Select Committee on Homelessness Strategies & Investments 1/22/20

All right.

It is 2.03 p.m.

here in Council Chambers.

I'm going to call this meeting to order of the Select Committee on Homelessness Strategies and Investments.

My name is Andrew Lewis, Seattle City Council member for District 7 and chair of this committee.

Just as a brief overview here, in getting started.

Joining me are Councilmembers Shama Sawant, Councilmember Tammy Morales, Councilmember Alex Peterson, Councilmember Lisa Herbold.

Possibly expecting a few more Councilmembers to come in as the meeting progresses, but as we have a quorum, I'm ready to get started now.

First off, chair's report.

This is the first meeting of the committee this year.

I'm really excited to be here, excited to see so many folks in the audience coming out to participate in this meeting as well.

and to be joined here by five council members.

As the public mayor may not be aware, this committee is a committee of the whole, select committee of the whole of the city council, all nine of us sit on it.

And I look forward to having a robust conversation about regional strategies on homelessness, how the city is gonna work collaboratively with other governments and other agencies to address the challenges that we face around chronic and systemic homelessness throughout King County and the region.

We're going to get that started today with an update from the on the progress with the new regional authority combined between the city of Seattle and King County and with representation from the sound cities We're also going to have a discussion of an ordinance that's been submitted by council members to want that ordinance regarding transitional encampments, Council Bill 119656. And, oh, no worries, sorry.

And we are now being joined by Council Member Juarez at the table.

So having given that overview of the meeting, I would like to first move for approval of that agenda as outlined and as has been provided to the committee members.

And if there's no objection, it'll be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

Proceeding now to public comment.

I'm gonna open the public comment period and a number of folks have signed up to talk about the agenda before us today.

Given the...

A number of folks who have signed in, it looks like about 21 folks.

I would ask the indulgence of the fellow committee members if we expand the public comment period to 30 minutes with a time limit of one minute and 30 seconds per speaker, if there's general approval for that.

It doesn't look like anyone's objecting, so it would be a minute and a half per speaker.

I will allow folks to come forward and speak as a group.

If you speak as a group, I will give the total group three minutes of time to speak.

You can't then speak again later on the agenda if you've come up to speak as a group.

I will ask that folks limit their comments to two items that are pertaining to the agenda and that they identify I'm going to ask them to make a comment early in their public comment which agenda item they are speaking to.

In the event that folks go over their time, I'll probably prod a little bit to sum up your thoughts.

If folks continue to speak beyond their time, just to make sure we can get to everybody, I will probably, at that point, cut the mic off.

So just to give everybody a bit of a warning on the ground rules for that process.

So I'm going to call the names up two at a time.

There are...

Microphones, there's a podium over there by the window.

There's a podium more in the center of the room.

Feel free to line up at either one.

So the first two names are Mr. David Haynes and Mr. Alex Finch.

And Mr. Haynes, you may proceed with your public comment.

Thank you.

Is this on?

We need an investigation.

I don't think this is on, bro.

We need an investigation of the six-figure salary service providers left over from King County community and homelessness, hiding within the all-home loyalties that buy off the mayor, council, and activists, uses grassroots charades to censor the reality of a homeless crisis that used to be a problem.

that keeps getting worse because the same people are in charge with more deceptive data.

Now City Council wants to reward Lehigh for safe haven where gentrification of toxic industrial smokestack exhaust on Warren Buffett's Burlington Northern Santa Fe train pulling overloaded uncovered coal cars ruining any semblance of residentially zoned housing overwhelmed by incessant horn honking every six feet, all night, every night, while Sharon Lee's carpenters fail to noise abate and aerobate, forcing people to live under the crumbling Magnolia Bridge, splashing street debris and floods onto their heads of the tiny slum village you have to go outside on gravel to get.

into the tinted kitchen.

Perhaps the Port of Seattle and the City Council should come to an understanding that congestion pricing is going to occur first on Warren Buffett's train cars and secondly on this cruise boats who need to pay more for honking and for the new location at Pioneer Square.

Sharon Lee manipulated the data to make it seem like her shelters were more successful by using her outreach specifically to put those people into her places.

We need an investigation of the six-figure salaries.

I wish there was more time, but I have proof that Sharon Lee's...

Mr. Haynes, your time has expired.

Thank you.

May I have 10 seconds, please?

No, sorry.

10 seconds.

All right, I'm going to turn this in.

I'm going to have to give everyone 10 seconds, Mr. Haynes.

I'm going to turn this in to the council for evidence that Sharon Lee only offers five showers.

No, thank you, Mr. Haynes.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

Four hours.

And then she closes for an hour so they can take a break and get high over in Ballard.

And then they're all closed on weekends.

So they got five showers for the whole population of homeless people on the weekends.

Five showers for 12,000 people.

Sharon Lee has been ripping people off for 20 years.

And you guys have never held them accountable because you keep trading the integrity of this whole process for re-election support that she pays the activists for, that she put on the extra ring.

And Mr. Finch, you now have a minute and 30 seconds.

Thank you.

My name is Alex Finch.

I'm a resident at Nicholsville Northlake and this is just a letter from Nicholsville.

We would like you to welcome, we would like to welcome you to the 2020 council season.

This letter regards Council Bill 119656 Version 1. That's the new city-sanctioned encampment and tiny house village ordinance that has been under consideration since last fall.

Tiny houses save lives.

They've been doing so since 2008 when Nicholsville first opened our gates near the Duwamish.

They have become a hallmark of providing life-saving shelter while simultaneously restoring dignity and a sense of self-worth in a cost-effective village setting.

For this reason, we support the immediate adoption of Council Bill 119656. Nicholsville North Lake Tiny House Village is presently located on city land and the present lease expires in March 2020. It's the same time the present city-sanctioned encampment ordinance expires.

Our village has operated successfully and has had excellent relations with our neighbors.

We pledge to cooperate with the city on continuing this community in either this location or another.

There are thousands who sleep unsheltered nightly in our city, and we encourage you to pass this bill with the urgency it deserves.

As long as they can be good neighbors, as Nicholsville has done repeatedly over the last decade, 40 tiny house villages would be an excellent method towards helping end homelessness in Seattle.

Thank you.

And copies for all of you.

Thank you.

And now Mr. Nichols and Mr. I think it says Chris Brand, although I'm not sure.

Bernard.

Hello, my name is Melinda Nichols.

I'm a volunteer, no pay, no six-figure digits.

I work for the Low Income Housing Institute as a volunteer, and I have for 20 years.

I'm a carpenter, and I've built tiny houses for the last five years.

And we have recruited hundreds, in fact, thousands of volunteers.

And I just wanted to thank you We are one of the most innovative cities in the United States for doing tiny house villages, and we have saved many lives.

And I think that one of the things that will be helpful is to expand our tiny house villages.

We are doing much better in moving people on to permanent housing.

And we do believe that the best way to do this is to keep people stable enough so that they can move on, that they can be warm enough, that their clothes can be clean, that they can be clean, that they can get a job.

And so we want to thank you.

We want to encourage more support for tiny house expansion.

And we do believe that there's nothing that can be done that's going to be any better for our homeless populations than expanding the ability for them to have a place to live.

Thank you.

Next up will be Mr., is it Mr. Brand?

Sorry.

So I'm actually speaking in his place.

He was unable to speak today, though he signed me up instead, so I'm set.

But I just want to talk for a second about the tiny house villages.

The stability that they provide is what's really, really important.

The ability to lock your door behind you, to go to work, to have a solid address to get your ID at.

in the gutters or in a tent, it's almost daunting and impossible to think about trying to go and get an ID.

Nonetheless, you know, food for that day.

So the ability to actually have a place like that to access, you know, the resources that Seattle and King County in general has, I know is fundamental and was for me in getting back up and on the feet.

So the villages provided that stability and have been a godsend.

So I think more of them, certainly for the amount of homeless that we have here, is a big, big problem we're all facing and we need to address.

Thank you.

And then Josh Castle, followed by Peggy Hotz, followed by Marguerite Richard.

Yes, Mr. Castle.

Yeah, go ahead.

I'm Josh Castle with Lehigh.

I just want to thank you for the city for all your support of tiny house villages over the last four years.

I urge passage of this ordinance.

We need it to happen before March 2020, of course, when it sunsets.

It's changed a lot of lives.

We've been able to get over 550 people into permanent housing through the program.

And I want to just yield the rest of my time to Reverend Willis of True Vine of Holiness Missionary Baptist Church, who's a sponsor of True Oak Village.

Thank you, Josh and council.

My name is Pastor Lawrence Willis, also pastor of True Vine Church.

Also, I've been a sponsor and working with Lehigh and the tiny houses for over five years.

My present past position, I was the program director for the pre-apprenticeship program, which we started building tiny houses together.

We did projects together at the Key Arena, at the Safeco Field, 30 houses, working with contractors.

But during that time, the church took on the responsibility to sponsor because they seen the importance of having a nice sponsored village and to take care of the residents.

Othello Village, which we do sponsor, had 146 people serve in 2019, 103 exited, with 62 percent going into long-term housing.

Also, we partnered with the True Hope Village, with the New Hope Church, which we had 106 people.

Sorry, sir, your time has expired, I'm sorry.

And also we had 60%.

And so I'm in sponsorship and working with the city and thank you for serving us.

Thank you, sir.

Peggy Hotz, followed by Margaret Richards and Becca Finkus.

Good afternoon, council members.

In the fall, the council and the mayor were sent a letter that was signed by dozens of faith leaders in Seattle.

I'd like to read you an important portion of that letter, one paragraph.

We support protections added to the existing city ordinance for residents, communities and operators to ensure that all tiny house villages and other encampments are operated ethically, fairly, and humanely.

We would like to suggest at Nicholsville that you pay careful attention to crafting a director's rule to implement this ordinance.

Thank you.

Yes, I'm Marguerite Richard, and I've come down here many, many a time speaking out on behalf of those that are unable to help themselves.

And I understand that with all this rhetoric and stuff going on and interruptions and people's speech and stuff like that, I don't like it.

Because I go to Renton, we talk for five minutes, uninterrupted speech.

They're just glad to see you come, glad to see you leave.

But it's our free speech.

As far as homelessness, no, I don't like the fact that I live in an area where they can put trash all along the street and folk wait for months maybe to come and clean it up.

That's insanity.

doesn't need to happen like that.

And no, I don't want your tiny house.

Does Beyonce live in a tiny house?

And if black people had our reparations, we would get the hell on out of your way, huh?

And you wouldn't have to deal with none of us no more.

This is 2020. And they say you got 2020. vision, but you got a whole lot of blind people still out there blind to the truth.

And I'm here to speak the truth, huh?

Until the last breath that I have.

So I'm saying you back up off of us and leave us alone.

If you don't know how to handle our affairs, don't get in them.

Next will be Becca Finkus followed by Hattie Rhodes and Chris McDaniel.

Hello, I'm Becca Finkus.

I work for Lehigh with the Tiny House Program.

About a year ago today, I was a student at Ohio State University completing a research thesis titled, City Sanctioned Homeless Encampments, a Case Study Analysis of Tiny House Villages in Seattle.

And I was reading news articles and trying to get in contact with important people like yourself.

And I decided I wanted to do more than write a paper, so I actually packed up my life and moved to Seattle and started working for Lehigh, because I thought I could learn more.

And in the past seven months that I've worked for Lehigh, I've learned that the tiny house villages save lives.

And I'm really grateful for all the residents here that you're going to hear speak about their experiences and their stories.

And I can't speak to that, so I'm going to keep it short and sweet.

But I really hope that you take the time to listen and to hear them and just to make sure that you actually process what they're saying and they're the most wise, resilient people that you'll hear from.

And so I really hope that you consider Council Member Solan's amendments to the ordinance.

Thanks.

Hello, my name is Hattie Rhodes.

I am a resident at the Georgetown Tiny House Village.

I just wanted to say that the tiny house villages are absolutely a benefit to everyone who is involved with them.

So the Georgetown Village itself works with the NAV team and REACH for all of our referrals.

We cater to some of the most vulnerable adults that are experiencing homelessness.

And we have seen remarkable success with people who have only been able to look to day-to-day survival, and suddenly they can envision a future in which they have an actual life to look forward to.

We do that right now with one full-time site coordinator and one and a half case managers.

We could do so much more if we just had a little bit more.

The other thing is that we receive phone calls every day wondering how people get in.

If we had this ordinance to have more tiny house villages, we would have so many more opportunities to direct them into having their own tiny house.

So thank you very much for passing this ordinance.

Chris McDaniel, followed by Naomi See, followed by Susan Zeman.

Thank you for letting me speak to you.

I live at Georgetown Tiny House Village also.

I've been homeless now for three years.

This is the first of this month.

And well, you know, my health is failing.

I've got a leg problem.

And so I, you know, I can't work.

And I got no income and, you know, I didn't want to know what to do if I didn't have this.

I mean, I've got a lifetime Seattle resident.

I got Googled.

You know, they came, they moved into my neighborhood and prices went through the roof.

You know, it was still a 120-year-old apartment building, but all of a sudden now they wanted $1,500 a month.

Tiny House Villages, you know, it gives somebody a decent option because the shelters are just, they're a madhouse.

You know, you really need to finance them.

You've got to have a better option than what's been, you've been doing it for years and years and there's more homeless people now than there ever was.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Naomi See, and I'm currently an undergraduate at the University of Washington and a volunteer with the Low Income Housing Institute.

I feel grateful to have the opportunity today to share my experience over the past year with the tiny house villages.

Each day working with the villages confirms for me that they are an essential component of Seattle's ambition to transition residents into permanent housing and facilitate upward mobility.

Their success is unparalleled.

Beyond the village's unique achievements in housing and supporting individuals, the tiny house villages have this incredible ability to facilitate the creation of community on a large scale.

In just a short time, I've had the privilege of witnessing how the tiny houses have brought together businesses, religious institutions, schools, governments, and citizens under a shared mission, to care for our fellow neighbor.

Across the nation, communities are recognizing tiny house villages as an innovation in the shelter and supportive services model, as well as a remarkable form of community that extends to the surrounding neighborhood.

The village program has proven its merits.

We must embrace this evidence and implement the results before more people die of homelessness.

Thank you.

Zeman, followed by Cassandra Gaspard and Ian Gardescu.

Hi, I'm Susan Zeman.

I am not going to talk about why we need more tiny house villages because we have a lot of speakers here who are able to address that more eloquently than me.

And besides, you already know why we do.

We need more tiny house villages because we don't have enough affordable housing.

We don't have enough supportive housing.

We don't have enough workforce housing.

I want to talk about my experience as a comfortably housed person.

I live in southeast Seattle near the Othello tiny house village, and having that village nearby gives us in the community an outlet to help in real and practical ways with this really intractable problem.

It gives us a way to connect.

It is, in fact, a community building opportunity for the whole neighborhood.

It's not the most important reason to support tiny house villages, but it is one reason.

Tiny house villages connect us, and we need more of that.

And Cassandra Gaspard is next.

Hi there, my name is Cassandra Gaspard and I am currently a resident at Camp Second Chance and I am also a Lehigh employee.

I visit the main office every day down near First and Bell.

And I get to witness firsthand people sleeping on the streets with barely a piece of cardboard to keep them between them and the wet ground.

I also get to witness, you know, their, you know, using the restroom outdoors, you know, the garbage, eating out of the food waste bins.

It's very, very sad.

And I, without the tiny house villages to expand, I know for a fact that there will be more of these folks out here that will die.

And I, once again, am here in pleading for more tiny house villages.

And it's given me a safe place to lay my head at night and a warm place to put dry clothes on and to get up and have the success of having a job and transitioning into permanent housing.

So please, we ask you, council members, to please support this.

Thank you.

Thank you.

that the podium by the window can be used as well.

So the folks that are on deck, if you want to kind of queue up at that podium to just help speed things along with the comment, that'd be great.

Next is Mr. Gardescu followed by Bruce, I think Bruce Good and Travis Johnson.

Hello, I'm Jan Gardescu and I am speaking for the SHARE organization today.

Seattle Housing and Resource Effort SHARE, the largest network in King County Shelter Network recognizes Seattle's dire emergency in homelessness.

Last year, at least 112 homeless people died outside or by violence in our county.

We desperately need more villages and encampments to save lives.

There needs to be a range of shelter options, including SHARE's model of democratically organized, sober, self-managed communities.

SHARE strongly believes the proposal to build 40 new tiny house villages will help reduce the number of lives lost and improve the quality of life for Seattle's homeless people.

And that is why we encourage you to pass Council Bill 119656, version 1, out of committee today.

We also encourage approval by the full Council as soon as possible.

Last October, dozens of faith leaders came out in favor of this concept.

They also said, we support protections added to the existing Council Ordinance of Residents, Communities, and Operators to ensure that all tiny house villages and other encampments are operated ethically, fairly, and humanely.

They had an excellent point.

We believe these crucial matters can be addressed in your director's rules once this ordinance is passed.

It is imperative that you act before the present ordinance sunsets in March 2020. Thank you.

Good afternoon, City Council.

My name is Bruce Gogol, a resident of Nickelsville Tiny House Village.

This year, you have the opportunity to be part of the solution to end the homelessness crisis in Seattle.

It will require understanding and determination to do so.

One of your greatest resources will be public testimony.

Testimony that is not gauged by the color that it wears, but testimony that is factual and honest.

With understanding comes clarity, which will guide your determination.

I urge you to listen to the people that your decisions affect.

Nicholsville supports the tiny house ordinance presented today as soon as possible.

The details of allocation, prevention of monopolization and management of tiny house villages can be worked out later.

Neighbors for Nicholsville has gathered over 500 signatures in support of Nicholsville tiny house village.

Imagine what can be accomplished with 40 neighborhoods that give the support like ours.

Thank you.

Travis Johnson followed by Asha Gunabalan and Michael Foster.

This is for the expansion proposal by Ms. Councilman Savant.

Good afternoon.

My name is Travis Johnson and I'm a Nickelodeon.

I do support 40 tiny house villages for all.

To be clear, that means different groups, not just one monopoly or corporation to operate the tiny house villages.

Democracy to self-management leads to great things.

Please consider Nickelsville and the share will because they have grassroots in the Seattle community or another organization that has grassroots in the greater Seattle area.

Thank you.

Hi, thank you for addressing this issue.

I'm a product of the 1965 Immigration Act and had a very privileged life and a successful career and I started my own business in Seattle about a decade ago.

I lost my business and landed up into homelessness last year when I didn't have any family around me and I ended up in Fremont in my truck, and it was pure hunger that drove me to search for free food, and I ended up at the Elizabeth Gregory Home.

And from that, I ended up, I stayed in that shelter for about 12 days.

It was very difficult, and through a series of good fortune, I landed up with the Catholic Community Services and their rapid rehousing program.

And without them, I don't know where I would have been.

And I'm not sure I would have been here.

So I really, I studied in college, Psych 101, Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.

Without basic needs, you have nothing.

And if experience is the true test of what makes things work, I can tell you that we analysts and people who have it really good do not understand it.

It's a basic right.

Please support all the tiny homes.

Thank you very much.

And next, Michael Foster, Kyle, I think it's Kyle Malone, Teresa Holman and Loni McMurtry.

And if folks could please line up at the mics when you're on deck, that'd be great.

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much.

I'm Michael Foster.

Thank you for this action after so many years of failure to act.

I am for tiny homes.

They work.

I'm really happy to be neighbors with a tiny house village.

I love it.

Shelter is a human right.

It's a shame when neighbors don't have shelter, a shame for those of us with beds.

These tiny house villages are actually greener than my home.

I'm a climate activist.

And I gotta say, I'm really jealous.

Sometimes when I look at the structures and I think, you know, climate emergency means our population is gonna mushroom here in the Seattle area as we're one of the least affected areas in the country and people are burned out of places like Paradise and the flooding in the Midwest over the next few years.

So we're going to need every single tiny house, every single solution we can come up with for housing.

CBS News just reported that we may see the end of the 30-year mortgage.

If you take out a mortgage today, when will you pay it off?

That's not a good investment, and you probably won't be able to keep insurance on that home.

So thank you for your bold leadership.

We cannot do too much today.

My name is Teresa Homan, and I am so excited to be here.

I actually manage one of the tiny house villages.

It's Whittier Heights, and it's our Ballard community and women only, but they're all really great in what they do.

I love this program because the tiny house villages seem to me, having worked in permanent supportive housing for eight years and now switching over to the shelter side, It seems to me that they're cost effective.

It's an ideal stepping stone.

And what I mean by that is they work because they give people who have been outside for a long time the opportunity to take their, like enjoy the space and get used to living in community, living with rules and living with walls again, actually.

So they're perfect in that sense, but that's not what makes them so awesome.

They're awesome because they create a space in which people can think and grieve and heal and move forward.

As a witness to that, it's overwhelmingly joyful.

So thank you for seriously looking at this because it really is making a difference.

Having been a manager in permanent supportive housing, I would have asked less people to move out on a mutual termination because they would have already been used to those three things, walls, community, rules, and we wouldn't have had the problems we did had they not come directly from the streets.

Thank you.

Your time has expired.

Thanks.

So they work.

So a last call for the two remaining folks, Kyle Malone and Loni McMurtry, if you're still in the room.

Yes, sir.

Kyle Malone.

I will just speak about personal experience.

There's a lot of good facts, but I have a traumatic brain injury and that has cost me a seizure disorder.

And so it's extremely dangerous for me to be on the streets, especially on a night like last night.

I don't know what I would have done.

I tried a tent city, better than being on the street, but it's still not the environment that I need to be in to stay away from alcohol, weapons, people that I just don't need to be around.

When I found Camp Second Chance, I was welcomed in.

They knew about my seizure disorder.

They didn't run away with it.

They helped me deal with it.

Most everyone there knows that I have it.

They get me to the hospital quick.

If that's the case, they've taken great care of me.

You know, on the light side, we do have fun there.

We cook food for each other.

It's a little community.

I see no reason why this should be stopped.

This is the best thing I've seen in treating homelessness.

I haven't seen anything like it.

Three different states being homeless.

Thank you.

And then the last call for Loni McMurtry.

Sorry?

Oh, okay.

Very good.

All right.

Well, thank you, everyone, for your public comment.

We can now proceed on with the agenda to items of business.

First item of business, so Mr. Thorpe, oh, well, there you are already up at the desk.

Mr. Thorpe, will you please read item one into the record?

And will our presenters please join us at the table?

Mayor's Office and Seattle Human Services Department briefing and update on the King County Regional Homelessness Authority.

Thank you.

So we're being joined at the table by Tess Colby from the Mayor's Office.

I believe we're also being joined by Director Johnson.

We've actually not had the privilege of meeting yet, so it's good to meet you in person.

Before we begin our presentation, can we just do a quick round of introductions from the presenters?

First, I do want to acknowledge that during the public comment period, we were joined by Council Member Strauss at the table.

Thank you.

And so with that, I'll let our presenters introduce themselves.

Tess Colby, Office of the Mayor.

Jason Johnson with the Human Services Department.

Thank you and thanks for joining us here for this discussion.

We're also joined from central staff.

I'll let you make your introductions.

Council central staff.

Great.

So proceeding with this item, I have had the privilege of being recently briefed on the progress that's being made with the Regional Homelessness Authority, the appointments that we made on January 6th as a council in our delegation to that authority, which will be myself, Council Member Gonzalez, and Mayor Durkan.

My understanding is that we still don't have an idea of the entire membership of that body or an official first meeting yet, but mostly just wanted this to be an opportunity for the council members to ask similar questions that I got an opportunity to ask at our previous meeting.

Just kind of a general update on the roadmap of kind of where we are headed in the immediate and medium-term future and even the long-term planning of the regional body.

and then just open it up and give my colleagues an opportunity to ask any additional questions that they would like to pursue.

Sure, absolutely.

So Jason and I are going to tag team a little bit on the presentation and likely on the answering of questions as well.

So just to begin this a little bit, I want to do just kind of a quick reminder of what the governance structure looks like.

I think you all got a version of it.

Yours is very small.

I apologize for that.

I have a larger one which I could share with you.

And just remind everybody what the ILA, the interlocal agreement that you all approved at the last council meeting in December, really provides for in terms of the overview and governance of the authority itself.

So, within the ILA, it provides for a two-tiered oversight structure.

So, the first level of that structure is the Governance Committee.

And as Councilmember Lewis just described, the Governance Committee is comprised primarily of folks who are in elected office, as well as three members three representatives of folks with lived experience, either those who have immediate lived experience or who are working with and representing folks with lived experience.

And by lived experience, I mean lived experience of homelessness.

So yes, indeed, City Council and the Sound Cities Association have identified their members.

My understanding is that King County, if not today, will be doing their selection shortly, and we are still working.

The continuum of care is helping with the identification of folks with lived experience.

So, the goal is to have all 12 members in place at least identified as quickly as possible.

Some of the first actions that the Governance Committee will be responsible for will be, in fact, one of the sort of largest responsibilities will be in nominating and seeding the second level of governance, if you will, which is the Implementation Board.

And so there is some, we are certainly feeling pressure and excitement about moving forward with the Governance Committee.

Yes, Council Member Herbold.

Thank you so much.

Just a question about my understanding of the Governance Board, where our goal is to meet end of January, February, and we also have the All Home Continuum of Care Board that is working to identify, as you mentioned, three individuals to serve on the Governing Board.

to represent their lived experience.

Is it your belief that the Governing Board will have its first meeting without those individuals, since the Governing Board, I believe, appoints those individuals?

They're nominated by All Home.

Actually, it is the, it's going to be, not All Home, but the Continuum of Care board that actually seats those individuals.

So what they're going to be doing is working with organizations that will essentially make the nomination to the continuum of care and then from there they get seated.

Okay, I was under the impression that the governing board had a role.

Governance committee does not have a role in seating those members, those folks with lived experience.

In sort of in the same way the governance committee as a whole does not have a role in say seating any of the elected officials.

I'm reading information that says they will be confirmed by the Governing Committee, but that's not.

The Implementation Board, that would be correct.

The Implementation Board.

Not for the Governing Committee.

Okay.

It's that two-tiered structure that I think will take us all a while to get used to.

Okay.

With that clarification, okay, great.

It certainly does.

So we're going to have one meeting with everybody there.

Yes, yes.

And that was good.

Thank you for the reminder on that.

The goal would absolutely be not to hold a meeting without the folks with lived experience.

We want everybody to be on the same plane, if you will, when we start this work.

And in terms of Council Member Herbold, the timeline that you just described, end of January is not going to happen just because we're midway through January.

And there's still identification of folks to be had, but we are hoping, so the ILA actually says that the first governance committee meeting should happen within 90 days of the effective date.

That is the should language.

That's permissive, not mandatory.

We are certainly hoping that it will happen before 90 days.

So within that time period, as quickly as can be put together.

And the other thing to note is that that very first meeting will be co-chaired by the mayor and the executive, and that's provided for in the ILA.

But then at that meeting, we are expecting that the committee will identify its leadership, also identify the cadence of meetings, and begin the process of determining the process for and identifying who will be nominated and then seated on the implementation board.

Thank you.

So some of the responsibilities of the Governance Committee are some basic sort of general oversight responsibilities of, for example, creating bylaws for the Governing Committee.

And I know that's going to be one of the first activities that the committee will be undertaking.

And also, as I mentioned, confirming and or removing implementation board members, approving performance metrics for the authority, and approving the staff plan and the org chart for the authority itself.

All of those can be done with a simple majority.

And then those activities or responsibilities that need to be done with three quarters majority, and right now the way the, not just right now, forevermore, unless it's amended.

The way the ILA is written is that three-quarters of the quorum, which is nine members, so it's nine of 12 members, so at a minimum, three-quarters of that quorum need to be present to approve the goals, plans, and policies, to approve the budget, and to confirm the CEO.

And then removal of the CEO has the highest standard for voting, and that requires an affirmative vote of all nine members.

So moving on to the Implementation Board.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I just want to flag a part of the discussion last year as it relates specifically to the changes that the Governing Board can make as it relates to major amendments to the budget as well as plans, policies, and goals.

those amendments to prevail and I believe that the preference of this council is not in conflict with the adopted ILA language and there's been expression via resolution of the council's interest in working on this and we've received written communication from both the mayor as well as the executive to work to address the issue of raising the threshold for governing board to make changes to those policies I enumerated that the Implementation Board enacts, and that would be to raise the total number of votes necessary from, I think, right now, based on, I think, the quorum as it is now, it would be six, but we want to get it to a minimum of eight, with the idea, again, The implementation board is the, they are the experts and a very big driving goal of the regional body is to enhance the decision making of people with expertise in the field and who are somewhat insulated from public pressure, political pressure to do things that may not be considered best practices.

And so we identified, because of the way the composition of the governing board and the implementation board shook out after passage of the council's legislation and the county's legislation, we flagged this as an issue that we want to return to in the bylaws.

flagging that, I know you're aware of it, but just flagging it for my colleagues as well.

And in raising the threshold to eight, we're again making it more difficult for the governing board, which is a board primarily of electeds, with the exception of the three individuals with lived experiences or accountable to people with lived experiences.

Its goal is to make it a little bit more of a higher threshold to actually make changes to the budget plans, policies, and goals.

Thanks.

Is that right?

It is.

So thank you for that for that clarification as well.

Going on to the process for actually seeding the implementation board, so what the ILA states is that the members of the governance committee should work as quickly as they possibly can expeditiously and collaboratively to both establish a nominating process, but then also to actually vote on and seat the implementation board members.

The nominations come from all members of the governance, all the bodies of the governance committee.

And so the way it breaks out is It will be a 13-member board, so two nominations each by the county executive, two King County Council, two mayor, two Seattle City Council, two Sound Cities Association.

and then, that consists of 10, and then three additional nominations from folks with lived experience.

The implementation board has designated three seats for folks who are representing folks with lived experience or who've had lived experience.

So that's ultimately the number of seats that sort of get broken, that's how the placement of those seats get broken out.

Okay, I wasn't sure you had, yeah.

And how will this nominating board be stood up, or the nominating committee be stood up?

What are the criteria for selecting each of the skills and expertise specified in the ILA, and how long will it take to have them fully seated?

on the implementation board?

Those are all really excellent questions that I think we are still and when I say at this point when I say we the county exec staff and the mayor's exec staff are working together to come up with a proposal that we think we can take to our bosses and then ultimately to our respective councils, to the SCA and to the continuum of care for how that might happen because the ILA left that all extremely open.

What it says is create a nominating process.

And so what we would like is to be able to offer for consideration a process that would identify what that nomination process will look like.

process for actually identifying who might be interested in the implementation board.

I can say that it will definitely be our recommendation that that be an open process.

And again, how actually that gets implemented is yet to be determined.

But that would be the recommendation, that it be an open process.

In the same, treated in the same way as we treat other kinds of citizen committees.

Beyond that, I don't have very good specific answers for you yet on what the timeline for that looks like.

Jason is going to talk to you a little bit in a minute about the CEO recruitment process.

And again, the sense of urgency that we all have around, making sure that we both have an implementation board seated and feeling confident enough then to work with the governing committee on that recruitment process.

Because we would really like to get the CEO in as quickly as we possibly can, because from there begins sort of all of the organizational structure and the staffing work that needs to be done.

I can say that we share, or at least I personally share your sense of urgency, so if there's anything that we or I can do to assist you, I am still, when you come to have this criteria formed and the process formed, I'd love to chat further.

Yeah, thank you very much.

will flag that the interlocal agreement makes reference so that the nominating committee is reflective of the membership of the governing board.

So you would have the city and county councils also and the Sun Cities Association part of that group.

So the council can also be part of conversations on how to begin convening that nominating committee and the processes in the same way that the mayor's office or the county executive's office can.

Absolutely.

Okay, continue.

So if you were able to read the diagram, which I will give credit to our colleagues in King County who love 11 by 17 one-pagers.

But if you were able to read that, you see that the implementation board is intended to be populated by 13 people with an entire array of expertise, experience.

predominantly with the goal of making sure that there is strong oversight of the authority in its work, but also strong expertise and subject matter expertise.

There's also a goal to make sure that the board is representative of populations that are disproportionately impacted by homelessness, that it has geographic diversity, that it has racial diversity.

and that it be reflective of the members of our community who are also either impacted by or engaged in addressing homelessness.

So faith communities, philanthropy, business communities, neighborhood associations, that sort of thing.

As we talked a little bit about the seating, the yet-to-be-determined nomination process.

The implementation board has the sort of general authority that you would think of as any, that any normal board of directors of a nonprofit, for example, would have.

So that's developing policies, creating their own bylaws, doing annual reporting.

So there's an annual performance report and an annual funding allocation report that will be given to the governing committee.

The last thing that I want to mention and to remind everyone, because I know this came up quite a bit in our, as we were going towards the process of creating the ILA, is the budgeting process.

At the end of the day, the budgeting process for the authority's budget request will look very much like the current budgeting process that you all go through and experience with the current homeless services budget, which is to say the authority will do a draft budget that will go through the implementation board, so the first level of dialogue back and forth will be between the authority and the implementation board.

Once the implementation board approves the budget, that will go to the governing committee, for additional approval, so they'd be making their recommendation.

That then would be the final budget that comes to CBO, to the mayor's office and get ultimately included in the mayor's budget.

Intermingled in all of this is the same level of dialogue that CBO and the mayor's office currently has with, for example, the Department of Human Services, that same back and forth and that same dialogue.

So we would expect to have that so that there's no surprises.

What we want is the authority to be successful.

We wouldn't want the authority to just submitted budget that bears no resemblance to what the mayor's budget is going to look like, or more importantly, the dollars that will be available.

This will be new for all of us as we go through this for the first time, and that first time will likely, we thought that it would likely be in 20, for the 2021 budget, and that is gonna be highly dependent on the seating of the, the hiring of the CEO, and whether or not that CEO is in place in time to be able to really start through that process.

So.

Yeah, sorry, Council Member Peterson.

Yeah.

Hi.

We'll definitely have something from the regional authority by the fall of 2021 for our budget process, which would then start spending the money in January 2022 for programs.

Oh, yes, certainly for the 2022 budget, yes.

It's only the 2021 budget, which means that they'd have to start this year.

I think there's questions about whether or not that would continue through the same HSD process, which is feeling somewhat likely, or whether or not that would end up being, for example, a hybrid between HSD and the new CEO.

It's a question of timing.

Okay, but fall of 2021 to implement January 2022?

Yeah, Jason, we'll talk about this a little bit more, but the anticipation and our expectation is that the authority will be fully up and running, fully staffed, fully operational on January 1, 2021. Thank you.

So the last thing I'll say is just about the continuum of care.

Right now, All Home, the continuum of care board is administered by All Home, which is to say also it's administered by King County.

And the way it is envisioned in this new structure is as an advisory committee to the implementation board.

And that advisory committee then would serve as the federal continuum of care board.

And remember that the Continuum of Care Board's primary job is to meet the requirements of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the U.S.

Department of Housing and Urban Development, when it comes to the award of their COC funds, previously known as McKinney-Vento funds.

And the current COC board is in the process of amending their charter to better align with the interlocal agreement and determining a process by which they will also change their membership to better align both with HUD's standards of having a more diverse COC board, one that is more representative of the community at large and less sort of focused on providers.

And that also, again, sort of aligns with the needs of the authority.

And that is my intended to be brief overview.

Not so brief.

All right, thank you so much.

Any final questions for Ms. Colby, Council Member Strauss?

Yeah, I just see in the memo from Jeff, thank you very much for the detailed memo, that the staff will be co-located in late 2020. Is there any way to speed that up or is there, I guess, also what is the background on why we need to wait so long?

And I will hand that to Jason.

Yeah, so again, Jason Johnson with the Human Services Department.

Thank you, Tess.

Thank you, Council.

Good to be with you.

So I've been asked to offer two updates, one on co-location and one on the recruitment process for a CEO to the regional authority.

As part of that co-location update, first, you know, there is much to be done while we stand up a critical governance infrastructure for the regional authority.

There is work that cannot wait for all of those boards to be seated, for bylaws to be written, and for that governance structure to be in place.

There is some work that needs to be done now.

and work that quite honestly began at the end of 2019. And in order to do that, absent boards, absent a CEO, Leo Flohr from King County Department of Community and Human Services and I, with Tess Colby and Shannon Brodick out of the county executive's office, have stood up a structure of a leadership team and a variety of different work groups.

And these work groups, as well as the leadership team, are made up of employees from both King County DCHS and HSD.

The leadership team also has representation from the Seattle Office of Civil Rights and King County's ESJ office.

It has people with lived experience as well as employees from and leadership from the two departments.

So that leadership team is in place.

They meet every week, every Monday afternoon, and they are the group, the body by which information and decisions are moving through at this point.

There are also four workgroups created and staff employees from both HSD and DCHS as well as where appropriate from the mayor or exec's office and people with lived experience are participating in each of these workgroups.

One is related to co-location.

So this is a workgroup.

to move through the details of what it will take to move teams from three different locations into one location at the Yesler building.

There's a workgroup on program migration.

So this is a workgroup focused on how we continue 2020's important work, but also start to envision that work looking different.

and finding areas where we can merge efforts between the city and the county now and where we need the new regional authority to be up and operational in order to make change.

There's data migration.

So right now we use the homeless management information system at both the city and the county.

But we use data in different ways.

We have different reporting requirements.

We have different means of communication and stakeholders that we communicate with.

And so we need a work group in place now to start thinking about data migration and how those data, both the requests and requirements and the data, functionality can be consolidated into one.

And then finally, all of this work is centered on a very clear theory of change.

And so there's a workgroup helping us better understand the equity-based decision-making tool that will be in place when this regional authority is stood up.

It's helping to ensure that the theory of change is ever present as any of these workgroups are doing their work.

And so I'm just incredibly thankful that we have employees who are willing to raise their hand and participate in building this regional authority, especially at a time when, again, we are absent a CEO, we are absent a board or governance structure, and really are relying on teams as they exist now to start envisioning how things could be different in alignment with the theory of change and the interlocal that was passed.

So, Mr. Director, I think Councilmember Morales has a question.

Sure.

And then Councilmember Herbold after, okay.

Thanks.

You mentioned the HMIS information gathering system.

Can you talk about the changes that will be made in that process for data collection as it relates to racial equity?

Because I know that there are concerns that the way data is collected is disproportionately impacting the ability of people of color, particularly Native Americans, to access some of our homeless services.

So that's a body of work that's currently underway and there is a group of experts in the data space as well as program staff from both HSD and King County DCHS who have been working on that issue and continue to do that work.

That work will not be part of what the data migration work group is looking at.

They're really diving into some functional detail just about how, quite honestly, about where staff will be seated, how people will still have access to the database.

They're doing an inventory of what kind of reports are required at the city as well as at the county.

what the timing of those reports are, and trying to work through those kind of functional details.

But the work to be more equitable in both the collection of and use of data is something that continues to be looked at.

I think part of what you're also talking about, I said Morales.

She just said it correctly which I'm not used to hearing.

I'm sorry.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

No, no, it is new.

It's the beginning of the year, but no, I'm not doing that.

So I think part of what you also are maybe referring to is coordinated entry and the process by which folks go through coordinated entry get assessed for vulnerability and using that process get referred to housing.

And that is another piece of as...

As Jason was describing, that's another piece of the data, data migration, and sort of the migration of both HMIS and coordinated entry into the regional authority.

And there's sort of a general agreement that the tool that's being used for those prioritizations and for referrals needs to be revisited.

And in particular because of the outcomes from the referrals showing racial bias.

And it is something that is being found not just with our coordinated entry here in King County, but in other communities that are using the same tool.

kind of the good news is some of the work that was done here in King County to reveal that is really resonating across the country.

But know that that's being addressed.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Could you add in how HSD is currently utilizing measuring length of stay and the prioritization tool relative to the tool score, the VI-BSPDAT score and how much each composes your prioritization?

I don't think I understood your question.

I understood that HSD has been in the process of maybe 50 percent, I don't actually know the percentage, that's what I'm asking, of your prioritization rely on your score on this tool, which is called the VI-SPDAT, whereas another portion of it would rely on how long you've been homeless.

Is that, that was at least being examined and that there was a consideration of changing those relative balances in order to address the racial inequities that our coordinated entry system would be I'm happy to follow up and make sure you have that information.

that the VI SPDAT, is that it?

Scores are resulting in low prioritization for people of color who may not be considered highly vulnerable, but they have been homeless for a very long time.

And so we wanted to explore whether or not we need in interest of promoting racial equity outcomes.

Yeah, the staff of the Human Services Department have gone deep into the data and what they believe it means.

So I'm happy to provide that information.

I want to just return to the staff transition process.

So our staff memo says in two different spots that the transition will begin in, at one place it says early 2020 and another place it says late 2020. I just want to make sure.

Yeah, so I'll go through that process completely.

I'm sorry.

So it says early in 2020 and in another place it says spring 2020. I just want to make sure it hasn't slipped to late 2020 because I thought I heard that at this table at some point.

All right, so the co-location is still planning to happen sometime in the spring.

I think you said late, and what we were talking about is budget.

would happen in late 2020 to stand up the new organization fully in January of 2021. But what I am prepared to walk through is the full co-location timeline, so that you have a better understanding of exactly those pieces.

I might still have a few follow-up questions, but let's go for it.

Right, so we do have a full agenda today, so just to make sure that...

We can move through it quickly.

But okay, sounds good.

So, you know, change management at this scale is not easy nor should be taken lightly.

And so in order to make sure that communication is flowing and that we are moving through this process with transparency, As well as by asking questions and making sure that the best ideas are at the forefront, we're engaging with staff in many ways.

So we conduct weekly huddles.

So the entire HSI division huddles on a weekly basis.

There's also email communication that goes out every week before those huddles.

So this is an attempt to get information as well as communication.

out to each employee at the Human Services Department.

We have, I facilitate a biweekly HR meeting.

This is a meeting where HR professionals from the city and the county join with the city attorney's office as well as the mayor's office, leadership from HSD and DCHS.

And those meetings are really laser focused on issues of labor.

issues related to how we can support employees during this period of transition.

Also mapping out items like co-location, like the CEO recruitment.

And so it's a really critically important meeting for all of us that attend those.

And then we have our city attorney's office as well as the Seattle Department of Human Resources continuing to look at benefits, making sure that When a transition to this regional authority occurs, there is comparable salary, benefits, pensions in place to help support employees in the manner by which they're accustomed to being supported at the city and the county.

All of this is happening so that, that transition to the regional authority and co-location at the Yesler building can be a smooth transition.

We are still on time and planning for a March 2020 move to the Yesler building.

This is a move for HSD from Seattle Municipal Tower and for the county from a building on Jackson as well as staff who are located currently at the Chinook building.

And so there are efforts underway working very closely with the co-location work group and King County Facilities Management to make sure that the building is ready in early March and so that staff can be ready to move at the end of March.

Council Member Herbold, do you have a follow-up?

Yeah, a clarification on that.

Is the entire HSI division moving, or just a subset?

They are.

So we have, a couple years ago, there were individuals in the Human Services Department working on homelessness in a variety of different divisions, as well as in the Leadership and Administrative Division.

And what we did a couple years ago was organize so that everyone working on addressing homelessness out of the Human Services Department for the city was teamed in one division.

And so it is really that division and there are resources in that division that are even related to finance and communications and data that are.

I'm just trying to be extensive to the chair's desire to get to the next item.

I just want to get my questions out if I could.

So there is, it's not going to be a subset of the HSI division that is moving, it's the entire division.

The entire division is co-locating.

I'm sorry.

And there are, after a CEO is hired, they will submit a staffing plan.

which will further explore what different roles and responsibilities are needed at the regional authority.

So I'm, the reason why I'm trying to get my questions out about this is that I'm hearing that there's a lot of speculation already about which positions are going to be eliminated and if the co-location isn't going to happen until March and we're not getting a plan until I think the memo says either a supplemental in 2020 or with the mayor's proposed 21 budget.

I'm just curious as to, I mean, the speculation might be, may not be true.

It may not, it's third-hand information.

But if it is true, I'm just trying to understand how that could happen given that the entire HSI division is being relocated, co-located.

And we aren't making final decisions about who will stay with the regional authority until much later.

I'm just trying to get a, is there something happening that we all should be aware of?

No, you accurately described exactly what's going to occur.

There's going to be a co-location period that begins in March of 2020. Then, after the hiring of a CEO, we will begin what we're referring to as a loaned period.

This will be a period by which there is matrix supervision, where day-to-day operational decisions are made by the CEO of the company.

county regional homeless authority but there will also be existing lines of authority back to the city and the county.

It will not be until we until the 2021 budget is passed in November for January 1, 2021 when positions, the position budget and those pockets actually transition fully over to the regional authority.

So this is a multi-phased move that starts with co-location.

that begins to transition to more of a loans or matrix supervision phase once the CEO is hired and ultimately in January moves to the full realization, fully staffed by the regional authority.

So Council Member Sawant, do you have a question?

Not exactly a question, but just a request.

I mean, we have the presenters for the next committee here sitting for a long time, and I was not planning to be here until 6 because I have other issues also to get to.

If this item is going to go on for significantly longer, can I request that we do the item number 2 and then come back to this?

And also just, I mean, just some feedback.

I mean, I think we've really talked for a long time about the structure of this regional body, and you've used the term co-location a number of times, and the real, the most substantive question was what is going to happen to the positions?

And I don't, I haven't heard the, and maybe you're not ready to answer that question, but I just feel like belaboring just the details of this committee is not going to help.

There's not been one point made about What is this regional body actually going to do about homelessness?

And maybe that was not the agenda point you were going to discuss, but just in the interest of the people who've come here for the most substantive issue in today's committee, which is the tiny house villages, just actually providing some service.

Just a request.

Sure.

No, I'm understood.

And, you know, I would like to move the agenda along, but I want to make sure my colleagues also can ask all their questions about the authority that's coming together.

It's going to be a big regional investment.

I think it warrants some more time on the agenda.

I, too, would like to get to respect our presenter's time on the next item, which is Council Member Suwant's extremely important ordinance that we're going to consider.

I just want to make sure while we have all the principals here, we get the questions of our colleagues out.

I think we're probably getting close to the end.

But thank you.

Council Member Juarez.

Thank you, Chair.

First of all, I want to thank you guys, Jason and Tess, thank you.

We've been working on this issue.

It started in the Regional Policy Council back in June or July.

So while I understand Council Member Sawant's point about, you know, the time that we've taken, I want to point out that we spent 90 minutes on a resolution that we didn't even pass.

So just holding that point aside, I want to give you all the opportunity, because when we started this in June of July of last year, we went through all these different positions and laboring and reconstructing.

We thought we had it together right before Thanksgiving.

It changed again.

It's the first time that we've had a county response to homelessness.

I think it's important to point out, started with the city, now all of a sudden it's a county response, and now we have our governor saying, oh, it's a statewide response.

Former Mayor Iman Ramel of Chicago has a book coming out, I'll just say this briefly, But one of the tenets of that book, which is really important for us to hear, is that it is going to be city councils and city representation and community groups that are the first wave to see any kind of conditions that hurt our people see it first.

And we have been saying to the state that homelessness is an issue.

We've been saying that since 2015. And now we finally have a statewide approach.

We have a county approach.

And it's this type of briefing and understanding about what that mechanism looks like.

Now, I was involved, I'm no longer on the Regional Policy Council.

It'll be Councilmember Lewis and Councilmember Gonzalez, which will move this forward.

And, you know, we fought long and hard about the votes and how that's going to be in the Governing Council.

We finally got it nailed down.

I, for one, want to hear how this is going to get implemented.

I think Councilmember Gonzalez spoke to it very eloquently about how we set the structure up, how it's going to be a county response, how the voting is going to look, and more importantly, where the money is going to come from and how we're going to attack this.

While I do respect what Councilmember Sawant said, and I do thank her for the ordinance that she's bringing forward today, it does harken back to what we said in 2015, that we have to have extraordinary response to this condition, just like we tried to do with the opioid overdose issues as well with the Board of Health.

So getting back to what my original question is, I want to thank you for your hard work, because we've all been looking at each other for a long time.

I'm glad we're finally here.

I didn't know if we were going to get here right up until the vote in December.

And one of the questions I have, and thank you for indulging me, is how are we, has the mayor said, or have we decided, or have you talked about, or what can you share about how we're going to go to look for the CEO, who is going to have to be a dynamic person, For the city and the county, and you know what it was like bringing in all those cities into this, switching it up from a PDA to an ILA, how are we going to go about looking for this dynamic individual that's going to attack homelessness and shelter the unsheltered and provide the money and leadership that this county desperately needs?

Thank you.

Good and timely question.

So the CEO is going to be a dynamic leader who helps to shepherd this new, not just structure, but the implementation plan that the structure is going to be carrying out.

And so it's incredibly, an incredibly important hire for this community to make.

It also is written in the ILA that that new CEO has only 60 days to come up with a full staffing plan for the regional authority after the date of their hire.

So two months after they're hired, they need to submit to both the city and county council a staffing plan.

Back to Councilmember Herbold's point, just about the urgency here.

I point that out because the longer we delay the hiring of a CEO, the longer we sit without that staffing plan, and the longer we have a workforce who sits with anxiety about their futures.

So it is critically important, not just for all of us, who want to see measurable change as it relates to homelessness in this region.

But it also is critically important for our timeline to get this regional authority stood up and make sure that we have the best and brightest people working as part of that organization to address homelessness regionally.

We have very recently, in December and again this month, we'll continue this Thursday, working as an HR workgroup.

Bobby Humes, I want to give a huge shout out to him.

He has been an incredible partner to me, has designed what I believe is a very thoughtful process about exactly how we would bring the CEO on board.

And that process is rooted in the theory of change.

We cannot just select a recruitment firm who currently does business with the city and expect that we're going to get the kind of leader that we want.

We want to make sure that we're selecting a recruitment firm that is grounded in equity and that can carry out the theory of change as proposed in the regional authority.

And so this Thursday we'll be going through and walking through both the detail and the timeline of exactly what selection of that recruitment firm could look like.

It is the role of the implementation board to actually be engaged with the recruitment firm and make a selection of the CEO.

So there's only so far we can take this as staff, but what we want to ensure is that that firm is ready to go.

When the governance structure is in place, that there's a firm in place who can immediately start working on that recruitment.

we need to have that CEO hired this summer.

Any delay in getting that recruitment, that CEO brought in to summer, then delays our ability to support that CEO's staffing plan with budget in 2021. So there's a really short window here for us to bring the right person on board.

But we're working diligently to ensure that we can get a firm, get the right firm in place who can hire that CEO.

Thank you so much.

I don't know if there's any last comments from my colleagues at Councilmember Strauss.

Yeah, thank you sure just wanted to echo Council Member Juarez's comments and thank Jeff, Tess, Tracy and all of the colleagues at King County Council for your fast work in the last November and December to get this over the final line.

It was impressive to watch you work and I know that it was no small effort.

So thank you and thank you to all the council members who were here voting that off and to you Director Johnson as well.

Can I have one make a request?

This is it.

And you can get back to me on this, but I do have a question about what the process is for reviewing the effectiveness of the authority.

I mean, it does say in here, or it doesn't say, but you mentioned that the governing committee will approve performance metrics.

So I'd just like a little more information about how we determine the effectiveness of the authority itself and how those, What happens if those goals aren't being met?

How do we course correct?

And what is sort of the plan of action for that?

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

So now we will proceed to item number two, second item on the agenda.

Mr. Thorpe, will you please read the text of the item into the record?

And we'll, we have a couple presenters on this.

I think we'll have all of them just come up at once.

I think there's enough space.

So Mr. Thorpe, will you please read the item into the record?

Council Bill 119656, an ordinance relating to land use and zoning, providing that transitional encampments for homeless individuals are allowed on any property owned or controlled by a religious organization without approval of a permit under the Seattle Land Use Code.

to permit transitional encampments for homeless individuals as an interim use on all publicly owned or private property within the City of Seattle, and providing for renewal of temporary use permits for transitional encampments as a Type 1 decision of the Director of the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections.

Briefing discussion and possible vote.

Thank you, Mr. Thorpe.

So all of our presenters are still making their way up.

I'll just briefly say while we're waiting for folks to join, and then I'll open it up for the introductions from our presenters.

First, I wanna thank Council Member Sawant for bringing this.

I wanna give Council Member Sawant an opportunity to speak to the ordinance now, and then I'll do my overview of the process after that, I think.

So Council Member Sawant, thank you.

And I want to thank everyone for their patience in getting to this item as well.

It's fine if you want to do introductions before I speak.

Okay, yeah, excellent.

I think we're joined at the table now by all of our presenters.

And so I guess starting with Mr. Freeman, we'll just go along and have folks state their name and where they work.

Kato Freeman, Council Central staff.

Good afternoon, council members.

Are we working here?

I'm Peter Steinbrook, president of the Port of Seattle Commission and co-chair of the Great Northwest Seaport Alliance.

Good to be here.

Sharon Lee, executive director, Low Income Housing Institute, or LEHI.

My name is Joseph Procella.

I'm a consumer of the services of Seattle City.

I was homeless for many years here and now I've been stable in housing for the past year.

Thank you so much, all of you, for joining us here today.

Council Member Steinbrueck, in particular, in case we need you to fill out the quorum, I don't know if we might miss a couple of members and need to get up to five, we'll tag you back in.

That would be Council President, wouldn't it?

Sorry?

Oh, yeah, former Council President Peter Steinbrueck.

Yeah, welcome back to that side of the table.

So now, Council Member Sawant, thank you for bringing this forward, and I want to give you an opportunity to speak to your ordinance before we discuss it.

Thank you so much, Chair Lewis, and thank you for scheduling this in your first committee, in Select Committee of Homelessness that you're chairing.

I think many community members and also incumbent council members have heard much eloquent testimony about the role that is being played by tiny house villages in this unprecedented and raging homelessness and affordable housing crisis that our city and region is facing.

Some of that testimony was heard today, but I just wanted to also add, you know, the where we've come and we started talking about city authorized encampments.

Many years ago, before I was certainly in City Hall and others also, but it was in the 2014 discussion that we had and that was my first year in City Hall, you know, through the People's Budget Movement, how can we actually get authorized encampments and also city funded encampments?

And what a long way we've come, especially I think in terms of public opinion.

I think that's a very important criterion to take into account that there is tremendous public support.

I don't have like a randomized poll to point to, but I do know that it has shifted tremendously and in a positive way.

Contrary to the whole stories told by Safe Seattle and Speak Out Seattle, I think that the vast majority of ordinary people, housed people, are welcoming our homeless neighbors and recognizing that this crisis is touching virtually every person.

I mean, I hardly know anybody who hasn't experienced it themselves or knows somebody personally who has experienced it.

And as a testimony to how strong that public opinion is, I just wanted to share that, you know, when Mayor Durkan decided that they were going to go ahead, Mayor's office was going to go ahead with evicting the North Lake tiny house village in the middle of winter, we, my office alongside community members, set up a petition because we thought that was unconscionable.

But in 30 hours, we had over 2,000 community members sign that petition.

I mean, we do a lot of organizing through my office, and I have to say that was one of the most successful examples of people coming together in solidarity with the North Lake Village.

And then through that kind of community organizing, we forced the mayor to back down on what would not have been good for our homeless neighbors.

And so I really appreciate the opportunity to frame what the intent of this legislation is, and also just quickly give a summary of the steps that we have already taken to come to this point.

Tiny house villages, as many have said, in Seattle have been perhaps the most successful support for people facing homelessness.

They provide things essential to live with human dignity, like privacy, safety, and a place to store your belongings.

Many have self-management, where residents are empowered to democratically run their communities.

And even based on the metric of the Human Services Department that is tracking transitions to long-term housing, Seattle's tiny house villages are far more successful than even the enhanced shelters.

And we know, I mean, and especially the providers know, that's not always the best measure, especially because we don't have enough affordable housing to go around.

And yet, even by that measure, this is actually a remarkable success.

They have the best track record of helping people find long-term housing.

And they also have the best track record of providing decent and humane conditions in the interim.

And then, you know, and obviously the main conversation has to be about raising progressive revenues like by taxing big business to provide that kind of affordable housing because the market is not providing.

But at the same time, we cannot ignore the fact that today people are suffering and tiny house villages are providing that lifeline.

And while homelessness exists, there's no reason why people should be left on the streets with nowhere to go.

Tiny house villages can be built quickly and inexpensively.

We had a volunteer carpenter testify to that.

As long as we have this crisis, then there should be a tiny house available for anybody who has nowhere else that is better to go.

And it is a way to make it less harmful, and which is what, which has a lot to do with why the transitions to long-term housing are better.

And, you know, one of the edits that, to the existing ordinance that Ketil's memo talks about, and Ketil will of course fill in, is that the current ordinance expires the end of March, and we, that's one of the motivations, but it's not, that's not the only change we want to make.

We also want to make sure that We, the new legislation, the updated ordinance allows villages like Georgetown and Northlake to continue to renew their permits as long as it is justified, allow as many as 40 villages in the city using this type of permit.

But of course, keeping in mind, villages are not going to spring up just because this legislation got passed.

We need funding to go with it, but at least it makes sure that they can be located if we can find funding for them.

And on the whole, just to clarify, the new ordinance, if passed, will still mean that tiny house villages need permits.

Permit applications still need to be reasonable.

This legislation is simply about eliminating blanket prohibitions on the siting of tiny house villages and the longevity of the tiny house villages, which we feel should be based on the needs of our city.

So we published this legislation from my office in August last year.

Since then, we've held several committee discussions on it in my committee last year, and now we are having this discussion in Councilmember Lewis's committee.

Then we had a public hearing last year, which included extremely powerful testimonials from tiny house village residents.

Some of them spoke again today.

We also completed the CEPA process, which is the environmental review that is required for public or private development proposals under the State Environmental Protection Act.

And so all that remains is for us to have the discussion and then vote on the legislation.

I hope that council members find themselves prepared to vote today, but if not, then I would hope as soon as possible.

And I want to reiterate that my office, both my staff and I personally are available to answer any questions.

Thank you so much, Council Member Sawant.

And Mr. Freeman, I want to give you an opportunity maybe to jump in if there's anything you want to add as the central staff working on this, but before we turn it over to our presenters.

Sure, and I'll just sort of commend to your attention the January 20th memo that I sent to all of you.

It provides some background information on the three regulatory processes by which a transitional encampment can be permitted in the city.

some additional background on budget actions, and also talks about the proposed changes to the city's regulatory regime for transitional encampments, which is essentially what this bill would do.

As Councilmember Swann mentioned, the bill would modify regulations and permitting procedures for both interim use encampments and also encampments established through a temporary use and as accessory to religious organizations.

Most of the changes are for interim use encampments.

It would modify the locational criteria for those encampments.

would expand the locations in the city where they could be located and do away with some dispersion criteria that otherwise would apply.

And it also raises the maximum number that could be established in the city from three to 40. As Council Member Swann mentioned, when the council first established the interim use pathway for permitting transitional use encampments, that was done in 2015 through Ordinance 124747, and that ordinance has a sunset provision in it, would make it such that the interim use pathway would expire on March 31st of this year.

All right.

Thank you, and there will be an opportunity for follow-up questions.

I would ask maybe after all of our presenters present, just to kind of flag a roadmap on this ordinance.

I've had an opportunity to speak at length with a number of my colleagues and council members who want in just kind of talking about the ordinance, the history of it, the substantive changes that it will make to the current ordinance language.

I mean, my intent at this time would be to to strive to honor the deadline for the sunset that has been laid out by both Councilmember Swann and Mr. Freeman from central staff, and to, even though our next committee meeting is going to be on February 26th, to hold a special committee meeting sometime in the next two weeks to allow this conversation to sink in with everybody, to give people the opportunity to consider potential amendments as we have this conversation today.

I would just ask as a courtesy to central staff that folks considering amendments, please give Mr. Freeman plenty of time to work on them early and distribute them so that we can be prepared for that next council meeting to possibly take action.

I would like to to make sure that we honor that deadline to make sure that we have, that folks can rely on it and we're not in a place where a lot of these encampments that have been very successful by a lot of metrics are going to be displaced or put in jeopardy potentially.

So with that, I want to turn it over to Port of Seattle Commissioner Peter Steinbrook just to, just by way of a little bit of background, you know, why I support Commissioner here.

my favorite tiny house villages as council members.

Of course, one of the ones located in District 7, located near my apartment in Uptown, down in Interbay.

Know a lot of the people involved in the governing board there.

I've been very impressed by it.

And I believe the Port of Seattle has as well.

And I just wanted to call Commissioner Steinbrook to just kind of talk about the port's relationship with that community.

And I'll hand it over to you.

Chairman Loos, thank you very much.

Councilmembers, really appreciate your providing this opportunity.

Councilmember Sawant, thank you so much for your proactive efforts.

Sponsoring the ordinance as well and speaking to the core issues of why we have an epidemic crisis in this country I want to just give you a little quick anecdote When I was thinking as we were talking here about my own experience working on homelessness and housing one of the first Assignments I received like mr. Lewis here like councilmember Lewis was to chair the housing Human Services Committee in 1997 Lisa remembers that I was so pleased to have that committee because for me it cut to the core of what was our paramount duty was the human condition.

Yet it wasn't easy and I learned that many of my colleagues, not to point fingers at anybody, but were somewhat indifferent and saw it as, quote, money down a rat hole to try to reduce the situation to reduce homelessness.

Money down a rat hole, I remember one council member So we've come a long way since then.

During that time I worked to reduce homelessness through homelessness prevention, rent supports, fighting for more money.

And back then, it doesn't seem like a lot today, but fighting for more money because it was very clear that there was no way we were going to really tackle the problem with solutions that were enduring without more money.

We worked to write the first tent city rules to legitimize tent cities and decriminalize homelessness, which had been at that time many of the things were being considered criminal activity.

So lots of experience back then.

The homeless strategic response was an attempt to ramp up and proactively the city's efforts.

and put more money at a time when we had tens of millions of dollars coming from the REIT tax through this incredible prosperity that the city was experiencing then.

So there's some deja vu, but there's some things that have changed since then.

We're far deeper into the crisis than we were then, which is the most disheartening thing for me to see after, you know, all these efforts over the years.

The positive things are seeing the city and the county council, city, excuse me, King County Council and the state starting to align.

That would be the first time that I can think of that has ever moved in that direction.

And I'm very optimistic about those efforts to see greater alignment and more resources coming from our entire regional partners here because we're all in it together.

And so from that standpoint, I'm really here to offer my strongest support for the model of tent cities excuse me, the model of little tiny houses as a proven successful approach to leading people out of homelessness and into permanent stable conditions.

And I want to share the port's perspective on this as the leaseholder of the Interbay Safe Harbor Village.

Our partnership with the City of Seattle, the Low Income Housing Institute, and Sharon and I go way back, the many faith-based organizations who have been doing yeoman's work for years and years, yeowoman's work, the community advisory committee, the surrounding community members, and of course the residents of the Inner Bay Village together have all been critical.

And I might add the surrounding communities.

I was very pleased to hear comments about the proactive support, yes, in my backyard.

That wasn't true 20 plus years ago.

It was strongly resisted all over the city.

And so I think the attitudes have been evolving and I think the model of the tiny house has actually turned this around significantly in terms of public perspectives.

and community perspectives.

And it's turned around because they see actual positive results.

They see conditions that are more decent, safer, and a sense of community.

It's called the interbay village, after all.

And it is a little village.

And we mustn't think of it as a permanent solution, but it's definitely a positive move in the right direction.

And I think it's drawing national attention.

And it started here in Seattle, I think.

with the many efforts involved.

So the name alone speaks to the sense of place, community, from the start.

And we've been very pleased to have on our staff Mick Schultz on the port.

who has been closely involved with working with community members, the Interbay Village, and ensuring that we're addressing issues that may come up and concerns and all of that.

So we have a liaison there as well to help support these efforts.

When the port was first approached in 2017 by the Interbay Magnolia community to consider leasing property, To the city of Seattle for a tiny house village get that it came I guess some of the early efforts from the community.

We worked with the city to initiate a robust early outreach effort with the surrounding community.

that included connecting with 25 nearby businesses.

One of our own staff, Veronica Valdez, was out on the street knocking on doors to survey, you know, the business response to this idea.

The partnership only grew and strengthened over time as many of those businesses have donated food, clothing, and supplies to the village.

How about that for a turnaround?

My gosh, that's bringing all the resources of community to bear as we should be.

In November 2017, the Port of Seattle Commission voted to approve the lease agreement with the city of Seattle for two years.

At the request of the city this past summer, we extended that lease by an additional year through 2020. I was very pleased that the Port Commission unanimously voted in support of doing so, and on October 8, 2019, at a meeting on October 8, 2019. At the Port, we recently rewrote our core mission statement to include quality of life.

While economic development is central to our mission as a special purpose government, the quality of life of King County residents cuts to the core.

And it speaks to our closely held values and shared values of making this tiny house village possible on port property.

We continue to strive to be a responsible neighbor and a good steward.

Port districts have broad authority, as you know, to lease land for such purposes and on such terms as the port deems proper, which supports this lease for the city's homeless program.

As a special purpose district, however, you may know there are limits on the port's authority to take a more active, proactive role in the developing, operating, and owning affordable housing.

If you haven't had the opportunity to be there as a guest for a tour, I'd highly encourage it.

It was an eye opener for me to say the least.

I very much appreciated.

the time with the residents, speaking directly to them, and the time and attention that the staff is giving to the welfare of the residents.

I always say that seeing is believing.

And when you're there, you feel a strong sense of pride, dignity, and hope.

Each of these qualities are essential to the way you're able to see residents to be empowered with the help and support that they need and deserve.

We will never end homelessness until we have returned to a place of dignity.

And I think one of the maybe the intangibles of this experience with the little houses is restoring a sense of human dignity.

Because when you lose it, it's all lost.

When you've lost your dignity.

There's really not a lot that's left there.

And this model, I think, strongly supports that aspect of human need and survival.

Since the village opened its doors, we've seen some astonishing changes in people's lives.

such as moving people and families from unheated, outdoor, often unclean and unsanitary places to 45 units of warm and safe space, mutually supportive, co-managed residents have access to running water, the basic showers, kitchen sinks, and other amenities on site.

That's essential to survival.

Every day and every night at the village, there is a program manager And during the daytime, two case managers to support the village residents.

This is a notion of housing first plus services in order to stabilize people's lives.

And the primary, people are always questioning, why so many homeless people?

Well, they've got mental illness.

They've got drug addiction.

They, you know, this and that.

Well, the simple fact is the one common denominator there is that they are all poor.

And that cuts across the whole spectrum.

Why are they poor?

Well, we can speak to that in another conversation.

But it's the income disparity and poverty more than anything that drives people into homelessness, unfortunately, at some point in their life.

So the supportive model restores stability, safety, and security.

And I think, as I said, human dignity, perhaps most importantly.

To date, more than 400 households have been served here.

That really speaks volumes about the Housing First supportive services strategy for moving people out of homelessness.

And I think I mentioned this, this is a widely recognized nationally as the most successful model that we have today.

And I was an advisor to the National Alliance to End Homelessness during my council years.

So I looked at it also as a national crisis, which I believe it has grown to become even more than 20 years past.

Interbay Village has maintained a 46% exit for residents who transitioned into permanent housing compared to 4% exit rate for traditional shelters.

Those numbers are very impressive.

In 2019, Interbay Village provided shelter and community to 100 women and men experiencing homelessness.

In addition, the port has received almost no complaints from surrounding neighbors.

or from within the village itself, if an issue does occur, the port is notified by the city of Seattle in a timely manner.

So we have a partnership there.

And to date, the city has no violations, as I understand, on the lease agreement.

At the port, we've helped coordinate with organizations such as Lehigh in conjunction with the operations and case managers supported by the city and community to establish what was created there.

The unique partnership has created a national model spearheaded by other projects in cities all around the country.

Sharon Lee's phone is ringing off the hook from from around our region and nationally.

We look forward to continuing our partnership with the city of Seattle in addressing the homeless crisis and further contributing to the quality of life of our residents by providing opportunities.

Thank you commissioners, excuse me.

That's me.

Thank you council members.

I'm always doing that.

I'm always reversing those things.

And Mayor Durkan for your leadership and supporting this joint partnership with us and more importantly the community in making places like this possible for our residents.

I'm happy to answer any questions.

All right.

Thank you Commissioner Steinbrook.

Sharon Lee.

Sorry And I'm gonna speak next.

Oh, of course.

Yeah, go.

Yes, sir, please My name is Panda.

My friends know me as Panda.

I Been on the streets living here in Seattle for five years.

I Was in tent city 5 on Dravis Street When we first got word that it was time to move because we were changing We were gonna be a village.

We were actually gonna have houses to live in.

I We didn't have to live in cold, wet, leaking tents that would cause problems, which is what most people on the streets live in.

And then they have to deal with the sweeps coming through and taking everything from them, and then they have nothing.

But I'm here to speak of personal experience, because I lived in the encampment for 18 months.

I've been in subsidized housing for about a year now.

And my experience when living in the village was You know, everybody on the streets, we all feel alone.

We feel like we live in a broken society that just leaves us down into the dregs of the gutter because people don't care, because everybody's interested in money and we don't have any money.

There's so many people, I was explaining to someone in the past, you know, you see, why is there so many people homeless?

What's the reason?

Well, the reasoning is, is every one of those people has a different reason for being homeless.

You can't pin it on drug abuse, substance abuse, mental health illness, societal norms.

You can't put those restrictions and say that that's the cause of it, because there's many more causes than what we are even aware of.

Living in that encampment allowed me to reach out to others, to understand what their plight was, how they got onto the streets, what they were living through.

It was a way for us to bond and come out of that hiding that we do when we're on the street, living on the streets, because we don't want to be inflicted with somebody's bad words about our standards of our living, when it's bad enough that we have to live the way that we did when we did.

So I found that when we moved into a village and everybody got assigned to a house and we started doing our own securities and managing our own encampment in the way that we performed our duties and performed outreach services to the community, because I listened to the port commissioners and went to that meeting last year, and it was surprising to hear, because when we moved into that community, we had a lot of businesses that didn't want us there.

And then after being there for a year, and we go to the meeting, and then the port says, no, we have three or four of those businesses that said no before that now don't want you to leave.

Because we did weekly and outreaches to pick up trash.

We did outreach to control members from going into local businesses and stealing and causing problems for the citizens that lived in the region.

Now, the other thing that worked really well in the village was the CAC, because we became more involved in the greater community around us to become part of that community.

In the sense that we were a self-managed village that we got together on a weekly basis and decided what we were doing in order to make our community a better place to live in for ourselves, what we needed to do to get out into the streets to make sure that we were doing the right things to find housing, to find medical care, to find all those services that somehow was A starting spot, the village was, because we started to change and become back into a normal feeling of belonging and becoming part of society again.

I know for myself, speaking for myself, it was very hard to transition into that because I'd lived so long on the streets and in my own mind and not open and acceptable to anyone else and their thoughts of For one, why?

What could it be done?

How could we help?

Those were all key elements.

And the CAC involvement puts us on a one-on-one basis with other members of the society, the city, businesses, churches, to where we can participate with them and they understand our needs and wants and follow through and help make that become a reality.

That was the other thing, and living in a village was that we created our own reality, and I know I wanted housing, but I know it took a long time to get housing, to get subsidized housing.

And so I had a little bit of Social Security money, so I spent it as best I could and invested for my future for when I got into housing, I wouldn't have any needs.

Now, that's not a typical story from others that are out there.

There are others out there that have no funding, no money, no, but they need, the channels and the opportunities to get the medical help that they need, to get the mental help that they need, to get the social counseling, to get the drug abuse counseling, all the other needs that are there.

And if we don't address any of those needs, then we go back into homelessness again.

I've seen so many people get into housing and then lose their housing because of something that wasn't addressed, fixed, worked on in order to make people sustainable to stay into housing.

I was very thankful to live there.

I was very thankful to be a part of that community, to help that community evolve and grow and develop in the way that it has.

I know personally I gave tours to entities from different cities, counties, states, and countries and nations from around this planet.

On a constant basis, daily sometimes two or three times a day, people want to know, what is going on here?

How do you do this?

What's going on?

And so just leading tours and helping people better understand the whole process that was involved in a self-managed village that was sanctioned by the city was very, very helpful in the sense that it helped me feel more like a contributing member of society again.

I just want to say and take a moment to thank the City of Seattle, the City Council, the Port Authority, King County, the State of Washington, Lehigh, all the other grassroots organizations, all the CACs from the local areas for each community, village, and then as well as the churches and the individual citizens of Seattle who take their time to go and visit these encampments and say, hey, what is it you need?

What is it you have a want for?

That alone builds such strength and development of being a human being and feeling like this is something that there's some compassion here.

Because of the years, I'm 58. I've been homeless 23 years of those years.

This last stretch was nine years.

And I'm very thankful to have, like I said, I've been in subsidized housing for about a year now, and I don't see any reason why I'll ever leave because I'm taking care of everything that needs to be taken care of.

And that's important, but yet I'm also participating and trying to help make a better thing for the future because no one has an answer for this.

It's gonna take every single one of us and our own input in how we can do to help change this into a better way for the future.

Thank you.

I just appreciate the time that you've given me to speak.

Thank you so much for coming here and sharing that with us as a committee.

And for that matter, too, the folks that did provide public comment earlier who also live in some of these tiny house villages and, you know, as a council, you know, we look at a lot of these policies and percentages about exit rates and percentages about effectiveness, and I think we forget sometimes that these aren't statistics.

Like, you're not a statistic.

You're a person.

Everyone that had public comment earlier is a person, and I really appreciate you coming, sharing that story, because that's why we're all here today, and thank you so much.

So, Sharon, over to you.

Yes, I just want to clarify, Panda talked about the community advisory committees, the CACs, and one thing that's really good about the proposed bill is that it does require four new villages that they have a community advisory committee.

Currently, the advisory committees include seven stakeholders.

They include, let's say, the business, community, neighbors, residents, and as well as Chamber of Commerce or neighborhood community councils.

So that is going to be a requirement in the existing ordinance that there be five to ten, I think five to ten people.

and they basically meet on a monthly basis and they provide advice and feedback to the village.

So that's a key part of the bill.

Just a clarifying question, is there not, I thought there was a CAC that's already part of the legislation.

That's a current requirement for interim use.

Yes, but it's staying and possibly expanding in the new bill.

So it allows for more people to be added to the CAC.

So, and then the other thing I want to mention is that there is a PowerPoint that we proposed that we hope that you can view that because it does have some pictures of the villages and some statistics.

And also we do offer, would like to offer a tour for people who haven't been to the villages recently.

So I think what's significant is that when the initial ordinance was put in place, people did envision and the city funded us to have tents on platforms.

And so they were limited to like three sanctioned tent encampments.

But now that we've transitioned them to tiny house villages, and as a matter of fact, last year, we converted all the remaining tents.

There were some villages that had tents and tiny houses, and we converted, we had people donate and build tiny houses.

So now we've eliminated the, you know, the small tents, and so now everybody has a tiny house.

And so we added 50, over 50 new tiny houses to the existing villages.

And in terms of statistics, I do want to say something about this.

Last year, we sheltered 648, close to 650 people in the tiny house villages funded by the city.

And so we were basically housing 20% of the unsheltered people in Seattle.

10% of the residents of the tiny house villages were children.

So some of the villages have families with children.

Some of them have adults and couples.

One is for women only.

All of them have have allowed people with pets, and then we also have a diverse mix of seniors, veterans, people of color, and so there's a lot of diversity and acceptance of people in the various villages.

Four of the villages are self-managed, self-governed.

In some cases, a site coordinator that facilitates resident participation, democratic decision-making.

And the other four are staffed 24-7, like an enhanced shelter.

And as you know, some of the villages are clean and sober.

Some of them are harm reduction.

So it's sort of like what Panda talked about.

There's a diverse need in the community.

So we have different villages depending on people's situations.

And we are taking people from the navigation team.

And with the council, I think, direction, we will start taking people from LEAD.

And of course, we have church referrals and referrals from like the Urban League and the Seattle Indian Center and Seattle Vocational Institute.

And so what is important about a tiny house is that it's heated, it's insulated, and The fire department and public health actually comes in and inspects.

So we have a smoke detector, a carbon monoxide detector in every tiny house.

We have fire extinguishers throughout the site.

We have, you know, first aid kits.

But this is like Councilmember Herbold's, you know, emphasis, but we made a real point of converting the porta-potties into plumbed toilets and showers.

And now we have laundry.

We have running hot water in the kitchens.

We have refrigerators, freezers, coffee makers, bread-making machines.

I mean, we just have a lot of appliances that neighbors have donated to us.

So you should come and experience the village.

And I do want to say that...

We are showing, the last figures are showing that we have an exit rate to permanent housing of 40% from last year.

Are you talking in general?

I lost track because I was distracted.

Are you talking about any specific village or overall?

Overall, okay, so basically third quarter of last year, the enhanced shelters had an exit rate of 23% to permanent housing.

During that same period, the city funded villages had an exit rate to permanent housing of 36%.

But when we added the fourth quarter for last year, our exit rate to permanent housing is 40%.

And then another 15% to two-year transitional housing with case management.

So essentially 55% exit rate to long-term housing.

Transitional housing typically has a Section 8. People get a Section 8, and they get a case manager, and then they get help with employment and housing.

So we think that the tiny house villages, we hear from the navigation team are where people who are currently living in their cars, living on the street, unsheltered, this is their preference.

They would like to move to a tiny house village as opposed to a dormitory or a shelter.

All right, are you ready to transition to questions?

I didn't want to interrupt your presentation, but I'm sure there's questions on the panel here.

Well, we also want to thank the council.

Last year, the council added $2 million for us to expand tiny house villages, so we're hoping to work closely with the Human Service Department to identify two or three additional sites for villages.

And hopefully, we can get one in the north end as well.

All right, well, thank you so much, everyone who presented.

Council Member Sawant, did you have a follow-up question before I move on to other folks on the panel?

Yeah, just a quick two- Or on the committee, rather.

Right, two quick observations following from some of the points that Sharon was making.

Yeah, Sharon noted that we, as a council last year in the budget, we appropriated an additional two, slightly over two million for additional tiny house villages, that's what you mentioned.

And I think we also imposed a proviso to, again, to your point, for prioritizing the referrals from the navigation team to the tiny house villages, and also from the Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion Program.

And also importantly, we, in the budget that the council approved, we reduced by approximately $1.2 million an appropriation to relocate rather, what I would say, dismantled to encampments, which we think doesn't make sense for all the points that you all have made.

And all of this I'm reading from Ketil Freeman's memo, which is excellent.

And then the last point is, Sharon was referring to the community advisory councils, committees, community advisory committees, the CACs.

The bill in front of us, the existing ordinance says no more than seven members.

This is on page four of the version one of the ordinance.

The improvement that Sharon was referring to says the committee shall consist of no fewer than five and no more than 10 members.

So you're right, it is strengthening it.

Okay, thank you.

And Council Member Herbold.

Thank you.

And, Chair, I want to defer to how you would like questions to be taken.

I have some questions for Ms. Lee, but then I also had a couple questions for central staff.

Should we all ask our questions of Ms. Lee first?

Since you have the mic now, Council Member Herbold, Vice Chair Herbold, I should add to that.

Why don't you just ask all your questions at once while you have the mic, and then we can move on to another Council Member.

So for Ms. Lee, I have two questions related specifically to the data.

I think I heard you give an explanation for why it is on page...

what is it, page 24, the exits to permanent housing were 34%, but then on page 25, the exits to housing were 56%, both under the heading of 2018 data.

I think I heard you say something about adding an extra quarter in or something like that.

I don't need it now, but if you could provide the backup information at a later date so I can actually see how you got to that.

56% in 2018. I really appreciate it.

And then as it relates to the previous page, which is I think 20 page 23, you provide some outcomes related to a specific a tiny house village, Licton Spring, and you report the demographic information associated with this particular village, it would be helpful, one, to know what the timeframe is for the data, but also to get it for all of your villages.

if that's possible.

The demographic information, the number, the percentage of folks served that were Caucasian, Black, Native American, Hispanic, Asian API, and other, and the average age and the gender.

So rather than just having it for one, if we could have it for all and also get a sense of over what period of time you're measuring it, that would be really helpful.

And the data source.

And then is some of the technical questions I have for Ketel.

So I am having a hard time understanding the eliminating the requirement on the ecumenical encampments requirement for them to be accessory.

I thought by their very nature, so the way I understand the city has been implementing our religious encampment ordinance is we don't actually require that the land be adjacent to the religious facility.

But that by the very nature of the religious facility being in control of the extra land, their use of it, if it is a use to serve homeless people, is by its very nature accessory.

So I'm having a hard time understanding what the elimination of accessory accomplishes on the ground.

Sure, so I think what it essentially would do is it would conform the code to the existing permitting practice at SDCI.

So as originally contemplated, I think when the council enacted the changes to that bill back in 2011, I believe, the notion was that they were going, they were intended to be accessory.

Well that was somewhat limiting based on what the authorizing or what the, based on what the state statute required.

The state statute uses the words owned and controlled, so it wasn't just limited to accessory uses.

To acknowledge that, STCI's permitting practice has been when there is not a church located on a site using a church as a religious institution, here's an example, the STCI sometimes requires that a principal use first be established.

And that principal use could be something like a community center, which is not what folks imagine a community center to be.

But the land use code defines a community center as a place that's sort of generally open to the public and has a public service, public sort of purpose.

And so it is, and Sharon is, I think, familiar with the details here.

But in order to sort of meet the accessory use requirement, SCCI has sometimes required that a faith-based host first establish a principal use on a site.

so that an encampment can be established as an accessory use.

So there is some additional out-of-pocket cost potentially for a faith-based organization that wants to host an encampment and also some time cost when it comes to permitting.

Because it creates a two-step process.

You have to create a principal use first and then name that principal use accessory.

Yes, exactly.

And for an accessory use, If it is truly a church site with a church on it, it may be the case that the faith-based organization wouldn't have to get a permit at all.

But if it's not accessory to a church on a site, then there is this additional step that needs to be accomplished.

I've found the concept helpful because to me it wasn't tied to the ownership or the tenure of the property, whether or not it's owned or rented or its location.

It's a concept that by the merit of the church using it, it becomes accessory to the church.

And so by removing that language, I think it's really important that we're really clear with the public.

So we're not changing the concept.

The concept is still the same, and it's about a religious institution's right to practice its mission.

And so by practicing its mission on a piece of property that they're in control of, whether or not it's ownership or rental, regardless of where it's location, that concept of accessory use is still embedded in the right.

We're just not using the language because the language then triggers this sort of two-step process.

That's right, yeah.

I mean, I think that the notion is that, you know, there was this pathway, the Religious Organization Access Reuse Pathway derives from a state Supreme Court decision in 2011 when Woodinville sought to prevent a share wheel tent city from being established.

And the state Supreme Court held that the constitutional protections in the Washington State Constitution provide absolute sort of freedom of conscience for a religious organization to host a tent encampment.

And there was a change in state law as a result of that Supreme Court case.

I think that change happened in 2010, and the city codified that change in 2011. And it is pretty expansive.

It doesn't just apply to church-owned properties.

It also applies to any property that a church has a leasehold interest in and is using that leasehold interest to further its mission.

I have a couple more technical questions, but I don't want to monopolize.

Sure.

And I do just want to state, I'm being told by port staff that Commissioner Steinbrook needs to be excused for another appointment.

So I would ask with the permission of the committee that this witness, this presenter, sorry, witness, still transitioning from the courtroom, that this witness be excused.

This is so engaging, and I so want to help your efforts personally, so I appreciate all you're doing.

Thank you very much.

Always good to see you.

I've lost control of my life.

Commissioner Steinbrook, thank you for your presentation.

It's good to see you back at the table here.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Great.

Okay, so any other questions for the remaining presenters from council members?

Council Member Peterson.

In terms of the process today, I don't have any questions for Panda or Sharon Lee, but Are we going to talk about the legislation separately?

Yes.

Okay.

Yes.

Yeah.

So, yeah, hold your thoughts on that.

I have, well, I think actually most of my questions were actually answered by Council Member Herbold's line of questioning.

So, I think, Yes, no, I think that they were in the follow-up with, follow-ups with Sharon and with Ketel.

So I don't have any further questions either.

If there's no other questions, all the presenters can be excused.

And thank you so much for coming here and talking to this committee.

Thank you.

Yeah.

All right, so at this point, the presentations having been made and the briefing having been conducted, it sounds like Council Member Peterson has some thoughts he would like to share with the committee.

And if anyone else would like to, we could entertain that.

I don't know how long folks want to stick around.

As I said earlier, my intention, today was going to be to have this presentation, to get all the information out there, to set a, and I'll coordinate with folks on setting another committee meeting so that we can have a full consideration and airing of amendments and potential amendments if folks want to propose and just conversations internally and with constituents on what folks think of the overall ordinance.

and how we want to deliberate on it.

But for now, if anyone does have general comments on the ordinance, I think this would be the appropriate time for us to have a brief discussion.

But I do want to be respectful of council members' time and probably close this off at 4.30.

So with that, I mean, we can start, Council Member Peterson, if you have some thoughts.

Thank you.

And thank you, Council Member Swann, for bringing this bill forward.

Thank you, Chair Lewis, for bringing everybody here today.

And for everybody who came out to speak, really appreciate it.

So I used to work at the Department of Housing and Urban Development during the Clinton administration.

I was actually in the office that would review the grant requests that came in from the cities for their homeless response.

And so when Tiny Home Village concept first started here, I was initially a skeptic of it, as I've told Sharon, and have When we got the new data in 2018 to show that the exit rates had improved, that was really great news.

And so the exits to permanent housing were very impressive, and we saw how overall, They were superior to some enhanced shelters.

And so, and I know that this, the current ordinance is expiring, so we have an urgency issue here to extend it.

And I really want to thank the Wallingford community and District 4 for being so welcoming of the village that's there.

It's been there for a couple of years now.

And thank you for the tour of the True Hope Village in the Central District, which is very well run.

And I think that when we think of tiny home villages, we think of the four walls and a roof and a door the resident can lock on the inside.

And the secret to success is really the case management, the professional, effective case management that residents get.

And not all villages have the same exit rates to permanent supportive housing.

And those that have higher rates typically have better, more robust case management.

So what I want to point out is when I read this legislation, I'm not reading a tiny home village bill.

It's more of an encampment bill.

And because tiny home villages are not defined in this bill, instead the definition we're left with is transitional encampment, which means a use having tents or a similar shelter, including vehicles used for shelter that provide temporary quarters for sleeping and shelter.

And so I guess to honor the success of Tiny Home Villages, just sort of speaking to potential amendments for consideration by the committee to actually put in that, at least for new encampments, because we're talking about expanding the number from three to 40. I personally think 40 is too high.

We can talk more about that later.

But to grandfather in the ones that we have, but then to set a definition for what do we mean by a successful tiny home village, we actually mean a structure And we mean case management, we mean security.

So to put that actually into the legislation, which is not there right now.

And I really appreciate hearing about the Regional Homelessness Authority because I think that also reminds us that we will have a group of experts that will be talking about how we're going to have a regional response.

And so I look forward to whether the regional homeless authority what what sort of models they have and whether they'll also be embracing tiny home villages or maybe even Defining those like I'm thinking that we should we should do for this this legislation before us.

So yes Extending it expanding it but but honoring that actual definition of what do we mean by a tiny home village with case management?

Thank You councilmember Peterson customer her bold.

I

I think that's a conversation that is very worth having.

I think it's important to note for the historic record that I believe every tiny house village that we have in place right now started as an encampment.

So that's sometimes how, well, in our experience exclusively, I believe how they've developed, they started.

as encampments and as part of both community engagement, in my case at Camp Second Chance in District 1, collaboration of a couple dozen churches have gotten together, worked with the encampment residents to slowly transform what is a tent encampment into a tiny house village.

So I think it's really important to understand that that is the history of how it's worked here and it might have really something to do with their success because there is that really strong community engagement component that goes beyond just the residents of the encampment itself.

I have a question back to Ketel on the Removal of the setback from adjacent residential lots by 25 feet.

Am I correct in that we've removed that requirement because we are allowing You can't have a setback from yourself.

We, under this proposed ordinance, we are, would be allowing encampment locations to be on residentially zoned property, and so you can't, you can't set back from residentially zoned property if you're located on residentially zoned property.

That's correct.

So interim use encampments can be only located in commercial and industrial zones.

And so there is a setback requirement that sort of contemplates a scenario where an encampment might be sited adjacent to a residential zone.

So the setback requirement obviously is not necessary if the locational criteria are expanded to include single family and multifamily zones as well.

Just to be clear, encampments established through a temporary use process or as accessory to a faith-based organization can be located anywhere in the city, they're not limited just to...

Already, right.

Already, yeah.

I am interested in the concept of not a setback from just generally adjacent residential lots because that, again, is not compatible with the proposed legislation that would allow encampments in residential zoned areas.

But I would be interested in considering or exploring some sort of a setback from a improved residentially zoned lot that is occupied.

Just again with recognition and that's another I think a piece of data that would be useful is to have a little bit of an understanding what the closest neighbor is in our current practice and just to get a little bit of a sense particularly in those instances that encampments have started out as outdoor encampments, what has been the city's practice in working to site these.

And so I would be interested in getting a little bit more granularity, both on the practice and then considering potentially a mandatory language based on that practice.

Okay.

Yeah, I can see what I can discover.

Just by way of a reminder, I think the committee is aware of this, but it's maybe not as obvious to those folks who may be watching.

A lot of our commercial zones are de facto multifamily zones.

Most of our residential growth occurs in neighborhood commercial and commercial areas.

So the setback is in some ways a development standard that either could equally be applied wherever it is or may have a limited utility just based on the fact that we see a lot of residential development in commercial zones.

And then I just have one more I want to flag.

Yes, Council Member Herbold.

Thank you.

So we are proposing to eliminate the requirement that villages be located at least a mile away from each other.

My district, specifically Highland Park, has been hosting and encampment location at Camp Second Chance for about three years.

And prior to that, down the hill, very nearby, was hosted Nicholsville for quite some time.

And I know that in order to do a faithful job in representing my constituents in Highland Park, it would be really important to them to see some sort of geographic equity considering the number of years that they have, that that one neighborhood, the only neighborhood in District 1 has hosted an encampment slash tiny home village.

So if we're going to remove the one mile away location limitation, I think we need to insert something else that, It expresses our expectations for geographic and geographic equity, particularly as it relates to low-income communities of color.

And I think your map that you have here demonstrates that really well, and I recognize that when we open up more land, we might not see some of the patterns that we currently see.

Thank you, and Council Member Swan.

Just to clarify, meaning geographic equity, meaning we don't want the location or the siting of the dining house villages to be disproportionately in low-income communities of color.

Thank you.

Any other final comments before we conclude this committee meeting?

Okay, well thank you so much.

So thanks everybody for a very productive, albeit long, initial committee meeting of the Homelessness Strategies and Neighborhoods Committee.

Our next committee meeting is gonna be February 26th.

Like I said earlier, my intention is going to be to possibly set another committee meeting within two weeks, specifically for the purposes of discussing this ordinance to meet a timeline and make sure that something is properly addressed before the deadline that was discussed during the meeting occurs.

And that is all the business that I have.

And Council Member Swann, did you have a final comment?

No, I just, something that I was going to say offline, just that my staff will be in touch with you in terms of, I'm gone a little bit in the next month.

Oh, certainly.

We're going to take care of it while you're gone.

We'll try to make it.

Is that confusing you?

We're going to take care of it while you're gone, but I'm totally kidding.

I'd be happy to, I have enough work to do.

All right, well, thank you so much, everybody.