Thank you to everyone who attended our Annual Membership Meeting!
Sign up for Coalition emails to make sure you receive updates and notice of upcoming meetings. Highlights and resources shared on the call are below.
Click here to view the Coalition’s PowerPoint Presentation.
**We started the recording about 10 minutes into the meeting. Missing from this recording is the opening ceremony by Randy with Chief Seattle Club.*
- 9:00 – Welcome and Introduction
- Opening Ceremony by Chief Seattle Club Drummers – thank you Randy Tippins-Firstrider, Youth Outreach Case Manager with Chief Seattle Club
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New Coalition Mission, Vision, and Values – Thank you to Coalition Board members for sharing our new guiding principles. And thank you to all our members who contributed to this process
- Kate Baber, President, Coalition on Homelessness Board
- Anna Strahan, Coalition on Homelessness Board Member
- Derrick Belgarde, Treasurer, Coalition on Homelessness Board
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Board of Directors Election: Each dues-paying member organization has one vote to elect the slate of candidates for the Board. We are pleased that four Board members have agreed to renew their terms of service: Derrick Belgarde, Katie Escudero, Benjamin Miksch, Jenn Romo. Primary membership contacts will hear from us directly about this. If you think you are the person who should vote, or have a question, please email us
Highlights from the past year with the Coalition – see photos in our PowerPoint Presentation linked above!
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City, County and Statewide Advocacy Opportunities
Regarding sweeps currently happening in the City of Seattle, Alison shared:
- “We don’t find it to be acceptable under any circumstances that people are left to fend for themselves. We have proudly and successfully wrangled with multiple mayoral administrations over these kinds of dehumanizing and morally wrong actions. And now this.
- In the context of a global health emergency, in context of interim guidance from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) that clearly states in the absence of individual housing options people living unsheltered should not be moved during community transmission of COVID-19; We are seeing the City of Seattle go against what Mayor Durkan and members of her administration said at the beginning of this pandemic – which was that they would only take such action in a true emergency.
- We’ve now, this week alone, seen at least 2 major sweeps of people experiencing homelessness outside. We’ve seen at least two others, both the Ballard Commons sweep on May 4 and a sweep of a portion of the area outside the Navigation Center Shelter on April 24.
- The Coalition has expressed our strong opposition and outrage not only to the mayor and the city council, but we’ve been in communication with people at the CDC, with our Public Health Department and with the Washington State Attorney General’s office as well as with attorneys on the ground here. I want to assure you our members that we’ll continue to advocate essentially on every front possible. I want to recognize and acknowledge the extraordinary work of the frontline outreach staff.”
City Council Proposal (CB 119796) to suspend sweeps during the stay home, stay healthy order
- Seattle City Councilmember Tammy Morales, Position 2 – prime sponsor of CB 119796 shared about this bill (other sponsors include Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda and Kshama Sawant).
- Read our May 4 email to Seattle Mayor Durkan requesting that the city halts weeps until they revise City policies to center people and public health in city actions toward people experiencing homelessness.
- Take Action: Tell Seattle City Mayor Durkan and Councilmembers to support CB 119796 and ensure that the City is not creating more harm by sweeping people who have nowhere else to go. https://bit.ly/sweeps2020
Prepare for a likely Special Session of the State Legislature
- Look up your state legislative district: https://bit.ly/walegdistricts
- Michele Thomas, Director of Policy and Advocacy, Washington Low Income Housing Alliance
- We don’t know exactly when a special session might happen, but it is likely
- We’ll need everyone to get engaged now to get our boards and organizations ready to ask for massive progressive revenue in the state. Washington is facing a major budget deficit and a vast majority of the budget that is discretionary and could be changed is human services, housing, and homelessness related funding. Get ready!
- We’ll host a Homelessness Advocacy 101 workshop virtually before a special session begins.
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Director Chat
Sound Transit issued a press advisory stating that they’ll begin resuming fare collection and fare enforcement on the light rail. Speak up soon – we’ll post an action for people to take before the Sound Transit Board Meeting where this will be discussed next Thursday, May 28.
We’ll be hiring soon – stay tuned.
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COVID Resources Update: Check out our resources page: http://homelessinfo.org/resource/covid/
- Our Homeless Service Change Tracker with information on the status of day centers, meal services and shelter programs in King County. We want to keep this as up to date as possible, if you see the need for additions of corrections please email those to us.
- A variety of resource guides, including these step by step instructions for helping someone file to receive their stimulus payments.
EFSP Funding Announcement: King County has been awarded $ 1.9M in federal funds under Phases 37 and Phase CARES of the Emergency Food and Shelter National Program. The money is to be used to supplement existing emergency food and shelter programs in King County
- Timeline: Wednesday 5/27 application opens. Wednesday, 6/10 applications due. Click here for a copy of the application form.
- For questions, please email: lbrooks@uwkc.org
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Census 2020 Updates
Help folks you work with complete the Census. The deadline is now October 31, but we encourage people to fill out the Census as soon as possible.
People can complete the Census in three ways:
- Online: https://2020census.gov
- Households would have had a Census ID mailed to them, but if someone does not have one because they don’t have a residential location or they no longer have the code, they can say that they don’t have a Census ID and still fill out the census
- There will be a check box for “I do not have a street address” and then a question asking if someone was experiencing homelessness on April 1, 2020. After that people can provide a description of where they were staying, or a city.
- Phone: 844-330-2020 – language support available in other languages – help someone find their language number to call by going to 2020census.gov and clicking How to Respond, or go to https://2020census.gov/en/ways-to-respond/responding-by-phone.html
- Mail in paper forms – for households who didn’t respond by mid-April, people should have received a paper form in the mail. Other than that, unless your organization is working with the Census Bureau directly to have paper forms, it is best to help people fill out the census online or via the phone.
- In-person non-response follow-up to households who have not completed the Census is currently scheduled for August 11 – October 31.
Toolkits available with information and visuals to share
- Washington Census Alliance https://www.wacensusalliance.org/
- We Count King County https://wecountkingcounty.org/
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Face Covering Directive and Cloth Mask Distribution Efforts
- Information about Face Covering Directive: www.kingcounty.gov/masks
- The Coalition, in partnership with King County Department of Community and Human Services (DCHS) is helping to distribute cloth masks to get to people who are experiencing homelessness. Key contacts at provider organizations should have received an email from DCHS on 5/20.
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Guest Musical Performance by Dear Crow (Penka Jane Culevski and Brian Lindsey). Thank you. As a meeting attendee said, musical medicine.