Vision in Action
Last November, we unveiled our new strategic vision: To end homelessness for veterans and families throughout Sonoma County. The strategy for accomplishing this vision is:
- The adoption of systemic best-practices and
- The formation of multi-agency collaborations focused on targeted problem solving and measurable results.
So how are we doing? As a key stakeholder in this vision, I want to regularly update you on our progress
Ending Homelessness for Families
North County: We are working with North Sonoma County Services (NSCS) to increase the effectiveness of 11 NSCS transitional homes for families in Healdsburg. Over two years, NSCS will increase its annual placement rates into permanent housing from 10% to 60%. We will share both Rent Right and Work: Ready with NSCS to give their existing programs a boost in effectiveness. Additionally, we will become NSCS’s fiscal agent, which will streamline the agency’s administrative functions and save their organization money in overhead.
Mentor Me: We are working with Mentor Me to recruit 80 mentors for at-risk youth throughout Sonoma County to prevent homelessness for the next generation. Thanks to the Petaluma Community Foundation’s efforts to build effective collaborations to serve at-risk kids, we have formed a partnership with Mentor Me to make sure that every at-risk child in our community has a mentor.
If you aren’t involved with Mentor Me, I encourage you to become involved!
New Family Center: Coupled with existing housing programs for families, we will reopen our Family Center will and increase our capacity to serve families by almost 200% — from 12 beds to 35 beds. Energized by a very generous grant from the Ernest L. and Ruth W. Finley Foundation, the Family Center represents the only emergency shelter for families south of Santa Rosa.
Ending Homelessness for Veterans
We were delighted to learn that the North Bay Veterans Recourse Center (NBVRC) was successful with their application for a large grant (2 million dollars over 3 years) from the Veteran's Administration to permanently house veterans in Sonoma County. As soon as we heard this news, we reached out to them to see how we could work together around our common vision of ending homelessness for veterans. Turns out that NBVRC has a great deal of resources to help veterans with housing, but they need the actual housing. We have four homes that we are currently using for transitional housing that we can convert into permanent housing for veterans. NBVRC would provide services and help veterans with rental subsidies until they are able to live independently.
Stay tuned for more developments as this planning unfolds!
Reducing Homelessness
West County: The County Community Development Commission (CDC) has contracted with us to help design and locate a shelter and housing program in the Guerneville area. Guerneville has long been a severely underserved area of Sonoma County and is home to hundreds of people struggling in homelessness. Its isolation makes it very difficult to connect people with homeless services elsewhere in Sonoma County.
Thank you for your continued confidence in COTS and your compassion for our homeless friends who are struggling. We could not do our work without your support and caring. While we have a ways to go, we’re beginning to see the fruits of the new way of thinking about how to address homelessness and I’m grateful to count you as a supporter!
Smiles,
Warren
“There are thousands of people out there in Sonoma County, like Warren, who are struggling to put their lives back together and many are giving up hope of ever having a permanent roof over their heads again. Without hope, people die. People like Warren need a system that works better to help them regain hope and begin the process of rebuilding their lives.” - Mike Johnson, CEO, COTS
Warren Theuret, Site Operations Manager for COTS, shares part of his story:
Ten years ago, I narrowly missed being the nameless subject of a three-inch story in the Press Democrat: “Transient Dies near Creek.” Walking back to my campsite on a cold, moonless night, I misjudged a slope, fell and hit my head on a concrete block. When I came to, I debated with myself whether to continue on to my sleeping bag or whether to walk to the hospital. Luckily, the blood flowing down my neck and into my eyes was annoying enough that I decided to walk to the hospital. The ER doctor told me I likely would have died if I hadn’t come in that night.
Now, while sitting in my snug apartment, I read the articles about homeless people dying by river and creek beds and I think how unlikely and how lucky my return was.
I became homeless in mid-life, after raising a family and working in the insurance industry. When my marriage and business plans failed at the same time, I threw up my hands and vowed to make my living as a carpenter. To no one’s surprise, thanks to my drug use, I failed. I wound up homeless and stayed that way for 10 long years.
I worked odd jobs, hopping from shelter to shelter, camp to camp. I’m a gregarious person, but the longer I remained homeless, the more I wanted to hide from people and the judgment I saw in their eyes. I’ll never forget once when I was working on a crew doing some yard work. The home-owner singled me out as the most hard-working in the bunch and asked me inside to fix his basement floor. Impressed by my work, he asked how to get in touch with me for future repairs. I had to tell him he could drive to a bridge, yell my name and give me ten minutes to appear. I saw by the look in his eyes that he would never do that, and that he was horrified that he’d let a homeless person inside his house. I remember shop-keepers who followed me through stores, mothers who shooed their kids past me in parks. I could not get steady work. I was giving up hope.
Then, in 2005, a friend told me about COTS’ Mary Isaak Center. Here was a place where I could be guaranteed a bunk—I wouldn’t have to take my chances every day. I could stay at the shelter during the day to meet with a case manager, see a nurse, look for jobs. Sobriety was a condition of residency, but with a guaranteed bed, relapse prevention classes and people who believed in me, sobriety was now possible. Staff members gave me information, support, and advocacy. Most importantly, they gave me the human connection and respect I needed to believe in myself again and rebuild my life. Then, COTS gave me a job, which turned into a career, which turned into a mission. Today, I am the Site Operations Manager for COTS.
Last winter, COTS held a memorial service to mourn those homeless souls who had died alone, out in the elements. This winter, we’ll do the same, and I’ll think again of how lucky I am.
Petaluma Health Center revamps medical clinic
Nurse Annie Nicol meets with a client at the newly refurbished health clinic at the Mary Isaak Center.
Dear Friends,
COTS supporters and community champions joined together on Wednesday, September 24th, to celebrate the recently revamped medical clinic at the Mary Isaak Center in Petaluma. Mayor David Glass and Annie Nicol, FNP, PA-C, cut a celebratory red ribbon to mark the beginning of the next chapter of the clinic. Initially supported by St. Joseph Healthcare, the clinic will now serve as a Petaluma Health Center (PHC) access point for homeless clients and residents at the Mary Isaak Center.
COTS' vision is to deliver superior results transforming lives across all of Sonoma County. Our vision is that collaboration, and adopting systemic best practices, will increase our collective impact and help solve our most vexing problems. This partnership with PHC is a terrific example of our vision in action.
We were honored and touched by the outpouring of support from social service leaders, city and county government, area chambers, and our greater community. Together, we provide truly integrated care to thousands of our community's homeless, making us all healthier and happier.
Thank you!
Mike Johnson, CEO
ACEs workshop features COTS staff
First 5 Sonoma County is sponsoring a workshop on Thursday, April 10, 2014 with Dr. Vincent J. Felitti, principal investigator in the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study (ACES). Dr. Felitti will share findings from the ACE Study and how practitioners can integrate the ACEs framework into their work with parents whose own history of ACEs is affecting their ability to successfully parent their own children.
Small group discussions will allow participants to learn from other local practitioners using ACEs about how to apply knowledge about ACEs in their own work. The workshop is presented at no charge and is intended for Sonoma County service providers including physicians, nurses, social workers, therapists, counselors, parent educators and others who work with young families that may be disproportionally affected by substance abuse, mental health, and domestic violence issues.
What do COTS kids need?
People often ask "What kinds of things do the COTS children and their families need?"
We encourage our supporters to provide items our families need to see them through their time in emergency shelter or transitional housing as they plan and prepare for more independent living.
Our primary need is for gift cards and certificates. These are a huge help to families who have very low incomes and need to make every dollar count. Parents can use these for diapers and baby care items, clothes and shoes (because kids grow so fast), school supplies, and necessary items from grocery and drug stores. Cards for gasoline and car maintenance are worth their weight in gold, as are bus passes! Books for children of all ages are greatly appreciated.
Our families live in single rooms. We appreciate that our supporters want to help make our families--especially the kids--happy during various holidays, but we request limiting toys and games. This is because the families have too many essential items to load into their small rooms. Candy and other sweets can also be a problem for kids who are on medication, have behavioral challenges, and may have few opportunities to visit a dentist.
Our parents attend classes that teach them about healthy eating, the need to spend quality time with their children (which includes reading time), and the importance of attending school every day. Having donations that help us help the parents in these areas boosts the likelihood of their success.
Here's a summary of what we can most use:
- Gift cards are wonderful always
- Gas Vouchers
- Taxi Vouchers
- Gently used rugs
- Full sheet sets
- Towels
- Dish towels
- A blender
- Movie tickets
- Larger women’s clothing
- Diapers size 5 and 6
- Pull ups 2t 3t 4t
- Baby girls clothes size 12 month - 6 years
- Swiffer floor cleaner
Please contact [email protected] if you'd like to help in this way. Many thanks!
What it's like to rent to our clients
Warren and the Site Service team make repairs to a floor at one of the COTS Integrity Houses. Please contact us at (707) 765-6530 x 110 for more information about partnering with COTS to provide housing to our clients.
Here's an excerpt from a letter from one of our rental partners
I knew of COTS when I lived in Petaluma, but didn’t have any experience with the organization. My then across-the-street neighbor volunteers at COTS. When she and her husband bought a second home and moved into it, they rented their first home as a COTS integrity house. I got to know my new neighbors there, and though we didn’t become best friends, they were pleasant people and good neighbors.
Due to a change in my personal life, I’ve been renting my house as a COTS integrity house since April, 2011. I called my former neighbor and discussed her experience renting her house through COTS. She praised the program and highlighted the benefits to the community, her tenants, and herself. It sounded like a win-win-win situation. So I called COTS and got the ball rolling. (I’ll add that this is the first time I have rented a property, so I didn’t know what to expect. I knew I could go through a property management business or I could rent it on my own. But COTS was my choice.)
Working with COTS has been a pleasure. Before renting, they did some work on it – painting, replacing a cracked window, fixing a hole in the wall, replacing some bathroom tile. I was most appreciative of this. COTS selects the tenants, and each tenant signs an agreement. In effect, each tenant promises to be on his or her best behavior to remain in the program. COTS manages the tenants and the property, and I get the rent. Regarding the rent, I’ve had only one late payment; the tenants are good about paying in full and on time. When one of the tenants was in the hospital, I contacted COTS to say that she could be late with the rent under the circumstances. But COTS cut me a check for the rent and later collected from her. COTS also has a maintenance team whom the tenants contact for minor repairs. COTS manages the program well, and I don’t have to worry. I am pleased with the way the program works.
That said, I’m not a micro-managing landlord. I meet the new tenants, and I’ve stopped by a couple of times (clearing my visit with COTS). I like all my tenants, and enjoy getting to know them a little better. (When I renewed my lease with COTS, one tenant was so grateful. He shook my hand, gave me a big hug, and said, “Thank you. You sure are helping me get back on my feet.” It was a heartfelt moment for both of us.)
I am still a friend with several of my old neighbors in Petaluma. We email, and I see them a few times a year. When I rented the house, I asked them to tell me of any problems with their “new neighbors.” I haven’t had any complaints. When I see my old neighbors, I always ask, “So, how are your neighbors?” Meaning, of course, my tenants. They respond, “They’re fine” or “No problems.” From what I know, everyone is getting along.
I think the COTS program is a very good one. It is well managed, and as I said above, it is a win-win-win situation. I’m proud to be a part of it.
Another landlord says, "I have had no neighbors complain to us about the tenants, nor have I had any trouble with them.
If you or someone you know would like to help COTS in this way, please send us a message or make a comment below and we can talk about it!
Throw in a towel for COTS
We consume on average one towel per individual staying at the Mary Isaak Center (that is 500 towels each year.) Not bad when you consider that the towels are used for 100+ showers per day and are washed with bleach to disinfect. When the towels reach the end of their life, they are cut up for rags and spend some more quality time at the shelter cleaning various nooks and crannies around the facility.
Savings makes a difference
Like so many families that come to COTS, Tom, Mary and seven year old twins Amy and Jo, needed a lot of help. Their lives had been devastated by the loss of Tom’s job, and the subsequent loss of their home.
We helped them when their van broke down, so Tom could look for a new job.
Our Kids First program provided the twins new school clothes, backpacks and school supplies. COTS helped Amy and Jo feel great about their first day at school.
Our mandatory savings program helped Mary and Tom save enough for their rent through the first month, deposits on their utilities, Mary’s care payment, Tom’s student loan, and gas for the cars and food for the first month. We taught them how to make budgets that work and how to manage their money.
Our workshops helped Mary come to terms with abuse she’d suffered as a little girl. For the first time in her life she really opened up and talked about it, and her bad dreams about it have stopped.
Now the family has their own home again, their bills are getting paid and they are starting to pay off their debts. Mary is succeeding in a new telemarketing job and they just saved $1,500 to pay for a car repair. Their daughters’ birthdays are coming up and for the first time in a long time they will be able to purchase gifts for their children and have special birthday celebrations for them.
When grace lifts up homeless
First published in the Petaluma Argus Courier on June 13, 2013.
“The danger of homelessness,” says Mike Johnson, “is that it’s so much about the loss of hope, dignity, respect and self-respect: that connection with your community, family and friends. When that is severed, it leaves people adrift.”
Johnson, 51, who works with COTS – the Committee on the Shelterless – speaks from personal experience.
After a too-early marriage collapsed, “I started using alcohol to dull the pain … Eventually it got out of control and I slowly lost one thing at a time.”
In the summer of 1991, he found himself in Petaluma. He had skills – graphic artist, architectural illustration and a variety of construction work – but his truck was impounded and he’d lost his last place to stay. “I wound up on the street with a sleeping bag and a small suitcase, no money in my pocket, no nothing.
“The idea of homelessness was a complete abstraction. It was this feeling of being completely lost, outside humanity. You feel shame. You don’t want to admit your life has come to this so you suffer in isolation. It happens to a lot of people.”
Johnson had been in Petaluma only two weeks. He knew nothing about the city. “There are tricks to surviving but I didn’t know any: where to find food, how to access any resource – not that there were many in those days.
“I wandered around, not eating, for about five days. I was seriously contemplating ending my life. I didn’t want to starve to death and didn’t care much if I lived or not.”
On the morning of the fifth day, Johnson was sitting in Walnut Park, head in hands, when a man sat down beside him. “I’ve watched you wander around here for days,” he said. “You look like you’re new in town. Did you know there was a soup kitchen at the end of D Street?”
“I’d heard about soup kitchens,” Johnson says, “but it was just a phrase. “But the word ‘soup’ sounded really good to me and the word ‘kitchen’ didn’t sound bad. I had nothing to lose.”
He recalls that first time at The Kitchen, run then by the St. Vincent de Paul Society. “Imagine starving and walking in a door, smelling roasted turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy; hearing silverware tinkling, people laughing and seeing lots and lots of others just like me.”
He pauses. “It’s hard to describe the gratitude one feels when their life is being saved. I hadn’t even eaten, yet in that moment I knew I could go on living. There was a feeling of grace in my heart and mind, that somebody must be looking out for me. It seems almost fateful, as if there was a purpose in that meeting in the park.”
In those days, Johnson says, the only homeless services available in Petaluma were the daily noon meal and, in the winter, shelter at the armory. “For folks like me, on the street, there was no clear path to work your way out of the situation. We had a way to stay alive and out of the elements during the worst times of the year.” But that was it. “No matter how hard we worked, we were stuck in this quagmire of homelessness.” Without a place to shower, clean clothes, telephone and alarm clock – things most of us take for granted – there was no way to show an employer one were stable and would show up. “It’s like rolling a rock uphill to hold a job while being homeless.”
In 1996, COTS took over operation of The Kitchen and opened, behind it, the Opportunity Center, giving homeless persons a place to shower and clean up, a base to try and get work, start putting the pieces back together.
COTS was formed in 1988 by Petalumans Mary Isaak and Laure Reichek out of their concern for local homeless persons. “I was extremely lucky,” Johnson says, “to have come in contact with COTS and The Kitchen. Looking back at how my life and the life of the organization converged, it was one of those things that make you think there was some grace at work.”
But, continues Johnson, as important as the Opportunity Center was at meeting basic needs, “it wasn’t nearly enough. It gave people a way to be dignified in homelessness, but that was it.”
In 1998, Johnson “started to feel a fork in the road was approaching.” One was to continue on the path he was on and wind up dying on the streets. “I’d seen that happen over and over with people who’d given up. I didn’t want to be one of them: I knew there was more to me than that.” His other choice was to “get my act cleaned up, go back to work and start the long process of rebuilding. Alcohol had already taken away what was my life, now it was affecting my mind and body.”
What happened was a connection with Michelle Baynes, manager of the Opportunity Center. “She saw I was perhaps different in a lot of ways from others who were there. I had a pretty good education, good training and skills, a foundation to build on. She was hugely supportive of me: here was a guy who, with a little bit of help could make it work, go places.”
Baynes gave him the job of cook in the winter shelter. “I made a firm commitment to myself,” he says. “I had two goals: to never touch alcohol again and to keep the job I had, no matter what. To this day I’ve kept both.”
The following year, Baynes made him coordinator of the winter shelter program. “It was a great experience, learning how things are run, how to manage fifty-odd people. Here I was, helping folks like me stay alive, in a position to encourage them to do the same thing I was trying to do. It was a great feeling to have woken up. Up until then it didn’t dawn on me there was so much need for people to help other people. I thought everyone was out for themselves. I discovered what was meaningful was sharing yourself and what you had to give with others and helping them make positive changes in their lives, awakening that sense of compassion and empathy for folks like me. I got tremendous rewards from seeing little things I did make changes in people’s lives. It was an epiphany, like waking up a new person, and discovering you are truly human.”
When Baynes needed a leave of absence, John Records and John Sedlander, who were running COTS gave Johnson her job. “I wanted it badly,” Johnson says. “There was a real opportunity here – not just to give people showers, telephones, clean clothes and a place to hang out, but to help them with goals for a better life.”
He and Sedlander talked about programs, starting small, with case managers going over goals, helping people plan, get identification, hook into health care, get a driver’s license.
“It was the beginnings of what we now call the Work Right program. And during that period, a larger vision began to take form – this place.” Johnson gestures around at the three-story Mary Isaak Center on Hopper Street, a multi-service center open 24 hours a day, offering people long-term stability. The center became reality in 2004.
Johnson and Sedlander noticed, during the winter, when shelter was available, people stayed during the day, working with case managers, taking part in programs, sometimes stopping or reducing alcohol use and beginning to have hope for a brighter future. “There was this sense they were engaged with us, participating.” Then the shelter would close “and they’d be back on the street, surviving in crisis mode. The old pressures would come into play and a lot of times they’d lose that momentum, the hope and sense of progress.”
A place was needed where people were surrounded by support and others like them, also trying to make progress, where services wrapped around to give them everything they needed to rebuild their lives. They could stay six months, get intensive services, then exit to a transitional living program or their own home or apartment.
“It worked better than we could have imagined,” Johnson says. “Those early days were transformative for me. I found I had great empathy and people skills. John Sedlander trained me in budgets, facilities, maintenance, you name it. I discovered an affinity for management and was on the ground floor of developing cool stuff to help people.”
Johnson was part of the team that turned the Mary Isaak Center from dream to reality and, though family programs were still a large part of what COTS was about, he, Records and Sedlander worked on program development centered around “homeless adults like me.”
Johnson offers statistics. In 2003, the last year the Opportunity Center programs ran, they saw 629 individuals. Fourteen people went into transitional housing, eight into permanent housing.
The first year the Mary Isaak Center opened, 21 people went into transitional housing and 49 into permanent homes. “While it was a huge increase initially,” Johnson says, “it was still about 10 percent overall.” Now 30 percent of people leaving the Mary Isaak Center go into permanent housing, and 77 percent of families and adults leaving transitional housing are permanently housed.
“We know we have the right model. We’ve exceeded by 100 percent the national average for the work we’re doing here.”
Johnson was put in charge of the Mary Isaak Center when it opened. Then he became the center’s director, and after that the Assistant Executive Director in Charge of Programs. He’s spent his last three years as Chief Operations Officer. In July, he takes over John Records’ position as Chief Executive Officer.
“ The path to where I am now,” he says, “started long before I knew what was happening. John [Records] had plans for me long before I had plans for me.
“It’s been a fabulous dream to put it together. But we never stop trying to be better. Good enough is never good enough when it comes to helping people become housed again. If it’s anything less than 100 percent, it’s not good enough.”
Leadership Transition
PETALUMA, CA (May 16, 2013) – COTS (Committee on the Shelterless) has announced a change in leadership with Executive Director, John Records, transitioning from the role of managing the agency he has guided for 21 years. Mike Johnson, the agency’s Chief Operating Officer will assume the new title of Chief Executive Officer effective July 1.
Records has joined the COTS Board of Directors and will continue in an advisory role for fundraising, development, and program innovation to further benefit COTS and the local community. Records will also continue his work to advance COTS as a national leader in homeless prevention and support. This consists of research and collaboration with key academics and influencers in the field including an ongoing partnership with the University of Albany, New York.
This strategic succession plan has been meticulously planned over several years and coincides with the 25th anniversary of COTS. “I feel great satisfaction having guided COTS to its 25th successful year including gaining national recognition for our work to transform lives,” said Records. “I am proud to be part of the team that has built a strong foundation for COTS, including mentoring my successor, to ensure that we continue to provide award-winning services to our community for many years to come.”
Johnson has been with COTS since 1999 and became COO in 2010. He currently manages the day-to-day operations of the agency. Among his accomplishments are creation of the COTS Integrity House program to provide permanent, independent housing for adults, development of the Kids First family shelter and ongoing initiatives to provide housing for veterans.
“Our goal at COTS is to continue to provide the outstanding services and programs that have effectively and successfully transformed the lives of thousands of people in our community,” said Johnson. “The agency’s number one priority will be support for our “Invest in Miracles” development strategy to sustain the long-term health of our programs for homeless families and adults.”
Records joins an esteemed group of COTS Board members, including Board President, Chris Ranney of Ranney Capital Management in Petaluma. “COTS is a beloved part of our community because it is a compassionate nonprofit doing amazing things for people in need,” said Ranney. “It is a good investment for the community because it is such a well-managed organization, and we have every confidence in Mike Johnson to lead COTS well into the next 25 years.”
