Seattle City Council Select Committee on Homelessness Strategies & Investments 1/27/21

All right, well, now that we have a quorum, I will call this meeting to order.

The January 27th, 2021 meeting of the Seattle City Council Select Committee on Homelessness Strategies and Investments will come to order.

It is 2.02 p.m.

I'm Andrew Lewis, chair of the Seattle City Council Select Committee on Homelessness Strategies and Investments.

Will the committee clerk please call the roll?

Council President Gonzalez?

Councilmember Herbold?

Here.

Councilmember Juarez?

Here.

Councilmember Morales?

Councilmember Mosqueda?

Councilmember Peterson?

Here.

Councilmember San Juan?

Councilmember Strauss?

Present.

Chair Lewis?

Chair, there are six members present.

Thank you.

And as folks trickle in, do please just send a note to the chair and I will recognize your presence.

Approval of the agenda.

If there is no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

chair's report.

So today we are, I'll just, I'll be brief in my comments at the top.

Here we are going to go over the Council Bill 119975 that I introduced in December relating to certain land use controls around permanent supportive housing, and we will have the formally posted hearing on that bill today, as well as a preview of the amendments that members have submitted related to that bill.

We will not have any votes today on the amendments or the underlying bill, but do anticipate those votes next month following the substantive conversation we've had on that legislation.

here this afternoon.

We will also receive an update from the mayor's office on standing up the shelter investments that this council made in our budget in November of 2020 for 545 additional shelter spaces, a surge of shelter spaces to respond to the critical crisis of unsanctioned encampments and street homelessness in the city of Seattle that we all witness on a daily basis, and the need to get our neighbors inside and in a safe and warm place to live.

And look forward to that update on the status of those shelter investments.

We will also then consider a resolution, and I will make a request to suspend the rules later in the agenda, for a resolution relating to the King County Homelessness Authority.

So now that we've walked through the agenda, I would like to open the public comment.

I would note that there is a separate noted public hearing on Council Bill 119975, and we will take public comment on that bill during that hearing later in this agenda.

So the following public comment will be for remarks generally related to the operations of this committee and to other agenda items.

I will moderate the public comment period in the following manner.

The public comment period will be 20 minutes.

Each speaker will be given two minutes to speak.

I will call on each speaker by name and in the order in which they registered on the council's website.

If you have not yet registered to speak, but you would like to, you can.

Sorry.

This is rather embarrassing.

The script is lagging.

If you would like to sign up, but you have not been able to yet, you can go to the council's website, to the public comment link, and that's at Seattle.gov slash council, and sign up to comment on today's agenda.

Once I call the speaker's name, staff will unmute the appropriate microphone, and an automatic prompt of you have been unmuted will be the speaker's cue that it is their turn to speak, and then the speaker must press star six to begin speaking.

Please begin speaking by stating your name and the item that you are addressing.

As a reminder, public comment should relate to an item on today's agenda or within the committee's purview.

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

Once you hear the chime, we ask that you begin to wrap up your public comment.

If speakers do not end their comments at the end of the allotted time provided, the speaker's microphone will be muted to allow us to call on the next speaker.

Once you have completed your public comment, we ask that you please disconnect from the line, and if you plan to continue following this meeting, please do so via Seattle Channel or the listening options listed on the agenda.

Before I announce the public comment period being open, I do want to recognize that council members Morales and Mosqueda have joined us.

Thank you so much.

Just in time for the beginning of public comment.

And with that, the public comment period is now open and we will begin with the first speaker on the list.

Please remember to press star six after you hear the prompt of you have been on muted.

So our first speaker will be Jacqueline Frankforth.

Chair Lewis, members of the City Council, my name is Jacqueline Frankforth, and I should make sure you can hear me.

We can hear you, Jacqueline.

Great, thank you.

Jacqueline Frankforth, I'm a resident.

I live near several parks in the North End, and I am calling in today to urge the Council to increase its investments in shelter for the homeless, as well as causes and conditions.

I, as I said, live near the park.

I visited several times a day during the pandemic.

I have witnessed firsthand the increased usage of members of the public and members of the public who are without homes.

I can see several tents from my backyard, and it's only increasing.

And I would encourage you to keep in mind the broken window phenomenon, that when there's a cracked window, it begets more cracked windows.

And we're seeing increased temps throughout the park.

And with outdoor classrooms being conducted by private schools, it's really, important for increased accountability.

We need to provide sufficient investments in shelters that are safe for the people without homes and keep our parks our parks.

So I encourage public investment and thank you for this opportunity.

Jacqueline, thank you so much.

Our next speaker will be Elyse Krishom-Clare.

Elyse, you are recognized.

And I apologize in advance if I mispronounce any of the names of folks in public comment.

Hi, council members.

Can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you.

Great.

I'm Elyse Krishom-Clare.

And I'm here today because I want to urge you to accelerate the development of tiny house villages as a stepping stone toward more permanent housing for our homeless population.

I'm also asking that you prioritize the relocation of campers in residential neighborhoods and adjacent parks for the safety and well-being of all.

I live in the Ravenna neighborhood in North Seattle, which has weathered a dramatic increase in illegal camping since the start of the pandemic.

Sprawling, garbage-strewn campsites, have become fixtures in our parks and traffic medians.

At the same time, we're increasingly seeing evidence of property crime, violence, drug addiction, and the degradation of our green spaces.

In the last six months, I've personally had my home vandalized.

I witnessed an assault at a camp just a few blocks away, and I've disposed of used needles left on nearby sidewalks.

As a mom with a young family, this is all too much.

But I love this city and I'm committed to holding our leaders accountable.

I hope you have the will to finally take bold action and make real progress on this issue.

As the Seattle Times reported on Sunday, the recent revival of John C. Little Senior Park is a success story for homeless people on a positive path and for the New Holly community.

It can and should urgently be replicated elsewhere.

Thank you for your consideration.

Thank you.

Our next speaker will be Sherry Dalrymple.

And Sherry, you are recognized.

OK.

Are you able to hear me?

Yes.

Thank you.

OK.

Again, yes, my name is Sherry Dalrymple.

As the others who have noted, I also live in the Northeast end near Ravenna Park.

So my window looks directly out at the green space on Ravenna Avenue, which is a small green space called Olga Park.

I'm on the first floor of a building of a co-op.

I am a mother of two young children, two and a half and four months old.

And excuse me for my emotion, but this has become an increasing problem for my family.

We don't have the luxury of having privacy and a safe green space for my children.

I just want to tell you a few instances that have occurred recently outside our home that have been really scary for me as a as a young mother.

These conditions are rapidly deteriorating since the start of the pandemic.

Excuse me.

There have been all summer long I have dealt with loud noises whether it be music fights Vulgar language.

We have dealt with it all.

In the past two weeks, the police have swarmed this camp.

Four or five police cars.

It was 9 p.m.

at night.

There was a woman inside a tent screaming.

That situation was resolved.

Four nights later, woken at 3 in the morning, this fight's out there.

My children are sleeping inside.

See from the situation.

There have been fires out there.

The police department have responded to.

Not only that, but in this general area, the amount of needles that my husband and I have found is scary.

I just want to urge you to consider and prioritize the relocation of the Olga Camp people so that they can find safe and warm shelter during this time and our families and neighbors can have safe places to return to.

Thank you.

Sherry, thank you.

And it sounded like you still had a few more thoughts there.

If you want to email my office, I'm happy to talk further about the situation.

So thank you for calling in and commenting this afternoon.

The next speaker will be Aaron Freed.

Aaron, you are recognized.

Hi, this is Erin Freed.

I work with the Capitol Hill Ecodistrict, and I'd like to speak to the placement of tiny house villages as I understand that's being discussed today.

Are you able to hear me?

Yes, we can hear you, Erin.

Thank you.

Great.

I'm glad to see that an expansion of tiny house villages is planned and that this is under discussion.

In Capitol Hill, just as we've seen across the city, a crisis level of homelessness plaguing our neighbors has skyrocketed, and we've seen this pandemic wreak havoc on unhoused people who have taken refuge in public spaces.

Ultimately, the city must address this long-running crisis with a long-term solution, the creation of vastly more permanent supportive housing and more affordable housing.

But right now, I think we need to engage with what is in front of us, which is people in need of secure shelter and community to support them.

And that is what tiny house villages provide.

The need for a tiny house village in Capitol Hill has never been greater, particularly in the aftermath of chops and sweeps of Cal Anderson Park by SPD, which has been painful for the neighborhood to bear when unhoused people have nowhere else to go.

Our neighbors who are unhoused deserve solutions where they are, They deserve to be close to resources, which is why I believe they are tenting in public parks in this center city neighborhood.

We've heard from folks living in Capitol Hill parks that tiny houses are a welcome strategy that meets their needs.

And we know from our partners' experience that tiny houses are a conduit to permanent supportive housing, much more so than shelters.

The creation of a tiny house village in Capitol Hill, coupled with a very badly needed urban rest stop would be welcomed by the neighborhood, and I ask that it be considered within the planned portfolio of investment.

Thank you.

Thank you.

The next speaker will be Carol Cahill.

Hello.

You can hear me?

Yes.

Thank you.

My name is Carol Cahill, and I'm an owner resident at the Park Vista Cooperative right next to Olga Park, the same building Sherry lives in.

Several of us have contacted Council Member Peterson numerous times over the past several months about the encampment at the park.

Leaving the tent encampments in place no longer seems like a viable option, especially during winter when a pandemic is still raging, and it really is inhumane to let people remain unsheltered.

And aside from the health and safety risks to those living in the tents, there are risks to the neighborhood due to the attempted break-ins at nearby apartment buildings, including ours.

Not to mention numerous fires requiring response by both police and fire departments.

One of them last November had flames 15 feet high that damaged a tree and could have gotten seriously out of hand if it hadn't been so wet out.

Since the beginning of this year, neighbors in the building have frequently been disturbed in the middle of the night by fights and loud music at the encampment.

Seattle's parks are public, taxpayer-supported spaces that become essentially unusable when taken over by unsightly and unsafe encampments.

When campers do move on, often mountains of garbage are left behind for the city to haul away.

A number of people living near Olga and Cowan parks have seriously considered moving because of the effect of the tent encampments on neighborhood quality of life.

Um, I'm asking the city to immediately offer shelter to those who are camping in the park.

And I also do support the tiny house village building more of those as well, but also clean up the mess left behind post signage that camping is not allowed in parks.

And most importantly, enforce no camping rules going forward.

The current approach isn't serving anyone.

Um, it's frustrating to repeatedly reach out to our council member and get no response regarding our concerns.

Remember, you can engage those who care about our nation and those allies to help make this happen.

Thank you.

Thank you, Carol.

And we will be talking about the shelter investments in this committee.

So stay tuned.

Appreciate you calling in.

Megan Murphy, you are recognized.

Hi, thanks for letting me speak.

I just wanted to say a tsunami of evictions will hit Seattle in the coming year without bold action by the city Seattle City Council.

Tens of thousands evictions disproportionately in communities of color will likely overwhelm the courts shelters and streets as people lose their homes.

This would be a human catastrophe on a scale that the city hasn't seen in a century.

On top of the unprecedented economic costs that our city would be forced to bear for shelters emergency housing food health care emergencies and public safety concerns.

Even before the state of emergency nearly 3 in 5 renters nationally could not come up with $400 in emergency money.

Almost half of Seattle tenants were not burdened paying more than were rent burdened.

They were rent burdened paying more than to pay more than 30 percent of their incomes on rent.

Now the housing crisis is much worse and it will remain dire for tens of thousands of renters, especially in communities of color, well after vaccination programs gained momentum.

Nationally, about 12 million renters owe an average of $5,850 in back rent and utilities.

Some 28% of all U.S. renters started this year with rent debt.

In the Black community, the Black community pummeled even harder.

by the economic recession.

53% of households are in rent debt.

So that's why there has to be complete rental debt forgiveness.

And yeah, not only extending, if you can't do the complete rent forgiveness, which would be ideal for everybody, it cleanses society.

It's just, you know, there's a book by Astor Taylor about debt and forgiving debt.

It needs to be extended until the end of next year for people to pay, of this year, until December of 2021. Rent, back rent is on hold.

Thanks.

Thank you.

The next speaker will be Matt Elhart.

Matt, are you there?

Remember to press star six to unmute.

Hi, council members.

My name is Matt Alhart and I'm a resident of Ravenna in northeast Seattle where I've lived for nine years and worked.

My wife is a teacher at Bryant Elementary.

I'm speaking today for the first time ever at this because I'm frustrated.

I'm frustrated that I continue to see homeless encampments throughout the neighborhood.

I'm frustrated that there was a large camp recently at the entrance to the park where my children play.

I'm frustrated that when it was moved, the park was damaged with garbage everywhere.

I'm frustrated that our friends had to call the police to remove a homeless person from their property.

I'm frustrated that the police told them that there was not much they could do since the jails were full.

I'm also frustrated that my neighbor, Kevin, is imploring us to speak to you today about a small business which has been consistently vandalized in the last several months.

I'm frustrated that another neighbor's construction office in Ballard has run down RVs camped in front of it, which is customers have to walk through to do business with them.

I'm frustrated that every time I run on the Burt Gilman Trail, I see the same man sleeping in a sleeping bag on the side of the road.

I'm frustrated that I see him almost every other day.

And most of all, I'm frustrated with our lack of apparent compassion and guts to solve this problem.

I'm frustrated that we have a bureaucracy that spends nearly $100 million in Seattle and $200 million in King County with basically zero progress in the five years since we all agreed this was an emergency.

And I want to stop being frustrated.

I want us to stop talking about it and start doing something.

I want us to rapidly build shelters, and at the same time, ban outdoor camping.

Councilman Lewis' It Takes a Village campaign is great, but I can't help but wonder, after five years, why is it taking private philanthropy to get this done?

Myself and my son's Cub Scout pack recently spent a Saturday painting tiny houses.

Are we as adults in this room so incapable of fixing this problem that we're now relying on the philanthropy of 10-year-olds to help solve it.

I want us to be radical and bold about using credit cards.

Interest rates are super low.

If funded well, we get $7 million in annual financing, could build around 5,000 tiny houses.

I want to get it done.

I hope you do too.

Thank you, Matt.

The next speaker is Martin Dickey.

OK.

Star six, you should be able to hear me.

We can hear you, Mark.

Great.

Thanks, Mr. Lewis and council members for this opportunity.

My name is Martin Dickey.

I've lived in the neighborhood for 24 years.

I live where University Way passes Ravenna Boulevard at Olga Park.

I want to talk about homeless encampments in the parks, particularly that park, and I will have a proposal.

From my kitchen window, I can look down on this large homeless encampment.

It's more than just tents and sleeping bags.

I can see mattresses, cinder blocks, desk chairs, all sorts of junk.

This is not a secluded hillside in some remote area of a park, but a strip of land adjacent to several large apartment buildings and other residences.

We neighbors have really lost the use of the parkland here.

Police and fire department can tell you about many problems they've been called to here, as have some of my neighbors who've already spoken.

My proposal is this.

I know you're not going to ban camping outright in all parks, but I suggest you declare a non-tolerance zone in the parks of 200 feet from any residential building.

Tents and other debris in the zone should be removed on a zero-day basis.

In other words, the tent goes up overnight.

The next morning, it is cleared away.

Moving the current campers to tiny houses or motels won't solve the problem here because the campers typically leave everything behind and new squatters arrive to take their place.

To summarize, I'm asking you to enforce a zero tolerance, zero delay, no camping zone, 200 feet from any residential building.

Please give us back our neighborhood.

Thank you.

That concludes the public comment session.

Moving on to items of business.

Item one.

We'll now move on to discuss Council Bill 119975, an ordinance relating to land use and zoning, establishing regulations for development, permanent supportive housing, and adding a new section and amending the Seattle Municipal Code.

My committee clerk was supposed to read that.

I'm sorry, Jacob, usurping your role on that.

You'll get the next agenda item.

But I want to invite up to the table our presenters, our virtual table, as it were, in Zoom, our presenters on this topic.

I know we're joined by Ketel Friedman from central staff.

I do want to note that Council Member Sawant has now joined the committee.

Thank you, Council Member Sawant.

Good to have you here.

And Jacob, can you announce the other folks who are going to be present from the executive side for this discussion?

Yes, we have Mike Podowski from the Department of Correction and Inspections, Construction and Inspections, rather, and Lori Olson from the Office of Housing.

Great.

Can we just briefly do a round of introductions by stating name and organization.

I guess Jacob already sort of did that for you, but, um, just to announce your presence here and we'll move into the agenda item.

I'll start and then I'll pass it to Mike and he can pass it to Lori.

That's the way I see it here on my screen.

So, uh, Ketel Freeman, council central staff, Mike to you.

I'm Mike Podaski.

I manage land use code development and policy development at SDCI.

Hi, I'm Lori Olson.

I'm the capital investments manager for the office of housing.

Thank you.

So just to give a little idea of the run of show here, we're going to have city staff give an overview of the legislation and the amendments.

We're then going to move on to our public hearing.

So folks who have signed up to publicly comment, don't worry, we're going to get to you right after this initial presentation and look forward to your comments.

So with that, Ketil, why don't you begin talking about this legislation and then we'll hear from the other presenters.

Sure, so I'll refresh the committee's memory about what is in this bill, and that's actually contained in a memorandum from me that was presented to the committee in December of last year.

There's also some additional background information that I'll commend to you, which is in another memo from Jeff Semmes that talks a little bit about the demand for permanent supportive housing.

And then I'll also be referring to a memo that is attached to the agenda from yesterday that outlines four potential amendments and a substitute to Council Bill 119975. So first, to refresh your memory about what this Council Bill would do, it would establish a definition in the Land Use Code for permanent supportive housing.

It would define permanent supportive housing as a multifamily residential use with at least 90% of units affordable to households earning up to 50% of area median income, that's about $50,000 a year, that receives public funding and that has a contractual term of affordability of at least 40 years.

It would establish that onsite supportive services, which is a component of permanent supportive housing, can be an accessory use to permanent supportive housing and could also be available to clients who are not necessarily residents of the building.

It would provide a series of exemptions from land use code standards to facilitate siting and rapid development of permanent supportive housing, including exemptions from floor area used for onsite supportive services from calculations of floor area ratio limits.

That's a density limit for residential and commercial development that exempt permanent supportive housing from design review.

It would exempt permanent supportive housing from long and short-term bicycle parking requirements.

It would authorize the SDCI director as a type one decision, which is a non-discretionary, non-appealable decision to waive specified physical development standards for permanent supportive housing.

There are some community outreach requirements that would be required for permanent supportive housing development, and it would expand those areas where permanent supportive housing can be located to include commercial two zones and also at street level where street level uses are required to support a pedestrian environment that would allow permanent supportive housing there without limitation.

So turning to the amendment to the bill, this is the memo that is the agenda dated January 25th.

There is a substitute which makes non-substantive corrections.

It corrects a few conjunctions.

It eliminates a redundant word.

makes other non-substantive changes.

All of those changes are on pages three and four of the substitute bill.

Substitute bill is an attachment to the memo.

And then there are four specific amendments, three sponsored, one sponsored by Council Member Lewis, and three sponsored by Council Member Peterson.

Council Member Lewis's amendment would modify the definition to limit the affordability to better reflect the mix of funding that OH looks for in funding permanent supportive housing projects.

It would require that at least half of dwelling units and permanent supportive housing projects be affordable to households earning up to 30% of area median income.

So a lower income threshold that is more consistent with folks who are exiting homelessness that would be served by permanent supportive housing.

And what the remainder would be affordable to very low income households, which is a defined term in the land use code, meaning households earning up to 50% of area median income.

This is a definition that we talked about in December, a potential change that was flagged then.

Council Member Peterson's amendments, there are three.

One would add a recital that relates back to Resolution 31956, the Internet for All Seattle, establishing the council's intent to consider changes to the housing funding policies requiring installation and broadband infrastructure.

This is consistent with a HUD requirement.

Council Member Peterson's second amendment would add an additional requirement to the Community Relations Plan requirement that would be a component of Council Bill 119975 for Permanent Supportive Housing.

So it would establish a land use code requirement that there be at least one public meeting for a Permanent Supportive Housing project and that there'd be notification to businesses and residents within 500 feet of a Permanent Supportive Housing project.

And then finally, Council Member Peterson, I would also amend the definition of permanent supportive housing.

To clarify, the permanent supportive housing has to be paired with on or off-site voluntary human services.

The language here in this potential amendment is drawn from language in the Growth Management Act and the GMA's definition of permanent supportive housing.

So that is kind of a rundown of potential amendments and a refresher on what the bill does.

If you have any questions, I can answer them.

or try to, I may be asking Mike and Lori to chime in as well.

Yeah, Kito, why don't we go ahead and hear from Mike and Lori on the legislation and the potential amendments.

I would then like to take a second maybe to briefly speak to my amendment and provide a few additional comments.

I'd like to give Council Member Peterson an opportunity to speak to his amendments that you laid out as well.

But why don't we hear from Mike and Lori first, and then turn to Alex and I.

I can be quick.

I don't have anything to add to that fine summary that Keto gave.

And I'll stand by to answer any questions that committee members may have.

I just want to say how grateful we are that this legislation is being proposed.

We have learned so much by council's passage of the emergency legislation last year.

We issued our first permanent supportive housing pilot in the summer of 2020 to invigorate and to move forward with as many affordable housing units for homeless individuals as we could.

Many of those projects are under construction today, thanks to you all, and using a product very similar to what we're discussing today.

So I'm just really grateful that we're talking about this.

Great.

Thank you so much, Lori and Mike, for your comments.

I just want to take a moment to address my amendment.

Throughout the drafting of this, I really wanted to make sure this legislation was very targeted to the population of folks that we're really trying to carve out more housing supply for.

That's people that are exiting homelessness, particularly folks who have certain public health barriers to accessing market rate housing or a certain income level where those are hurdles and need to have more permanent supportive housing to get into a permanent warm and safe housing placement.

You know, I think that these new AMI levels of 50% of the housing in a given building being at 30% or below and then 50% being up to 50% of AMI better reflects that goal rather than having 100% at 50% or below to avoid any potential of unintended consequences of providing some kind of loophole where housing that isn't necessarily permanent supportive takes advantage of this ordinance.

So that's the essential motivation behind that amendment that I've put forward.

And just wanted to briefly speak to it.

Thank you, Ketel, for preparing that.

And thank you to the Office of Housing for your guidance on shaping and constructing that amendment and also a lot of the other things mentioned in this bill.

So, you know, with that, I want to give Council Member Peterson an opportunity to speak to his three amendments, and then I want to open it up a little bit here if any other committee members want to share some comments at this stage, and we can then transition to the comment period on the bill and closed out this agenda item.

So Council Member Peterson, why don't you go ahead and take a moment to go over your proposed amendments.

Thank you, Chair Lewis, and I want to thank you for introducing this legislation, looking at how to speed the construction of permanent supportive housing, which is necessary to implement our housing first approach to get people into a permanent sense of housing that is also providing these wraparound services that they may need.

This is coupled with your initiative announced recently for temporary tiny home villages to get people from where they're living now and parks and greenways on the streets.

I did want to acknowledge constituents who call in today about Olga Park.

We're very aware of that dire situation and so is the mayor's office.

And so thank you for taking the time to call in and reiterate that.

regarding this bill to speed the production of permanent supportive housing by exempting them from design review.

These three amendments, again, there's no vote today, as I understand, so this is just out here for discussion.

We can talk further.

My legislative aide has been working hard on these, Cara Valle, and so she may reach out to your staff.

I've been working with Council Member Lewis's office a little bit on this.

The first one is just a recital.

Since we passed the Internet for All resolution, it's just looking for any opportunity to remind everybody that we're interested in having Internet access installed wherever it can be.

Again, this is a non-binding recital about Internet for All.

That access to the internet is so important for people to get the supportive services they need, education, training, jobs, to close the digital divide.

The second amendment is in the body of the bill and is more substantive, which would Since we'd be exempting these projects from design review, and there is some concern out there about exempting more and more projects from design review, this is just saying that there would be a community meeting, there'd be at least one community meeting, which is something that is very helpful to educate the neighborhood on what's happening.

I think people, my experience has been the more people are made aware of these projects, comfortable they are with them, and they welcome their neighbors, and it's a positive result.

So it's just saying we just need to have one community meeting.

It's, I think, the bare minimum.

And then the third amendment is taking the language from the original draft, which says permanent supportive housing means multifamily residential use, which may include accessory human just changing that.

So we use the word shall.

So ju defining what it is.

Um, b attorney's office and we what it says today, which So it's really just more firmly defining what we're talking about with permanent support housing.

So those are my three amendments, happy to answer questions or, and we can talk, you know, between now and the next meeting as well.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson.

And thank you for bringing those items forward for discussion.

And I look forward to talking to you over the next month about those amendments and other issues related to this bill.

So with that, I want to open it up, colleagues, if anyone else wants to make any general comments at this time, ask any questions to central staff or council members, Peterson or I about our amendments, happy to open it up.

And if folks could use the raise hand feature Okay, great.

It looks like it.

Oh, Council Member Mosqueda, using the old school physical raise hand feature.

You are recognized.

Mosqueda Old School here for you.

Thank you very much, council members and Mr. Chair.

Just a quick question.

I'm sorry, I am still catching up on the memo here with the various amendments.

Just wanna make sure I understand amendment number four, Council Member Peterson.

I think maybe just a word is missing.

Permanent supportive housing means a multifamily residential use, which is paired which the housing is paired?

What is the, sorry, can you just tell me what the intent of item number four here is?

Yes, thank you for the question.

Yes, it's just to say that it's just defining permanent supportive housing, that it has the supportive part attached to it, either onsite or offsite, and happy to work with your office and Ketel to fine tune that language.

But the effect of the change, I'm so sorry.

I'll just chime in quickly here.

What would be paired with it is the use.

And this gets into some of the weird structure that is the land use code.

So the city regulates a few things through the land use code.

One is a use, which is an activity that happens on a site.

A residential use is residential activity on a site.

And another thing the land use code regulates is physical development standards for buildings.

So the new definition uses the term use because that is the term of art in the land use code for the activity of living that is a residential use.

I think I understand.

Tell me if this is not accurate.

Basically, you're rewording this to make sure it's clear to folks that this housing is paired, that it not may be paired, but it is paired.

Correct.

Thank you very much.

I thought maybe it was going in the opposite direction.

So thank you for that clarification.

Excellent.

So I believe Council President Gonzalez has a question followed by Council Member Herbold.

I do.

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair, for acknowledging me and giving me the opportunity to ask some questions here.

Just really quickly here on amendment number two.

So that's the recital related to the intent to consider future amendments.

around broadband infrastructure.

So I recognize it's in a recital, but it does state legislative intent.

And so I just wanna, I'm obviously supportive of this effort to have more broadband infrastructure throughout the city, but I'm also really wanting to make sure that we aren't unintentionally adding additional burdens or criteria to developers in their effort to quickly build permanent supportive housing.

My understanding is that broadband infrastructure is rather expensive and cumbersome, and so I just want to be I guess I'm wondering whether we have evaluated or done any outreach to our housing developers around what the impact of this recital would be to the sort of other shared goal and priority, which is to quickly build permanent supportive housing.

Chair, may I answer that?

Chair Lewis, is it okay if I answer that?

Yes.

Thank you, Chair Lewis and Council President Gonzalez.

Thank you for the question.

What we do know from basically we're using the HUD requirement for any housing that's financed with an FHA-insured mortgage, including sometimes permanent supportive housing.

And what they, what HUD has studied is that it's much more expensive to put it in later.

It's much cheaper to put it in upfront.

And I think the intent here is really just to provide the internet service.

It doesn't have to be the most expensive, you know, hardwired option.

So there may be a way to to refine this language to say that, you know, we want them to give all due consideration to installing it, installing internet access of some sort when they're putting it in, to think about that upfront rather than thinking about it later, that they wish they had installed it because of the high need individuals, they're going to need access to this.

A lot of, and a lot of apartment projects do have any computer center that they put in.

So I think that it's still a value worth pursuing.

I can change the language though.

Yeah, I'm actually not suggesting any language change at this point.

I was just trying to understand in the context of the desired intent to allow for permanent supportive housing to be built faster so that we can meet the scale of the need.

I just want to make sure that our housing providers aren't going to see this recital as an issue in that endeavor.

And I haven't had any engagement yet with housing providers, so I'm not sure what the answer to that is.

But maybe folks from SDCI might have a better sense of whether this is something that people are doing and are just like, you know, it's normalized.

in the development world or if it's something that we need to make sure that we are signaling that this is really important for us to make sure that broadband is being fitted into new buildings as opposed to the retrofit, because that is very expensive to do.

But I'm just sort of wanting to make sure that this isn't something that's going to be seen as something that can't be overcome But I'm supportive of the intent here.

I think it's important for us to make sure that we're building permanent support housing and other structures around the city that are already fitted for broadband.

And we can have SGCI speak.

And also, I'll offer to reach out to the Housing Development Consortium is a good organization to reach out to to get some initial input on something like this.

That's the benefit of having these amendments.

aired today, and then we can do some research and get back to folks.

And that's exactly what I was going to suggest, too.

Information is probably better provided by the NGOs and the other funders of these projects.

And we would certainly work with Councilmember Peterson and your office, Councilmember Gonzalez, to compile some information to help with this question.

Awesome.

Thank you so much.

Just one more quick question here, if I may, Chair.

Yes, of course.

On the amendment number four, does this in terms of permanent supportive housing, is that defined anywhere else in our codes?

And if so, is this definition consistent or inconsistent with those other definitions of permanent supportive housing?

But the definition that we have here is specific to the land use code.

And this is a new definition for the land use code.

I'm unaware of any other definitions in our regulatory codes for permanent supportive housing.

The Office of Housing and their housing funding policies or in other documents may have a working definition or something that they use.

I'll defer to Lori on what that is.

Yeah, the issue here and the request that the office has made around this particular definition is timing.

So with the awarding of the funding of the Office of Housing, buildings go straight into design and permitting, while we still work with other jurisdictions and agencies to secure the operating maintenance and service support.

So while that is being undertaken, we want to make sure that there's flexibility.

We know that the population that ultimately is going to live here is going to be permanent supportive housing.

And they're going to have supportive services and the building will most likely be 100%, 30% and below.

It's the issue of timing and having it in the land use codes versus, you know, in a regulatory agreement later on.

So that's the request to council is because the timing is that there's all the pieces aren't in place by the time they're in for design and permitting and would need to have this legislation enacted.

You know, we will follow up once the project is in construction with the final pieces to ensure that it is permanent supportive housing.

Okay, thank you.

I think I am tracking what you're saying here.

It sounds like this amendment is still consistent with that request and desire.

I think I had nods and a cute little kitty.

OK, Jack decided to join.

And we regulate by AMI.

So Area Median Income is how the Office of Housing, by our fund sources, consistently regulate.

We do not regulate as homeless or senior by population.

We regulate as Area Median Income.

Perfect.

So consistent.

Appreciate that.

OK, thank you so much, Mr. Chair.

I don't have any other questions right now.

Great.

Thank you so much, Madam President.

I do want to make a quick note.

In response to your first line of questioning around the broadband amendment, my office did check in with Plymouth Housing on that amendment, who stated they don't have any serious concerns.

They're, of course, just one provider, though, so I don't want us to assume others might not.

But I did just want to flag that some of our preliminary questions have indicated that that at least Plymouth doesn't perceive it as an issue.

So over the next month, we will make those inquiries as well.

I appreciate you raising those questions.

Council Member Herbold.

Thank you.

Statement and questions.

I want to thank Chair Lewis, not only for the base legislation, but for his amendment today.

As I understand it, this amendment would guarantee that at least 50% of the housing units would be occupied by folks who have incomes under 30% area median income, whereas the previous language, conceivably a building could not have any units under 30% AMI.

So really wanna, if my understanding of your amendment is correct, I wanna thank you for bringing that forward.

My two questions I think are maybe for Ketel and perhaps Lori might want to help out here.

A few weeks ago, I requested some information about the draft community relations plan, and I was interested to know whether or not the Office of Housing was authorized to compel changes to the draft once it's submitted.

And the response I got from Ketel is that he assumed but would confirm that since it's described as draft, it could be revised to reflect funding conditions.

And I did not receive, or if I did receive, I've lost track of it, confirmation that OH can, in fact, I'm not sure if that's the right way to put it.

I'm not sure if it's appropriate to update the draft after it has been submitted.

And so in a way that is appropriate to the needs for community engagement.

That's the one question.

Maybe I'll just take a pause on that before my second.

And it's, you know, as part of the, it is a component of that is required of applicants for any any city funding.

They have to submit a draft community relations plan as part of their application for funding.

I'll add there are more details in the housing funding policies about the level of community outreach that happens after submission of the draft community relations plan.

I'll defer to Lori on sort of what the practice is at OH when it comes to refining those community relations documents after initial application for a NOFA cycle.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That's a great question.

It is intended to be a draft exactly for that purpose to allow the office of housing to provide input on best practices.

So the draft community relations plan is due 30 days prior to application.

It gets reviewed both by our communications department, our RSGI change team and the investments team to ensure that best practices are being adhered to.

I think the word compel is a little strong, Um, probably not the language we would use, but highly encouraged.

We definitely share, uh, other community relations plans that are best practices and highly encourage, um, more implementation and more robust outreach if it's not meeting the mark for sure.

And the fact that it comes before the application and before our consideration of funding, uh, does have quite a bit of influence and direction towards that compel word.

Fantastic.

Thank you so much.

And then my second question relates to a letter I received from the commission related specifically to loading zones.

And of course, the letter.

to the planning commission.

I reached out to the planning commission to ask for more information about the specific changes from KETL that loading zones are regulated by portions of the municipal code that are actually not included in the bill's title.

So I'm just trying to get some more sort of understanding of what the current regulations are.

I understand that loading zones are allowed for multifamily developments, and just would like to have confirmation of that, and also just knowing whether or not they're required.

I can tell you what I have discovered, and it's incomplete.

And Mike may know this off the top of his head, and if not, then he and I can get back in touch with you.

But SDOT is responsible for the functions of the right-of-way.

And so most of decisions about signing areas for freight or passenger loading are decisions that are made by the Seattle Department of Transportation.

As just as a practical matter, when somebody applies for a master use permit or building permit or something from the city that is going to trigger improvements to the right-of-way, they receive what's called a PAR, a preliminary assessment report from a variety of departments, including the utilities and SDOT.

And that gives the applicant a sense about what they may need to do to meet the minimum standards of, there's a document called the right-of-way improvement manual that sets out the minimum that somebody has to do if a project triggers street improvements.

As part of that, an applicant can get a sense as to whether or not they would be likely to receive if they applied for a permit for a loading zone.

But a lot of it is specific to the characteristics of the right-of-way.

For instance, if it is a busy transit street or something like that, and a passenger loading zone would mean relocating a metro stop, they're probably not going to get it.

But I can't tell you today that the passenger load zones aren't required, just because I haven't been able to locate the citation in either the right-of-way improvement manual or the relevant codes.

But prior to next meeting, we can follow up with you and let you know for certain.

Thank you.

Great, thank you so much for those questions, colleagues, and appreciate the additional conversations that will no doubt occur over the next month and for the raising of these issues, not just from folks here, but also from stakeholders that have reached out and sent letters of support and folks that have written about this in the public sphere.

It looks like Council Member Mosqueda has one last comment or question to close us out, and then we can hear from the folks who have signed up to give comment in the public hearing and Council Member Strauss as well.

So Council Member Mosqueda, please.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Sorry, thank you very much for allowing us to ask questions on the possible amendments in front of them.

Again, a question about amendment number four, and this might relate back to the individual receiving the care versus the person providing the care.

I'm wondering when it says voluntary human services, why there is the word voluntary in there?

A lot of our human service providers are paid, and we went through a big struggle the last two years trying to make sure that they received more adequate pay, recognizing they're still highly underpaid in that profession.

Is that related to the individual who receives the care, or is that related to the individual who's delivering the care?

I can tell you my read of what the Growth Management Act definition has in it, which is where this comes from.

The voluntary here is not the provider.

So it is not saying that somebody is receiving free care from somebody or somebody is providing pro bono care.

It's that the person who is exiting homelessness is voluntarily seeking services to stay in the permanent supportive housing.

Excellent.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

And Council Member Strauss, you're recognized.

Thank you, Chair, as this is a land-use bill that would typically come through my Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee, something that I don't often relinquish control of land-use bills, and Chair Lewis, you're doing a great job stewarding this bill.

Land use, as my friends in SDCI and Ketel Freeman can attest to, can be complicated, and oftentimes our amendments at council can create unintended consequences that we do not foresee with good intentions that we put forward in the words that we use.

So, uh, to the amendment sponsors, I'll be following up with you individually to ensure that the intentions that you're bringing forward do not create unintended consequences or parameters as council president noted that may require builders to create infrastructure that is already being created but to be done so in a more expensive way.

So just want to ensure that we're able to create permanent supportive housing in the most expedient and cost-efficient manner.

Thank you colleagues for your work on this and I support this bill.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

Appreciate you closing us out with those comments.

I do want to move on to the public hearing so we have plenty of time for our next agenda item.

So with that, as presiding officer, I'm now opening the public hearing on Council Bill 119975, relating to land use code amendments on permanent supportive housing.

The online registration to sign up to speak opened at 12 noon today, and I will call on speakers in the order of registration.

The online registration will remain open until the conclusion of this public hearing.

The same rules applied to the public comment period will be applied to this public hearing.

Each speaker will be provided two minutes, and speakers will hear a chime when they have 10 seconds left of the allotted time.

Speakers' mics will be muted at the end of the allotted public comment time, and public comment relating to Council Bill 119975 is only being accepted at this public hearing.

No other public testimony would be appropriate.

Speakers are asked to begin their comments by stating their name, and please remember to press star six after you hear the prompt if you have been unmuted.

With that, we will begin the public hearing, starting with Ryan Packer.

Ryan Packer, you are recognized for two minutes.

Hi, my name is Ryan Packer.

I'm calling as someone who spends a lot of time advocating around the issue of making it easier for people to bike.

Um, but I'm here in support of the removal of the bike parking requirements that the housing providers have told us will, uh, it will be allow us to build more housing and get people, uh, off the street and into a warm room.

I'm also calling as someone who has witnessed what design review is and does.

And the idea that you're waiting to have a meeting of people to talk about the appearance of a building while someone is sleeping on the street is something that I can't be, it's morally incomprehensible to me.

And so I support these package of improvements.

Many people have suggested compromise on the bike parking requirement stipulations, and I would support a compromise as long as it's led by the affordable housing providers who are telling us what the impact would be.

Thanks so much for hearing my comments.

Thank you, Ryan, and thank you for your editorial on this topic.

Next speaker will be Brady Nordstrom.

Brady, you are recognized for two minutes.

Good afternoon, Chair Lewis, Vice Chair Herbold, and committee members.

My name is Brady Nordstrom, and I'm with Seattle for Everyone.

And you may or may not be familiar, but we're a broad housing coalition that unites under the belief that everyone, regardless of income or background, deserves access to a safe, stable, and affordable home.

So we believe that the housing crisis requires a comprehensive approach that includes permanent supportive housing, and I'm testifying in strong support of Council Bill 119-975.

We believe that this can help limited public dollars go further and faster to address an urgent need.

So as Seattle continues to look for solutions to the ongoing housing crisis, we see that homelessness in many cases is an extreme effect of lack of affordable housing, and the correlation is well documented.

When rents go up, we see an associated rise in homelessness that most heavily impacts low-income residents.

So permanent supportive housing is an urgent, effective, and evidence-based intervention to meet the needs of those most deeply impacted, the chronically homeless.

But by AMI level, that's still targeting that same group of people and some of those same people.

So Seattle's pipeline of permanent supportive housing units, while laudable, It does not yet match the emergency needs of this population.

So we think that by creating this new zoning designation for print of supportive housing as allowed by House Bill 1923, the city can avoid common barriers to housing like zoning restrictions, opening up more sites.

There's a lot of limited land in the city, design review process that some estimate may add 18 months on average to project times.

And then some of these broad requirements that do not match the use case of future residents.

So a lot of times these requirements will limit viable capacity for housing units and add per unit costs that are important to note.

So yeah, this bill is smart to increase impacts with limited public dollars, and we encourage you to move it forward.

Thank you for listening.

Have a good day.

Thank you so much.

Our next speaker will be Tim Parham.

Tim, you are recognized.

Thank you, Mister chair and members of the Council.

I'm Tim Parham, director of real estate development at Plymouth housing.

We're a permanent supportive housing provider and an important part of the solution that so many people testified about the problem of homelessness in our city and our region at the top of the meeting.

Permanent supportive housing is what is needed to get folks out of our parks, out of the sidewalks, into shelters and then out of those shelters into permanent housing.

It's the most humane and compassionate solution to homelessness.

With that, I'll echo others that I'm super excited about this legislation.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis and others for taking this up.

It is the first of, I hope, many steps towards easing the cost and inefficiencies of providing permanent supportive housing, and it's really a win-win for the city There's no cost to perhaps a cost benefit to the city by lowering administrative burden from SDCI on our project.

And it just makes a lot of sense.

So thank you.

And just to touch on a couple of details.

One is the bike parking, you know, the current bike parking requirements for permanent supportive housing costs about as much as it costs to house one person in our buildings.

And I strongly urge the council to keep the legislation as drafted for a number of reasons.

A couple are just the population that PSH is intended for.

Speaking particularly of Plymouth, our resident population across our thousand plus apartments, over 90% of those folks are disabled in some way.

And many of them are physically precluded from being able to ride a bike.

So for those reasons, we have other creative solutions to address that by providing bike hooks and other things in the units.

But not to sound cliche, but we really don't need the city to tell us exactly where we have to provide bike parking.

There's more efficient and creative ways to solve that problem.

Thank you so much for calling in.

And thank you for your support in putting this together.

Appreciate it.

Next up we have Laura Lowe Bernstein.

Laura you are recognized.

Hello everybody.

My name is Laura Lowe Bernstein.

I'm the executive director of Share the Cities an education and advocacy organization based in Seattle.

Every single minute that we delay housing has cost to housing.

all the kinds of housing that we want to build.

Every moment adds cost to housing across our state up and down the West Coast.

We are hurting our communities.

I've been to many design review meetings for all housing types.

If you think public city council meetings aren't representative of community you should see who shows up to design review.

I've watched design review in cities across our country.

It's the same people over and over and over that show up to argue over the color brick for the tint on the windows in every city.

Existing homeowners who don't want to see their cities change.

From Vancouver, B.C.

to San Diego, you can see the impacts of delays due to fake environmental delays, delays due to improper requests for historic preservation, and delays due to design review.

This is not a problem unique to permanent supportive housing, nor is it a problem unique to the City of Seattle.

While Seattleites are much more welcoming of deeply affordable housing than many other cities, like Everett, Our zoning restricts where we can build this housing type to noisy arterials with fast moving cars, small limited chunks of our city while the majority of our city is off limits for permanent supportive housing.

It's not fair to limit our city and where these folks can live.

Doing this change is great.

Totally support it.

But we need widespread zoning change.

We should not relegate permanent supportive housing to areas near trains, near freight traffic, near fast-moving arterials, near worse air quality, near noisy communities with worse health outcomes.

People that have low incomes deserve to live anywhere in our city.

Thank you.

Laura, thank you for your comments.

Next speaker will be Mallory Van Abama.

And I apologize if I mispronounced your last name.

You are recognized for two minutes.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, committee members.

My name is Mallory Van Appema and I'm pleased to offer enthusiastic support for council bill 119975 on behalf of the housing development consortium.

And I also want to express sincere gratitude to committee chair Lewis for advancing this incredibly important legislation.

We know that affordable housing with embedded services is desperately needed in our region as thousands of our neighbors are navigating the ongoing trauma associated with chronic homelessness.

The Seattle community is fortunate to have an incredible depth of expertise from local permanent supportive housing providers to address this challenge.

We've submitted written comment on this bill alongside our partners who are recognized leaders in the PSH model.

And the following list are items that remain really key priorities for us in this legislation.

First, we strongly support exempting permanent supportive housing from design review.

Second, exempting space within these developments dedicated to supportive services from FAR requirements or modifying those requirements for such spaces.

Third, exempting permanent supportive housing from long and short-term bicycle parking requirements, as was mentioned from previous speakers.

Fourth, requiring developers of permanent supportive housing to submit a community relations plan.

Fifth, allowing permanent supportive housing as a permitted use in commercial two zones.

And then finally, authorizing the director of SDCI to waive or modify We have much gratitude for the opportunity to comment and support on this bill, and we really welcome further discussion on councilmember Peterson's amendment around broadband access as is helpful.

So thank you.

Good afternoon Chair Lewis and council members.

My name is Connie Combs.

I am staff to the Seattle Planning Commission so I'm offering comment on their behalf.

The Planning Commission appreciates the opportunity to provide comment on the permanent supportive housing legislation and the commission strongly supports the passage of this legislation.

The impacts of COVID-19 have exacerbated Seattle's ongoing housing crisis and given the urgency to address homelessness The Planning Commission agrees with the decision to release permanent supportive housing from the cost and time associated with the design review process.

As Council Member Herbold mentioned earlier, the Commission also encourages the Council to work with the Department of Transportation to consider ways to provide loading zones for permanent supportive housing.

Council Member Herbold may have already received a response from us.

If you haven't yet, we'll get back to you as soon as we can with your question.

But again, the Planning Commission supports the current proposal and encourages Council to approve this legislation.

The Commission's letter of support was sent to City Council, the Mayor, and City staff yesterday, and it can also be found in full on the Commission's website.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker will be Angie Gerald.

Angie, you are recognized.

Hi my name is Angie and I'm a public school parent from Ballard.

I'm commenting on low barrier permanent supportive housing in close proximity to public schools.

I volunteer for Ballard District Council and recently helped coordinate a presentation from Plymouth Housing regarding a new facility that's on fast track for a site one block from the high school.

The Seattle area desperately needs more supportive housing but we also need public safety dialogue to happen between Seattle Public Schools city leadership and the public and private entities who are swiftly moving forward with building low barrier housing.

Norms around harm reduction have shifted a lot since my teenagers were young.

Instead of drug-free zones around schools and playgrounds we're now sheltering and housing people with very serious substance use disorder including active meth and heroin use.

This is Plymouth's first low barrier facility outside of the downtown and First Hill areas which have very prompt 9-1-1 response times.

Ballard has far slower response times.

We also asked if anyone has reviewed 9-1-1 data for other similar facilities to determine if there will be any increased likelihood of shelter-in-place or lockdown situations based on public school policies and the kinds of incidents that may occasionally happen in close proximity.

Compass Housings Nyer Ernest and Ballard would be one example of a local facility whose emergency data could be considered for the block surrounding it.

This is not a hypothetical concern as Ballard kids and other students throughout the city have experienced multiple neighborhood incidents that interrupt their school day and sense of safety.

As Seattle scales up low barrier permanent supportive housing please be mindful to include holistic public safety policies.

to diminish the likelihood of disturbances or lockdowns related to incidents or crises in the immediate area around public schools.

As Seattle tries to role model for other municipalities in King County we want to prevent the kinds of regional political pushback we've been seeing in Renton Bellevue and other cities.

Thank you.

Our next and last speaker will be Naomi See.

Naomi you are recognized.

Remember to hit stars.

Yes, we can hear you now.

Are we good?

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

My name is Naomi from the low income housing Institute.

Um, and I just wanted to express our ardent support of the council bill.

Uh, we are beyond excited that the council is considering this critical step towards breaking down barriers, constructing affordable housing.

Um, it is important to note that affordable housing is already held to a high standard by public funders.

And from a land use perspective Seattle's design guidelines are already codified.

By reducing uncertainty in the design review process that causes nonprofit developers like us to incur unnecessary costs and allowing commercial space to be used for supportive services as well as reducing biking parking bike parking.

These changes will save us a significant amount of time in constructing and operating housing.

This legislation is incredibly responsive to the concerns of nonprofits.

And we are just beyond excited that the council is making this step.

So thank you so much for your work on this.

And we look forward to the positive outcomes that will result.

Thank you so much.

With that, the public hearing is concluded.

And There are no additional speakers.

If there's anybody who did not get a chance to speak or had to leave before the public hearing convened, do please send additional comments on this legislation to andrew.lewis at Seattle.gov.

Would appreciate any additional feedback from the public as we continue to consider this legislation over the next month.

There will not be a vote on this legislation or its amendments today.

But as I just said, I anticipate it will be picked up at our February 24th meeting, Wednesday, February 24th, where there will be there will be yet another opportunity for the general committee public comment if anyone.

was not able to come in today, but would like to come and publicly testify at that time.

So thank you so much, everybody, for getting through that agenda item and one step closer to expanding permanent supportive housing in the city of Seattle.

Let's move on to agenda item two.

Mr. Clerk, will you please read the next item into the record and will our presenters please, well, turn your screen on and unmute, but join us at the table.

Item two, mayor's office status update on 2021 homelessness investment.

And I believe we just have one, I should have said presenter singular, Deputy Mayor Casey Sixkiller.

So before we can, before we begin our presentation, maybe just a quick introduction, Deputy Mayor Sixkiller and And then if you want to actually just go straight into providing a general update, and I'm sure myself and some of my fellow committee members will have a few additional questions, but I really appreciate.

you making yourself available to join us this afternoon.

Just as a little bit of a reminder for the viewing public and maybe to preface your comments, in December we had an initial presentation from the executive that my committee requested just to provide an update on some of the investments that the council in coordination with Deputy Mayor Sixkiller and community providers put into our 2021 budget to address the situation that we all see every day as we go around our community and heard from public comment.

of the state of the homelessness state of emergency in Seattle.

I'm going to maintain this general agenda item in my committee on an executive level homelessness investments update.

for every meeting of this committee every month.

And I don't know if it'll be Deputy Mayor Sixkiller on a standing basis or occasionally other folks from the executive, but to give ourselves an opportunity as a council and a public to continue to monitor the, particularly the surge in shelter options, but also some of the other programmatic things that we are putting in place as a council and an executive to address the crisis.

So just with that prefacing it, I am excited to welcome Deputy Mayor Sixkiller and look forward to having a conversation with him about this.

So with that, Deputy Mayor Sixkiller, please take it away.

Okay.

Thank you, Council Member, and thank you, Council Members, for the opportunity to be here this afternoon, Happy 2021. I before I jump in, I do just want to comment on the last piece of legislation that Council Republic comment on and thank Councilmember Lewis for his his work on that and sponsorship for that legislation.

It is those kinds of created solution created solutions that we've been able to utilize over the last year.

which frankly are one of the reasons we're able to bring on 600 units of new permanent supportive housing this year in 2021. So these type of efforts I think really will help us rapidly bring on more permanent supportive housing.

And we appreciate the council's support and partnership in that effort.

It is so critical.

So I'm here today, I'm gonna give just a brief update on where we are on implementing the Council's 2021 adopted budget ads with respect to shelter surge and support.

I'll try to get through this as quickly as I can to make sure I leave time for questions.

I know sometimes I use too many words and we kind of run out of time.

So I want to make sure that we get to everyone's questions here as quickly as possible.

Just to start, I'm going to give a quick update on the tiny home villages, and then a shift to our hoteling program.

And then I've got plenty of other things I can talk about, but I think at that point, I'll probably turn it back over to you, Council Member Lewis.

So just to kind of ground us, you know, a little, almost a year ago, when we were moving into, unfortunately, into this COVID period, we were able to move forward to bringing three new non-congregate shelter spaces online, including two tiny home villages, as well as the lakefront community house, I think as everyone's aware of.

So we were able to add last year, 95 new units of enhanced shelter space, including two tiny home villages.

This year, we are working toward with council support and funding to bring on an additional 120 tiny home village units.

Just as a reminder, That's about 1.8 million in one-time startup costs.

And thanks to the council, 2.4 million in ongoing operations and services for that program.

We are in the process of working through now both identifying sites and an operator or operators.

We have identified our first site.

We're very excited about that.

And I want to thank council member Peterson for bringing that site to our attention and for his support.

That will be in the university district.

We are partnering with Sound Transit on utilizing property that they don't need for a few years to move that forward.

We're excited.

It's shovel ready.

And we are working now to work through Sound Transit's process for how we take possession of that.

But our hope is to have that up and running as quickly as possible once we get all the T's crossed and I's dotted on that agreement with Sound Transit.

We are looking at other sites across the city right now.

I want to thank again Council Member Lewis for he and his staff who I think have been on a mission the last several weeks looking at sites and sending them our way.

And we've added that to our list.

You know, we continue to be You know, mindful of geographic distribution across the city, that has been a priority for the council in the past, and we think that's important for us to continue to not be restricted to, but to be mindful of as we move forward.

So we do have a few different sites.

I'm not gonna talk about them right now, but we are, do have a few different sites that we are doing a deeper analysis on now that have come to us, including those that Council Member Lewis has identified, but our hope, again, if we sort of taking a little bit of a shovel ready approach, given the time and energy that goes into getting one of these up, is really trying to focus on speed rather than just focus on speed and bring that online as quickly as possible.

But I think, you know, obviously we still have to take into account a lot of several different factors, right, that safety for the clients, access to services, transit, site readiness, utilities, and a few other things.

So, identifying property is one thing, and then it's all the other things that we know have to go with that to make it successful, most importantly for the folks that will be living there.

But I think we're on a good path for that.

Council Member Lewis, obviously you put forward a proposal earlier this week, I know you and the mayor have talked about that a little bit in the past.

I want to again thank you for your partnership there.

We're still working through that and trying to see how that applies to the work that we're doing right now.

But I do want to say that, you know, using private property versus public property definitely has benefits.

You know, it's got clear timelines for the property owner, for us, for operators, and for community.

We still got to apply the same lens in terms of making sure it makes sense for our operator and the folks living there.

But we are excited about the possibility to have a little bit more of a public-private partnership approach here and see how we can scale that program as additional resources come online from the private sector and elsewhere.

But right now, we are focused on getting those first three villages up and running.

As I said, the program at the University District I think will be the first one that we bring online here, hopefully in Q2, by Q2, within Q2.

Let me shift for a moment to our hotelling program.

I again want to say thank you to the Council for your support.

in moving this forward and using, you know, one-time money that was made available to us by the federal government and putting this program, moving this program forward.

It's about a $15 million program.

We are now in the final, final stretch here of completing contracts, two different contracts, silos, you know, one with hotels and the other with operators.

But trying to pick it back up, just how we got here.

You know, FAS started with a list of 95 hotels, 80 hotels in the city, 15 outside of the city who we solicited for their interest in being part of this program.

And that set off quite a bit of due diligence by our city team and request for expressions of interests.

We have now landed on, we did site visits at six hotels.

and selected from that two to move forward with.

One site we deemed was not appropriate, and one site withdrew.

And then two other sites of those original six that we did a download with ended up signing contracts with King County.

And so again, county and the city continue to work together and coordinate as we serve, you know, have an overlapping service population and certainly funding partnership.

So other things that we took into consideration on our search criteria included pricing, obviously, willingness to work with the city, believe it or not, just because some of these hotels are sitting empty doesn't mean that they want to participate in this kind of program.

The size of the hotel, generally we're looking at 50 to 150 rooms.

per site, and then, you know, all the other things, you know, availability, common spaces, ventilation, obviously being a huge factor in our COVID environment.

So, and then, of course, also, you know, electrical systems that could handle, you know, microwaves in rooms and other amenities.

So we, you know, are continuing to work through that process now.

Um, you know, I think, but we are at the point where, you know, the devil is in the details.

Uh, and, um, uh, but you know, both making sure that our hotel partners are fully aware of the program that we are, are going to be using, uh, their properties for, and equally making sure that our operators are, um, uh, that we have an agreement with them on the, on the budget and the way in which we're going to approach, um, that work.

And again, I just want to stress that, as I said previously to council, we feel very strongly based on looking at other jurisdictions that are hoteling, not just here in the region, but across the West Coast, that this program is not just about getting folks inside into a hotel shelter unit.

It also is about getting them into permanent housing and creating more throughput in our shelter system so we can create a pathway for folks to get off the street into a safer, healthier environment and on the path into permanent housing.

So as we wrap up here, we also will be bringing new PSH units online and working from the beginning to make sure that we have an exit plan for folks that come into our hotel shelter units.

The other thing I just wanted to say is, you know, we have spent a lot of time thinking through our costs and budget for this program.

And, you know, the reality is we have models right now that we're looking to for guidance there.

DESC, I think, is a very good example of that, right?

They have been telling folks for almost a year now They have been servicing vulnerable population for nearly four decades.

That work in our partnership with King County helped to inform what we believe the appropriate budget would be for these units.

So providing enhanced shelter services in a hotel setting, we landed at $19,000 per unit.

That's for the service side, not for the sort of room rack uh, rate.

Uh, and so we're working with our providers to make sure that they can modify their programs, uh, to meet that again so that we can get as many folks inside on the path to breaking, um, their experience with unsheltered, uh, homelessness.

Um, so, um, that's where we're at again.

You know, two different.

There's two really important critical path things here.

One is Landing our contracts, we do have license agreements with two hotels.

We had finished the contracts.

Those contracts are dependent on our operators coming to terms with them on the final program details and budget details, making sure that their programs can modify to meet our budget that has been approved by the council.

And I think it's consistent with generally how other agencies in the region have been serving this vulnerable population.

I could go on and on, Mr. Chairman, but I'll take a pause here and see if it helps that question.

Yeah, thank you, Deputy Mayor Sixkiller for that very detailed summary.

I think we should transition to questions and that will probably surface some of the things that we might not have been able to get to in the initial presentation.

So I'm happy to pivot now.

I think that initially what I'd like to do, just to keep us sort of organized with this, I think we should start maybe if people have questions about the tiny house investments first, and maybe exhaust questions on the tiny houses first, and then move on to questions related to the hoteling, and then move on to any other questions regarding homelessness investments as sort of a third category, just to make sure we can kind of sort of keep the discussion related.

Obviously, if other things come up subsequently in the conversation, committee members should feel free to ask a question at any time.

But I think that might make the most sense to organize the discussion.

So I think I'll initially kick it off.

mostly with just a uh...

uh...

an expression of appreciation for one of the initial comments you made in your presentation which was uh...

was to focus on speed and you know as i'm out in the community talking to people uh...

that is a very commonly held sentiment regardless of what end of the political spectrum in the city you're on uh...

you know all of us are kind of united in this belief that The homelessness state of emergency is in a position where swift response from the city is critical to respond to the scope of what we're facing.

So in response to the initiative that my office launched this week on tiny house villages, and it takes a village proposal to try to galvanized community interest in coming together and building that common interest around the tiny houses.

My office has been receiving lots of offers to help for a variety of different things ranging from private contributions to volunteering labor, materiel, lobbying the state legislature for additional resources, legislators themselves contacting us about I think we should connect offline after this committee, but before the next committee meeting to maybe talk a little bit about how we might plug in a lot of these offers to help to an executable plan on the executive side to take to come forward and volunteer sites or contributions or other things.

And so that's the first thing I just want to flag.

We don't need to get into it in the committee, but that's sort of an action item for February I'd like to discuss.

And I appreciate the shared sense of urgency that the mayor's office has conveyed.

I do want to ask before we move on from the tiny house villages, it sounds like the site for council member Peterson's district is fairly well nailed down.

You alluded to a few additional sites.

Do we have a timeline and when the department might be ready to announce what those sites would be?

And the partnerships, too, with all these sites in terms of the operators that we're looking to bring in and if those RFPs have been awarded or not.

Just a little bit more detail on that in terms of those next steps on the tiny house villages.

I think we'll be in a place probably the next week and a half, if not sooner, to at least announce the second site and then potentially third one, again, with the recognition that we're trying to move with great speed here.

So that's my goal, at least.

The mayor is impressed upon us, a very strong desire to move as quickly as possible.

So that's probably the best answer I can give you, Council Member, but we feel the fire underneath us.

My hope is within the next week and a half, so by the end of next week.

Great, I appreciate that.

Are there any other questions as relates to tiny house villages from committee members?

Council Member Mosqueda and then Council Member Herbold.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Our friends in the building trades would like to know who is constructing the tiny homes.

Council Member, I will need to get back with you on that.

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Okay, are there any other comments on the tiny houses or questions for the Deputy Mayor?

Seeing none, okay, why don't we move on to talk about the hoteling where I think that there will probably be more questions.

I certainly have a couple.

I do appreciate the front loading that the Human Services Department and the Mayor's Office has done this year to really focus on the hoteling intervention.

We have a lot of compelling evidence from some other jurisdictions that have had robust hotelling programs that can make a very big difference and can be stood up quickly.

I do want to start off Just because it's sort of fresh in my mind from some reporting that has been out there generally regarding the hotels that was selected.

Just to ask as to the criteria in selecting suitable hotels based on some of the allegations that have been made in the press.

I'm obviously not really in a position or with expertise to really know the nature of of what does or doesn't make a hotel suitable.

But it does seem that there's been reporting from some providers that are concerned about some of the hotels that have been selected for leases.

So I just wanted to start with a question regarding what the process used to select the hotels.

the criteria that that process used, and then whether those selections are set in stone, or whether there might be flexibility to adopt a different hotelling model based on the feedback that some providers are making known publicly.

Yeah, well, I think, number one, as I said, we did initiate a formal process both for identifying originally sort of casting a wide net, again, both in the city and outside the city.

The 90 plus sites went through a pretty aggressive process to whittle that down.

We did have a formal RFQ process, and I think it's important that we remember that we did run a procurement process here.

Again, we were able to look at what many other jurisdictions have done, not just here in the region, but across the West Coast.

And the fact is, at the end of the day, through all of that, we had two hotels that stuck with us through the entire thing.

So that's the approach that we've taken.

and they have been working with us both on the licensing agreement as well as on the programmatic side.

One of those hotels has experience also in San Francisco, being part of San Francisco's hoteling program.

That's been very helpful in terms of informing our approach and budget assumptions.

But again, as I think all of you know, we've been supporting King County's hotelling program and DTSC's program down in Renton since the beginning.

And that also has helped to inform, again, both our budget and for the amenities, if you will, that those hotels have utilized and continue to work in great partnership and have a very ongoing conversation with the county about that approach.

I appreciate that overview of the process.

I guess I want to, as a follow-up, just maybe zero in on some of the specific criticisms that have been raised regarding the Executive Pacific Hotel as a potential place to host some of these services regarding the state of the hotel.

food preparation facilities at that hotel and the lack of an internal sort of gathering spaces and what that might mean for where people go during the day if their only choice would be to congregate on the sidewalk, as has been speculated.

I wonder if there, for these hotels, is there gonna be some kind of community planning sort of arrangement to foresee some of these concerns that have particularly been raised for the Executive Pacific, and how is that sort of factoring into the choice of the Executive Pacific as one of the venues, given some of those concerns that have been raised?

Council Member, I gotta be honest.

I don't know the extent of the concerns, or as you put it, allegations that you're referring to, So they said, you know, we're in active negotiations with folks who were selected as part of our organizations were selected as part of our RFP process and working through their program requirements.

Again, you know, that also means, you know, program respondents who knew what our budget was and what council approved in terms of bringing 300 hotel rooms online.

We have to meet that.

And we're very committed to doing that.

The idea here is not to get 300 people into hotel shelter units.

That's a floor, not the ceiling.

And we need to be able to show that we can not only get folks inside, but that we can move them through that system into permanent housing and keep that flow going.

Um, I will say that, you know, size of the overall hotel was, uh, was a factor.

Um, you know, not doing something that was so big, uh, that it would be too many people in one place.

Um, that's why we looked at, you know, sort of 50 to 150, um, uh, room, uh, options.

Um, but you know, we, we have a set budget and we're doing what we can to, to, to get the most, to get the most out of that and serve the most people.

And, you know, I think that's just the thing that we're very focused on right now.

And we've heard loud and clear from the council that you wanted us to achieve.

So, and I would just say, you know, even our budget assumes, you know, let me make sure I get the number right here, is right now in King County, the Red Lion down in the DPSC, all costs in room rack rate and service works out to about $38,000 per bed per year.

We increased that cost as part of our budget and our program approach here, given the fact that these hotels likely would have been sited in Seattle and the nightly room rate being higher.

But, you know, I have seen from some of the providers, you know, room rates that reflect the room rate when the economy is going strong and hotels are full.

And that's just something we cannot afford if our goal is to get as many folks inside as possible.

And that, so cost, you know, obviously has to be an important part of the equation.

It's not the entire equation.

It's got many different components to it.

So that's what we're working through right now.

I appreciate that.

I want to bring in Councilmember Herbold and Councilmember Mosqueda on this topic who have raised their hands.

Councilmember Herbold, I saw yours first, and then Councilmember Mosqueda, you'll follow there.

Thank you.

I recognize that We don't want to, now that you have selected a couple of providers, we don't want to get in the position of interfering with your negotiation in fulfilling, I think, our shared interests in standing up this hoteling program.

And I really want to thank you, Deputy Mayor Sixkiller.

Thank you for hearing this Council loud and clearly that this was a big priority for us.

And as you say, we're in the weeds now, we're in the details, and I appreciate you getting into that level of detail.

The HSD was quoted today as saying that the typical enhanced shelter or tiny house village units cost between $16,000 and $22,000 a year.

And I believe that isn't just the service cost, or does that also include the capital costs?

Also, hold on.

Let me just say why I'm asking.

I'm just wondering whether or not that is the proper comparison and whether or not a hotel room with wraparound services like we're looking at is more comparable to a permanent supportive housing unit, and that that might be, for purposes of a per-unit cost, if you separate the operations side from the capital side, might be a better comparison.

Just, it's my understanding, again, that the desire to deliver services to this population is in recognition that there are very intensive needs for services that the providers are seeking to deliver with this model of hoteling.

And again, it sounds to me like from my layman's understanding of the different models that it more mirrors permanent supportive housing than the wraparound services.

I acknowledge that of course there are wraparound services provided at enhanced shelter locations.

as well as some case management services offered at some, well, I guess at most now, tiny house villages.

Thank you.

Thanks, Council Member.

I would say a couple of things.

One is, you know, again, we can look to a model that we already, a hotel model that we are already supporting.

I agree there's You know, tiny home villages have a startup cost and they've got an ongoing cost, right?

That is one time.

It's same sort of idea here, I think, in hoteling is we've taken this approach of one time money is there's going to be one time, you know, fixed costs, then there's an ongoing.

So it's, you know, they are very large numbers, don't get me wrong, but I do think to your point, as we just look in a services column, you know, we do have, again, I think we have, been able to really zero in on what we think works.

And just by comparison, DESC, who also serves a very high needs population, their service contract for the Red Lion is $18,981 per bed.

So I realize there are other service providers that have maybe been providing a service over the last few months that is, in some cases, three or four times higher But I would just say that when we look at the longest serving organization, that was sort of our ballpark.

That doesn't mean there's not room for growth.

And it doesn't mean that we, that is sort of part of working through our contracting process to understand that.

And I just offer that as a, to try to get a little bit of an apples to apples comparison.

I do want to come back to the hotels, the site selection thing for a moment, because you mentioned that at the beginning.

Before you move on, can I just ask a quick follow-up?

I'm really interested to know whether or not DESC applied for this RFQ.

They did.

They did, OK.

Yes, but for a variety of reasons, they were not selected.

I understand, I just wanted to, I mean, you're using the red line as the example of a contract or a provider who, as you say, does a great job of providing services to people in need in our community and has a long history.

Just wanted to know whether or not they also bid to do this work here in Seattle under the current opportunity that the city is providing.

Thank you.

I do want to say on that, Councilmember Lewis and Councilmember Herbold, if there are other hotel options that you would like us to look at, I am not saying no.

I just want to be mindful of our procurement process.

But we're still working through all of these things.

And until the deal is done, the deal is not done.

We very much want to get the deal done and get going.

I'm going to jump in real quick, since you just solicited suggestions.

Just speaking generally, some feedback I've heard from talking to some providers has been potentially looking into spot rentals of hotel placements, which is something that Just Care has done, which has worked for them.

sort of achieving, you know, maybe a lower intensity of placements in any one location spread out across, like, a couple of different hotels that the county has been doing.

I've heard that that's not something that we've been exploring yet at the city, but that's just me relaying some of the feedback I've heard from some of the providers.

I don't know if that is something we're open to looking into, but I did just want to flag that as you solicited suggestions.

And if you want to respond briefly to that, and then I'll recognize Council Member Mesquita, who's been patiently waiting, but I just wanted to throw that out there.

Yeah, I don't want to say no, because, you know, at the end of the day, we want the program to be successful.

That's what, you know, that's all over our goal, right, is to have a successful program that we can stand up quickly and quickly begin to move people inside.

Two pieces to that, however, I think are really important.

And one is, you know, partly, you know, our provider and operators have been very clear to us.

Salvation Army is probably a very good example of this, right?

You know, just a few months ago, they were spread out at, you know, City Hall, up at the Seattle Center and the King County Admin Building, other places.

Part of the SOTO shelter that was stood up in partnership with the county was to be able to consolidate staffing resources so that they could operate that facility in the way in which they wanted to operate it and not have folks spread all over the place.

So that definitely informed our approach on the hotel model was sort of what could make sense from a staffing perspective.

So that's important.

So as we get more dispersed That does circle back to what the capacity issues are that our service providers are facing.

Folks are very, you know, overtaxed right now as they are on the front lines of responding to the pandemic for the large local population.

The second thing I would say is, you know, look, as I said, you know, we are in ongoing conversations with King County, and even King County, who has got room, you know, utilizing hotels here in the city of Seattle, You know, one of those hotels, their nightly room rate is $67.

I've seen other providers paying up to $165 per night.

$100 a night per room, you know, adds up very, very quickly.

And so again, as we're trying to balance all of these things to try to, you know, not let the perfect be the enemy of the good, but make sure what we do land is a program and approach that can be successful and that both the mayor and the council and everyone else can really see as a positive contribution to our ongoing COVID response to our vulnerable population.

Thank you.

Council Member Mosqueda, thank you for waiting patiently.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

So first, I want to acknowledge that, you know, the reason that I think you are able to say that you could look at other jurisdictions and other models is because so many other jurisdictions, including King County, have done this so much earlier.

And up and down the West Coast is what you referenced.

I feel like I am still reeling from our conversation last March and April, where for weeks on end, we were having conversation about the need to put folks into hotels.

And now here we are two months after the budgets pass and we're still talking about a procurement process and these concerns are coming up.

I am not as familiar with the articles that are being referenced here.

I am familiar with the folks who have the expertise on the ground.

And as I think the good chair noted, none of us purport to be experts on how to best shelter or hotel folks during this emergency that is homelessness.

And now this emergency that's only been worsened by COVID.

but we know the people who do have that expertise.

And again, my concern is that those folks, it appears, have not totally been at the table to identify the best hoteling strategy.

I am still very confused and concerned that we have not used a dispersed hoteling strategy.

If there's 150 or so hotel rooms in existing hotels and motels right now that our community partners are working with, who not only have the room, the roof, the door available, they also have staff on site to cut down on the initial costs, they just have the ongoing costs, we could do it in a more effective way and ideally in a way that's already in places where these staff are located across the city.

That in many ways seems a much more quick way to stand up hotel services but also potentially a more humane way to do it so that you don't have 150 or so people going into one hotel room on 4th Avenue that doesn't have the type of accommodations that are necessary.

So why are we not just partnering with the existing organizations that have almost 150 hotel rooms?

My understanding is around 144 rooms right now and the staff on site that could house and shelter these folks.

How come we can't just partner with those folks given the urgency that's here?

Well, Council Member, thank you for your question and comments.

I would say as a reminder, we have been in the hotel business throughout this period, and that began last year when DTSC began moving its folks from downtown Seattle to Renton.

And we are spending millions of dollars supporting that hotel.

uh, that hotel and work.

And I would argue at that time, none of us mayor six.

I'm not interested in arguing.

I'm talking about opening additional hotel rooms.

What you're referring to was the support that we offer to King County, which we have applauded you for.

We have talked about it in the past.

I'm asking here we are trying to offer additional rooms, not just support King County's efforts, but those additional rooms, 150 potential rooms that are in hotels and motels right now with our community partners.

That's the question.

I hear what you're saying and we will continue to look at those options.

And again, in response to Council Member Herbold, look at ways to piggyback on those existing relationships.

But I do want to say, and this is important, as part of our procurement process, when we run an official procurement, we have to be careful about how we bring folks into that conversation and when.

But I do hear what you're saying.

And I just, again, as we're trying to finalize these agreements with our operators, we are listening to them and we are trying to not be super rigid and bureaucratic about it.

And to your point, and I will commit to you, that we will approach it from a problem solving, problem-solving approach with the goal, sort of being centered on the primary goal of getting folks inside and not reinventing the wheel.

So I very much appreciate your comments and we will continue to do that and thank you.

Thank you for that answer, Mr. Chair, just follow up please.

Yeah, go ahead Council Member Miscada, thank you.

Thank you very much.

Um, yes, again, I appreciate that there is now interest in hotel and folks.

Absolutely.

Our budget made it clear over $2 million and I wish we could have done more.

So, yes, I appreciate it.

But when you say that you don't want to be too rigid or bureaucratic about the process, it feels rigid and bureaucratic to say that the city's model is only gonna look at two hotels that can house 150 people.

If what the providers are saying is that there's different strategies, but in existing rooms right now, it feels bureaucratic to say, this is the only model that we want.

Can we work with you to place folks in hotel rooms, which I understand are available today, tomorrow, tonight, and get folks into those services to fill those 144, 150 rooms, instead of trying to fit this square peg into a round hole when we know that we have rooms that are open?

I would just say, I think you're referring to one provider in particular, and we are digging into the cost.

We've asked for a detailed budget, but I have to be honest with you, that provider right now, in my understanding and looking at the numbers for their program is being funded by King County, is at $100,000 or more per bed per year.

That is not what we budgeted.

And so I appreciate that they have experience in the city of Seattle.

They are part of our contract negotiations right now.

And we will continue to work with them.

And I've asked for and have not yet received a detailed budget proposal for them, regardless of the type of hotel facility, for us to be able to partner with them to deliver this very important service.

I hope we do.

As I said, we ran RFQ.

We have other respondents to that.

And if we're unable to reach an agreement with that one provider, then we will continue on and talk with the other respondents to the RFQ to bring this on as quickly as we can.

OK.

Mr. Chair, just a few more items, if I might.

Yeah, you just go ahead.

OK.

Thank you very much.

I just want to be really clear.

I'm not talking about any specific provider.

This is a handful of conversations that I've had.

So I want to be really clear about that.

First and foremost.

Second of all, I understand that part of the reason that DESC is not being considered here, even though that's the dollar figure that you continue to reference, is that DESC was very intent on wanting to make sure that folks were being moved out of the exhibition hall and into non-congregate options.

And because that was not part of the sort of overall, I guess, proposal at the time that wasn't pursued.

Can you comment more about that?

Because that seems like a very fair trade-off to move more folks out of non-congregate shelters.

Certainly, we agree that continuing to make sure our congregate shelters remain de-intensified, agree.

I think one of our challenges is we are trying to create net new shelter units.

And I think that's a very important thing for us.

I think we have been reminded over and over again, not just by individual, you know, organizations working with our vulnerable population, but all of our residents, even on the comments, public comment earlier today that, you know, adding additional units is, is our priority.

And that is what the council adopted.

Yes, there are other congregate spaces that, that are in existence.

We are working with King County on that as well to continue to de-intensify and support their efforts to de-intensify.

But it just, you know, our, again, our focus has been adding net new shelter units to the system so we can get more folks who are currently experiencing unsheltered homelessness inside.

But I agree, Council Member, there is no shortage of need to continue to bring on more opportunities for folks for street to housing, but also who are in temporary shelter spaces.

So DESC wasn't allowed to sort of continue down the process of being considered because that first accommodation wasn't accounted for yet.

Their initial offer, I mean, and I don't know anything about the proposals.

I don't have the details, but based exactly just on what you shared with us today, it sounds like DESC's initial proposal is what you're looking at as the benchmark.

I want to remind folks, you know, part of the reason that potentially DESC has a lower amount is because we've continued to underfund what those service providers should be getting paid.

And this has been something that I've worked on for the last two years and know that a cost of living adjustment was something that people celebrated because they hadn't had it for 10 years, but they are still woefully underpaid.

compared to other providers in the quote market.

These are our non-profit providers who are hoping to still pay a rate that doesn't mean that the workers that are in these organizations need the services that are being offered from these organizations.

So I think that there is a real desire both from the council, from the mayor's office, and I appreciate the mayor's ultimate support of the cost of living adjustment which had been worked on for a number of years, that we were finally able to get that passed, but I just don't want us to set a bar that is unjustifiably low and use that as the indication of what something should cost.

when the actual cost of delivering services should not be that low.

A chemical dependency counselor with a master's should not be making $33,000 in the city of Seattle.

So that's an issue that I am concerned with.

If we are using a bar that is driving down or pushing down what we are able to offer to folks who can provide these services right now.

And I would also say that from all of the conversations I've had with our federal partners, the delegation, and the budget conversations we've been involved in as the budget chair.

In addition to my discussions with the folks in the state legislature right now, we know that the federal government, especially under this new administration, has now said that cities can get 100% of the FEMA reimbursement for anything that's COVID related.

This is specifically COVID related.

So I would strongly urge us, and I would welcome any comments that you have on this, about not having that low bar, first of all, to compare to existing costs for organizations that are already under-reimbursed.

But also, whatever we need to do to get those folks into hotel rooms right now, bump up the reimbursement that we're able to offer.

And if the feds are willing to pay that, because this is specifically about not only making sure folks aren't out in elements, but that we are reducing exposure to and the ability to contract COVID, please, can we just move forward with both the hotel strategy?

Amen, if we want to have two large hotel rooms if providers can make it work, but if there's 144 rooms, 150 rooms available right now, let's just fill those rooms and ask for reimbursement, please.

Thank you, Council Member.

We will, I'm happy to work with you on everything that you just said.

You know, we are, there's a big change on January 20th that about eight and we are very excited about that new partnership with the public government.

And, you know, still digesting some of the new guidance that we're receiving.

It's very encouraging to us.

And we absolutely want to make sure that we are, you know, putting every single dollar that we can, that we can toward not just hoteling, but all of the different facets of the city's ongoing COVID-19 response.

One of the, you know, You know, so we're trying to understand all of that from a FEMA perspective and the color of the money from the feds that we're using for the hotel program, of which there was a pretty bright line between FEMA and this.

And so we're trying to understand all of that and see how those things may be changing in light of the new administration in Washington, DC.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I look forward to following up with you as well so that we can have a better sense of the timeline for when those dollars that the city council pass will be sent out.

Thank you very much, Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Council Member Mosqueda.

And I believe Vice Chair Kerbal, did you have additional questions as well?

I was merely going to raise the same point that Councilmember Mosqueda made about the new FEMA reimbursable rates coming out of the federal government and wanting to hear from Deputy Mayor Sixkiller about our intents to pursue that additional funding in order to bring on more units.

Great.

Okay, thank you.

I do just want to close out talking about the hotelling pilot.

by asking a question about some of the decisions the council made in December around the supplemental budget regarding potential underspend of some of that money.

The council appropriated $800,000 to go to youth shelters operated by youth care and to keep that as a vital 24-hour service.

We haven't really heard an update on the process to award those funds.

Could you provide an update on where we are on that support for youth care, Deputy Mayor?

Yeah, so part of that is the final decision on that is tethered to what the final program costs, estimated costs are going to be for the hoteling program.

So that $800,000 was held back from the source of funding we're using to move forward the hoteling program.

And so again, as we try to finalize and land the final sites and the operators and those costs, it will tell us what we have.

And so our hope is if we can stay within all of our budget parameters and land those deals here, that we'll be able to move forward with releasing additional resources, but we want to make sure that we can deliver on that telling plan as well.

And obviously we've had a very spirited discussion today about some of those final considerations.

All right, I just wanted to flag that because obviously that was flagged as a very big priority by youth care.

I want to make sure that that stays at the forefront of this committee monitoring that.

So I look forward to an update on that when we convene next month on that topic as well.

Council colleagues, are there any other questions for Deputy Mayor Sixkiller while we have him here?

Council Member Morales.

I wanted to follow up on some conversations that we're having.

This is a little bit of a side issue, but related to the homelessness investments.

around coordination with the HOPE team.

There is some concern from our outreach providers that when they're asking for assistance in, you know, city coordination on site with trash pickup, for example, Coordinating purple bag and other issues that there is a bit of pushback from the staff that they are not allowed to engage that they aren't allowed to be on site, helping with coordination, understanding that their role is not to be doing referrals or.

you know, doing out outreach with the homeless community, but rather to serve on the city side and coordinating the other kinds of services.

So I'm wondering if you could speak to, um, the perception that, uh, city staff are not supposed to be engaging with our outreach providers.

Thank you, Councilor.

Our outreach are the hope team certainly is engaging with our service providers.

They've got weekly standing meetings and coordinating.

I would say, you know, we are, you know, we're, this is a little bit of a change, right?

For our city team.

And we're all trying to sort of settle into our, to the new normal as I've been calling it, and trying to be very mindful of the perception that, that the HOPE team members themselves are out and about and on the ground, and that may not be in the same spirit as what council intended.

So I very much appreciate your raising this as an issue.

I'm happy to talk with HSP and the HOPE team about that, as well as the outreach continuum to make sure that we are, you know, we don't want, the goal here is as much coordination and transparency as possible and not to send mixed messages about what we can and can't be doing, but really to work in partnership with one another.

So I will very much follow up.

I'm happy to follow up with you and your staff on that and talk with HSE and the whole team members as well.

Yeah, we will probably be sending a letter.

I just want to be clear that the intent of this with the language that we were talking about there was to ensure that coordination would continue, but that we were giving the the deference to our outreach providers in terms of making referrals for services, making decisions about whether a place should be, an encampment should be removed or not.

But that does not mean that there is no need for the city to engage with providers in providing the other services that the city does.

So we will follow up and be back in touch with you about that later.

Happy to have an offline conversation about that.

Would welcome it actually.

Thank you.

Councilmember Muscata, do you have another question?

And then Councilmember Muscata's comments, I'll close out this agenda item.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you again, Deputy Mayor.

So Councilmember Morales' question really gets to the heart of, I think, something that's come up for the last two years.

Now, this might predate you, Deputy Mayor.

I can't quite exactly remember, given that last year felt like it was five years rolled into one.

Hopefully it does predate.

Yeah, we had and I had an opportunity, as I know the mayor did as well, to go down to the city of Los Angeles and visit with the city and county elected officials to have a better understanding of how they are dealing with the crisis of homelessness.

Obviously, L.A.

and Seattle have very similar statistics once you account for homelessness per capita in the cities and trying to learn from each other.

What I saw within City Hall in Los Angeles was a physical room, obviously we can't have a physical room these days, but a place where various agencies came together with organizations, with the community service providers who are out there on a daily basis, identifying where there's hotspots or encampments that potentially were problematic, and first triaging what the strategy would be to get folks additional assistance and support.

But having that one place to pull people together to identify which areas were on the list seemed to be very beneficial, both from the city's perspective and from the community organization's perspective.

I understand that there's these lists that are being generated, a list that might have around eight different sites on it right now that has been generated to identify potential problem sites or removal sites.

And I am concerned that what I'm hearing is that this list is not being generated with organizations on the ground level so that they can have the chance to basically report back on what is happening and really provide the immediate feedback on what the community needs in those areas before something gets added to a list, before an area gets added to a list for removals.

I agree with the folks who've been calling in and testifying today.

We should not have folks sleeping outside our parks and sleeping along the roadways in our neighborhoods.

Nobody wants that.

But we have to make sure that we have a place to move folks that can help move them so that they can stay housed and sheltered.

and allows them to stay with loved ones and be more likely to not cycle back into that same location in a park or along the side of the street.

In order for us to do that though, I think we have to have those community organizations, those partner organizations in a same virtual room with all of you before removal sites are identified because it doesn't sound like that's happening.

Can you please comment on whether or not there is the ability to do that before removal sites are identified so that people can really triage what is needed before a site is put on that list?

Sure.

Council Member, maybe a couple of different things.

One is I'm not aware of a removal list that's being developed.

There is ongoing conversation with various parts of the city about obstruction, upcoming construction, things like that, sort of like a you know, there's certainly conversations about sort of a watch list.

I wouldn't say it's about removal, but more about, hey, here are areas.

And then through this new approach is making sure that we then are creating ongoing dialogue with our outreach, contracted outreach providers to sort of problem solve how we deal with these areas or these individual cases.

I think construction probably being one of the easiest ones for us to work with.

But that's why we're, you know, we've got the weekly meetings, we are standing up, we have stood up on within the city side, you know, sort of that interdepartmental team.

I know that sounds bureaucratic, but to try to make sure we're doing coordination.

And then also trying to figure out and learn, you know, how we have more integration, but it's not removal focused.

It is really like, where are these hotspots?

How are we coordinating with Um, um, with outreach.

I didn't talk about it today and I won't take time to talk about it right now, but our clean cities program, making sure there's not any confusion that that is, you know, a code word for removal.

It is not, uh, but also making sure that contracted outreach, uh, knows where we're going to be and if there are areas that we can partner with them, you know, maybe it's removal of abandoned tents or what are the, what are the other things that we need to be doing?

So we're, we're, we're trying to build a lot of muscle memory.

Right now, I feel good about where we're headed, but I will admit to you that we're not there yet.

But I do feel we're trying to keep sharing information.

I think as I said, maybe to several of you offline, we're also in the process of rebuilding trust, and I think that's really important and so certainly if folks feel like we've come up with a removal list, we'll need to address that certainly because that's not the goal.

So I'll deal with that.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, I think it's the resolution dates and having a better sense of how we're coordinating with community partners when those areas get put on the list for the resolution dates.

And I know Council Member Herbal has her hand up.

Just also want to say, you know, this is the same week we just passed hazard pay.

So as we're thinking about who is being put in harm's way to help these folks, we've offered $4 more an hour to grocery workers.

And so I really hope that the next time we have a conversation, the issue is resolved and those federal FEMA dollars are made available because I'm saying here's the box that council gave us.

We all want to be flexible on that.

We are recognizing especially that the folks who are providing outreach to our homeless community and offering those services, they also should be able to earn a living wage and they're put in hazard hazard way every day.

So if folks are asking for a little bit more and I don't think it's three times the amount might be twenty five percent more than the amount you were talking about.

I think it's worth it, especially during this time.

That's my last plug tie into Monday's vote.

Sorry, Council Member Herbold.

Thanks, Council Member.

I would also say, you know, I think obviously our frontline workers and how we ensure that they are part of the vaccination strategy early, I think also is an important part of all of this as well.

So thank you for your comments and report of work.

Sorry, Council Member Herbold.

Thank you so much.

I'll join in the course of apologizing to Council Member Herbold and close this out with her question or comment.

This actually will be the last.

This is another round of thanks from me, but with a question somewhat related to Councilmember Mosqueda.

I want to thank you, as well as HSD staff, Customer Service Bureau staff, and my own staff in working to update the response that members of the public receive when they contact the city about an encampment.

Sometimes people are contacting the city because they're worried about the well being of the person living outside.

Sometimes they're complaining, but I'm really pleased to see that the response the city is sending is no longer a response that just simply says, um, The CDC says we can't move encampments, and the council has defunded the NAV team, so we can't respond anymore.

The new response recognizes that we have set up a new approach with the HOPE team, describes the home team, the HOPE team.

describes the Clean Cities Initiative so that the public does have expectations that they will receive assistance with garbage pickup, notifies the person contacting the city that the report of unauthorized encampment will be routed to the appropriate department, and explains that the HOPE team will assess for assistance to the individual as well as assessing for the for the impact to the area from the outdoor encampment.

So really appreciate that you have helped us ensure that the public has reasonable expectations.

The piece that I'm still interested in learning more about, we don't have to get into it now, but maybe this could be a topic of conversation for a future homelessness committee meeting is, I don't think we should be...

allowing the public to have the expectation that every location that they contact us with is going to receive the response of a HOPE team.

I really, I believe in managing people's expectation in a way that's realistic, even if it's sometimes not what they wanna hear.

And so it would help, I think, to understand a little bit more about how the interdepartmental team working with our external providers makes decisions about when locations are routed from members of the public to the department, how they make decisions about which ones they go out and visit to offer both resources to the people living outside, as well as mitigating the impacts of people living outside.

Council Member, thank you very much.

both obviously a great, but a very timely question.

And I would say there's the expectation management, even for ourselves in terms of what we're able to accomplish.

And I think of course, also our contracted partner agencies, you know, there's only so many people and so many days in the week and hours in the day.

And so we are, have been working, drafting sort of a set of criteria how we triage and what gets priority, what kind of moves to the back of the room, so to speak.

So if the council would like or the committee would like that, maybe that could be an area we could talk about at our next session like this and kind of walk folks through that and get council's feedback.

Obviously, we'll be working with our partners on making sure that we have alignment on how areas are prioritized.

Again, not from a removal perspective, but how even we just start to problem solve and make sure we're connecting outreach and other services to that particular area.

So thank you for flagging that.

It's very important people and expectations.

All right, thank you so much, everybody, for your questions.

And Deputy Mayor Sixkiller, thank you for coming and answering the questions of the council.

A lot of matters to follow up on and look forward to working with you over the next month, leading into the next council hearing, where we will again get an update on a lot of these initiatives and investments.

I appreciate you coming by and I'm sure that we will speak soon about these and other matters.

So I appreciate it.

Okay.

Council colleagues, we have one last item of business.

Fortunately, it is a fairly quick item of business.

I appreciate everyone's indulgence in going a little long.

given how topical that conversation about the homelessness emergency is and getting a few more questions in.

So we will now queue up item number three, the final item on the agenda.

Mr. Clerk, will you please read the next item into the record?

Resolution 31987, a resolution sponsoring the King County Regional Homelessness Authority's application for membership to the Association of Washington City's Risk Management Service Agency.

So as the name implies, this is the resolution supporting the entrance of the King County Regional Homelessness Authority into the Association of Washington City's insurance risk pool This has been identified as a strong option for providing insurance for the King County Regional Homelessness Authority.

It includes commercial general liability, workers' compensation, directors' and officers' liability.

And because the regional authority is a non-city entity, The sponsorship of a member city is required as we are the largest city in the county and one of the biggest regional leaders we are so presenting.

We do have Jeff Sims from central staff available if people have any, council members have any questions If there aren't any questions for Jeff, I'll move on to suspending the rules so we can consider the resolution.

But first let's go ahead and see if there are questions.

I think Council Member Strauss had his hand raised.

Sorry, Council Member Strauss.

Oh, you could take Council Member Mosqueda's question first.

Oh, sorry, Council Member Escada, you have a question as well.

Okay, so I guess Council Member Escada, then Council Member Strauss.

Well, thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Council Member Strauss.

I will be short.

My question is Do we know if the AWC Risk Management Service Agency is able to offer various choices to the employees that will ultimately be in the Regional Housing Authority?

I see from their website, it says two choices.

But are you familiar with whether or not an employee is going to be able to have choice?

If you look at our program, our offers right now, we have a number of health plans we can choose from.

I can only imagine that this will be something that will be of interest to the employees who are transitioning over and perhaps even a subject of bargaining.

So I'm wondering at the front end, do we know if there's a sufficient choice?

Thank you, Council Member.

For the record, Jeff Sims from Council of Central Staff.

So the entrance into the Risk Management Services Agency is actually the insurance not for employees to be offered insurance like health insurance benefits, but actually the insurance that would be held on any facilities or either controlled or operated by the authority, as well as the actions of its employees.

So it's not the way that you would get your health benefits plan.

That actually, the resolution, the council already passed a resolution supporting the opportunity to apply to the benefits trust that AWC provides.

And that would be the pathway that you might have multiple health insurance options.

I believe that's the pathway that we're going to go with, but I don't actually have that current information.

So I'll have to get back to you with more specific details on the types of insurance options.

I will flag that in authorizing the interlocal, executing the interlocal agreement, the council asked for a transition plan that includes a discussion of the types of benefits that will be available to employees of the new authority.

So the council should be receiving a report from the executive as these things move forward that will summarize a lot of details.

I'm sorry for the misunderstanding.

Thank you.

Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, Chair.

And Jeff, this might not be a question that you can answer, and I'm happy to receive the answer in a follow-up.

If we were not a member of the Association of Washington Cities, would we be able to accept this insurance policy?

To I think that the sponsor.

There you go.

Yes.

Um, we know you have to be a member of the AWC in order to the city that is sponsoring must be a member of the AWC in order to sponsor a non government or a quasi government entity, as is the regional or

Thank you, Jeff.

And then again, thank you to the Office of Intergovernmental Relations for finding those additional dollars within their budget from this last year as the transmitted budget that we received did not have the full funding for our AWC dues, which would have put us in a position where we could not have sponsored this insurance program.

Thank you.

Okay, seeing no other questions, I will move forward with my motion to suspend the rules.

Council colleagues, I need to move to suspend the rules to allow the committee to vote on this resolution because the agenda did not list the committee's intent to take action and possible vote on this matter.

So if there is no objection, the council rule relating to listing possible vote on the agenda will be suspended to allow the committee to vote on resolution 31987. uh...

hearing on the second but no objection uh...

i will go ahead and and uh...

just make the parliamentary call that that uh...

probably means were were fine uh...

and the council for was suspended uh...

and the committee will proceed with voting on the resolution uh...

will the clerk please call the roll

Sorry, pardon, but you have to make a motion for us to consider.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Yes, yes, sorry.

Council Member Strauss, your second broke off my rhythm there.

Apologies.

Sorry, sorry.

I second your motion.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, hold on.

We're queuing it up.

Let's do it.

We'll get the order right this time.

I move the committee recommends adoption of resolution 31987. Is there a second?

Second.

Oh, I thought Dan was going to, yeah, anyway.

He wasn't fast enough.

It wasn't fast enough that time.

Are there additional comments on the resolution?

Seeing no comments, will the clerk please call the roll on the adoption of the resolution?

Council President Gonzalez?

Aye.

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council Member Juarez?

Yes.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Peterson.

Yes.

I'm sorry, Council Member Mosqueda.

Yes.

Council Member Sawant.

Council Member Strauss.

Yes.

Chair Lewis.

Yes.

There are eight in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

I should have also announced earlier Council Member Sawant did inform the committee that she would have to leave early.

So following the roll call, the motion carries and the committee recommendation that the resolution be adopted will be forwarded to the February 1st City Council meeting.

Moving on to adjournment.

I will not make any closing remarks.

Appreciate everybody's patience and hanging in there this afternoon.

There's no further business before this committee.

If anyone has any remarks for good of the order, now would be the time to be recognized.

Seeing no remarks for good of the order, this committee is hereby adjourned.