Families forced out of Executive Inn homeless shelter as city rejects contract

Tina Patterson, Homefull CEO, said Tuesday that since Homefull no longer has a contract with the city to operate the shelter, it had to cease operations immediately.

“Contracts don’t get renewed, that’s fine, but never in this manner,” Patterson said.

Springfield Mayor Rob Rue, who was one of the votes in favor of the Homefull contract, said the city has been pleased with Homefull’s services, holding them up “to the highest standard.”

OIC of Clark County Executive Director Mike Calabrese said Tuesday that all but eight to 10 families were placed at Sheltered Inc. shelters. He said those who weren’t are being put up in hotels. OIC can fund a hotel stay for a period of 60 days, he said.

He expressed disappointment in the way the shelter was immediately shut down.

The resolution that commission rejected late Monday afternoon would have approved up to $1,047,436 to Homefull for one year, with the option to renew for three more one-year periods. Commissioner did vote to pay the costs Homefull incurred from June 23 of this year to Monday.

The vote was split 3-2, with Commissioner Tracey Tackett leading the “no” votes, joined by Krystal Brown and assistant mayor Dave Estrop. Rue and Bridget Houston voted to approve the proposal.

“When I see the dollar amount of $1.7 million, I wonder is this the best use of our funds for one year on 22 rooms at the Executive Inn,” Tackett said at the meeting.

Last week the same resolution failed in an emergency vote, with Tackett being the sole vote against it, saying she needed more information on the efforts of the city and the county working together to address homelessness issues. With Rue absent from that first meeting, the proposal would have required all four other commissioners’ approval to pass.

The city called Monday’s special meeting for the sole purpose of addressing the proposed agreement with Homefull.

Commissioners several times expressed concerns that if the resolution were to fail, residents of the Executive Inn would be kicked out and put onto the street. Estrop said he decided to vote no to save the more than $1 million — though the funds come from a federal source — and that he was putting his faith in Sheltered Inc.

On Tuesday, Rue said families forced to leave the shelter were victims of a poor decision made by several commissioners. He expressed concerns for families with young children losing stability and moving from a non-congregate, or private, space to a congregate space without amenities like a lock on a private door or a bathroom for each family.

“These people deserve more than what they got today,” Rue said.

Families were packing up belongings, many using plastic trash bags to hold possessions such as clothing, diapers and hygiene items. There were numerous young children and infants.

Calabrese said during Monday’s meeting that his organization would prevent anyone from being forced into the street and help place Executive Inn residents in Sheltered Inc. shelters or in hotels. OIC is currently funding Springfield nonprofit Sheltered Inc.’s operations through October using Ohio Department of Development American Rescue Plan Act dollars on a per-head, per-family basis, he said.

OIC previously funded Sheltered Inc. through the Homeless Assistance Program with ARPA dollars, spending more than $607,000 to support more than 600 people at the nonprofit’s shelters and local hotels.

Those funds ran out and Sheltered Inc. faced the threat of closure of all its shelters by July 1 until OIC found the new funding.

Calabrese said that OIC has the funding to keep those experiencing homelessness off the street.

Whether or not OIC will be able to fund Sheltered Inc.’s operations to prevent it from closing in October had been in question, but City Manager Bryan Heck said during the meeting that Calabrese had indicated he was hopeful his organization could fund Sheltered Inc. through the end of the year.

Sheltered Inc. received additional funding that will help it maintain services beginning in January next year.

Rue said there had been concerns organizations in Springfield had not been referring people experiencing homelessness to Homefull, which would have housed more families if given the opportunity. The facility had eight to 12 unfilled rooms.

Rue said that the city does not have funding available from its general budget to contract with another organization to manage the facility; the funding would have to come from federal sources.

Rue said the city will communicate with the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development to see if it can have access to those same funds and award them to another agency.

Heck said Tuesday that Homefull had been operating the Executive Inn “out of good faith” since June 23 while the city reviewed its request for proposal and the vote was pending.

Sheltered Inc. initially had been considered to manage the Executive Inn, but the city pulled out after Clark County terminated a portion of a $700,000 contract with the nonprofit — of which about $495,000 was reimbursed. County officials said that move was due to “multiple violations” in regards to the reimbursement of funds following a state audit of the Clark County Department of Job and Family Services. Sheltered Inc. disputed the allegations.

Former Sheltered Inc. Executive Director Elaina Bradley, who led the organization at the time, said a city official told her organization it was ineligible to apply to manage the Executive Inn this time around.

Heck told commissioners that Bradley and others who repeated the allegation were referring to him, and denied doing so.

Rue said during the meeting its purpose was to address the management of the Executive Inn, not choose another provider for the location. He said this was not currently possible with Homefull being the organization to submit a request for proposal.

Several community and some commissioner statements — particularly those of Tackett — were met with applause and cheers. Other commissioner comments faced groans and short outbursts, to which Rue protested and asked audience members to wait until the public comment portion of the meeting to share their thoughts. He also objected to the way in which “commissioners” obtained information.

Calabrese asked commissioners during the meeting to table the issue and come back to it. He said he had seen the issue become “very divisive.”

Tackett became emotional during the meeting, saying that she was standing up for what community members asked of her. She said she respects her fellow commissioners and feels she was not disrespectful in her comments or how she conducted her investigation.

“I listen to the people when they come to me; I listen to you, all of it. I read all of the comments,” Tackett said through tears. “Because it’s your voices, is why I’m even here.”

The Clark County Board of Commissioners will vote Wednesday on terminating its contract with Homefull following the city’s decision.

Patterson said that although Homefull is officially out of Springfield, she knows Executive Inn employees won’t leave residents hanging. She said Homefull plans to absorb all employees it can into its Dayton and Columbus operations, though residents and former residents will no longer have the opportunity of working for the nonprofit like she’d hoped.

There is no set plan in place to address or solve the homelessness crisis in Springfield, Patterson said, something she had been eager to work on. She said Homefull’s mission is to end homelessness and that the emergency shelter was just a small part of it. She said she is disappointed that Homefull did not get to lead this effort in Springfield but she wishes Sheltered Inc. and the city luck.

“All those populations have very unique needs ... a system should have been developed that has the ability to expand and contract when it’s needed. It’s not about one organization or another,” Patterson said. “We were so excited about that opportunity.”