Innovation Center proposal co-locates community college, services at Pacific Tower

The future of the historic Pacific Tower building is at an important juncture as the Pacific Hospital Preservation & Development Authority is considering a proposal to create The Beacon Community Health College & Innovation Center at Pacific Tower.

The PDA will accept written comments on the Innovation Center and another proposal that is believed to be from a private developer to convert the historic medical campus into high-end residential units.

Please address comments to:

PDA Executive Director Rosemary Aragon
Pacific Hospital Preservation & Development Authority
1200 12^th Avenue S, Quarters 2
Seattle, WA 98144

The Innovation Center proposal calls for “bringing new life to an iconic building for vital public purposes, including critically needed training programs in nursing, dental hygiene and other health care professions, cross-cultural health care training programs, community meeting facilities and space for nonprofit organizations that share the goal of building stronger, healthier communities for generations to come.”

The Center would be anchored in Seattle Community College programs that are designed to create the skilled workforce needed to meet Medicaid expansion and supported by an array of community agencies that share the goal of building community through services and innovation.

Among the organizations that have expressed interest in co-locating services:

• Neighborcare Health
• Cross Cultural Health Care
• Neighborhood House
• Washington State Dept. of Commerce
• Refugee Woman’s Alliance (ReWA)
• FareStart

The co-location is based on the model pioneered at the Opportunity Center for Employment and Education at North Seattle Community College.

Solid Ground, along with many other community groups and agencies, supports the proposal.

Again, to submit written support of the proposal, please address comments to:

PDA Executive Director Rosemary Aragon
Pacific Hospital Preservation & Development Authority
1200 12^th Avenue S, Quarters 2
Seattle, WA 98144

Or email your comments to: r.aragon@phpda.org.

A public hearing will be scheduled soon! We’ll update this post as we hear about the date and time!

 

Lettuce Link transition

Editor’s note: Michelle Bates-Benetua, Lettuce Link Program Manager, announced that she will be moving on from Lettuce Link. Here are her words: 

Recently, on one of those delicious sunny May days, I watched a bee nestling into an overwintered kale flower and thought about Lettuce Link. This July will mark my ninth year as the program manager, and it truly has been one of the most rewarding jobs I have held.

At my core, I am deeply connected and committed to our program and goals and have loved working with so many wonderful people with such high integrity and passion for social justice!

When I first started, there were two of us on staff. We were both technically part time and only stopped running in the dead of winter when we collapsed and returned to our families worn out and exhausted.

Michelle (center) with her daughter (r) and staff member Amelia Swinton (l) at the Seattle Community Farm adjacent to Rainier Vista

Now there are seven of us. We have a new urban farm and have more than doubled the number of giving gardens we work with, classes we teach and volunteers we coordinate. We are intentional in our approach and we have a vibrant community of fantastic volunteers that we connect with in many ways throughout the year. We are still busy during the growing season, but we now have much more in reserve for the other parts of our lives.

The interest in food justice and urban agriculture has grown tremendously during my tenure, and the energy continues to build! I’m excited to see what the future holds for Lettuce Link.

Or, perhaps more accurately, I’m excited to see what Lettuce Link will bring to our common and collective futures. Everyone has a right to high-quality food, health and well-being. How will Lettuce Link play a role in supporting and advocating for these rights?

Which brings me back to the bee. It lingered on that one flower just long enough and then knew it was time to fly on to the next. I have given considerably to and received significantly from my time with Lettuce Link. But now it is time for me to move on, allowing a fresh perspective and new energy to infuse Lettuce Link.

I will step aside in early August and hope to see many of you before then. If not, you may see me around Seattle. I plan to stay connected to food gardens and the people who love them.

The job posting is on the Solid Ground website. Please share it widely.

~ Michelle

We’re also hiring an AmeriCorps member; please share that posting as well! The AmeriCorps position closes June 3.

Supportive housing taking shape at Sand Point

The final phase of Solid Ground’s housing development at the former Naval Station Puget Sound is taking place along Sand Point Way and just to the east of our Brettler Family Place.

Building 5, view from the south

Building 5, now being framed in the area just south of the long brick historic barracks building, contains five family homes as well as housing for 33 single men and women.

Building 4, which is nestled into the southeast side of Brettler Family Place, contains 16 homes for families.

When the facilities are completed in December, Solid Ground will be operating 99 homes for formerly homeless families and 75 for formerly homeless men and women on the campus. All residents receive supportive services to make the Sand Point campus a a model stepping stone from supportive housing to long-term personal stability.

Building 4, view from the north; this meadow will eventually be turned into a playground for the 200 children who will live on site.

For more information, go to our website.

Urgent: call your Senators about the Farm Bill

Clean radishes

Here’s a breaking news update on the Senate Farm Bill and the latest message (from the Anti-Hunger & Nutrition Coalition) to deliver to our Senators. Please pick up a phone to call Senators Cantwell and Murray.

Please share this information with your networks:

Farm Bill Process
The Senate began their debate of amendments to the Farm Bill yesterday morning. Unfortunately, they missed their biggest and best opportunity to help hungry families and seniors by rejecting the Gillibrand amendment that would have eliminated the $4.1 billion cut to SNAP. Senator Murray co-sponsored the amendment and Senator Cantwell voted for the amendment. But in the end, the amendment failed to get 50 votes on the Senate floor, ultimately defeated by a vote of 26 yeas to 70 nays.

If there’s a bright side to this, the Senate also defeated a number of even more damaging amendments proposed by Senator Roberts that would have tried to instill many of the cuts proposed in the House Bill, including an amendment that would have greatly restricted Categorical Eligibility and eliminated Heat and Eat entirely.

Additionally, Senator Brown has introduced an amendment that will be debated on the floor that would add $10 million to the Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program as well as add funds to other programs that help farmers markets and increase access to nutritious, locally sourced produce. This is an effort that we support since the Senior FMNP helps low-income seniors have access to the fresh produce that they need to stay healthy in body and mind, but $10 million will be a tiny drop in the bucket compared to the cut to SNAP — our first-line defense against hunger.

Even if this amendment is added to the bill, the Senate will be voting on a final package as soon as tonight, or possibly tomorrow morning, that will cut SNAP by over $4 billion — a cut that will take $90 per month out of the SNAP benefits for 232,000 households in Washington.

Tell Senators: Support the Brown Amendment but Vote NO on the Final Farm Bill
Call Senator Cantwell and Senator Murray now and ask them to support the Brown amendment. Let them know that we support adding funding to the Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program, because if the cuts to SNAP proposed in this Farm Bill take effect, then we need to make sure that seniors have all the assistance they can get to have access to nutritious food that they can’t otherwise afford on a fixed income.

We need this amendment to get the final Farm Bill package in the best shape in can be should it pass the rest of the Senate, but in the end, we still need our Senators to vote NO to the final Farm Bill package, because the proposed cuts to SNAP are unconscionable. No Farm Bill this year is better than living with the consequences of a Farm Bill that slashes SNAP and as a result, increases poverty for hungry families with children and seniors. The Senate can always go back to the drawing board and save their yes vote for a Farm Bill that does not make unconscionable cuts to SNAP.

Senator Murray: 1.866.481.9186
Senator Cantwell: 1.202.224.3441

•    Vote YES on the Brown amendment to increase funding for Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program.
•    Even if that amendment passes, vote NO on the final Farm Bill because of the unconscionable cut to SNAP — our first line of defense against hunger.

Fully fund Washington State’s smart response to childhood hunger

State Food Assistance (SFA) is a food stamp look-alike program founded by the Washington State legislature and Governor Gary Locke in 1997 to provide continued food assistance to legal, documented immigrants when Congress terminated their eligibility for food stamps. The program has been a tremendous success but is at dire risk.

We need your help TODAY to preserve this important program!

Call the legislative hotline at 1.800.562.6000 or email your reps and senator to ask for full funding for the State Food Assistance Program!

Background
Since 1997, Congress has restored federal food stamps for several categories of immigrants (like refugees and asylees). There are three main groups receiving State Food Assistance in Washington:

• Immigrants with green cards who are in their first five years of residence in the US.
• “People Living Under Color of the Law,” a variety of immigration status that allows people to continue to live in the US.
• Citizens of countries with Compacts of Free Association with the US (Palau, Micronesia and the Marshall Islands) who may live and work in the US but are ineligible for most assistance.

More than 10,000 households received SFA in November 2012. Unfortunately, legislators have repeatedly tried to slash SFA benefits that help thousands of children growing up in immigrant families.

Efforts began in late 2010 to eliminate the program completely. The 2011 and 2012 budgets cut the benefits in half, reducing the average benefit per household from $159.05 to just $78.23. This benefit level is just one-third of the resources needed to be “food secure,” according to the US Department of Agriculture.

A coalition of anti-hunger advocates and allies is asking the Legislature to fully fund SFA. The Children’s Alliance, the Faith Action Network, the Anti-Hunger and Nutrition Coalition, OneAmerica, Northwest Harvest, the Washington Food Coalition and others strongly encourage the 2013 Legislature to restore State Food Assistance benefits to 100% of the food stamp benefits received by more than 1 million Washingtonians. The cost of maintaining SFA benefits at 50% in the next biennium is estimated to be $21 million; the cost of restoring benefits to 100% is an additional $21 million. Proposed changes made in the food stamp program at the federal level by Congress could reduce the cost to the state.

Solid Ground has joined 60 community organizations in supporting the SFA. A letter to the legislature signed by all of the organizations states:

For more than 15 years, Washington has strategically leveraged national resources to make sure that food stamps reach families in need. …

But now our food security network isn’t working like it should. During the recession, Washington legislators slashed State Food Assistance benefits for thousands of children growing up in immigrant families, nearly all of whom are children of color. At a time when an estimated one in four Washington children live in food insecure households, the cut to State Food Assistance deepens racial and economic inequality. …

(H)unger is a roadblock to opportunity. Hungry children can’t learn. The ties between hunger, poor health and learning are well understood. If we continue to send children to school without the fuel they need for academic success, we continue to let the opportunity gap swallow up our future.

As the legislative Special Session gets underway in Olympia today, our representatives and senators need to hear that we support the full funding for the State Food Assistance program. Please call the legislative hotline today at 1.800.562.6000 to leave a message, or email your legislators.

Your input needed at Fair Housing Equity Forums!

The Puget Sound Regional Council, in tandem with the Fair Housing Center of Washington, is gathering information on barriers to equal housing opportunities with a special focus on the major transportation corridors in Snohomish, King and Pierce Counties. This Fair Housing Equity Assessment is part of the Growing Transit Communities’ three-year project to ensure equity along transit lines. We need your help!

They are holding three forums to discuss a broad range of topics to include:

• Are we perpetuating segregation today?
• Are there attitudes about Section 8, low-income housing, group homes or the homeless that impede integrated housing patterns?
• Is affordable housing only being built in diverse or low-income neighborhoods?
• Can government and private investment in transportation increase housing opportunities for low-income families?
  

See flyer for meeting locations and times.

Hope you can make it!

 

Financial empowerment Intensive Learning Cluster update

art by Rainer Waldman Atkins

Last October, Solid Ground entered into a very exciting partnership with the Corporation for Enterprise Development (CFED). Solid Ground was selected, along with four other organizations nationally, to participate in an Intensive Learning Cluster allowing us to work on further integrating financial empowerment into the services provided through Solid Ground.

Our goal is strengthening the economic security of the families and individuals we serve, and addressing deep-rooted issues that face households getting by on low incomes in our communities.

This Learning Cluster came to a close in March and we are now charged with keeping the momentum going and using all of the tools and new ideas that were raised throughout the last six months.

The highlights of this experience and some of our lessons learned along the way are featured in a brief published by CFED and posted on the CFED blog.

Solid Ground is BIG into…

GiveBIG through the Seattle Foundation on May 15!

GiveBIG is back! On Wednesday May 15, all donations made to Solid Ground via The Seattle Foundation’s website will be partially matched! This means that YOUR GIFT can have an even bigger impact in moving people out of poverty.

At Solid Ground we are BIG into healthy kids. We believe that education and growth extends beyond the school day. We partner with local schools, agencies and community volunteers to engage kids in experiential learning opportunities throughout the day via our community farms, Apple Corps and Washington Reading Corps programs, and our Cooking Matters nutrition and cooking classes.

When you GiveBIG to Solid Ground, you help feed hungry people, keep people in their homes and get families and individuals experiencing homelessness into stable housing.

So please, GiveBig on Wednesday, May 15 to end poverty in our community. And remember to tell your family, friends and coworkers to GiveBIG to Solid Ground!

We are BIG into food and nutrition!

At Solid Ground we are BIG into food and nutrition. We believe that all families should have access to healthy, nutritious food, regardless of where they live or how much they earn. Last year, our Lettuce Link program’s Marra Farm Giving Garden, Seattle Community Farm, Community Fruit Tree Harvest and P-Patch Growing and Giving efforts harvested and donated more than 50,000 pounds of organic produce to 21 local food banks.

REMEMBER: All GiveBIG donations must be made with a credit card, within the 24-hour window of May 15, via Solid Ground’s page on The Seattle Foundation website.

We are BIG into ending homelessness!

We work to help families and individuals overcome displacement and abuse, address the issues that led to their experiencing homelessness, develop a strong community support system and secure permanent housing. This year we are expanding our homeless prevention efforts and partnering with Lifelong AIDS Alliance to provide housing stability resources for people with chronic illnesses who face foreclosure. We are completing our Sand Point housing campus by building 54 new homes for formerly homeless families and single men and women.

And don’t forget, a portion of all gifts made to GiveBIG will be matched. Thanks for giving BIG to Solid Ground!

Tough talk on how children succeed

Nicole Brodeur to host Tough talk on how children succeed at Solid Ground’s 13th Annual Building Community Luncheon, April 5

Paul Tough, best-selling author

For nearly 40 years, Solid Ground has grappled with how to effectively end poverty for families and individuals. How do people build the foundation they need so that they and their children can thrive?

On April 5, 2013, we are bringing best-selling author Paul Tough to our Building Community Luncheon to help us find out. (Noon – 1:30 pm at the Westin Hotel, 1900 5^th Ave. Guests asked to give a suggested minimum donation of $150.)

“Paul Tough has scoured the science and met the people who are challenging what we thought we knew about childhood and success,” said author Charles Duhigg. “And now he has written the instruction manual. Every parent should read this book – and every policymaker, too.”

To that we add: Every social change agent should read it – and hear from Paul Tough as well!

Tough’s How Children Succeed picks up where his look at Geoffrey Canada and the Harlem Children’s Zone left off. In it, he presents cutting edge research from neuroscientists and psychologists about the challenges that most significantly impact young children, especially those growing up in poverty. Educators weigh in on some of the most promising school- and community-based interventions.

As Solid Ground interacts with kids from families living on low-incomes in school-based programs through Washington Reading Corps, Apple Corps and Penny Harvest – and houses an increasing population of young children – we continue to build and refine our own models of support for families moving from crises to thriving.

The Luncheon will shed light on the generational success stories coming out of our Broadview program, which has been responding to the needs of women and kids experiencing homelessness, most of them victims of domestic violence, for more than 20 years. And we will engage Tough in a dynamic conversation that moves beyond a standard keynote speaker’s recitation of the highlights of their book.

Nicole Brodeur

Noted local journalist Nicole Brodeur of the Seattle Times will emcee the event and lead a conversation with Tough focusing on how a social justice agency like Solid Ground can incorporate new understandings and best practices into our work.

In the New York Times Sunday Book Review, Annie Murphy Paul said that Tough’s work “illuminates the extremes of American childhood: for rich kids, a safety net drawn so tight it’s a harness; for poor kids, almost nothing to break their fall.”

Much of the book revolves around a developing thesis that success is based more on character traits than cognitive skills. Among the most important is learning how to manage and overcome failure.

Tough looks at science that demonstrates how our adrenal response to environmental stress can program us for failure. Neuroscientists and psychologists weigh in on how growing up in poverty creates stress and trauma that lead to “impaired social skills, an inability to sit still and follow directions, and what teachers perceive as misbehavior.”

“Despite these children’s intense needs, school reformers have not been very successful at creating interventions that work for them; they have done much better at creating interventions that work for children from better-off low-income families, those making $41,000 a year. No one has found a reliable way to help deeply disadvantaged children, in fact. Instead, what we have created is a disjointed, ad hoc system of governmental agencies and programs that follow them haphazardly through their childhood and adolescence,” Tough writes.

But, having said that, Tough documents reformers in schools and other settings whose efforts are making an impact on their communities, and offers learnings that can influence our work in Seattle and beyond.

“But we could design an entirely different system for children who are dealing with deep and pervasive adversity at home,” Tough writes.

Come join us on April 5 to be part of this conversation and hear directly from Tough what Solid Ground and you can do to help children succeed.

• For more information on the Luncheon: Building Community Luncheon webpage
• For a taste of Tough’s work: What if the Secret to Success Is Failure? (9/14/11, NYTimes Magazine)

Solid Ground supports teaching youth about racism and social justice!

Solid Ground is lending support to the issue playing out at The Center School, where teacher Jon Greenberg was directed to discontinue the racism section of his Citizenship and Social Justice course.

Greenberg is well-known to the Solid Ground community. He is a former Penny Harvest Coach, and his students have been powerful advocates for people living on low incomes, people of color, and others facing oppressive barriers to full participation in our community.

Below you will see a message from Gordon McHenry, Jr., Solid Ground’s President & CEO, to the Seattle Public Schools Superintendent, Assistant Superintendent and Ombudsman, calling on the district to keep race and social justice units in the curriculum. This statement reflects Solid Ground’s commitment to engage on these issues in the community. Thanks to everyone who brought information and perspective to our process.

Superintendent Banda, Assistant Superintendent Tolley, and Ombudsman McGlone:

Solid Ground is a King County based community action agency. Our mission is to eliminate poverty and undo racism and other forms of oppression that are the root causes of poverty. We provide direct services including several programs where we are a partner of the Seattle School District. We value and appreciate working with SPS to educate and develop our youth.

We support the teaching of a curriculum that engages students in discussions of race, gender and class, with a focus on understanding white privilege. There is a continued need for this kind of curriculum as students live in a more and more diverse community and as employers place a growing emphasis on students who can work well in a global marketplace. As you evaluate the situation at Center School, we urge the District to ensure that race and social justice remains a part of the curriculum. It is important to support those teachers who educate our youth on topics like race, gender and class that continue to be a source of struggle for our society. Thank you.

Best Regards,

Gordon A. McHenry, Jr.
President & CEO, Solid Ground

Join us for Hunger Action Day in Olympia on February 22!

Your voice is needed to end hunger in Washington!

Join Solid Ground’s Hunger Action Center for the Anti-Hunger & Nutrition Coalition‘s HUNGER ACTION DAY at the Washington State Capitol, Friday, February 22!

This Lobby Day allows the Coalition and supporters to highlight current issues affecting families facing hunger and bring forward priorities to reduce food insecurity in Washington State. Through the collective voice of a coalition, legislators hear the struggles of Washington State residents, food banks, farmers and service providers and are asked to make policy decisions that will end hunger in our communities.

Over the years, this coalition has successfully brought hunger advocates to Olympia to promote strategic policy and state appropriations that maximize federal nutrition programs, reinforce our community-based emergency food assistance system, and link local farmers with the needs of the hungry.

The Anti-Hunger & Nutrition Coalition’s priorities this year are:

1. Restore full benefits for families on the State Food Assistance Program.
2. An increase to WSDA’s Emergency Food Assistance Program.
3. Restore WSDA’s Farm to School and Small Farms programs.
4. Create a balanced and sustainable state budget that includes new sources of revenue.

Let your legislators hear your voice and encourage them to support a food secure Washington. Visit the Anti-Hunger & Nutrition Coalition’s website to register.

Individuals who are not able to come to Olympia can participate in the Coalition’s online Lobby Day. Click here to join an online petition. This petition asks lawmakers to ensure that Washington families don’t go hungry in these tough times.

If you have any questions about Hunger Action Day 2013, please contact Elsa Ferguson at elsaf@withinreachwa.org.

Feet First day of service restores Dearborn Park elementary sidewalk

Editor’s note: This article was written by a Feet First volunteer and is reposted from the Feet First! blog.

By Amanda Garberich

Outfitted in snug caps and down jackets, the volunteers gathered at Seattle’s Dearborn Park Elementary to reflect on Martin Luther King Jr.’s life, the importance of service and community, and the value of maintaining safe sidewalks for students before setting out to restore the school’s Walking School Bus routes. Several volunteers from Seattle Children’s Hospital cited King’s commitment to service as a source of inspiration for the day’s mission.

Dearborn Park Principal Angela Sheffey Bogan was motivated by the second-term inauguration of America’s first African-American president, the live footage of which she’d watched with her family that morning. Another volunteer watched a video of King’s “I Have a Dream” with his son the night before. All agreed that joining altruistic forces to make the school’s sidewalks clean and safe was a fitting way to honor the civil rights hero (and masterful marcher) on this eponymous national holiday.

Volunteers split into groups in order to tackle five neglected sidewalks. These stretches of concrete, on the north and south ends of the Beacon Hill neighborhood elementary school, were steadily surrendering to the tangle of weeds, ivy and litter that’d been creeping over its surface since the city installed the sidewalks five years ago. For the students treading these walkways every Wednesday as part of the school’s Walking School Bus, the leafy debris and vine-like weeds were an eyesore and a safety hazard.

Dearborn Park Elementary is one of four Seattle schools currently participating in a Safe Routes to School (SRTS) initiative supported by Feet First. Principal Bogan, a frequent Walking School Bus “driver,” recognizes the incalculable importance of the weekly tradition. “The value of having a safe and clean sidewalk for my students is immeasurable,” Bogan stressed.

Wielding rakes, loppers, and, in some cases, machetes, volunteers set to work. They swept rain-soaked leaves into tidy piles, trimmed low-hanging branches and encroaching English Ivy, and removed thorny Himalayan Blackberry canes. AmeriCorps member Gordon Padelford and Feet First Volunteer Coordinator Darcy Edmunds (a Solid Ground Apple Corps member) offered tips on tool handling (rakes down, shears down, gloves on). Younger volunteers, some who “ride” the Dearborn Walking School Bus, scoured the ground for litter and used litter pickers to lift bottle caps and candy wrappers with a sense of duty that belied their youth. One neighbor came out and applauded the group as they cleared the sidewalk near an empty lot. The stalwart group worked with systematic efficiency until, just a few short hours later, the sidewalks, once slick with leaves and overgrowth, gleamed in all their walkable, gray glory.

“You might not think that a clean sidewalk would be such a big deal, but a few years ago, I actually saw a little girl lose her shoe in the muck here,” says Jen Cole, SRTS Program Director. “Now there’s a weekly walking school bus, and a growing number of students who walk here every day – it’s great to see a team of volunteers populating the back streets and clearing away the debris!”

To volunteer on a project making it easier and safer for people to go by foot, please contact Feet First by calling 206.652.2310 ext. 5 or emailing darcy@feetfirst.org.

This project was made possible by volunteers from Seattle Children’s Hospital through United Way of King County, Solid Ground’s Apple Corps, and the community of Dearborn Park Elementary School. Seattle Public Utilities’ Adopt-a-Street program and Seattle Department of Transportation’s Urban Forestry Division generously provided tools used for this event.

Food production to fight global warming

Editor’s note: Thanks to Amanda Horvath for this report. She currently serves as Program Outreach & Development AmeriCorps Member for Solid Ground’s Lettuce Link program.

The City of Seattle has developed a Climate Action Plan that addresses four sectors – transportation and land use, building energy, adaptation and building support for climate action. The Seattle Community Farm, a project of Solid Ground’s Lettuce Link program, was recently highlighted in the City’s plan because it “inspires, educates, and increases food security for residents of Southeast Seattle” (59).

We are honored to be recognized by the City for the way our local food production helps mitigate the impacts of climate change. According to the City, the mitigation of greenhouse gases is essential, as is our ability to adapt and be prepared, because we don’t know the extent to which we will be impacted by a changing climate.

The report highlights the significant role food systems planning plays in our ability to be prepared. It states that “the crops, livestock, and fisheries that supply our food as well as the global food distribution system could be significantly impacted by changes in temperature, amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2), and the frequency and intensity of extreme weather…” (58). In an effort to respond and be prepared for such events, the City hopes to develop a plan that ensures that “all Seattle residents should have enough to eat and access to affordable, local, healthy, sustainable, and culturally appropriate food” (58).

Lettuce Link, through its work at the Seattle Community Farm as well as Marra Farm in South Park, is doing just that – increasing access to affordable, local, healthy, sustainable and culturally appropriate food through its organic giving gardens, seed distributions, and garden and nutrition education. During the last harvest season alone, Lettuce Link was able to grow and distribute over 26,500 pounds of healthy food produce to hungry people locally, while also helping address climate change!

Saluting a local hero: Len Langford

Housing Advocate to the Stars, Len Langford!

Editor’s note: We don’t often take the time to acknowledge people on the frontlines of Solid Ground’s efforts to help people thrive. Last week one of our best and brightest retired, Housing Advocate Len Langford. If you care about ending poverty, helping people access affordable housing, and fighting the good fight, you should read what one of his colleagues and dear friends, Karen Ford, had to say about Len. God bless you, Len. Wherever you go next, we know you will shine!

It was my great honor to sit on Len Langford’s interview committee over 14 years ago. Immediately his intelligence and humor shone through and we were all
enchanted. Len was more than qualified for the housing advocate position with his extensive and worldly experience but he also possessed something more intangible – a rare charm that we sensed both clients and landlords would relate to – and they did.

Len was JourneyHome’s first in-house housing advocate, and through the years he steadily and skillfully housed hundreds of homeless families, many with significant barriers to housing that he would somehow convince even the most wary landlord to take a chance on. So now Len is in theory…retiring… at least from Solid Ground! But he has done this retiring thing before (retired Navy Vietnam veteran ((2 tours of duty)), retired Coast Guard officer, retired long-term care facility director/administrator, retired Seattle Housing Authority manager), so given what Len has already done, I’m looking forward to seeing what amazing thing he will decide to do in the next chapter of his life. Whatever it is, he will do it with the same compassion, wisdom, humor and care that he has so graciously shared with all the clients, landlords and colleagues he has worked with.

Len’s JourneyHome email signature says “Housing Advocate to the Stars,” and he always will say humbly that he “is here to serve” (and he does!), but in truth, it is Len who is a brilliant, unique and shining star. Thank you Len for all you are – I, and so many others, love you dearly!

New construction begun at Sand Point Housing

Earlier this month, Solid Ground broke ground on two new sites on our Sand Point Housing campus to begin building 54 new homes for formerly homeless people.

This building will hold 33 homes for single adults and six homes for families.

The 21 new homes for families and 33 for single adults fulfill the City’s vision of supportive housing for people overcoming homelessness at the former Sand Point Naval Station, which was articulated in the 1997 Reuse Plan.

“Since the initial transitional housing was redeveloped in old Navy buildings and opened in 2000, more than 2,000 people have used the facility as a stepping stone on their journey back to stability and thriving,” said Gordon McHenry, Jr., Solid Ground’s President & CEO. “The program’s ongoing success is based on partnerships among service providers and deep, supportive connections in the local community.”

Future home for 15 formerly homeless families

Site map showing locations of the new buildings

View from the south at the site where six family homes and 33 for singles will be constructed

View from the north at the site where six family homes and 33 for singles will be constructed

Aerial view looking from the top of Brettler Family Place at the site where 15 family homes will be built

View from the north where 15 family homes will nestle into this wing of Brettler Family Place

View from the east where 15 family homes will nestle into this wing of Brettler Family Place

Construction banners along Sand Point Way NE

Adrienne Karls, a resident of Solid Ground’s Santos Place transitional housing on the Magnuson Park campus, said, “We’ve come from being on the street or in our car. We’ve come from homeless shelters. We’ve all come from being in despair. This place has been somewhere I have been able to grow and appreciate things that I haven’t before in life. This community has given me tools and skills to build my future on. I’m confident it will do the same for the people who will move into these new buildings as well.”

Major funding for the project comes from Enterprise Community Partners, The City of Seattle and the Brettler Family Foundation. The project should be completed by late 2013!

Thanks for shining light into the darkness!

Art by Rainer Waldman Adkins

The winter solstice is one of the most powerful days of the year. In this darkest moment, the cold and gray cast a heavy shadow on the realities our clients face every day. And yet, the solstice promises the return of light to our world. It rekindles hope based on the reality that life-giving energy outshines the darkest days.

It is a time that many of the world’s traditions call out for pause, reflection and re-commitment. And so, all of us at Solid Ground would like to pause to thank members of our community for your dedication to our work to overcome poverty and racism.

Together we face many dark times. But we know they are overcome by the radiant smiles of children learning to read, or digging in the soil while learning how food is grown; by the joyous gasps of parents opening doors to their new homes, and the satisfied sighs of riders reaching their destination.

Through our work and your support, we kindle light, hope and thousands of better futures. Thank you. Have a warm and safe holiday season!

Pouring on the support

Executive Chef Augi and General Manager Tino in the kitchen

For many years, the Nickerson Street Saloon has come up with creative ways to support Solid Ground. With the support of their suppliers, they have a tasty history of donating a portion of their holiday beer revenues to Solid Ground.

This year is no exception: Through the end of the year, they will donate a portion of the sales of every glass of New Belgium’s Shift Pale Lager to Solid Ground. Stop on by for a fine brew to support a fine cause!

Also, last week Nickerson Street Saloon hosted its second annual Thanksgiving feast for clients of Solid Ground and the FamilyWorks food bank.

“Our involvement with Solid Ground started through Kira Zylstra [who manages Solid Ground’s Homeless Prevention Programs],” explains Chris “Tino” Martino, General Manager.

“She worked for me for a number of years and it was a natural fit. I think our goal as a business has always been to be partner with our community. We have always thought of ourselves as a neighborhood restaurant and part of that includes trying to help out and give something back. Fortunately we have been successful enough to be able to host these types of things and have always had great support from our vendors like Georgetown Brewing, New Belgium Brewery and Columbia Distributing.”

Tino adds, “Our Thanksgiving meal was something we started last year. We had talked about it for a number of years and last year it just sort of came together. Kira pointed me towards Jake Weber at FamilyWorks, and we just went with it. I’m really looking forward to this year. I was really struck by how grateful and thankful all the people we had last year were. I thought it was nice that we were able to serve people in the context of our restaurant; I think our guests enjoyed it. It’s something we plan to continue to do as long as we can.”

Kira volunteered on Thanksgiving, helping to serve the 75 guests. “This wasn’t a buffet: We served our guests and got them what they wanted,” she said. “It was a really welcoming environment.”

“Chris Gerke is the owner of the Nick and he has always been the reason we try to do what we do,” Tino says. “Giving back and trying to leave things better than you found them is something he has always preached and I have embraced as well. In the end, helping to care for each other is something I believe we are all responsible for and a great reminder of how fortunate I have been in my own life. Perspective is always a good thing.”

‘Rebuilding the plane while we fly it’

Boeing Dreamliner in flight (photo used by permission of The Boeing Company)

Solid Ground is pleased to announce that we have received a grant of $85,000 from The Boeing Company to support our Strategic Approach to Meeting Community Needs project.

“In an environment of increasing needs and diminishing resources, strategically-driven planning can significantly impact the amount and quality of services,” said Gordon McHenry, Jr., President & CEO of Solid Ground. “This project will enable Solid Ground to more clearly focus resources against critical priorities and establish a framework for continuous assessment and reporting of our performance.”

The end result will be to better serve more people and have a greater impact on their lives.

“Boeing is committed to partnering with organizations that help individuals in our community struggling with poverty and unemployment,” said Gina Breukelman, community investor for Global Corporate Citizenship. “We have a long history of partnering with Solid Ground and are excited about investing in their work to improve internal systems so that they can efficiently and effectively respond to the increased need for their services.”

The Boeing grant builds upon other recent awards of $25,000 from Enterprise Community Partners and $50,000 from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to support aspects of Solid Ground’s strategic planning and program assessment processes.

“A lengthy cycle of growth followed by recent years of economic contraction created some challenges for Solid Ground,” said Sandi Cutler, Solid Ground’s Chief Operating & Strategy Officer, who will oversee the project. “Years of growth created a variety of programs, often with divergent procedures and systems. Solid Ground’s Board of Directors recognized the need to adapt our way of operating in order to meet the new demands facing the organization.”

“This strategic project amounts, in many ways, to rebuilding the plane while we fly it,” McHenry said. “And so, even while we take this strategic step, we continue to provide 60,000 people a year with housing, food and nutrition, counseling, legal aid and other resources to help them escape poverty and thrive.”

“Solid Ground’s effort is consistent with a larger regional effort that is transforming how nonprofits bring a renewed focus on effectively merging vision, leadership and planning into our work,” Cutler said. “The essence of this initiative is the integration of better systems, practices and methods, creating a ‘new normal’ that makes the entire organization more sustainable, and enables us to deliver better services.”

McHenry said, “We must become more effective and more efficient in order to improve the resources and support we provide to those who rely on our services, many of whom have  multiple challenges to self-sufficiency. We are grateful for this partnership with The Boeing Company to support this vital work.”

Financial Empowerment yields compound interest

Remember “Home Ec” classes? At high schools across the country, students learned about household finances: how to save money for a rainy day, how a loan works, and what compound interest does.

Solid Ground’s Financial Fitness Boot Camp Coach, Judy Poston

Over time, we’ve seen financial management get more complicated and financial literacy training harder to come by. How you handle your money is a critical skill set for anyone. But for people living in poverty and facing or experiencing homelessness, it can be the key to transforming their future.

For years Solid Ground has supported clients in gaining these financial empowerment skills in a classroom setting or through one-on-one coaching. But these formats have limited our ability to reach a broad section of the community.

Now, thanks to a partnership with the Corporation for Enterprise Development (CFED), Solid Ground is part of a unique national Intensive Learning Cluster to develop ways to integrate financial empowerment throughout the breadth of our programs.

Solid Ground was selected as one of five agencies from across the country to participate in a six-month pilot project with CFED, which was launched with a four-day gathering in Washington D.C. this fall. Judy Poston, Solid Ground’s Financial Fitness Boot Camp Program Coordinator, went to the kick-off and gave this report:

The purpose of the Intensive Learning Cluster is to work with CFED staff – as well as the other four agencies – to come up with ideas to successfully integrate financial empowerment education in all Solid Ground programs. We hope to take a holistic approach to this process that will teach people how to build personal assets and become financially empowered.

One of the most inspiring parts of the conference was keynote speaker Cory Booker, Mayor of Newark, NJ. His keynote speech challenged and called us all to action to continue financial empowerment work so that all Americans can learn to be self-sufficient.

The five agencies are looking at how we can build on best practices to integrate financial empowerment education into all of our programs. That way everyone will have a chance to achieve the American dream. At Solid Ground, this means we’re looking into developing a common intake process, tracking long-term outcomes, and getting staff buy-in to the process.

There will be a lot of discussion on how to get our staff to willingly buy-in to this model when, perhaps, their own finances might not be in great shape, or they might feel overwhelmed at being asked to add one more duty to an already full workload.

Among our next steps:

1) CFED staff will come to Solid Ground in January, 2013 to work with our staff as we develop our financial empowerment plan.

2) We’ll hold a focus group composed of housing staff who have attended the Burst for Prosperity Financial Coaching Training to discuss how they see themselves implementing financial empowerment into their work with folks we serve.

3) We’ll share powerful, successful client stories, being cheerleaders as well as advocates for this implementation process.

I am thankful to work with folks who are so dedicated and compassionate. And I am confident in our joint success as we work together to deliver financial empowerment services to everyone we serve.

Participating in the Intensive Learning Cluster represents just one of the ways Solid Ground is working to infuse all of our services with best practices learned from across the agency’s 30 programs and services to increase the synergy of our work. That means the people who come to us for temporary housing, nutrition education, legal support or other services will get the full benefit of all of our programs. Now that’s what we call compound interest!

Report from the frontlines of social justice

Editor’s note: Cody Fenton-Robertson is a law school student at Seattle University. He spent this past summer interning with Solid Ground’s Family Assistance Program, which provides free legal assistance regarding public benefits. This account of his time with us is taken, with Cody’s permission, from SU’s Public Interest Law Foundation Journal Project website.

Cody

Cody Fenton-Robertson was one of two legal interns who worked alongside Family Assistance’s attorneys during summer 2012 to provide free legal assistance to people regarding public benefits. The interns at Solid Ground do much of the same work that the attorneys do: They conduct intake interviews, research issues, request and comb through discovery (i.e., material which may lead to admissible evidence), and represent clients in administrative hearings. Cody was extremely excited to have the opportunity to intern at Solid Ground because of his larger desire to work in public interest law and provide legal assistance to groups of people who have been marginalized by our society. The internship at Solid Ground also allowed Cody to gain experience working and communicating with clients, a skill that Cody believes to be invaluable to his future career goals.

June, 2012
Early on in my internship at Solid Ground, I discovered a single sentence in the Washington Administrative Code that killed a case I was working on. Because of this particular WAC, my client had no argument to make to prevent DSHS from cutting his family’s benefits. After discussing the case and my research with a supervising attorney, the attorney agreed with my analysis.

“Now you have to call the client and tell him that his case has no legal merit and that we will not be representing him in his fair hearing,” said my supervising attorney.

I knew coming into this internship that I would be working with people who were truly in a state of need and desperation. I did not realize how frequently I would have to tell people in such a state that there is nothing I or anyone else could do to help them.

On that particular day, it was not only my first time making such a call, but it was my first time calling a client through an interpreter service. My first attempt at calling the client was cut short when the client was dropped from the conference call. I tried again, and again found myself in a two-way call with only myself and the interpreter. Eventually I got both the client and an interpreter on the phone at the same time, and I told him the bad news.

Of course, he did not understand. He didn’t understand because the law does not make sense, and because the application of the law feels unfair. I empathized with him and apologized, and then I heard the interpreter apologize in my client’s language. I didn’t need the interpreter to understand the client’s last word before the conversation ended: “Okay.”

It was the sound of a man’s frustration at realizing his only choice was to accept the unfair answer. I thanked the interpreter and hung up the phone. I left the internship that day feeling defeated.

I want to work in public interest law because I want to help people. Before starting this internship, I didn’t realize how often that would entail telling people that I could not help them. For every five calls I get on our intake line, one, maybe two, are cases that our office can accept. The rest are cases that I either have to refer elsewhere or are cases where I can immediately tell there is no legal merit. Of the cases our office accepts, at least half of them turn out to be unwinnable once we get discovery from DSHS. If the case looks like there is legal merit, there is still the possibility that the ALJ will disagree.

It can be depressing to think about.

But even so, I have found this internship incredibly rewarding. Aside from the value derived from the immense amount of practical experience I am getting in speaking with clients and drafting letters to adverse parties and requesting discovery and conducting investigations of sorts, there is another kind of value to this internship. The clients are incredibly thankful. I have had clients call in and, after listening to their story and determining what their legal issue is, I have had to tell them there is nothing we can do and explain why. Even so, those clients have still been immensely thankful and just happy to have someone explain the reason behind what was happening.

So I guess one of the things I have taken from my internship at Solid Ground so far is that “helping people” has a broader definition than I originally thought. Sometimes helping can just be listening.

July, 2012
Opposing DSHS in fair hearings is a lot like playing blackjack with a dealer who can rewrite the rules as he likes. We can call out DSHS for cheating, but if we do it enough times, they will just rewrite the rules to make it so what they are doing is no longer cheating.

The Washington Administrative Code states that DSHS must supply a petitioner with his or her hearing packet (the evidence being used against them) no later than five days before their hearing. Time and time again, this rule is broken. Pro se litigants are given their hearing packets as they step into the hearing, and they have no idea that they were supposed to get the evidence days earlier, or that they have a right to ask for a continuance. Instead, they go through the hearing without any knowledge of the laws or evidence being used to deny or terminate the benefits they rely on to survive. It is truly infuriating.

This summer, our office at Solid Ground has adopted a new policy: We are no longer smiling and being friendly while the DSHS hearing representatives break the law in ways that are prejudicial to our clients. We have begun aggressively filing motions to compel discovery and holding prehearing conferences with ALJs in order to get DSHS’s misbehavior on the record. We want the Office of Administrative Hearings to understand that if a client with representation has to make such aggressive gestures just to get the hearing packet that is required by law, then the 98% of petitioners who are appearing pro se have absolutely no chance at a “fair hearing.”

This new policy has allowed for me to gain some great experiences. I have written, argued, and won motions to compel discovery. I have been able to inconvenience the lives of people who seem to be bending backwards to incorrectly apply the law and break the rules. However, our office is working under a constant fear. If we make too big a stink, if we make DSHS work too hard, the department might just rewrite the rules. The department will amend the WAC to say that that the department does not owe our clients discovery until 30 minutes before the hearing.

So there is a tightrope we are walking. We want to stir up enough dust to encourage a change in behavior, but not enough dust to catch Olympia’s attention.

Meanwhile, my caseload has expanded to over 20 cases. I have a hearing next week that I have yet to get discovery for (surprise, surprise), and a massive hearing the week after that I have been preparing for nonstop for the past week.

This work is infuriating, frustrating, never-ending, and I really enjoy it.