Homelessness: A Community Conversation (#6)

Issues and Voices that Matter September 8, 2011

Homelessness: A Community Conversation (#6)

6th Community Conversation on Homelessness title (photo - Charles E. Miller, graphic- CMF Public Media) In this sixth “conversation,” the new interim director for the county’s community services department is introduced, a draft governing charter for the collaborative is presented, new stakeholders are welcomed, recent changes in state and federal funding for homeless services are identified, short-term action items are discussed, and a project time-table is presented. Feature length - 42:16

Produced, reported and edited by Stephen McKenney Steck
Selected photos – Charles E. Miller

More than 20 service providers to the homeless in Seminole county Florida continue their “conversation.” They are creating a collaborative initiative to better serve the homeless in the county. The group is facilitated by Steve Fussell, manager of business processes for Seminole county government.

CMF Public Media has been chronicling this “conversation” in a multipart series on homeless issues in the county. This podcast features excerpts from the group’s 6th meeting. Our recording of the full meeting lasts almost 2-hours. It was recorded on Tuesday August 30th, 2011 in the Community Service Room of the Seminole County Sherriff’s Office.

This meeting marks Fussell’s first formal appearance as facilitator of this county government initiated convocation. Increasingly, you have heard Fussell’s voice before — providing process assistance to Michelle Saunders who, in mid-project, resigned her role as conceiver of this forum and as the county’s director of community services. Though not Saunders’ replacement, Fussell has stepped up to facilitate the process of helping to identify service needs placed on the table by providers and to shape a plan, outcomes and metrics –- around which the county commission intends to apply $900,000 in local funds to financially support and hold accountable recommended homeless service initiatives coming forward in part or in whole from this conversation.

In Fussell’s review he mentions an on-line workspace he has created for the group. In the interest of your time we did not include the dialog about that resource tool in this feature, though his discussion of it is included in the recording of the full meeting.

Additionally, when Fussell refers to the charter and the short term issues he reports on to the board of county commissioners, we have included links below to each document. Following along with those documents as Fussell discusses them will make for a much more informed listening experience. And there are other documents regarding the meeting you’ll find helpful, too. Links to them are found below.

Links to the full recording and a slide show of still photographs taken at the meeting as well as CMF’s podcasts presenting the previous 5 meetings are posted below along with links to other podcasts we’ve produced on the issue of homelessness in Seminole County.

To this reporter, who has attended every “conversation” and spent countless hours editing and condensing hours of dialog into feature podcasts, it seems this 6th meeting – compared to previous meetings — has a palpably different tone. You should determine if this is a natural result of the meeting cycle beginning to yield specific results, or comes with the introduction of more and new personalities, or a subtly shifting agenda the results of which may or may not be relevant or apparent.

In levels not previously heard, there is a measurable intensity increase — maybe even possible conflict — on the subject of housing, and frustration expressed on the need for emergency-triage-or-swat team funding simultaneous with long term funding needs. And, seemingly, not questioned by any attendee, is Fussell’s statement that the county, in the short term, is fully intending to fund and increase the availability of housing in the county for the homeless.

As to whether or not the efforts of this group might “fold up” under a broader multi-county regional group – about which CMF questioned Fussell in previous podcasts — there is no dialog as to that possibility in this meeting…though you may wish to note Fussell’s passing reference to it.

Steve Fussell will present a time table which suggests answers to these and other issues may soon be evident.