1 Minnesota Hoarding Task Force Meeting Minutes Thursday, March

1 Minnesota Hoarding Task Force Meeting Minutes Thursday, March

Minnesota Hoarding Task Force Meeting Minutes
Thursday, March 6, 2014
6:00-8:30 p.m.
Wells Fargo Bank Building
Hennepin County Environmental Health
1011 First Street South, Suite 215
Hopkins
Present
Janet Yeats
Louise Kurzeka
Carole Kazmierski
Christina Kendrick
Angie Hugen
Brittani Schmidt
Dawnee Dorholt
Diane Gambrel
Alison Whiteaker
Patty Flugaur
Christine Daves
Kay Wittgenstein
Laura Norris
Cheryl Larson
Julia Miller
Kim Groen
Joe Jurusik
Renee Kotlarz
Anne Saatela
Sherrie Irmiter
Sue Sheridan
Shannon Rohr
Ed Smith
Gail Trenholm
Randy Burg
Michael Aguirre
26 present
Absent
Becca Kempenich
Nate Berg
Jayme Kohout
Scott St. Martin
4 absent
New Members
Angie Hugen
Supervisor, Homeowner Navigator
Program
City of Minneapolis
612-685-8444
Angela.hugen@ci.minneapolis.mn.us
Sherrie Irmiter
Medallion Home Design
612-710-2840
seachcherrie@yahoo.com
Laura Norris
Hennepin County SW
612-543-5258
Anne Saatela
Keller Williams Senior Services
952-454-7350
annesaatela@comcast.net
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Call to Order & Minutes
The meeting was called to order by Janet at 6:39 and minutes from 2-6-14 meeting were approved.
Policies
Please sign these policy documents if you haven’t already:
- THP policy on committees
- confidentiality
- conflict of interest
State of the Task Force - Janet Yeats
- Our mandate is to create resources for community response. A goal is to have longevity with
our task force.
- If you would like to present to our task force about how you work with hoarding clients, see
Janet. Need not have PowerPoint.
- Presentations given in February:
o Aging services of Minnesota conferences
o Carver County - environmental health, public health, sheriff's dept
o MESH-MN: landlords, case managers working in public housing, insect infestation
o Vulnerable Adult Justice Project, continue to collaborate with them
o Meeting of the Minds, Alzheimer's Assoc conference, spoke on dementia and hoarding
- Healthy Homes grant project. Name changed to City of Shoreview Pilot Project. Starts April 1.
Partners are THP, MHTF, City of Shoreview, Ramsey County, 3 homeowners in city. Goal: to
provide different response to abatement, a cleanout w/ out re-hoarding. We are anxious to
collect data. We have a resource list in process.
- Bush Foundation Grant Application. We are applying for $10,000 - $200,000. Grants are
awarded to projects with collaborative communities doing something innovative. We will
propose that these urban, rural, suburban communities collaborate with us as in Shoreview:
Mpls/Hennepin, Hutchinson/McLeod, Chaska/Carver.
- Publishing. A goal is to publish articles in Minnesota and nationally about a collaborative
response to hoarding.
- Accomplishments:
o Hennepin County Government Center booth
o Multiple presentations throughout Minnesota
o Press conference - September Hoarding Awareness Month
o Empathy Pledge
o Educational Event – film screening in New Brighton
o McLeod County Fair
- Janet’s Goals:
1. Increase collaboration with public safety, city/county and outstate Minnesota. Will
attend with Randy Burg & Nate Berg the Minnesota Police Chiefs conference in April.
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Want to educate about first responders and hoarding, create connections with police
and fire.
2. Increase network of mental health providers who connect with hoarding. Currently,
most mental health professionals are not educated about hoarding.
3. Continue presentations, speaking opportunities, provide resources.
4. Leadership w/ Shoreview project, Bush Foundation grant.
5. President Obama's commission on hoarding disorder.
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Goals for Task Force & Member Involvement:
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Administration of task force. We need additional members on steering committee.
Creation of Administration working group.
Fundraising goal. $2,500 for 2014. If we raise $100 each, we would meet our goal. We can
solicit our colleagues to help with our share. A template letter will be written; we can use
that for reaching out to friends, family, neighbors. Can donate online. Get receipt from THP
accounting.
Educational outreach working group. New group headed by Renee Kotlarz to reach out to
public and professionals to educate them about hoarding. If educational outreach interests
you, contact Renee (320-864-1274, Renee.kotlarz@co.mcleod.mn.us). Goal: have one taskforce sponsored event, coordinated with events group and communications group.
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Communications. Want MHTF page to look different from THP. Social media has been
lacking; we need to reach younger people. Coordinate communication of educational
events with education group. Goal to have full-length media story about hoarding and what
task force is doing to address it. Interviews are still good, but we want a longer format.
Note: Kim Groen has a friend who works at MPR.
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Research working group. Work with Jennifer Sampson to create something new about
hoarding in Minnesota; stop saying "here's what old research says." Our goal is to say "this
is data we know about Minnesota."
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Events. Continue communication about empathy pledge; use social media. Host outreach
and work with other working groups. Goal to have one task force event in each quarter this
year (spring, summer, fall). Work in conjunction with September events working group.
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September Events working group - hoarding awareness month. Request proclamation again
this year from Governor Dayton. Reach the public and professionals. Give task force
members a hands-on experience with a cleanout. Have you done a safety day cleanout?
Here's an opportunity.
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2015 Wish List. Get started with public policy, advocacy. Create better language to attend
to hoarding, collaborate with lobbyist from firefighters union who has agreed to meet with
Janet.
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Meet with other task forces; bring resources together around the country; create a
coordinated response to hoarding.
Future meeting dates
- April 3 will be last meeting in this room due to construction (May- Aug)
- May 1
- June 5
Meeting space
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Options for new meeting room: Southdale library, Ridgedale library, New Brighton.
Action: come back next month w/ new place for may, june, july, august
Email Janet w/ ideas for meeting space
Possibilities: New Brighton fire station, also Bloomington, Richfield.
We might be outgrowing this current space.
Working Groups
Events - Louise Kurzeka
- Becca is stepping back for a few months.
- Parade. Being in a parade would help build awareness. Need commitment of
20 people, 3-4 hour commitment. Giveaways: Print stickers for kids. Randy has
a transportation idea. Pick an inner ring suburb (Hopkins, SLP, etc). [SR
question: would we need a sign?]
- Patty Flugaur stated that for parades, the city of Robbinsdale has karaoke
machine, music, people who play instruments walk along and participate.
- Task force will do something in Hutchinson.
Sept events - Janet
- 5K event. Wells Fargo said they would work with us, now pawned us off on Anderson
Race Mgmt. Do they work with non-profits who have no money?
- Wells Fargo is pledging their employees to work on event in September.
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Shannon Rohr stated that she works temporary food events at Normandale Park in
Bloomington. Many walks start out first year with 100 participants and don’t have tshirts, just simple things like granola bar, banana, water. Shannon works with groups
who do 5Ks in Bloomington.
State Fair, trying to get in. Usually have to piggy back with someone else.
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Research – Julia Miller
- Goal to partner with grad students, as opposed to taking on whole IRB proposal, farm
out heavy lifting.
- Tapping some of the colleges, email sent to school of public health.
- We need more guidance and support.
Education – Renee Kotlarz
Jayme Kohout is 2nd person for working group; she will come to future meetings.
Branding/Communications – Randy Burg
- Randy suggested domain names for the task force. tmhtf.com and tmntf.org and
mnhtf.org are open domain names.
- Randy will make a task force business card with logo. It’s effective to have a short
domain name.
- Need to decide address, email, website domain for biz cards.
- Budget for business cards? We could get approx. 1,000 for $50.
T-shirts
- Scott St. Martin had contact for person who does T-shirt printing. $7 each, front and back, 1
color, logo, website address, black printing on royal blue.
- Have the expert bring us some options.
- We do not want white; we want a bright color so we stand out.
Action:
Responsible Person:
Communication
working group
Connect with Scott St. Martin. We will get back to task
force to get sizes and collect money ($10 each).
Deadline:
How I Work with Hoarding – Presentation by Brittani Schmidt
- Works at Minneapolis Health Department
- Background: MPH program, nursing school, internship for senior citizens and Healthy Homes,
did a needs assessment, created resource booklet document.
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Action:
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Put Brittani’s document on DropBox
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Responsible
Person:
Stephanie
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Deadline:
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done
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Hoarding is a growing problem, and no one knows what to do.
I have feelers out there. I talked w/ cities, counties. Everyone was stuck. We need to produce a
model.
How do we hear about hoarding cases? We hear it by complaint or by chance. Housing code
enforcement, inspectors discover the homes. What’s happening now? Property is condemned
or there is a forced cleanout which is traumatic.
Inter-dept communication is lacking. We have not branched out to police and fire yet.
There were 15-20 people at the meeting (animal control, housing, health, police, fire). It was
the first time sitting down together. Some did not know each other.
Question: Why should government be involved in care for hoarding individuals? Government is
for the betterment of society. Hoarding environments represent a danger to public servants. If
firefighters go into a hoarded environment, they’re potentially in danger. Environments are a
public nuisance, health risk, danger to homeowner and neighbors.
We are engaging these departments, asking them to send a representative or liaison. We had
our first meeting. We met with Minneapolis Fire Marshal Perry Ebner. He is behind it.
Next is police and animal control. Get hoarding on radar of 311 operators. 311 is number to call
within city limits and they direct you to correct resource.
Brittani was hired Minneapolis Health Department through a Healthy Homes grant via
Environmental Health Division. Funding goes through end of 2014.
We need to quantify data [to re-apply successfully for another grant].
311 will be route to get data. Perry is directing firefighters to call 311 when they notice a
hoarded property. What data is collected? On a weekly basis, the phone call data is forwarded
to Brittani.
They want training - on collaboration, standardizing terminology. Unsanitary homes vs. hoarded
homes. Perry wants them all trained by Janet.
Now, within Healthy Homes grant of $50,000, $5,000 is for homeowners. Angie Hugen, City of
Minneapolis, started Homeowner Navigator Program, a program for homes that have been in
the inspection system for some time. A majority are hoarding homes.
Angie Hugen: This new position was created 8 months ago with no job description. We didn’t
consider hoarding. We thought about homes that needed painting. We could not get people to
motivate. Quickly what we found were a lot of hoarded, unsanitary homes. Professional
organizer worked w/ person for several months. The fear is “what if they don't have the means
to hire outside help?” We have about $5,000 per house. I am managing four right now.
Louise Kurzeka: suggestion of taking photos.
Christina Kendrick: We have to document the progress. It would be important data to collect,
for example, how many Dumpsters were filled?
Brittani will keep track of that.
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Misc.
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Need to revise ordinances. Codes are not cohesive. What about units of 3 dwellings or smaller?
If 4 units or more, the case goes to fire inspection. We need cohesive codes. We should be
putting it under public health nuisance. We need a category for hoarded homes.
There was excitement in that meeting when we talked about connecting city departments
around this issue. What about providing residents with mental health? Not just yet.
Christina Kendrick: With the grant, even if we don’t get the mental health component, we can
collect data and compare success rates. Was there recidivism? Compare numbers with success
of what Janet’s project is doing.
Angie Hugen: 311 call center will start getting these? What is their capacity?
Calls would get referred to inspections. Typically inspectors don’t go inside a dwelling. They
start with exterior.
Angie Hugen: What if we get 20 calls? The would we fail because we don’t have the resources
yet to address the problem? We want to get infrastructure there first. $15,000 for cleanout...
gets assessed. We will have a plan. It wil. be important to meet w/ 311 re: what data to collect.
Data collection: it will be important for fire/police to call 311, strictly for data collection. We
may not be able to do anything right now, just data collection for now, so we know what
capacity needs to be.
Renee Kotlarz: Police generally know which houses are hoarded.
Minneapolis has in database. Fire department knows which houses are hoarded.
Our intention is to hold a potluck every quarter!
Renee Kotlarz had idea to pass the hat at potluck for fundraising. When we plan events, we can
ask for donations.
Anne and Sherrie can host hoarding education table at their events. During open houses (?)
they put up easel with before & after photos for neighbors. Generally get attendance of 60
people.
Louise Kurzeka commented about our methodical approach as a task force. Thanks for Janet's
leadership.
Renee needs logo emailed to her. DONE
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