Category: Updates

The Miracle Of You, Working

We’ve talked a lot about reimagining and building back better.

For me, the blessing of this last year has been that you are reimagining and rebuilding what it means to be in community, here in the Rogue Valley, starting in your own heart.

You faced flames, ruins, and sadness and still find that place in your heart that reaches towards hope, that place in your mind that sees a new way forward; you amaze me.

I am encouraged by each of you who:

• Knock on the door of a FEMA trailer to find out about a person’s needs
• Answer the phones when traumatized, frustrated fire survivors call for help, again
• Deliver meal kits to families still living in hotels
• Search for the way to improve the process when trauma turns to anger at the overburdened systems of support and recovery

The rebuilding process is slow, but you are doing it. You are looking for ways to reach out, to step up, to meet needs, to bring an ounce of cheer into a sea of challenge and pain.

I am honored to be with you in this process of reimagining and rebuilding ourselves, as a community.

Thank you for including R3V in your work.

Updates and Other Good News

And, of course, our work in the community continues, see our final dashboard of the year here.  

Thanks to the Community Rebuilding Fund, a partnership between Oregon Community Foundation, Meyer Memorial Trust, The Ford Family Foundation and The American Red Cross, with primary funding through individual donations and corporate and foundation support, for making our work possible.

Additionally, please take a moment to complete this survey on community resilience by Rogue Climate.  

Also, I’ve had the honor of facilitating a couple of meetings with local and state housing experts in support of the NewSpirit housing project.  Learn more about the project in a great MailTribune article here and on KOBI5 news here.

But wait, please help promote these great job opportunities at our partner, ACCESS.  

Finally, The Ford Family Foundation has recently released Oregon By The Numbers report that contains a lot of data that may be helpful in strategic planning and grant applications for your organization. 

Phew, enjoy your holiday celebrations!

My focus since our last update has been to build our connections and insights into the question of attainable housing and support trust and community building. 

Housing Working Group 

• Talked with 
  • Derek Sherrell, Talent planning commissioner, about promoting ADU development
  • Margaret Van Vliet of Trillium Advisors about attainable housing.
  • Joe Vollmar and Carrie Bogen of ACCESS about housing navigation and intake processes
  • Hosted reports on the work of CASA and Housing Authority of Jackson County and a panel discussion on policy changes that might support the development of more attainable housing in Southern Oregon. Recording available here.
• Represented R3V at the Gateway project ribbon cutting ceremony.
• Supporting LTRG Housing and Construction subcommittee as it seeks new leadership

Community Rebuilding Working Group

• Ongoing project work outlined and clarified between LTRG and R3V here
• Supporting JCC LTRG monthly newsletter production and distribution
• Facilitated an Adult Spanish Literacy lessons community discussion in partnership with Listo, OnTrack, JCLS, and Lilia Caballero
• Supported Zone Captains with training development
• Working to facilitate conversations around intake and accessibility with ACCESS and Latino/a/x community leaders.
• Talked with Jonathan Chavez-Baez on a variety of community rebuilding collaboration opportunities.

Backbone Organization for Collective Impact

• R3V Dashboard published for transparency and continuous communication.
• Steering committee will convene an ad hoc planning team to envision our next 6-12 months to inform how we will us the $70,000 grant for 2022 from OCF “to facilitate and coordinate collaboration across organizations involved in fire recovery in the interest of community transformation towards our values of efficiency, equity, and inclusion.“
• Next Collective Impact meeting will be on 11/17 Agenda:
  • Economic Recovery update and next steps
  • Panelists from SOREDI, Ashland Food Coop, SBDC, RWP, BBSI, TURA, Zone Captains, Rotary – Guy Tauer, Rogue Community Health re hiring challenges?

As ever, please invite anyone in our community who you think should be included in our conversations. Here’s a list of all our upcoming events.

Please reach out,

It was another rewarding few weeks at R3V. 

We have chosen to move our updates to align with our Steering Committee meetings, so this report covers three weeks, 39-41 and is issued in Week 42.

My focus since our last update has been to engage a broader set of community members in the working group projects we’re currently working. 

Housing Working Group 

• Talked with 
  • Tom Kemper re land availability and attainable housing friendly development policies
  • Kristen Maze re ADU promotion, connecting us with a member of their planning commission committed to promoting ADU development
  • Jason Elzy, set up attainability conversation for 10/20 
  • EJ McManus of Lithia motors re attainable housing shortage, impacts on employers, and ways to build more locally.
• Land availability outreach started with Ag employers and faith-based organizations.
• Toured the Gateway project with Jon Lagarza and Peoples’ Bank

Community Rebuilding Working Group

• Ongoing project work outlined and clarified between LTRG and R3V here
• Supporting JCC LTRG monthly newsletter production and distribution
• Facilitated an Adult Spanish Literacy lessons community discussion in partnership with Listo, OnTrack, and Lilia C. (Carmen) Caballero
• Supported Zone Captains request about an ongoing water quality issue at Whispering Pines mobile home park.
• Supported ZC with request for data on live interpretation for City of Phoenix city council meetings.
• Designed training plans for Zone Captains
• Opportunity for Latino/a/x leaders to join OCF’s Latin Partnership Program Conexiones summit November 1 & 2, 2021 details here

Backbone Organization for Collective Impact

• R3V Dashboard published for transparency and continuous communication.
• Additional $70,000 grant for 2022 from OCF for R3V continued efforts to “to facilitate and coordinate collaboration across organizations involved in fire recovery in the interest of community transformation towards our values of efficiency, equity, and inclusion.“
• Conversation with Peter Buckley on Collective Impact organization best practices.
• Exploratory conversations on Economy working group with Marta Tarantsey of Business Oregon and Terrill Roper of SOREDI
• Rescheduled 10/20 CI meeting to 10/27. Agenda:
  • Greenway project updates and future opportunities update by Jim Pearman, FEMA
  • Attainable housing panel discussion – Jason Elzy, Carrie Borgen, EJ McManus (Lithia Motors), Harry Weiss (MURA).

As ever, please invite anyone in our community who you think should be included in our conversations.

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