Sunday, February 18, 2018

The Galvan Hospitality Industry

Last night, I got a tip from a reader that a new sign was up at the former Sunset Motel, so today I headed out there to check it out.

The new sign makes it clear that the Galvan Foundation is moving ahead with its plan to rehab the motel and use it to provide temporary shelter for people without homes, but it also raises questions about the status of the agreement Galvan sought with the Columbia County Department of Social Services to make the motel exclusively available to DSS clientele. As part of the agreement, Galvan would devote 30 percent of the motel's profits to providing services to people living at the motel.

Word is that the County has not yet entered into the agreement with Galvan. A member of the Board of Supervisor's Health and Human Services Committee told Gossips that there is not yet a final version of the proposed contract. Still it seems that homeless people will be housed at the Galvan Motel with or without a contract with DSS. The only difference will be services: if there's a contract with the County, there will be services on site to help people rebuild their lives; if there is no contract, there will be no services.

The Health and Human Services Committee meets again on Tuesday, February 20, at 4 p.m., in the committee room at 401 State Street. It is likely that the contract with the Galvan Foundation will be a topic of discussion.
COPYRIGHT 2018 CAROLE OSTERINK

3 comments:

  1. Anyone who has watched Galvan for more than 20 seconds knows that it's very good at putting up signs and very bad at providing housing. The County would be very smart not to enter into an agreement with Galvan without doing some due diligence -- one thing I learned on the Housing Task Force is that Galvan is as much a cause of homelessness as a solution. Besides where is the County investigation into homelessness? Its causes? Its cures? What exactly is the current homeless program and why is it not working? And where is the RFP (Request for Proposal) that Galvan and others should have a chance to answer; that's normally how public money is spent.

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  2. how are the homeless getting to the motel ? do they have cars ? it seems an out of the way location. homeless but not carless ?

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