Mary Shepherd Home Citizens' Advisory Committee

SHEPHERD HOME CITIZEN’S ADVISORY COMMITTEE MINUTES FEBRUARY 12, 2020 Those in attendance: Atty. Ralph Wilson, Deputy Mayor Vinnie Loffredo, Veteran Larry Riley, Community Member Carl Rodenhizer, Chief Real Estate Officer for Columbus House, Wanda Wanda Purcell, Regional Property Manager for DeMarco Management Corporation, Meeting called to order at 5 p.m. by Chair Atty. Ralph Wilson. Public Session: Captain Wallace of the Middletown Police Department spoke of tenant behavior and a collective goal of improvement. We have 5 tenants who create the bulk of the problems in the building. Captain Wallace noted that restrictions do not work. The committee reviewed activity that triggered a request for police aide. Police aide requests stopped as of mid-January when police started routine property checks by the police. We also hired uniform security staff for the weekend, and they started at the end of January. We have received some complaints from tenants, but they have been coming form some of the offenders. DeMarco has started the eviction process on some of the offenders. Hopefully eviction will not be necessary, but a change in behavior is required for the benefit of the larger community. Minutes of the January 8, 2020 meeting were approved. Demographics. The facility is at full occupancy, with 32 tenants. There is one female veteran. The average age of all veterans is 61, the median age is 63.5 the youngest is 26 and oldest is 79. Finances are in accordance with the budget, except that utilities are high. We have been able to compensate that with other lines items. Lease documents were transmitted to members electronically prior to the meeting. They were not reviewed on the 12th. Building issues. We continue to have a problem with the roof gutters and are asking the installer to return and correct. We reviewed a complaint from a donor where there was a communication problem with the donation of a ping pong table. In light of the workload of DeMarco and SVDP staff, Carl offered to have himself sere as the interface for donors. POST MEETING NOTE: Carl has connected with the donor and explained the situation. We have the ping pong table on site and are working to clean a couple rooms to accommodate the donation. We’ve indicated that once we get the table up and operational, we’ll get the donor in for a couple sets with a few veterans. Program information and a building calendar were reviewed. POST MEETING NOTE: We met with Yvette Highsmith and she has agreed to provide CHC on-site behavioral health services. It will be part of their mobile services, so we don’t expect more than once a week of mental health workers, nurses and possibly dental. She is starting the licensing process, so this will not start for 3-4 months. Next meeting: March 11, 2020 at 5:00. Adjournment: 6:10 p.m. Submitted by Carl Rodenhizer