Public restrooms, storage, a livability team and street outreach end up topping the to-do list
By Morgan Rothborne, Ashland.news
The Ashland City Council wrestled Monday with prioritizing a list of potential actions to help the city contend with homelessness.
“The list we’re presenting to you tonight is not an exhaustive list. … it’s the actions that the city felt could be addressed in the relatively near term,” said Brandon Goldman, head of the Community Development Department.
Goldman sat with Linda Reid, housing program specialist, as the two presented a list of “suggested actions,” a list derived from the city’s homelessness services assessment report accepted earlier this year, as previously reported by Ashland.news.
Staff used the plan to consider which actions the city is already doing — such as its severe weather shelter and its new police office in Tolman Creek Plaza — and which additional tasks the city could take up in the short term, Reid said.
Short-term actions include additional public restrooms, storage for homeless persons’ possessions, a livability team similar to the city of Medford’s model, increased street outreach, and some form of increased public access to Wi-Fi and charging stations for electronics. The full scope of staff recommendations from the plan was included with meeting materials.
Mayor Tonya Graham asked councilors to rate the short term actions with hand gestures. A thumbs up for high priority, a sideways thumb for medium, and a thumbs down for lower priority. Councilors unanimously raised thumbs up for additional public bathrooms, but not before Councilor Jeff Dahle asked for and received confirmation staff would return with further details before new restrooms were installed.
Councilor Dylan Bloom asked if the bathrooms would be temporary, such as a Portland Loo, or something permanent. Goldman responded the Portland Loo is permanent, predesigned “in some cases to be self-cleaning,” with a cost of around $90,000 for acquisition, which would not include installation and connection to city services.
Restrooms, in addition to storage, laundry and shower access, were “huge” in the report, Reid said.
The suggestion to add additional locations with Wi-Fi access and publicly available charging stations was met with largely sideways thumbs.
The creation of day-time storage facilities to temporarily free homeless people from transporting all their possessions was met with largely thumbs up. Councilors also expressed support for strengthening partnerships between the Ashland Police Department and other law enforcement bodies in the valley, and the creation of a livability team.
The consideration of additional laundry and shower facilities led to discussion between councilors about the potential cost of and commitment to services, and which services the city should provide as opposed to which it could hope to leave to partners such as Opportunities for Housing, Resources & Assistance (OHRA).
City Manager Sabrina Cotta stepped in to remind councilors the city could make such services available in a variety of ways, from laundry trailers up to installing fixtures at 2200 Ashland St., but the approval of most actions as high priority may pose a larger issue.
“If everything is important, nothing is important,” she said.
The hand gesture approval exercise broke down when council was asked to rate the priority of creating a “day center” where homeless people could escape the elements and access some services.
Councilor Paula Hyatt stated she was not comfortable making decisions on priorities without more information. Councilor Bob Kaplan said it was hard to compare “apples and oranges” actions of such variability in cost and commitment. He also inquired after a homelessness services coordinator position he believed council had approved the city manager to create the previous spring.
Cotta responded she believed the position could not be opened and filled until staff had further council direction on what the city’s priorities and involvement in homelessness services would be.
“The question now is what are we looking to have staff be involved in and what resources we would need to put toward that,” she said.
Councilor Eric Hansen stated he was confused by the hand gesture exercise as this was a study session and he was not prepared to vote on anything but to review and discuss.
“I’m not giving staff direction to get out of this lane or stay out of that lane,” he said.
City staff are looking for direction for what additional actions related to homelessness services council would like the city to take up besides the severe weather shelter and the dusk-to-dawn (aka night lawn) camping area, Cotta said. Additional actions, once prioritized, could be researched for feasibility and cost, then brought to council for further discussion and direction.
Hansen asked for help to understand what was desired of the council, as he did not see the level of information in the meeting materials that would guide decision making.
“If this was a precedent-setting conversation, I thought that was happening in business meetings,” he said.
Cotta responded that staff needs council direction before determining which action items to research, and would then return with that information for a future business meeting.
Hyatt expressed a desire to move ahead with the already identified priorities meeting basic needs before considering further priorities. Kaplan stated it had already been “within the city’s power” to create storage facilities and this was not done, reiterating that the homelessness services coordinator position was authorized and not filled.
“It seems to me that we put ourselves in this box and we’re now trying to prioritize ourselves out of it. … Frankly, it boggles the mind that we haven’t done it yet,” he said.
An audience member called out “Amen” in response.
“It’s all important. I don’t think any person with a heart would look at this list and say that anything on this list should go. … No matter what the morality of it is, no matter what the emotionality of it is, what can we put through the pipeline? What do we have the resources or the funding to put through?” Hyatt said.
Cotta stated city staff needed information to determine what would be realistic in terms of budgetary capacity and determine timing for completion. Graham reminded council there was a final element to consider in the list of actions, an expansion of outreach services.
Councilor Dylan Bloom stated the city already had a few priorities to focus on from preceding discussion. Kaplan again stated council gave direction to seek out a homelessness services coordinator because when homelessness services are a secondary task done by staff with other work to do, work related to services doesn’t get done, he said.
Graham closed the discussion with direction to staff to explore public restrooms, storage, a livability team, street outreach and the potential for public charging stations and return with additional information in six months.
Kaplan reminded council if the city wanted to use some of its Community Development Block Grant funding to support these priorities, it didn’t have six months.
Cotta agreed, and said the council would need to make a decision the following evening at Tuesday’s business meeting to be in time to utilize those funds. She then made a point of order that, in reviewing council direction, she was authorized to create a job description for a homelessness services coordinator and bring this back to council. She asked for further direction if this was still the wish of the council or if they wished to direct her to fill the position. She was directed to return with a job description.
Email Ashland.news reporter Morgan Rothborne at [email protected].
Related stories:
Committee cobbles together master plan for shelter structure (Nov. 18, 2024)
Speaker: Pendulum seems to be swinging back toward harsher treatment of homeless people (Nov. 19, 2024)
Ashland City Council to review 2200 master plan, update on homelessness services (Nov. 16, 2024)
Future uncertain for Ashland’s severe weather shelter at 2200 Ashland St. (Oct. 31, 2024)
