Thank you for registering for yesterday's COVID call, and as always thank you for the robust chat and the insightful questions for our speakers! Here
is a link to the recording. See attached for our notes and the auto-generated transcript.
REGISTER
FOR THE NEXT CALL *IN TWO WEEKS* (Sept 30) HERE!
If you would like to follow up with
any of the amazing speakers on the call, please see below for their contact info:
Kirsten York/Community Action Council of Lewis, Mason and Thurston Counties: kirsteny@caclmt.org
ACTIONS YOU CAN TAKE TODAY!
State Advocacy!
- Get people inside now - With wildfires burning all over the west coast and air quality reaching hazardous levels in Washington -- on TOP of a global pandemic with respiratory impacts -- it is absolutely
essential that Governor Inslee immediately deploy resources to get everybody inside NOW to protect their safety and health.
Contact
Governor Inslee via email to demand that he act urgently!
- Connect Washington - The Connect Washington Coalition has launched a petition to close the digital divide and end digital inequities for Washington families. You may recall Sharonne Navas from the Equity
in Education Coalition spoke at length about these efforts on our last call, and they have a specific ask of all of us --
sign this petition! You can also read more about their asks and some background in the PDF attached.
Federal Advocacy!
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Keep up the federal advocacy! Send an email urging your Members of Congress to resume negotiations to ensure that we don't see a massive
increase in homelessness during COVID-19. On the page there's an advocacy toolkit, story collection tool, and more.
Take action here!
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Submit a comment on HUD's harmful proposed rule removing anti-discrimination protections for trans and nonbinary people experiencing homelessness. You can take action by submitting a comment via
the #HousingSavesLives
action page, and the National LGBTQ Taskforce has created a Partner
Toolkit to assist you! The deadline for comments is Sept. 22nd, so don't delay.
Resources from the 9-16 Call
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Register
for the Virtual Conference on Ending Homelessness, Oct. 7-8!
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The Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) is expanding their Disaster Cash Assistance Program (DCAP) to cover households affected by the wildfires in counties declared a disaster area: Douglas, Okanogan, Whitman,
Lincoln, Spokane, Chelan, Pierce and Thurston at this point. Please see attached for a letter from DSHS about this with more information.
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For further info about Kitsap County's rental assistance program, please contact Matt Garrett (email above)
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For further info about Yakima County's rental assistance program, please contact Annette Rodriguez (email above)
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See attached for the slides from Kirsten York's presentation on Thurston County's rental assistance program.
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Scott Crain presented on the interactions between our state and federal eviction moratoriums. If you need legal help via Northwest Justice Project, you can get start by going here:
https://nwjustice.org/get-legal-help
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If your landlord is trying or threatening to evict you between now and October 15th, that is illegal in most cases, and the Attorney General's office is enforcing this. You can file a legal complaint with the AG here: https://fortress.wa.gov/atg/formhandler/ago/COVID19EvictionComplaintForm.aspx
And here is the link to the form in Spanish: https://fortress.wa.gov/atg/formhandler/ago/COVID19EvictionComplaintFormSpanish.aspx -
A message from Kirsten Jewell: Everyone should please be aware that the US Census is doing their unsheltered outreach on September 22 - 24. In most cases, they are doing a simple headcount in encampments - but this
will be from 7pm - 7am. If you work with people in encampments, please let them know that this is happening and the importance of the census - to improve safety for everyone.
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The Housing Alliance will publish the updated Pulse survey data soon and will share it with you all. Thanks for your patience!
Take care, and talk to you in two weeks!