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HomeMy WebLinkAbout~Master - ASSET Joint Funders Meeting May 15, 2025www.storycountyasset.org ASSET & Joint Funders Minutes Human Services Center, 126 S. Kellogg Ave., Ames 2nd Floor, Multipurpose Room May 15, 2025 at 5 p.m. In Attendance: Sandra King, Jenny Schill, Lisa Heddens, Karen Kiel Rosser, Linda Hagedorn, Linda Murken, Latifah Faisal, John Haila, Bronwyn Beatty-Hansen, Emma Cassabaum, Gloria Betcher, Sarah Mansell, Moriah Morgan, Brian Phillips, Nick Joos, Aidan Shervhiem, Amy Shaw, Beth Waage, Erik Rolwes, Anita Rollins, Ed Gillott Virtual: Becky Harker, Rachel Junck, Ron Smith, Amy Dombrowski, Liz Zuercher, Shamaree Brown, Misty Zimmerman, Biswa Das CALL TO ORDER – Linda Hagedorn, Chair, 5:02 pm WELCOME/ INTRODUCTIONS New ASSET Volunteers were welcomed. PUBLIC FORUM (1-2 minutes) None APPROVAL OF: January 23, 2025 ASSET & Joint Funders Meeting Minutes : King pointed out areas in the minutes that needed correction. Motion to approve the minutes as amended, Rosser, seconded by Betcher. Motion passed unanimously. February 13, 2025, ASSET Meeting Minutes Motion to approve the minutes Joos, seconded by Cassabaum. Motion passed unanimously. TREASURER’S REPORT Smith reported that the current balance is $1537.93. REPORTS Administrative Team Thompson, United Way staffing update, Mundel’s last day was yesterday. Mansell has been promoted to the Community Impact Director role. United Way has acquired additional space directly next door to their existing space. The new space will be used as a conference space. Funders thanked volunteers for their time on ASSET. Kiel-Rosser gave an update on their United Way strategic planning, and they are nearing the end of their planning. She mentioned that the CHNA Report was helpful in setting their goals. Volunteers - None www.storycountyasset.org OLD BUSINESS Homelessness Action Plan Update King updated that the consultant presented her findings on April 28th. In the process of receiving feedback on the report, if you haven’t given feedback she encouraged everyone to do so. In general, five themes were reported and nine recommendations. Themes: Provider Coordination, Improving Homelessness Prevention, Increased Case Management, Expanding Emergency Shelter, Permanent Supportive and Affordable Housing. Nine Recommendations: 1. Continue to Support on-the-Ground Service Provider Partnerships 2. Build Peer Navigator Program 3. Expand Partnership with IowaWORKS Mobile Workforce Center Job Fairs 4. Expand Emergency Shelter Capacity 5. Provide Robust Case Management Services Across the County 6. Create a Task Force on Homelessness 7. Support Developing Efforts to Provide All -Weather Daytime Refuge 8. Align with or Supplement Local Funding for Emergency Housing 9. Plan and Fund Permanent Supportive Housing Hagedorn pointed out that both full reports of the CHNA and Homelessness Action Plan are linked in the ASSET agenda. Betcher reported that City Council did review the plan and approved accepting the plan with some changes proposed. This can be found in the City Council packet item 43 from their meeting on 5.14.25. NEW BUSINESS Conflict of Interest & Confidentiality Forms Schill updated that all volunteers have signed both forms and just a few staff still need to sign. Status Update on Reference Manual King reported that the review is in progress. Letters of Intent King gave an overview of the services that each of these agencies provides. All three agencies have been invited to submit full applications to be considered an ASSET agency. The application deadline is June 20th. Nevada Food at First provides meals for those in need. They offer pick-up and drop-off meal service and have drop-off sites in Nevada, Colo, Maxwell, Zearing, and McCallsburg. Creative Counseling provides mental health therapy and substance abuse treatment. They use interns along with staff to provide these services. King noted that it looks like Creative Counseling had submitted a letter of intent in the past and was denied submitting a full application. We will need to determine what has changed. Home Allies applied last year and were not approved due to not providing services for a full www.storycountyasset.org year. They provide rental assistance and case management and will be requesting funding for rental assistance and service coordination. Joint Funders Priority Discussion • The new CHN Assessment - https://www.storycountyiowa.gov/DocumentCenter/View/16586/2025 -PRC-CHNA- Report---Story-County-Iowa • Homelessness Action Plan Report - ames-story-county-conversations-on- homelessness-plan.pdf • Discussion Questions: What role(s) might ASSET have considering the CHN Assessment and Homelessness Action Plan? What impact do the updated plans have on ASSET? Directing dollars to where the needs are. Betcher stated that she asked the consultant how she saw ASSET fitting in. She said that ASSET does its role with the social services, and she thought it was outside of her report. Murken stated that she sees that as meaning ASSET is bound to funding those that come to them and not necessarily funding the needs. Kiel Rosser stated that she experienced last year with her agency she was a liaison for, that ASSET doesn’t fund prevention, we purchase services. Faisal asked if Funders are able to tell volunteers that they want dollars focused on certain areas of need over others. Murken said ASSET has done an RFP before and maybe ASSET could do that again focusing on these specific services that were highlighted in the report. Harker echoed that statement, that Funders have made priorities in previous years, but may need to narrow those going forward to help put priority on these services addressing these higher needs. Thompson spoke to the general priorities that have been put forward in the past and agencies have been able to fit almost any service to fit a priority. Phillips pointed out that if Funders move that direction, it will cause hard decisions for volunteers as they will have to not fund some services or agencies that have been funded in the past. Hagedorn suggested that possibly the funds available be aggregated to certain services that are of higher priority. Murken stated that the need is the how’s. The recommendation to form a taskforce is a good idea, but we need to be careful how many people are on that taskforce so it can get things done. Harker stated that there might need to be a governing group overseeing the taskforce. The governing group would have the power to provide the funding or policy to help the taskforce take action. Haila stated that it seems this is coming back to the Funders to help give the direction that the community wants to move in providing services. Ins tead of the volunteers making the decisions, they need to execute the priorities of the Funders. Betcher stated that based on the report the homeless issue is a regional issue and the support and funding to solve that problem needs to come from those areas. Betcher suggested this might be separate from ASSET to get that accomplished. Remove the homelessness issue from ASSET and deal with that using separate dollars. Heddens asked she would like to know how TBH and CISS are working on getting funding from some of those other sources. She would like to know that before the Funders make decisions to move forward. Faisal said she thinks it could be www.storycountyasset.org dangerous and difficult to pull out services associated with homelessness as it is so complex. Beatty-Hansen suggested that all Funders work together on making one set of priorities instead of all working separately and having different priorities that the volunteers have to decide which is more important. Murken said possibly the first year it’s a broad priority and the task force works on figuring out what fits under that priority and what has come forward as the big issues. Then year two, it gets more detailed, and this is explained to the volunteers. Cassabaum said that this would be helpful for both agencies and volunteers in communicating what is going on and having succinct answers for the agencies. Phillips spoke to the fact that ASSET is to serve as both one place to request funding but also work in coordinating services. To help with duplication of services . Hagedorn pointed out that in the report it states a Peer Navigator Program and she isn’t aware of an agency that is doing that in the community. This could possibly be a way for ASSET to help and put out an RFP for this service. It was also pointed out that there needs to be services to point people to in a peer navigator program. Murken asked how we decide which services to provide and who manages the dollars to support this? Zuercher said it would be better to provide a few agencies the dollars to provide a comprehensive service. Rather than giving 20 agencies that pieces services together. Haila said it may be good to get all ASSET agencies together and communicate to them that ASSET is not meant to be a main funder for an agency and there will be changes coming from ASSET. Haila proposed that Funders come together and develop shared priorities. Then bring together agencies that can help provide those services to address the priorities. Philips said he would suggest asking the agencies what the issues are and what the solution is. Then Funders can make the priorities and give the agencies a target to aim at addressing. Haila asked if it would best to have a facilitator host that time with the agencies? Philips stated that we need to know the outcome the tools agencies state they need to provide these services, will get. Betcher stated she wasn’t aware where the work panels came from. She said maybe these panels go away and the priorities become the areas that services are broken down into and agencies have to fit under those areas. Betcher pointed out that ISU should be looking at the reports as well and looking ahead to how their population affects the County. Possibly GSB could use the reports to work proactively to address issues in those reports instead of reacting to needs that come up. During the discussion, King expressed concern that the meeting was designed to identify shared Funder priorities, but it seems it has shifted to changing ASSET. Faisal stated that this discussion was not to blow up ASSET. Haila proposed that the Funders schedule a meeting to have discussions around identifying the joint priorities between all funders. It was pointed out that priorities are due in July so this would be for FY 2027 funding. www.storycountyasset.org Thompson said ASSET staff will work on scheduling a meeting with Funders in June to hold this discussion. Haila suggested it be earlier in June. Cassabaum suggested that each Funder have their top priorities identified and sent out a week before all Funders come together to discuss their joint priorities. What are some collective priority areas amongst the Funders? What is the role of ASSET considering pending federal cuts? Cassabaum moved to adjourn, Hagedorn seconded. Motion passed unanimously.