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Topics and Issues for Providers Serving People Experiencing Homelessness
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November 8, 2022
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Today is Election Day and polls are open until 8:00 p.m.! Minnesota allows voters to register on Election Day, so anyone who has not registered yet can still register and vote today. You can register with location of where you sleep as your address including a shelter, a friend or family member’s house, or outside. The Minnesota Secretary of State’s Office Election Day Registration FAQ outlines the options for registering on election day. The Minnesota Secretary of State’s Office has information on options for people facing homelessness in this flyer and online.
Voter is staying at a shelter or other residential setting:
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If a voter lives in a residential facility, a staff person can go to the polling place with the voter to confirm the address. This is known as ‘vouching.’
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A staff person can vouch for all eligible voters living in the facility.
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A staff person must prove employment with election officials by:
Voter is staying outdoors:
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If the voter did not register before election day and does not have any documents proving that they live at the specific outdoor location, then the voter would need to bring a registered voter from the precinct with them to the polling place to sign an oath confirming the voter’s address (‘vouching’). One person can vouch for up to eight people.
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Outreach staff are not able to ‘vouch’ for encampment residents. It must be a registered voter from the precinct.
Please call the Secretary of State’s voter hotline – 1-800-600-8683 with any specific questions or concerns. Visit the Minnesota Office of Secretary of State Office website to find more information specific to people experiencing homelessness, locate your polling place, and view your sample ballot.
The Interagency Council on Homelessness continues to work in phases to complete a strategic plan focused on achieving housing, health and racial justice for people experiencing homelessness. In June, we completed Phase 1 with the Council’s commitment to the justice definition. As you may remember, the justice definition was developed over several months this spring through the process led by Rainbow Research and their team of consultants with lived experience of homelessness. This definition will serve as the basis for driving the Council’s work on preventing and ending homelessness. Check out the definition here!
Phase 2 is focused on identifying a set of results that moves our work to prevent and end homelessness towards justice as well as developing the specific strategies to achieve those results. These three pieces form the framework of our next plan:
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Justice Definition: the foundation for all our work and serves as the North Star for the Council’s next strategic plan.
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Results: The big, bold outcomes that will drive movement towards justice. No one agency will be responsible for any of these results. Each of them will require interagency commitment and collaboration.
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Strategies: The specific, measurable commitments by agencies and interagency teams to achieve the results.
The ten consultants with lived expertise and MICH staff have worked together to synthesize all of feedback we have received into five bold results. The process to develop these results has been collaborative and iterative. We utilized the consultants’ expertise as well as what we have heard from many partners during the justice workgroup discussions and community conversations in Phase 1, participant feedback from the weekly webinars, and multiple agencies’ staff expertise. The process generated many ideas and has been synthesized five proposed results that the consultants will walk through on the webinar tomorrow.
Join the weekly provider webinar tomorrow from 1:00- 2:00 p.m. for a discussion on the results and to share your thoughts with the team. If you have any questions about your registration, please email elizabeth.dressel@state.mn.us.
The Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) is looking to recruit about 100 community members to serve as community reviewers to review competitive workforce development grant programs during the fall/winter of 2022-2023. DEED will have multiple requests for proposals (RFPs) for state-funded workforce development, training, youth development, and support services programs for adults and youth. If you are interested in workforce development and want to share your perspective, apply to be a community reviewer. Applications are due November 10 at 11:45 p.m.
Individuals will need to dedicate 20-40 hours to read grant proposals over the course of 2-3 weeks. Grant reviewers will read approximately 6-12 proposals during November and/or December. Proposals are generally 12-15 pages in length, with additional supporting and budget documents that should also be reviewed. If selected, community reviewers will be asked to complete a short online training session. DEED will provide a small stipend to community reviewers who meet eligibility requirements, complete training, and review on time, and complete the required process to receive payments. Learn more on the DEED website. If you have any questions, please email AskDEED@state.mn.us.
Cases among people experiencing homelessness and the staff who support continues to remain steady this week. The MDH team continues to monitor cases and our team continues to plan alongside local public health and emergency management on ways to be best prepared to support people experiencing homelessness through any future surges. If you are looking for any information or resources, you can find information at https://mich.mn.gov/covid-19 or email Health.R-Congregate@state.mn.us.
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