There’s also the need for someplace to store stuff.
Phase II: From April 1 to the end of June, Aiken-Freeman
will get together with the entire ICPH to construct a holistic,
collaborative model centered on helping the homeless.
In order to avoid getting
bogged down, this must be
done within three months,
she said.
“So for every problem
that’s brought to us, centered
on the people living in certain
situations, we’ll create plans
around those situations and
eventually form one broad
plan that is hopefully flexible
enough and breathable
enough to accommodate
new situations,” she said. “It
is still a little squishy at this
point. I’m not sure we know yet how it will all shake out until
we really start to hammer it all together.”
For this reason, she likes to think of it more as a pilot
program because no one expects it to launch perfectly. So it
needs to be a bit elastic and not set in bullet points, she said.
Phase III: From July 1 to the end of August, the ICPH will
decide together what the funding priorities will be.
Phase IV: By the end of August or early September, the
ICPH makes a formal presentation to the United Way Board of
Directors.
56 OUTLOOK | APRIL 2020
Phase V: Going forward, selling the model to invested
members of the community and handing it off to someone
who is business savvy.
“One thing that has to happen is your faith-based dogooder
-- that’s me -- hands this
plan over to a business head,
someone who knows how to
run it like a business because
it needs to be rigorous and
have a return on investment
and all that stuff I know nothing
about,” she explained. “It needs
to eventually have a revenue
arm to be sustainable, like the
Cass Community in Detroit
where the private sector is
partnering with social services
to house low-income people or
families by allowing them to pay
a little and eventually own their own place after seven years.”
Now that that task force has evolved into the ICPH at the
urging of the United Way, City Manager Sammy Rich said he,
too, is tremendously optimistic about the direction things are
going now.
He said he believes Mitchell made the right decision in
hiring Aiken-Freeman to lead the charge.
“I have every confidence in the world that Cathy will be
successful in this effort,” Rich said. “It’s very exciting.”
Above: A man living in a tent off a trail in Rome, stops
by the Davies Farm Bus used by HOPE Alliance at the
corner of First Avenue and Fourth Street one early
Monday morning. Left: Cathy Aiken-Freeman gazes at
her giant sticky notes in her office.
A sprawling camp off Shorter Avenue provides
shelter and some measure of comfort to a
homeless couple.