| | | A Note from the Executive Director | | Greetings and welcome to our newly revised Staff e-Newsletter. Our Marketing and Communications team has worked diligently to design this compilation of CSD events and staff announcements for you in an easy to view style. As you can attest, this year has been busy in areas, but particularly in housing development and internal organizational development. We kicked-off our department-wide strategic planning effort and plan to keep you abreast with a regular feature here. |
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| I also want to provide you with an announcement on upcoming staff salary adjustments. After reviewing our staff salary offerings, it was apparent that discrepancies exist. We presented our case to address pay discrepancies to the Office of Budget and Management during the budget process and received support for additional funding for salary augmentation. This request was approved at Commissioners Court for the short fiscal year (FY) and the upcoming 2023-24 FY. After this approval, I asked HR and Finance to work together to develop a rubric that prioritized internal pay discrepancies amongst same and similar positions, while also assigning values to years of service and retention, salaries below position medians, higher education and certification, and other factors to determine how salary augmentations should be prioritized. A lot of work went into the development of a tool that is comprehensive and fair. To complement the rubric, HR is also working on new recruitment and hiring guidelines and internal policies around compensation and hiring going forward – all to be rolled out within the next month. It is important for employees to know that with limited resources, many employee salaries will not be addressed this time around, however, we will continue to advocate for additional funding each budget year, when appropriate. Continuing Down a Path Towards Positive Work Culture With this new data available, your leadership team will work towards being increasingly thoughtful when posting new positions, sharing internal opportunities, and reclassifying roles when it makes business sense to. Our hope is that by setting controls around salary offers at the hiring stage, we may be able to prevent unintended disparities going forward. Thank you for your patience as we work through the upcoming pay discrepancy exercise as a step towards greater transparency and increased team morale. We hope you enjoy the newsletter. If you have suggestions, please feel free in contacting the Marketing and Communications division. In gratitude, Adrienne M. Holloway, Ph.D. | | Strategic Planning Update from Grant Thornton | Thank you to those who participated in the Employee Survey. Your feedback will be used to improve the organizational culture at CSD and the employee experience for new and existing staff. Next, we are working on analyzing survey responses and conducting follow-up assessments with each division head. We appreciate your involvement in future workshops and additional interviews and desk audits. The end result will be a comprehensive Strategic Plan with break-out Technology and Workforce Development Plans that you can be proud of. Please reach out to Jon Garcia at jon.garcia@csd.hctx.net with any questions about this initiative. | | | | | IT and Facilities Part Ways… but for the Better | From General Services to Specialized IT, Administrative, and Facilities Services | At our last town hall meeting, Chief Operating Officer Anita Green announced the centralization of the Operations Division, and standardizing of administrative and operational support functions across CSD to better support the work of our community-facing divisions and their programs. One of the more notable changes is the re-imagining of General Services and the development of two specialized teams to address our growing IT needs and Fleet and Facilities, Administrative, and Records Management requirements. Assistant Director David Strait will continue to oversee Information Technology as it grows to include development in addition to existing technology support, business applications and systems, and project management functions. Over the Facilities & Administrative Services Division, Assistant Director Terrence Brown is now leading fleet management, facilities and maintenance coordination, office management, logistics, and records management teams in providing central support to all business units. Over the next few months, you may see new policies and practices being shared out. Behind-the-scenes, some of the benefits we are beginning to see are lowered costs through economies of scale, improved productivity by reducing duplicated efforts, and an overall greater degree of flexibility and agility when serving you all. Still not sure who to contact? Don’t worry! Head over to the Helpdesk service website at http://hccsdfs5.hc.hctx.net:8080 to enter your request for anything IT or Facilities related. | | Launching ILSF | The launch of the Harris County Immigrant Legal Services Fund (ILSF) was announced Monday, April 18, at the BakerRipley Gulfton Campus in Houston. Agreements for ILSF were approved by Commissioner's Court on December 14. The program will provide legal representation for immigrant community members, children and families facing the threat of deportation. |
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| ILSF was created through advocacy and collaboration between the Houston Leads Coalition and Harris County, and ensuring immigrants have access to fair and affordable legal representation in deportation proceedings is only the start. The long-term goal of the ILSF program is to create a system in immigration court where anyone who needs an attorney can get one, regardless of the strength of their case. For questions about the new ILSF program, contact Dulce Islas at Dulce.Islas@csd.hctx.net. | | Celebrating Seaside Lodge | On Friday, March 25, CSD celebrated the grand opening of Seaside Lodge at Chesapeake Bay, a 92-unit apartment complex providing quality affordable housing for seniors in Seabrook. Chief Housing & Community Development Officer Rene Martinez gave remarks, as did esteemed guests President of the Mark-Dana Corporation Mark Koogler, State Representative Dennis Paul, Harris County Precinct 2 Commissioner Adrian Garcia, and Seabrook Mayor Thom Kolupski. Check-out the recorded live-stream can be found on our Facebook page! | | | | | Making a Difference | “I want to share a recent success story I had with CSD. One of my patients was unable to keep up with his mortgage payments due to a family tragedy and a COVID-19 emergency. He was connected to CSD in November of last year for assistance, and due to resource availability, the process took a bit longer than we expected. Last week he received a call from a Case Manager at CSD informing him he was approved for six months of mortgage assistance with the possibility of qualifying for five more months after the initial six month period. The patient was in tears expressing his gratitude for the incredible assistance he was able to receive. This is life changing for the family and so greatly appreciated.” — Harris Health Employee | | | Office of Social Services All-Hands MeetingThe Office of Social Services had its first all-hands meeting at the Jensen Building on April 22, hosted by the Bereavement team. The meeting was Astros-themed and included an overview of the division and introductions to leadership. |
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| | Uplifting a Community Member in Need | It’s always great to collaborate with other Harris County entities who help us give a well-rounded spectrum of care for the residents we serve. In February, Keith Alford came to us as a Harris Health client (assisted by Ingrim Mitchem and Bettye Guillory) and eventually continued as a Resource Navigation case at CSD. During the coldest part of winter, Keith could be found sleeping in horse stables without a coat, sufficient clothing, or covers to keep warm. After learning this, CSD put together a packet which included blankets, new clothes, a leather jacket, toiletries, and a few cases of water and food. Additionally, the person that owned the horse stable allowed our client to stay in a rental house they owned to prevent him from sleeping outside in the cold weather. In March, CSD learned that Keith had found employment at a gas station, as well as a new place to live. On a visit to his new employer, the team dropped off additional clothing items, toiletries, and food. Thank you to our Resource Coordinators for making a difference in our client's life! | | | | Meet Your Newest Marketing & Communications Team Members | | Yvonna CookHey hey, I am Yvonna “Von” Cook and I am the website & Sharepoint administrator here at Harris County CSD. I began my journey at CSD in September 2020, and have enjoyed every minute of it so far. I am a native New Orleanian and have been in Houston since 2015. As a professional in corporate IT & digital solutions, I have experience in System Administration, Automation, Application Support, Network Support, and Web support. I handle all website requests for CSD based websites. With that in mind, I’d like to let you know if you have a website change request, please submit a ticket along with all your formatted content and documents to the helpdesk @ hccsdhelpdesk@gmail.com. I am handling every request based on the order in which it is received and its priority, so I appreciate everyone’s patience with this new process! |
| | Calista Ginn Howdy! I’m Calista Ginn, and I’ve been a Communications Specialist with CSD since October 2021. I’m a recent alum of Belmont University in Nashville, TN (Go Bruins!), but I’m a native Texan, originally from San Antonio. When I’m not assisting with all things internal and external comms, I’m your go-to gal for all things social media! We’ve been working on building our brand aesthetic and becoming more active on all networks-- it’s been a great opportunity to get creative and spread the word about the good work we’re doing here at CSD. With that, if you ever have any ideas or photos to send for our social media, please email me at calista.ginn@csd.hctx.net. (High-quality image files preferred!) All I ask is that you please be patient if we don’t post right away—Comms is a small team, and social media strategy is a science, y’all! |
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| | Social Media Spotlight Celebrating Community Development Block Grant Week 2022 | April 11-15 was National Community Development Block Grant Week. Through #CDBG funding, CSD is able to invest in the most vulnerable groups in Harris County. Pictured: our team members delivering donations to residents experiencing homelessness. #CDBGworks #CDWeek2022 | | National Forum for Black Public Administrators Annual Conference | CSD Executive Director Dr. Adrienne Holloway and Chief Housing & Community Development Officer Rene Martinez recently presented our #MyHomeisHere study at the National Forum for Black Public Administrators Annual Conference! Way to Go! | | | | | | | | | Beth Thornton became a first time grandmother on February 7! Sage was born 15 weeks premature at 2 pounds and now weighs 6+ pounds. The doctors said she would not come home until her due date of May 15; however, baby Sage came home April 16! “As Sage left the hospital Saturday, all the nurses cried at the little miracle defying odds, as they were sending her home! Easter Sunday was the first time to hold my first grandchild!” Congrats, Beth! Such great news! |
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| | | Thank you for reading this edition of the CSD newsletter— we are looking forward to highlighting the incredible work our teams are doing in future editions! | | | | | Copyright (C) 2022 Harris County Community Services Department. All rights reserved.
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