On Wednesday, December 17, board members of The Knox Foundation, approved a grant to The Salvation Army’s Marshall House in the amount of $2,500 to be used for operation of the temporary shelter for women and children. This is added to the $33,000 already committed by the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving and the (ahem) $1,000 promised by the Hartford City Council at our last meeting, Monday, December 8th.
For anyone who saw the Hartford City Council meeting on Monday evening, December 8th, Item #39 was a particularly frustrating item. Councilman Larry Deutsch introduced what some have called a “slam dunk”, “no brainer” of a resolution to grant the Marshall House $33,000. Matching the HFPG monies and completing the $66,000 needed to open upto 50 beds in the House’s 2nd floor. Instead of focusing the conversation on the very real issue of homeless women and children needing shelter from December through March, members of our fine court chose to spend time wondering whether the monies from the HFPG were contingent on the city matching it. They were not. This prompted an attempt to re-focus the Council that, as a City, do we really want to be known as an entity that will support humane causes only when we are required to?
The item ended with a commitment of $1,000 and a promise to help raise the monies. On top of that, if we were not able to raise the monies within 30 days, the promise was to appropriate the monies at that time. The Hartford Advocate’s Dan
In referring to the annual $150,000 already allocated to the Salvation Army for opening their space on Washington Street to a male population for emergency overnight stay, Councilman Matt Ritter was quoted as saying:
“It’s not like we’re starting from scratch,” said Ritter. “We’re trying to sort through a myriad of options and programs and pick the right place to find the funds.”
When considering any appropriation of funds, the council has to ask itself two questions: 1) Do we have the funds for this? and 2) Is this an appropriate expenditure of taxpayer monies? That evening, both questions were answered, questioning any rationale for a delay of upto a month.
1) In his resolution, Councilman Larry Deutsch asked for the funds to come specifically from the City’s Contingency Account. An account that starts the year at @ $400,000 and has a balance, as of December 15th, of $115,000.
and…
2) During the public hearing portion of the evening, various individuals rose to speak in favor of the item. Most notably was the testimony of Joe Barber, co-chair of Hartford 2000. Hartford 2000 is a coalition of Hartford’s fourteen Neighborhood Revitalization Zone Committees. He came to convey to us that the coalition wholeheartedly supported this item.
So what do we have here? An item which specifically identifies where an appropriation is coming from and conforms to our informal eligibility requirements, and, is also supported, in testimony, by an organization that represents all of the city’s neighborhoods. Oh, by the way, it’s also meant to be used to house women and children for the four coldest months of the year…
Why the delay?
I’ve tried to stick to the facts on this post with minimal opining due to my council colleagues not having a similar venue for rebuttal but this truly was a sad day for our body.
I hope someone is out there making phone calls for the Marshall House. I have contacted the Melville Trust to see if this project would fit their criteria for funding and received the following answer:
From what you describe, this would not be a project that we would fund. The Trust does not fund shelters, either their operation, or growth. We focus on the creation of permanent supportive housing (housing with services) and the policy work and advocacy surrounding that effort. To us, shelters become a revolving door, and not a solution. It is more difficult for someone to get back on their feet, find help with their addictions, their mental health, or their employment status without having a place to “call home.” We believe that homelessness can be ended with a humane and thoughtful housing strategy, both at the federal and state level.
Fair enough. But an attempt was made. Let’s hope that others who actually used this rationale for delay have made the same attempts.
Interesting stuff!
One thing though:
“I’ve tried to stick to the facts on this post with minimal opining due to my council colleagues not having a similar venue for rebuttal”
Blogs don’t have to cost a thing. There’s nothing stopping any member of the City Council from creating his or her own blog. In fact, I would encourage each to do so. It would bring some much needed transparency.
Jim Boucher has a blog: http://jimboucher.typepad.com/hartford_community_alerts/