers from the County, gig harbor, Lakewood, and Puyallup.  Homelessness is a big, County-wide issue – every city is struggling with it.  One of our biggest burdens is how do we respond to the crisis.  I am trying to move as fast as I can.  I stepped into a good team that is really engaged.  The team is working to accelerate the work.  We want the Rescue mission to serve more.  Lots of experience with different housing agencies.  Excited to see how to leverage this and keep growing.
• James – If you have a male client who hasn’t been to the Rescue Mission before – they get in that night.  Lots of agencies are talking with municipalities about what homeless response can be in their community. 

Reports

Committees

• Workforce Development – big project is Hire253
  • Goals – good to go with published goals
  • To achieve those goals
    • Develop a sub-sub-sub committee to get together the 253jobs partners ready to refer partners to be ready for employment.
    • July 11^th – first  (I have no idea what this July 11^th note meant, but I’m keeping it in…-ed).
    • Next Hire253 – October 2^nd – Goodwill. 

• Advocacy – Candidate Forums coming up –
  • Productive – hosting some nonpartisan forums and open up a conversation
    • Working on moderators for the group.
    • Need your participation – will send a survey to see what issues you’d like addressed.  Give politician time for an elevator speech – and then a strong conversation
    • We are comfortable with the goals as stated
• Innovative Shelter 
  • Tent City Tacoma shelter
  • Other Innovative shelter
  • Have lots of changes to the Goals
    • Doing distributed leadership – will  facilitate the Urban Village project
    • Rural Innovations – focus on mobile homes and how they can play in affordable housing
    • Hospitatility - Hosting programs have a common set of needs that will be concerns for every community where we are trying to create programs
    • Tiny House Group – Kenneth Moultry – working on a tiny home village and Accessory Dwellings
      • Identifying tiny house sites
      • Collaboration teams
      • Nonprofit teams to fundraise and other connections
      • Did a walk through at Quixote village
    • Tent City Tacoma – Patricia Menzies
      • Looking to setup a meeting on where to setup a tent city.  This is different from

• Daily Meaningful Activity – giving folks activity to positively fill their time. 
  • Josh Waguespack – goals –
    • Primary objective are  to offer gainful activity to those experiencing homelessness and recently housed. 
    • Create mentorship program
  • Eviction – have been focused on Tiki and prevention work
    • Many goals
      • Still trying to gather the resources in a central collected area
      • Figure out support services workflow
      • Long term foals
        • Code changes – and gather data to support that
        • Develop evictions outreach program to bring tenant and landlord into

Good of the Order

• List of places to get you mail – that list is on the table.
• Candidate forums are being schedule by the League of Women Voters and the University of Washington, Tacomma . 
• City of Tacoma Tenant Protections – did not include Just Cause protections.  There will be a revised ordinance presented in 2 weeks
• Tiki – down 2 two units with no plan on future housin – although we may have a plan for 1
• Comprehensive Life Resources – taking over the Youth Shelter.  April, director of child welfare/behavioral foster care experience – will be overseeing the program. Will have Mental Health Professionals and peers on staff.  Will work hard to work with youth providers together and on collaborating.  Transition is planned for August.  REACH center is hiring outreach workers and the coordinators.
• Continuum of Care – New Leadership – developing a 5 year plan, and we’ll integrate that into our work here.  James and Amanda DeShazo are co-leading the group for the next 2 years.
• Julio – consider learning to produce your own radio content with 101.9 – Radio Tacoma.  Info about classes at https://deskgram.org/p/1810575839747956790_3441527113
• Lakewood Family – murder/suicide – had been in the homeless system until recently.  Spent 9 month in shelter at Salvation Army – helped them.  We need to help folks in need. (kind of an opposite of a good of the order, but an important reminder to work hard to, as James puts in the next line, help the whole person. –man, I thought I had this great idea about remembering to help the whole person, and it turns out I just remembered what James said and I recorded and just reread and had to come up here and edit this comment so I wouldn’t appear to the be blatant plagiarist I am.  -ed.)
• James – we value helping the whole person recover – we all piece-meal parts of the system.  It is housing first, but not housing only. 

Coming Attractions

• July 6^th
  • Multicare Addiction program
  • Ricky’s law
  • Miracle Message (not massages, which would really make it a meeting worth attending –ed.)
  • Tacoma Artist in Residence Update
• July 13^th – Pierce County Council District 1 Candidate Forum
• July 20^th – Legislative District 25 Candidate Forum
• July 27^th – Legislative District 26 Candidate Forum
• August 3^rd  – Focus on Committee Work
• August 10^th –
  • Coordinated Care
  • Concerto Health
• August 17^th – (geez, how far out do you think I have planned, anyway.  –ed.)

Restaurant Review

Some restaurants don’t wow you with innovative cuisine or stellar performers, but are somehow just exactly what they are supposed to be.  The Spar (2121 N Stevens, Tacoma, WA) definitely fits in that category.  Nestled in Old Town a few blocks from the birthplace of Tacoma (well, the white man birthplace of Tacoma at least), this anchor (if spars can be anchors) of the Tacoma bar scene has seen quite a few seasons (it is the oldest saloon in Tacoma).  The bar has changed a bit over time – no longer 21 and over everywhere - families can use the coffee house area or the front bit for family dining.  I has some regulars, some pool, a bit of a view, and a lovely old bar.  This being less than a dozen blocks to my house (sadly all uphill on the way home), I’m a frequent diner.  If you want my recommendations, I say go for the beer and some deep fried goodness.  They are famous for their Spar chips – house made potato chips than are divine when done well – potato, oil and salt – you can’t go wrong there.  Food quality varies between good and no-regrets-totally-worth-the-calories.  Sit next to a regular, pretend you know them, and the quality of food goes way up; you can get one of Tacoma’s best burgers here if all the stars align.  They do have some green things, but that’s simply not that point of a place like the spar.  If you want green, go for the deep fried zucchini – none of this salad stuff.  A good friend used to tend bar here, and she loved it, till she got knocked up by a customer.  They married, and she’s been a stay at home mom since – some 16 years now.  The father is one of those folks that would probably not have ever bothered to become a family man, unless a certain lack of follow-through in the prophylactic arena (as he described it) gave him a very clear path to walk down.  This story is a core case study in my sex-ed. talks with my teenagers – namely, don’t sleep with someone you’re unwilling to raise kids with.  Anyway, the spar is a go-to destination for my Boy Scout adult leader meetings, dinner when I’m feeling lazy, or just meeting a buddy for a pint.  It simply fits the bill.  The vibe is always right.  They occasionally assault you with live music (I guess some people like that), but generally, it is a laid-back saloon with no pretention or wasabi anything on the menu.  And Old town is a pretty good start or end point for a stroll down Ruston way.  My family has a 3 mile “loop” we walk: down Puget Park ravine, along the waterfront, get ice cream (real chocolate or vanilla) and/or coffee at the spar, and then up the hill to home again.  I like that it is there, that it has pretty much always been there, and that it will pretty much  always be there.  I know I’ll keep coming back.     

Attendees

• Calvin Kennon Sr., Comprehensive Life Resources
• Cynthia Stewart, League of Women Voters
• Julio Quan, Community Activist
• Rosemary Powers, New Connections
• Meridee Heinlich, Step by Step
• Tina Saxton, Industrial Workers of the World
• Carrie Ching, Molina Healthcare
• Pamm Silver, Molina Healthcare
• Barbara Kaelberer, Accountable Communities of Health, Community Voice Council
• Sheila Miraflor, Sound Outreach
• Theresa Power-Drutis, New Connections
• Elly Claus-McGahan, Community Member
• Brian Wilson, Catholic Community Services
• Brendan Baker, Veterans Administration
• Lynn Jones, Catholic Community Services
• Charleen Fitzgerald, Coordinated Care
• Ray Tellier, Coordinated Care
• Marge Blount, Tacoma  Pierce County Health Department
• Lynn Ehrlich, New Connections
• Brynly Bedford, New Connections
• Rodney Richardson, Sidewalk Rescue
• Dru Gonia, Tacoma Salvation Army
• Angela Delgado (I spell it with a “t” every time, as if someone would be named “of the cat”.   –ed.)
• Will Stinson, Catholic Community Services
• Sandra Iverson, Vadis
• Noah Baskett, Tacoma Rescue Mission
• Laurie Jinkins, Washington State Legislator
• Marybeth McCarthy, Tacoma Community College
• Maureen Howard, Housing Advocate
• Bobby Ocasin, City of Tacoma
• Patricia Menzies, Tent City Tacoma
• Molly Nichols, Futurewise
• Brenda O’Brien, Department of Social and Health Services
• Rob McNair-Huff, Metropolitan Development Council
• Richard Berghammer, Fellowship Bible Church
• Greg Walker, Valeo Vocation
• Duke Paulson, Tacoma Rescue Mission
• Martha Sheppard, Tacoma Salvation Army
• Kenneth Moultry, Recovery Foundation
• Sherri Jensen, Valeo Vocation
• Luis Rivera Zayas, Tacoma Rescue Mission
• Joseph Denton, Sound Outreach
• Brody Powers, Tacoma Rescue Mission
• Laurence Kinneman, Tacoma Rescue Mission
• Marilyn Duran, Tacoma Rescue Mission
• Dawna Bryant, Comprehensive Life Resources
• Audrey Oliver, Comprehensive Life Resources
• Nathan Blackmer, Comprehensive Life Resources
• Wes Bailey, Metropolitan Development Council
• David Venes, Point Defiance AIDs Project
• Faatima Lawrence, Catholic Community Services
• Martin Tetlof, Associated
• Durand, Tacoma Rescue Mission
• Byron Corzo, Tacoma  Rescue Mission
• Effran Davis, Pierce County District Court
• Kelly Blucher, Goodwill
• Martin Tetloff, Associated Ministries
• Mendiola Xavier, Tacoma Rescue Mission
• Josh Waguespack, Catholic Community Services
• Felicia Dennis, Clover Park Technical College
• Jennifer Stolle, Hilltop Action Coalition
• Faatima Lawrence, Catholic Community Services