Resident Advisory Committee

Here is a brief factual overview of what I’ve experienced in terms of infrastructure/process as one of ten members of the Resident Advisory Committee (RAC) for the Skid Row Action Plan in 2022 and 2023. I’m not interpreting the facts or attaching any positive or negative value to the facts.

The Action Plan process began with the following Motion signed by the County Board of Supervisors on June 28, 2022 — SKID ROW ACTION PLAN: IMPROVING SERVICE TO SKID ROW RESIDENTS BY ADDRESSING HOMELESSNESS STEMMING FROM DECADES OF INSTITUTIONAL RACISM.

The Residents Advisory Committee was organized by facilitator/consultant Dr. Alisa Orduna and Housing for Health/Department of Health Services as part of creating the Skid Row Action Plan over the next six months. The RAC was introduced during the August 10th Skid Row Action Plan Kick Off meeting.

The RAC met the third Friday of each month. In addition, RAC members were expected to regularly attend one of the work groups who met monthly at different times. RAC members were allowed to attend all of the work groups if they wanted to while all other stakeholders were asked to only focus on one.

RAC members said they wanted the RAC to continue past the six month period of creating the Plan and so up till December that was a question mark. On December 12th, Supervisor Hilda Solis spoke at an Action Plan meeting held at the James Woods Center in Skid Row. A report with recommendations was handed out to everyone and here is one of the 22 recommendations: Sustain the Ad-Hoc Resident Advisory Committee to oversee the implementation for the Skid Row Action Plan.

We continued to meet monthly and in February we were told by Housing for Health that hopefully a contract would be finished with a California consultancy firm called ChangeWell Project where Alisa Orduna would return as a facilitator for the RAC meetings. It didn’t happen for March or April, but in May ChangeWell came on board with Alisa. In the meantime, two of the highlights for our regular monthly RAC meetings were having Zita Davis with the Mayor’s Office of Economic Development as a guest and I had a three hour long discussion with a Program Manager at SRO Housing.

We met ChangeWell for our May meeting. Along with Alisa, Rebecca Watson, one of the founders of ChangeWell Project, joined us. For May to December 2023, ChangeWell created Community Design Sessions to develop in greater detail the 22 recommendations as well as help facilitate/design other important elements like identifying funding.

Community Design Sessions were two days long — June 29/30, August 31/September 1, October 19/20, and December 7/8. Three work groups met the first day and three work groups met the second day. Instead of meeting monthly, the RAC now met the week before the Community Design Sessions, meaning June 23, August 25, October 13, December 1.

We could submit suggestions for our RAC meeting agenda and the agenda was set and the meetings facilitated by a combination of ChangeWell Project and Housing for Health.

One of the Community Design Sessions day focused on three work groups and the other day the other three work groups. We were expected to attend one of the two Community Design Session days and focus on a work group. We could also attend both days. In other words, as individual RAC members we could focus on a total of two work groups and as a Committee we made sure all the work groups were covered rather than three RAC members at one work group and no one at another.

December 7 and 8 will be different from the previous two day sessions. December 8 will be presentations of the work done by the six work groups and December 7 will be finalizing those presentations.

What form(s) the Residents Advisory Committee might take for 2024 is under discussion.