Minutes 04-29-2014 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Commissioner McKee asked if any feedback has been received from tenants involved in the landlord repair guarantee. Nancy Coston said this I something that has been done elsewhere, but not in Orange County. She said this is an item that Orange County may be interested in looking into. She said there has been some feedback that this requires very little money, but the guarantee had gotten more people to step up. Commissioner McKee said he would like to see how this works. He said if it would increase rental availability, it would really help people. Commissioner Pelissier said she believes that Durham County has done some of this. She said the Partnership for Homelessness is looking into a program that asks landlords to offer a lower rent for individuals. She said this has not been done in Orange County, but the Chamber of Commerce is interested in assisting with the effort of engaging the community in this. Commissioner Rich asked if DSS works with Durham Tech. Sharron Hinton said yes. She said there is a new partnership with Durham Tech with the Building Futures Program. Chair Jacobs noted that he spoke with an elected official from Chapel Hill who did not think the Skills Development Center was doing anything anymore. He said there needs to be a way to communicate with the two municipality governments. He asked that tonight's PowerPoint presentation be shared with the towns, even if it is just by email. Nancy Coston said this can be done, and some of the new employment efforts can also be shared. Chair Jacobs asked about the impact of peoples' unemployment insurance running out. Nancy Coston said this is not tracked, although these residents are coming in to apply for Medicaid. She said an unemployment change does cause an increase in clients. She said there are more jobs for some people, but there is another group that just lost what they were living on. She said until you see food and nutrition services stabilizing, unemployment problems still exist. Commissioner Gordon asked Nancy Coston to highlight where the state changes have impacted DSS the most. Nancy Coston said the unemployment obviously affected them indirectly. She said more Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) funding used to allow more adolescent parenting programs and subsidized employment. She said shrinking these funds has caused the County to pick those costs up, and not everything can be covered. She said budget cuts caused financial counseling to be eliminated. She said when state money diminishes, the County budget has to be re-prioritized. Commissioner Rich noted that Commissioner porosin had spoken about the need for out of the box ideas that the County is not already doing. She asked if there had been any discussions about this. Nancy Coston said Robert Gilmore is always pushing staff to do more creative things, such as a job fair at their offices. She said the subsidized employment is already something that the County is doing in a different way than other counties. She said one of the challenges occurs when you already have programs that you feel are effective, and you don't have enough resources to put into them. She said this makes it hard to want to come up with new ideas. She said there are discussions about veterans and unemployment and the different ways to integrate all of the employment programs. Robert Gilmore said one idea he would like to see happen in Orange County is a Men's Dressed for Success Program to provide outfits for professional interviews, and job searches. He said they have a difficult time getting clothes for men.