Real Change Blog
NASNA to lay off executive director
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In all the time he managed Real Change’s vendor services, I never once saw Israel Bayer on the brink of tears. But, then, he’s never had to tell a roomful of publishers and editors of struggling street newspapers that they’re about to lose one of the few resources they have at their disposal.
Bayer said yesterday that NASNA, an affiliated group of street newspapers sold by the homeless, is laying off its executive director and sole staff member, Andy Freeze. The news was rough on some members attending the organization’s annual conference this week at Chicago’s DePaul University and they pushed back.
Bayer is the board chairman of NASNA, the North American Association of Street Newspapers, which started 15 years ago to help support and launch similar publications. This year’s two-day conference has more than 80 participants from some of the 31 newspapers and magazines that belong to NASNA across the United States and Canada, a number of whom have just started or are preparing to start new publications.
In December 2008, NASNA hired Freeze as its first staff member and, a month later, opened an office in Washington, D.C. Since then, he has helped start three new papers—Toledo Streets, Philadelphia’s One Step Away and the Nashville Contributor—with others in the wings.
Bayer, executive director of Portland’s Street Roots, told conference delegates that NASNA is laying off Freeze at the end of August due to the recession and a lack of funds. The position had been funded with grants from the Ethics & Excellence Journalism Foundation that are now expended, with no new funds in sight to replace them.
In two days of meetings prior to the conference, Bayer said NASNA’s board members had come up with a plan for maintaining all of NASNA’s services and its website themselves, with the organization’s defacto headquarters to be Street Roots’ offices in Portland.
Many delegates expressed shock at the news, questioning why the board hadn’t let its member papers know sooner so that they could have raised money. They then passed an impromptu resolution demanding that the board come up with a dollar figure for what it would take to maintain Freeze’s position until year’s end—a number the board was asked to present in a meeting set later today.
To raise money, some delegates suggested that NASNA’s member newspapers—many of which are all-volunteer operations—pay higher dues to the organization. NASNA currently charges $50 to $2,000 a year for a membership, based on a newspaper’s income.
Even if money could be raised to keep Freeze on through year’s end, board member Serge Lareault, publisher of Montreal’s L’Itineraire, said it wouldn’t buy enough time to raise the real money needed—upwards of $150,000—to keep NASNA’s office open and staffed after January.
Bayer and others stressed that NASNA had existed for years as a volunteer operation and would survive. In the meantime, “we are trying to look for long-term sustainability,” Bayer said.
“I’m shocked to find you’re laying off your executive director. I’m shocked to hear that everybody from this side didn’t know that was happening,” said Bruce Gimbel, a minister and shelter provider who is starting a street newspaper in the Tampa Bay area of Florida. “That wouldn’t have happened at my organization because I would have notified all my constituents [that] we need people to step up.”
“I probably would have paid $1,000 to be at this conference in order to gain [the] $5,000 worth of information, which so far what I feel I’ve gained,” he said. “NASNA is our organization. If you don’t see value in NASNA like I see value, you need to go away.”
“I see a lot of people throwing a lot of punches and I respect that,” Bayer said, his voice cracking. But “we’re in the middle of a recession [and] homelessness is on the rise.”
“If we can come together as a group and there are some solid resolutions ... to help NASNA move forward, we’re all ears,” Bayer said. But “I just want to remind people that we’re all in this together.”
Midyear budget cuts spare human services—for now
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Mayor McGinn lowered the boom on city departments today, releasing a roster of $12.4 million in midyear budget cuts in an effort to close the general-fund shortfall that Seattle is facing in 2010 as a result of evaporating tax revenue.
The good news: The mayor is calling for $246,000 in cuts from the Human Services Department, but no actual service reductions are expected—at least not this year.
Next year, the city is facing a $56 million shortfall for which McGinn says he’s looking at cutting between 5 and 10 percent of the human services budget, along with 1-5 percent from the police and fire departments and roughly 10-15 percent from every other agency.
“Obviously, it’s the 2011 budget that’s going to be the challenge,” says Kip Tokuda, acting director of HSD. But, for now, “we’re going to get by relatively unscathed,” he says, by cutting back on travel and training without laying off any staff.
Overall, the city will cut a total of 13 people, representing 9 fulltime positions, as of July 20. Another 45 jobs will be left unfilled, including not hiring 21 planned new police officers—a move that saves $2.1 million but is sure to disappoint Belltown and Pioneer Square community activists who have called for more police on the beat.
The next biggest cuts will come from parks ($1.7 million) and libraries ($1.2 million). In addition to cutting the Parks Department’s travel and training budget—which raised controversy for now-resigned Parks Superintendent Tim Gallagher—there will be reductions in park maintenance and closures or shorter hours at wading pools. Libraries will take hits in staffing for public services, custodial and technology and lose $500,000 in funding for buying materials.
The mayor’s midyear budget update also says the Seattle Department of Transportation came up $6.6 million short this year. One reason is that SDOT depleted its gas tax reserves earlier than planned in 2009. The other? Apparently, the department has spent a bundle on homeless encampment cleanups that, needless to say, it could have saved if the city had left the homeless alone.
Where the cops have gone
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Alert readers of Real Change know that we have not run Streetwatch, our weekly catalog of police incidents involving the homeless, for a few weeks now.
Charles Mudede, the grandaddy of all police-blot watchers, notes with perfect accuracy that SPD’s new policy broadcasts only a teeny sliver of the massive volumes of paperwork generated by the department’s staff. The incidents posted online “represent an ideal of police work: cops and robbers.”
Our Streetwatch column, in its 10-year run, has been a place to air some of the various happenings, tragic and banal, that transpire for people on Seattle’s streets. One of its items germinated assistant editor Rosette Royale’s nationally award-winning three-part series. It’s seldom been pretty: in them, the homeless are victims of rape and assault. They are perps – most frequently, they beat or hit each other. And they are victims if not in fact than in circumstance: they are trespassed, trespassed, stopped on suspicion of lurking, and trespassed again. And the accounts provided are of course one-sided: they are the stories the police have set down.
For all that, Streetwatch has been the product of an open and progressive policy: the police would simply make recent incidents available on compact disc (they used to print it all out) for viewing by computer at the local precinct. I acknowledge the use of putting incidents online – but not of drastically narrowing the scope of what’s available.
We won’t publish a column culled from only a portion of the police’s work – it’s akin to looking for your lost wallet under the streetlamps.
Staff in the department’s Media Relations unit have assured me that more information would be posted over time. That’s not a satisfying response. What? When? Who’s responsible? What are the minimum standards for what gets posted and what is left offline?
For now, the new system has rendered Streetwatch untenable. I’m determined to bring it back again. So I’ll continue to request that the police re-open the filing cabinet.
Stay tuned for more.
Real Change a partner in organizing Seattle Unity Forum
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Seattle Unity Forum
Saturday, June 26th, 10 am - 2 pm
Seattle University School of Law, Room C1
(refreshments provided)
If ever there was a time for a strategic alliance of activists across barriers of race, class, and issue, it is now. Seattle’s potential for a series of broad progressive wins is greater that at any other time in recent memory.
Elected leadership has shown unprecedented willingness to challenge the downtown establishment. The Police Chief selection process has centered on the issue of who can best depolarize relations between communities of color and law enforcement. A bid by the downtown establishment to further criminalize homelessness was recently turned back by a broad coalition of groups led by Real Change, NAACP, and the ACLU, and hinged on the courageous and key support of Mayor McGinn and Councilmember Mike O’Brien, activists known mostly for their work on environmental sustainability.
Please join forum sponsors Real Change, United African Public Affairs Committee, Sierra Club (Seattle Chapter) and the Center for Global Justice and Access to Justice Institute at the Seattle University School of Law on Saturday, June 26th, 10-2, for an exploratory forum that brings together communities of color, sustainabilty, and social justice activists for an open-ended dialogue that results in achievable, immediate steps toward greater unity and political clout across what have too often been divergent constituencies.
PSCA Drops Appeal On Real Change Use Permit
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Today, Real Change and the Pioneer Square Community Association issued the following joint press release.
Real Change and the Pioneer Square Community Association (PSCA) are pleased to announce that they have resolved their issues related to the City of Seattle use permit for the New England Building in Pioneer Square. PSCA has withdrawn its appeal of the City of Seattle decision. The two organizations look forward to working together for the common benefit of Pioneer Square, supporting a vibrant neighborhood for all.
Leslie Smith, Executive Director of the PSCA, said of the settlement, “We had a constructive dialogue. Real Change listened thoughtfully to our concerns around the City’s use permit and agreed to work with us in a spirit of cooperation. We look forward to Real Change’s contributions to the vitality of the Pioneer Square Neighborhood.” Tim Harris, Executive Director of Real Change also welcomed the settlement, saying, “Real Change is happy to be past the conflict and to return full focus to our mission. We are proud to be part of the diversity of Pioneer Square and look forward to being engaged members of the community.”
Real Change is a 501 C-3 organization that creates opportunity and a voice for low income people while taking action to end homelessness and poverty.
The Pioneer Square Community Association is a 501 C-3 organization devoted to the betterment of Pioneer Square through advocacy, programming, marketing and community action.
Real Change staff earn journalism awards
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A longtime publisher from Port Townsend spoke at a Society of Professional Journalists awards banquet I attended a few years back, and he solemnly told the audience that the journalism awards given out that night weren’t won, they were earned.
You win the lottery, you win at the poker table. Earnings are what’s due for the work you did.
Real Change staff won earned four awards in the 2009 regional contest of the Society of Professional Journalists last weekend, which covers daily and non-daily newspapers, alternative weeklies, radio and television broadcasters and online media. The awards were announced at the May 22 annual banquet of the Society of Professional Journalists’ regional contest. Real Change competed against non-daily papers from Alaska, Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana.
Staff reporter Cydney Gillis won earned first-place awards in three categories: in Arts Reporting and Criticism for “Pike Place Market artists losing designated lofts” (April 8-14); in Social Issues Reporting for “Affordable Rentals takes $250 from homeless couple” (Aug. 5-11); and in Education Reporting for “Parents call changes at Seattle’s Indian Heritage School a whitewash,” (Sept. 30 – Oct. 4). Assistant Editor Rosette Royale won earned a second-place award in the Personalities Reporting category for “A fast for peace, recounted in number and deed” (Sept. 16-22).
You can look over this PDF for the contest’s complete results.
City Council upholds veto of panhandling ordinance
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In a 4-4 vote this afternoon—apparently enough to do the job—the Seattle City Council sustained Mayor Mike McGinn’s veto of a panhandling ordinance that would have allowed the police to issue $50 tickets to aggressive beggars.
Real Change, the ACLU, NAACP and other organizations had argued that the ordinance, proposed by Tim Burgess, chair of the council’s Public Safety Committee, would have given the police a blank check to move along any beggar and that there was no reason to create a new law when Seattle already prohibits aggressive panhandling.
Councilmembers Nick Licata, Bruce Harrell, Tom Rasmussen and Mike O’Brien repeated their earlier votes against the measure. Council President Richard Conlin was absent.
Home free? Not quite.
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Imagine our sense of relief when on April 24th, the Pioneer Square Historic Preservation board voted to approve the use of our new home over the objections raised by the Pioneer Square Community Association (PSCA) who just don’t think that Real Change “belongs” in Pioneer Square. We were further relieved when on May 3rd the Historic Preservation Board again voted in our favor, approving the minor façade alteration necessitated by the construction of 2 bathrooms for our vendors. In April, a team from Real Change participated in the PSCA’s Pioneer Square clean-up. We will be good neighbors in Pioneer Square and our vendors will benefit tremendously from the new space. Moving boxes have arrived and our Belltown office is littered with the tell-tale signs of relocation.
Home free? Not quite yet.
Late last week, Leslie Smith, Executive Director of the Pioneer Square Community Association, filed an appeal to the Hearing Examiner on May 13 regarding the Pioneer Square Preservation Board’s decision to allow Real Change’s use of space on the first and second floors of the New England Building at 219 Main. You can read their appeal here.
We do not believe that the PSCA will prevail. We will move this weekend, as planned, and reopen in Pioneer Square on Monday, May 24. A support rally is being organized for 5 pm that day in Occidental Park. We’d love to see you there. Please RSVP on Facebook or .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) to let us know you are planning to attend.
More details for my detail oriented readers out there:
The appeal of our move, which could take up to 90 days to finalize, seeks to overturn an April 21 Preservation Board land use decision. At the April hearing, PSCA Board President and Samis Land Company Senior Property Manager Adam Hasson failed to convince fellow Preservation Board members that Real Change is a wholesaler, a prohibited use in Pioneer Square. The Preservation Board voted to approve Real Change’s use as office space. At a second Preservation Board hearing on May 3, to review a first floor window alteration associated with the construction of two bathrooms, Hasson cast the lone vote in opposition to approval, stating of our relocation “This is like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.” He says that Real Change just does not belong in Pioneer Square.
The PSCA appeal argues that Real Change is a wholesaler of newspapers and thereby prohibited from locating in Pioneer Square and that planned skills-building workshops for vendors is also a prohibited use of space. Real Change sees no substance or merit to either argument. The PSCA appeal exposes Real Change to considerable financial risk. Hearing Examiner decisions are binding and final. More that $60,000 has been spent to remodel the space and Real Change is bound to a five-year lease at the new location. PSCA Executive Director Leslie Smith has rejected all attempts by Real Change to engage in dialogue regarding her concerns.
The Pioneer Square Community Association is controlled by real estate interests and does not speak for all of Pioneer Square.
“Ding dong, the jail is dead”
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Turns out the rumor was right: King County Executive Dow Constantine was joined by Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn and elected officials from Shoreline and Kirkland this morning to announce they’re calling off plans for a new $226 million misdemeanant jail that Seattle had intended to share with the county’s North/East Cities.
Instead, the county is offering the cities a new contract for 150 beds a year at the King County Jail between 2017 and 2020. That would extend a deal struck last year in which the cities will lease 300 beds a year between 2012 and 2016.
One reason for the move, Constantine said, is the downward trend in the King County Jail’s population—something that jail opponents attribute to the success of jail diversion programs that offer people treatment and services at lower cost than incarceration.
“We heard you. We listened to you,” McGinn said of the public input. “You want us to be thoughtful, you want us to work together, you want us to work on alternatives to incarceration.”
That doesn’t mean a new jail won’t be built someday, but Shoreline Mayor Keith McGlashan said the environmental impact study that had been started on a potential jail site in Shoreline has been canceled. McGinn said he will recommend that other northeast cities where potential jail sites had been identified—Bellevue, Clyde Hill, Kirkland, Redmond and Yarrow Point—stop their jail siting processes as well, ending an effort that started when the county told the cities it would run out of room and stop housing their inmates in 2012.
By then, a group of seven South County cities plans to open a new misdemeanant jail that is already under construction. In the meantime, Constantine said, he’s launching a regional jail planning group in which the county will work with the cities on sharing jail space and resources to meet needs in the future.
“We are going to plan for the day when we need new jail space and we’re going to approach that in a rationale, methodical way,” he said. “I think the last process started because the county made a sudden declaration” that its jail beds would be full. “We don’t want that to happen again.”
The Regional Justice Center in Kent has room to build additional units, he said—something he said should be considered as an option for the future. In the meantime, Councilmember Nick Licata said, pre-booking jail alternatives such as Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion—the name for two pilot projects that The Defender Association’s Racial Disparity Project is working to launch this year in Belltown and Skyway—will keep jail numbers down. “With this extension to 2020, we have pulled the plug on the siting process and I can almost hear the cheers now,” Licata said.
Situation gets darker in Land of Midnight Sun
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Sometimes, reputations can come on as subtle as whisper. First people talk about someone — or some place — and, before anyone realizes it, that’s what you’re known for. Anchorage, Alaska may be going through such a moment.
Of course, most people associate Alaska with cold and being the largest city in The Last Frontier. Some even know that it ain’t that far from Wasila, Sarah Palin’s old stomping grounds. But these days, Anchorage is becoming known as the last place you’d want to be if you’re homeless a person who’s struggling with alcoholism. Last October, the NY Times printed “Homeless Deaths Rise, and Anchorage Copes,” which discussed the deaths of 13 homeless people from the spring of 2009 until last fall.
Now comes this: The number of deaths of homeless people there has risen to 21 in the past 12 months, according to the Associated Press’ “Anchorage outdoor deaths mount among homeless.” It’s one of those articles that makes you shake your head: It gives out sad information, which no one can really account for, though people try.
Part of the issue is the changing weather. Then there are alcoholism rates among Native populations. And then there’s a little bit of the NIMBY attitude.
But of local interest is significant (virtual) ink spent on praising the success of Seattle’s own 1811 Eastlake building, which offers housing to 75 homeless men and women caught in a downward spiral of alcoholism, a spiral that’s kept them either on the streets or in the ER.
Of course, Anchorage doesn’t have to be known as the City where Homeless People — especially Natives who are alcoholic — Keep Dying. Maybe a rep from the 1811 should pay a visit to Anchorage. And maybe some writer will go up there and spend some time and tell us a (sad) story from the land of the Midnight Sun. Maybe a story that shines a light on the dark times in the city will help change a rep-in-the-making that could start weighing Anchorage down.
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NASNA to lay off executive director
Saturday, July 31 at 1:15am
Midyear budget cuts spare human services—for now
Monday, June 14 at 12:46pm
Where the cops have gone
Friday, June 11 at 3:40pm
Real Change a partner in organizing Seattle Unity Forum
Friday, June 11 at 2:43pm
PSCA Drops Appeal On Real Change Use Permit
Friday, June 11 at 2:24pm
Real Change staff earn journalism awards
Tuesday, June 1 at 5:09pm
City Council upholds veto of panhandling ordinance
Monday, May 24 at 3:08pm
Home free? Not quite.
Monday, May 17 at 5:01pm
“Ding dong, the jail is dead”
Thursday, May 13 at 10:32am
Situation gets darker in Land of Midnight Sun
Monday, May 10 at 2:50pm
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