On Tuesday, September 16, Neighbors in the Tenny-Lapham Neighborhood met with Michael Florek, Director of Tellurian UCAN, Inc., Bob Kasdorf, a lawyer who serves as an officer of Tellurian, and Judy Wilcox, County Board Supervisor for this district, to discuss the SOS Program. Tellurian is a nonprofit social service agency with many programs, some in this neighborhood. They received over five and a half million dollars from the government in 1995. The SOS Program is funded largely by the Department of Housing and Urban Development and is administered locally by Tellurian, Inc. Of all the programs in the neighborhood, the SOS Program has been the most disruptive. Tellurian officials met with neighborhood representatives in the early stages of the program's implementation. Among other assurances, Tellurian promised not to concentrate the properties used for the program. When problems with Tellurian residences and neighbors began, the TLNA tried to schedule meetings with Tellurian to work out misunderstandings and improve the implementation of the program. Tellurian officers frequently did not respond. On the occasions when they did, they sometimes leveled accusations of bigotry, threatened lawsuits, or just responded that they did not 'feel the need to meet.' The neighborhood association got nowhere by trying to work with Tellurian. Letters to our elected representatives in Washington, their funding source, were written describing the impact of the program on our neighborhood and the difficulty resolving problems locally. Although no information exists that there is any link between the two events, the SOS Program has lost its funding, and no further placements will be made in our neighborhood by that particular program. Tellurian's own description of the program makes it sound like a no-nonsense approach to chronic homelessness, but "intensive services to assist the family in learning the skills to maintain permanent housing" may mean different things to different people. Michael Florek described that portion of the program as a "visit" by a case worker three times a week "to ask if there is anything they need." "There has been a great deal of supervision. You just haven't seen it." Florek admits that the success rate of the program is 10-15%. He did not draw any connection between the intensity or nature of the services provided and the observed success rate. As one of the officers of Tellurian who initially gave assurances to the neighborhood association that his program would not be detrimental to the neighbors, Florek came under a barrage of harsh questions from our neighbors who have suffered from the program. A neighbor complained about a continual noise problem, and he asked "Is there a noise ordinance?" Another neighbor was upset because the SOS participants next door scattered debris all over the back yard. The problem persisted throughout the Summer, [presumably the case worker 'visited' fifty times during that period] and photographs were presented to document the extent of the problem. Florek declined a request that he examine them saying "I don't know what those are." At no point did he accept any responsibility for harm done to the neighborhood by his program. Along with the negative impact of the program on themselves, neighbors addressed a great deal of concern to Florek about the conditions under which the program participants were compelled to live. One notorious example presented was a building which had five dozen code violations. In another building, chosen to accommodate a family with many children (two per bedroom), four to eight adult males regularly stayed there as well. The presence of ten cars and a boat in the back yard of one Tellurian site never seemed to demonstrate to the caseworker that the occupants might be overcrowded, even though only five adults 'lived' there. Florek acknowledged that it was bad policy to concentrate the housing units in the program. It is one of the aspects of the program that not only magnifies the negative impact on the neighborhood, but also diminishes the effectiveness of the program. It is bad policy, but the established pattern of locating program housing units next to each other makes it appear to be Tellurian policy. Acknowledged as bad policy, and contrary to their assurances it was done. I wanted to figure out why, and Tellurian was not forthcoming with information, so I tried to assemble a scenario consistent with the facts I did have. 1) Tellurian pays for properties at a rate calculated in Washington DC by the number of rooms in a unit. 2) The buildings used in the program are the ones nobody would ever pay market rate for. 3) Landlords of slum properties enjoy getting paid reliably, without the hassle of frequent evictions for nonpayment. 4) Putting two SOS families next door to each other is bad for them both. So at least plausibly: the quality and concentration of the units indicate that the selection is done with something other than the best interests of the program participants in mind. The reliability of the payment to the landlord makes it desirable from his point of view. The difference between what the landlord could get on a good day (remember the five dozen code violations) and what the federal government sets as a rental rate, yields the potential for side deals, like kickbacks to the operatives of whatever organization might want to rent a slum at top dollar. A slum owner might not be so adverse to returning a portion of the rent to someone who can deliver a steady flow of federal money. The program participants put up with it because they have a problem; "Families who meet this standard must agree to participate in the SOS Project. If not, they will be ineligible for any Dane County emergency shelter services." Someone on the take in that kind of scheme is motivated to get as many families into as many substandard units as possible. (And the more substandard, the better.) Florek explained that the clustered substandard units were the only ones he could get. I have no evidence to the contrary, and his explanation is consistent with renting substandard housing and concentrating units. (Which itself may not comply with government regulations about the kind of housing which can be funded with federal dollars.) He would not elaborate on the methods he employed to find alternatives. County Supervisor Judy Wilcox was instrumental in obtaining the grant from HUD through the CDBG for Tellurian. After hearing what we had to say she said "It seems as though you have some legitimate concerns." I asked her if she would make a commitment to withholding support from agencies which would dump people into substandard housing, in concentration, and without adequate support. She answered that she was completely and unequivocally an advocate for a person's right to live where they choose. Several people felt that her reply to my question had nothing to do with my question. Asked to repeat myself, I did just that. Judy Wilcox came out firmly and resolutely on the side of a person's choice; "I'm not ever going to tell someone where they can and cannot live." A second time, several participants felt she had either completely misunderstood the question, or she was being evasive, and said so. After a third request that she commit to withholding financial support from social service agencies which house poor people in brutally substandard housing, without sufficient support and guidance, and in clusters of housing units, she finally committed to withholding support from those agencies which concentrate the housing units. I admire and fully support Wilcox's stand on the freedom of an individual to live where they choose. I find it glaringly inconsistent with her support for the SOS program, into which people are forced (they could choose to lose all county assistance as an alternative) and which dumps them into subsidized squalor. Under the SOS program, the participants don't have any choice. Tellurian's description of SOS: The SOS Project provides intensive transitional housing and services to chronically homeless families. The SOS Project serves homeless families who have attempted to enter the Dane County Emergency Shelter System at least 3 times since 1990. The program will provide an apartment for each family and intensive services to assist the family in learning the skills to maintain permanent housing. Families who meet this standard must agree to participate in the SOS Project. If not, they will be ineligible for any Dane County emergency shelter services.