RUE'S VIEWS ON ISSUES
Social Services
(Appeared in West County Gazette)
5th District Supervisor Candidates Views
By Rue Furch, candidate for Fifth District Supervisor
I've seen people in Sonoma County living in third-world conditions. Eight families, living on one piece of land, paying exorbitant rents for rat-infested hovels, were going to be evicted so the property could be cleared for new development.
It made me angry and I decided to do something about it.
I got the local church and private school involved in collecting second-hand clothes and toys. I worked with employers to find jobs for some of the tenants and with other private citizens to find housing. It took a little doing because the tenants sometimes did not look reliable on paper.
There were also mental health and drug/alcohol habits – no surprise – and I was able to get some of our local social service organizations involved. By the time the shacks were demolished, everyone was settled elsewhere and in a far better and safer living situation.
The greatest threat to good, creative, sustainable social services and programs is fatalism in the face of scarce resources. But there is much more we can do to focus both human and financial resources on helping all who live here.
I’ve worked for and run non-profits for a lot of my life, and I know the critically important services they provide. As your Fifth District Supervisor, I will make sure these organizations have the resources they need. I know first-hand how to get the most mileage out of scarce resources, and I know how to help social service agencies and nonprofits tap the funds that are available to meet vital community needs.
I’ve been a committed and resourceful advocate for social services for 35 years, in my professional life, my volunteer life and as a county planning commissioner.
I worked with the Sonoma County Community Foundation and Catholic Charities to teach parenting skills to working mothers and fathers. The classes had to be held at work because the parents had no time after work. I pulled together employers who quickly came to the table with space and staffing and help in the often-difficult situations when a child is too sick to go to school or to regular childcare.
As an advocate for education, I had to look for resources outside the ever-shrinking education budget. As the Executive Director of the Sonoma County Business Education Roundtable, I worked with corporate heads and superintendents and brought in teachers to determine what could be done to support our children. Resources were re-defined every week, and the investments changed from thinking only about funding to looking at expertise, volunteerism (time) and materials when necessary.
I’ve also assisted non profits, government agencies and private companies on issues of affordable housing. I’ve tackled homeless issues, where one size does not fit all. Some people are homeless because of economic hardship or mental health issues, others have a drug or alcohol dependency. Sometimes it’s all of the above. I advocated that all homeless intake systems use a ‘filter’ to make sure each person or family receives the kind of response they need because each circumstance requires different care, education or treatment as well as housing.
As a planning commissioner, I led the successful effort to expand the county’s affordable housing ordinance to address the problem of homelessness. I supported and was involved in the permitting of the Salvation Army site north of Healdsburg.
I also pushed for more creative ways to provide affordable housing, both with individual projects and in the county’s Housing Element update. It’s very important to keep our existing affordable housing safe and available while we seek to create more. We can’t fix one problem (like old septic systems) in a way that either eliminates much of our older West County housing or sends rent or utility costs soaring beyond the reach of the people who live there now, and who have nowhere else to go.
I serve on the Sonoma County Community Foundation’s Friends Advisory Council, made up of community leaders who act as a sounding board on foundation initiatives including homeless and transitional housing issues.
As Fifth District Supervisor, I will work to clear the bureaucratic roadblocks that make it hard for agencies and nonprofits to do their jobs. I will defend the county’s allocation of social services to the Fifth District and see how that allocation can be improved. I will work with my friends in Sacramento and Washington D.C. to address funding issues.
The county may not always be able to be a direct line of funding, but it can and should be a working partner with our social service agencies and a conduit for resources and alliances that will maximize all efforts. Please tell me what you think our priorities should be and what your experiences have been.
