SPEAKER_09

The October 1st Select Budget Committee will come back to order.

It is 2.15 p.m.

I'm Dan Strauss, chair of the Select Committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

SPEAKER_13

Council Member Moore?

Present.

Council Member Morales?

Here.

Council President Nelson?

Present.

Council Member Rivera?

Present.

Council Member Saca?

Here.

Council Member Wu?

Present.

Council Member Hollingsworth?

Present.

Councilmember Cattle?

SPEAKER_09

Here.

SPEAKER_13

And Chair Strauss?

Present.

Let's see, that's seven present.

SPEAKER_09

Thank you, and thank you to the Human Services Department for giving us 15 minutes extra.

Our last meeting went till about 1.14 p.m., 1.11 p.m., So here we are before you.

We're excited to have you here.

I'm going to be passing it over to your committee chair after your presentation and colleagues by way of facilitation and also just kind of stalling for a second as more people are walking in.

We've got Council Member Wu and CBO Director and Central Staff Director joining us now.

Human Services Department is the one department that does so many different things.

And so I'm just excited to dive in from addressing homelessness to preparing youth for success, all ages and abilities, promoting public health, supporting affordability and livability, and supporting safe communities.

It's a very broad set of work you do.

And we also have Vice Chair Rivera with us, and Council Member Hollingsworth was here.

Yeah, you were here right from the jump.

We are all here and ready for you.

Over to you, Director Kim.

SPEAKER_08

Okay, good afternoon.

I am Tanya Kim, Director of the Human Services Department.

SPEAKER_04

Good afternoon.

I'm Deel Damini, Chief Finance Officer for the Human Services Department.

SPEAKER_03

I'm Dan Eder, City Budget Office.

Ben Noble, Central Staff Director.

SPEAKER_08

Okay, and we'll begin.

SPEAKER_09

We're gonna leave the floor to you until the end of your presentation, then we'll turn it over to your committee chair, and then we'll facilitate questions.

But you've got the floor, we'll run through the whole presentation.

SPEAKER_08

Trying to maximize the screen.

SPEAKER_09

It looks good on our end.

SPEAKER_08

It looks okay?

Yeah.

Patty disapproves.

Okay.

Well, thank you for having us here.

I've carefully listened to most of the presentations.

And you're right.

Thank you, Chair Strauss, for acknowledging the breadth of work that we are offering.

Some of this may sound redundant to some of you who are sitting on...

Chair Moore's committee.

And for some of you, this may be new information.

I want to first thank all of you, and I do see Council President Online for allowing us to present HSD's proposed 2526 budget.

I will start us off.

Oh, no. with the down button and start us with our mission.

So the mission of the Human Services Department is to connect people with resources and solutions during times of need so we can all live, learn, work, and take part in strong, healthy communities.

Our mission keeps us grounded.

You heard from several different departments.

HSD has come up in a couple of those conversations.

But I also want to say that as we approach our work with our city department colleagues as One Seattle, it also helps us stay within role.

And you know that we partner with lots of organizations, including Office of Economic Development, housing, education, care, and others.

And so together, when we coordinate our resources, as you had heard, we're more powerful.

To this end, I do want to share our six impact areas.

These impact areas are more than just words.

They help us keep focused.

It also is the way in which our budget is organized.

And so you'll see our budget summary levels, or BSLs, organized in this manner as well.

In developing our proposed budget, like most departments, we did make some difficult decisions.

At the end of the day, I am proud to share that HSD's proposed budget maintains our core services while adding some investments to address the city's priorities as outlined by the mayor.

For HSD, this means that we are maintaining a strong safety net of core services.

We are maintaining shelter capacity.

Chair Strauss has already mentioned that there were some expiring funds due to the one-time nature of the funding and so maintaining shelter capacity was important.

maintaining provider pay by sustaining wage equity, and adding the inflationary increase to support our human service providers, adding to our community safety initiatives, and finally implementing new public health strategies to address the devastation caused by opioids.

In summary, our proposed budget has a slight increase and you can see that here from our 2024 adopted budget.

I'll just name that in 2025 we're at $364.7 million and in 2026 the proposed is at $377.2 million.

There is an increase in the FTE.

There is 32 FTEs.

I will remind council that most of these were added during supplemental.

This action by having it here allows us to maintain that budget authority.

Returning to those six impact areas, this is a table where at a glance you can see not only the goals, some language around them, but at a glance where we've increased our investments year over year and where we've sustained.

For the most part, the increase is aligned with, again, the mayor's priorities.

And just because you can look at a budget in different ways, we've added one more chart.

This is by the numbers.

So on the right, you can see our HSD proposed budget as a whole.

Nearly 74% of HSD's budget is allocated to three impact areas.

Of course, you see addressing homelessness, promoting healthy aging, and supporting safe communities.

I will just share very briefly.

that the promoting healthy aging is our Aging and Disability Services Division, mostly of federal and state fund sources, and we serve the county in that space.

And then moving to the left, there's some new information there for you.

Of the total budget, 76% is contracted to community-based organizations.

So for our department, I reviewed our mission.

The way that we act on our mission is that we are a funder and we are a drug service provider.

As a funder, 76% of our budget goes out the door.

And finally, for you, we have the different colors of money on the left-hand side.

In the next set of slides, I'm gonna walk us through the key budget priorities and we'll name the notable action items or the notable items.

We'll start with sustaining a strong safety net.

Strong safety net, that's such a broad term, but I'll share some highlights.

Good news is that we have an increase in state and federal grants by 7.5 million for our aging and disability services.

We have 1.7 million in the Community Development Block Grants or CDBG funds that will be awarded through a competitive funding process for capital projects.

And we encourage all of our providers to apply for that if they have capital needs and we'll post that in 2025. With our budget also maintains funding for over 10 million in emergency feeding.

And when we talk about emergency feeding, we often think of the meal providers as well as food banks.

And we maintain levels for Seattle Youth Employment Program.

You've heard a couple of different departments talking about working with young people and the necessity of having positive pro-social activities.

Our flagship program is the Seattle Youth Employment Program.

And last summer, just a few months ago, SYEP supported 251 low-income youth and young adults participating in the internship program.

And this is your advance notice for having an intern in your office for next summer.

Before we transition from this slide, I do want to acknowledge, though, that there is a reduction in our general food and nutrition portfolio.

We did have some expiring one-time general fund ads in the amount of $990,000.

And starting in 2026, so skipping a year, starting in 2026, there is a reduction of sweetened beverage tax funding in the amount of $434,000.

And those amounts are spread across several different providers.

Moving on, our proposed budget for addressing homelessness is $128 million in 2025 with a slight increase in 2026. In 2025, I will note that a majority of the dollars, $105 million goes to the King County Regional Homelessness Authority, KCRHA.

This amount is a 7% increase from their 2024 adopted budget for their core services.

Part of this increase is to maintain shelter beds that were at risk due to the closing, or excuse me, due to the end of the expiring one-time funds.

And you'll hear me go into more detail on that.

Maintaining the shelter beds is a priority.

The proposed budget adds ongoing funds.

This one we wanna call out is the Bennu Shelter in the Central District, which was originally funded by a one-time dollars.

This enhanced shelter includes 150 non-congregate beds with wraparound and culturally appropriate services for the black African American male community who are disproportionately experiencing homelessness.

Adding the funds to maintain this program is critical to the overall bed count.

We could say that we want to keep these beds online, and that's important.

But it's the type of service, like I said, non-congregate.

It's the culturally responsive.

And I want to emphasize that the reason why this is critical for us is because of the utilization rate.

At the end of 2023, all the beds were full.

So had these dollars gone away, if we didn't add the ongoing funds, we would have 150 people who wouldn't be displaced.

HSD's proposed budget is more than about maintaining the beds.

It's also about increasing the quality of services for improved outcomes.

As reported, the Navigation Center in the Chinatown International District, or CID, will close in early 2025. The proposed budget adds $2.3 million in 2025 with an increase in 2026 to stand up a new enhanced shelter.

So the Nav Center goes away, we take the base, add some money so we can have an enhanced shelter.

This enhanced shelter differs from the NAV Center in that there'll be non-congregant units, that they'll have access to specialized medical services, and they'll continue to treat complex behavioral health needs.

The location is not yet confirmed, so I wanna underscore that.

The location is not yet confirmed, but it's HSD's expectation that KC RHA, with the operator, the provider, will formalize a good neighbor agreement and adhere to policies.

I know that's top of mind for several folks.

While the location is not confirmed, I will tell you that we're actively reviewing some potential options.

Our proposed budget adds ongoing funds to address an operating gap to ensure that appropriate behavioral health services and levels of operations are provided for three tiny home villages, which were previously funded with expiring one-time funds.

And let me explain this a little bit better than what I just said.

There's a certain base that they had in order to operate this.

What they found was that the level of service needs were higher because of the complex of behavioral health issues.

Year over year, Lehigh has been asking for additional one-time, or well, they wanted ongoing, but we've been giving them on one-time funds in order to meet that gap.

This budget adds the ongoing dollars needed to provide the appropriate level of services to maintain these three villages.

And so as a result, we will maintain approximately 140 units with this ad.

I'm gonna pivot now to all of our human service providers.

In the 2024 adopted budget, so this year, Our adopted budget includes a 2% wage equity pay for human service providers.

The proposed budget adds inflationary increase as mandated by our SMC, which is important, and so you'll see here what the add is for 2025 and 2026. But I wanna emphasize that with 76% of HSD's budget going out to the contracted providers in the community, we can't take this for granted.

I underscore this because, for those of you who remember the conversations in the past, not all government agencies provide pay equity.

And not all government agencies and private funders provide inflationary increases.

And so it is really an opportunity to remind all funders that there is an opportunity here for us to support our important community-based organizations.

With that, I am very grateful to the Mayor for his commitment towards worker recruitment and retention for critical human services, especially during these challenging budget times.

And I know that you have heard from providers about their ability to hire and retain.

Our proposed budget prioritizes community safety.

We have been at table multiple times at committee to talk about our community safety efforts.

We have 61.9 million.

This is a combination, and people define it differently, but community-led approaches in public safety investments.

So there's a slight increase in 2025 and further in 2026. Notable highlights.

We are adding ongoing funds to address gun violence in schools.

This year, with your support, we were able to start with one time dollars.

In the 2025 proposed budget, we're proposing to add ongoing.

We are maintaining services like reentry as well as pre-booking diversion through the LEAD program, which many of you are familiar with.

We're also maintaining our investments in services to ending gender-based violence with an add of two million of ongoing supports to survivors of commercial sexual exploitation.

Now I'm going to deconstruct some of those and talk a little bit more in depth.

So in August, Mayor Harrell announced new investments to support the student safety.

This 4.25 million add for HSD will provide ongoing funds for these services.

We have talked, the executive has talked a fair amount about our details on this.

We are launching this, this is new for us.

But I'll quickly remind council that we're starting with five high schools and later expanding to the feeder middle schools.

The core programming in this area includes violence interruption, safe passages, case management for students most impacted by gun violence, and a family resource fund to ensure some basic immediate needs are met.

Before I talk about this ad, I do want to express, I think I'm gonna follow, I believe it was Council Member Kettle who expressed your gratitude to, who is my chair more, around the efforts of the leadership.

And I wanna thank you, Chair Moore, for partnering with the executive on the importance of services and the role it plays with regards to commercial sexual exploitation.

HSD has a team of victim advocates who provide trauma-informed, victim-centered support and resources to survivors of various crime types.

And they are referred to us by Seattle Police.

We support survivors and their families as they navigate the criminal legal system.

This ad that you see here proposes four new victim advocates and a supervisor to provide direct services for survivors of commercial sexual exploitation.

This new team would also have access to a small budget for client assistance so that the victim advocates can address immediate needs such as client transportation, hotel stays, other security measures, assistance with basic needs like food or clothing.

Additionally, within this dollar amount of 2 million, we're proposing that 1 million be added for community-based providers through an expedited competitive funding process.

We often talk about, I heard Chief Barden say earlier, the need for culturally responsive, skilled workers with lived experience.

This approach is no different and one could argue very important in order to move the needle on this effort.

You've heard many departments talk about their role in the Downtown Action Plan.

HSD is also a participant, and here we have 1.9 million in an ad to provide ongoing funds for the Third Avenue project.

This was originally funded with one-time dollars.

The ad is for ongoing dollars.

We have a direct contract with We Deliver Care or WDC to improve safety and address unmet needs on Third Avenue.

WDC provides daily de-escalation presence.

I think you've heard from lots of folks including business owners and workers of their presence and their impact.

They also engage people with offers of service such as employment opportunities and at times have responded to overdoses.

They are also out there applying naloxone and calling 911. Finally, I'll end with our priority focusing on public health.

Again, recently the mayor announced the city's new public health investment strategy focusing on four key areas.

We want to focus on access to care, harm reduction and engagement, substance use treatment, substance use disorder treatment, trusted relationships, and social connectedness.

In 2025, HSD plans to spend $32 million on numerous public health investments.

With almost half of the budget addressing substance use disorder, that's nearly a threefold increase over 2024. Plainly stated, in our current and past practice, we have not paid this much attention to this crisis.

These investments are a combination of contracts and direct services.

So for contracts, we've got capital projects and services, the largest contract with Public Health Seattle King County.

For direct services, we have Health 99, operated by Chief Scoggins over there at the Seattle Fire Department.

That's the overdose response team, and it includes HSD case managers, social workers.

I wanna underscore something that I've said all along at committee multiple times as well publicly that the quality of our investments need to be assessed.

And in 2025, we will partner with public health specifically because it has the largest investment, but of course all of our contracts to develop meaningful performance metrics so we can actively assess the impact of our funds.

I know that's important to all of you as well as to the mayor.

The last slide summarizes some of HSD's operational reductions, which resulted in general fund savings.

As I've said, and when you look through our budget book, you will see some difficult reductions that are proposed in the 25-26 budget.

And through our due diligence, we were able to identify some other efficiencies as we were developing the budget.

This slide outlines just some of the significant changes.

There was a reduction of 1.4 million of city general funds by leveraging federal and state grant dollars.

There is a reduction of 572,000 in 2025 and a little more in 2026 through abrogated positions.

The hiring freeze you heard so much about.

There were some vacancies.

We were able to identify some efficiencies in the way we do our business, and in some cases, reallocating those bodies of work.

and there's a reduction of about 580 dollars of unallocated funds and so no impact to the community or to our workforce so here we go i want to close by thanking the mayor for his critical investments in hsd i want to deeply thank the hsd workforce their dedicated public servants And I want to thank our community-based providers who do this important work day in and day out.

I also want to end by saying that we cannot do this work effectively.

I cannot do this work effectively without the productive partnership that we have with council.

So I thank you for your dialogue, your feedback, your vision.

And with that, I think I'm ready to toss it back over to you and perhaps Council Member Moore is going to take the floor.

SPEAKER_09

Thank you, Director Kim.

Council Member Morris, chair of the committee overseeing the Human Services Department, the floor is yours.

SPEAKER_12

All right, thank you, Chair.

So I just wanted to say thank you to Director Kim and CFO Dlamini for being here today.

Director Kim, I want to thank you very much for your leadership and the relationship that you and I have developed over the course of this year.

I appreciate our monthly check-ins and your team's responsiveness to the council's questions and your willingness to engage in dialogue about what programs are looking like and what they can look like and initiatives going forward.

I've found that to be very helpful.

I also wanted to thank the mayor's office for both sustaining investments and increasing investments in HSD's budget and going through the priorities listed here.

It was really...

heartened to see that they align with what I think are the priorities that have been expressed by this council and certainly are my priorities and particularly in keeping shelter capacity available, increasing tiny house villages, increasing funding for KCRHA, which I think we are one vote away from being able to start afresh on that and looking forward to that work going, addressing the concerns and being productive in a way that we all hope it will be.

Your body of work is immense.

It covers, it touches really I think all of the issues that we deal with in a modern society.

And I have tremendous respect for you and the work that your department does.

It's not easy work and we ask you to solve so many unsolvable problems.

So thank you for that.

And I understand that the trend every year is that HSD receives the most council budget amendments, which I think is reflective of the importance of the work that your department does, the importance of the contracts you oversee.

and that this work is really what our constituents are wanting to see more of every year, and to see not only more of, but that it is effectively implemented and overseen.

So I don't really have much more to say than just that I am really very supportive of the priorities that you've set forth.

I do have some questions, but I think in following I will leave those to after my colleagues have asked questions.

So thank you.

SPEAKER_09

Fair enough.

Colleagues, at this time, do you have questions?

I can jump into mine, but we will then be, I'm going to, there we go.

Vice Chair Rivera, Council President Nelson.

SPEAKER_07

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you for being here, HSD.

And thank you to my colleague, Council Member Moore, for all her work since we all got here earlier this year to give the critical eye and to be a great partner with the department and with the external partners and with the mayor's office as the HSD work moves forward and particularly for the leadership on the KCRHA ILA.

That was important work, and I know not easy, and so I appreciate you, NHSD, for your involvement in really moving that forward, and OH.

And I have to say, full disclosure, we've known each other a long time.

and had the pleasure of working with you, Director Kim.

So I know you care deeply about the work and about the excellence of the work and about community and making sure that our investments are doing the most good in community, about collaborating with external partners and setting an example for your team as they're out in community working with partners and working with the people that we serve every day as a city.

And so I just want to personally thank you for all your years of service here with the city and particularly at HSD doing this work.

get the opportunity to work with you on these issues over the years, so thank you for that.

I so appreciate your team for all the work that they do, like I said, every day.

I have one quick question, and it's really just a point of clarification on this.

The One Seattle Outreach position, I'm not familiar with.

Can you tell me a little bit about what that position is?

It's part of the downtown activation plan, it looks like, but I'm not familiar with the work.

SPEAKER_08

I had to turn around.

So D is the brains of this joint, and then we've got more brains in the back, so apologies.

We have such a breadth of investments, and we sometimes iterate on naming conventions.

And so what you're speaking to, I believe, is this is...

This is a group of, I love this group.

So when we talk about the public health approach and the last bullet, which doesn't get enough airtime, but talking about relationships and supports and connectedness, this is an example of that.

And so we have faith-based leaders who are a part of the One Seattle Outreach.

It is a separate body of work around the Third Avenue project.

It's more of a light touch, building relationships, offering a cup of coffee and really connecting with people to see what their needs are.

I do know that it is a little bit different than maybe what I talked about with WDC, which is the de-escalation.

It's a different type of approach in engaging people to meet them where they're at.

SPEAKER_07

But happy to follow up with more detail.

Perfect, thank you so much.

And then I just wanted to also thank you for the work related to the youth violence prevention programs.

I know that you've been really instrumental in working with Deal and the mayor's office.

And as part of that conversation with Seattle Public Schools to really ensure safety to our kids and the schools, very much appreciate.

And you laid out in one of your slides all the work that's going in the violence interrupter, the safe passages.

the case management for the students.

All of that is so important in conjunction with all the mental health work.

To me, this is mental health work because if kids are getting the support that they need, that will go to ensure that they are doing well from an emotional intelligence standpoint.

So really appreciate all your work there.

And so I have a couple other questions, but I'll follow up via the Q&A through our central staff.

But really, again, thank you for all the work that you do, and I look forward to continuing to work with you and your team.

Thank you, Chair.

SPEAKER_01

thank you council member rivera council president nelson and council member kettle thank you very much um director kim i think that you said correct me if i'm wrong that uh our contract with um public health seattle king county is 32 million Is that what you said?

SPEAKER_08

That dollar amount is the investment in our overarching public health strategies, which includes multiple contracts.

The public health Seattle King County contract itself is?

25 million.

SPEAKER_01

Okay, well, then there's a discrepancy here because I believe it was you or someone in the mayor's office sent me the contract, the new contract, and it's amended from last year from 19...

Million about to 39 million, or it goes up by about 19.6 million.

So I guess we'll need clarity on that.

And the reason that I'm focusing on this is because.

I did get a briefing early this year that was talking about what is that contract going to and it starts out looking at the community needs assessments that had been done.

I think in at the end of 2023, but clearly it was behavioral health, substance use disorder, things having to do with the fentanyl crisis were across the line, the highest needs across the agencies that conducted community health assessments.

And yet only 18% of our contract with Public Health Seattle King County addresses those particular needs.

Others are around neighborhood clinics and dental care, et cetera.

And I got the impression that there was a desire to reallocate some dollars based on a look at what our needs and what are we spending money on.

SPEAKER_08

That's right.

Yes, thank you for that observation.

The contract that you have is our executed contract.

It's the one that we have in place.

The new strategy is going to impact the new contract in 2025. And so we are now actively there emailing me, and we're talking about what the 2025 contract is.

And you will see a shift in those investments in the 2025 contract.

SPEAKER_01

Okay, because I didn't see any line items or programmatic changes in this contract, but perhaps it will be reflected in the one that's coming forward.

SPEAKER_08

That's exactly right.

The upcoming contract will show the changes.

SPEAKER_01

Okay, and could you elaborate more on the harm reduction investments?

like break it down by category, methadone buprenorphine versus naloxone distribution, just roughly versus safe supplies, et cetera.

SPEAKER_08

I would love to, if it's okay, would like to follow up via the SharePoint site Q&A.

I don't want to misspeak about the percentages.

SPEAKER_01

Okay, thank you.

Everybody already knows my thinking on distributing supplies to ingest fentanyl and methamphetamine, so I will be looking at that.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_08

And I will say again, I can give you what we currently have.

We are currently negotiating the contract the initial meeting, it actually will take a series of meetings with public health because we're doing things differently.

Year over year, as far as I remember, we've not negotiated the contract to align with the city's priorities.

We've been adding as something important came up, but we didn't...

inform public health that these are the four priorities.

We want to ensure that the funds go to treatment and harm reduction.

So we need to do some good contract negotiation.

So I will follow up with the information that you're looking for, but know that the 2025 is being discussed.

SPEAKER_04

Okay, that is also just to note that the public health contract is a multi year contract.

So the higher number that you're referencing is actually would be for more than one year, but we will follow up with more details.

SPEAKER_01

Okay, thank you.

SPEAKER_09

Anything further, Council President?

SPEAKER_01

Well, one last thing.

Many council members have expressed their commitment to accountability.

And you mentioned that I think 76% of your budget is for external contracts.

And so there was one meeting, I think, last year where you described how you evaluate the existing contracts.

Do you...

Do you discontinue contracts with service providers ever?

I mean, because it seems like we're adding for obviously inflationary increases of wage equity, but do you ever decide to drop a contract?

Because I'm not seeing that reflected.

SPEAKER_08

The short answer is yes, we have discontinued contracts.

I will say that we do everything in our power to support agencies through technical assistance, having trainings, we have provider convenings.

There's a lot of things that we do in partnership, but we absolutely hold providers accountable.

So one thing about my tenure, I was first hired with the City of Seattle as a grants and contract specialist, so I know way too much about this.

We do have a policy whereby our team monitors a set of contracts.

We often talk about the funding procurement process, the way in which we do the competitive process.

But the real work, frankly, is on the regular monitoring.

Are they performing the work that we've asked them to?

There are performance measures with that.

There is verification that is submitted with that.

We do site reviews.

We do client reviews.

There's a whole process.

Sometimes an organization may need to pivot because the conditions have changed.

We saw that happen throughout the pandemic.

So for example, we might have had youth development contracts where it was about in-person activity after school.

Well, that completely shifted.

So there's an element of us also being flexible of what is the current need.

So long as it stays within the scope of that contract, we have some flexibility to meet the dynamic needs of people and the families.

There are times where organizations may be underperforming and so we reduce the contract.

They're doing good service work.

There are times where we've eliminated a contract as well.

You don't see that reduction because I will tell you we reallocate those funds typically because on the other end of the spectrum, you will always find agencies who are far exceeding their performance and they could do more.

with additional dollars.

And so sometimes we also adjust contracts on that end as well.

But you wouldn't see that as a reduction in our budget.

We have the ability to reallocate those funds for the greater good.

So I hope that answers your question.

SPEAKER_01

It does.

I think that sometimes it's frustrating for us, the oversight body, to have that visibility, to be able to have your diligence confirmed to us.

And so that's why I have to ask it in a public forum like this.

I mean, we have the option of an audit.

You already know that...

YOU KNOW, I'VE EXPRESSED DISAPPOINTED THAT THE AUDIT ON ALL OF OUR CRIME PREVENTION STRATEGIES WAS DISCONTINUED.

THAT WAS ACTUALLY REFERENCED BY CHIEF VARDEN EARLIER THAT THAT WAS PART OF THE RECRUITMENT THAT WE WERE LOOKING AT ALL OF OUR STRATEGIES AND THINKING ABOUT WAYS OF RESTRUCTURING THEM.

BUT, YOU KNOW, I'M ALWAYS INTERESTED IN MORE INFORMATION THAN LESS.

SO THANK YOU.

SPEAKER_09

THANK YOU, COUNCIL PRESIDENT.

COUNCIL MEMBER KETTLE.

SPEAKER_10

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

Thank you, Director Kim and team for coming.

I wanted to give a quick shout out to the Nicholsville team that's here in Chambers, sitting behind you.

I had a great meeting with them, I don't know how long ago, but I really appreciate that.

I just thought I'd give them a shout out since they're here in person.

Director Kim, I have to ask, and you can blame Chief Rohr for this, because on her slides, she talked about the percentage increase impact of AWI on these changes.

So unlike on slides four and five talking about the first, the summary, and then the HSD impact areas overview, it shows the numbers.

And is that largely driven by the AWI increases or is there other pieces to it, particularly maybe FTE increases that go to some of those?

So is it the inflationary aspects that are driving the increases?

SPEAKER_04

I can speak to that a little bit.

Definitely inflation is a part of it.

It's already incorporated.

If you're speaking about, on the summary slide, the difference between sort of our proposed uh 20 oh we removed the adopted budget um we also have quite a bit of carry forward associated with grants that um is also just built into our base budget with other funds as well okay all right thank you um and going through the the different um the awi increase if you'd like to know is about 9 million in 2025. okay sorry for that delay i know it

SPEAKER_10

Hopefully my team's writing down quicker than I can here at the dais.

You know, you have the different chapters.

The first chapter is strong safety net.

One of the things that I've mentioned before in my committee, the Public Safety Committee, that I do listen to public comment.

And public comment comes in very many different forms.

It could be here in chamber.

It could be via emails, across the board.

And so I'm using it as an example.

And this kind of falls under legal protections, which does go to a safety net.

I am married to an attorney, so I do have some sympathies for this piece.

Just as an example, you may not know the details of this, but as it happened, landed on my lap just before the meeting was a note from the ED of the Legal Council for Youth and Children that were concerned about potential cut and reduction in their youth homelessness program.

And they were asking, if you're cutting the Legal Council for Youth and Children, how else is HSD...

investing in protecting the safety and civil rights of homeless youth and So I'm gonna channel that question for you and you can answer it in a not necessarily specifically about this provider But maybe in a broader sense

SPEAKER_08

In the broadest sense, I will tell you, and I started and I ended with there was hard choices to make.

And at this point in our budget, although it is relatively large, the funds are allocated for specific contracts or for personnel.

There generally is not money sitting around.

So in this budget crisis, when we needed to, like other departments, look at making further tough choices, we got to a place of making sure that we're preserving food, shelter, safety.

And I'll just be frank, it is a good service.

and we had to make some decisions.

And so broadly speaking, that's the same response I would give for any other organization who would email and probably CC me to defend their work.

And so it's not a message of the work is not valuable.

It's a message that we had to make some tough decisions.

And due to what HSD is focusing on, unfortunately, there were some cuts that were made.

SPEAKER_10

Well, I appreciate that answer, and I don't know the details specific.

I'm not on the committee, and it is a learning area for me, for no doubt.

And I imagine you have different criteria in terms of making these decisions, like make the cut or don't make the cut.

And I would think one would be the return in the sense of an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

So again, I don't know the details, but perhaps this is an ounce of prevention that avoids a pound of cure later on and that would be like a you know a factor for me and my decision making on these but I don't sit where you sit so I just but I did want to ask the question I also think it's important to for the public to know that we do get all this type of input.

And at least for me, I don't mind channeling it, particularly if it's done in a very professional and clear way, because sometimes they're not.

Because it really can help.

It helps in our legislation and public safety committee.

So I just wanted to highlight that.

Moving on to shelter capacity, you mentioned a word or a phrase to me which is top of mind, mainly from my public safety perspective, and that is good neighbor agreements.

I find good neighbor agreements to be key, and unfortunately, they are up and down in terms of how strong they are.

And I say this because the providers...

God bless them for the work they're doing, but what they do and how they do it could impact the public safety posture in their neighborhood.

You know, I think of, you know, let's take the state, DHS on 2nd and Lenora.

The way they do business, and I've not had a chance to engage with them, but they create a massive, you know, crowd outside based on their operating, based on how they do business.

Well, the sad thing is that crowd is invulnerable to the vultures, aka the drug dealers, which then leads to a cascading effect.

So that neighborhood then has the flagship, you know, store, the Starbucks, across the street closing.

And then we have other stores closing.

And then the neighborhood's at risk, which is one reason why we have a soda zone there.

That neighborhood is at risk.

And, you know, part of this is in terms of what the service providers are doing or not doing.

And I think engaging with the communities, with those neighborhoods, to say, hey, do you realize what you're doing here is resulting in X, Y, and Z?

And then they may say, oh, we could just do this differently.

And that may address a large part of it.

So I think we really need to have a look at these good neighbor agreements to really foster that communication with the communities, the neighborhoods, because there are problems out there.

I know this directly from my experience in Queen Anne.

I won't give the perfect example here because it takes too much time, but we do need to have like better communication and really foster it from the city perspective because Again, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

I mean, some slight changes could really result in better outcomes on the street, which then impact the neighborhoods.

So thank you on that for bringing that up.

Shelter capacity.

I noted tiny homes was listed.

I'm a supporter of this.

I really like the Salmon Bay Village, for example, particularly because they're taking these dilapidated and problematic RVs off our streets.

This is an area that really, is this an area that's working?

How can we make it better?

And how can we get the county to put one at the youth and juvenile detention center site that we want to put there?

Anything on that front?

You don't have to answer about the county.

I'm more than happy to ask the question, though, because the county should answer that question, but you don't have to.

SPEAKER_08

I will say I'm feeling very encouraged by new CEO Kinison.

I am encouraged by the work that we're doing to increase the quality, and that's what this ad reflects.

So there is a lot of, I think, opportunity, but we also do have budget constraints.

SPEAKER_10

Thank you, and thank you for that point about KCRHA, and I second my colleague here, Council Member Moore, in terms of our shared views on the KCRHA and the fact that we just have to get one more vote, which is going to be key for its future.

On provider pay, thank you for that update.

For community safety, I note that there is a large number of organizations I've engaged with, many.

I wanted to give a shout-out to LEAD.

I've had discussions with Lisa Dugard on her work.

And I also want to thank the policy coordinating group that added loitering to their list of diversion offenses or acts that can be diverted and that they would support.

Because that's really important.

This is where...

the public safety and the public health handshake really needs to happen.

So I really appreciate what they did on that side.

And you've already noted the plus-up related to that, the commercial sexual exploitation line item there.

That is key.

And I also appreciate the gun violence in school, all these different pieces, so important in terms of community safety, because it all ties into that public safety handshake.

Regarding the Third Avenue project, obviously, I've met with We Deliver Care.

What's really key, too, is We Deliver Care, but then, you know, having like the mid-ambassadors from DSA, that combination is key, particularly when you have King County sheriffs on Third Avenue, SPD, that combination really makes a difference.

So I'm thankful for the work that we deliver care is doing along with those others that I've mentioned.

My understanding is that last year's number, which I think it was 1.9, wasn't really getting there.

And I think 2025 is held at that same number Is this something that needs to be looked at in terms of possibly being increased?

SPEAKER_08

We started with We Deliver Care at the 1.9 level, and that was one time, and so this ad reflects ongoing.

I am aware of some discussion about if that budget amount is adequate or not, but given the budget constraints, we felt it responsible to start here.

SPEAKER_10

Okay.

Well, I appreciate that, and I think it's just good to note it and note where they are and if it's close and, you know, and that we're, you know, it's being factored in, I guess, is the bottom line in terms of your deliberations and what you're doing.

And I just wanted to close because you do have a public health, and I think next week I have a board of health meeting.

to reiterate that, you know, we cannot succeed in public safety.

We don't succeed in public health.

And so we really need to press on these various issues on the public health side.

Going back to King County, which does have a public health responsibility to ensure that it's doing it and it's doing in partnership with the city because that combination is so key if we're going to achieve our public safety goals.

Again, I put my chair hat on for a second.

So thank you for the work that's done on public health.

I appreciate it.

Chair?

SPEAKER_09

Thank you, Council Member Kettle.

Director, anything to respond there?

Sounds good.

We'll keep moving along.

Council Member Morales, followed by Council Member Saka.

SPEAKER_05

Thank you.

Thank you for being here, Director Kim.

I wanted to start by just noting my team has really been diving into all the budget documents, looking at the BIPs, so thank you.

We've identified...

The microphone is so far away.

And a really short cable.

So we have been going through all of your budget documents, and I think it's important to call out that we've identified over a dozen programs or initiatives.

that are seeing their funding cut or reduced through HSD alone.

So I'm really concerned about this.

As I know, are you given the really important role that your department plays in providing crucial services for the people in our community who are most vulnerable.

Among other things, the mayor's budget cuts, as Councilmember Kettle just referred to, cuts legal services for homeless youth, it cuts employment case management services for people with intellectual development disabilities, cuts our youth employment program, it cuts gender-based violence advocacy services, it cuts our health home program, which coordinates care and services for Medicaid beneficiaries, It cuts funding that we've provided every year for United Way's free tax prep program, cuts solid grounds, public benefits, legal assistance, takes away funding from our safe lot program that we've heard from folks across the city is something that is desired.

So this is...

troubling, and I know not something that you're particularly eager to implement either.

So I do think it's important that we preserve the 300 shelter beds, but we know that that's not nearly enough given the scale of homelessness that we see on our streets.

So it feels like this budget is cutting everything that works to keep people out of jail, to keep people off our streets.

And so I'm And I will say to you, as I've said to every director who's come before us, my frustration is not directed at you.

But I really have to ask who this budget benefits, like who is being served by the cuts that are being made in this city.

So I do have some questions for you.

I want to go to your impact areas.

And I will say first, I appreciate your background as a grants manager.

I was a grants manager for affordable housing several years ago, well, a couple decades ago now.

And so it is really an important skillset to bring to trying to manage these contracts, to understand what performance management looks like, to understand what outcomes we are getting for our public investment.

This isn't just about churning people through or outputs, which is why I will say I get so frustrated with the Unified Care Team's answer that we have referred people, but we haven't actually helped them land someplace.

I'll get to that in a minute.

So we have $300,000 to expand shelter referrals to weekends.

Can you talk a little bit about if those shelters, for the shelters that would benefit from this additional capacity to take referrals, do they have room to shelter more people or is that just additional couple of days that there is an option there?

SPEAKER_08

That is a great question.

Chair Strauss?

SPEAKER_09

Yes.

SPEAKER_08

May I invite one of the smarter people up to the table to talk about this?

SPEAKER_09

Welcome to it.

Is this gonna be one Mr. Chris Clayson?

SPEAKER_08

It is Mr. Chris Clayson.

SPEAKER_09

Fantastic.

Welcome to the table, Chris Clayson from Human Services Department.

SPEAKER_02

Good afternoon, everybody.

There we go.

Just to introduce myself, my name is Chris Clayson, and I am the HSD Homelessness Division Director.

As for these shelters, we would be looking to partner with KCRAJ to work with existing set-aside shelters to open up some hours on the weekend for referrals.

SPEAKER_05

Okay.

So does this add beds to our shelter system, or is this resulted ...

I just want to know, are more people actually going to get shelter?

SPEAKER_02

There are not added beds, so it's added hours on the weekends at existing capacity.

SPEAKER_05

Okay.

It's adding hours.

Okay.

So the Unified Care Team budget is increasing pretty dramatically.

Without city funding to add new shelter beds and permanent supportive housing, can you tell me what would be the result of having expanded UCT teams in terms of where homeless people will go?

SPEAKER_02

Apologies.

Can you repeat the question?

SPEAKER_05

Dan, I'm trying to talk to somebody here.

I'm so sorry.

Okay, so the Unified Care Team's budget is dramatically increasing.

Without city funding to rapidly add new shelter beds or permanent supportive housing, what will be the result of having expanded Unified Care Teams out there moving homeless people around?

SPEAKER_03

Before Chris answers, we were just discussing his previous answer.

The way I think of it, we are providing new shelter beds from the perspective of opening up nights on the weekends that didn't used to provide shelter to people.

That's additional person beds during weekends nights that didn't otherwise have a place to house people.

It is not going to house, it's not more beds, it's more beds that are open more nights.

So that's what we were chatting about when I was speaking over you, I apologize.

SPEAKER_05

And I'm assuming that these are 24-hour beds, shelter spaces?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, enhanced shelter, 24 hours.

SPEAKER_05

Okay.

So even if there are additional hours or additional spaces available, it's still a one-night spot for somebody, and they will be back out on the street in the morning.

SPEAKER_02

They can stay there ongoing and get supports once they're enrolled into services, into the shelter, I should say.

Sorry about that.

SPEAKER_08

If I may, just in general for, I think part of your question really is about the unified care team's approach and outcomes.

And that's something that HSD isn't positioned to answer.

I do look to the mayor's office specifically since the unified care team is led by not HSD.

SPEAKER_05

No, I appreciate that.

The mayor's office is very clear on where I stand on the Unified Care Team.

But I am trying to understand the ability of us to, given that we've taken some contract services away from KCRHA, that there is some additional resource being put in for shelter.

I am trying to understand what is our increased capacity?

What are our outcomes, not just our outputs?

for being able to actually place people in a place that is a roof over their head.

SPEAKER_02

I think really the UCT work here is to get folks into shelter and then us to continue working with the King County Regional Homelessness Authority on connections to permanent housing once you're in a shelter.

I think that's really where the partnership comes in place there between our organizations.

SPEAKER_03

And I think the only other thing that I would add, it's not directly on point with your question, Councilmember, but the proposed budget includes $342 million for investments in affordable housing, including but not limited to permanent supportive housing, which is addressing housing for similar populations.

SPEAKER_05

Okay.

Regarding the gender-based violence, there's about 2.2 million being added for gender-based violence.

I want to make sure I'm understanding this right.

I think it's being kept at HSD to add six new staff.

SPEAKER_08

There are two million.

Part of that is for five staff, four victim advocates and a supervisor.

There's budget for those victim advocates while they're working with clients in the immediate to access emergency funds to take care of emergency needs, like I mentioned, transportation and a safe place to stay, basic food, clothing, whatever is needed in the moment to stabilize the situation.

have the follow-up ongoing supports.

And of the remaining approximate million, hopefully more, is that we will RFP that for community-based solutions.

So that will be an expedited request for proposal for community organizations to step in and provide the ongoing supports needed for that population.

So is that $3 million total, then?

$2 million total.

So a portion of it goes to the staff, a portion is for client assistance, and then half of it is for community.

OK.

SPEAKER_05

And is this the same $2 million that's being used to address commercial sexual exploitation?

Oh, I'm sorry.

I thought that's what you were talking about.

OK.

So it's not $4 million total.

I'm just trying to understand.

SPEAKER_08

Let me go to, if I can, we actually have a breakdown of the budget.

If I can find it very quickly, I'm happy to respond or happy to respond via the SharePoint site.

What I will say is this.

In our mayor's office on domestic violence and sexual assault, They have a portfolio to end gender-based violence.

Part of that is for human trafficking, and part of the existing base work is for commercial sexual exploitation.

There is a small pot of money right now that we have.

to add is to expand on that.

So that's the two million that I spoke of.

I'll give you the exact breakdown via SharePoint.

Okay, great.

SPEAKER_05

Okay, so I think I got my slide numbers a little messed up, but so the 2025 budget proposes 8.1-ish for Payroll expense tax, and then 3.9, 8.1 in 2025, 3.9 in 2026. But I don't see, if I'm understanding right, the safe lot funding is all eliminated.

Is that right?

SPEAKER_09

And Council Member Morales, I'm going to just jump in to ask a clarifying question on here.

I noticed that $1.5 million is removed of RV storage, which is different than the salmon bay safe lot.

Is that correct?

SPEAKER_02

Yes, that's correct.

SPEAKER_09

You finally took the RV money.

I'm teasing because I put that money in the budget.

Sorry, everyone.

SPEAKER_05

Okay.

Okay.

Okay, so I guess my question is, is there a funding plan to support folks who are living in their cars and RVs?

SPEAKER_02

Yes, so in the budget, if I may, there is a shift of safe lot funding that will support the Tiny House Villages Behavioral Health Services.

However, there will still remain ongoing operations dollars for safe lots and HSD funding.

has partnered with the King County Regional Homelessness Authority on those efforts and will continue to do so and look at proposals as they come in.

SPEAKER_05

Okay.

Okay.

I've got other questions, Chair, but I'll add them to the SharePoint as...

As we do.

Thank you.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_09

And before we go to Council Member Saka, I conferred with the chair of this of the Human Services Committee.

I just want to give a little bit of background on Unified Care Team for the colleagues.

I'm going to read out of the 2019 to 2024 document and then talk a little bit about what Council Member Morales was talking about.

So I'm on page 100 of the 19 to 24. The navigation team was operated out of HST prior to 2021. The main focus of the nav team was to coordinate the city's response to encampments, including complaints, assessing conditions, managing the storage of belongings, and centrally managing shelter vacancies.

During 2020, the council repurposed funding of the nav team to increase funding for the contracted homelessness outreach providers.

Through the 2021 adopted budget, the NAV Team was replaced with a new team, the Homelessness Outreach and Provider Ecosystem Team, HOPE Team.

which was Council Member Morales' leadership.

I appreciated that.

This action changed the number of positions associated with assessing and addressing site conditions and called for a team that coordinated outreach and shelter referral among homelessness outreach providers.

Because contracted outreach providers Different ones had different takes.

This is me kind of editorializing.

Some did not want to be present when encampments were moved.

The Hope Team continued to be the only folks consistently on the ground during posted removal periods to make the final offer to shelter.

I'm going to come back to this, colleagues, about final and earlier offers.

During 2022, the HOPE team was incorporated into the new multi-departmental effort called the Unified Care Team.

which brought together HSD, several other city departments, and KCRHA to coordinate activities addressing unsheltered homelessness in city cleaning and maintenance.

The executive has indicated they're no longer using the nomenclature hope team.

Those positions still remain.

Those activities still occur.

And instead to refer to the Human Services Department staff specifically assigned to support the Unified Care Team.

including those providing outreach and coordination services.

The 23 adopted budget added $1.3 million and eight new positions to HSD to coordinate the Unified Care Team.

And so I just wanted to kind of set that record, that general common understanding I'D LIKE TO ADD, IF I CAN, TO SOME OF YOUR COMMENTS, COUNCIL MEMBER MORALES.

FROM MY WORK WITH THE UNIFIED CARE TEAM AND OTHER HOMELESSNESS SERVICE PROVIDERS, ADDING HOURS COMPARED TO ADDING BEDS IS PRETTY CRITICAL BECAUSE ESPECIALLY WHEN WE ARE BRINGING IN A HIGH NUMBER OF PEOPLE AT A SINGLE TIME, IT DOES NOT CHANGE HOW MANY PEOPLE CAN BE oriented into the shelter.

Each person who comes into a shelter needs to have their own time with the case managers, needs to have their own time to orient.

And there is a limit on how many people can be brought into the shelter at any given time.

And so even though we are not adding beds, adding hours does increase capacity.

somebody at the table had mentioned the throughput into housing from shelter which does add usable beds without or adds available beds without adding new beds one of the issues Council member Moore and I hope president Nelson has heard me several times that King County Regional Homelessness Authority has had a practice of not referring out of shelter into permanent housing which creates a backlog of people in shelter while at the same time not allowing an individual who is able to be housed to have time to reorient to living within four walls and a door that they can lock, their own space.

And so what I have heard anecdotally from housing providers as well is that they receive new clients in places into the housing units that have not had time to have case management to orient into living inside.

And that's some of the importance there with shelter.

With the Unified Care Team moving to seven days a week and in other places, the majority of the work that the Unified Care Team does is trash removal and outreach.

What I have been incredibly impressed with in just that transition that I explained from 2019 to today, the transition from the navigation team to the Unified Care Team, is in the past, the police were the first folks on the ground interacting with people, followed by social workers.

Today that is reversed.

We have social workers leading the way with the police.

They're actually to maintain the safety for city employees Not there to do enforcement on what they might or may not find That difference in and of itself has changed the way that the city is able to provide outreach in a really meaningful way and so that's as well as before an encampment is removed, what I have found, unless it is blocking a sidewalk, so people can't walk down that sidewalk unless it's in a park where people are trying to enjoy their open space, there's a few discrete times where an obstruction can be used.

Other than that, even at times I have found when it could meet the obstruction criteria.

The Unified Care Team takes four to six weeks to do outreach, to understand the people living there.

Granted, are there improvements that can be made?

Yes.

I continue to work with the Unified Care Team to make those improvements so that we can get closer and closer to a by name list for the whole city.

That's a big charge.

We're not gonna do that this year.

And I continue to push them because that's the direction that we need to go.

And so, when an encampment is removed, they've been working to get people inside for four to six weeks.

And so that's also where that weekend ability to move folks into shelter is really critical because what I have noticed is that we get to a Friday and we've got folks that are like ready to go inside and we can't get them inside.

And I think a really big cultural change that has happened is understanding what, for city workers, understanding what it takes to not just refer someone to shelter but to get them into shelter because The experience that I will share with you is one from Woodland Park where we were doing some real cultural shift with city workers about when and how do we address the things that have been left behind after we get somebody inside.

And at one point, somebody had gone to check, because again, for somebody to get into shelter, they have to leave their belongings, go to the shelter to check in, get their paperwork all signed, everything taken care of, come back, get their things, and then go back and check into the shelter.

And somebody thought that the belongings had been left, but really it was that the person was checking into the shelter and they almost had the things thrown away.

It didn't happen, so this is good.

In the past, I had heard that story anecdotally many times over.

And that shift is not occurring because we've been able to make a cultural change in the last five years.

And Council Member Morales, I have to give you some of that credit.

because of the HOPE team and that change that occurred.

I know from what I can hear, the unified care team doesn't necessarily meet your expectations and what you hope for our city.

And I do have to acknowledge you were really important in that critical moment of us changing because colleagues, what I heard when we were closing the navigation team was that we were doing away with addressing homelessness, and it wasn't the case.

And what we have today is a program that I believe to be much better.

Thank you for listening to my history lesson here on the unified care team, just because I wanted to add some color to what was being shared.

Director Kim, do you have corrections to make?

SPEAKER_08

No, no, and you know, I know that this is a very important topic and I don't mean to deflect because that's not what it is, but we really are not in a position to speak about the Unified Care Team as a whole, just like I wouldn't speak for a deal or, you know, but where we have a particular role, I'm happy to discuss our role and our budget component, but I'm very clear about HSD's mission.

SPEAKER_09

where you have staff as part of the Unified Care Team, you do not direct the Unified Care Team.

SPEAKER_08

Oh, I do not.

SPEAKER_09

Thank you for letting me go.

SPEAKER_00

Council Member Saka, over to you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

And thank you, Director Kim.

Thank you to you, yourself, and the dedicated professionals at HSD who perform this critical work in carrying on the people's work, really, of helping connect our most vulnerable communities people and populations to much needed resources and services.

And so, you know, not at all an easy task, any aspect of it, but it is critically important and I value and appreciate it.

Thank you.

So also appreciate the The priorities, high-level priorities of the mayor reflected in the proposed budget for HSD, calling out specifically the strong safety net, the shelter, additional shelter, well, shelter capacity, Preserving that, community safety, public health, provider health on some of the community safety topics.

Also appreciate the violence prevention, addressing gun violence in our schools, that kind of programming critically important.

I want to talk for a moment about encampments.

And by the way, let me just say I thank you, Mr. Chair, for that historical context and overview and just kind of sharing the history of, you know, how the current process and current team, Unified Care Team, came to be about and lessons learned from past.

And so...

Very helpful.

I appreciate some of the great points that you made there.

I personally do support adding hours for the reasons you mentioned.

So I'll incorporate by reference your comments and the rationale you just gave.

I do support adding hours of the care team for those reasons.

So shout out to HSD.

the congratulations to HSD unified care team as well, which it's the unified care team is a inter-department coordinated approach It's not just you have a central part in it as we know But so there's many stakeholders involved in what I'm about to say and that is congratulations The Seattle Times recently reported in a Danny West neat article that there was a reported 65% drop in unauthorized encampment citywide In whatever reporting period was given there and hardly the time for You know, handshakes and high fives and, you know, attaboys because, you know, we still have way too many people experiencing homelessness, not having their needs met.

So plenty more work to do.

And as the Seattle Times reported in a city-released snapshot map, at the time of where tent or RV sites remain in the city, Soto and the Duwamish Valley in my district had the most at the time, 72 tents and RVs at the time.

And as I understand it, that's consistent with where it is generally.

My district has the highest number of these unauthorized encampments and RVs.

For a variety of reasons including geography.

I think I have the the largest districts Geographically because of Soto which is we all represent roughly the same amount of people I I sat on the King County process where we read you so I know under state law We all represent roughly the same amount of people but the size of our districts do vary widely and mine geographically is is huge and so as Potentially as a result of that, we are bearing the brunt of this and our unhoused neighbors are as well in that regard.

Not a day goes by without hearing directly from constituents in my district about the problem.

Tent and RV encampments.

And then once resolved, immediately pop back up and return or move down the block.

And we know that, unfortunately, there are predators that often prey on people in these encampments and encampment areas, preying on people most in need.

Again, those suffering from debilitating behavioral health crises and challenges.

And so, as a result, they can quickly become crime and drug magnets.

In Soto, in particular, one of my...

business owner representatives and Soto reports to me that, because Soto is, again, one of the two areas that in the Duwamish Valley in my district are kind of bearing the brunt of this citywide.

And it reports to me that in many encampments across Soto, again, the same fact pattern is true, but there's challenges associated with open drug dealing, drug manufacturing, copper wire theft and stripping, stolen bikes and chopping, stolen vehicles and automobile chop shops.

And under the 2025 and 26 proposed budget, It provides additional funding for the unified care team to expand additional days and hours, again, which from my perspective is a good thing.

And it says that the budget...

the budget materials say that the expanded unified care team capacity will be focused on quote will specifically facilitate obstruction removals at high priority repopulation sites multiple times daily including weekends end quote.

So you know I know you all on the HSD side primarily work with supporting the outreach workers and there's a lot of stakeholders involved in this.

We're gonna help with the planning, right?

But my hope is that we do more as a city to help address the repopulation and that includes some of the root causes and addressing some of the housing and when people before people, the need ripens to the point where it is today, they get better supports and resources.

But we also need to do a better job of addressing the needs today as well.

So that was just a show of support for the adding hours for the unified care team, which I think is reflected in, at least in part, in HSD's budget.

and the work that you all do to address encampments and connect people with shelter and services.

Question about tiny homes and safe lots.

So both of which really important to me.

And I'd like to see a range of options, including additional RV safe lots.

But I know there's a $2 million budget line item added to continue with tiny homes and is that to continue to support three tiny home villages can you help clarify what that is going to be specifically used for

SPEAKER_08

Yeah, I, well, if I may, because you shared some really important remarks about the work that's happening across the city, and in a good way, I want to pass the buck over to Casey RHA, which is, we've talked a lot, you've talked a lot about the Unified Care Team and the role, but Really, we need to zoom out and think about the ecosystem.

If there was a word of the season, I think it's ecosystem.

I've heard it in lots of different spaces.

But KCRA really, they set the strategy.

They have the investments.

The work that you're doing on the board is incredibly important.

on behalf of our small portion of the Unified Care team, thank you for the acknowledgement, but really it's truly the ecosystem with all of the providers and the strategies coming together.

And so to shout out to KC RHA and their success.

I'm sorry that I wasn't as clear with the tiny home villages on this ad.

It is a little bit complicated.

And so let me try it again.

And if I do a poor job, I'm gonna pass it over to Chris.

So we have existing tiny home villages.

They have a base budget.

What we've heard from the provider is that it actually costs more to operate this village.

And so if they don't have the ongoing dollars to fully operate it in a way that's appropriate to meet the needs of their clients, that it's likely going to sunset because they can't operate at the level that it needs to be at.

This ad is to provide additional dollars so we can pay for the full cost of the tiny home villages, which does include additional behavioral health supports and operations so they can successfully stay open.

So that's what this ad reflects.

Is that?

Yep, that's correct.

Okay.

Is that clear?

SPEAKER_00

Yes.

SPEAKER_08

Sorry.

SPEAKER_00

Good enough for now.

Thank you.

No further questions, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Saga.

SPEAKER_09

Council Member Rivera.

SPEAKER_07

Council Member Moore was before me.

SPEAKER_09

She's got last word.

SPEAKER_07

Oh, okay.

That's fine.

I just saw her hand up.

SPEAKER_09

She's even got last word after me, so, you know.

SPEAKER_07

Well, first of all, I was negligent in saying I appreciate my colleague, Council Member Moore's work with the KCRHA ILA.

Also, Council President Nelson was part of that.

So, Council President Nelson, I know you're online.

Sorry for not mentioning you earlier.

And then just a general point to underscore the important work that UCT does, and it is...

citywide effort.

And I have to say having done a ride along with UCT, all the hard work that goes into the outreach to really help find places for people to go before an encampment actually gets cleared.

And that is really critical.

It's a really critical piece.

Because what I hear a lot in my district and what I know to be true is folks want people to be indoors and safe.

And folks are in an environment outdoors where they're not safe.

And to your point, Councilmember Saka, they are getting preyed upon.

And there are some folks living in their cars and in their RVs that are that are working and they have families that are living in those vehicles with them.

And then there are other RVs that have illegal activity that are taking advantage of people.

And I will say we have a couple at Magnuson Park and we have permanent supportive housing at Magnuson Park.

And my interest is to make sure that the folks that are in recovery are not getting preyed upon by people that are selling drugs out of those RVs.

And some of the criminal activity that we see, particularly in North Aurora and the D5 with the prostitution, et cetera, which I know is not an RV issue, but there's a lot of folks preying on folks and we're trying to mitigate for all that.

And so the UCT does do a great job of ensuring of bringing people indoors so they're safe and away from the folks that are creating the most harm.

And I think that that needs to be underscored and it is an important piece of this and HST holds an important place in that UCT team.

So though Director Kim, I know you can't speak for the UCT in general, I will say having spent a lot of time with the UCT and being in close connection with the UCT, they are doing a critical service to the city.

on behalf of all residents, including the folks that are unhoused that need to come inside.

And my great hope with this new iteration of KCRHA is that it will do what it was initially intended to do when it got formed, which is really provide indoor safe places, temporary places for folks while we're finding permanent homes for people to be, be it permanent supportive housing or other affordable housing and low-income housing opportunities, such as we have at Mercy House and Solid Ground at Magnuson Park with great families that are living there and I'm so happy they're there.

So I just, I felt very strongly I needed to add my voice to the UCT conversation.

I know they're not here.

And so I wanted to make sure that I was contributing my experience with the UCT and why I support the UCT and why I very much support all the work that HSD does and Director Kim, all the work that you've done while you've been at HSD.

And I will say Director Kim was the deputy director at HSD before she was director.

She was interim even director for a while.

All that to say she's been there for a while and she understands the department very well and has worked with the staff there.

And so, you know, everyone I know at HSD and everyone in the mayor's office at UCT is really working together and are seasoned individuals who've been at this work with unhoused populations for a number of years.

And I know all the work that goes into that.

And I really wanted to underscore that and just say how appreciative I am.

Can we do more?

Council members, just to your point, yes, we can always do more, but I don't think HSD or UCT Mayor or any of us up here would disagree.

And so thank you for the work that you do as part of the UCT team.

And thank you, Council Member, again, Moore and Nelson for your work with KCRHA.

I hope to see positive outcomes coming out of that with the new ILA and the changes that you all worked so hard to make.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_09

Thank you.

Council Member Moore, do you want to go now?

I've got you listed in the queue.

So next is Council Member, you've already spoken.

Yep, so Council Member Hollingsworth.

SPEAKER_10

Well, let Council Member Hollingsworth go, please.

SPEAKER_09

Yeah.

Council Member Hollingsworth.

As per Robert's rules of order, everyone gets to go once before anyone can go twice.

SPEAKER_11

Oh, thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I didn't realize that.

You probably said it, and I missed it.

SPEAKER_09

Oh, no, I didn't say it.

I just read the book.

Don't read the book.

It's fair.

SPEAKER_11

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Director Kim and our Human Services Department.

Really appreciate you all and all the work that you do.

I had just a couple highlights.

Really thanking you all for the Bennu investment.

I think that's huge.

27% of...

of people experiencing homelessness are black, and we only account for 6% of the population in the city of Seattle.

So I know that organization does great work with targeting particularly black males.

So thank you.

The second thing, I really appreciate the Seattle youth employment piece.

That's huge.

I know we had a lot of interns here this year, and really wanna encourage our city to continue to invest in the youth employment piece.

Also really appreciate the health and aging investments and that increasing, our city's getting old.

I see it, you know, sorry.

But we see it, right?

I see it with my parents, our baby boomers, they're getting older.

Also a quick plug for more housing options for our young families and the people that have to take care of a lot of those older people as well.

But last but not least, I wanted to highlight, and just to get an understanding about the investments, and again, my colleagues will probably be irritated with me saying food, but the investments that you all make in food banks, meal providers, there was...

The Mill Provider Coalition, I think last year it was a line item around $300,000.

I think it's this year as well.

Specifically to the investments in food in the city with food banks, I know Council Member Strauss talked about the Ballard Food Bank and the investment and for that question be directed to you all.

If you could just talk a little bit about that would be super helpful.

SPEAKER_08

So we do maintain our emergency food-based budget.

That's food banks and meal programs.

And when I first started, I was like, oh, what's the difference?

But meals oftentimes are scratch-made hot meals because people don't have capacity for whatever reason to receive the groceries, the goods from the food bank.

So those are two important services.

There are some reductions as it pertains to one-time funds that we had in the 2024 adopted budget.

Those expire, so that's going away.

And perhaps Dee can follow up on that.

And there is, as I mentioned, sweetened beverage tax projected reduction.

And so therefore we offered a projected, a proposed reduction that would start in 2026. We do have a list for those dollar amounts.

It would, the first around the one time that cuts across various food banks.

And so it wouldn't be, a major reduction for any one food bank.

It's still a reduction, so I want to acknowledge that.

And then for the SBT, I believe that there are a couple providers, and Dee can share more details.

SPEAKER_04

Yes, that's right, Director Kim.

There's approximately $992,000 general fund for food programs and meals that are up for reductions, unfortunately.

And then in 2026, related to the sweetened beverage tax revenue, there's about an 8% reduction there as well.

SPEAKER_08

And we're happy to follow up and SharePoint and offer who would be impacted by that, if that's your desire.

SPEAKER_11

For sure, that would be super helpful.

The reason why I'm concerned from the state, because there's only a part of, there's only certain programs that get the TFAP and EFAP dollars from Department of Agriculture.

Right now, the bulk of food that's being purchased by, and I said this before, between 50 to 70% is being purchased by food banks and the food costs are going up.

And a big missing piece for our city really to hone into is the bulk buying piece.

Food Lifeline and Northwest Harvest had cut those programs because they have to focus on other stuff.

And so a bulk buying piece for a food bank, and I've talked to all of them.

They said, hey, if there was a bulk buying from the city, it would be incredibly helpful to cut some of the costs that are going on because a lot of people don't know they're buying at costs what we buy at a grocery store as well.

They just buy them in bulk.

I mean, I'm sure you all know that, y'all.

work in this, but it just would be super helpful, some type of potentially bulk buying for food banks.

It would cut it down and would help if those reductions do stand that they would be able, the dollar would be able to go much more longer.

The supply chain for food has significantly decreased during the pandemic where a lot of the food companies are only producing Like for example, it used to be great to get a 50 pound bag of rice and then be able to cut that down at a food bank, but sometimes they don't even produce that anymore and they only do it in two pound bags or four pound bags, they only do it in one pound bag.

It's certain because of the supply chain and you've seen a lot of food costs go up significantly for organizations.

And that's a really big expense piece.

So anyways, I just wanted to highlight that because I know I feel like a cliff is coming for our food banks and our meal providers.

And I just wanted to echo that because I see it and I just wanted to wave the flag.

SPEAKER_08

And I know you have deep expertise in this area.

We do have one contract.

I don't have the dollar amount right now for Bulk Buy.

One of the things that we've heard from our meal providers, too, in addition to Bulk Buy, is receiving and having access to fresh and culturally responsive foods, too.

So it's a combination of different sources.

So certainly Bulk Buy is critical and the other items that are very sought for.

SPEAKER_11

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

SPEAKER_09

Yes.

Thank you, Council Member Hollingsworth.

Council Member Wu.

SPEAKER_06

Thank you for all that you do.

You do so much and help so many people, especially with what your work is with seniors and their elders.

I do have a question regarding Unified Care Team, KCRJ, the HOPE Team.

I know KCRJ will come in and resolve encampments that are in WSDOT property, but what is KCRJ's role when it comes in relation to the HOPE Team and UCT when it comes to City Land?

SPEAKER_08

Well, for the record, I'll need to strike the HOPE team, even though we did talk about the HOPE team before.

We've iterated and now we have the unified care team.

And so what I'd like to do is ask Chris, what is our involvement in KCRHA's involvement?

SPEAKER_02

Sure.

I think really with the encampment response within the city, that is a unified care team.

That's their prerogative.

So I would have to lean on that in this instance.

SPEAKER_08

And then for state property, there's state efforts, right?

But there is some level of, I think, coordination with KCRHA.

Is that correct?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

KCRHA does receive state dollars for the right-of-way encampment work.

SPEAKER_09

Council Member Wu, may I add here?

My colleagues, I'm sorry, but I have lived too much of this work over the last four years, which is to say when we were engaging in the Woodland Park encampment resolution coming out of the pandemic, we engaged KCRHA to come and help us.

They were able to do that for I'd say the first half, maybe first two thirds, and then were not as engaged as we had hoped.

But they were critical in setting up the roadmap for how do we change the systems within our city?

Because they are the ones that really were engaging in, you have to keep some groups of people together, you have to separate other groups of people, you have to create individualized needs assessments, and then plans for folks, and doing the by name lists.

And what I mean by by name list is just a census of who's there.

So really they set up for us that we need to have a census of understanding who's there, doing that needs assessment of what do they actually need, and then taking the time for placement.

I will say that where we had challenges at Woodland Park was just the on the ground who's gonna do it.

And KCRHA, the interlocal agreement was passed in December of 2019. We immediately went into pandemic.

We had a couple offers to executive directors that did not take it.

And we were in the pandemic.

So the stumbles are there.

The plan could have been better.

But what their role was was really informing that roadmap.

And there was this time a couple years ago when we started talking about once we had the unified care team doing citywide coverage that they needed to be more effective, we needed to have them in regions so the same city outreach workers were in the same places working with the same people every day.

And there was a conversation at council at that time about should the regional homelessness authority be doing this work?

or should we?

Everyone agreed The authorities should be doing the work.

And the question was, at that time, did they have capacity?

The answer was no, because they were focused on trying to get the ship running, get it going.

And the conversation then was, well, then we can't just wait.

We have a crisis on our hands.

How do we address this right now?

And so that was why we started the regional teams within the city of Seattle.

There was always that conversation about, transferring it to the homelessness authority because ideally in 2019 the idea was that all programming would be shifted to the authority and what we said at that time and part of the conversations happening here where we're taking back some of our funding money is to say we already know how to do the work we're going to do the work right now while you're also getting your house in order to do the work yourself and so both the wash dot uh And it was really interesting.

I didn't see the state fully engaging in the right-of-way work until there were encampments along the freeway outside of Olympia.

Because we'd been seeing it for a long time up here.

And so they are now following the same model of working with tiny homes, working with shelters to do that census, needs assessment, placement, resolution, repair or activation.

Sorry to go.

I think council member Wu still has the floor and then I'll.

SPEAKER_07

Well, can I add to what you just said about the state and KCRHA?

SPEAKER_09

Sure.

I will just acknowledge we're breaking Robert's rules of orders.

I'm going to give the exception for this time.

Go for it.

SPEAKER_07

Everything you said, because I had more recent experience because it was a clear, the state, a wash dot clearing of an encampment on I-5 and the D-4 is that they contract with KCRHA to do the outreach.

and offer shelter to the folks before WSDOT removes that encampment.

So WSDOT has a contract with KCRJ currently to do that work.

Now what happens after the new ILA, I don't know, but I wanted just to, that's just an additive to what you just said.

SPEAKER_09

Fantastic, thank you.

And I don't sit on the KCRAHA board or have involvement.

So also my information could just be internally looking.

Council Member Wu, I broke Robert's Rules of Order.

You still have the floor.

SPEAKER_06

Well, thank you for that, history.

But I'm kind of curious about going forward.

What relationship do we have with KCRJ and what role do they play with AHSD, if any?

But it sounds like this is something that's currently ongoing and being negotiated and may involve other departments as well.

SPEAKER_08

Well, we have a formal role with KC-RHA, and we, of course, have a couple of council members serving on the governing board.

That structure, as discussed, is changing.

And we also have a very significant contract with KC-RHA, and that's part of that formal role.

And so with the pass-through of over $100 million, We're very clear about what those funds are intended to go towards.

We monitor that.

I also like to think that we support and partner around contracting and cash flow issues and some other things as they were standing up.

And so we are collaborative in that nature too.

And so we absolutely have a formal role as well as council in supporting KCRHA.

SPEAKER_09

Fantastic.

Thank you.

Council Member Kittle.

SPEAKER_10

Thank you, Chair Strauss, for the history lessons.

I do appreciate them, although I did live them from a community perspective, so I have a little different perspective on it, but it's interesting to hear the other angles on this.

Council Member Hollingsworth's comments reminded me Sacred Heart Food Bank.

Just want to put a plug.

They're great people.

It's a small operation, but they're fantastic.

On Unified Care Team, I just wanted to add my remarks that I am a big supporter of the UCT.

I am super supportive of the idea that they've gone to the district model because that allows for that kind of local knowledge.

Those touch points are so important to be more effective.

and expanding it into the weekend is gonna be even that much better.

And part of this too is, I've seen this in other areas, like how do you solve for X?

In this world, X oftentimes is that one individual.

But I believe as a council member who has broader responsibilities that when we solve for X, X has gotta be those individuals, yes, but it's also for the neighborhood too.

And that's what UCT does as well.

In addition to supporting those individuals, It also helps the neighborhoods, which is a fantastic part of this that's not really talked about, but it's important to add.

And going back to Chair's history lesson, talking Woodland Park, we have a thing called McLean Park, East Queen Anne Greenbelt, Hillside.

Absolute disaster.

Absolute disastrous response from local government.

You know, from all different elements of the executive, you know, the previous city attorney, a whole host of people failed us.

And going back to emails I got, I got an email today, and I never got an email out to WeHeart Seattle, and specifically Tim Emerson, who is an unbelievable outreach person who has been working so hard in this area.

And I tell you what, they stood up and succeeded, where the city failed.

And so I just wanted to put that out there.

I have no problem doing so, just like asking questions about the KCRHA, which except for this changes would have been shut down on December 19th.

So thank God these changes are going through with this one additional vote.

And with the UCT, we just have to be straight up on these programs and the impacts that are having on our communities.

That's my view on UCT, some of these problem areas, and groups that are outside of what we're doing in this budget, which We Heart Seattle is not part of this.

So I just want to give those points.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_09

Thank you, Council Member Kettle.

I'm now...

No, no, sorry.

I'm just looking around.

I'm going to ask my questions, share my remarks, and then I'm going to pass it over to the chair of your department.

Colleagues, thank you for the grace today as I took exceptions to Robert's order and jumped in a couple times.

Here we are.

Director Kim, I just have to say, regarding your answer about the youth legal services, you gave a really candid answer.

The...

The same remarks that I gave at the end of the last presentation is that to be able to have this level of candidness on the record, or just in general, requires us to all be on one team together.

We all will have different levels of agreement on different things.

I just want to thank you.

The relationship between council and the executive council members and departments has not always been, it hasn't always been.

And so it's just, it's really refreshing to be able to have a conversation, even though we're in public session on Seattle Channel, award-winning Seattle Channel.

I just want to thank you for that because I will get into my questions about some of these reductions.

But before we get there, you mentioned the unique aspect beyond all the different business lines that you're both a funder and a direct provider.

You mentioned that pay equity, even with the contracts, is important.

And I'll editorialize that it keeps these folks in their jobs.

And when we're talking about outreach workers working with the same people every day, if that outreach worker quits their job because they're not making enough money, then we're undercutting the effectiveness of our outreach.

Before we get back into there, Director Kim, one of the questions here is about upstream investments.

I know we spend a lot of time focusing on a group that you don't oversee, that you have staff as a part of, but I'm wondering if we can zoom back out and talk about some of the upstream investments that you'd like to highlight out of this budget.

SPEAKER_08

Thank you.

I love talking about upstream investments and often don't get the opportunity because we're dealing with so many different crises that are emerging at the same time.

There's several different places that we find upstream.

And so big lift up to our youth and family empowerment division, which is where I worked.

And there's several different investments in there.

I highlighted the youth employment program, which I think I have a commitment from Council Member Hollingsworth to take on an intern for next summer, maybe two.

But there is, it's necessary, and I don't think I have to sell you on this, but we talk a lot about safety, mental health, multiple departments touched on that.

And you've gotta have, and I know Council Member Morales, you were advocating for this, you also need to have activities that are fulfilling, that are enriching, where young people can express themselves, they learn skills, but they have the peer supports, and most importantly, caring adults.

There's a lot of science actually around the importance of having those experiences because otherwise what will dominate are the traumatic experiences that get us to the things that we're talking about to try and mitigate with regards to homelessness and substance use disorder and you name it.

So the Youth Employment Program is one.

But we also have investments in youth development.

We have investments in, we've talked about this before, but utility discounts.

And so that touches multiple departments.

Of course, Seattle Public Utilities and Seattle City Light.

HSD is the primary administrator of those, and so we provide direct services there too.

Thousands of households are enrolled in discounts.

They qualify for those, and that could be the difference of paying rent, paying your utilities, and being able to buy school supplies and sending your kiddos off to school.

So there's lots of different prevention or more upstream investments that we offer, again, in the name of our mission to have people have what they need in order to thrive.

So thank you so much for asking that.

I will also note, because we don't often think of upstream with our aging population, but as someone who cares for my aging parents as well, it is preventative to have critical services in our aging and disability services division.

They serve as the Counties our region's area agency on aging and really their primary focus is to support Folks to age in place when possible and that's important, you know Falls it could be everything from Falls it could be accessing your benefits making sure that you have those Access to health care that you that one could benefit from so those are important upstream services that we also offer across our age spectrum So thank you so much for that question.

SPEAKER_09

Yeah, I'll just add to it.

On page 105 of the 2019 to 2024 budget document, the one area of growth within your department that grew by over 500% was your supporting safe communities business line of service.

And this was intentional.

It wasn't that we were creating 500% new programs, but we were administering them more efficiently from domestic violence and sexual assault to crime survivor services, from gun violence prevention, gender-based violence, and equitable communities initiative, so that you were funding community-led solutions to increase safety.

For interest of time, I won't continue reading through this memo, but we've been talking a lot about the hard decisions that we've been having to make with the budget, and I wanted to raise this one up.

And the story of, and Council Member Kettle, you bringing up the youth legal services is important.

It brings up the fact that every year we continue to add services for Seattleites that Seattleites end up relying on because another level of government hasn't done their job.

And at the end of the day, we as Seattleites know that we're not gonna just pass the buck and this can, in over 10 years of high growth and low inflation, create a structural budget challenge, which we are grappling with, and I think that this budget before us really has shown us how much, how important so many of these programs are.

I'm gonna just tick through some, although, Dee, it's so good to see you again.

I forgot to say that up front.

Colleagues, I spent a lot of time with Dee trying to understand the Aging and Disability Services lease, and was their general fund wrapped up in it?

We spent so much time together, I think we became friends.

We'll have to find out what the jury says later.

But where is Mary Mitchell?

How come she's not here?

SPEAKER_08

She's working.

SPEAKER_09

Your mic.

SPEAKER_04

Mary is busy relocating.

SPEAKER_09

Oh, because we didn't pass the lease soon enough.

SPEAKER_04

Correct.

SPEAKER_09

Apologies, Mary.

SPEAKER_04

Council Member, I think it is important to note that the increase that you're referencing is also a result of the budget restructuring to create, to establish the safe and thriving communities.

SPEAKER_09

You said it smarter than I did.

Yes, I was just saying that we restructured the budget to make it more efficient in delivering the services.

I will also bring the microphone closer to my mouth.

You were much more articulate there.

I'm going to tick through some of these.

I teased Chris Clayson about the RV storage because this was a pilot program that we had worked to set up.

We unfortunately had a disagreement with civil division attorneys in the city attorney's office about some definitions and code that members of CITY COUNCIL CENTRAL STAFF HAD WRITTEN IN THE LAND USE CODE AND THAT THESE ATTORNEYS WERE INTERPRETING IT IN A WAY THAT WAS QUITE CONSERVATIVE AND CONFLICTING WITH COMMON SENSE.

AND SO I WILL CONTINUE TO, I'LL BE LOOKING AT THAT MONEY.

I'M HOPING THAT WE CAN RETAIN THIS MONEY SO THAT WE CAN PILOT THIS ONCE WE ARE ABLE TO OVERCOME THESE LEGAL INTERPRETATIONS.

I will also just ask about, and this is on page 168 of your budget book, just for reference.

The 450,000 general fund programs for addressing gender-based violence, and I'm just going to take through these questions and maybe Director Noble and Director Eder, we can circle up later.

I want to clarify that this was the 450 that I added in the budget last year regarding a budget error external to the city as compared to the ongoing funding that we have traditionally provided.

I wanna check in about these, the general fund for community safety programs.

We've already talked about the legal council for youth and children.

Wanting to check in about the United Way tax prep assistance and even if there's not a way for us to provide funding, I might have a couple other ideas about how we can continue supporting their tax preparation assistance because I know that this is really critical for a number of people in the community and I'd like to see what we can do there.

I want to check in on the reduction for general fund support for aging and disability services case management.

Just because of what Dee taught me, I want to see if we can't take some more federal funding.

Dee, you can tell me if I'm wrong later.

I appreciate you.

Or right now.

SPEAKER_04

I believe there are active negotiations with the state.

We did have the $7 million increase in our federal indirect grants that are passed through to us.

And also the reduction also is offset by leveraging more of the federal grants.

So really more swapping general fund for...

using, maximizing some of the pass-through grants that we get from the state.

SPEAKER_09

Rather, so we wouldn't be reducing services provided to the community, we would be reducing the general fund reliance.

Correct.

Oh man, you're good.

This is what I was trying to do with the lease, but I couldn't.

And then lastly, Councilmember Hollingsworth had touched on this, the reduction of the sweetened beverage tax funding.

for food and for childcare providers.

Thank you for clarifying that that occurs in 2026 and not this January.

That's something that I'd like to look into because anecdotally I have heard, and this gets back to what Council Member Hollingsworth was saying of in our area we buy food rather than get food for our food banks.

And even with buying in bulk from Food Lifeline, I've heard anecdotally that there are times that Food Lifeline is providing food at a higher cost than even Costco.

And so this, you know, it's anecdotal.

It could be a one-time flip.

It's very different than when I was in AmeriCorps working with Food Lifeline as an AmeriCorps member in a rural community where the food pricing is so much different than Seattle, which is the largest regional center in the United States.

Next closest is Twin Cities, Chicago, Sacramento, San Francisco, or Salt Lake City, Denver area.

So I just understand that there's that tension there.

Those are all of my...

comments and questions for our budget team.

I just really wanna thank you for doing it.

We didn't really talk about all ages and abilities or our aging services or our youth work.

Just know that I will be adding some questions to SharePoint and I just really appreciate the breadth and scope of your work because When you say Human Services Department, it's all of the services from when you're born to when you need more help.

Thank you, Director Kim.

Chair Moore, the floor is yours, and then we'll close out for the day.

SPEAKER_12

Thank you very much, Chair.

I don't have a lot to add.

I think we had a very fulsome and robust discussion.

And just to acknowledge that there are tough decisions that have to be made, unfortunately.

I do share the concerns about the cuts to the homeless youth legal representation and the tax prep...

So that's something I can talk about later.

And I guess just to Council Member Morales' question, who does this budget serve?

Well, I think that it really does its best to benefit the most vulnerable in our community.

And can we do more?

Absolutely.

And I think that's incumbent upon us to continue to look for ways that we can do more.

You know, there's some difference of opinion about whether the unified care team provides a valuable role, and I join many of my colleagues in believing that it does.

I've called for sort of a hyper-local approach within a regional approach.

I think the unified care team provides that and why it's really critically important that it expand to be a district not just a region within the city but district by district because it they are then able to establish those one-on-one relationships which are important and the fact that we are able to open that they're able to operate on the weekends and we're able to open shelters on the weekends and is critically important.

I personally have worked with people who were not able to get into shelter on the weekends and had to provide them hotel vouchers during that time.

So that is a gap in our system, and I'm glad to see that we're trying to resolve that.

Again, not perfectly, but all of this is incremental progress.

I do think that this budget does its best and actually more, it does more than just its best.

It has really, you know, we have maintained provider pay in the face of significant deficits and everybody has talked about the importance of the provider pay is foundational to all of these other services and we've maintained that and that's critically important.

We need to do more for tiny house villages, but we are now moving from one-time funding to sustained funding to providing wraparound services, which are what make tiny house villages continue to be actually useful and functional and provide really that, as you were talking about, Chair, that transitional step from being out on the street to the next level to then being ready to shift into some sort of permanent supportive housing or even affordable housing with more wraparound services.

So I would like to see that expanded, but it's important that we've made that commitment to the tiny house villages and to the wraparound services.

It's important to call out the successes and the incremental progress that we are making, because I think too often we get caught up in looking at where we're failing and not looking at where we're succeeding.

Because we want to do better, and so it's easy to focus on where we're not succeeding, but we've got to take a step back and look at, and it's helpful to have the historic perspective of our colleagues here on how we have made progress, how we have evolved, how we have gone from just moving people on to actually creating a one-on-one relationship.

and working four to six weeks to find shelter for people and coming at it from a more enlightened and educated mindset.

So thank you, Chair, for calling that out and Director Kim for continuing the evolving work that is the Human Services Department in this city.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_09

Thank you, Chair Moore of the Human Services Committee.

That does conclude our agenda for today, October 1st, the first day of October, and it looks like it's almost got the streetlights on it, 4 p.m.

Here we are.

Tomorrow's meeting, we will have the Office of Housing and then the Seattle Fire Department.

We had held tomorrow afternoon for overflow conditions, slightly expecting today to overflow.

Thankfully it's not, so we will still have that time in case the conversation runs long, or we can use that time to start talking about priorities ahead of the central staff meeting.

BUDGET MEMO PREPARATION.

WITH THAT, THAT CONCLUDES TODAY'S PRESENTATION.

WE HAVE REACHED THE END OF TODAY'S MEETING.

THE NEXT SELECTED COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET IS WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 2ND AT 930 A.M.

AGAIN, ONLY WRITTEN COMMENT WILL BE ACCEPTED AT THIS MEETING.

MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC MAY CONTINUE TO SUBMIT THE WRITTEN PUBLIC COMMENT AT COUNCIL.GOV.

OUR NEXT VERBAL PUBLIC COMMENT WILL BE THE PUBLIC HEARING ON OCTOBER 16TH WHERE EVERYONE WILL RECEIVE TWO MINUTES AND WE WILL Go until we have completed.

If there's no further business to come before the Select Budget Committee, before we adjourn, hearing no further business to come before the Select Budget Committee, we are adjourned.

Thank you, everyone.