Title
Approval of a Recommendation to Add Temporary Staffing to Support the City's Homeless Response Work
Recommended Action
Committee Recommendation:
The issue was presented to the Finance Committee on August 15, 2018, they unanimously recommend approval to use $35,000 of City Council Goal money to add temporary staffing to support the City's Homeless Response work.
City Manager Recommendation:
Move to approve the use of Council Goal money to add temporary staffing to support the City's homeless response work.
Report
Issue:
Whether to use Council Goal money to add temporary staffing to support the City's Homeless response work.
Staff Contact:
City Manager Steve Hall, 360.753.8244
Community Planning and Development Director Keith Stahley, 360.753.8227
Presenter(s):
Keith Stahley
Background and Analysis:
The City has adopted an aggressive strategy to do more to address the immediate public health crisis related to homelessness.
In May 2018, the City Council launched four short term initiatives to address immediate needs.
Developing a direct response to Homeless Services and affordable housing is a new line of work for the City. In April, the City realigned staffing to create an internal Housing Action Team to better align and coordinate the City's response to this emerging work.
In May, as part of a partnership with the Evergreen Christian Church, the City was able to fund and staff its first ever Homeless Response Coordinator. Other staff have also changed focus to assign larger portions of their time to this work.
Despite this internal realignment, staff resources are inadequate to properly handle the amount of coordination, public engagement, project planning and strategic thinking needed to address these new initiatives.
What is really needed, is a full time permanent staff person to augment this work. However, long-term funding has not been identified.
In the short term, staff is recommending temporary staffing (up to six months) using Cou...
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