Rainier Vista Service Provider Meeting Minutes 9.18.12

Attendance:  Kate Farmer, Neighborhood House; Mason Durfee, Neighborhood House, Matt Mohammed-Ali, Neighborhood House; Denise Lewis, Joel Smilow Club House and Teen Center at Rainier Vista/Boys and Girls Club; Maria Cook, Boys and Girls Club; Naomi Chang, Seattle Housing Authority; Courtney Powell, Seattle Housing Authority Family Self Sufficiency Specialist; Grace Scarella, Nature Consortium; Jennifer, Refugee Women's Alliance

SHA - Ready to Rent course to help people overcome barriers to rental housing, learn responsibilities as a tenant, understand landlord-tenant law, repair your credit rating, set up realistic budget, choose a neighborhood and home that meets your nees.  In October 2012 the Ready to Rent course will be held at Rainier Vista Center at Neighborhood House.  to register call 206-722-4010 ext. 10.

Joel Smilow Club House and  Teen Center at Rainier Vista, Boys and Girls Club - annual membership is $36 but can be reduced, scholarships available.  Cost can be reduced to as low as $10 year for youth that are eligible.  Club offers aerobics, arts classes, drill team, torch club for 6th graders, club tech, writer workshops, drama club, knitting, tutoring and more.  Officer Cookie will officer 6 month bullying workshop for youth. 

Nature Consortium - arts classes at Boys and Girls Club and at Rainier Vista Center each week for youth. 

REWA- native language classes, Somali.  Comprehensive services for community, DV, Citizenship, ESL, legal counsel and more. Youth program 3rd - 8th grade.  Main office has middle school tutoring afterschool Mon-thursday with homework and activities.  Need volunteers, many Somali and Vietnamese youth.Mentoring program.  Contact jennifer@rewa.org for more information.

SHA - Community Builder.  Community action safety meeting on October 1st at 7PM at Rainier vista Center.   Multicultural gathering each month on 3rd Wednesday at Rainier Vista Center. 

Next Meeting:  Tuesday, November 20th at 1pm at Boys and Girls Club

Rainier Vista Service Provider Meeting Minutes

June 26, 2012

Attendance:  C Powell, SHA; A. Woldebr, SHA; T. Nguyen, Providence Gamelin, S. Robinson, Bellwether Housing, L. Horan, Neighborhood House; G. Scarella, Nature Consortium, K. Farmer, Neighborhood House, S. Behmer, Solid Ground.

Gamelin House – Waiting list 1-2 bedrooms for Joseph House, new building in White Center, still looking for applicants, have them apply now.  For seniors.

SHA community builder – Living Room conversations are happening, coordinated by Seattle Police Department.  They will come and meet with residents (16 residents must attend) and talk about community concerns.  They met with Vietnamese  community of Rainier Vista this week.  Parking issues and night time concerns.  Traffic & Safety Committee will not meet again until September.  Multicultural Committee will meet on July 18^th.  Rainier Vista Phase 3 is near completion, residents will be moving into rental units this summer (110 units).  Mercy Housing is going to be completed this summer and will provide 60 units of family housing for low income residents.  Harborview will come out and do health workshops, let Naomi know if interested. 

SHA – Family Self-Sufficiency program – is for people who are employed and want to increase their salary or in school or a job training program.  Clients can set education or employment goals and obtain a savings account with deposits that are set aside monthly to use towards goals.  Clients will receive support from an Economic Opportunity specialist to help work towards goals.  They are still taking clients for this program.  Must be on Section 8. 

Neighborhood House – summer lunch program will occur June – August.  Free lunch for youth ages 1-18 from Monday – Friday. 

Solid Ground – community farm at Rainier Vista is looking for volunteers.  Volunteers receive free vegetables.  All food from the farm is donated to food bank or those who struggle to afford it.

RV Youth Focus Group—will put on hold for the summer, with staff vacations and youth program changes.  Need commitment from youth providers to help pull together.  Put on September agenda for provider meeting. 

Adult Focus Group – will put on hold for the summer put on Fall agenda for providers.  Adults are interested in parenting help/workshops.  Naomi will look into and Kate.  Naomi also suggested recycling workshop since SHA is working to improve education in this area. 

Next Service Provider Meeting will be in September.

Rainier Vista Service Provider Meeting 2.14.12 minutes

RV Provider Meeting
Tuesday, February 14, 2012 at 1pm
At RV Boys and Girls Club

Attendance: Grace Scarella, Nature Consortium; Denise Lewis, Boys and Girls Club, Minh Nguyen-Wickman, ICHS; Jenny Mauer, Atlantic Street Center Rainier Beach Family Center; Naomi Salinas, Bike Works; Lauren Arnesen, Neighborcare Health Clinics; Scott Behmer, Solid Ground Lettuce Link Program, Ray Padilla, Bellwether Housing, Shere’e Robinson, Bellwether Housing – Genesee Apartments; Laura Horan, Neighborhood House; Nhi Tran, Seattle Neighborhood Group; Amy Tseng, Neighborcare Health; Bev Johnson, Seattle U Nursing Program; Kate Farmer, Neighborhood House; Mike Graham-Squire, Neighborhood House; Jason Rolfe, Youth Tutoring Program CCS; Kim Spears, REWA.


Smoking Cessation Workshop – SHA went Smoke Free as of February 1st. Mike Graham-Squire of Neighborhood House will be working with SHA to offer smoking cessation workshops at some of the larger SHA sites. King County Public Health will assist. There is a Quit Line, but that may be ending in March. Mike has also done training with NH Head Start and their FSW workers on how to talk to people about quitting smoking. More trainings will be held in the future if providers are interested. The Smoking Cessation workshop for RV will be Wed, March 14th from 6-7:30pm at the Boys and Girls Club. Denise has a group of parents that come on this night and she will promote the event with them and also with youth. King County Health is working on a flyer. Neighborcare Health and REWA will assist with the workshop. Kate will send the flyer out to providers when it is available so they can help with outreach and promoting the event.

Seattle U nursing Students will be back in community to volunteer from April 5 to end of May. Providers are interested in possibly planning another Health Fair, we discussed the potential date of May 17th at 6-7:30pm at the Boys and Girls Club. Bev Johnson will not be leading the group this Spring, another professor will oversee the students. The providers will invite the students to the next provider meeting in April on a Thursday, to talk more about details and planning for the Health Fair.

Resource Fair – Providers will likely host another Resource Fair to get summer information out to youth. Fair will be held in June, no date yet.

Safety – more break ins are occurring in the neighborhood. Some of the stores and restaurants and businesses have experienced break ins. Windows have been broken, and doors are being rattled to see if they are closed all the way, also businesses have found electrical tape on the door jam preventing the doors from closing. Safety Meeting will be held on Monday, March 5 at 6:30pm at Neighborhood House and all providers may attend to address community and safety concerns. Providers can follow up at our next meeting on the outcome of this meeting and what they can support around safety.

911 Emergency Call – Providers talked about hosting a 911 Emergency Call instruction workshop for residents. Many fear calling police so it might be helpful to have a workshop to instruct residents on this. Providers can talk about possibly hosting a Fall event for this at the next meeting.

Intergenerational work – Getting youth and seniors together has been talked about at past provider meetings. The group talked about how to get this to happen. Programs could build time into their program to connect with seniors. Providers could hold an event to get youth/seniors together. Kate will invite Ba from Providence Gamelin to the next meeting to see what ideas he would have to get this started.

Next Meeting: April 12th at 1pm at Rainier Beach Family Center hosted by Jenny Mauer.