ABOUT RHONDA WEATHERS:
Rhonda Weathers has served as the Executive Director of SOS Community Services since 2013. She oversees programs that prevent and end homelessness for more than 7,000 people in Washtenaw County each year. During her tenure, she has implemented a number of exciting initiatives including the reintroduction and expansion of SOS’s Parents as Teachers program, which promotes learning and development for at-risk children. She designed an innovative new program to prevent eviction and homelessness for local Section 8 tenants. She serves on the Boards of the Washtenaw Housing Alliance, the Washtenaw County Continuum of Care, and Washtenaw Alliance for Children and Youth. In previous positions, she has overseen the provision of domestic violence and sexual assault services as the Executive Director of Oasis Family Resource Center in Cadillac, Michigan. She also has worked as a psychologist, therapist, and counselor. She earned a master’s degree in clinical psychology from Eastern Michigan University.
RESOURCES:
SOS Community Services (SOSCS)
TRANSCRIPTION:
Decky Alexander: This is 89.1 WEMU, and welcome to our weekly conversation on equity and opportunity in Washtenaw County and in our community. I'm your host, Decky Alexander, and I'm honored still and always to welcome you to this week's edition of Washtenaw United. When we talk about community wellness, housing isn't just a basic necessity, it's the most fundamental of necessities. All other attributes--health, safety, and human dignity--are wrapped in and around shelter. Securing a roof over someone's head is the most critical social service and intervention we as humans can make. So, what happens when demand or need outweighs not just our capacity, but our inventory? Where do people go? Where do they live? Can they live? Across Washtenaw County, skyrocketing rents and inflation are driving unprecedented demand for emergency support. Joining us today on Washtenaw United is Rhonda Weathers, the Executive Director of SOS Community Services. For over 50 years, SOS has served as a vital buffer against crisis, partnering with families and other community partners to pave a way for housing stability. Today on the show, we will trace SOS's roots, examine what happens when and if these social safety nets fracture, and look at why programs like Rapid Re-Housing are vital to the future of Washtenaw County. So, hi Rhonda! Always, always good to connect with you! Welcome to the show!
Rhonda Weathers: Thank you so much, Decky! It's so good to speak with you and to be on the WEMU show again! Just so proud to be a part of Washtenaw United!
Decky Alexander: Well, we know you have been part of the show for quite a while, so I'm honored to bring you back. One of the things I've stated before is occasionally when I'm emceeing some EMU event or happening, I'll often ask this trivia question. What notable nonprofit community organization started as a student-run crisis line in 1970 or so? And sometimes you get some crackerjack in the crowd that knows the answer, which, is of course, SOS. It started here at EMU as a student run crisis line 55 years ago. So, Rhonda, how to you has that original grassroots spirit of student empathy evolved over the decades into the agency that you run today?
Rhonda Weathers: Oh, it permeates everything! As you said, we did start out of EMU, and it started in a very genuine effort to just help some of the students there help other students. And so, they developed a set of values, which we still use today, that are all about self-determination. It's all about diversity. It's about just helping our neighbors. And that was reflected in the first services that were offered by SOS, and it continues to this day.
Decky Alexander: That's beautiful! I didn't know that the values that were initiated still serve as the foundation for today's SOS.
Rhonda Weathers: Oh yeah!
Decky Alexander: That is why it's really rooted probably and stands strong. So, in an earlier Washtenaw United, Rhonda, I spoke with Versell of the Shelter Association, where I framed housing as the single most prescription for stability. SOS's numbers show thousands of families and over 800 children reached out for help or shelter just last year alone. So, if we look beyond the statistics and at the real people behind them, Rhonda, what actually happens to a local family if SOS isn't there to fill that essential prescription? I mean, when rent jumps or a job is lost or crisis, what happens?
Rhonda Weathers: Well, unfortunately, many of our most vulnerable neighbors will start falling through the cracks and end up facing housing instability and perhaps even becoming unhoused in the future. So, it's critical that we catch people upstream from those events and that we put in place services and programs that are designed to help them avoid becoming unhoused. And many of the services that SOS offers--in fact, I think, nearly all of them--are all focused on helping people maintain housing stability. So, even our food program, we recognize that every household has a budget. We all have a budget for our household. And that budget includes food, it includes rent, it includes utilities, it includes just necessary personal items. And if somebody can access a food pantry and save the money that they otherwise would have spent going to a store, then they can apply that to their rent. They can apply to the other necessary things that maybe aren't covered by some other means. So, we believe that all of our services are really geared toward helping families maintain housing stability, even our children's services. We work with families to help them meet the needs of their children, so that behavior doesn't become an issue or lack of resource doesn't become an issue. And because of that stability that's created for the children, then the family can maintain some housing stability as well.
Decky Alexander: You are listening to Washtenaw United at 89.1 WEMU. I'm Decky Alexander, and today, we are having a conversation with Rhonda Weathers, Executive Director of SOS Community Services, whose mission is to promote housing stability and family self-sufficiency through collaboration, care, and respect. Rhonda, there is currently a push at the federal level to phase out Rapid Re-Housing in favor of older traditional housing models. Yet, SOS has achieved a 95% success rate in helping families maintain permanent housing through Rapid Re-Housing. So, can you tell us what is Rapid Re-Housing and why it is so vital for the families you serve? And what would losing federal support mean for us here in Washtenaw County?
Rhonda Weathers: Well, Rapid Re-Housing came about really back in about 2012. 2011-2012 is when it started. And it actually came out of HUD, and it was the best practice model that they wanted communities to adopt. And so, at the time, SOS was operating a transitional supportive housing model, and we were only serving 16 families per year in that model because it's a very expensive model to run. And Rapid Re-Housing came along, and it moved people into permanency faster--transitional supportive housing average of two years in Rapid Re-Housing average of one year. And it was also much less expensive to run. So, the cost of moving somebody through transitional supportive housing into permanency he is about $22,000. And the cost of moving somebody through Rapid Re-Housing into permanency. Is about $6,000, so a huge difference. And because the cost was lower, we were able to help many more households into permanency through Rapid Re-Housing. So, in Rapid Re-Housing, people get referred into the program. They have a case manager who works with them to identify a housing unit and then helps them lease that unit up. And they hold the lease with the landlord, so the agency is not involved in that, other than helping arrange it. And then, we provide case management services to help them increase their income, to help make sure the kids are in school, to make sure that we're addressing any other issues that might be occurring in the family, particularly those that contribute to housing instability. So, through the course of the year, our effort is to help meet the family needs, as well as increase their income, so that at the end of 12 months, they're able to take over 100% of their rental costs. And we've had great success in doing that. People move fairly quickly through that program. And if it were to be lost in the community, it would be a huge loss. We currently are serving about 116 families in that program. And we're almost to the end of our grant year, but we far exceeded the number that we were supposed to serve because we've been doing this for about 10 years now, actually more than 10 years now. So, we are very adept at the program model and moving people through it, so that they can reach permanency while also getting their needs met. So, the loss of that program would be huge for the community. In fact, we're doing some efforts to try and help the community understand that we need to retain this model of service in the community, whether it's funded by HUD, whether it's funded by some other forum, whether it's partial donations or county government, whatever is is needed. But we really believe it needs to remain in the community.
Decky Alexander: Rhonda, in some ways the ideal would be to not have an SOS in a community, and that all people would have access to safe and secure shelter. But that, as you just noted, is completely not the reality, and certainly not the reality here in Ypsilanti right now. So, in your professional opinion, what, to you, are the causes that have led to this significant increase in people being unhoused, lacking shelter and having a lack of housing stability here? What are your thoughts there?
Rhonda Weathers: You know, I think it's a real combination of factors that are coming into play at this time. One of them is, in our community week, we really don't have enough affordable housing available, and that's a function of being in the two universities in the same geographical area, so we have a lot of student population that comes in. And because of financial aid and other things, they're able to pay a higher rate for housing. And therefore, landlords aren't motivated to offer lower-cost housing. So, that's part of it. It's there's just not enough affordable housing in the area. The other thing that's going on is that, for the last nearly two years, we've been seeing increased prices as everybody has, but it's hitting our most vulnerable citizens the hardest and particularly children. The reality is that prices of various things have gone up almost exponentially in the last a little bit in the past couple years. Our prices of gas just locally have gone out tremendously. Everybody's feeling that crunch. But as SNAP benefits have been cut, 145,000 people in the state of Michigan have lost SNAP benefits since the new administration came into into power. We've also had a loss of other benefits. Medicare cuts are going to hit next year, and that's going to dramatically impact the people that we serve. So, between all of the financial stuff, the inflation rate has gone up. When COVID hit, everybody kind of hunkered down. There was extra funding coming from the federal government to help with rental arrearages, utility arrearages, to help keep people housed in the middle of a pandemic. So, we thought that when the pandemic was easing up and we were moving out of it, that things would be much better. But the reality was that then inflation hit, and the government subsidies and the help went away. At the same time, that cost increased dramatically. And so, people were left with less income, more cost, and no assistance coming from the federal government anymore. So, that created this perfect storm of people just not being able to maintain their rental payments. And so, they fell into homelessness.
Decky Alexander: It feels a little bit more like a tsunami of sorts and more than a storm in this moment. So, I want to end on a little hope, Rhonda. So, before leading SOS, you spent years working directly with individuals as a therapist. So, when you reflect on the thousands of families who have come through your doors, is there a family or a person's journey, one moment of transformation, that pops into your mind when you need to remind yourself the power of this work?
Rhonda Weathers: Oh yeah! You know, we had a person come in who was experiencing homelessness as a young mother with two children, and she had fallen into homelessness through a series of events related to loss of a job, related to some health problems with one of the children, which necessitated that she stay home with the child. And all of that led to decreased income which led to their homelessness. She was very motivated, very driven, and she stabilized through our shelter program. And from shelter, she moved on to our Rapid Re-Housing program. And then, she had a year in Rapid Re-Housing to really stabilize and get her feet underneath her. She took herself back to school and earned her bachelor's degree in social work after she had left the program, because it took several years. But we stayed in touch with her. And she went on to actually enter into Habitat for Humanities program and worked on getting a home through that program. And last we had contact with her, she was doing wonderfully in her home. And she had actually gone on to get her master's degree in social work and was now working as a professional in the field. And her kids were thriving and doing wonderful. So, it's stories like that that really help to keep us going and realize that, "Oh! All these little programs that we're doing do make a difference!" And they do uplift people and allow them the chance to find their footing again and take off. And she certainly took off.
Decky Alexander: SOS Community Services for 55-plus years has been central to those sharing our streets and sidewalks, so they have a safe place to rest, reflect, live and thrive. To learn more about the SOS Community Services, swing over to our website at WEMU.org. Washtenaw United is produced in partnership with the United Way for Southeastern Michigan, and you can hear it right here every Monday. I'm Decky Alexander, and this is your community NPR station, 89.1 WEMU Ypsilanti.
WEMU has partnered with the United Way for Southeastern Michigan to explore the people, organizations, and institutions creating opportunity and equity in our area. And, as part of this ongoing series, you’ll also hear from the people benefiting and growing from the investments being made in the areas of our community where there are gaps in available services. It is a community voice. It is 'Washtenaw United.'
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