Stewardship Due Diligence

RantWoman has been reflecting on GREAT distress she caused Gratefully Valued Clerk trying to be true her Light about due diligence issues in a recent Business Meeting.

http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2017/07/diligence.html

RantWoman did not even realize Gratefully Valued Clerk had left the room until others reminded her. RantWoman is very sorry for distressing the Clerk. RantWoman is also even clearer about need to speak to what was on her mind.

Having a who can out-distress who contest does not seem on point, but RantWoman is clear to try again about the due diligence issue on her mind. RantWoman is clear to lay out her concerns but unclear whether they need immediate attention for example in context of a discussion about what is meant by stewardship.

The questions on RantWoman's mind were basically about funding sources and financial stability for a new tenant, a different homeless services agency than our Meeting has dealt with in the past. Since that Business Meeting, RantWoman has looked at the agency website where there is a big giant "we are having a fundraising campaign" message. Again, RantWoman has no opinion about whether that means we should be cautious about organizational capacity to pay regular rent, but RantWoman thinks we, the whole community not just Finance Committee should know what we are getting into.

Along comes business Meeting this month, with um, complexities meaning RantWoman was not present. After Meeting for Business, RantWoman asked Friend Treasurer whether anyone had asked about the due diligence issue mentioned above. Friend Treasurer said um, no, RantWoman was probably the only person besides members of Finance Committee even to look at the webpage in question.

If RantWoman were being completely insufferable she would ask wehther Finance Committee looked at the webpage before or after RantWoman called the point above to their attention. As it is, one does not need to be a "Trust nothing implicitly" fanatic to think it is reasonable for Finance Committee to be able to answer questions and for the answers to make sense. RantWoman thinks it is lousy stewardship that no one else is paying enough attention to ask some of the questions on RantWoman's mind. Hopefully RantWoman can try again more decorously. Or RantWoman will somehow manage to afflict someone else with her level of interest in the topic.

See, RantWoman has an odd scruple. Our Meeting's ministry to homeless people has progressed from allowing people to sleep under our eaves to the SHARE group that slept in our worship room to a shelter paying rent and with a different model of service than SHARE. Rent and a lease and an organization able to handle such are part of the steps forward. Still, RantWoman's scruple: RantWoman is uncomfortable relying on the continued existence of homelessness as a substantial income stream.

New tenant is a very reputable organization. Homelessness is unlikely to get solved anytime soon and better to aim for higher standards of service. Still RantWoman would like more data about progression from homelessness to stably housed. And RantWoman has heard others comment about loss of relationship SHARE participants had with Meeting. RantWoman has heard this and has no need to comment.

Stepping back though all organizations that serve the homeless are facing tough challenges from utter insufficiency of state and federal funding, from the increasing numbers of people on the street and a whole housing system under stress. Seattle is experiencing a region-wide housing affordability crisis. Numbers of homeless people are up. Numbers of unsheltered dying outdoors are up. The city conducts regular sweeps of homeless encampments which can be found everywhere.  Rents are skyrocketing. New construction is not keeping up with demand. And performance standards / funding flows sometimes depend on agencies being able to place people in housing that does not exist for millennial Amazonians with good salaries let alone for people with very low incomes where people with disabilities are also overrepresented.

SHARE, our former partner about ministry with homeless people has had organizational  and funding challenges. This is partly internal but partly also taking on an expensive and unwieldy operation of tent cities. RantWoman thinks housing crises are not likely to stabilize for quite awhile and fears that Operation Nightwatch too will reach some point of overwhelm. RantWoman wonders whether this possibility has crossed anyone else's mind and is sublimely uninterested in others' views that she is crazy for thinking of it.

At the same time, RantWoman is absolutely fine about charging the rent the market will bear. RantWoman is absolutely fine about making sure that the costs of serving the unhoused is reflected in program / project arrangements such as leasing of shelter space. But as long as we are going to derive important income from the current state of affairs, RantWoman's sense of integrity requires that we also   embrace larger efforts to address housing affordability in our region! Stay tuned because RantWoman also perfectly well recognizes stewardship issues inherent in the state of the real estate market in general.

RantWoman humbly posts this before the Campus Discernment Retreat partly because the thoughts are complex and would not necessarily all make it out of her mouth in worship-sharing. At the same time, RantWoman feels awkward about going on at length and crowding out other voices. Hold the problem in the Light, for one thing because RantWoman is SO clear about the points on her mind.