It’s been a rewarding couple of weeks facilitating the work of R3V, plus, we all got to hear, smell, and feel the rain again.

Housing Working Group

• In our Collective Impact meeting this month we gathered questions for Direct Housing communications about possible extensions of the direct housing in hotels, RV parks, and FEMA trailers as well as the FEMA trailer purchase and donations programs.  While there is a lot of work being done to support those in temporary housing, those residents don’t seem to have a clear picture of the path ahead.  Who can help them with clear information and when can their options be communicated to them?
• The group discussed what data  would be helpful about housing options, who might compile, present, and update the data.
• Representative Pam Marsh will host an update on the mobile home situations on the evening of Oct 20. Save the date and watch for details to come.
• We talked about how we might help advance attainable housing development and landed on:
  • Coordinate land availability discussions to turn a competitive process into a collaborative one in the Rogue Valley
  • What policy changes would support the development of attainable housing?  We are pulling together a white paper of recommendations for various actors in the housing equation across sectors
• R3V has been pulling together basic information on attainable housing development and how we might move towards more supply here in the Valley.
  • Attainable housing basics
  • Rogue Valley Housing Market studies from local cities, county, state and federal agencies.
  • Thoughts on generational wealth, equity, and affordable housing
  • We decided to build a cost table for renting and owning/HOA costs backing into the income required at 30% and 40%  AMI levels.  Coming soon.
• Land availability research
  • Discussing how this works with developers and consultants active in local land acquisition work.
  • Outreach to land owners who might be interested in supporting attainable housing development.
• Promotion of ADU development
  • How can the community support the development of more ADU housing in the Rogue Valley?  Promotion of awareness and  knowledge of options, opportunities for efficiency, fire wise. And accessibility, benefits, constraints, and process ?
    • Align with city of Talent planning commission promotion efforts
    • Support development of a presentation to the Talent City Council re the urgency of need. 
    • Schedule a review of the case for ADU promotion in a council work session
    • Educate city councilors and the public on the issue and opportunities to add units to existing and new homes.
    • Work with single family residential developers on optimizing their site plans for future ADU development.
  • Updated Housing Working Group page on the website

Community Rebuilding Working Group

• Zone captains hiring and training process designed and supported by the R3V team.
• Clarified projects and roles across the LTRG and R3V committees and working groups which will become a public-facing document based on this data.
• Trauma informed self care for disaster recovery workers – working with Peter Buckley at SORS and Teresa Cisneros on setting meetings in Spanish and English in the coming weeks
• Community Rebuilding page updated on our website

Backbone Organization for Collective Impact

• Refocusing our large CI meetings on bringing in outside experts to support our learnings around attainable housing and community rebuilding
  • Potential topics for next meeting 
    • Attainable housing 
    • Greenway project updates and future opportunities update by Jim Pearman, FEMA

As ever, please invite anyone in our community who you think should be included in our conversations. The easy way is to share our events calendar with them via this link so they can find all the details about the meeting in one place.

Greetings on this day of commemoration and reflection.

As R3V’s facilitator, I wanted to update you on where we are and where we’re going.

First, to acknowledge the one year anniversary of the Almeda fire that tore through our communities. The ash that fell overnight reminds us that we’re still connected to our neighbors who are experiencing fires today. We learn from others and share what we learn together in this process. We are part of an extended community learning to live with and recover from wildfire.

I hope you will be able to take a few moments to acknowledge the meaning of this day in your own life and in the life of our community. Christine Hunter-Robertson of WinterSpring offers a lovely approach to commemoration here.

As we enter the second year of our recovery, we’re strengthening our foundations and accelerating towards fulfilling our mission of community transformation.

Foundations

• Meeting changes to support action – Steering committee now meets twice per month and our larger Collective Impact meetings will be once per month. We will add working group meetings throughout each month to focus on collaborative projects we can all align with and contribute to.
• Team to extend our reach – our partnership with Local Innovation Works has added project coordination, research, and outreach capacity to the R3V cause. Thank you to Rogue Workforce Partnership for making this possible!
• Zone Captains – we have supported the cross-sector discussions required to help fund this program, which features peer-to-peer support networks, 21 paid positions to help with the JCC LTRG needs assessment and Disaster Case Management processes, and the centering of the voices of fire affected people. Final signatures happened this week. Watch your inbox for much more on this in the coming days.
• Health – the past few weeks have been hugely challenging for me, but the foundation of my health has returned and I am excited to breathe freely and support the community’s work. It wasn’t Covid-19, but it was something terrible that left me fighting to get enough oxygen for weeks. Everyone please be very careful with your health these smoky, infectious days.

Directions

• Community Rebuilding Working Group – help support the Zone Captains program as it launches, share your thoughts on addressing Collective Trauma as a root cause in our Valley, explore how we might support place making in direct housing at hotels and FEMA trailer parks.
• Housing Working Group – we’re working in collaboration with and support of Julie O’Dwyer and the LTRG Housing and Construction Group on a number of projects. Our initial focus will be on land availability for working family housing, ADUs and home share promotion, and alternative ownership models like community land trusts and cooperative housing. Our meeting this week conflicts with the LTRG large meeting, but we will find a better time for coming meetings. What works best for you?
• Please join us to learn more and share your ideas for these working groups.
• Once we have the Housing and Community Rebuilding working groups established, we will turn our focus to launching our next two working groups, Resilient Public Infrastructure and Economy and Jobs. You can express your interest in joining any of the working groups via this form. We would love to work with you!

Looking Forward

I look forward to connecting with you to learn about your vision for what’s needed and how R3V can support the good work you are doing. Please find a time on my calendar to connect, I’d love to learn more about you, your work, and your vision for what’s needed in our fair valley.

Stephen Sloan, R3V Facilitator