OlyCAP’s new housing director brings change to Caswell-Brown and beyond
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OlyCAP signed a lease with the county for the Caswell-Brown Village two years ago this August. Photo by Derek Firenze [/caption]
Editor’s note:
This article walks a fine line between news and an op-ed written by a Beacon staffer. We live in a small town; I’m a former employee of the Rose Theatre, Centrum, and the Port Townsend School of the Arts, and it simply wouldn’t be possible for us not to cover subjects that we have personal experience with.
We will always do our best to disclose when we have a personal investment in a subject. In the following article, Derek Firenze gives an overview of his involvement with affordable housing (and his job with the Housing Solutions Network) while also giving a great deal of information about Caswell-Brown.
I’ve chosen to include this as news, but I feel like it wouldn’t be doing my due diligence to not acknowledge the complicated nature of reporting in a small community.
Working for a local housing nonprofit while still writing stories about the local housing crisis and the other nonprofits trying to solve it comes with myriad landmines of conflicts of interest. I do my best to cover these stories fairly because with each new angle I’ve seen this problem from, I’m more convinced that the housing crisis facing our community, our nation, and our planet requires searching not only far and wide but with a wide-open heart.
One of my first assignments as a reporter was covering the Under the Tent events hosted by the Housing Solutions Network (HSN) in the summer of 2022. Less than two years later, I began working as a Network Weaver for HSN.
There’s another housing story that I refer to as what inspired me to stick with journalism. In November of 2022, I wrote a story about another housing nonprofit’s struggle to find volunteers for it’s building project.
Community Build was working to complete the tiny shelters now housing residents of the Caswell-Brown Village on Mill Road before winter hit full force. The weather had already turned cold outside New Life Church, where the shelters were still being built, so Community Build reached out to see if I could get them some coverage.
A week after my story came out with their call for help, one of the volunteers approached me in the grocery store and told me they now had so many more people helping that they struggled to find something for everyone to do. The power of the press helped community members finish those shelters before the snow.
When the shelters arrived at Caswell-Brown, I was there taking photos. Not long after, I interviewed Janet Dizick, who was one of the first to receive keys. Dizick still lives in that 8’x12' wood shelter, but her two-year contract with OlyCAP’s transitional housing program is nearing its end.
Meeting new needs
Viola Ware, the new housing director for the Olympic Community Action Program, better known as OlyCAP, expressed that there was good and bad news with the contracts for those initial residents when we recently sat down for an interview.
“More than likely, we’ll extend with people there,” Ware said, only after she noted that residents had not received the help they needed to transition into permanent housing.
“To be fair, it would have to be a year,” Ware added regarding the length of the extension.
Long before she arrived, OlyCAP sought the aid of the Foundational Community Supports (FCS) program to help house Caswell-Brown residents. Utilizing Apple Health benefits with Medicaid-reimbursed funds, FCS offers supportive housing and employment to people with complex needs.
“You’re paired up with a case manager who helps you locate housing, helps you get into housing, and then helps you stabilize within your housing,” Ware explained. “It’s where the paradigm was headed, to have housing considered a part of somebody’s health.”
This program looked so promising to many people that applications far exceeded the available resources.
“Those caseloads got overloaded, and they all froze,” Ware said.
It’s a problem frequently expressed by housing advocates regarding funding: “It’s never enough,” Ware said.\
Care-full management
Despite these setbacks, Ware came into her new position at OlyCAP in June hopeful and quickly began implementing changes at Caswell-Brown.
“It doesn’t just come with an extension and good luck,” Ware said. “We are going to come in, and there will be case management.”
OlyCAP recently got a permit for a new building on-site at Caswell-Brown to create a services office.
“The hope is that we would have a housing case manager there on a regular basis,” Ware said.
Not only does Ware plan to assist residents in their search for a more permanent home, she’s already hired a landlord liaison to help secure it.
“One of the biggest barriers people have is the ability to advocate for themselves,” Ware said. “That’s where I’m bringing in the landlord liaison to help incentivize landlords, and also educate landlords in some of those financial incentives that exist that are provided by the Department of Commerce.”
“There is no way we’re going to come close to resolving any kind of a housing crisis without landlords. I think it’s really important for people to understand that we don’t want people to sacrifice their livelihood,” Ware said.
She’s also helped form a new resident’s council for Caswell-Brown, which she plans to consult on decisions regarding everything from hiring staff to budget priorities.
Speaking directly and respectfully to those in need has been Ware’s philosophy from the beginning of her career in social work.
“My introduction was always, ‘Where do you want to be? I’ll help you get there,’” Ware said as she told me her history of helping people. Ware started at a job assisting prisoners in a work-release program in 1994 before working her way up to operations director at Serenity House, the leading housing organization in Clallam County.
More with less
Ware brings much-needed positivity to a dire situation. As previously reported, OlyCAP struggled with turnover within the housing department, the resignation of Cherish Cronmiller as executive director in January, and a long vacancy in the position of chief financial officer.
Ware joined in June and, within a month, was interviewing her new boss, Holly Morgan, for the position of executive director. With both the housing director and executive director positions filled, OlyCAP has been able to expand services, moving from appointment-only at their Port Townsend office to allowing walk-ins Monday through Thursday from 9 am to 3 pm.
Since many people who need their services may not have phones or internet, this option is crucial and has been long underserved. At the peak of the organization’s funding during the pandemic, Cronmiller only ever offered Fridays for walk-in availability, and it was later cut as funding faded.
The new leadership is proving more can be done with less.
“I love the ability to be creative within the bounds of my funding. Give me room to find ways to meet the need, and I’ll do it,” Ware said.
That attitude is all too important as one massive hurdle remains for Caswell-Brown. The long-awaited Phase 3 building project, which is planned to include an emergency shelter and permanent supportive housing complex at the site, still has a $2.5 million funding gap.
“We’ll figure it out one way or the other. We’re getting another estimate on the construction, and hopefully that will bring it down a little bit,” Ware said.
The previous hope was that federal funding could be found through U.S. Representative Derek Kilmer’s office, but Ware said that hasn’t materialized.
“We are looking for other funds actively. I’ve got other meetings set up,” Ware said. “We’re also on [U.S. Senator Maria] Cantwell’s schedule for support, so we’re going to be looking there and see what happens.”
Challenges still to come
The construction of an emergency shelter remains one of the biggest problems facing our community, as the current emergency shelter only has one year left in its contract with the American Legion Hall in Port Townsend.
“Regardless of where the Caswell-Brown Village is at July 1st of next year, there absolutely will not be a shelter at the Legion; we will not entertain any talks or anything,” Legion Commander Wyatt Ranson said to me during a conversation about the latest contract to host the shelter in their basement.
An end to the contract has been rumored for years as the Legion stretched far beyond their initial offer. The Community Outreach Association Shelter Team, or COAST, originally signed a contract for the shelter with the American Legion in 2006, intending to be a temporary agreement during winter seasons only. Soon after, OlyCAP took over managing the shelter. They began offering it as a year-round service in 2017.
Despite a complex relationship with the shelter, members of the Legion generously continued to approve the contract.
This year, however, that changed. OlyCAP’s contract with the Legion ended in June, and Bayside Housing & Services took over on July 1, 2024. Even if funding is found for Caswell-Brown’s Phase 3 emergency shelter, the chances of completing construction by next summer are slim.
Jefferson County Commissioner Greg Brotherton said in a recent Shelter Coalition Meeting that if the money does materialize, he will come “hat in hand” to the Legion, asking them for hopefully just six more months to complete construction.
Personally, I’m worried. Luckily, this community has a lot of people with a lot of hope and experience who are working hard to try and solve this problem.
