The city council just passed Council President Sally Clark’s legislation authorizing $500,000 in general fund dollars to go toward one-on-one case management to homeless encampment Nickelsville’s current residents, with the goal of then shutting the camp down completely by September 1. The bill passed unanimously (Council Member Rasmussen is on vacation) with a few small amendments—one addressing a part of the bill’s recital that was pointed out by some (including Cienna last week) as sounding like other cities have entirely housed their homeless populations through similar outreach, which Clark said was not how she had intended the language to sound. The other main amendment came from Council Member Nick Licata, who added language requiring the ongoing collection of data specifying who the money is going to, who’s accepting which services, who is denying outreach and services, and who is staying on the land. Licata said he hopes to see weekly reports on the progress in his human services committee.

There was some debate, both in public testimony and then put forth as a possible amendment by Council Member Sally Bagshaw, of directing some of this money toward people living in the green belt areas surrounding Nickelsville, which now have their own satellite encampments. As one Highland Park neighborhood resident said at a council meeting a while ago, their neighborhood is no longer hosting just Nickelsville, but also “the suburbs of Nickelsville.” But council members, Clark especially, maintained that adding surrounding areas was a substantial change to the bill, and it was dropped. It may be addressed in separate legislation in the future, more than one council member hinted.

Now we get to see what nonprofits will be contracted to take on this task, and if Nickelsville residents can or will use the resources the city’s authorizing. There are a lot of different avenues toward longer-term housing, including other interim emergency shelter, and this legislation is somewhat broad in scope—it’s authorizing case management work with each Nickelsville resident. As Council President Clark said, “One size does not fit all,” and the solutions for one resident or family will be different from the next. “It’s not a small undertaking,” she said, but that “should not hold us back from trying.” Said Licata of the bill’s focus on funding case-management, “I think it gets to what we probably should have done earlier.”

I haven’t heard back from Clark’s office on if they have any particular nonprofits in mind, but for now, this bill is likely headed for the mayor’s signature, as he signaled when this idea was first announced that he’d go along with the council’s wishes for Nickelsville.