The Best Resource For Learning From Housers Just Like You!
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PNRC SERVICE OFFICE NEW MAILING ADDRESS
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Please make sure all mail to the PNRC Service Office goes to our new address please!
PNRC Service Office
c/o Shelli Scrogum
12246 FM 1769
Graham, TX 76450
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PNRC Coronavirus COV-ID Resource Page
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We know that information has been hitting you at all angles, so we here at PNRC have been diligently working to try and filter all of that information to one location.
If you come across something you believe needs to be on here simply email us at pnrc@nahro.org. Stay Safe!
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Coronavirus COVID-19 Update
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Here are some informational resources regarding the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) and how to keep your communities safe and healthy. In addition, please remember to check with your local health department and local governments.
- If you are sick, stay home from work or school.
- Avoid close contact with those who are already sick.
- Cover your nose and mouth when coughing or sneezing with a tissue or the crook of your arm.
- Wash your hands often with soap and water.
- Avoid touching eyes, nose, or mouth.
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REAC UPDATE: All REAC inspections have been postponed due to coronavirus outbreak.
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Friday, March 13th REAC notified all inspectors that inspections are postponed until further notice.
Per the email:
"Until further notice, the Real Estate Assessment Center (REAC) is postponing all property inspections on all Public-housing, Multi-family and Servicing Mortgagee properties. Thank you for your cooperation. REAC will continue to keep you updated".
UPCS Inspectors LLC will continue to monitor for the
latest news
on the postponed inspections. Please
contact us
if you have any questions.
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Flowers for Mental Health
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Flowers can help with Mental Health Illnesses. They can help with anxiety, sleep, improve memory, and help us be more productive.
We all know that flowers and plants have the power to make people happy. They can delight you on a special occasion, cheer you up when you’re sad or make a dull, dreary room much more appealing. Flowers can and have the ability to put us in a good mood and have much influence over your mental health.
Stress
and
anxiety
are part of everyday life.
While there are many things you can do to manage your mental health, flowers can help restore some short-term calm to your situation.
It turns out that this is true even in very worrying situations. Perhaps this is why patients at a hospital who have flowers in their room feel less anxious, positive about their recovery and happy.
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Nampa Housing Authority partners with several organizations in Nampa, Idaho to help their community and residents improve their overall health. Programs are incorporated to improve the prevention, detection and management of mental illness and reduce suicide as well as the overall physical health. We have incorporated activities/programs in order to build self-esteem, confidence and respect as well as elevate kindness so people feel more connected, respected, and valued.
In order for these events to be successful, the NHA team works together creating and establish new programs. We work and manage a very tight budget in order to have success. Therefore we look for every opportunity to partner with an organization to help fund or donate items needed.
Nampa Housing Authority was successful making a connection with Albertsons and Walmart in regards to their flowers and donating ones they could no longer sell or just donate bundles. The plan was to organize an activity full of fresh flowers, create their own bouquet, and relax while doing this. If we can let go of stress, anxiety, and depression for just a while, let’s do so! Spending an hour doing something nice for you or someone else can make us feel good about ourselves. This community event with fresh flowers, vases, and ribbons, allows those that attend create a bouquet of beautiful fresh flowers, either for themselves or to give away as a gift to a loved one.
During the event, soft music is played with finger foods and drinks available. All ages are welcome in order to encourage strengthening bonds between family members.
All of the three events have been a success and therefore will continue with the planning of these.
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Alaska House lawmakers struggle to react quickly to coronavirus response needs
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JUNEAU — An attempt by members of the Alaska House of Representatives to speed the pace of legislation failed to garner the needed votes Monday, meaning no immediate shortcut for budget work or any coronavirus-response legislation.
The Legislature has not yet crafted such legislation.
“We are facing some turbulent waters, and we need a process that is expedient,” said Rep. Chuck Kopp, R-Anchorage, urging the House to approve a resolution that would allow legislative committees to schedule hearings with one day’s notice.
Ordinarily, a legislative hearing requires five days’ notice.
The switch to the “24-hour rule,” as it is known, normally happens each year after both the House and Senate approve drafts of the state operating budget. This year, the House majority sought to activate it ahead of schedule.
Twenty-seven votes were required, but the majority needed the help of the minority to reach that hurdle. On Monday, the minority balked. The majority’s proposal was not limited to budget items or bills related to coronavirus response.
“This blanket 24-hour really makes no sense,” said House Minority Leader Lance Pruitt, R-Anchorage, who suggested that the real purpose of the move was to allow the majority to more easily advance unrelated legislation.
“There’s priority legislation to individuals that I think they would like to fast-track and get out of here,” he said.
Kopp indicated that was the case, mentioning that the House majority would like to advance pioneers’ home legislation and a bill dealing with village public safety officers. Neither is directly related to the coronavirus pandemic.
Without the needed support, the House majority declined to force a vote, though a second attempt was scheduled for Tuesday morning.
With Anchorage restaurants
ordered closed
, cruise-ship tourism
all but shut down
and the oil industry
suffering
, lawmakers are beginning to address the scope of the economic problems facing the state.
Rep. Ivy Spohnholz, D-Anchorage, is seeking to relax restrictions on unemployment payments. She said she will seek to draft legislation on behalf of the entire House Labor and Commerce Committee.
Kopp said the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority could somehow offer bridge loans to small businesses in need but was unable to offer details.
Speaker of the House Bryce Edgmon, I-Dillingham, said he has not yet met with Gov. Mike Dunleavy to discuss economic response measures. In a letter Monday afternoon, he requested that meeting.
“You’ll be hearing more over the next several days as to what we’re doing,” Dunleavy said in a conversation with reporters Monday afternoon.
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What if coronavirus hits Seattle’s homeless shelters? Aging, ill population is particularly vulnerable
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Every morning, after waking up on a mat at St. Martin de Porres homeless shelter, William Smith, 67, exercises his lungs by holding his breath — first for five, then 10 seconds.
By that point, he’s winded: Smith says he has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a chronic lung disease obstructing air flow to his lungs. He has tubes in both nostrils that snake down and connect to an air concentrator on wheels, which he carries behind him. He’s had pneumonia for the last two months.
This week, the shelter nurse told him he’s “real susceptible” to the novel coronavirus COVID-19, which has killed 16 people so far in Washington state as of Saturday morning.
“That’s always going to be in the back of my mind now,” Smith said.
Every night at St. Martin de Porres shelter, 212 men over the age of 50 pack in to sleep on mats on the ground 6 inches apart. Many clients here have underlying medical conditions like Smith’s, and during the day the shelter serves as a kind of medical respite for people who have nowhere else where they can go and recuperate.
St. Martin de Porres is not alone; in a 2019 survey of almost 1,200 homeless people in King County, 27% said they had a chronic health problem. As of the end of January, almost 3,800 single adults or heads of households in King County were older than 50, according to the county’s Homeless Management Information System — close to 30 percent of the total in the database.
This is already a very sick population that’s been growing sicker as the homeless population in America gets older, many experts agree. The average single homeless person is 60. The life expectancy for a homeless person who makes it to age 50 is only 64, according to Dr. Dennis Culhane, a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania who’s studied the aging homeless population (in America,
overall life expectancy is 78.7 years
).
The number of homeless people age 65 and over will triple over the next decade, a factor that will require homeless shelters to start providing even more medical care.
“We are already up to our knees in this elderly homeless phenomenon,” Culhane said. “Obviously the coronavirus just amplifies the fact that we have this very vulnerable elderly group.”
Couple this large homeless cohort with the fact that shelters are a “fertile ground” for transmission of infections like COVID-19, according to Dr. Stephen Hwang, a researcher on homelessness and health at the University of Toronto. Shelters like St. Martin de Porres could be even more susceptible than places like the Life Care Center, a long-term care facility that has been the epicenter of the COVID-19 crisis in Washington.
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“People clustered together in potentially crowded indoor facilities,” Hwang said. Shelters are “sites where infection can spread quite rapidly, as they can in other settings like nursing homes.”
At another large shelter that serves many older, chronically homeless people, the Downtown Emergency Services Center (DESC) has for more than a year seen a growing number of clients showing up with debilitating, chronic illnesses.
People staying at DESC exhibit symptoms similar to those of the coronavirus “every day,” said Dan Malone, DESC executive director. “We just would have no way of knowing if these are COVID-19 symptoms.”
Seattle city government opened Exhibition Hall Monday as an overflow shelter, identifying healthier clients who could move there from more crowded DESC shelters, in a move a city spokesperson said was designed reduce crowding and get sick clients away from congregate settings.
A city release said there are no known cases of COVID-19 among the homeless population at this time.
Researchers aren’t sure what would happen or how many could die if coronavirus made its way into the homeless population: In the late ’80s and early ’90s, tuberculosis had a deadly resurgence in New York City’s homeless shelters, killing around 1,700 from 1987 to 1994 (including people who weren’t homeless). In many ways coronavirus would be a “novel experience,” Hwang said.
St. Martin de Porres is taking steps to stop any spread of germs, cleaning surfaces with a bleach solution every two hours, and providing face masks to anyone with a persistent cough. Coronavirus fact-sheets are plastered on every wall. Staff are prepared to isolate stayers if need be: In December, when several men at St. Martin de Porres caught the flu, the T.V. room was designated as a “flu room” and infected people slept in there.
But for many other clients, the coronavirus doesn’t present anything much more dangerous than what they typically deal with as homeless people.
“I’ve held community meetings with the clients to discuss concerns and how we’re address this and the things we’re doing to keep them safe,” said Jennifer Newman, program director at the shelter, which is run by Catholic Community Services. “And I have not had any feedback from clients that they’re any more concerned than they are about the flu or any other contagious virus that comes thru the shelter.”
St. Martin de Porres client Jerry Kies is 76 and not too bothered by coronavirus scares: He has been in and out of the Seattle VA medical center recently for multiple heart issues — he was just there last week, he said.
“They’re blowing it way out of proportion,” Kies said. “I understand it’s dangerous, but I understand I feel safer in here than I am out there.”
Project Homeless editor Vianna Davila contributed to this report.
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Notice of Change to Public Works Board Broadband Program Rulemaking Activity
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OLYMPIA, Wash. – The Public Works Board has changed its broadband program public hearing to online only to minimize the risk of exposure to COVID-19 for the public and staff.
The board values the participation and input of the public and recognizes the need to foster involvement in a manner consistent with public health and safety.
The Public Works Board is encouraging written public comments, and will accept them until March 27. Please submit written comments to:
Connie Rivera
PO Box 42525,
Olympia, WA 98504-2525
The public hearing set for March 31 from 1 to 2 p.m. will be held via
Skype
. To access the hearing via phone, call 360-407-3813 and use the conference ID: 1345139.
CR-101
(PDF) filed on July 19, 2019.
CR-102
(PDF) and draft language (
399-80
) filed on Feb. 18.
Visit the
Public Works Board
webpage for more information on the Board and their programs.
Contact: Connie Rivera, Program Director and Tribal Liaison, 360-725-3088
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"What Home Means to Me" Poster Contest
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As part of NAHRO's Housing America campaign, a poster contest is held each year for children residing in affordable housing and community developments owned or administered by NAHRO member agencies. Posters reflect the national theme of “What Home Means to Me.” The contest is a collaborative effort of NAHRO’s chapter/state, regional, and national organizations. National honorees are selected from chapter/state-level winning entries.
To Download the Application and Contest Rules
CLICK HERE
All Submissions need to be mailed to the Service Office by May 27, 2020
NAHRO will not accept submissions from individual housing authorities. Any submissions sent directly to NAHRO will be disqualified.
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USDA LAUNCHES WA PILOT FOR ONLINE GROCERY SHOPPING WITH A BENEFITS CARD
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Amazon waives service fees and free delivery with a minimum purchase. Amazon also offers
discounted Prime membership
for EBT/Medicaid card holders. Walmart offers online SNAP shopping for pick up at store locations.
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Did you Know? Coronavirus COVID-19 Reality
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All but 1 U.S. states have reported a coronavirus case
As of late Monday, West Virginia was the only state that has not reported a coronavirus case. But the state was also among the last to gain the ability to test for the virus that causes COVID-19 — reflecting a wider problem in the U.S., where the rollout of a national testing system has been slowed by critical problems at the federal level.
Like many other states, West Virginia's public lab is now being bolstered by the testing efforts of commercial laboratories and some hospitals.
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Worried about bills? Some Idaho utility companies won’t cut services during pandemic
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The gas company is one of several utility services in Idaho that have made similar announcements.
Intermountain Gas Company serves about 368,000 residential, commercial and industrial customers in 75 communities in southern Idaho.
Intermountain Gas will not disconnect customers at this time due to nonpayment. They have filed requests with regulatory commissions for a waiver of customer late fees, and they will work with customers to set up payment plans, as needed.
“We know our customers look to us to provide safe and reliable natural gas service, which requires employees being available 24/7 to fulfill critical roles and emergency response,” the company said in a news release. “We also know some of our business and residential customers might have trouble paying their bills because of coronavirus-related hardships.”
“The critical importance of having water available is even more heightened during this crisis as washing hands often is one of the most important things we can all do to ensure health and safety,” SUEZ wrote.
ACCESS TO INTERNET SERVICES DURING OUTBREAK
Sparklight, formerly known as Cable One, services the area with high-speed internet, cable television, and phone services, is also offering exemptions for customers during the pandemic.
On March 13,
Sparklight announced it would be offering
unlimited data to customers for 30 days and would waive late fees for the next 60 days due to COVID-19 hardship. The company also will offer payment deferrals to customers who call to make arrangements.
“We understand that our customers rely on their internet service to stay connected to family, work, school and information, and we are committed to ensuring they receive the assistance they need during this time,” said Julie Laulis, president and CEO, through a news release.
CenturyLink announced it
would also suspend its data cap
. In an email to customers sent Monday, the company shared that for the next 60 days, it would waive late fees and not terminate service at homes or small businesses affected by COVID-19.
WHAT ABOUT OTHER BILLS AND UTILITIES?
The city of Boise said that trash, recycling and compost would be collected as normal, but collection times may change to start by 6 a.m. or continue through the evening. Collection days and weeks are set to stay the same.
Ada County is still following through on evictions, Sheriff Stephen Bartlett said during a news conference on Tuesday.
“All of our civil services will continue as scheduled at this time,” he said.
The deadlines for tax relief applications have also not changed. Bob McQuade, the Ada County assessor, said during the same news conference that all applications for the circuit breaker program and the homeowner’s exemption are still due April 15.
That deadline is set at the state level, he said, meaning he cannot move them. He encouraged anyone who needed help with the forms to call his office.
“Download the form and just sign it,” McQuade said. “Once you’ve done that, you still have your rights and we can work well into late April or even May with you, but if you don’t get that application to us by April 15, really any ability to qualify for that has been shot.”
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Pacific Northwest Regional Chapter of NAHRO
pnrcnahro.org
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