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?