Okay, everybody.
The June 23rd, 2020 meeting of the Seattle City Council Select Committee on Homelessness Strategies and Investments will come to order.
It is 2.03 p.m.
I'm Andrew Lewis, chair of the Select Committee on Homelessness Strategies and Investments.
Will the clerk please call the roll?
Council President Gonzalez?
Council Member Herbold.
Council Member Juarez.
Here.
Council Member Morales.
Council Member Mosqueda.
Council Member Peterson.
Here.
Council Member Sawant.
Present.
Council Member Strauss.
Present.
Chair Lewis.
Present.
Council Member, there are five members present.
Thank you, Mr. Clerk.
I will just note for the record that council members Gonzales, Herbold, Morales, and Mosqueda are finishing up in the Select Labor Committee, which I just came from and should be along in short order to jump into the committee here.
So I expect them sometime soon.
Okay, if there's no objection, the agenda will be adopted.
Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.
Chair's report.
So I do just want to make some comments that today we're going to be discussing a couple of topical matters given the extreme heat that the Seattle region is expected to be experiencing in the next couple of days.
And then going into the summer, the anticipated return of the seasonal and omnipresent wildfire smoke, which has unfortunately become a staple of Seattle area summers due to the ever-increasing catastrophe of global climate change.
It's important that we have a discussion now at the beginning of the summer with the Office of Emergency Management about the ways that the city designates and triggers the emergency response to to how our emergency shelter capacity is activated and how that process is monitored.
And I look forward to having a presentation today from the Office of Emergency Management.
We're also going to have the preliminary first hearing on the creation of a new fund in the city treasury.
to aggregate and collect donations from donors who want to assist in some of the Seattle homelessness response efforts.
Primarily, we've gotten a lot of requests in my office in particular for people to give private philanthropy to stand up tiny house villages.
You know, I will reiterate in that conversation, as I said on Monday, and I will say here again, I do not think that private philanthropy is a suitable replacement to systemically deal with the crises that we're facing around unsheltered homelessness in the city of Seattle.
But when folks do want to step up, I do think that there are ways to incorporate this philanthropic efforts into the broader strategy and that we should be willing to embrace those kinds of public-private partnerships and i really uh...
i'm grateful to the leaders who've been stepping forward uh...
in non-profit and private philanthropic ways to contribute to some of the city efforts to pair our resources and stretch them further.
And we will have the first conversation.
There will be no vote on that legislation today, but we will sort of go over generally how it would work and set that up hopefully for a vote at our next meeting of this committee.
With that, I will move on to public comment.
and give the normal admonitions here about the remote public comment period we've been getting for the last year.
The public comment period is going to be 20 minutes.
I believe we only have about four speakers signed up, so we shouldn't have to extend that period.
I'll call on each speaker by name and in the order in which they registered.
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The sign up is still open.
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The public comment period is now open.
Each speaker will be given two minutes to speak.
And let me load up my list here, the folks who have signed up.
The first speaker signed up is David Haynes, although it looks like he is not present currently.
So we will go to Stephanie Anderson.
And Stephanie Anderson, you are recognized for two minutes.
Hi, thank you for your time.
My name is Stephanie Anderson.
I've been living in the 6th District here in Ballard for 24 years.
I love this city.
I love Ballard.
And I've been a little distraught about the homeless encampments that have seemed to have gotten worse during the pandemic.
And I talked to you guys a couple months ago and I just said, what's the plan?
Let us know what's going on.
I feel like there's a lack of information.
And I tried emailing and contacting my representatives and just generally the leaders in this city.
And I can't tell what's going on.
And I see a lot of criticism in the newspaper and online about why this is getting worse.
And, and what I would love is if you guys have a plan and I know that you do, if you would just be more public about it, be, be stronger about disseminating it.
So we, the people who don't necessarily want to go into politics, but care deeply about our city and all the stuff that's going through, if you could just kind of keep a surprise.
I don't, I don't feel like I have any sense that there is a comprehensive plan or even a comprehensive.
agency that's in charge of it, that a public, just a public person could say, what's going on?
What's happening?
Are they buying hotels?
Are they getting social workers attached to these people?
And I guess I'm just here today to say, if you have a plan, if you have a comprehensive plan, or even just the idea of a plan, share it with us.
Put it in the paper.
Put it on social media.
If it's out there and I haven't seen it, let me know.
But I just feel like it would be so much more comforting to know that things are moving and that there's a plan in place.
And if anybody has a response as part of my two minutes, I'd love to hear it.
Next present speaker is Catherine.
I'm sorry, I can't see the last name sheet here.
But Catherine, if Catherine is present, is recognized for two minutes.
Gendry.
Hello, King County Council members.
Thank you for considering permanent protections for renters, including cap on move-in fees and deposits and allowing incremental payment Um, requirement for landlords to give four months notice for rent increases.
Uh, prohibitions on rent hikes and unlivable housing, adjusting rent on fixed income and prohibition on landlords, um, requesting social security numbers for pre-rent screening.
I strongly support these protections and urge you to pass this passage quickly without weakening it.
Do not let landlord lobbyists sway you and watering down this bill.
Low income communities and communities of color have suffered the most during the pandemic.
And now they're at the greatest risk of addiction.
Renters need and deserve stronger protections, both during recovery from the pandemic and permanently.
We already have an immense need for way more permanent and deeply affordable housing.
We will see this need increase without these protections.
It is outrageous that in a city with so much wealth that we don't have affordable housing for all, especially in times of emergency, such as snow, heat waves and smoke.
Let's not exacerbate houselessness by watering down this bill.
Thank you.
I yield my time.
And the next speaker is David Haynes.
If David is here, it looks like David is still not present.
So if that's the case, I think that we will close the public comment period and proceed forward with the agenda.
So items of business.
We're now going to move on to our first item of business.
Mr. Clerk, will you please read into the record the first item?
Update on the City of Seattle's inclement weather response plan.
Thank you.
So we have with us Office of Emergency Management Director Curry Mayer, who's going to give an update on the city's plans for summer heat and smoke from the office's perspective.
The director's presentation is going to be limited to the role that OEM plays in the summer weather planning.
The human services department has provided a memo that was attached to the committee agenda for the public and for council members to review that outlines responses related in terms of shelter capacity and You know, the Human Services Department could not be here in person to present on this, but I'm happy to read some of those key points into the into the record as part of Director Mayer's presentation.
And certainly relevant questions for the Human Services Department related to the contents of that memo can be followed up directly with Tess Colby in the Human Services Department, or it can be addressed in person to the Human Services Department panel that we'll be presenting in July.
So with that, I would invite Director Mayer to join us at the virtual council table and to go ahead and jump in and begin the presentation.
Director, welcome.
All right, thank you so much.
Thanks Council Member Lewis for inviting me.
I very much appreciate it and I'm happy to share what the Office of Emergency Management has been doing.
And then I guess I would just ask Jacob, are you going to share the screen with the presentation slides or do you need me to bring that up?
What's- I'm happy to share it.
Would you like me to begin?
Yes, please.
All right, wonderful, thank you.
You can go ahead and go to the first slide.
So this shows the three month seasonal outlook with above average temperatures and below normal precipitation.
And I'm sure all of you have heard, because it's been all over the media, that we are going to have record setting temperatures starting this weekend and continuing at least through Monday.
So there's a strong high pressure ridge that is forecast to sort of settle over the area.
record high temperatures during the day and not as cool during the evening time as we would usually expect in the Seattle area.
So of course we are most concerned about how this will affect our vulnerable populations.
This ridge is of course subject to change and it depends on the interaction of a couple of weather fronts over the Pacific, but we're preparing for the worst and hoping for the best.
So we're listening to what the National Weather Service is. is telling us on a routine basis.
And then based on that, we have, based on what we think the impacts are going to be, then there are a number of things that OEM will do, the Office of Emergency Management will do to ensure that we are coordinating with a number of city departments, And I believe the conference call that we're gonna have on tomorrow to address exactly what everybody's going to do.
I think there are 18 different departments.
So I'll talk a little bit more about the overall situation, and then I'll get into some of the more specifics about what we're doing.
Okay, so if you'll go to the next slide, please.
So also what we're looking at in addition to how hot is it gonna be and for how long, we're also looking at fire potential, which of course then brings in the added concern about smoke and how that impacts those of us that live and work in Seattle and people that have to be outside.
So last season, the smoke affecting Seattle came from fires in Pierce County, Northern and Central Oregon, and some as far away as Northern California.
And as you can see on this map, there are also there significant wildland fire potential this year as well.
So July and August look pretty much the same, a little more potential for fires in the month of August.
And these same areas that had elevated risk last year are again, the areas that we're looking at again.
So smoke, in addition to the high temperatures, it can be a factor.
So for this weekend, there has not been a lot of fire related activity that we've heard about.
So mostly for this coming weekend, we're worried about the high temperatures.
Okay, next slide, please.
So in addition to monitoring the weather report, and then including assessments on what the heat impacts are going to look like, we have these coordination calls.
We, the Office of Emergency Management, with a number of different departments in preparation to manage the consequences from the excessive heat and the high temperatures.
And the initial coordination takes place using a series of conference calls.
We are in fact having one tomorrow.
And we start with what is the National Weather Service saying that is going to happen?
And then also looking at what are their advisories, whether it's a heat advisory, an excessive heat watch, or a heat warning.
And those are progressive in terms of how drastic they believe the impacts will be.
to everyone who lives and works here.
We also, there also could be a spike in heat related illnesses that would also be a trigger for us and needing to have a call.
And then also, as I mentioned before, like we're expecting this weekend is hot days and not much cooling in the evening hours.
That is of significant concern.
So when we get together with all of the departments, we then, not only do we look at what are the strategies for the departments operationalizing their resources, we also look at how will we reach and support vulnerable populations.
We also look at, do we need to modify any of the outdoor city operations that are currently underway?
And then a big push, as you might imagine, is for the coordination of public information.
So on the call that we're having tomorrow at 1 PM, we'll start with the very latest of what the weather service is going to tell us.
And then we'll look at cooling center operations, which departments are planning to open.
Will there be any, for example, my library locations be open?
If so, what are the hours of operation?
Do they have cooling systems there?
and how can we open additional ones if needed?
We'll also look at engaging vulnerable populations.
So not only people experiencing homelessness, but also are there elderly folks that need to get the messaging about protection things that they might do so that they're not so susceptible to the high heat.
So those, I'm not aware of any of the due to the high temperatures and how does that impact either roadways or closures?
What are their resources that they could commit to managing hot weather services?
So are they gonna need overtime, extra people to help with that?
And then do they as individual departments have any outstanding items that they want us to be aware of?
So in the event that additional resources need to be called in, we also have relationships with our neighboring partners, both the county and the state.
It's unlikely for heat that we would need additional resources, but we will get information from the county in particular about also cooling centers or other places that they may have open that would also help if people need to move during the weekend or during any heat event.
So it wouldn't just be cooling centers that are managed by us, but also ones that the county has.
Okay, so I believe that's the last slide.
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So, Director Vermeer, just to maybe talk about, it looks like we're going into potentially several days in a row of 100 degrees Fahrenheit heat, potentially, you know, for the first time in the history of the city, due to, I mean, again, to global climate change.
Could we potentially get maybe a little bit of the the real mechanical overview of how the office will make a decision potentially based on the impact of consecutive days of extreme heat that will trigger the opening of some of these emergency shelters that the Human Services Department has put aside.
And I will separately cite from the memo that Tess Colby provided us to talk about the capacity of those facilities.
But I do want to just go a little bit more over the function that OEM plays, you know, similar like on the inverse, right, when we have snow days, the decisions that are made by OEM that sort of trigger the utilization of that shelter resource.
And then just talk about that a little bit more, because I think that's a big area of public interest.
Of course.
So the decision to open cooling centers or other places for people to get some refuge from the heat is not made by the Office of Emergency Management.
It's collectively by the departments that are on the call in coordination with the mayor's office.
And obviously this weekend, like you mentioned, is unprecedented heat and more than we've had this year to date, but that's not a decision.
And also with public health.
So public health is one of those departments that will be weighing in.
So it's a collective decision.
And my operations coordinator, Ken, is also here on the call.
So Ken, if you have anything else to add to that, please feel free to jump in.
I'll just say we bring together the experts who best understand these populations along with public health.
And then looking at all the information, that's how we come to a decision about opening up cooling centers and where those cooling centers need to be established.
So That is actually ongoing even as we speak.
And yeah, we are in the advanced stages of setting up those capabilities and have those capabilities in place for this weekend.
So maybe if you're involved in those conversations, maybe I'll dovetail sort of reporting out the memo from Deputy Director Colby at HSD with maybe some follow-up questions if you're aware operationally of how that process is going.
Because the information that has been provided to the committee in the attached memo indicates that there are two shelter locations.
This is specifically for a smoke event.
a wildfire smoke event, but I imagine, and correct me if I'm wrong, they could also be utilized for a severe heat, a spate of severe heat event as well.
And that would be Fisher Pavilion and Exhibition Hall on the Seattle Center Campus.
These locations were picked in collaboration with King County, the Seattle Department of Public Health, as well as, you know, with the Office of Emergency Management.
and that they have the capacity at those facilities through the air filtration systems that are necessary to comply with smoke and the conflation of the respiratory challenges smoke poses with still being in a COVID-19 environment, that in total, those shelters have a capacity to serve up to 230 individuals combined, the way that they're currently constituted.
And that's between Fisher Pavilion and Exhibition Hall on the Seattle Center campus.
The Human Services Department did also in the letter indicate that one of the big differences from last summer is the city has added almost 400 additional spaces through the hoteling program with the Kings Inn and the Executive Hotel Pacific.
The city's entire shelter system stands at 2,463 shelter spaces.
So there is also a reduced of the number of folks that will need to get inside versus where we were last summer when we did not have those 400 additional spaces.
So that is an important piece of context from the memo from the Human Services Department.
But I guess going back to the 230 spaces that will be opened by a determination by the various executive departments that there is a, you know, either a smoke emergency or an extreme heat emergency.
maybe just some conversation in what the Office of Emergency Management's role has been in recommending where and how those be stood up and placed.
And if there are some potential cooling assets in addition to the 230 spaces that might be outside of the four corners of this memo.
The role of the Office of Emergency Management is to first set out what we believe the consequences for various hazards are, including heat.
So the consequences are this.
This is how we believe this may impact.
the population, and those are set forth in that coordination call.
Then we have a conversation with the experts in all those different areas.
So HSD, parks, everyone else would then confer and decide on locations and whatnot at that time.
That's why we have all those experts on the phone and have that.
So our role is really about identification of hazards and consequences.
And Ken, do you have anything to add to that or rest on Director Merritt's response?
I'll go ahead and rest on her response.
Very good.
Excellent.
Good employee over there of the Office of Emergency Management.
Well, look, I really appreciate the presentation and the transparency in how these decisions are going to be made and that we do have the Office of Emergency Management here to assess the risks associated with these upcoming stretches of heat and knowing Unfortunately, with a fair degree of certainty that there is going to be a smoke event at some point over the summer based on the charts that you showed earlier.
I appreciate that the Human Services Department sent along this memo that the public and council members can review.
Certainly, there will be follow-up questions, and this topic by no means is Exhausted by this check-in today with this panel.
Certainly there will be follow-up questions for Human Services Department at our July meeting.
And there might even at that point be a post-operation report if there is a stand-up this weekend of special resources and cooling resources given the anticipation of the weather.
I want to open it back up to colleagues if anyone has any questions or comments for the Office of Emergency Management.
Yes, Council Member Strauss.
Thank you, Chair.
It is with It is a two-sided coin when the Office of Emergency Management gets involved.
It means that we're in an emergency or in a situation that requires greater attention.
So with that, it always makes me nervous.
On the other hand, when I know that the Office of Emergency Management is operating on a topic that we have all of the resources of the city laser focused on the solution, I know.
under the past mayor, we had the Office of Emergency Management open to address the homelessness crisis on a daily basis.
I'm not necessarily proposing that here today.
I'm just saying that I know when we have all of the decision makers in the same room, we are able to operate at a speed that is faster than when we are all working in our silos.
So with that, Director Mayor, I'm excited that you are all hands on deck.
I just highlight the fact that in the past, whether it's cold weather or hot weather shelters, The issue that we run into most often is just getting them launched in a timely manner, it almost seems as if they should be launched already today in anticipation, and I know that that's not the Office of Emergency Management's decision today.
So just highlighting they had said that it is also the department's discretion.
So I guess also calling out, if there's ever anything that you need over this weekend, Director Mayer or your team, I know that Council Member Lewis will be happy to take the call and I will as well.
Just let us know what we can do to help you out.
Yeah, I really appreciate that.
And I know some people, I love that you said, well, if all of a sudden emergency management's involved, there's an emergency.
So my little caveat to that would be, actually, we're paying attention all the time so that there isn't an emergency that surprises us.
So we do a lot of preparation all the time and think of the worst case thing that could possibly happen so that the rest of you don't have to think about that.
So just feel better about that.
And also it really is a collective thing.
That's why we have the expertise of all the different departments.
That's also a really good thing that you don't just have one group that's deciding for everybody.
And, you know, it's really, as you know, we have the, Seattle has a reputation for, and I'm here to, as a fairly new person, here to say, it's definitely true that the city really does care about, just like, you know, based on what you all are talking about, care about making sure that people are cared for.
So part of our job, though, is to think about that worst case and then hope that's not where we go.
Well said.
Okay, any final comments or questions for the panel here before we move to our final agenda item?
Okay, seeing none, Director, really appreciate you dropping by.
Ken, really appreciate your comments.
We will certainly stay in touch throughout this and appreciate your leadership during these challenging times as it looks like this weekend is gonna have potential hazards.
So I appreciate that you guys are on the job and look forward to accepting that weekend call Council Member Strauss invited you to give to me.
Yes.
And I love how he mentioned your name first, right?
Yeah, yeah.
So make sure you call me first.
And then, Dan, at 3 a.m.
on Saturday, I will then, joint conference call, Director Mayer's call to me.
Right, right, right.
It'll be cooler at 3 a.m.
though for the rest of the day.
Yeah, so thank you very much for inviting us and thanks for the work that you do.
I really appreciate it.
Thank you so much, Director.
Keep up the good work.
Thank you.
Bye bye.
Okay, so Mr. Clerk, will you please read the next agenda item into the record?
Council Bill 120109, an ordinance relating to city finances, creating a fund for depositing donations, gifts, and grants related to the city of Seattle's response to homelessness and provision of human services.
Thank you, Mr. Clerk, for reading that into the record.
I do want to make a note that Council Members Gonzalez and Morales have joined the meeting.
Welcome, Council President.
Welcome, Council Member Morales.
So this bill has come up through the initiative that my office has been pursuing, that we've dubbed It Takes a Village, to try to secure public-private partnerships to potentially stretch and scale further the public investment in Tiny House Village.
villages with matching support from private parties who approach my office with an interest in investing in those kinds of undertakings.
This is something that historically has been done in tiny house villages.
Tiny house villages typically involve a lot of sweat equity and putting them together, a lot of volunteers coming together to build the houses.
And also typically involve a lot of matching philanthropy to buy the underlying tiny houses, since tiny houses in and of themselves are not very expensive.
What the city has not had is sort of an independent account that can aggregate and collect some of these contributions.
so that we can then better fold them into the city's competitive RFQ process and other processes to make sure that we are being effective stewards of that money and treating that money the same way we would treat taxpayer money in terms of making sure it goes through an RFQ, making sure it goes and gets out through competitive bidding.
And it's not necessarily dependent on any one particular provider.
So hence this ordinance that's before us and we have Jeff Sims here to go over it and talk a little bit more about it.
But like I said, today is just a briefing and not not anticipated to have any vote on it today.
I know that there are some potential technical amendments that the city budget office is likely going to seek and I look forward to working with the CDO on putting that together to accommodate some of their concerns around administrability.
But for now, I think I'll hand it over to Jeff so we can start jumping into this and then open it up for a little bit more of a conversation.
I do want to say before handing it over to Jeff, Council Member Mosqueda has also joined the meeting.
Welcome, Council Member Mosqueda.
So Jeff, take it away.
Thank you.
For the record, Jeff Sims, Council Central staff.
Council members, the committee members, the legislation before you is actually modeled after an ordinance that you passed last spring and is setting up the COVID-19 donation fund.
In fact, many of those sections of it were actually copied from that bill and it has been reviewed by law.
So that ordinance 119763 was acted on last year and the resulting fund from that model ordinance has been operating for about a year now.
Nevertheless, as the chair noted, we are working with CBO to address if there's any technical concerns that are specific to the changes that were made here or any changes that will just make it easier to operationally carry out the intention of the legislation.
Ultimately, this legislation would create a fund that, as described in the fund, would provide homelessness and human services and preventative primary mental and behavioral health care.
That is highly similar to the domain of services and the type of fund that is discussed in proposed Charter Amendment No. 29, which has been filed with the city clerk.
and there is an existing human services fund now.
One thing that I am working with law and CBO to determine is our ability to receive donations either to that fund or to other funds, and the level of accounting that would be possible to ensure the use of those funds on the purposes as prescribed in this legislation, which are rather broad.
There's a long list of them there, but as I said, it's generally to cover homelessness, human services, and a large range of healthcare services.
I don't really have much more to add at this point because of the technical, I have not had sufficient time, nor has CBO had sufficient time to delve into what might be the potential technical changes that they need.
They've alluded to some sections, but that's an area that I expect that over the next week or two, we'll be able to get additional information.
Thank you so much for that overview, Jeff.
And I'll just say, as I stated before, that you know it is not my personal belief that uh...
uh...
mere private philanthropy alone is going to be able to to uh...
resolve the uh...
extremely entrenched systemic issues uh...
that lead to uh...
the massive crisis we're seeing nationally in the united states regarding homelessness uh...
the this is certainly not going to be an effort that's going to lead for example to the uh...
several hundred million dollar at two billion dollar investments that are regionally required to scale up affordable and social housing i'm capable of of truly providing everybody with a uh...
uh...
four walls in the door the locks uh...
but uh...
it certainly is going to uh...
be able to facilitate uh...
getting additional resources in the tens of thousands to stand up shelter resources and to stretch public money a little further for interventions like tiny house villages, hotelling, And some of those efforts that are related to our overall strategy on homelessness, but are not going to deliver the final ultimate investments needed for the strategy, that's gonna come from things like the jumpstart tax that we passed under Council Member Mosqueda's leadership last year.
So with that, though, I do think that when people come and knock in and want to help, it is our role as leaders to facilitate a way to accommodate those offers to assist in our common goals.
And with that, I'll turn it over if there are questions for me as the sponsor or for Jeff on central staff regarding this bill at this time.
Council Member Morales.
Thank you.
Thanks for the summary, Jeff.
I have a couple of questions.
One just sort of out of curiosity related to the COVID emergency fund.
Do we know how much we received in donations for that when that was set up last year?
I don't know if you are prepared to answer that right now since it was about last year, but I'm curious.
I'm not actually prepared to answer that right now.
I can't get that number.
I don't have a recent update on it.
Okay, so for the proposal for today, can you talk a little bit about who you think the initial funders for this pool might be?
And then I'm curious what kinds of agreements the city would have to enter into to accept the funds.
And if the title references donations, gifts, and grants, I'm wondering if it is intended solely to receive donations or if something like, for example, low interest loans is also a possibility or something like this.
If that is part of the intent here.
I'll defer to Chair Lewis on the potential donors who are envisioned here.
In terms of a loan, it was not envisioned that this would be a loan.
I did purposely utilize the language from the COVID-19 donation fund so that a very wide array of potential mechanisms of providing cash to the city to conduct an activity would be available.
But loans were not, and something that we would have to repay were not envisioned.
And I think the other question was only about sponsors, is that correct?
Sorry, donors.
And the kind of agreements, if there's each individual donor, what kind of agreement we would have to enter into with them for being able to use the funds, if we know that, yeah.
I see.
Typically, the donations would be made with the donor or granting agency stipulating conditions.
And so that would largely, that often, that there can be a wide variance there.
There are some that actually is a good question because there are some technical components there that I'm still trying to work out or will need to work out with CBO.
For example, if it's, you know, if the fund as created here would actually be as I noted this in the number that's distributed to council members very late yesterday, because of last minute information, but there are existing donation funds that have very, very specific purposes.
And one of them was to assist low income seniors in installing smoke detectors.
So an account or a fund could be set with such a narrow area and then funds placed into that could only be utilized for those types of purposes.
But in terms of a agreement, that's gonna largely get driven by whoever is providing funding.
Yeah.
I guess answering both of those questions sort of the like potential stipulations that donors might make relative or and then also the question regarding like who some of the initial people who have expressed interest are in some cases the you know i can kind of answer both questions in the same but the same story so you know the the mirabella uh...
in the south lake union neighborhood uh...
really really really wants a tiny house village and i should say an additional tiny house village in south lake union uh...
as folks may know uh...
there's currently a tiny house village uh...
that kind of around the area of uh...
the dexter and uh...
Mercer area of the South Lake Union neighborhood, but the Mirabella would like one more over kind of on their corner.
And so they're considering making a particularly big gift, but it would be contingent on making sure that.
The village is actually placed in their neighborhood, which is sort of an interesting and greatly appreciated stipulation that they would like to make to, like, not be displacing people living on house to work in South Lake Union, but giving them a tiny house village that is still in South Lake Union.
So they can stay as part of that community.
I haven't really heard of anyone else interested in making any stipulations that are potential donors.
It's mostly been related to South Lake Union efforts that sort of came out of community interest in creating a tiny house village to alleviate the conditions and issues.
at Denny Park that were present through a lot of last year.
But ultimately, I mean, there's no longer an encampment at Denny Park.
So there was a lot of interest from potential donors in the South Lake Union Chamber of Commerce, for example, who wanted to see some action on Denny Park and have a related tiny house village for residents in Denny Park to give people a place they can live instead.
But in terms of some of the other donors, certainly people have approached my office who are local wealthy individuals who have seen coverage of the It Takes a Village initiative or people who have been past donors to groups like the Low Income Housing Institute, and this has been part of their philanthropy in the past.
Um, so, you know, it's been kind of a wide range of, of folks, the, uh, the Canadian developer, um, Ani has expressed interest as have some people in the development community, um, and supporting this since there's sort of a nexus between, you know, like.
since they're developers and they see tiny houses as like a type of philanthropic development.
So, you know, there's been a lot of people coming out of the woodwork who are really just interested in contributing to something that's going to make a tangible difference.
And as everyone on this council knows, there's sort of a a consensus that's formed that the tiny house model works very effectively.
So most of the stipulations to answer your question, Council Member Morales, have mostly been towards people wanting the villages to be in particular neighborhoods.
I haven't really heard any other things that people would wanna see.
Thank you.
If I might follow up, I appreciate this and I understand that, you know, We certainly can use some help in trying to raise resources for this giant issue we're dealing with.
And I want to make sure that whatever we are drafting, that we're really deliberate in putting some, I don't know if it's, you know, parameters or community guidelines around what kinds of donations or maybe a better way of saying is what kind of restrictions from a donor we would be willing to engage with because I, you know, There are a lot of opinions about how to address this issue.
And I just wanna make sure that we aren't accepting contributions in such a way that it would limit our ability to meet our values as a council.
Things that we've stated as a city are important and acknowledging the dignity and humanity of the people who are experiencing homelessness.
So I just wanna flag that.
You know, I appreciate the interest in helping create more resources for this and how and what kind of agreements and restrictions we accept is also going to be really important to be aware of.
Yeah, I think those are really, really good concerns Councilmember Morales, because I could envision a potential scenario where, for example, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I think I see where you're going with this and I share your concern as well.
Like maybe some people making stipulations that, you know, there can't be a harm reduction informed method of care, you know, at anywhere where this money goes or, you know, some such kind of thing that's not, you know, like an evidence-based request.
And I think that's certainly something that if possible, we should put in the four corners of this.
So I appreciate you flagging that.
Sorry, I muted myself.
Are there any other comments or questions before we actually wrap up the committee today?
Fastest homelessness committee meeting ever.
OK, seeing none, I appreciate that we were able to have a fairly concise June meeting.
There are a lot of other, just to give some closing remarks to the general kind of homelessness work that's before the city.
There are a lot of things that the human services department is on the verge of reaching some resolutions on for a very comprehensive July presentation to this committee.
That includes some resolution on outstanding issues related to the council's tiny house village investments that we made in the last budget.
as well as additional hotelling resources, potential investments in the Just Care program, joint procurements for Just Care-like programs with King County, and statuses on some of our acquisition strategies that are going to inform We have a lot of the homelessness response going forward in the summer and into the fall.
So I definitely want to plug that while today was a sleepy committee, there's a lot of stuff that is getting really close to being packaged for a robust presentation to the council and the public.
working super hard with a very reduced staff to get a lot of the assets that this council has approved out and into the community.
And I really look forward to a robust presentation on the tiny house village initiatives, the rapid rehousing and the hotel-based sheltering when we convene back here in this committee for the July meeting.
So with that, if there's anything for the good of the order, I'll open it up.
It looks like there is nothing for the good of the order.
So hearing no further business before the committee, we are adjourned.