- Good afternoon. Welcome to the Bloomington Rotary Club's weekly celebration of service. I'm Steve Wicks,
- and I'm honored to serve as your president this year. Is that better, Jim? Oh, OK, we only have one
- speaker today, right?
- It looks like. All right. Jim Cryway has not lost his sense of humor. Please silence your electronic
- devices. On this day in history, October 28th, 1914, American physician and medical researcher Jonas
- Salk was born in New York City.
- developed the first polio vaccine which was declared safe and licensed in the U.S. in 1955. Funded in
- part by the March of Dimes, widespread immunizations quickly followed from a peak of 58,000 cases annually
- polio was essentially eliminated in the U.S. by 1979. Michael Shermuss will share his reflection today.
- Recently, my brother died of a stroke, and someone asked me if I was taking time to grieve. It got me
- thinking about what I'm taking time to do, and I thought I'd share that reflection with you today. Take time.
- I'm going to recite a mashup of a couple of poems. Many of you have probably heard them, but it might
- bear re-hearing and re-thinking how they are relevant to your life. Take time to read. It is the fountain
- of wisdom. Take time for music and art. It will feed your soul and bring you joy. Take time to be friendly.
- It is the road to happiness. Take time to laugh. It is the music of the soul.
- Take time to work, but don't let work take all of your time. Take time to play, it is the secret of
- perpetual youth. Take time to exercise, you have one body and should look after it well. Take time for
- now, this is the only moment you are sure of. Take time to dream, it is what the future is made of.
- Take time to think and reflect, it is the source of power.
- And to quote Cat Stevens, we're only dancing on this earth a short time. So what are you doing with
- your time? As for me, I'm trying to take time to develop an impact community in the most effective and
- efficient ways I know how. Take time to solve puzzles, be they a jigsaw or the conundrums of living
- in an age where we have become so negatively partisan. Take time to nurture relationships with people I admire.
- care for, and with whom I can support their leadership and service. Take time to make the world more
- accessible and safer for all. Take time to promote joy and gratitude and appreciation. Take time to
- fight discrimination and injustice and be a resource for those that are struggling.
- Take time to educate myself about strengthening people and the causes that they care about, about how
- to better care for the physical world, and about strategic innovations, and then pass those lessons
- along when people are willing to listen. Take time to share wisdom and stories and insights and wonder
- for all the amazing and beautiful things I've seen and people I've met and places I've visited
- and experiences I've been part of.
- The old cliché does apply for me. There is never enough time in the day, week, month, year to do all
- that I'd like to do in my efforts. But I'll keep trying to squeeze in as much as I can. And thank you,
- my Rotarian friends, for sharing your time and my journey with me. I have much gratitude to be involved
- with a club of people like you all.
- Michael, we're certainly sorry for your loss, and we thank you for all the time that you dedicate to
- this Rotary Club. Very much appreciated. We have no birthdays to celebrate today, but we do have some
- member anniversaries. Today, Peter Kroner, 21 years with the club. On the 30th, club director
- Lynn Schwartzberg, 18 years. On the first, Erica Kovacs and Sarah Cochran, both three years.
- Also on the first, Dick McCaig, 40 years. And finally, also on the first, past president Ron Barnes,
- 31 years with our club, 53 years total as a Rotarian. Number of announcements. Don't forget the NAACP
- Annual Freedom Fund Banquet, which is at Ivy Tech on November 1st. Club member Jim Sims is here today.
- I'm sure he can answer any questions you might have.
- save the date for the annual club holiday party scheduled for December 11th at the Bloomington Country
- Club. The Bloomington Rotary Club Foundation is inviting nonprofit organizations in Bloomington and
- Monroe County to apply for grant funding totaling $10,000 to support projects that will have a lasting
- impact on the local community. The deadline for proposals is November 5th
- Please share this with interested community members. The grant details will be online in the roundabout.
- Also, club member Dave Meyer, who's here today, could answer questions. Local Boys and Girls Club is
- expanding its tutoring program for children in kindergarten to 12th grade. They're looking for tutors
- to join a structured and fun weekly program intended to build both confidence and joy in learning for
- kids to read.
- focuses on math and language arts. If you'd like to help or learn more, contact Kristen Bateman at the
- Boys and Girls Club and the information will be in the roundabout. Also, Boys and Girls Club Auxiliary
- is hosting a one-mile or 5K Monster Dash Saturday at 11 a.m. at Grandview Elementary School. If you've
- ever wanted to run in your pumpkin costume, this is your opportunity.
- You can do it in a socially acceptable manner for only $10. The lengthy event will be on the roundabout.
- Today is our last day until 4.30 today to sign up for Futurecast, which is the annual joint effort between
- our Rotary Club and the Chamber of Commerce. The Futurecast itself will be next Tuesday, November 4th,
- 1115 to 1 p.m. at Ivy Tech's Shreve Hall.
- The link to sign up is on the club Facebook page last week's roundabout also in a pmail But if you have
- questions, please see me The cost for club members is $25 So with the event at Ivy Tech next Tuesday,
- we will not have a club meeting here next week Raila is this weekend? I think they're in pretty good
- shape but you can be expressing
- good thoughts to the teenagers and our club member volunteers who will be at RYLA. Finally, we have
- posted the job opening for the club assistant. I'll see if I can get it included in this week's roundabout,
- or I can set out a separate female. So this is a position formally held by Natalie. And now it's time
- for the mystery rotarian. Oh, gosh, we didn't do guests. I'm sorry.
- Thank you. Tracy has our guest today. You know, it's one of those days. Dad forgot to pick me up. You
- forgot me on the guests. I don't know. I'm feeling a little left out. Anyway, I want to welcome all
- the guests that we have. Melissa Van Buskirk, if you could please stand. I have a guest of Ellen Stroman and
- Michael, I want to compliment you on going after the Jim Bride Award. I think you have five guests here
- today. If you would please stand and we can recognize you. Shailen Lazar and Alex Krauss from the city
- of Bloomington. We also have a visiting Rotarian from Maine, James Muroc. And then back to Mr. Shermus,
- additional guests. And by the way, these guests
- We're part of the Education Matters program that the Rotary Club, our Rotary Club, helped sponsor in
- the Democratic Republic of Congo. So please welcome Anne-Marie Thompson and Dr. Jerry Kandaba. And in
- the spirit of education, even though Jim is not here, we have a guest from Jim who's one of our applicants
- for our Rotarian Scholarship, Global Scholarship, Jess Smith, if you would please stand.
- Thank you. Thanks, Tracy, for keeping me on the right track. Now it's time for the mystery rotarian.
- Ah. Has a rotary president ever been fired during a meeting? Leslie, do we have any online guests today?
- had Jim Bright's guest. And otherwise, I don't think we have any other guests, all Rotarians.
- Thank you. Now it's time for the mystery Rotarian. OK, remember the rules. I'm going to give a clue.
- If you know the answer, put up your hand. Don't shout it out. Those of you online, if you know the answer,
- put up your hand electronically.
- here is the first clue. A fifth generation native of Brown County, this Rotarian originally aspired
- to be an interior designer, but ultimately studied and worked at two universities featuring the color
- crimson, IU for undergrad and graduate degrees, followed by employment and an elite East Coast institution.
- OK, I see two. OK.
- Second clue. This rotarian has been very active at Teacher's Warehouse, serving on their board for a
- number of years. Do we have any besides our original two? Well, here we have a third and a fourth.
- Last clue. A club member for over 10 years, this rotarian is a Paul Harris plus one fellow, has served
- as a club director,
- and currently edits the roundabout newsletter while chairing the roundabout committee. Put up your hands
- if you know. Okay, and our answer is Marilyn Wood.
- Marilyn worked at Harvard, where she supervised collection management, preservation, facilities, IT,
- and access services over a 17-year career. And Marilyn shared that she has vivid memories of Harvard
- faculty meetings in which they painstakingly followed Robert's rule of order. And I'm happy that Marilyn
- was able to get out of the meeting to be with us today.
- Marilyn kept off her career as director of the Monroe County Library, where, among other things, she
- led the planning for the new Southwest branch. This is Marilyn's first year editing the roundabout,
- and she's maintained that publication's tradition of excellence. And I saw Judy and Sally. Did you have
- it right on the first clue? OK, good job, Judy. And then Leslie, did anyone have it online? No.
- We're just here for the fun of it. Well, congratulations, Maryland. Rotary International, seven areas
- of focus. I've shown this slide a number of times. And then we're coming to the end of October, which
- is Economic and Community Development Month. And finally, I threw in a picture of Dr. Jonas Salk.
- And I think we have time for happy dollars. Good afternoon. Today, I'm also representing pals. You know,
- they were devastated by the tornado in May. So there are calendars I'm selling on their behalf. 100%
- goes towards the rebuilding, which they are going to rebuild. It's in process. So I've got $20 for our club.
- Yeah. So we'll have to put 20 on my bill. I just wanted to thank everyone in this room for all the wonderful
- cards that you all sent to Charlotte last week. You don't know how much that meant to her. She is in
- hospice and doing as well as Charlotte can do. But the letters and love that you sent meant the world to her.
- I think Charlotte would want me to share my love of baseball, and that is $20 in honor of Bloomington's
- own Will Klein, who, graduate of Bloomington North High School, finished the final four innings of this
- morning's Game 3 of the World Series at Dodger Stadium, getting the win. It was an incredible, gritty
- performance. Will Klein.
- Is there anybody online or? Ellen is here. Thank you. And that's me. And I want to contribute $20
- for the honor of being a Rotarian here. I was very, very busy in Wisconsin and all many, many cities.
- So I'm thankful to be here and celebrate.
- Happy dollars again for Charlotte at the event talking about the proposed Monroe County jail hadn't
- been over more than 20 minutes when she was on the phone asking me how it went and what press were there
- and how the other panelists had done and just what a remarkable gift and she said my mind is a little
- hazy but these are my questions and there were about 10 of them so
- Hello, I'm sorry, I'm driving. I'm on the Carbon Canyon in California. Happy dollars for Charlotte,
- $20 from Gerona, and for a good, I'm having a good time in California. I'll be back to Bloomington in
- November. Sorry again, I'm on the highway, but I had to say this. Thank you. I guess it's okay for a
- visiting Rotarian to just,
- I haven't been to order meeting here since the 1970s when I helped found the Bloomington North Rotary
- Club and then left Bloomington and. I have a son who went to school here so I got back here some now
- and then, but I'm just glad to be here and see that Rotary is doing so well here. The Bloomington North
- and I understand meets elsewhere now, but I remember those days when we were struggling to get started,
- so it's good.
- So I'm just visiting too, but some of you know me. So I'm giving $20 in memory of Elsa Marston, who
- many of you know and loved. We all loved her so much. And for her wonderful book, which is being scheduled
- and sent out to the Congo. Thanks to you all for your support. Dr. Jerry Kindombay speak for him also that
- He gives great things for all the Rotary Club did for the Congolese Children at the school where he
- works. Thank you. Thank you. I'm surprised nobody has already brought it up, but I want to cheer for
- the Mendoza brothers and the IU football team. And I learned that they
- our third generation Cubans. So let's remember our immigrants and refugees at this time. Thank you.
- Thank you all members and guests alike for your generosity. The Bloomington North Rotary Club, if you're
- still in town, meets Thursday noonish at the Crazy Horse. So I'm sure they'd love to see you there as well.
- Um, Megan Nice will introduce our speaker today. Hello everyone. I am pleased to be able to introduce
- our speaker today, which is Mary Morgan and Mary Morgan is the executive director for heading home of
- south central Indiana, which is a relatively new Bloomington based nonprofit that's working to strengthen
- housing security in this region.
- She currently serves on the boards of the South Central housing network bloomington housing authority
- and it's summit hill Community Development Corporation the bloomington urban enterprise association
- and downtown bloomington ink so she's got lots of free time.
- And she's also a member of the Hoosier Housing Needs Coalition Steering Committee, which is a statewide
- advocacy group and she's also served on the Landlord Engagement Task Force for the Indiana Housing and
- Community Development Association Authority.
- She's a former journalist and she is a graduate of Indiana University and she lives in downtown Bloomington
- with her husband who some of you might also know journalist Dave Askins of the B Square Bulletin. And
- just you know getting if you've known Mary or if you've collaborated with her on anything I think you
- probably know Mary has just this lovely demeanor and a
- It's a demeanor that lends itself really well to bringing diverse groups of people together to collaborate
- around a common good. And that's exactly what we need when it comes to housing and security. So I think
- she's the perfect person for the job. And she also brings, I think just in addition to her kindness,
- empathy and pragmatism. So I think you're all going to really enjoy hearing from her today. So Mary Morgan.
- Thank you. I feel like I need to lower expectations now after that. So it's great to be here. Thank
- you for having me. It's great to see some familiar faces and then some people that I haven't met yet.
- So I hope that we can connect in the future. I'm going to be talking about a really challenging subject,
- as you all know. But I hope that the title of my presentation reflects
- What I want you to take out of here, which is radical optimism and the belief that though things are
- very challenging, we can make a difference and we can improve the lives of many of our neighbors who
- are in difficult situation now. Doing all right on the audio? OK, great. So I'm going to talk about
- today's goal. I'm going to talk a little bit about some of the common misperceptions that folks have
- about people experiencing homelessness.
- Looking at some of the facts on the ground, we try to be a very data-driven organization, although data
- is challenging in this sector. Give you some reason for hope, I hope. And then talk more a little bit
- about what Heading Home does specifically, which I also think is hopeful. And then we'll have a Q&A
- at the end. I'm told that you run a very tight ship, and that I'll get the hook if I go past a certain
- time. So we're going to go through this.
- This is what I want to have happen today. I want you to leave this presentation feeling not only informed,
- but really feeling energized, optimistic, and hopeful. I think so often we have negative perceptions
- and rhetoric around homelessness. And I think we need to shift that narrative and frame it in a way
- that is hopeful. And that is going to help us a long way to get to our goals.
- I want you to just take a moment, don't have to shout it out, but think about what comes to mind when
- you reflect on the topic of homelessness. And then specifically, imagine somebody who you believe is
- unhoused and what image do you see? So a lot of this is going towards what we think about and what we
- know, and so I'd like to just
- Keep that in your mind as we go through some of the common misperceptions that people have related to
- this issue. Most people who are unhoused want to live outside. And I will tell you, all of the things
- I'm going to say here are things that I have heard. People say to me, and there is always a grain of
- truth in misperceptions and stigma, but it's just a grain, right? So people who are unhoused want to
- live outside.
- Homeless people are lazy, they should just get jobs. People come to Bloomington from all over the country
- because they get services here. If our community didn't offer services, there would be no homeless people
- here. There are thousands of homeless people in Bloomington, Monroe County. I just heard this recently,
- thousands of people. They're dropped off here by the busload. Everyone who is homeless uses drugs or
- has a mental illness.
- Putting people in jail is the best way to get them off the streets. And not much is being done to address
- homelessness in Bloomington. So these are misconceptions that I'm sure you hear. Maybe you hold. And
- what I'd like to do is just talk a little bit about what we know related to some of these misconceptions.
- Here are some facts on the ground. At its very basic level, homelessness is a housing problem.
- I do this at every presentation I make. I want you to think of people you know. How many of you know
- someone who has a substance use problem? Alcoholism, drugs of some sort. Okay. How many of you know
- somebody who has a mental illness of some sort? Okay. Of all those people, how many of those people
- are also homeless? Okay. So a couple of you.
- There's an overlap. But the majority of you who know people who have some kind of substance use disorder
- or mental illness, they are housed. There are many, many people in our community that don't have that
- option. Housing at its basic level, homelessness at its basic level is a housing problem. There is a
- lack of affordable housing for low-income families and extremely low-income families. We'll get into
- a little bit more detail later.
- There are subsidies available, but not enough. So we don't have enough landlords who will accept vouchers
- that are available. I had a board meeting this morning for the Housing Authority. The current number
- is of the people who have housing vouchers, 36% of them cannot use them because they can't find a place
- that will accept those vouchers. We need more landlords to be partners with us.
- There is stigma towards those that are impoverished and those who are homeless. I think that that is
- one of the challenges that we face when we're trying to build more partnerships with landlords. There
- is a misconception that every tenant is going to be a challenge and maybe damage the apartment. That's
- just not true. There is truth in it, a kernel of truth, right, as I said before.
- But by and large, people who are using these vouchers are just families like ours who need a place to
- stay. And then for those who do need support services, there are insufficient resources for them. So
- there are insufficient places for treatment for substance use and mental illness. And that is one of
- the factors that causes people sometimes, even when they're housed, to become unstably housed or unhoused.
- So housing is so crucial. Everyone here knows about the affordability issue that affects all of us,
- but it particularly affects people at the lower income range. In 2024, 60% of residents of renters in
- Monroe County were considered cost burden. 60%. In Monroe County, and you probably already know this,
- average rent for a two-bedroom is between
- $1,300 and $1,500. It's a two-income family making $40K per year, right? And this is many of the people,
- many of the people in the service sector, many of the people who work in homeless services make less
- than $40,000 a year.
- And renting a two-bedroom apartment at $1,400 a month, that means they would be spending 42% of their
- income on housing alone. That leaves less for all the other things that are also costly, transportation,
- child care, health care, et cetera. So housing fundamentally is this problem. Regional Opportunity Initiative
- study. This was done a few years ago and confirmed that there is a severe shortage of units needed
- at this very low income level, people who can afford to pay $500 per month for housing or less, there
- just aren't units available. I'm going to talk a little bit now about some data that we have. And this,
- again, we're speaking to the challenges, but I'm going to get to the hope part soon. In June,
- There was a group of service providers and heading home that did a survey of folks in our community
- focused on Bloomington. 248 households were identified as experiencing homelessness. Of those, you can
- see that we split that into sheltered and unsheltered. So 53% roughly are people who are going to shelters
- like Wheeler Mission or Friends Pit Place or New Hope for Families.
- 46% are people that you might see out on the streets and encampments around town. So this is another
- challenge that we have. We need people to go to shelter to connect to services. But right now, we don't
- have that in this community. We had done a similar study in 2024. There is an increase in the overall
- population.
- We see an increase of roughly 40. Again, not thousands. I had somebody just recently report they believe
- thousands of people were experiencing homelessness in Bloomington. Just not the case. These are some
- of the primary reasons that folks cited as why they were unhoused.
- Interestingly, the highest percentage of reasons listed here was a breakdown in your family relationship
- or a relationship. So if somebody is living with a partner and that relationship goes south and that
- partner is paying for the apartment, then that relationship may end up causing you to be homeless. Loss
- of income also going back to the cost of housing. If you lose your job for whatever reason,
- it can have trickle-down effects that are really dramatic. And then some of the other things that you
- would expect to see, incarceration, medical conditions, substance use, mental health, and eviction.
- But family relationship breakdown and loss of income, two of the biggest factors. And then this I like
- to show people because there's a stigma that people just want to live outside. And you'll see here of
- the total that we surveyed,
- Only four said they were not interested in having housing and the vast majority wanted an apartment.
- So we know that people want to be housed. Everything else is easier to address all the other issues
- that people might have if they are stably housed. So all of these things, all of these complex, multi-layered
- challenges that we face as a community, but also as a nation, why be hopeful?
- I think there are a lot of reasons to be hopeful. I'm going back to the data again. And this is regional
- data. So we are in a six-county region, as defined by the state. This is the annual point in time count,
- which many of you, I'm sure, are familiar with. It happens every year in January. And it's a survey
- of the number of people who are experiencing homelessness on this particular date in January.
- been relatively flat, so we are not seeing surges in numbers in our region. In fact, compared to 2019,
- it's a little bit lower. So I think that's a hopeful thing. We have this challenge, but we don't have
- the growing numbers that sometimes I think public perception tells us. We have many agencies and individuals
- who are already working to
- Make people's lives better. I see Forest is here and other Beacon staff. They are one of the folks who
- are partnering and have been doing this for a long time and are one of the fundamental assets to our
- community. We have this housing network that meets regularly, has been coordinated, and I think does
- a little bit better job now of being coordinated than maybe in the past. And I think that's a reason
- for hope. We're not alone. These are some of the people
- that you don't probably see they're working on the front lines in some way to help people become housed
- and stay stably housed and improve their lives. At Heading Home, one of the things that we do is to
- write feature articles about these folks. We are really excited to learn more about them because oftentimes
- they suffer burnout and they're
- challenge just to feel that joy and optimism that I talk about. They're super important and very much
- a reason to be optimistic. And then, of course, because I'm with Heading Home, I have to talk about
- why I'm optimistic about the work that we're doing and why I think that there are some transformative
- things coming to this community. You might see some familiar faces in this photo.
- This was our origin story. So in 2021, actually 2020, a group of community leaders came together to
- address the most vulnerable folks in our community. We hear a lot about the city and county not getting
- together and having some disagreements. Well, on this, they agreed. They agreed that there was a need
- for an agency to really be the backbone of the efforts towards ending homelessness.
- They believed that they could provide some funding for staff to support this work, and that's what they
- did. I think this was great leadership by the community and included the City of Bloomington,
- Monroe County, Community Foundation of Bloomington and Monroe County, the United Way, and several other
- community groups. So this was amazing. This was a leadership initiative.
- that created Heading Home. Again, as I said, we were originally conceived of as a backbone organization
- to address system change in this region. So we were not originally a service provider, but we supported
- service providers and looked at that system and how we could improve the system to move people more
- quickly into housing. These are some examples of the work that we've done, and I'll talk a little bit
- more about that in a minute.
- But this was really an entity that didn't exist for our community prior to 2021. And in many communities,
- they don't have this kind of backbone organization. So individual agencies are doing great work, but
- there might not be as much coordination or capacity to look at system change. That's what we were charged
- with doing. We were originally housed at United Way.
- They were kind of our incubator organization. Two staff were hired. I was hired in late 21, and then
- my associate director Tatiana Wheeler was hired in early 2022. We have been expanding programming, moved
- to Dimension Mill, which is where we're located now. A great community resource, if you don't know about that.
- And then a milestone this year, we received our 501c3 status, which was huge. We aligned and are supported
- by the Community Foundation now, which is providing a lot of our back office support and just general
- support. And we've been adding staff, thanks in large part to that Community Foundation partnership.
- We moved from four board members to 12.
- So that was a big change. There are a lot of community leaders that you'll see in this, including the
- mayor, county council member, faith community represented, finance community representative, trustees,
- community foundation. And this is just a great leadership group to guide our work and bring in different
- perspectives as we expand our programming. This is us. Very small team, but mighty.
- We are, Tatiana, who I mentioned before, has been an amazing person to work side by side. But as we
- grow, we're adding on some equally fantastic staff and really excited to do more work in that regard.
- We were originally founded to execute on the Heading Home Plan. If you hadn't seen it before, it's worth
- taking a look at.
- broad, comprehensive, designed to make homelessness rare, brief, and non-repeating. Our charge was to
- find ways to implement this plan, which was developed by a large sector of the community. We are doing
- our best to do that, but this is the classic, it's not a sprint, it's a marathon. So we are going to
- be working for some of the system change in quite a while. If you've ever tried to move the way that
- a community
- works as a system, you know that that is very challenging work. And then to do that, I'm just going
- to describe some of our initiatives, keeping an eye on time. There's a national organization called
- Built for Zero.
- They support over 100 communities to address homelessness. And we are the only community in Indiana
- that's part of this national network. They are amazing in the support that they provide, including coaching
- and resources and financial resources. This is a picture of part of our team. Forrest is on that team,
- as well as Emily Pike from New Hope for Families and Melissa Burgess
- pictured here from Health Net's Homeless Initiative Response, Daniel Sorten, who leads our effort in
- coordinated entry for this region and also works at Beacon. One of the things that I have lost my ability,
- there we go. One of the things that Built for Zero advises us is to take a very data-driven approach.
- So a couple of years ago, we launched a public data dashboard.
- This is a place where you can go to get updated monthly information about different elements of measuring
- our success in keeping people housed. The dashboard talks about how many people are newly identified
- as homeless, how many people were housed and then have returned to homelessness after being housed.
- Some of the other metrics include housing placements.
- We feel like that's worth celebrating when somebody moves into housing. We need to understand that that
- is a big deal and celebrate that. I don't think it's showing up there, but it's inflow and outflow got
- to missing letters there. This is one of the things that the data had been out there, but that had not
- ever been collected in this way so that the public could track our progress.
- One of our other initiatives is work to end veteran homelessness. We are two years into it, almost,
- and it has been a challenge because we first started out on the journey thinking there are only three
- veterans. That's what our data was telling us, that there are only three veterans who are unhoused in
- our region. And we thought, well, three, we can house three tomorrow.
- Well, what was happening is that people were not identifying themselves as being veterans. So once we
- started asking the question, are you a veteran? Have you served our country?
- So many more people stepped forward and said, yes, I am a veteran. And that opens a world of resources
- that hadn't been available before. So there is a lot of housing support for veterans, but you have to
- know that they're a veteran first. So part of our work is just informing people that this is an option for them.
- We've worked on system improvement related to veteran housing. We had a strategy session yesterday that
- was attended by many partners, including folks from the VA. They're a very important partner. They told
- us that there are no housing vouchers from the VA, at least until the end of this year and possibly
- into 2026.
- So again, we're always working with the system, right? And the system is HUD-VASH, the vouchers that
- are provided by the VA. And if we don't have that support, that makes everything else a little bit harder.
- So working through some of those things. We have a resource guide called the Heading Home Guide. So
- if somebody from the public or someone from an agency can go to this website and get information about
- low-income housing, food, transportation,
- medical services and a host of other things. We also have a site on this website, a page specifically
- for veterans. We do landlord engagement. This is something I'm excited about because we are going to
- be hiring someone to focus full-time on that. So we've had some events, we've had some interactions
- and work done in the sector, but we really are going to need
- that full-time focus. And I think you're going to see some major changes. We are really happy to have
- her name is Mary Hamrick coming on board next month. Another thing that we do, and this is again a system
- piece of work, provide cross-agency training. So every agency that serves the unhoused has training
- needs. Most of them are very similar needs.
- So we periodically will have training opportunities. We just had one last week for it's called critical
- time intervention training held in partnership with Centerstone. So this is not only a great training
- opportunity, but it's a way to bring people together who are doing the same work and really support
- each other. It's networking and it's very basic, but it's also just a way to connect and build those
- partnerships and collaboration.
- We have community convenings. We've had convenings for the business sector, faith communities. We've
- had a candidate learning session, just getting out and trying to help people understand what's being
- done in this community. Communications, I encourage you to sign up for our newsletters. We not only
- highlight things that are being done by heading home, but things that are being done by other agency partners.
- We have a social media presence and a new site that we post information about as well. And then I'm
- going to talk very briefly about some county specific work. All the things I've talked about now have
- been before have been regional, but we're doing a couple of things in Monroe County in particular that
- are really exciting.
- Last year we got together with several of our partner agencies and developed a housing action plan.
- This was very specific to Monroe County in Bloomington with eight recommendations that will address,
- we feel, if implemented, the housing needs of people that are currently unhoused. I won't go through
- these recommendations in detail, but really they fall into a couple of categories.
- We need more people to support this work. And then we need more housing. And we need some specific types
- of shelter. So I think that this is a good way for us to be very strategic as we request additional
- funding, identify needs. This is going to be a living document. We are not going to be having this as
- a static element. So over the years, we'll see these recommendations change as the facts on the ground change.
- And then the most exciting thing, the Community Foundation late last year received a Lilly Endowment
- grant. And that grant is allowing us to really infuse this community with additional resources that
- are going to be transformational, I believe. Heading Home is going to be leading the implementation
- of a large part of this grant. We are hiring six street outreach case managers.
- They are going to be working with our partner agencies, Beacon, Centerstone, and Health Net. We have
- three diversion and prevention case managers. These are folks who are going to work with people who
- might be at risk of being unhoused. How can we keep people stably housed? Our partners there are the
- library, which I think is fantastic. This is the first opportunity that we've had to partner with the
- library, and they are amazing.
- New Hope for Families will have a diversion and prevention case manager, and then we're going to have
- someone placed at Bloomington and Perry Townships, the trustees' offices. So this is a new way of doing
- things. We'll have some support for the case managers, some resources that they can deploy to really
- address the problems that they encounter with the people that they're working with.
- And our goal over the next five years is really to see a dramatic decrease in unsheltered homelessness.
- And we can get there. And then there are also a couple other things that the grant is funding. There
- is a very exciting program that the South Central Community Action Program is doing to have some income
- stability and then some matching funds for an endowment. And this is the very complex
- that shows all of the partnerships in this new grant. And I think that it's just a tremendous opportunity
- that we're really excited to be a part of and grateful that this community is supporting the work. Also
- doing work in Lawrence County, whoops. Well, that probably is right, right?
- Let me go back. The Lawrence County work, we commissioned a study there. As you might imagine, in some
- of the more rural communities and even here, some leaders are skeptical that homelessness is a problem
- in their community. So we commissioned a study in Lawrence County. Guess what? There are people that
- are experiencing homelessness in Lawrence County and so created a housing task force out of that and
- are implementing some recommendations there.
- We are currently leading an effort to revitalize a blighted neighborhood in the northeast side of the
- county. And I think that there are some very powerful things that we can do in Lawrence County. In Morgan
- County, Wellspring is the only shelter there serving families. Tatiana Wheeler, my colleague, is current
- board chair there. We are going to commission a similar study there so we can do a better assessment
- of the conditions and then
- propose some strategic solutions. And then next year, we're going to have a housing summit
- here in Bloomington. We're still in the planning stages, but we want to have a very solutions-driven
- gathering where people can join together and really address some of these challenges that we have as
- a collective in collaboration in support of some of the work that's already been done. So we're excited
- about that as well.
- I missed my time a little bit, but I do have some time for questions. Yeah. Hi, Mary. Thanks so much
- for all the work that you are doing. The collaboration is critical across the agencies. One of the things
- that I'm interested in is understanding, as I see you growing from two to six, I think it was, in staff,
- How do you ensure that it's additive and not dilutive of all the other agencies that are out there?
- Because it's a limited pool of funds that are out there to help everyone. And I think the last thing
- that the community needs is just another layer. So how do you make sure and how do you keep yourself
- accountable from that standpoint? Yeah, that's a great question. And I think our accountability lies
- in the partnership relations that we have with the folks that are going to be working on this project.
- I'm going to go back to the, oh well, it's off my screen. If you remember the graphic where we had logos
- for the different organizations that we're working with, the employees that we're deploying are going
- to be heading home employees, but they are going to be working in these different agencies. So they're
- going to be in partnership and collaborating with Beacon, with Centerstone, with Health Net, the library,
- et cetera, et cetera.
- So we are basically adding to their staffs. It's probably, if you're familiar with the AmeriCorps model,
- that might be a similar kind of model that we're using where we are not just adding staff in a silo,
- but we are adding them with partners that are already doing this work.
- Did that answer your question? To some extent, I guess you've got metrics that are saying, yes, it's
- working or no, it's not. I mean, you've got to have data. Well, I will tell you that last week was the
- first week that these folks started with us. So we don't have any metrics yet. We are going to be collecting
- them. Yes. Yeah. This isn't about metrics. It's about something more ethereal. I had a wonderful experience
- this morning. I walked to breakfast.
- We live near one another, and on the way was a woman I have gotten to know over the last couple of weeks.
- She's been on the street struggling with mental illness. Went to breakfast, coming back, and she was
- curled up in a doorway as many people sleep downtown. And coming back, I saw her walking in circles,
- and there was a gentleman there opening his business, and I'm worried that there's some difficulty.
- And as he's going in the door, he looks back at her and says,
- Would you like coffee or hot chocolate? And it reminded me that there's something deeper going on in
- terms of attitudes around who people are that are on the street. The one thing I would like some,
- you know, I have a lot of questions, but the one thing
- I'm worried about the justice system and the role that having people incarcerated plays. So many of
- the people have either been in jail or while they're in jail, they, you know, they pay for their housing
- in jail. And so we really have a new debtors prison emerging in this nation. And what can be done to
- assist us in terms of the folks that are incarcerated pretrial for four months, six months, whatever?
- That's something that comes up in conversation pretty regularly. And it is, I think, one of the things
- that most people might be surprised about to learn is that it's much more expensive. If you're looking
- at it purely from the economics, it's much more expensive to house people in jail, right? You're housing
- them, but you're putting them in jail than it is to actually provide an apartment. Same is true for
- the healthcare system.
- It's much more expensive for people to go to the ER as their primary care physician than to support
- health care in other ways. So that is one of the bigger system problems that we need to tackle, I would
- agree with you. I think here we do have a willing county prosecutor. We just haven't made much, that
- hasn't been to date something that we've worked on seriously.
- But I think that that's something that we absolutely need to tackle because it is, you know, you see
- the police reports, it can be revolving, Dory, we're not getting at the root causes. Why are people
- going to jail in the first place? And then, you know, why can't we stop this cycle? Since this is a
- housing issue, is there anything being done to encourage the building of new, say,
- low-cost apartments or studio rooms. I saw that was one of the items on the list of just a room rental.
- Anything being done to build? So some things are being done. So I think that is there any county or
- city council representation here today? The city council and the planning department has been looking
- at making it easier to build single room occupancy, SROs.
- which are formerly known as boarding houses. If you've lived here long enough, you probably know that
- there used to be a lot of boarding houses here in this community, and they've been torn down over time,
- replaced by larger, more expensive apartments typically. These places weren't necessarily like the greatest
- places, but if you only needed a room and a place to, you know,
- You had shared kitchen, shared bathroom facilities that could work for you. So the council seems to
- be aware that that is a need and trying to work on it from a zoning perspective. Again, system change
- takes a long time. I don't see a lot of housing being addressed at that level otherwise. There is a
- group called Bloomington Cooperative Living, which is a
- cooperative housing organization. They've been increasing their properties, but again, based on the
- need, if you remember that, the need that we talked about over a thousand units plus, we're not seeing,
- we're not going to get there by having eight rooms added, 10 rooms, that kind of thing. So we do need
- more effort in that area.
- You mentioned the, um, the misconception that people come from all over the country to get services
- here. Where does that misconception basically start? Um, it's an, it's an interesting one. And I will
- tell you, so we're about to go to a built for zero conference and people from communities all across
- the country, every community hears that no matter where they are.
- The same stories, too. I've heard that there is a billboard in Florida telling people to come to Bloomington.
- And seriously, but then other communities have that same experience. And so I don't know where these
- apocryphal stories start, but I suspect that you're looking for reasons as a urban area. And we're kind
- of urban light, I guess.
- But there are more resources here. And if you are in need of resources, you will try to find resources
- where they are, right? So one of our goals is to get, at least for our region, other community leaders
- in Morgan County, Owen, Lawrence, Green, to understand that they need to address the needs for people
- in their communities.
- And I think that's really what it's going to take. But we have this kind of bifurcation of resources.
- But yeah, I think it's people wanting to explain why they see a challenge and blame it on something
- else rather than what's in their backyard. Leslie, you've got one online. I do. It's for me. Hi, Mary.
- Thank you for the Bloomington Cooperative living shout out. As you know, I'm
- familiar with them. We hear quite often that there are apartments being built, but there's a lot of
- vacancies. And then I just would love to know more of if you had a dream solution for vacancies, what
- would you do? What would I do? How would you? Today.
- You know, I think, so yes, housing for sure. I think we also need to acknowledge relational poverty.
- I read a book recently called When We Walk By, and it talks about the underlying just isolation of being
- homeless. Because oftentimes you cut ties with your family because of shame or
- just burnt bridges. And so you're living in isolation and you don't have the resources to build yourself
- out of probably the lowest point of your life. We all rely on our networks, right? We all rely on the
- people that we can call if you're in trouble and maybe for money, maybe just for support, emotional support.
- A lot of folks don't have that. So we're trying to think of how we can also, in addition to housing,
- build those healthier relationships and support networks. I think the faith community has a role to
- play here. I think we can get to it. But again, it's system change. It's not an easy fix. Thank you.
- Thank you. Mary, thank you. So glad that you and others work on this day after day. In honor of your
- talk, donation will be made this quarter to the Lake Monroe Water Fund. I'd like to thank today's club
- volunteers, Tracy Ivanovich, Megan Neese, Leslie Kutsenko, Michael Shermus, Judy Schroeder, Dave Meyer,
- and Sally Gaskell.
- Remember, we do not have a club meeting next week. In two weeks, we'll be meeting here in the Georgian
- Room, November 11th. Steve Sanders will address the timely question, does anyone believe in free speech
- anymore? Please join us. Tyler, if you'd share the graphic for the four-way test. Please stand if you're
- able. Of the things we think, say, or do, first, is it the truth?
- Second, is it fair to all concerned? Third, will it build goodwill and better friendships? Fourth, will
- it be beneficial to all concerned? And fifth, is it fun?