JULY UPDATE: Thoughts Regarding the Eau Claire Day Resource Center
After I posted my opinion regarding the Day Resource Center on our blog last month, the Chief Executive Officer at Western Dairyland Economic Opportunity Council, Inc., Anna Cardarella, reached out and asked to meet with me. I agreed and we met for coffee at Phoenix Coffee a few weeks ago.
With the holiday, life in general, and a one-two punch by our old buddy COVID, I’m a little late in putting together a follow-up but here we are.
I can’t speak to what her hope was going into this, but I think I was naively hoping for some grand missing piece to be revealed that would change my mind and make it all okay. While I did get some additional clarity on a few things (some of which feels at least less crappy) I think, if I’m being 100% honest, I mostly just walked away a little more disheartened and sad.
Okay so let’s start with what did get clarified and 6 key takeaways…
The vast majority of the budgeted money is slated to come from philanthropic sources, meaning NOT tax dollars. Had this all gone down in a more “normal” fashion, Western Dairyland and Hope Gospel wouldn’t have even started talking about all of this publicly until 80% of the funds had been raised from large, private donors. This makes sense if you think about it. These are two organizations working together to create a community resource/build a building - not something one normally has to get public approval for. (If it was Trader Joes trying to put up a store with a free spa attached to it, they wouldn’t have to hold public meetings about it. They’d just get the permits/inspections/whatever and put out a news release later. You feel me?) The fact that we even know about it on such a grand scale is because conversations around our unhoused neighbors cause a lot of big feelings for a lot of people AND they were looking at city-owned properties.
Which leads me to…
This isn’t supposed to be a CITY or county-run center. Their involvement is largely around the land piece of it and because of some ARPA funding that’s been set aside. As I understand it, that chunk of ARPA funding could go to any organization who is able to create a permanent daytime resource to address the need - Western Dairyland just happens to be the one answering the call. However, I’m only about 50% sure I understood this correctly so before you go quoting me I would do your own fact-checking.
When you add point 1 and point 2 together, it means there isn’t 6M set aside somewhere that could be used for something else. That figure is an estimation and would still need to be raised.
Hope Gospel won’t necessarily be the gatekeepers of services. They’ll be running the operations of the day resource center like coordinating laundry equipment use, showers, etc. but it would be up to Western Dairyland to coordinate services. However, Hope Gospel will be required to continuously raise money to keep the center open and operating - a pretty big undertaking they’ve agreed to.
Western Dairyland says that Hope Gospel has been a great partner to them on this project, HG just genuinely wants to help, and they’re not doing this for their personal gain but because they believe it’s the right thing to do.
People with LIVING experience (our current unhoused neighbors) have been surveyed and they felt like the proposed day resource center would be helpful. I cannot speak to whether said survey was done in a way that may skew results but she said they were for it.
All of the above sort of left me with a very… “uh ok..” feeling.
I don’t know how else to describe it.
Cardarella made it very clear that Hope Gospel has made all the compromises and Western Dairyland has not settled. She said she’s blown away by the way they’ve shown up and agreed to help create this resource, despite having to set their reported values and methodologies aside. So if you’re reading this and you’re a part of that organization, rest assured that WD is being a good partner and defending you in the spaces you’re not in. Congratulations.
That being said, I’ll personally believe it when I see it. They didn’t create the reputation I’ve come to know them for in a day or over one project so I imagine my views on them won’t change overnight either. But like I said before, when it comes right down to it this isn’t actually about Hope Gospel and I don’t mean to make this all about their practices.
Ultimately, this is about the Day Resource Center - which I still don’t want to support.
I said at the beginning of this that I ended up more disheartened and sad after the meeting and here’s why - there is no plan B.
That’s the big missing piece that I don’t think I had grasped before meeting with Cardarella.
There is no plan B for when/if Haven House closes.
There is no plan B if the money can’t be raised or a site can’t be found.
There is no plan B for if the community makes this so impossible that Western Dairyland and Hope Gospel throw up their hands and walk away.
Guys, there’s no fuckin’ plan B.
And that really sucks.
It sucks in the… people-may-die-while-others-are-complaining-that-they’re-unsightly-because-our-community-couldn’t-figure-out-what-to-do…kind of way.
Here’s the thing, ultimately my individual opinion on this isn’t probably all that important. I said before that I’m no expert on what it’s like to be unhoused, I don’t have the solution (though I’m relatively sure it’s NOT camping violations…), and frankly I’m running out of hands to dedicate to pulling new threads (see below).
But I guess I’m hoping that maybe by carefully throwing my two cents in and sharing what I learn, it’ll inspire people who normally wouldn’t get involved to lean in a little. You don’t have to be an expert in all the things to be able to offer some expertise that’ll help some things… and maybe if we can all offer a little, it’ll turn out to be a lot?
If you’re able to pull some threads, even small ones… now is the time.
And if I learn anything more, I’ll keep updating.
-Renee Sommer
