City of Rockford Community Relations Commission Met May 13.
Here is the minutes provided by the commission:
I. CALL TO ORDER
Commissioner Burton called the meeting to order at 5:36 p.m.
| Attendee Name | Organization | Title | Status | Arrived |
| Todd Burton | City of Rockford | Present | ||
| Eric Brown | City of Rockford | Present | ||
| Jurea Crudup | City of Rockford | Present | ||
| Victoria De La | City of Rockford | Present | ||
| Erin Hannigan | City of Rockford | Present | ||
| Nikki Lynch | City of Rockford | Present | ||
| William Martin | City of Rockford | Present | ||
| Ricardo Montoya Picazo | City of Rockford | Remote | ||
| Jay Ware | City of Rockford | Present | ||
| Reginald Alexander | City of Rockford | Absent |
III. ACCEPTANCE OF THE JOURNAL
1. Journal of Proceedings for the Community Relations Commission Meeting held on April 8, 2021.
Commissioner Crudup made a MOTION to APPROVE the Journal of
Proceedings. Commission Brown SECONDED the MOTION. CARRIED 7-0
IV. INFORMATION ONLY
Jennifer Jaeger from the Northern Illinois Homeless coalition presented on the Housing challenges in the Rockford Community. These four components encompass the majority of housing issues we face as a community: Affordable housing, Prevention (eviction, foreclosure, family conflict), Homelessness and Healthy housing/housing conditions.
There are an average of 1,200 eviction in Rockford annually. That amounts to 3.26 households evicted every day. (about 3%). However, that rate increases by 12.67% if you are African-American and 11.75% if you are Latinex. The Homeless Coordinated Entry System (CES) also tracks reason for inflow into homelessness. Outside of eviction, family conflict (including domestic violence) is the greatest contributor to people in our community becoming unhoused. In Q1 of 2019, Rockford ranked 6th in the nation in foreclosures.
1. Presentation from Jennifer Jaeger, Northern Illinois Homeless Coalition.
Jennifer Jaeger and Angie Walker from the Northern Illinois Homeless coalition presented on the Housing challenges in the Rockford Community. These four components encompass the majority of housing issues we face as a community: Affordable housing, Prevention (eviction, foreclosure, family conflict), Homelessness and Healthy housing/housing conditions.
There are an average of 1,200 eviction in Rockford annually. That amounts to 3.26 households evicted every day. (about 3%). However, that rate increases by 12.67% if you are African-American and 11.75% if you are Latinex. The Homeless Coordinated Entry System (CES) also tracks reason for inflow into homelessness. Outside of eviction, family conflict (including domestic violence) is the greatest contributor to people in our community becoming unhoused. In Q1 of 2019, Rockford ranked 6th in the nation in foreclosures. There was discussion amongst the presenters and CRC members regarding homelessness components, causes, disparities, and potential solutions (including preventing income based discrimination and development of affordable housing), including:
The four components that encompass housing issues in our community are affordable housing, prevention (eviction, foreclosure, family conflict), Healthy housing/housing conditions and homelessness. ·
On average 1,200 evictions in Rockford annually which is 3.26 households every day, That rate increases to 12.67% if you are African American and 11.75% if you are Latinx. The Homeless Coordinated Entry System (CES) also tracks reason for inflow into homelessness. Outside of eviction, family conflict (including domestic violence) is the greatest contributor to people in our community becoming unhoused. Rockford ranks 6th in the Nation for foreclosures.
The City of Rockford does not have requirements on new housing developments to include affordable housing. As a result, when someone comes in to build new housing and new rental housing there is absolutely no requirement to include affordable housing. That is a barrier to affordable housing in the community. Ms. Walker said there is a trend of rental costs going up significantly in the past 8 months.
The most recent point in time of the homeless was 287 as of January 2021, which is a 39% decrease from the 2020 count. Homelessness is addressed through outreach, a coordinated entry system and coordinated case conferencing. Since implementing these tools, the average length of time a person is in shelter has shrunk from 119 average nights homeless in 2015 to 64 nights in 2020.
Homeless Coalition members as well as other community organizations have worked with the Built for Zero movement to achieve these reductions. The Illinois Homeless Coalition encompasses three counties: Winnebago, Boone and Dekalb
Counties, these numbers are reflective of all three counties. The majority is in Rockford, but not all.
Over the past couple of years the City has started addressing racial disparity in housing access and permanent housing placement. As they place people into permanent housing they do track, as a community, if they are being equitable, is everyone getting equal access to permanent housing. Are they getting it on the same timeline with the same dignity and respect that each person should get. When people are low income, housing is a challenge, it is not a right.
Ms. Walker stated that she has talked to a lot of the panhandlers and very few of them are homeless. Most of them are very low income people, some have addiction issues, many of them however, do have a place to live.
Each person requesting services gets a score, they don't just pick and choose randomly who they believe is more vulnerable. Each person that comes in and answers a set of questions that will give them a score. They also take into account their priority population in the community, which are veterans, chronically homeless individuals, those who have been homeless for over a year, and have a diagnosed disability. Homeless youth is also in the priority population, as well as people fleeing from domestic abuse situations.
How and where people are housed, case management is very much a component for 6 months and up to two years. That will include referrals for financial literacy, mental health treatment, whatever appropriate systems they can get them into.
The State of Illinois does not have source of income as a protected class and neither does the City of Rockford. This means a landlord can choose to deny someone based on their source of income. Which they frequently see landlords will not take Section 8 people. City Ordinances and regulations would need to be changed to make all new development have some affordable housing.
Services include diversion screening which is to divert people from entering into homelessness. They do a diversion screening to find out how at risk a person is to losing their own housing. If a person reaches a certain level on that score, they offer them additional finances and support to locate new housing. Homeless youth are 18 to 24 year olds, they work with them, get them into housing and get them extensive case management. For a youth under the age of 18, they do work with youth services network either for crisis shelter or if appropriate for unification with family. They also work with youth aging out of foster care.
V. COMMISSIONERS REPORT
There were no reports
VI. ADJOURNMENT
The meeting was closed at 6:39 PM
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