SPEAKER_06

Good morning, everyone.

The time is 9.32, and the September 11th meeting of the Housing and Human Services Committee will now come to order.

I'm Kathy Moore, chair of the committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

SPEAKER_03

Council President Nelson.

Council Member Saka.

SPEAKER_04

Here.

SPEAKER_03

Council Member Wu.

Present.

Vice Chair Morales?

Here.

Chair Moore?

SPEAKER_06

Present.

Four present.

Thank you.

And I would note that Council Member Wu is attending remotely.

Great.

So we'll move on to approval of the agenda.

If there's no objection, today's proposed agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

All right, thank you everyone for being here today for the September 11th meeting of the Housing and Human Services Committee.

On today's agenda, first we have four appointments to the LGBTQ Commission.

Second, we have extending the sunset date for the multifamily tax exemption program by three months for continued discussion and possible vote.

And then we will have presentations from Deputy Mayor Washington and Jen Lebrecht from Central Staff on proposed amendments to the interlocal agreement between the City of Seattle and King County, establishing the King County Regional Homelessness Authority, and that will be for briefing, discussion, and also possible vote.

And then finally, we have a presentation from Deputy Mayor Washington and Director Kim of the Human Services Department on the Community Safety Investments and the Seattle Community Safety Initiative, and that will be for briefing and discussion.

At this point, we will now open the hybrid public comment period.

Public comments should relate to items on today's agenda or be within the purview of this committee.

Before we get there, I'd just like to note for the record that Council President has joined us.

Clerk, how many speakers are signed up today?

SPEAKER_03

We have one in-person speaker and one remote speaker.

SPEAKER_06

Okay, thank you.

So each speaker will have two minutes.

We will start with the in-person speaker and then move on to the remote speakers.

Clerk, can you please read the public comment instructions?

SPEAKER_03

The public comment period will be moderated in the following manner.

Public comment period is up to 20 minutes.

Speakers will be called in the order in which they registered.

Speakers will hear a chime when 10 seconds are left of their time.

Speakers' mics will be muted if they do not end their comments within the allotted time to allow us to call on the next speaker.

SPEAKER_06

All right, and the first in-person speaker is?

SPEAKER_03

Lily Hayward.

And give me just a moment.

SPEAKER_06

Okay, you can begin.

Okay, great.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you very much and good morning, Chair Moore, Vice Chair Morales, Council President Nelson, and members of the Housing and Human Services Committee.

My name is Lily Hayward speaking on behalf of the more than 2,500 members of the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce in support of Council Bill 120858, authorizing an amendment to the interlocal agreement establishing the King County Regional Homeless Authority.

Homelessness is a regional problem that requires a regional solution.

And while it is no secret that the KCRHA has had challenges, we have been clear-eyed in what we believe will right the ship.

A change in the governance structure, clarity on the role and scope of the agency, new leadership, and a recommitment to that regional approach.

With those changes, we are confident that the KCRHA is poised to deliver results and support our provider community to connect more people to services and housing.

The amendments proposed will empower the governing board to better support and direct operations under the strong leadership of Dr. Kinison.

The board will represent a diverse coalition of elected officials from across our region while retaining the important voice of individuals with lived experience, ensuring that our regional homelessness response leads with compassion and is accountable to the voters.

As long as our government partners are in, we will also be there.

The business community will continue to come to the table with nonprofit and philanthropic leaders to support the KCRHA, the governing board, and partnering service providers.

The past year has allowed our community the chance to step back, soak in lessons learned, and proceed with a plan that is ready to support service providers and the individuals they serve.

Thank you to Mayor Harrell, Deputy Mayor Washington, Executive Constantine, Council President Nelson, and Chair Moore for your leadership and commitment to our communities.

We look forward to partnering with all of you in this exciting new chapter of the KCRHA.

Thank you for your time.

SPEAKER_06

Thank you very much.

We move to our first remote.

SPEAKER_03

Yep.

Our first remote speaker is David Haynes.

David, go ahead and press star six to speak.

SPEAKER_01

Hi, thank you, David Haynes.

We need a huge capacity build out, perhaps with an imminent domain of need to take over those rundown slum motels on Aurora and some of the vacant lots that are being tore down.

maybe turn some of those buildings over to for-profit and nonprofit who can build affordable housing in a competitive, qualitative manner.

The thing is, is today there's a discussion regarding alternative policing.

And I was wondering, out of the people that are going to show up today at the meeting, where are all the so-called experts at community safety and alternative policing that came from the George Floyd protest movement that created all these nonprofits to claim that they were way better at making it safe than the cops.

Why is it that the mayor who's been running interference for the drug pushers his whole career since one of his representatives, and I hate to say it, the racist Office of Housing, to use innocent homeless crisis money to run interference for repeat offending criminals who get prioritized for housing and services first before they even get questioned to find out where they keep getting their drugs.

Like, you know, I hate to get on a side note, but there is an affordable housing, like, building on Cedar and First Ave.

And there's a drug pusher who's on, like, the second or third floor, and he's got this, like, cardboard box.

like box in front of his window.

And these junkies will yell for him.

He sends down this little fishing pole with a bucket.

They put money in it.

He pulls it up into his affordable housing unit.

And then he sends back down drugs.

And according to the rules, evidently the affordable housing nonprofits are going to be off limits in these crime hotspots.

And, You really have to redirect the homeless crisis money to solve the homeless crisis for innocent people, not for repeat offenders that keep bothering.

SPEAKER_06

Thank you.

SPEAKER_03

Chair, that concludes our list of speakers from the general public.

SPEAKER_06

All right, thank you.

So there are no additional registered speakers.

We'll now proceed to our items of business.

Members of the public are encouraged to either submit written public comment on the signup cards available on the podium or email the council at council at seattle.gov.

So we'll now move on to the first items on our agenda.

Madam Clerk, will you please read the item agendas one through four into the record?

SPEAKER_03

Agenda items one through four, appointments 3006 through 3009, reappointment of Andrew Ashiofu and Brent Pepowski, and appointments of Ashley E. Ford and Amari L. Leach as members of the Seattle LGBTQ Commission for terms to April 30th, 2026 for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

SPEAKER_06

Thank you.

The Seattle LBGTQ Commission serves in an advisory capacity to the mayor, the city council, the city office for civil rights and other city departments.

Andrew Ashifu, I apologize for not saying that correctly, is a former co-chair of this commission and has been on this commission since 2021 and has been active in House of Rainbow Nigeria and works in peer support for Delta Airlines.

Brett Popowski is a current co-chair of the LGBTQ Commission and works as a health stabilization specialist for DESC and volunteers with a number of LGBTQ organizations, including an overnight camp for queer youth.

Ashley Ford is a current co-chair of the commission and has a background in development for youth nonprofits.

Amari L. Leach is a new appointment.

Amari is a human rights and a trans youth advocate.

Amari has been recommended by the commission, and we look forward to seeing his perspective on the commission.

Are there any comments or questions from committee members before we move for a vote?

I'm not seeing any.

And also, just a minute, record reflect that Council Member Rivera has joined us.

So seeing no further comments or questions, I now move that the committee recommend confirmation of appointments 3006 through 3009. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded to recommend confirmation of the appointments.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the recommendation to confirm the appointments to the LGBTQ Commission?

SPEAKER_03

Council President Nelson.

Aye.

Council Member Saka.

SPEAKER_04

Aye.

SPEAKER_03

Council Member Wu.

Yes.

Vice Chair Morales.

Yes.

Chair Moore.

SPEAKER_06

Aye.

Five in favor, none opposed.

Excellent.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation to confirm the appointments will be sent to the September 17th City Council meeting.

Congratulations to the nominees.

Will the clerk please read the title of the fifth agenda item into the record?

SPEAKER_03

an ordinance relating to the multifamily housing property tax exemption program, amending section 5.73.120 of the Seattle Municipal Code to extend the program's sunset date to March 31st, 2025, for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

SPEAKER_06

Thank you.

So colleagues, this is back in committee today for further discussion and possible vote.

Council Bill 120817, extending the multifamily housing property tax exemption program, which is a bit of a mouthful.

The Office of Housing has done an especially deep dive in their analysis of the MFTE program this year, and they are still engaged in that deep analysis, and therefore they need some additional time crafting their new proposal for the next MFTE program.

And I can note that in some of the discussions that have been going on around the challenges that the affordable housing providers are facing, there has been some discussion about whether we need to adjust the subsidy rates.

And that's a pretty significant discussion, and it does certainly require additional discussion and thought on their part.

So that's part of why we don't yet have the proposal.

The current sunset date is December 31st, 2024. The legislation before us today would simply extend the sunset date by three months to March 31st, 2025 to, again, allow the Office of Housing more time to submit their proposal and also to allow council time to review that proposal once it's transmitted.

If the council does not pass an extension, there will be a lapse during which no new projects can enroll in the MFTE program.

Certainly would be my preference that we not have a lapse in this really critical tool that we have in providing affordable housing.

even if it needs some improvements and modifications.

So that said, I note that Tracy Ratzliff from Central Staff is in chambers and able to answer any questions if anyone has colleagues.

So colleagues, before we move to a vote, are there any questions?

Okay, Council President.

SPEAKER_10

Although I did not ask for a two-meeting vote, I didn't bring up last time that I was hopeful that during the extension that the council could get a sense of what the program is before it is uh sent down in legislation and i do believe that uh we will be hearing that they that the office of housing will be briefing stakeholders in october and that uh they will be also sharing that information that they're sharing with stakeholders with us yeah for the redo of the whole program yeah that's my understanding um

SPEAKER_06

Did we want any, Tracy's nodding from the audience that that's correct.

Anyone else?

Okay, looks like they're seeing no further questions.

I now move the committee recommend passage of Council Bill 120817. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It has been moved and seconded.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation to pass the council bill?

SPEAKER_03

Council President Nelson?

Aye.

Council Member Saka?

SPEAKER_05

Aye.

SPEAKER_03

Council Member Wu?

Yes.

Vice Chair Morales?

Yes.

Chair Moore?

Aye.

SPEAKER_06

That is five in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

So the motion passes and the committee recommendation to pass the council bill will be sent to the September 17th city council meeting.

Thank you again, Tracy, for being here today and also for all your work on this to date and all the work that you're going to continue to do.

So thank you so much.

All right, Madam Clerk, will you please read the title of the sixth agenda item into the record?

SPEAKER_03

An ordinance relating to homelessness authorizing the mayor or the mayor's designee to execute an amendment of the interlocal agreement between the City of Seattle and King County establishing the King County Regional Homelessness Authority for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

SPEAKER_06

All right, thank you.

Colleagues, today we will have Deputy Mayor Washington and Jennifer Labreck from Central Staff with us at committee table to walk us through revisions to the interlocal agreement with King County that sets up the King County Regional Homelessness Authority.

I've been told that Deputy Mayor Washington is on her way, should be here at 10. She'll be providing context on KCRHA, and Jen Lebrecht will be talking through the specific changes.

I can go ahead and make my remarks while we wait.

I'm going to make my remarks while I wait.

So while we wait for Deputy Mayor, I'm just going to make some remarks.

So revising the ILA is an opportunity for a sorely needed reset of the KCRHA to create accountability and achieve measurable results for our unsheltered neighbors.

I think as many of you know, I have been a vocal critic of KCRHA to date.

I think many of us, no matter where we sort of land on the spectrum, have had our concerns about how well KCRHA has executed on its mission.

But through this process of both hiring a new CEO and also working to create amendments to the ILA, We've had a very collaborative process with the mayor's office and I'm very appreciative of that.

Both council president and I have been actively engaged in this work and so I think that the product that we have here, I feel very positive about and I look forward to Jen sharing more about the specifics of it and why I think it is a good step forward and I certainly we have had an opportunity to meet with some of the regional partners to talk about sort of how do we recommit to the mission successfully and I think that those conversations have been encouraging sort of been able to get a little bit of their perspective about what their challenges have been around sort of fully committing to KCRHA, and I think we're more sensitive to those concerns, which is important and going to allow for a more effective regional partnership, which is what this is ultimately all about, because addressing homelessness really is a regional as well as state and national issue.

So I do look forward to working with the regional partners to lay a more effective framework for KCRHA to succeed.

So we're still waiting.

I think we will just begin with, we'll launch into Jen's presentation.

SPEAKER_07

Give me one moment to bring up the presentation.

All right.

Thank you for having me here today.

I'm Jennifer Labreck.

I'm a central staff analyst.

And as Chair Moore just described, I'll be talking to you today about revisions to the interlocal agreement between King County and Seattle regarding the King County Regional Homelessness Authority.

The bill before you today is Council Bill 120858. And that bill would authorize the executive to enter into an amended and restated interlocal agreement with King County.

The amended and restated ILA is attachment A to the ordinance.

Today's presentation will provide some background on KCRHA.

provide information on the current interlocal agreement, the rationale for revising the ILA, the major proposed changes, and the process and next steps for approving the amended and restated ILA.

And Deputy Mayor Washington, in her presentation, will cover more background and history of KCRHA and place it into a regional context.

The current ILA was signed by the mayor and the King County Executive in December of 2019 after it had been approved by both the Seattle City Council and the King County Council.

Under the current ILA, neither Seattle nor King County can unilaterally terminate the contract for the first five years.

The agreement is set to automatically renew after five years unless it was terminated or amended.

The ILA established KCRHA as a separate regional entity.

Under the ILA, both Seattle and King County committed to transferring the majority of their homeless services funding to KCRHA, and KCRHA would then administer the funding largely through contracts with nonprofit providers.

Homelessness services includes things such as shelter, day centers, diversion programs, rapid rehousing, and safe parking.

It did not include funding to develop any new affordable housing.

And just for some context, in the 2024 adopted budget, Seattle provided about 109 million to KCRHA, and King County provided about 41 million.

Under the ILA, the purpose of KCRHA is to provide consolidated, aligned services for people experiencing or at imminent risk of experiencing homelessness in order to reduce the incidence of unsheltered homelessness.

The Deputy Mayor will talk more about this in her presentation, but KCRHA is really just one part of multiple strategies that are needed to reduce and effectively address homelessness within the region.

This slide shows the major components of the current ILA.

One of the big ones, one we'll be talking a lot about today, is the oversight structure or the governance structure.

Right now, the oversight structure consists of two boards, an implementation board and a governing committee.

The implementation board is made up of 13 community members, three with lived experience of homelessness, and then 10 with subject matter expertise.

The implementation board was intended to act like a traditional board of directors with closer oversight, more oversight of day-to-day operations.

The governing committee is made up of 12 members, nine elected officials, and three people with lived experience of homelessness.

And it was meant to provide a higher level of oversight.

Additionally, under the ILA, there is the Continuum of Care Board has the option to serve as an advisory committee to the implementation board.

And just for clarity, the region, King County receives at least $60 million a year in federal funds from HUD, the Department of Housing and Urban Development for homelessness.

And those funds are regulated under federal statute, and that statute requires certain things, including a continuum of care board.

So that is really an entity that is independent in some ways, regulated under federal statute, exists so that the region can receive money from the feds.

But in the ILA, it's conceived that it can play an advisory role to the implementation board.

Other components of the ILA include the purpose, the mission, guiding principles, powers, and limits of the authority, and the process for requesting funds, as well as expectations for the chief executive officer or CEO.

As a high-level overview, the amended and restated ILA will address a number of these components, including the governance structure, continuum of care board, purpose, mission, and guiding principles, the process for requesting funds and the chief executive officer expectations, it does not make any changes to the powers of the authority or the limits to its powers.

Why are we here today?

Why are we talking about revising the ILA?

Since the ILA became effective in December of 2019, there have been a series of sort of high profile challenges, including things like CEO turnover, the end to partnership for Xero, and issues with timely payment to homeless services providers.

The governance structure has been cited as being a challenge.

For example, the governing committee called for recommendations to improve the governance structure in 2023. The goal of revising the ILA is largely to create a more effective governance structure that provides better oversight and accountability to help improve the functioning of KCRHA and rebuild public trust in the agency.

It is understood that this is a necessary but likely not by itself sufficient step to achieve that goal.

Reopening the ILA also provided Seattle and King County other opportunities to make improvements based on our first several years of experience under the ILA, such as clarifying the mission and the scope of KCRHA and clarifying CEO expectations.

Chair Moore, did you want me to stop for questions or just go all the way through to the end?

SPEAKER_06

Are there current questions at the moment?

Let's just go.

SPEAKER_07

Okay.

The major change to the ILA is around streamlining and simplifying the governance structure.

Under the amended and revised ILA, the number of oversight entities is reduced from two, the implementation board and governing committee, to just one, the governing board.

Like the governing committee, the governing board will have 12 members.

Nine of them will be the same elected officials that are currently serving on the governing committee, the Seattle mayor, the King County executive, two Seattle City Council members, two King County Council members, and three elected officials from the Sound Cities Association.

Additionally, there will continue to be three members with lived experience who will sit on the governing board.

However, the appointment process for those lived experience members will change.

Under the current ILA, those members are appointed by the Continuum of Care Board.

Under the revised ILA, each caucus will appoint one member.

Additionally, lived experience members should now also have subject matter expertise, which is not a requirement under the current ILA.

The ILA provides clear authority and powers to the governing board to set strategic direction, make major policy decisions, approve the annual budget, provide financial oversight, and monitor performance of case RHA, homeless services providers, and the homeless service system as a whole.

I would describe the governing board's powers and authorities are a combination of the implementation boards, the governing committees, plus additional ones.

So I would say the overall authority is greater than what exists between those two oversight entities in the current ILA.

As described already, for the Continuum of Care Board, the revised ILA now provides the option for the COC Board to serve as an advisory committee to the governing board.

Remember before, it was to the implementation board.

That's an option because, as described, the COC Board is an independent entity regulated under federal statute.

So the ILA can't tell, honestly, the COC Board what to do, but it can provide the option to serve as an advisory committee.

Because the COC board is regulated under federal statute, it retains control of some important policy decisions, such as funding priorities for that $60 million in annual funding, as well as the coordinated entry prioritization process.

Regarding mission and scope, the revised ILA clarifies that KCRHA's mission is to reduce unsheltered homelessness by administering the crisis response part of the homelessness response system.

That means services that meet the immediate needs of people experiencing homelessness, for example, shelter or hygiene centers.

It also adds a new scope of work section.

To be clear, that new scope of work section doesn't create new things for KCRHA to do.

It just describes what KCRHA is currently doing, but puts it down in one place in writing which hadn't existed before.

It also revises guiding principles to state that KCRHA should be guided by Housing First and other approaches that are evidence-based and can successfully meet the needs of those experiencing homelessness, including approaches that support recovery and behavioral health needs.

And just to be clear, King County, not KCRHA, remains fully responsible for behavioral health services.

Other changes include that the ILA will continue indefinitely until terminated.

Either Seattle or King County can unilaterally terminate at any time, although the effective date of the termination cannot be less than 12 months from the date that notice has been delivered to the other party plus the authority essentially to provide a 12-month ramp down period.

that also exists in the current ILA.

It creates more overt expectations for the chief executive officer, strengthens reporting obligations, and makes other changes necessary for clarifying intent or processes, technical corrections, and just changes needed to accommodate the change from one governance structure to another.

As I've already referenced, revising the ILA is a complex process that involves four different decision makers.

Seattle City Council, the King County Council, the Seattle Mayor, and the King County Executive.

Additionally, the King County process involves not just King County Council, but also the Regional Policy Committee.

Both legislative bodies must pass legislation to approve the revised ILA, and once the Mayor and the County Executive sign the ILA, it will go into effect on the date of the last signature.

This describes the tentative schedule.

Some of these things have obviously already occurred, so we're here today, September 11th, for the Housing and Human Services Committee.

The soonest that City Council could take action, if this passed out a committee today, would be next week, although it does not have to happen next week.

As we'll talk through in a moment, King County is still working through their process.

So for King County, this initial, this ILA has already gone to the Committee of the Whole and the Regional Policy Committee for discussion only.

It will go back to the King County Committee of the Whole for a vote on September 24th.

It will go back to the Regional Policy Committee for a vote on September 30th.

And then if they do not make any further, if the Regional Policy Committee does not make any further amendments, King County Council could take final action by October 15th.

The way the Regional Policy Committee works, if the RPC decides to make amendments, then we might have to go through this process a few times, and the schedule might change.

So this is tentative largely due to the uncertainty around, or not the uncertainty, but just the added complexity when it is referred to the RPC.

And I will stop there for any questions.

Thank you.

Any questions?

SPEAKER_09

I do just have a scheduling question then.

If there is an additional round at the county level or if there is an additional delay, what does that mean for our process if we don't vote for it next week?

SPEAKER_07

Yep.

So ultimately...

the Seattle City Council and the King County Council have to approve the same ILA, right?

Because it is the one being signed by the Seattle Mayor and the King County Executive.

So amendments, you know, depending on where City Council is in their process, if King County chooses to amend, that may mean that City Council may also have to consider amendments on their side in order for the two documents to match.

SPEAKER_09

But if they're not making their decision until the 15th and it includes amendments and we've already voted on it next week, that means we would have to come back.

SPEAKER_07

It could.

And, you know, again, I list next week as sort of the date for soonest possible action.

OK.

There's always a choice to hold as well.

We would have to.

That's exactly right.

Yep.

SPEAKER_09

OK.

So we'd have another council meeting in order to be able to vote on it.

SPEAKER_07

I'm just thinking about budget coming.

I think that's a decision on the table is do you, does Seattle vote now?

Yeah.

Or does it wait until it's made its way, the ILA has made its way further through the King County process to understand if King County will be making any changes.

But that's a choice.

Okay.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_06

Yeah, and I'll just note that this is our last committee meeting before budget, so we would be looking at December to come back if we had to come back to the committee.

And we did attend the Regional Policy Committee, and that discussion was very positive.

I just recall there were sort of two sort of technical potential amendments proposed from the mayors.

SPEAKER_07

Do you remember that, Jen?

I've heard.

So I've been informed that there are three potential amendments.

There could be more three.

They're a combination of really technical amendments and more substantial ones, to be honest.

But we won't know until closer to the committee of the whole if those will, you know...

be real or not, or if they'll be brought forward.

And the RPC members can find a sponsor to bring their amendments to the Committee of the Whole so we could know as soon as the 24th or a couple days beforehand when the agenda is published what amendments are under consideration.

But the RPC has their own separate amendment process, so there could be further amendments brought to the RPC as well.

All right.

SPEAKER_09

So is there a date by which we have to pass this in order to keep moving forward?

SPEAKER_07

I mean, the way the current ILA is written, if there's no action, it just automatically renews in December.

So it's not as if the ILA would terminate if no action were taken.

SPEAKER_06

But I would point out, this is a critical point, that if it automatically renews, it renews in its current format.

That's exactly right.

And its current format is highly, highly problematic.

And in fact, if it doesn't renew I can just stay on the record here that I'm not sure I would continue funding from my perspective.

So it is critically important that we get the ILA in its proposed format over the finish line before the budget or before it automatically renews from my perspective.

I mean, we're certainly not locked.

If we vote prior, we can always come back, I guess is what I'm trying to say, in response to the county.

But I'm hoping that the county is having similar discussions to what we're having here today about the need to really get the restructuring in place so that we can start the year and the expectations about how it is going to operate is clear amongst all the partners, and we can be very clear with service providers that we are going to have a truly functioning entity going forward, because I know there's a lot of anxiety about that issue.

Oh, I see, okay, Council President, did you have another question?

SPEAKER_10

I don't have a question, I just went, well.

Go ahead.

to state my position.

So first of all, Jen, thank you so much.

You've been in the thick for months and months and months.

And I very much appreciate not just dealing with us two, but also upstairs and then across the street.

So thank you very much for that.

It hasn't been easy.

And I do want to reiterate Chair Moore's point that It is at a point where change has to be made, and I do share her concern that in the present form, we're going to keep stumbling over and over and over again, and the agency is not going to be able to deliver on its promise.

So I want to point out that obviously the most significant change in this ILA is the governance structure, and I just wanted to just educate the public about why that was important, because In the current form, when it comes to things like budget and as the legislative body, the body that's accountable to our constituents for the resources that we spend on their behalf for this entity and also for our own programs in-house, The budget is mostly worked out by the implementation board, where there are experts on homelessness who interact with the providers, et cetera, and produce a programmatic budget that the governing committee right now approves, but doesn't really have a lot of say in going as it's being developed.

And so that was something that was uncomfortable for me because I so strongly believe that the people who are spending public dollars must be accountable to the public.

And so that is the change that I feel most passionate about and that's most necessary.

I mean, some boards, for example, Sound Transit's board, is comprised only of the electeds because they have to answer to their own constituents.

I think that is a sound model.

This board does have three designated spots that each cohort will choose, but that represent the lived experience community.

And I also want to point out for the public that The COC Advisory Board is led by, I believe, providers and people from the Lived Experience Coalition.

Could you please confirm that?

SPEAKER_07

Yes, it is actually regulated by HUD that it has to have representation from both providers and people with lived experience.

SPEAKER_10

Right.

So we are maintaining that voice here as well.

So I just wanted to say that that's the change that's most important.

I am, but ultimately we're talking about the governance structure of an organization and what really matters is what we're doing for the people that it's serving.

And that is the next big task of the organization is the programmatic reboot what is the professional term i mean the the term of art but when figuring out what this uh the services that will be provided and um and that is uh that is what's most important and and that's what i'll be looking closely at there was a lot of discussion about should we call out housing first in the ila or not when a lot of folks are saying in the provider community that in fact, recovery-based services are necessary, et cetera.

So I just want to make sure that as we are going forward, that we are making sure that whatever this organization is doing, the services provided are effective in helping people that clearly need it.

And that's how, ultimately, the organization will prove itself.

SPEAKER_06

Thank you.

Council Member Rivera?

SPEAKER_00

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you for the opportunity to ask questions as I don't sit on this committee, but I very much care about all these issues.

And so thank you, Jen, for the presentation.

I just have a question about this new ILA.

Will it have an end date?

Does it keep going until one of the parties decides they're going to move on from it?

for lack of a better way to say it, what's the term limits?

I understand that in this proposed form, either party can unilaterally terminate the contract, the partnership.

Does it go on indefinitely?

SPEAKER_07

It does go on indefinitely.

So there is no end date to the ILA.

It continues on indefinitely.

until either party decides to terminate it, in which case they can do it.

There's just then that 12 month ramp down period for KCRHA.

SPEAKER_00

And the current ILA had an end date.

That's why we're...

It actually didn't.

SPEAKER_07

It was confusing.

So the current ILA said that for the first five years, from December 2019 to December 2024, that neither party could unilaterally withdraw, which meant that Seattle and King County could have decided together to withdraw, but neither one could just decide on their own.

After that five-year anniversary, December 2024, the ILA would continue indefinitely until terminated.

SPEAKER_00

By either party at that point?

SPEAKER_07

Say again?

By either party at that point?

Yes, at that point, it could be unilateral.

SPEAKER_06

And are there...

Oh, I'm just going to interrupt.

I don't think that that's actually correct.

We had some discussions with law about whether...

the indefinite continuation could, again, only be terminated by mutual agreement.

And I think there was lack of clarity on that, and that was part of why we very specifically said either party can unilaterally withdraw.

That is a significant and profound change and something that I'm wanted to see and wanted to have clarity around that because it was very muddy.

I'm sorry to interject.

No, I agree.

SPEAKER_07

The current version is much clearer about that and stated much more in plain language.

SPEAKER_10

Is it the executive of either party, the legislature of either party, or what?

SPEAKER_06

It's the...

either party may agree to terminate this agreement by authorizing resolution or motion of its legislative body.

Okay.

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

So that means that the council, the council, thank you.

The executive would bring through the council, but it would have to be, it would have to be legislated by this body.

Uh, thank you for that clarification.

And I'll say, I fully support the ability to unilaterally terminate because, as we know, we don't always agree.

And we need to, as Council President Nelson said, we need to make sure we're being responsive to our public, our constituents, our taxpayers on this.

And so we need to have the ability, if we don't think something is working well, to be able to walk away from it and do something different.

So I very much appreciate that aspect of this new proposal.

I do have one last question about, are there any points in here where we do You know assessment how this is going every number of years.

You know I don't know every two to three years or five years or however I haven't been involved in the in the process obviously but I always find it's important to have points where you have to stop and actually do an assessment and see how things are going.

Is that built into this?

Will that be built into this?

Do you know?

And you don't have to answer today if you don't know.

SPEAKER_07

I have two responses.

One is that I will say that this revised ILA provides broad authority to the governing board to conduct performance assessments.

So just to generally monitor performance of the agency, homeless services, and the system as a whole.

And of course, then, you know, the next step will be for the governing board to define how they want to go about doing that and what kind of information they want to collect and on what frequency to be able to do that.

I want to say there's something in here about maybe an audit at a six year period, but I'd like to go back and confirm that after this meeting and I can send the language out.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

SPEAKER_06

Yeah, thank you.

And I would just say, I'm not sure that there's a specific language to that, but there is specific language about reviewing the performance of the CEO.

And obviously, the CEO is held to account to all the performance measures we've set out in the ILA.

And I think one of the strong benefits to changing the governance structure and really making the governing committee The end point of accountability is that the governing committee as we go through the year and years will be looking at how effectively the programs are working.

So we will be assessing and holding accountable sort of in real time in a way that really was not possible under the current structure because of the different reporting bodies and sort of confusion about who had responsibility for that.

So I think the structure itself will facilitate.

But we can certainly put in actual requirement.

SPEAKER_07

And I did find that section I was thinking of, too.

So at the end, there's a requirement for a performance audit.

So it says the county in Seattle shall cause a performance audit to be conducted and completed by a consulting firm selected by the county in Seattle no later than six years after the governing board confirms the initial five-year plan.

That should actually be governing committee.

And this performance audit shall be transmitted to the clerks of both the King County Council and the Seattle City Council.

So the five-year plan was approved in spring of last year.

So that would mean the performance report would be due six years after that.

So that would be quite some ways into the future.

That would be 2029.

SPEAKER_06

Thank you.

So we're in a bit of a time crunch here.

Council Member Wu needs to leave at 10.30, and I would really like to have a vote.

So I want to just take the temperature of the committee.

I appreciate that Deputy Washington and Director Kim are here, but I want to find out from the committee if you're comfortable taking a vote now or if you would like to hear first from Deputy Mayor Washington and Director Kim before doing so.

And their presentation is more sort of high level little background.

It's less than meat and potatoes that Jen has presented here.

So looks like people are comfortable without that presentation taking to the vote.

So I think given the time, no disrespect meant that we will proceed with.

Okay, thank you.

All right, so if there are no further questions, and it looks like there are no further questions, I would now move the committee to vote on, to recommend the passage of Council Bill 120858. Is there a second?

SPEAKER_04

Second.

SPEAKER_06

Thank you very much.

All right, it has been moved and seconded.

Will the Clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation to pass Council Bill 120858?

SPEAKER_03

Council President Nelson?

Aye.

Council Member Saka?

Aye.

Council Member Wu?

Yes.

Vice Chair Morales?

Yes.

Chair Moore?

Aye.

Five in favor, none opposed.

SPEAKER_06

Thank you.

The motion passes and the bill will be referred to full council for the September 17th meeting.

So thank you very much.

Thank you very much, Jen, for your presentation.

Thank you very much to the mayor's office and executive for being here and for all the work that you've done and willingness to come and talk to us.

So, all right.

Madam Clerk, if you would read the next agenda item seven into the record.

SPEAKER_03

Agenda item seven, community safety investments and Seattle community safety initiative for briefing and discussion.

SPEAKER_06

Thank you.

So colleagues, today we have Deputy Mayor Washington and Director Kim from Human Services here to brief us.

I would like to thank Deputy Mayor Burgess for also being here to answer questions.

This is a somewhat dense presentation, so if we could please hold questions until after Director Kim's presentation.

And again, I will turn it over to Deputy Mayor Washington and Director Kim.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_08

Thank you, and thank you for having us this morning.

I'm waiting for the slide deck to pull up, but in the interim, there are a few of us here this morning.

My role is going to be to give a high-level overview of community safety and the philosophy around the investments in HSD, pass it over to Director Kim, who's going to go through kind of the meat and potatoes of the theory of change and the request for proposal.

And then I have my amazing colleague, Deputy Mayor Burgess over here, just in case there are specific questions about police, SPD, and then the care department, to be frank, around like alternatives to policing, so.

He has graciously agreed to sit here and entertain any questions in that regard.

So once the deck pulls up, we will get started.

SPEAKER_11

While we're waiting, maybe I'll just read my name into the record.

I'm Tanya Kim, Director of the Human Services Department.

SPEAKER_05

I'm Deputy Mayor Tim Burgess.

Good to be here.

SPEAKER_06

Thank you.

Good morning, everyone.

SPEAKER_08

So I went over this a little bit in my opening, so we can go to the next slide.

OK, so I thought it was important before we delve in to talk about where we were, where we are, and where we're headed.

And so where we were in 2020 to 2022, you all know, you lived it, global pandemic, civil rights reckoning, a lot of public pressure for electeds to invest in alternatives to policing, a new division that council created called Safe and Thriving in HSD focused on community safety and support, for crime survivors and then there was also a huge funding influx from council to HSD that led them to hold a competitive funding process to determine which agencies to award for the new investments that were coming into the department and Where we are now, when we started, Mayor Harold gave a clear directive to focus our investments to get more significant results and reduce violence.

Mayor Harold met with every single, early on, required Director Kim to convene every single awarded agency who's in the community safety space.

He asked for them to list what they do, what their outcomes are, and after that meeting, He concluded that we needed to go more in depth.

He felt like we were doing a peanut butter approach.

And so he directed HSD to focus our investments.

So currently we have 39 contracts funded for a total of 29 million.

We had additional funding added this year for school safety efforts.

And Director Kim and her staff worked with a results-based accountability firm to develop a new theory of change.

And we will have HSD release a new RFP under that theory of change in December.

So where we're headed is implementation of the new theory of change in 2025. We're going to create a database, a training on that database, and implement it.

And then HSD will implement performance metrics for each contract with quarterly reporting.

Next.

Oh, you went too far.

So the next couple of slides talk about the framework in which HSD and the community address violence.

We believe it's a public health issue.

The reason it's called a public health issue is because there are risk factors.

So there's signs of an infection of violence, and it's both predictable and preventable.

There are protective factors.

There's treatment.

And that's widely known and proven.

And so we have both the signs of the infection and the treatment.

And so that's why we address it and call it a public health issue.

literature supports the notion of violence as a public health issue as a matter of fact public health seattle king county declared this during covet 19 and then the u.s surgeon general declared it a public health crisis in june of 24. you're killing me with the slides today we also believe in a community-led public health approach There are three strategies or focus areas here.

We want to detect and interrupt potentially violent conflicts.

And so we have trained violence interrupters and outreach workers who prevent violence through mediating conflict, preventing retaliations, and following up to ensure conflict does not reignite.

We want to identify and change behaviors of people at highest risk.

So we have trained outreach workers who reduce risk for those most likely to be impacted through assessing the highest risk, changing behaviors, and providing case management.

And then lastly, we want to mobilize the community to change norms and address root causes.

And so we engage with community leaders by responding to shootings in high risk areas, organizing the community, and we organize the community to spread positive norms.

So Dr. Marshall, who I look up to, he essentially said that there are the commandments of violence.

So things like thou shall not snitch, thou shall get money by any means necessary.

The only way to change that thinking that's deeply embedded in certain communities is to spread positive norms.

which counteracts the spread of negative norms.

He says that the community is an immune system, and if it's infected, and I think we heard this at, I think it was Rainier Beach High School, people were talking about the statistics around the school and how they mirror what the children are experiencing in the school, and the reporters wanted to know why, and it's because the entire community is infected with the disease of violence.

It's not just the school or an apartment complex, it's an entire community.

Oh good, I get to pass it over to Director Kim.

SPEAKER_11

So with that overview of where we've been and the framing, I'm gonna do a little bit of nuts and bolts and a deeper dive.

So we'll start.

with maybe what might draw your attention are our current investments at the Human Services Department.

And I guess I just want to restate again one more time that HSD plays a particular role.

But we have, in terms of public safety, it takes all of our departments.

And so really it does take SPD, fire, care, HSD, OED, deal.

I mean, you name it, we're all in it as well as the legislative branch.

And so just want to acknowledge that what we're talking about today is the community safety investments and this issue of the disease of violence.

And so want to restate that.

I'm going to quickly go through this.

Think of this as a table of contents of our investment areas.

And then in the next slides, I'm going to do a deeper dive featuring some of the areas.

And so that's why I think it would be prudent maybe to wait on some of the questions that may come up, because I'm going to describe them a little bit more.

But very quickly, the Seattle Community Safety Initiative, or SCSI, it is community-led, place-based strategy to interrupt and de-escalate conflicts.

And that's really important that this is not our initiative that we created.

It was created by organizations who have been doing this work and approached the city and the county and others to be partners.

The other is the school safety, which the deputy mayor, I almost said DM, sorry.

Deputy Mayor Washington described this is happening in real time.

We've been communicating with council as well as others about the progress on that and They're school safety investments, interrupting conflict.

Really, it's the same thing, but place-based, very specific to the schools.

And then each school has its own culture and ecosystem of services.

And so it is taking some intentional efforts to work with them.

And we've got 11 on the docket.

We're starting with the five high schools.

I'll remind you of that work a little bit later.

Hospital-based intervention, this is led by Harborview.

They support gunshot survivors and their families and prevents retaliatory violence.

This is crucial for breaking the cycle.

We have supportive services.

This is sometimes also referred to as wraparound services.

And so you might have those points of entry, but where else do we refer people to in order to treat the whole person, the whole community?

And so these are the services that provide Longer term supports to reduce risk of violence by addressing those basic needs and promoting emotional, social, physical, all the well-beings that need to occur in order to mitigate violence.

And then specifically, we have some investments around pre-file diversion.

And so those were with the Seattle Attorney's Office.

We work closely with them to transfer over some of those contracts and investments.

They are to reduce recidivism.

This is interconnected, of course, with the criminal legal system as well.

And so to reduce recidivism and promote long-term stability by diverting people arrested for misdemeanors before charges are filed.

And that's really important at various junctures to divert, to a different approach versus going through the criminal legal system, which makes it very difficult to get out of.

Reentry on the other end is to promote economic stability and well-being for individuals reentering community.

Most people reenter community.

So let's support people to thrive and have their basic needs met to have a different path.

And then also I would be remiss to not include LEAD.

LEAD is a very important investment.

It's a sizable investment you can see with the city.

This is a pre-booking diversion model.

And I know you know this, but committee heard a detailed presentation from PDA and their partners on August 14th.

So recently you had a full presentation about lead and co-lead.

So with that, we go a little bit deeper.

So I'm going to start with the Seattle Community Safety Initiative.

Again, shorthand is SCSI.

So for this body of work, it's not just about the interventions.

If you talk to the providers, they will tell you it's a comprehensive place or community-based model designed to tackle violence at its roots.

So the four agencies are Urban Family, Community Passageways, Boys and Girls Club Southeast Network, and the YMCA.

Again, these are organizations that have been doing this work for a long time.

The previous iteration was called the Seattle Youth Violence Prevention Initiative.

Before that, I think it was Seattle Team for Youth.

Before that, it was, you know, these are organizations that are part of the community, working with community, and many of the staff are community members, and that's just important to note.

SCSI operates neighborhood hubs strategically located in areas that serve critical access points for community.

and is a home base for their team.

Hubs were launched in historically high-risk neighborhoods, and those neighborhoods have also been historically underserved, and I know that oftentimes there's a question, why not the North End, et cetera?

This is where it started, doesn't mean this is where it ends.

They are currently in Central, South, and West Seattle.

Now, we talk a little bit about SCSI, but there is a little bit of confusion or sometimes questions about the various roles.

And so I wanted to offer that to you today as well.

Who are the people or the functions behind SCSI?

So in order to disrupt and deescalate and mitigate violence, there takes different types of specialty experts.

We have violence interrupters.

They're highly trained community leaders, often folks who have lived experience, who know people, who may have experienced being impacted by the criminal legal system, et cetera.

So that is intentional, that there are people who are credible that you can talk with and interrupt violence, especially when it's hot.

I'm not gonna walk in and mitigate a conflict after a resolution, but you better believe that Marty can go out and just talk with people who she already knows and really get to the heart of an issue very quickly.

So these are folks who are, with the agencies who are extremely connected.

They possess the necessary skills and are credible to deescalate the conflicts, prevent retaliatory shootings, and manage rumors that could lead to further violence.

And I probably don't have to tell you about social media and all the other things that need to be mitigated too.

So that's really important, the violence interrupters.

Outreach workers are also similarly trained and have good reputation amongst community.

They connect to hard to reach community members and leverage their own experiences to overcome resistance to crucial services.

And so it's sticking with people, building those relationships, and getting them into the other services that are available.

Safe passages, you might have heard this term before.

These are folks in a program that ensures the safety of young people, particularly during times where there's transition during school.

So it's before, after, perhaps lunchtime if there's open lunches.

They maintain a visible presence in designated safety zones, helping youth transition.

But, you know, they're also there.

They are mentors.

They say hello.

They know the young people.

They build the relationships.

They can connect them to positive activities.

and supports as things come up naturally in conversation.

There are restoration specialists.

So here, what's interesting is that they operate primarily in hospital settings or post discharge from hospital settings and are trained to intervene with violence prone individuals and their families, connecting them to essential services and mentoring to prevent further violence.

And so we talked about survivors, but we're also talking about people who might be causing the harm, which if you know anything about ACEs or other things, often that they have also been victims of harm previously in their younger years, or it's intergenerational violence.

And then finally, case management is really important to have trained case managers who stick with the clients, if you will, around multiple disciplines.

And they do coordinate the social services or the physical medical support they need through public health or others, public safety providers.

So somebody to stick with them around their goals and how to achieve them and get them to access the services they need.

That's important for the long-term needs.

So we started really with the violence interruption, the initial, but it's meaningless if we don't really impact the future trajectory.

So those are a little bit about the roles.

And I want to just then take a step back and in lay terms give you an idea of what this looks like in action.

So imagine that there is an incident where there are shots fired and 911 is called.

SPD is alerted and deployed, and they immediately contact SCSI.

So there is a protocol.

It's in the contract.

There's agreements for them to contact SCSI.

SCSI, it's in near real time, and so what they do is they deploy violence interrupters, and they go quickly to the scene.

If things are moving very rapidly or people aren't there, they have the opportunity to also go to the hospital or to follow up because they, again, are credible.

They hear things.

They know things.

And so they engage people directly impacted by the gunshots.

And so that's the immediate work.

SESI focuses on de-escalating the situation.

So they are working in parallel.

This is not an alternative to policing.

They are making sure that people do not retaliate.

They want to de-escalate.

And so that's really important to know that that work is happening in a parallel process.

SPEAKER_08

And I think that's an important point for those of you that haven't been at a scene.

When someone shot all of their...

whether it's family, whether it's people they hang out with, people start getting on social media.

They start calling folks.

They start saying, hey, so-and-so got shot.

We need to ride.

We need to go find the person who did it.

We need to shoot this person.

Family members are hysterical.

They want to sometimes fight start between the families.

And so violence interrupters being there on the scene they can do things that the police can't do.

The police are focused on investigating, but there's all this noise surrounding it, people showing up, wanting to see it, mothers crying, and they literally handle all of the noise around the scene.

SPEAKER_11

That's right.

Thank you.

And so they're focusing again on de-escalation and preventing retaliation.

That's so important.

Through community continued engagement, then going along the path, again, they're really looking at wanting to deploy their outreach workers and others to talk to the impacted people and discuss goals towards long-term stability and safety.

So the immediate moment is fine, but really we're just trying to change lives in the long term.

And that is again through either case management, counseling, it depends on the individual.

And then with that, once the initial situation is cooled, SCSI, and this is where the hub model comes in, is that they will maintain contact and activate the spaces for them to be positive.

So there is ongoing efforts.

A good example is what's happening down in Rainier Beach where Again, I'm gonna use Marty and her team with Boys and Girls Club Southeast Network.

They activate spaces and that Safeway was, for years, an issue that had a lot of criminal legal activity and they replaced it with some positive work.

it doesn't go without some level of risk, and so I want to acknowledge that these are folks who, they live there, they are a part of the community, and they're gonna do what it takes, and just want to acknowledge that they really do, they're committed and a part of the community in doing this work without the risk.

SPEAKER_08

So I just want to add really quickly, the neighborhood hub model is also important because they hold the enrollment of all the people who are in the program.

And so years ago, there was confusion around why people were upset because a lot of the money was flowing through the hubs.

When you don't have a hub, you can't collect centralized data.

So the hubs enroll young people.

They put them in the database, which then allows for the city or the county to say how many young people went back to detention or how many young people stayed out of detention.

Without the centralized hub and the database, you would be asking 30 organizations to report on their kids instead of four organizations with one database that HSD will have access to.

We had this stood up a long time ago.

We want to build a new database and a better database.

And so that's another huge responsibility of a hub is to hold the data, data centralization.

And so we have about, I think, eight slides left.

We're going to get through so you guys can ask us questions.

SPEAKER_11

The next one, we've talked about the school-based work.

It's essentially similar, but based in schools.

And so I just wanna remind you that there are five high schools that we're starting with, and then we're going to move to the feeder schools thereafter.

I've sent updates on our progress.

It does take a lot of coordination with the school district and then the individual schools as well.

And so just wanted you to know that we're making immediate progress with Rainier Beach and Garfield.

And in fact, we have a meeting this afternoon just to solidify some things with all the partners, including the schools and the community-based organizations.

And so I'm going to move us forward because I think that you're relatively versed on that.

And we'd be happy to report back once we have everything fully implemented, but it's very early.

The hospital-based intervention, again, this is at Harborview.

So what's really important is this is a national model supported by the Health Alliance for Violence Intervention, and really what it comes down to this is that this is the state's trauma center where gunshot victims are taken.

It's not enough just to release people.

This is an opportunity for us to make sure that they have the resources they need.

And so if the victims or their families are asking for additional supports, then they will connect them to organizations that can immediately help them.

So think of it as a developed safety plan or resources before people move out of the hospital situation.

HSD funds some of the staff as well as some of the organizations that receive the referrals.

We'll go to the next slide.

We did talk about reentry.

This is, again, really important work that we're doing.

And so with these investments, And this is a precursor to the outcomes.

So we are looking to reduce recidivism and build economic stability.

If you're incarcerated, you don't have a place to live.

You come into the same environment.

You don't have a job.

It's difficult to expect different behaviors, but reentry services are so critical to ensuring that people have what they need in order to, again, thrive and go on a different path.

So I do want to move very quickly into outcomes and measurements because I know that's of great interest to all of us, including, as Deputy Mayor Washington said, the mayor and HSD.

This is going to sound very familiar with presentations that I've given in the past, about public health or any large investments that have been relatively idle and we've been managing it, but we haven't been as intentional as we could.

So I want you to know again and underscore that we are developing a new theory of change.

That is our charge.

Well, it's developed.

I'm not releasing it because it's going to inform the RFP.

DM Washington said I have developed it.

That is true.

So for the record, we've developed it.

We're not releasing it fully because it's going to be a part of the RFP, which I'm going to talk about.

So we don't typically release everything at the same, we release everything at the same time.

to be fair and equitable to the community.

But I'm going to give you a preview on some key things.

With the RFP, or excuse me, the theory of change, just giving you some background information that we based it off of peer-reviewed academic research.

We do literature reviews.

It's based off of local crime data and other social trends.

And we want to thank SPD for their data.

We've got best practices.

We've talked about that.

And community engagement and the feedback that we received, you know that there's been a lot of conversation at schools, in community, the community meetings that you're holding, we hear, we see, we read all of those things and take that into consideration.

And so with that, let's talk about the key desired outcomes that you can anticipate us asking our set of contractors in the future state to report on.

So on the left-hand side, and I'm not going to read the whole slide, but I think the three for us to give voice to is important.

We want to see improved life outcomes and reduce recidivism rates for individuals at the highest risk of involvement in violence.

And this is a set.

You can't do one standalone.

It really is comprehensive.

The second is we want to see reduced harm to communities by utilizing alternatives to arrest as an option of first resort.

So we need diversion and other options.

And number three, we want to see reduced incidents of violence.

I think we probably all agree on that.

Now how we're going to measure it, there are some examples on the right-hand side.

I'll just name one just to give voice, and then we'll move forward.

that we would like to, with the contracted organizations in the future state, we're gonna look at re-arrest and our convictions for violent crimes for participants enrolled in our programs.

So we just have to look at the hard data and understand what impact that we're making.

Okay, next.

It's not enough to say this is what we're gonna do.

We have to build a whole system around it.

And so you can see here what we're going to be building.

It's gonna take a little bit of time, but there is definitely urgency around this.

Right now we have, again, that slide that has the various investment areas that we're funding.

We are going to invest in robust evaluation.

We don't currently have that right now.

So these are the things for the future state.

These are our improvements.

We need to analyze the key investment areas, ensuring that we have dedicated funding and capacity to do this work.

We have the right subject matter experts.

We're also going to collaborate with some of our experts in our own community.

So for example, University of Washington has a firearm injury and policy research program.

We're going to build an advanced database system.

We used to have one.

Unfortunately, with the pivots of the past, some of those databases were dismantled, but we need to bring that back because we need to track, we need to do referrals, we need to monitor our own data.

We're also going to have performance-based contracts, and so I like to think of it more as not as punitive, but as incentives.

If we meet the outcomes, we will pay for that.

So there's going to be a base level of pay, but it's the incentive pay in order to ensure that our contracted providers are not just serving people, but that they're achieving the outcomes that we've set forward in our theory of change.

And again, we need to continue to be in partnership with community by having regular listening sessions with stakeholders and program participants.

We need to know that people are feeling safer.

So people need to be safer with the data, but people also need to feel safer as well.

How we're going to get there, again, is through a competitive funding process.

And we, in this case, will shorthand it for an RFP.

So it's the request for proposal.

We will put out, here's a description of what an RFP is for the viewing public.

I can already tell you based on the data that we're receiving, unfortunately this is consistent for many years, is focusing on those disproportionately impacted by gun violence.

That is often black, African American, and Latinx community members.

You'll see the age 10, please don't be alarmed by that.

It's really middle school and up to young adults because now we're expanding into middle schools.

The budget amount at this time is 5.7.

That may increase as we're implementing all of the new services that we have online.

So that may go up.

And this is important.

You will see a request for proposal, the guidelines and application be released in December.

And so certainly you will help us share that information out.

SPEAKER_08

And the reason it's being released in December is because departments have a blackout period during budget season of making award announcements because if people find out whether they did or did not get awarded, they will then fill the chambers and start to advocate.

And so we, I don't know, 10 years ago maybe, separated the two and we just let budget be budget and then we do processes outside of it.

And so that's why it's not posting until December 3rd.

SPEAKER_11

And for practical reasons, too, we just recently got a new book of business in working with schools.

And so we need to recalibrate our theory of change to make sure that the services, that wraparound services are really conducive to middle and high school as well as young adults and adults as well.

And so there's just some work that we need to do.

But for all those reasons, we were looking at a December release date.

It is unusual, so that's why we're noting it.

Typically, it's in the spring.

So with that, let's go to the next slide.

This is just a different view of what an RFP process looks like.

I don't think you'll see anything unusual here.

We release it.

People apply.

We score it.

We've got subject matter experts as well as other key partners who are part of the rating.

They make a recommendation, and the HSD department director, that's me, we'll make the final decision on the recommendations.

And so they give me the recommendations.

We look at the theory of change.

Sometimes we have to recalibrate a little bit, but typically we honor the rater's recommendation.

So that's the process.

I want to offer you some key dates here again.

So we've got the December release.

We will give folks, hopefully, a good full two months, month and a half, to write their applications and submit it.

We'll have info sessions during that process, technical assistance.

We're going to do the announcements in March.

And then we're going to start the contracts.

And we go as fast as the agencies can go, but hopefully in April.

Now, there are going to be some agencies who we may not fund again, and that's okay.

If that does occur, that they apply, they don't receive funding because it's not the right fit or they're just very competitive, you know, applications, we will also offer some bridge funding to ensure that there's not a gap in service, that we can transfer clients, for example, that we can stand up the other services.

And so we are also being thoughtful about having some transition period, too, so we may have some contracts that are in place.

during that period of time for a short period while we stand up the new contracts.

And so that really is it.

I wanted to give you a preview about where we are, but most importantly, where we're going.

So it's where we're going and it's going to be full of best practice and accountability and transparency.

What questions do you have?

Question?

SPEAKER_06

Council Member Saka.

SPEAKER_04

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Deputy Mayor Washington.

This is a really important presentation, very important topic, so really appreciate learning more about this critical work to ensure that our city has a broad, comprehensive view of public and community safety.

I strongly, and thank you, Madam Chair, for daylighting this vital body of work as well and your committee.

I strongly support community-led safety initiatives, including like this, that focus on a public health-based approach.

As we know, those largely focus on, as we talked about today, on violence prevention and also better position us to address some of the root causes of violent crime, and effectively what that does is it helps ensure a better tomorrow, which is great.

And again, strongly support that approach.

And as I've said before, will continue to say, say again today, we're not going to root cause only our way out of these challenges.

And, you know, I'm a strong proponent of what I've heard the mayor aptly describe before as championing the politics of A and D.

So, yes, we need effective prevention programs like this and initiatives, strategic initiatives like this.

Again, help design a better and construct a better future for tomorrow, right?

But we also need a balanced approach that recognizes the importance of prevention, intervention, response, and, yes, enforcement, which I'm glad Deputy Mayor Burgess, who oversees the, as I understand it, the mayor's principally the public safety portfolio, especially the enforcement side and response, is here as well.

So...

I do think there is an opportunity for us to continue to not only lean into these community-led, public health-oriented investments, focusing on prevention, but I think there's also a parallel opportunity for us to continue to lean into better interventions and yes, enforcement.

Violent crime, gun violence in particular, is out of hand.

I don't think anyone can disagree with that.

And sadly, I would love to write stronger laws to better restrict guns and access to guns, but we know that Seattle's expressly preempted under state law.

We can't do that We can't even ban or prohibit people from going into community safety or excuse me community centers or you know parks or with guns We can't even do that.

We've done effectively me and my staff and my office.

We've already looked into this what more can be done to regulate as a city as a policy matter we've done substantially all of what we can do to regulate and prevent access to guns So we need to do more, but we also need to rely more heavily on people who are better positioned today and empowered from a government perspective to do that.

That is principally the state and federal partners, federal governments.

But we can't just hope and wait and rely on them to act or not.

And that's why I think Intervention and enforcement is also important.

We can have better emphasis patrols to crack down on the sale, trade, use of guns, stolen guns.

We can, to better prevent that, we can work, and I know, I understand on the enforcement side, our SPD officer, you know, staffing shortage is really, is imposing a huge strain on our ability to do, you know, some of these things, but we can lean more heavily on our partners that are state, and we can call up and request, and yes, we should, ATF—better ATF—emphasis and enforcement of the ban—of banning the sale and trade of stolen guns, unlawful guns.

Felons shouldn't have guns.

Pursue federal cases for people, which I worked on when I was in law school in the Northern District of California.

So there's more we can do on the enforcement side.

And yes, let us continue to lead into these community-led public health initiatives.

Really, really critically important work.

But we need to continue down the path of making sure we have stronger interventions and enforcement as well, because this is not acceptable.

People are demanding that we do better.

So anyways, thank you all.

And I understand this presentation, the scope was a bit more narrowly tailored and focused on the prevention side, which I appreciate.

In my mind, I can't bifurcate these complex discussions and just focus on like, let's talk about it end to end.

So in any event, just want to share that observation, but I appreciate this important work.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_06

Thank you, Council President.

SPEAKER_10

Thank you very much.

I have a question about the RFP and the current investments.

Slide 7 lists $29,450,000 in current investments, and then on slide 17 notes that the December RFP will be for 5.7.

Does that 5.7 represent a group of investments that we're already funding?

I know some of it is for brand new mental health services for students.

So could you just tease that out a little bit?

SPEAKER_11

Yeah, our RFP is focused on the HSD investments.

The mental health for students is with DEAL, Department of Education and Early Learning.

Within our budget, we will put out a portion of it to RFP.

One thing that I've learned in my 14 years here at the city is that it can be harmful to put out 100% of your investments at the same time to RFP if there's a really strong pivot.

We know that there are agencies through our contract monitoring that are really core to the work.

And so things like the Seattle Community Safety Initiative, who are very foundational, they have the hubs, they have the relationships, they're now going into schools.

it would be disruptive if they were a part of the RFP at this time.

And so there are the support services, and we're looking at some of the other investment areas, which is why there's that asterisk, it may go up, to ask those folks who are providing the support services, if the hub is doing a referral out, we need to make sure that we have the right services there to support the long-term work.

And so that's what's being put out for RFP in December.

SPEAKER_10

Well, what kind of services are we buying with 5.7 then?

Is it additional, can you just spell it out a little bit more for me?

SPEAKER_11

Yeah, it's the existing, so we have, it's not new money, it's our existing budget.

Right now, there are support services, like there's some case management, there might be some trauma-informed individuals therapeutic approaches.

There might be employment programs.

So there's different types of contracts that we currently have that are considered support services.

I actually have a list of organizations that we contract with.

I'm not going to read them all, but it's everything from youth mentoring to some of the examples that I've already given.

SPEAKER_08

So basically, the hubs are home base.

We're not putting the hubs out to bid because it doesn't matter.

There's no one else who's going to be a hub.

They've been hubs since Seattle Youth Violence Prevention Initiative.

It's the Y, Boys and Girls Club.

Community Passageways and Urban Family.

That's just the hub.

That job is to receive referrals from teachers, SPD, anyone in the community do an assessment, a risk assessment, high, low, medium, enroll them into the program formally by putting them into the database, and then based on their assessment, refer them out to services, ART therapy, whatever it may be, high school, diploma, or GED.

And so what we're buying are the services that we refer them out to.

So we have how much investment?

SPEAKER_10

Can I stop you there?

It's my understanding right now is that Community Passageways contracts with Urban Family and YMC.

SPEAKER_11

We have direct contracts with each organization.

SPEAKER_10

Okay, got it.

SPEAKER_11

Wait, hold on a second.

SPEAKER_08

So what she said.

So Community Passageways is one hub.

There's been a lot of misconception that they are holding all the money.

They're not.

they are one of the four organizational hubs that are responsible for referring young people out and ensuring that their individualized plan is met and that they don't continue to rise up the risk they don't get in more trouble that they actually have their protective factors go up if the protective factors go up the risk factors go down and so we've got millions of dollars and we can send this to you all of wraparound services that we invest in that we're putting out to bid because it's in the mayor's terms it's peanut butter He wants focused, so essentially less contracts, more impactful work.

SPEAKER_10

I appreciate that.

And that is why I'm really looking forward to seeing the theory of change.

Because when you were here last time, you said, well, that the RFP would be based on that.

And I understand why you can't release it, because then that gives people an edge.

However, we are talking about more resources that have not been evaluated for a long time.

And now I'm going to get up.

I'll repeat the point that I made last time, that Mayor Harrell and I did request an audit in January of this year.

asking for our CSI investments to be evaluated, what works, what doesn't work, including city programs, well, programs run by the city, but also community-based nonprofit organizations, identify the evidence-based programs and those that may be promising and those that may cause harm, and then That audit was canceled in April.

And when I raised distinct, I was told that this would, well, we want to let this RFP out so that we can I guess the understanding was evaluate those programs that we give money to.

I don't agree with that approach because I think we need to know what is working and what isn't before an RFP.

Because more and more people keep getting hurt.

SPEAKER_08

The investments that you wanted to audit are going out to bid.

So we're not buying them anymore.

So to do an audit on something that we're no longer purchasing, We're purchasing the things that are on the slide right here.

So the things that you just mentioned that said haven't been evaluated in a really long time are going away.

And we're going to buy contracts that can guarantee that there's improved life outcomes, reduced recidivism.

communities by utilizing alternatives to arrest and that there's reduced incidence of violence.

The only thing that's staying are the hubs.

All the services around the hubs that were to be audited are going away.

So that's why the audit was paused because it does not make any sense to audit something that won't be.

This is the purpose of a theory of change is to say, what are you buying?

this is what we're buying.

So in a nutshell, the only thing you're missing are the inputs, but these are the outputs.

So at the end of the day, what we were recommending was that the audit judge us on these three things.

In two years, look down the line and say, has recidivism been reduced for those that are at the highest risk of involvement?

Has harm to communities been reduced?

And have we reduced the incidence of violence?

That's why we chose to pause it.

We don't need an audit to know what best practice is.

You just need a really smart researcher.

And I said this to the auditor, what works for violence prevention hasn't changed in about two decades.

What's changed is the methodology or the value that drives the interventions.

What's changed is people recognizing that it's a public health issue.

that it's identifiable and solvable.

And so we were trying to be prudent in saying there's no use of, and again, if you go to the slide that says where we were, we got a ton of new money during COVID, And Tani and team got it out as quick as possible because they were told to.

We don't know if we would have purchased those same services if we weren't in a global pandemic.

There was no time to be thoughtful and to do a theory of change.

We've done that work.

And so we're saying judge us off of this thoughtful, methodical work with people who are paid to do this every day.

SPEAKER_10

Well, we are continuing with the audit, and I do appreciate HSD's work with the city auditor, so I think that it is important to continue on because the audit is not just on a subset.

It's on crime prevention strategies, so we'll be getting into that.

But I heard we're going to invest in robust evaluation, but we don't really have that right now.

That's what Director Kim said, and so that is something that I think does merit...

a lot of investment, not necessarily in dollars, but attention, so that we know that what we're paying for is working.

SPEAKER_08

And the reason we don't have robust data is because SYVPI was alive, it pivoted.

That got rid of the database.

Leadership changes, leadership changes, leadership changes.

COVID.

Let's add a whole bunch of new money.

This is actually the first time in a decade since SYVPI, which was the last thing that actually worked, that the department had the time, the patience, and we had a mayor and a council who are willing to hold people accountable.

If we would have tried to come with this two years ago, it would have been shot down.

There's no way that the previous council would have approved putting all the money out, some people losing their money because they just may not be fit for it, and go to the next slide, performance pay.

No way that the last council would have approved it.

Performance pay means you get 80% of your contract amount automatically, 20% is reserved, go back to the last slide, for these.

If you do these things, you get 20%.

If you don't, because if we're not reducing recidivism, what are we doing?

If we're working with those that are at the highest risk of being involved in violence and we can't prove that they're not picking up a gun, then what are we doing?

And so this is the perfect time.

This council plus this mayor and this environment is the perfect time to redo this.

Never would have been able to happen with the last council.

Thank you for that.

SPEAKER_06

I have some questions from other council members.

I agree with you, Deputy Mayor.

I also, though, just wanted to point out that I think while we understand what are the the sort of social economic, the risk factors to gun violence, I think two things have significantly changed and that we do need to be very mindful of that.

One is just the trauma that's occurred from COVID and how that has really fractured our society and it has had a disproportionate impact on our youth.

And then the other is just that we are, I mean, you know this, I'm not saying anything, you know this better than I do, but just we are washing guns.

And so it's so encouraging to see this work and to recognize that we are approaching it from a performance base.

But truly, I just sometimes, I feel like we're putting our fingers in the dike.

And we have a court, a Supreme Court, that makes it impossible for us to do what needs to be done.

And so sometimes I think, well, we are awash and gone.

how do we change the culture in which the immediate response is to a gun?

How do we change a culture where everybody carries a gun?

And partly because within certain communities, that feeling is that you have to carry a gun, that you are not safe unless you do.

So I don't know.

I'm just rambling here.

But I do see these as sort of larger social issues that we have to grapple with.

And sometimes when we're looking at these programs, and they're not ending gun violence to the extent that we need them to, we think that the programs themselves are ineffective.

And I'm not saying we shouldn't be doing performance-based, but we have such a broader issue.

that we also have to be mindful of and continue to have those discussions.

How do we deal with the broader gun culture in this society?

Anyway, that's my soapbox.

SPEAKER_10

Can I just add to that?

Those are good points.

And we're also working within a context where our enforcement agency has, at its lowest point in, I don't know, since...

a long time ago, two or three decades.

And so that means that investigators that actually get into that work and can trace, and the community response team is about 25 people.

It used to be 130. They're the folks that would actually investigate, surveil, you know, what was going on on the street and try to look at patterns, et cetera.

So, you know.

channeling Westney, its services and law enforcement that work together on this issue.

SPEAKER_08

Yeah, I would also say, Council Member Moore, COVID also destroyed the medical field, the enforcement field.

I mean, we have good insurance.

I can't get a doctor's appointment for like seven months.

It's wild.

And so we need to consider that as well, which is what happened.

It's all the folks who had to work.

decimated, the ones that didn't get to shelter in place.

And so I think what Councilmember Saka said, we have our Office of Intergovernmental Relations, we're gonna have our agenda that you all will see and add to.

I know that gun control is on there for the mayor, but then how do we get to even the federal government?

We have to do something, to your point, because you're only solving a quarter of the issue.

SPEAKER_06

Right.

And I mean, one thing that I would like to add to that, agenda with the state is, you know, we have the extreme risk protection orders.

It seems like we are identifying individuals who are at high risk.

We know that many people are in possession of guns, and yet we are underutilizing the extreme risk protection orders, partly because we're having to go to King County Superior Court to get them processed.

I would really like us to be able to do that in Seattle Municipal Court, but in the meantime, I do think that we need to be looking at utilizing those more aggressively than we are, and maybe that's a resource issue in terms of being understaffed with law enforcement, but they are incredibly effective.

Anyway, I will turn it over to Vice Chair Morales.

SPEAKER_09

Thank you.

Thanks for this presentation.

It's good to see the work moving along and evolving.

I will say it breaks my heart to hear you say that Rainier Beach is infected with the disease of violence.

And we know that these organizations have been doing really important work for a very long time.

I will say, and I think it's important to underscore that the reason community conditions exist as they do is because of a history of disinvestment and underinvestment in certain neighborhoods in the city, right?

And so the treatment in addition to these sort of immediate interventions is investment, right?

In education, in high quality housing, in economic opportunity, in mentoring.

in high quality infrastructure like sidewalks and trees and green spaces and safe third places for young people to gather.

This is why I wanted to share land use, because in addition to all of this work, there is other really important work that needs to happen to change the community conditions that lead to violence in the first place.

And that very often is infrastructure and land use based.

You know, that is a separate committee, and we are going to be doing that work as well.

But I do think it's important to say, like, while this work is critical for addressing immediate needs, we also, as a municipality, have to look at what our long-term strategy is to change these community conditions and to be willing to make those investments.

That's my soapbox, so I'll get off that now.

So that said, I first want to thank you for acknowledging the importance of these community-based organizations and these community-based solutions.

I think that needs to be important and we need to honor the work that these neighbors of ours are doing in their different communities for different reasons, whether it's housing or safety or development.

And I think expanding these community-based groups was also a recommendation of the overdose audit this summer.

So I'm glad you said that you did not include your theory of change here, because I kept looking for it and thinking that I was crazy.

And it does seem like there's different accountability measures that are anticipated that are being prioritize, which is fine.

But I guess what I would like to know is whether any of these changes were informed by the auditor's report, because one of the recommendations was that place-based solutions are important, and we know that Rainier Beach and the CID are implemented.

But I'm sure my colleagues who don't live in the South End or the CID would like to know if further place-based hubs, if you will, are anticipated.

SPEAKER_08

So really quick, I'll pass it over to Director Kim.

The United States of America is infected with the disease of violence, not just Rainier Beach.

I am infected with the disease of violence.

The TV we watch, the video games we play.

And so I just want to be crystal clear that that isn't a slight on Rainier Beach.

It's an indictment on us.

because of the reasons you said.

Historical racism, under-investing in certain areas, redlining.

I mean, we could just go all the way back, but now we're at a point where the entire United States of America is infected with violence to allow this kind of gun violence to occur.

So I just wanted to make, I don't want, I love Rainier Beach.

So I'll pass it over to Director Kim to answer directly your question.

SPEAKER_11

So right now we're not expanding hubs.

It does take, one of the things I respect, there's so much intersectionality and we pay very close attention, of course, to the auditor's report on how to deal with crime as it relates to the nexus of opioid and substance use disorder.

We have the three hubs, neighborhood hubs identified.

We're wrapping around them to ensure that they have the right supports that'll be done through the RFP.

we're not looking to expand at this time with the budget that we have.

If we approach different neighborhoods based off of SPD or other data, then we would follow the same approach that Claudia had recommended.

And that's, I think really the foundation for why Rainier beach, a beautiful safe place for youth that's in a department of neighborhoods is successful is because it really started from community.

There was an analysis of, you know, what are the issues?

Community got together and then started to identify the solutions, and it was very organic.

The city is one of many funders to support it, but it's the community-led approach.

And so if, for example, it expanded in North Seattle, I would very much be...

in support of, let's start with that community, do the assessment, and that's what the report, the auditor's report will say, SEPTED or other assessment, understand, okay, so then what's happening here?

Because there is some uniqueness of what's happening in the various communities.

Yesterday, I listened to a very robust report hearing that the public safety community, excuse me, the public safety committee was having, and Council Member Rivera, you asked about, well, what about Ingram High School and the middle school there?

But just as a reminder, we're also expanding our school safety work there too.

And so I think right now you're hearing an in-depth presentation about what HSD is doing around community safety, but to the point of many, and I got chills when you were talking is that there's so much more.

So there's a global perspective that we need to have.

It takes many different departments as well as going up and down our government to make a difference.

But right now, we're not expanding the hubs.

But I would support that approach that the auditor's office recommended.

SPEAKER_08

And just to reiterate, the mayor is building or has built, and I'll defer to Dan Burgess, a public safety framework.

HSD and these investments are one subset of it.

And so in the near future, you'll see how all of this fits together, how the care department, SPD, HSD, deal.

This is something that the mayor has been very passionate about.

It takes a lot of work.

And so Tim's, DM Burgess, whoo.

SPEAKER_05

Tim's great.

SPEAKER_08

His public safety team has been working on this for how long?

SPEAKER_05

Just over a year.

So quite a while, but it's coming soon.

SPEAKER_09

I have a couple more questions.

Maybe I'll just run through them.

So I wonder if you can talk a little bit about some of these other services.

Can you talk a little bit about if you're working with jails on reentry?

So on reentry services, for example, things like conflict resolution, you know, like I would just like to know a little bit more about what that looks like for folks who are exiting incarceration, family therapy, that sort of thing.

How are you working with housing providers to connect folks to case management services?

And then I guess, given the next conversation we'll be having as a council, can you talk a little bit about resources that are needed for these contracted providers?

SPEAKER_08

So just to be honest, I would say right now, which is the reason why the mayor, after his first meeting with all the providers, was like, this is too light for me.

So we pay for a lot of things, but the goal of this RFP is to pay for I don't want to say hardcore because that's bad.

Hardcore reentry services, the kind that you talked about, the kind that I know about that are connected to the jails.

I think we have reentry light right now and we need to move to more impactful.

It may be less organizations, but those organizations that have direct relationship with jails.

different facilities.

And then housing.

Right now we have Urban League only, and that's just not enough.

And so again, that's why we're moving towards this model because we need to figure out how to connect this system.

When somebody leaves, when I was a chaplain at 12th and Alder, young people would be released to the streets.

They're homeless, technically.

I mean, they would be considered homeless.

So how do we make that connection?

Sometimes we don't need more.

We just need to be smarter and connect the systems that already exist, even though we do need more housing.

And so that's the change we're trying to make.

Council Member Morales is we have a lot of nice things that it's not bad.

It's just we need a bigger, larger dosage of a few things that we know move the needle quicker.

SPEAKER_11

And if I may add, too, for nuance is that right now, individual organizations have their relationships with the courts, with the jails, with various departments.

The theory of change will allow us to set expectations and allow us to convene key stakeholders We're not doing that right now because we have well-intentioned, disparate group of organizations probably doing fantastic work, but we're not all driving towards the same North Star, if you will.

And so that's the power of being really clear about not only what we're purchasing and tracking that, but also setting the expectations and building the infrastructure that allows us to know exactly the relationships, where people are at, what the model is, et cetera.

And so we just need to be more intentional versus passing through dollars.

SPEAKER_09

Great.

Thank you very much.

I love puzzles, so maybe I'll try to work backwards and figure out the theory of change myself.

No need.

You'll get it soon.

Okay.

Thanks.

SPEAKER_06

I just want to make a point to the point that you've made, Council Member Morales, about the reentry.

I met with Representative Lauren Davis this week.

Yes, this week.

And she has done a lot of work at the state level on, because a number of the people who are in jail are on Apple Health.

And some of the providers are required under state law to actually work with people on re-entry.

And what she said to us was that the King County Jail is not working with these providers, even though they are mandated by the state to be proactively working with the people who are enrolled in their program.

So I think we need to perhaps make that connection so that we can have some discussions because A, King County Jail's not doing a good enough job, and B, there are already state resources that are being underutilized that could significantly enhance and supplement what's happening.

SPEAKER_08

I would love your help on that.

I would love programs where people can go in the jail before people are released.

So, like, if someone's going to be released in six months, I don't know why we would wait until they get released.

That's what I mean.

Like, we've all seen these programs.

They work.

And so I really would love any help from any of the council members.

I want to get inside before people are released.

SPEAKER_06

Thank you.

Council Member Rivera.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you for being here.

I have a lot of questions, but I'll follow up with Director Kim.

But I do want to say something about the idea of the hubs.

I understand you're not expanding, but I am going to say that there is a need for a hub on the north end.

We had two shootings either at or near Magnuson Park.

fatal shootings in the last month.

I got some crime data from SPD because I was curious on youth in particular, given Ingram is up on the north end and there was a fatal shooting there.

And according to SPD's crime data, juvenile involved crime at North Precinct reports the highest number of juvenile involved incidents among all precincts saw yearly increases in juvenile-involved crime reports from 2021 to 2023. So this is more recent.

And obviously, with the shooting at Ingram, this is just the North End is in need, and these youth are in need.

And full disclosure, I know we've been in conversations about it with Seattle Public Schools and I you know I know we were together at Rainier Beach High School announcing the mental health and other services you know funding for other services there as school started this week but we just there is obviously on the north end some need for the type of work that the Rainier Beach, a beautiful place for youth, is engaged in.

And I'm going to name it by name because I know it exists and it's doing great work.

So I'm just going to put a plug in for that and open to having conversations about how we do more on the north end to address what you so aptly, Deputy Mayor, said.

You know, this is an infection across our communities, across our city, our state.

and across our country.

And it's nowhere, no one is immune right now.

And we need to do, and sadly, we need to do more with less because we just don't have all the resources we wished we would have.

So to Council Member Moore's point, there's some state resources out there.

How do we leverage and how do we make sure that Seattle is getting its fair share from the state, which goes to the whole legislative agenda, you know, I'm not sure Seattle is getting its fair share of state dollars.

We've known this for years and it's just become more and more critical because in the absence of us getting our fair share, then Seattle voters are, we've had to tax folks more to do things in Seattle and we're not getting our fair share from the state.

So we're reliant more and more on city funding.

And so I just wanna say that as part of this conversation and want to have, like I said, continued conversations about what we can do on the north end to create a hub or something like a hub because the communities there are in need.

And I've said this before, both in my district at Magnuson Park and in Council Member Moore's district in the D5, the demographics of folks living there have changed.

There are a lot more immigrant communities living out there, kids.

A lot of families where English is not their first language and kids in need.

And it is my interest.

And Ingram is not in my district.

It's in Council Member Moore's district, but I care deeply about the kids up there, and we need to give attention to these kids up on the North End who are in need.

SPEAKER_08

The North End has surprised me in the last couple years.

The hubs were chosen because they have systemic, historical, ongoing, never-ending violence.

The North End is...

Fast like a pro and it's an anomaly to me.

I think there's multiple things that happens we do With limited resources you choose the places that have the most with that said it's great that you're here because you also chair the Education Committee and I think we just have to Utilize our limited dollar smarter if it's school safety.

Is it in the ed levy if it's So just, you know, we have school-based healthcare centers.

How do we utilize them?

And so I think we need to look at all of the current investments we have and see if there's different colors of money that can be applied to the issue.

And then one last thing about the North End.

I mean, there's just, as Director Kim said, there would need to be a whole community assessment.

That hub would probably look different.

rightfully so, than any of the other hubs because they have to meet the needs of that particular community and the dynamics that are going on there.

So don't disagree.

We just have to be very creative with how we can use different colors of money that apply to the same problems.

SPEAKER_00

And I will say that we're doing things in the schools, and I'm appreciative for the partnership both with the mayor's office, with HSD, with DEAL, and with SPS.

who've been great partners in trying to figure this out.

But I do think to the point you made earlier also, kids don't leave that at school.

This violence is happening in the community.

And this is why I really think we need to look at the north end and creating something there.

Whatever we call it, I do not care.

I just care that it gets attention and it gets attention sooner rather than later.

because I think what's happening recently is just going to keep happening more of if we don't take, you know, a hard, fast approach to this now and doing something now.

SPEAKER_08

Yeah, I agree.

SPEAKER_00

That's cohesive, not just a random, you know.

SPEAKER_08

And stop restricting ourselves.

So this is the last thing I'm going to say.

We have a lot of money, and we restricted it so very tightly.

So housing for people coming out of jail...

Why does that only have to be used with certain pots of money?

And so also going through an exercise collectively to say what money is coming in, what have we restricted it to, and how do we use the broadest sense of that?

Because we went so narrow that there's money that's not even being touched.

because we've said it's just for this under these circumstances.

Mental health is mental health.

Gun violence is gun violence.

Crime is crime.

And we should take some of the pressure off of ourselves and the restraints.

It would open us up to have the money to invest in additional hubs.

SPEAKER_06

So thank you, Council Member Rivera, for making those comments.

I, too, believe that we need to have a hub in the north end.

And I don't think it's sufficient to just say we're going to do this pot of money and that pot of money.

We need to have the designation.

And I think the problem is that we're locked in to some prior thinking.

And we need to be willing to say, yeah, now the circumstances on the ground have changed.

And we can work on getting a community assessment.

But part of the value of having the hub is that now it's recognized as an area where we need to be devoting specific resources.

And to your point, it allows us to collect the data, and data is what drives money.

So, yeah, we need to have a North End hub because we also have, you know, we, unfortunately, we have gang violence there, but it looks different, right?

But it's nonetheless, it's a lot of the same dynamics.

And so, again, you got two of us here engaging in some additional conversations.

Anyway, I want to move on because we're getting short for time here.

Council Member Saka.

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

Thank you, Madam Chair.

First off, I want to acknowledge and say thank you to Councilmember Morales for kind of anchoring us all collectively on sort of how we got here.

I think that was an important contribution and helped really provide some balance to this conversation and just to make sure we're all rooted on how we got here.

So thank you, Councilmember Morales.

Thank you for that exchange, Deputy Mayor Washington, as well.

Yes, there is a shameful history of underinvestment, no investment, and, you know, racist policies that led us to where we are today.

And, you know, whether that's through redlining or racially restrictive covenants or whatever it is, people say, oh, well, United States Supreme Court held unconstitutional racially restricted covenants in Shelley v. Kramer in 1940-something or 50-something.

That was 70-plus years ago.

Well, we can change all the laws we want.

We will.

We will continue to do that.

It's the nature of democracy.

But the difficult work comes in changing people's hearts and minds and changing biases, conscious and unconscious.

And we're all on this shared, perilous journey towards transformation together.

So yes, we need to understand how we got here, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

But then also pivot to the solutions, which we started out doing.

But it was a great contribution, and I appreciate it.

Quick question.

I love, love, love the work that's reflected on slides 15 and 16. You know, you call it the outcomes and measurements and the evaluation and accountability.

I would simplify that.

In the business world, you know, we call that KPIs or key performance indicators.

We need to work hard to establish those and hold ourselves accountable to those for everything across the board.

But that's a great initial set of key performance indicators to simplify all the exciting words that you all have there.

So applaud, kudos to the work that went into that.

What would you say, again, creating that initial, everything is subject to change and evolution as we learn more.

What kind of high level principles or factors are gonna guide your approach to potentially making revisions and updating that even further on a going forward basis?

And part one, at a very high level, at a very high level.

And then what, How can we on the council level be supportive in your executive efforts to refine that, those KPIs?

SPEAKER_08

So I'm going to brag on HSD.

And our fearless leader, Catherine Lester, who we both sat under, created the results-based accountability framework for the department.

And HSD has a funding manual, which we're happy to share with any of you if you want to read 50 pages.

But in it, it requires Director Kim's staff every three years to do a lit review on all the investments.

So they turn on three-year cycles.

And essentially, it's looking to ask a couple questions.

have we shifted the data?

Are the problem statements or issues the same?

And if yes, do we need to purchase those?

And so if the answer is, let's use North Seattle.

It's showing that traditionally these three communities had the highest level of gun violence.

But look, we found in this lit review that now the North End, so then that requires Director Kim to put out the portfolio of investments out for bid to stop purchasing what no longer is needed.

It might have been helpful in the time.

And then to purchase what the new strategy is that were needed.

And so the funding manual is designed to do a three-year review for every investment area to see if we need to change the strategy, update the strategy.

In some cases, leave it alone.

It's working.

We don't need to do anything.

Am I missing anything that you want to add?

SPEAKER_11

I think that's right.

How you can support us is allow us to collect the data, be really honest with it, and tell the story behind the data, because as we've demonstrated here, this work alone is not the end-all, be-all to resolve gun violence in Seattle.

It just isn't going to, but it's going to be a key part of the multi-pronged strategy.

So if we collect this data, we review it, if we have a dashboard, we come here, we tell you the story behind the data and where we need to improve.

We need the ability to be a learning environment and adjust accordingly, but we should be able to say what we're adjusting and why.

So it does have to be grounded.

That's one way that we can support each other, knowing that we have the ability to...

get better and be honest with the data.

If we're in an environment, and that goes for anybody, any organization, where we place, and this has happened in the past, which is why I bring it up.

When we put the onus on a community-based organization to solve everything, there's another, unfortunately, there will likely be another shooting.

It's not the agency's fault, right?

but let's look at what is our contribution to decreasing gun violence in our space, and then reflecting honestly where we see the benefits and where we need to improve.

And so having that learning environment is really important.

Not all...

policymakers or leaders are comfortable in that space of being really honest so we can pivot.

If we hide behind the notion of being perfect or having it come out, we're missing an opportunity to be better.

So that's where I would ask for your support.

SPEAKER_04

Love it.

We are all...

nuance and perfect creatures at the end of the day.

And yeah, couldn't agree more.

Excuse me.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_06

Council President, did you have your hand up?

Sorry, I should take that down.

All right.

Well, I don't think we have any more questions.

Thank you very much for this presentation.

It was...

very, very informative, very helpful, and appreciated the lively conversation that it engendered, and we will continue to do this work and look forward to seeing the theory of change and talking to you about a community safety hub in North End.

SPEAKER_08

Boy, you guys are going to be underwhelmed by this theory of change.

The meat and potatoes was on the screen, but now I feel like we need to make it color-coded or something.

We'll figure it out so you're impressed.

I'm sure it'll be impressive.

SPEAKER_10

I have to note that after this discussion, I do have more optimism than I have in the past.

SPEAKER_06

yeah thank you so optimistic about the direction so thank you all for your work and for your presentation today um all right i do believe that council member saka you wanted to make some comments for the good of the order before we conclude yes thank you madam chair uh just

SPEAKER_04

I think there was a lot of great discussion by you all, colleagues, with respect to the ILA amendment, that whole conversation and vote.

Given that we had to sort of expedite our voting there, and I was comfortable with a lot of the comments made and the direction we were headed, I did not, at the time, get a chance to personally weigh in on that.

And I just wanted to share just...

You know, my observations and sort of self-reflections on directionally, you know, where we're at today and where we're heading with respect to the whole ILA amendment process.

And so, first off, I'll note that I aspire to be a strong cheerleader and advocate of the KCRHA.

I strongly support it is a regional problem.

And, you know, Seattle...

We shouldn't endeavor to solve that complex challenge in isolation solely by ourselves.

And so that's why I think it makes a lot of sense.

And I'm glad we have.

And I look forward to continuing to be a cheerleader and advocate of the KCRHA.

I love the KCRHA.

Love, love, love it.

That said, my love for the KCRHA is no different than my love for our country or our city.

It's not a blind love.

I'm here to help support, amplify, and uplift the work and hold the body of work accountable as well.

And I'm gonna keep fighting.

No, I'm not gonna keep fighting.

Colleagues, I'm gonna keep collaborating alongside you all to help, in this case, KCRHA be better.

And so I think these amendments The proposed changes to the ILA puts our city in a strong position to be better and better more efficiently and effectively address these complex challenges underlying homelessness.

And so, starting with streamlining and simplifying the governance structure as a As a lawyer, when I was in private practice, I spent a lot of time forming companies, helping advising nonprofits, helping to do exactly that, simplify and streamline governance structures, drafting articles of incorporation, bylaws, and all the things, and sitting on boards even.

And I've learned the power of efficient and effective governance practices.

And I think this...

New set of boards.

It puts us in a great position to do exactly that.

Prior, before we had three boards.

Now we have two.

Three is too many in my view.

Although query whether, you know, one of those boards is a federally mandated board.

Query whether they have, I do think they have some substantive decision-making ability.

But it doesn't, it's not as substantive as the other boards.

But my point is, This new process or governance structure is more simplified, more streamlined, and it puts us in a great position to make better, more urgent progress on the issue of homelessness.

So I'm proud to have supported that today.

I think we need to continue to iterate everything.

Every policy, every investment is subject to continuing, ongoing evaluation and iteration and make it better.

And again, I'm proud of this, where we landed, Chair Moore, I guess, Council President as well.

I know you both sit from the city level on the broader, forgot the name of the committee.

Governing Board Committee.

SPEAKER_10

Yeah, that one.

Soon to be Governing Board.

SPEAKER_04

Yes, yes.

So I know there are a lot of us kind of championing and advocating for these kind of changes behind the scenes, but you all...

took on the heavy lift of leading it and overseeing that and making sure that we have this great revised agreement.

So I just want to commend and acknowledge your great work.

So thank you on that.

And then final two things I want to note about directionally where we might consider going forward.

I'm glad that we have the performance audit baked in there.

And every six years, at a minimum, There's nothing that prevents us contractually from doing that ahead of time, as I understand it.

But six years is a long time.

So we should query whether it makes sense to revisit that at some point in the future or...

contractually.

And even if we didn't contractually do that, there's nothing that would prevent us from insisting and using our advocacy and bargaining power to make sure that we have one more frequently.

So whether it's every two years, every three years, whatever it is, we need to strike a good balance, of course.

And I know all the planners thought of this between making sure that we're in a position the KCRHA is in a position to deliver and not overly worried about the next performance audit and complying and giving adequate space to do that.

But six years does strike me as a fair amount of time.

So let's consider how we can potentially revisit that or make it a little more frequent.

And glad that we have that unilateral right to terminate for convenience.

We need that as well.

A lot of money involved in this investment.

But my hope would be that would be exercise as a very very last resort and we will have exhausted as if as a city in our partner our partner cities and jurisdictions to this agreement if they so choose to exercise that right will have exhausted every conceivable Avenue to address their underlying concerns before going ahead with the with the contractually appropriate but huge exercise in that right to terminate unilaterally.

So in any event, I think it's a great revised package.

Proud to support it.

Moot now, but at least at the committee level, although we haven't officially approved it at the full council level, but I agree with your observation and point at the outset of the meeting, Chair Moore, that it is important that we keep this moving forward now before budget.

So for the exact reasons you mentioned.

So anyways.

SPEAKER_10

Can I just respond to one thing?

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, yeah.

That is all I wanted to say.

I just wanted to kind of share out and make the record clear on my position on that and acknowledge the great work and your leadership colleagues.

And I welcome any feedback as well.

So thank you, Madam Chair.

SPEAKER_10

I appreciate your input and it occurs to me that I would, that we are nine people and the mayor is one person and we are all in the same, you know, we're all involved.

So I think that I would be more, I would be interested in understanding and learning and being a conduit for my colleagues' thoughts and then also bring back information as well.

So count me as an ally in that and that's just a note to self.

Um, the, uh, the COC, the, the federal funding that you mentioned, that is 60 million.

So that is, that is separate from, that is a, um, that's federally mandated COC continuum of care board difference, working out how that will provide input to the governing board.

And then finally, If you're thinking in your mind that six years sounds like a long time for ongoing evaluation, we do have our annual budget process and that is a data, that is a point where council as a whole can have some influence on the performance of the entity because we do have to obviously approve, council does, our contribution on an annual basis.

So that's another place where there is some influence for other council members.

SPEAKER_04

Thank you.

Great points.

And I'll just note, you have been being a good partner and a conduit for our voices so far.

So I obviously fully expect you'll continue to do so.

But thank you for acknowledging your willingness to continue to do so.

So thank you.

SPEAKER_06

Well, thank you, Council Member Saka.

I really appreciate those comments.

We probably could have used your legal eye when we were revamping this.

So I appreciate your stamp of approval at this point.

And I take your point about The six years does seem like a long time.

I think it was tied to the five-year planning cycle.

But there is really...

So, I mean, if King County comes back and they have significantly altered this, then certainly that reopens the...

the agreement on our end and to add that.

If that doesn't happen, there's always the opportunity to go through the governing board and to amend the bylaws through that process.

In the bylaws, we could provide for more frequent audit.

So we're not completely precluded from internally we can make those changes as well so just to reassure you and yeah I appreciate your support I think in council president I have worked hard on this and I've really appreciated her partnership on this and I just want to make one comment as I I noticed we had somebody here during public comment who happened to be recording me when I made the comment about not being supportive at budget, again, out of context.

So just for the broader context, I view this as an opportunity to reset and to recommit to an effective regional approach, and that's why at this time I am very much supportive of the revamped ILA and moving forward.

So just so the record's clear.

Anyway, it looks like we are come to the end.

So this is going to conclude the September 11th meeting of Housing and Human Services.

Our next meeting is scheduled for December 11th, 2024. So after we've gone through the budget gauntlet.

And again, thank you everyone for being here today and for the active engagement.

And also for the active engagement that we've had on this committee from the get-go.

I just feel really honored to chair this committee.

and to work with you.

And it's meaningful and dense and tough stuff.

So I appreciate everybody showing up to the discussions and to the topic.

So thank you.

The time is now 1154, and we are adjourned.