Street roots., June 12, 2009, Page 9, Image 9

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9
Street roots
Education * Dialogue* Independence
LETTER, from page 1
altogether, Tierney says.
Dona Bolt, Oregon Department Of Education
Homeless Education Coordinator, reports that
in school year 2007-08 the school districts in
Clatsop, Columbia and Tillamook counties had
540 homeless students, of whom 460 were in
families.
“From our point of view, this is also a crisis
of wasted investment,” says Jim Tierney with
CAT in St. Helens. “Because if we’re going
backward, for a year or little more than year,
essentially is an awful lot of investment ofour
staff getting people off the streets and into
housing. The money and time used is now
potentially getting washed away.”
“The struggle to get people out of
homelessness is a difficult one, and there are
real barriers no matter how hard we work to
get them out of the situation,”. Tierney , says,
“We lose ground on all of those. And if we find
some way to fix this problem, it uses up 1
resources that would have gone to serve the
next in line. It backs everything up.”
organization on housing and homeless services
.for sub-agencies in the tri-county region.
Workers at CAT, which is based in S t Helens in
Colombia County, and its partner organizations,
are now networking locally and statewide for a
solution to the crisis.
“People are coming to our doors but we don’t
have the funding to help,” says George; Sabol,
the executive director of Clatsop County
Community Action Team. New faces are
arriving now, Sabol ^aid; people who have never
been in such a situation of need. Clatsop
County had more than 100 tenants receive
termination letters from NOHA. Sabol calls the
situation a disaster, as much as if a flood or
hurricane had come through and taken the
homes of more than 300 men, women and
children. Assuch, hè?s looking at any and all
emergency plans.
“Qne of the things we’re lookingat doing is
possibly renting a gymnasium like they do for
disasters,” Sabol said. “Peopleware saying it’s,
riot a disaster but come July, it will be.”
T eff and Jennifer’s income is $700 a month.
The fact that the crisis comes at the end of
J Their rent is nearly $1,000, but they have a
many agencies fiscal year aggravates their
home because they receive $884 in rent
ability to pick up the slack. “The trouble is it’s § assistance through the Section 8 voucher
the end of our fiscal year,’’ said Rocky Johnson,
program. It’s a shortfall their landlord Maureen
the executive director of CAT. “We don’t have
Taylor, while sympathetic to their plight, cannot
funds left.”
afford to cover.
Some aid could be on its way through HUD’s
| “1 can’t pick up $884 in rent,’’ Taylor .said.
Housing Prevention/Rapid Rehousing stimulus
She had intended to sell the home Jennifer
program, Johnson said. But that’s not expected
and her family now live in, but as the economy
until September at the earliest.
soured, so did the buyers. The house sat
Other housing authorities across Oregon,
: empty for a year in a stagnant market. And
notably Polk, Klamath and Yamhill counties, are
there is little relief to be seen in Tillamook .
feeling the pinch and have sent out sòme
County’s forecast. On June 6, Hampton
termination notices, but no where near the
Lumber Mills completed a mass layoff of 85
numbers in NOHA’s district, Jones says.
employees.
In the state of Washington, the Walla Walla
“That’s the second groups of layoffs they
Housing Authority also had its voucher funding
did and that’s like a major employer here. Go
reduced from HUD and has recently announced down to the unemployment office right now and
that it is considering cutting as many as 150
go online and look for jobs: It’s all $9 and
families and individual recipients from the
$10-an-hour jobs. There are no livable-wage
program, possibly through a lottery system.
jpbs. There re four jobs open at the cheesy
The authority provides monthly rental
factory. That’s it.”
Mike Cook with NeahCasa, a nonprofit based
assistance to more than 700 eligible families; in
Walla Walla County.
in Manzanita that works to secure affordable
and emergency housing for people in need; said
“This is not the only housing authority in the
state of Oregon or in the country that is facing
landlords have been meeting to discuss what
they can do to salvage the situation. Cook
a problem of this time,” Jones said.
works with NeahCasa’s student program,
“Unfortunately, the magnitude bf the problem
at this housing authority is significantly higher.” supporting homeless coordinators in each of •
Families who lose their housing as a result of. the schools. In the Neah-Kah-Nie School
the Section 8 termination face perils beyond
District of about 700 students; about half qualify
homelessness. The loss of housing may be
as living in poverty, and about 50 are classified
breaking a contract with a landlord that canx
as homeless,. Cook says.
“When things are fragile anyway, and then
affect a person’s rental record and credit
we get bad economy and then we’re hit by
report, jeopardizing future rental òpportunities,
something like this,” Cook says. “It’s just a Slap
Tierney says. It also can sour landlords on ‘i
Section 8 tenants altogèther, and Oregon allows in the face.”
- Cook said .the landlords are sensitive to the
landlords to refuse leasing to Section 8 tenants.
needs of the people, “but it is a lot to ask them
The instability of not having a home can also
to have to pay 75 percent of the ren t Or only
jeopàrdize employment or a person’s ability to
receive 25 percent of the rent for their units. ?
get a job. There also are adverse, long-term
effects on children in families that have to leave They’ve offered suggestions like doubling up,
bringing in renters. The problem is there hasn’t
theii home, live in uninhabitable situations or
been a forum to create a solution for this. This
have to leave school districts - if not school -
is a government program. There are people
who are really hurting and we can’t forget about
them.
, “I think there needs to be a wave of concern
here,” Cook says. “I think armed with some
community outrage, our congressional
representatives heed to be alerted tô the
situation and need to do something about it.
This is their'stimulus package, but they’re the
ones who put this whole thing together. You
can’t blame it on some housing little housing
authority in Oregon.”
NOHA, Sims said, is doing it all it can to
alleviate the pain of the situation. When funding
is available, the terminated recipients will be.
brought back on Section 8 immediately and will
not have to go back to the waiting list, which
currently has a 18-month to two-year wait.
And the vouchers are transferable to housing
authorities in the state that can absorb them
financially. Sims says the Coos-Curry, North
Bend and the Malheur housing authorities'hâve
said they can absorb some of the vouchers.
Some people already have said they were going
to move; according to Sims. Others have said
they will be doubling up in other people’s
homes or apartments. (Occupancy standards
set by HUD don’t apply if the people are not
receiving paid assistance.)
Jennifer said she and her family moved to
Garibaldi because of the quality of the
education and that moving back in with her
"One of the things we're looking at doing is
possibly renting a gymnasium like they do
for disasters. People are saying it's not a
disaster, hut come Inly, it w ill be."
CLATSOP O T W W O M M t J
— G EORGE SA S O L
mother would mean a return to schools where
her boys struggled and a house inadequate for
the family. She considers living in a tent or a
camper somewhere, or worse.
Sims says they also are working with state ”
and federal representatives to correct the
$600,000 shortfall.
“We here at NOHA are doing the best that
we can do help as many as we can that are in
need. It’s unfortunate that this did have to
happen and we’re doing everything we. can to
mitigate what has happened by working with
HUD and working with community partners to
put people back on as soon as we possibly can.”
But it didn’t have to happen, according to
Michael Anderson, executive director of the
Oregon Opportunity Network, an affordable-
housing advocacy organization.
“This whole crisis underscores how broken
the funding system is that provides housing
opportunities for the lowest income,” Anderson
says. “We have a system that at the time when
we need it most, is exposed for its weaknesses.
A major challenge of the Obama administration
is going to be getting our housing programs
right, because they haven’t been for 30 years.”
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