PLANNING COMMISSION: The City Planning Commission will have a meeting on January 22 at 5:30 PM, 1st floor of City Hall. They are taking public feedback on the proposed city code for granting a use permit to homeless camps. KIRO broadcasted a story on spontaneous homeless encampments within the city limits and seemed to conflate these with organized tent cities. We thought that this report was not a good one and perpetuated some misconceptions about the organized tent cities, as well as the homeless themselves. Patricia sent a link to the KIRO report to Colin and Harry from the City of Tacoma, who had visited organized tent cities in Olympia and Seattle and had been favorably impressed with how well organized and run they were.
PRESENT: Vince (Facilitator), Alan (Note Taker), Blaine, Lisa, Patricia, Neal
AGENDA:
Fundraising matters
Next meeting
January 6, 2014
FUNDRAISING MATTERS: We had a discussion about how we could go about raising funds. Patricia read the pitch she had written for the YouCaring site. We agreed that it was a good and factual explanation of the situation and what was needed.
Alan thought that perhaps we should have a “jumping off” spot on both our webpage and our Facebook page. This statement would invite people to imagine what it feels like to be homeless and make an emotional appeal. It would say something like “click here to help,” and then could link to the YouCaring site. We could think of this emotionally appealing pitch as a “launch pad” (to use Vince’s terms) and the YouCaring site could be the “landing pad.”
PRESENT: Lisa, Neal, Vince (Facilitator), Alan (Note taker), John, Patricia,
AGENDA:
December 16, 2013
Update on meeting with Bethlehem, (Neal, Lisa, Patricia).
Resolution coming out of that meeting.
Patricia’s financial update.
Proposal on delegation (Who our representative should be).
Miscellaneous
BETHLEHEM MEETING: Our TCT representatives met with Pastor Nina and some other church people. The trustees had list of questions, especially regarding the finances and who the actual TCT organizers wanted to be official TCT spokespersons as we interface with others. In their minds, the trustees lacked a clear understanding about who speaks for what Vince calls “the development team.” By the term “development team,” Vince means those activists who have been meeting and working on TCT for about a year.
FINANCIAL: Patricia announced we now have a credit union account and checks. She and Blaine opened an account for us in our name.
VISITS TO TC3 AND TC4: Colin and Harry visited TC3 and TC4, and Patricia accompanied them. (TC3 and TC4 are long-established tent cities in Seattle). It was a very productive visit. They were impressed with their organizing. Both TC4 and TC3 are well organized. They say it takess between 5 to 6 thousand dollars to run.
Discussion of proposed changes in Tacoma City code and potential host site.
Web report
Next meeting
Proposed City Code and Potential Host Sites: John and Colin from the City of Tacoma came to discuss the proposed code governing tent cities. They had visited Camp Quixote in Olympia and consulted with the people there. They came to some conclusions and formulated a proposed ordinance, which they sent to Patricia. We spent much of the meeting discussing this. John had come up with a list of requirements. He had concerns about several major issues.
He wondered about how many campsites and the maximum number of occupants at each site. He also had concerns about how long each camp might remain on a site, and how long before it could return to that site. He wanted to make sure that the new locations of sites that moved would be far enough away from the previous hosting area. He made several proposals to address these that TCT activists felt should be less rigid. He said the city would not require warrant checks, but TCT activists felt this would be a good idea.
Several TCT activists asked John if he had visited Occupy Tacoma’s occupation of Pugnetti Park (Occupation Park). They pointed out that several concerns John had were adequately addressed by the OT activists in the park, such as environmental, security, sanitation, and so on. TCT activists also urged John and Colin to visit Tent City 3(TC3) or Tent City 4 (TC4) in Seattle for more factual background. The Camp Quixote people gave John information that 25 people was the most manageable number of activists. TCT activists said that Occupation Park had had up to 80 residents, and that TC3 and TC4 had up to 100 or even more on occasion and made it work.
Colin said his impression, after discussing the matter with several city officials and departments, was that the city feels pretty good about the planned Tent City Tacoma. However, city officials wanted to hear maybe more about “what’s rubbing activists wrong” in the city’s proposal. Patricia asks if we need to meet all criteria before setting up. John says health and safety is important. Neal emphasizes need for safety, says this is at the top of our interests. Patricia asks for more specifics about safety, for example, do tents have to have a specific amount of space between tents? How strict are the regs? We can’t come up with floor plan. John says that minimum is 50 per site, only 2 sites. Neal and Blaine asks if there is a way to petition to increase size. It may be possible for us to get site together before ordinance is passed. Neal suggested the idea of space-based limitations, a specific number of square feet per resident to determine the ultimate size of the camp.
We discussed the possibility of a site at Bethlehem Lutheran. Patricia showed John some pictures of the proposed site, and they did some measurements. We talked about logistics.
TCT activists emphasized that this was a learning process for all of us and that we should be careful not to get too rigidly locked into our respective conditions. We all recognize the need we are trying to address is real, and we agreed that we should assume all of us want this to work out. But it is also obvious we need to hammer out more details.
WEBSITE REPORTS: Because we had 2 people from the City of Tacoma present at our meeting and they had important matters to discuss, Alan said that he would present the website report on line, in the minutes. This is his report:
Facebook Page: The number of likes is now at 91, which represents 8 new likes in last week. The number of people who saw our FB page this week 117, which is a 58% increase from the previous week. We had 27 people engaged this week, up 8% from previous week, and there were 3 comments and 3 shares this week. There were 56 post clicks this week.
Blog: Since last meeting (11/4), 47 separate people visited our site. There were 79 page visits (11 from mobile, 1 from tablet), and 179 page views. Visitors to our website viewed an average of 2.27 pages, and average visits lasted 3 minutes 7 seconds. New visits were 54.43% of the total. Visitors came from USA and Germany.
Backup: Alan backed up all changed files and the DB last night.
NEXT MEETING: Monday, December 2, 2013
Thanks to Fixitstitch for proofreading these minutes and checking them for accuracy —Editor
Patricia: Report on contact with Pastor Nina. Contact with Elder Ron about another possible church location.
Neal: Logistic concerns, porta potties, children, paid staff limitations (must have 2 residents accompanying them on official business meetings)
Telephone costs.
Next meeting time and location.
WEBSITE REPORT: Alan gave a website report. Our web presence is small at the present time, but we are attracting some interest.
Facebook: We have 78 total likes as of today. That’s up 2.6% since last week. A lot of people went to our new website as a result of our FB announcement.
This is the page where you can download printable PDF copies of our minutes. A PDF file is something nearly every computer can open. It is an Adobe Acrobat file, and it is suitable for printing. If you click on one of the links, the file will open up on another page, and you can probably save it (depending on your browser). If you right click a link, your browser will likely offer to save the file to your computer.
Please click here for the download of the September 9, 2013 minutes.
Please click here for the download of the Sept 23, 2013 minutes
Please click here for the download of the October 7, 2013 minutes
Please click here for the download of the October 21, 2013 minutes
Please click here for the download of the November 4, 2013 minutes
Please click here for the download of the November 18, 2013 minutes
Please click here for the download of the December 2, 2013 minutes
Please click here for the download of the December 16, 2013 minutes
Please click here for the download of the January 6, 2014 minutes
Please click here for the download of the January 20, 2014 minutes
Please click here for the download of the February 3, 2014 minutes
Please click here for the download of the February 17, 2014 minutes
Please click here for the download of the March 3, 2014 minutes
TELEPHONE: Neal used the money that TCT members donated at the last meeting to activate our cell phone with Virgin. There are 2 plans, a $40 unlimited plan and a $20 limited plan. Neal opted for the cheaper plan, which basically keeps the phone active.
POSSIBLE CHURCH LOCATION: Patricia and Neal reported on the meeting with the trustees at Bethlehem Lutheran Church (BL). Although not a member of BL, Elder Ronnie Warren, whom we met at the Coalition meeting in September, helped connect up TCT with BL as a possible site and got us an invitation to the trustees’ meeting on October 15. At that meeting, Neal gave a shortened form of the Power Point presentation he put together. The pastor explained that this was an introductory presentation only. The discussion of possibly hosting TCT will be held on Oct 29. Those present at the meeting responded positively to Neal’s presentation, including one individual who Pastor Nina Body felt was likely to be resistant. Before making their decision, the trustees want to talk to churches in Seattle who have acted as hosts to other tent cities. They also want clarification on liability issues, not only hold harmless agreements but how their insurance would view that agreement. Neal will get the contact information for Pastor Body.
Coalition Meeting: Patricia went to meeting of the Tacoma Pierce County Coalition to End Homelessness. She gave a bit of feedback and what we in TCT are up to. She invited others to work with us. Ronnie Warren, a local clergyman, approached Patricia at end of meeting. He said he knew of several churches that could possibly be open to sponsoring us. He suggested Bethlehem Lutheran. There was discussion about this. The idea of being able to make a single combined request to set up an encampment, as opposed to having to approach a lot of agencies separately, went over well. A community psychologist, Al Ratcliffe, talked about TCT being a transition from hospital discharge into the community for folks with no place to go. He deals with people being discharged from hospitals who need a respite place to stay for a while until they get reintegrated into society, and he thought TCT might be able to help.
Telephone: Neal checked into getting us a Google phone number. The problem is that there are no local exchanges available, such as 253. Neal currently has 2 cell phones, one with Virgin. He said the Virgin one could be given to TCT. Costs would be about $40 a month. Patricia also has a Magic Jack that’s a few years old and needs reactivating if it is to be used. Neal will see what can be done with the Virgin phone and report back at the next meeting.
Business Cards and Letterhead: Alan showed the letterhead and business cards he designed. There was discussion and suggestions for improvement on the business cards. Alan will bring them in at our next meeting.
Web Site: We decided that Patricia and Neal will be admins website admins. Alan demonstrated how a website might look. He set up a mini-server on a thumbdrive and installed WordPress, doing some initial work. Alan will help set up the website and serve as a very temporary admin until Neal and Patricia are up to speed. We expect that should not take too long to accomplish. Alan reserved and registered a URL under the name www.tentcitytacoma.net in case we had difficulty with getting Mike to transfer www.tentcitytacoma.org to us. At the next meeting, Patricia will report on progress getting Mike to transfer the ownership of the domain.
Credit Union Account: We approved $22 to give to Neal so he can register a phone with Virginia phone company. Patricia will set up a You Caring campaign. She will hold card and check, and we can decide later on who else will be treasurers. We do not yet have a bank account.
Post Office Box: We discussed this briefly and will deal with it further at the next meeting.
