The two biggest requests for assistance for the Warsaw-Wayne Fire Territory’s CARES (Community Assistance, Resources, Emergency Services) program are emergency shelter and general support.
“We deal with those on almost a daily basis,” CARES Director Chris Fancil told the WWFT board during its meeting Tuesday.
Board member and City Councilman Mike Klondaris asked if they were able to find people shelter when they needed it.
“Sometimes,” Fancil responded. “We, obviously, have a great relationship with Fellowship Missions. We have them on speed dial, if you will, because they do a lot of great things, not just shelters, so we’ve got a great partnership with them.”
But, he said, Fellowship Missions has some rules and guidelines they have to follow for the safety of their other “guests” that they have there.
“So, sometimes, it’s an uphill battle. We have struggled at times of finding the right place for someone to go. Sometimes that means we have to work out a way for them to get to another community, and Fellowship has been gracious enough at times to make that transportation happen if it needs to,” Fancil said.
From the beginning, CARES has said it does not want to be transporting people out of the county.
“We will take people out to Bowen Center, but we really don’t feel like our role was one of transportation, but we do have other avenues to get people to where they need to be,” Fancil said.
CARES Community Health Coordinator Mikaela Bixler has worked a couple times to get people up to the South Bend/Elkhart area because they had family and other resources up there.
“But we certainly have worked pretty well with Fellowship and utilizing them when at all possible,” Fancil said. “We also have some avenues with some local hotels in the area, if we absolutely have to, to get someone in a situation there where it’s a really short, transient stay, but we try to utilize that if we can as well.”
Shelter is still a definite need though and a struggle, he said.
Fancil also reported CARES was in the middle of hosting a two-day class on crisis response. He spent all day Tuesday at the fairgrounds for the first day of the class.
“We’re teaching law enforcement how to respond to mental health crisis situations, substance abuse situations,” Fancil said. “Today we had speakers from Parkview Warsaw, Parkview Public Safety, Lutheran Kosciusko, Dan Hampton came from the prosecutor’s office to talk to us for a while. We had some speakers from Bare Knuckle Recovery, which is in Fort Wayne - they do a lot of substance abuse recovery over there. Just trying to give a different perspective to our community’s needs. It was really enlightening. It was a great day of training.”
The second day is Wednesday, Aug. 2, where they will spend half the day at a facility that deals with mental health issues.
“Trying to train some folks up a little bit differently than what you would think of as traditional training for law enforcement,” Fancil stated. “I think that’s exciting.”
The Board of Public Works and Safety on July 21 approved Tanya Jackson as a new full-time CARES responder/navigator for the fire department. She will begin Aug. 14 and make $24.04 per hour.
Tuesday, Fancil told the WWFT board that Jackson will be employed under the RCORP (Rural Communities Opioid Response Program) grant.
“We were lucky enough, as you’ll recall this was a while back, to be a part of a grant that Bowen Center applied for and received in November 2022. Part of that grant was to employ someone as a CARES person - to pay for their expenses, to pay for that total cost of that employee,” Fancil said.
He said they held off on filling that role because they wanted to make sure they could sustain the position after the three-year grant.
“So, we finally came to an agreement, I think, with some different community members,” Fancil said.
Jackson’s focus will be more in the area of substance abuse because that’s what the RCORP grant was geared toward.
Jackson took time off of her current job to attend the two-day class taking place at the fairgrounds.
“She’ll be good,” Fancil said.
The CARES website for resource allocation and management is still under construction, but it’s getting there, he also reported.
Also during the meeting, the board approved the resignation of Brandon Schmitt from the board and David Allbritten to fill Schmitt’s place. Board attorney Andrew Grossnickle gave Allbritten the oath of office.
Thallemer thanked Schmitt for his service. “As you indicated in your (resignation) letter, you’re going back to work with the Warsaw-Wayne Township Fire Territory, so it’s just a great excuse to quit the board, and we appreciated your insight,” he said.
Schmitt said it was an absolute honor to serve on the board and see another side of the fire service.
“I’ve enjoyed it and I have nothing but admiration for this board and for this city, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to serve in this way,” he said.
Schmitt’s resignation letter states he had served as a board member since 2018. He previously served a total of 20 years in the fire service, with four of those years as a volunteer and 16 as a career firefighter.
“So I’ll pick up and continue. I’m really excited to get back to that side of it. I’m anxious to get back with the guys ... and excited to get back to the shift work. I dearly loved it for all of those years that I did it. Family business took me away, but there’s an opportunity to go back now, so I’m real excited.”
Fire Chief Brian Mayo said he was “excited and ecstatic both ways. It’s sad to see (Schmitt) coming off the board, but I’m excited to see him coming back to the job because I know where his heart is.”
Before Allbritten took the oath, Thallemer said the position on the board held by Schmitt and then Allbritten is required by state statute to be appointed by concurrence of the provider unit and the participating unit, and the board member shall not be a member of the provider or participating units but a taxpayer of the territory. Thallemer said he and Wayne Township Trustee Jeanie Stackhouse agreed on the nomination of Allbritten to replace Schmitt.
On Allbritten, Thallemer said Allbritten has served on the Warsaw Traffic Commission and resigned that position on Monday, July 31. He served 32 years as an ATF agent in South Bend, retiring in 2019. He married Brenda in 1998 and they have two sons and two grandchildren. Allbritten is involved in Warsaw Community Church, Animal Welfare Leagues, Acres Land Trust, World Compassion Network and Fellowship Missions.
Allbritten will finish out Schmitt’s 2023 terms. All members of the board must be reappointed in January of each year.