A consultant on Thursday told Savannah officials they must take control of finding needed changes in the Chatham-Savannah Authority for the Homeless which is mired in dept and institutional dysfunction.
“Somebody’s got to take the first step and assert leadership over the process,” Jerry Silverman, who headed a five-person assessment of the authority last year told Savannah City Council members during a workshop.
“The city’s got to grasp the nettle here.”
Former city manger Rochelle Small-Toney called in consultants last year to assess the authority after questioning the management of the group. The consultants completed their draft report in January.
Silverman told council members his group initially focused on identifying financial issues but expanded their review to include other institutional issues.
The authority, established by the General Assembly in 1989 to be the “designated collaborative applicant” for U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development funding in the area, he said.
The consultants found the 70 percent of funding here goes to the Housing Authority of Savannah and Union Mission Inc. each year with each getting about a third of the total allocation and Union Mission getting more of the two, Silverman said.
Their findings: “It just looks bad,” he said. “It looks like the function has not been performed.”
City Alderman Van Johnson led city voices in response.
“We have a big job,” he responded. “Ultimately we need a 10-year plan to end homelessness and then we fund the plan. .. This is really a tsunami headed our way.”