Seattle City Council: Select Budget Committee Public Hearing 10/22/19

Good evening.

Can you hear back there?

If you can hear me, please raise your hands.

Yay.

Hey, thank you all for coming.

It is great to have you.

This is October 22nd.

This is our second public hearing.

I'm Sally Baggio.

I chair this committee with me, Council President Harrell, Council Member Gonzalez.

Thank you.

And we know we'll have more.

They're lurking in the hallway talking to other people.

So we know that we will have many more council members here.

I want to just remind everybody that we're going to ask speakers to have two minutes, stick with two minutes.

If you want to speak as a group, you can have five.

I know we've got some students here.

I always love to know what schools that you're representing, so thank you for coming.

This is a really good opportunity for you to see democracy in action and our folks in Seattle that are here to talk to us about the budget and what's important to them.

I believe that there are more people downstairs, so if you are willing, after you have spoken, if you would leave your seats and make room for people downstairs so others can come up.

And I also, Council Member Sawant, I'm glad you're here, thank you.

Last year, when we had our Vietnamese seniors, I believe you made a motion to suggest that they come up and speak first.

I think they're seventh on the list tonight, but I would like, if it's okay with my colleagues, to invite them up to speak.

I know some of them have a bus to catch.

They also have, I think, I just heard from Lynn that somebody was on their way to the hospital.

I don't want to get in the way of medical treatment, so if it's okay with you, I would just like to invite them up to speak.

Is that any objection to that?

Okay.

Ms. Lin, I know you're back there.

At least you were.

But if we could ask our Vietnamese seniors that want to address us to come on up to the microphones.

I see.

Okay.

Would you let me know when the speaker does show up?

Thank you so much.

OK, well, let's get going.

I'm going to call three names.

And if I can't read your handwriting, which happens on occasion, I'm going to call your number.

And then if you will come up and I think there's a place for your cards over there.

There are two microphones here.

There's one over here.

I feel sort of like.

in the airplane when you first get in and you get your flight attendants directing you here and here and over there.

So are they here now?

Okay, very good.

So would you, Ms. Lin, would you invite your seniors to join us?

We're going to have them speak first.

And so anybody who wants to come up will be welcome.

And also, Mr. Interpreter, if I may say, would you please let them know that I believe the request they have made for the budget was in the mayor's budget and that there's no reason to believe that we are not going to support that.

So they don't have to be convincing us of anything.

Ms. Lin, just approach to the microphone.

Thank you, Mr. Council Member.

On behalf of the Vietnamese Senior Association, I think that we pass the public testimony.

So we just want to stand up all together to say thank you to all council members for supporting the fund.

We pass on the testimony.

Oh, nice.

The seniors just got out of the hospital on Friday, but because of, you know, they really need the funds, so they fight the rain, and, you know, some of them can barely stand up, but they want to be here to let you know that they really want your support for the grant.

And thank you, Council Member Gonzales, for supporting the grant.

Council Member President Harrell, too.

Thank you.

Council Member Sawant.

Thank you.

I used to work for you all, so I love you all.

Thank you.

So did your colleague want to speak?

No, we're good.

OK.

All right.

Well, thank you all for coming.

Thank you.

OK.

So speaker number one, it looks like Cecile Hansen.

And then we've got number two looks like Queen King Rios.

Number three is Sandra Valberg Crown, maybe.

So it's one, two, and three.

Oh, great, are you a group?

Lovely, okay.

It makes me very happy to have this many people stand up and talk about safe streets for kids.

Okay, please, and you've got five minutes as this group, and we're very happy to see you all.

Please go ahead and just introduce yourself, please.

Okay.

I'm Cecile Hansen.

I am the chair of the Duwamish tribe, the indigenous people of Seattle, and I've been chair for over 40 years, and I'm here to advocate for safety on streets, especially in the West Marginal Way in West Seattle.

Thank you.

And if I can ask each of you to speak into the microphone so others back there can hear you, too.

Okay.

Are you done?

My name is Jolene Haas and I'm the director of the Duwamish Longhouse and Cultural Center and I'm a Duwamish tribal member.

And I am here to convince you to support the Duwamish Safe Streets initiative that has been proposed to Lisa Herbold and given to each one of you to consider in funding this project of the mayor's budget.

We have been working with SDOT, who has come up with a $2 million price tag that is what it would take to put a crosswalk across West Marginal Way to give us equal and safe access to the T107 Park and Herring's House Park, which is a very culturally significant heritage site.

of ours, and it's the reason why we put the Duwamish Longhouse and Cultural Center where it currently is.

At one point, we wanted to actually have it on that side of the street, but since it is where it is, we need to have access to it, and trying to get back and forth has created hazards to the school children, to ourselves, to people that are walking, biking.

to our location since we don't have public transportation.

So with that being said, I want to thank all of our supporters that are standing here with the Duwamish today that support this.

This has been an ongoing issue for the last, well, since before we even built the longhouse, we knew this was going to be a problem.

We're asking the city council to please take seriously this request to get us a safe, crosswalk across West Marginal Lane.

I want to ask any of these folks that want to say something to speak to this issue, please do.

Thank you.

My name is Tamsen Spangler, and I've lived in West Seattle for 60 years.

And I'm happy to see the Duwamish Longhouse and Cultural Center open in 2009. I've attended many events there.

It's a beautiful place.

And recently, we've been holding our District 1 Community Network monthly meetings there.

The Longhouse provides that space for our meeting at no cost.

as they believe in community engagement and building relationships with the residents and the community groups with District 1. I am asking for your support of the Duwamish-Longhouse proposal to add a city budget, a green sheet with the total cost of constructing a safe crosswalk, paving the sidewalks, and anchoring a traffic slowdown signal.

It is not safe to cross the street right now.

These unsafe crosswalks are not even ADA requirements, are not even being met.

And the sidewalks are unpaved.

This is not safe for families.

It's not safe for the elderly.

We would love to be involved with the Longhouse, but we need these additions made.

So I'm asking for your support for the green sheet, which these tolls cost.

Thank you.

Great.

Thank you so much, all of you.

Sir?

I'm Linda Blackington.

I'm liaison from the Samish Nation to the Duwamish.

We're behind them 100% for any safety features they need.

I live on Alki Avenue, and when I go over there, if I have to park over at T107, I would rather not because the traffic is so bad.

You take your life in your hands getting across there.

It's hard enough just getting in and out of there with a car.

So they really need something done in there.

And there's many, many different things you can do.

I don't know what's in the proposal, but please look at this.

It's really important to get that safety feature done.

Thank you.

Hi, Ishka.

Thank you.

I'm Don Brubeck.

I'd like to acknowledge that we're on the ancestral lands of the first peoples of Seattle, the Duwamish tribe.

This is a chance to actually do something about it.

And we're all here as part of a coalition, a broad coalition of neighborhood groups, including Georgetown Community Council, Highland Park Action Committee, the North Delridge Neighborhood Development Association, ECOS, the Duwamish River Tag, over a dozen groups, Duwamish Valley Safe Streets, West Seattle Bike Connections, and others who are in strong support.

So it's a broad coalition.

It's a doable project that SDOT has a concept design for, and we hope for your vote.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate the time, well done.

Now, how many numbers did we go through?

One, just one, well done.

And Seattle Neighborhood Greenways, they're here too, so thank you for that.

All right, well, let's move on to number two.

Queen Anne, King Rios, and then it looks like Sander Valberg-Crown, number three, and Oliver Anderson Sanford, number four.

So two, three, and four.

Good evening, Seattle City Council members.

My name is Queen B. King-Rios.

I live in downtown Seattle, District 3, and I'm here today as a member of Will and a leader of Women and Black.

As of tomorrow, Women and Black would have stood for 94 outside of our violent deaths in King County, and of course, right here in Seattle is included.

Our hearts are broken and we are grief-stricken.

I've been trying to pass out as many flyers as I can to get people to come and stand vigil with us for Derek Frost, who was murdered in Lake City last week.

We have to fund, we need to fund tiny house villages.

There's no way our city is gonna be able to survive if we don't get the means necessary to help stop one of these things.

And deaths outside by violence isn't one way this big, beautiful, rich city should be living in and the people that live and work here.

And I'm asking you guys, Council Member, to please support tiny house villages.

God bless you and thank you.

And can I please share this?

And I'm Anitra Freeman with Share and Wheel and Women in Black.

And I'm very glad to see a proposal from Jean Monsalant for $12 million to fund 20 new tiny house villages, including the stipulation to not spend any money on shutting two of them down.

We, as my friend said, we have too many deaths.

Without shelter, people die.

More shelter saves lives.

I was there when Sharewheel started Tent City 3, which is still going.

I was there when the Nickelodeons started the first Tiny House Village, and the Nickelodeons are still going.

These are the pioneers.

Cher, Wheel, and Nicholsville are the pioneers in self-managed, organized encampments and tiny house villages.

They need your support.

That includes funds.

It's also your support to keep real democracy and real self-management going.

It works.

It works, and it keeps people alive, and it keeps people going, and gives people the strength to succeed.

Thank you.

Thank you for coming, Anitra.

All right, number three.

Number three, we have Sander Vanburg, and then four is Oliver Anderson Sanford, and five is Marco Iles.

Hi, my name is Sandra Albert Cronin and I'm here about the rideshare tax.

So, you call it fair share.

We already pay 49.4% tax a gallon.

for the state tax, 18.4% federal tax.

We pay 24 cents a ride that goes out of Seattle, which I just found out.

But you know, that's all right, because that goes for wheelchair taxi service.

And then we have property tax that we have to pay as citizens of Seattle.

Oh, I've lived here 32 years.

I just paid my property taxes, about $3,000.

To register my car, almost $400, 399. $80 was transportation benefit.

I guess that's a benefit of getting to live in Seattle.

$251 for regional transit.

$25 for highway improvement.

Well, okay, now you want to, oh, and then I pick up at the airport, so I have to have a TNC sticker, which also includes, oh, that's free.

Great.

But it also includes needing to have a business license, so you have to do all the filing of taxes and all that.

So now you want to charge 51 cents more, so that makes it 75 cents a ride out of Seattle.

For your $0.51, you guys want $125 million over the time of this tax, which to me, it just looks like you're replacing your Amazon head tax.

So that's for 500 affordable union ha- housing units, which the Uber drivers are going to need, the city center connector streetcar that you guys ordered the wrong size for cars to begin with, and then $17 million for driver's protection or unrepresented unionization.

So I think you guys should rethink this.

Being a city resident, I don't want to be taxed out of the city.

Thank you.

Oliver, Marico, and then Ellen or John.

That's four, five, and six.

And if I could ask you, please, to come up.

Excellent.

Looks like you have some supporters here.

Good evening.

Thank you for having us.

I'm Oliver Anderson Sanford.

I'm Ashley McGraw.

I'm Sophia Scamia-Talas.

I'm Anya Ginsberg.

And I'm Eston Reby.

However, William Capham doesn't have the opportunity to be here today because he was found dead at 59 years old with his dog buddy curled up at his side.

According to the Seattle Times, William, who preferred to be called Three Stars because it reflected his Mohawk tribal ancestry, was homeless for years.

His shelter was a 14-foot aluminum boat covered in a tarp being held up by a PVC frame, and he moved his boat around over the years until he eventually was stationed under the 520 bridge, which is where he was found dead only two months ago on August 7th, 2019. The medical examiner's office discovered he had passed away eight months before he was found.

All that was left of him was his skeletal remains.

How is this acceptable?

Sabrina Tate died in 2018 due to complications related to drug use, the Seattle Times reports.

She was only 27 years old.

After struggling with drug addiction as a teen, Sabrina moved to Seattle from Spokane in the hopes of finding a better life in a bigger city, but only found an endless struggle with addiction and homelessness.

She ended up living in a so-called safe lot and was starting to reach out for help, but ultimately she never received the help she desperately needed until it was too late.

How is this acceptable?

And there was Sarah Stewart, who, as reported by Crosscut in 2018, became homeless after getting evicted because her ability to work was limited by her degenerative illness.

She struggles with chronic pain and fatigue and is now forced to sleep in her car, on her friends' couches and floors, and wherever else she can find.

Sarah still works when she can, but was additionally burdened with $2,000 of late fees and attorney fees by her old landlord, which she simply cannot pay.

How is this acceptable?

These are just some of the people that you could have helped, that we could have helped as a city, but you've been complacent.

You've waited too long and wasted too much money on cops and repealed taxes due to your subservience to big businesses like Amazon.

Those big businesses couldn't care less about our city and even less about the people that live in it.

How is that acceptable?

Around 48 homeless people in Seattle die each year, and only a fraction of them are investigated.

About 70% of homeless people in Seattle became homeless while living in our own city.

A survey in 2017 by Crosscut found that 25% of homeless people lost their homes after losing a job, and 93% of those surveyed would move into affordable housing if it was available.

It's not.

41% of people living on the streets work in some capacity.

How is this acceptable?

As leaders of Seattle, how do you rationalize this?

This is a crisis.

You simply cannot call yourself a progressive city or a free city when there are over 12,000 people living here without a home.

These problems can be solved by reallocating funds to the wages of health and human service workers.

It would be one thing if all 12,500 homeless people in the region were sheltered, if they had beds to go to every night.

We could deal with that.

But they don't.

47% of them don't.

Having 30 more police officers won't give us more beds.

The mayor has asked you all to turn our city's progressive values into progressive action.

We can't execute that action with more police or new office workers.

What we need is people on the ground, therapists in offices, nurses, doctors, family practitioners, teachers, and people that make real change.

These are the health and human service workers.

These are the people actually getting others off the streets.

They deserve a living wage, and when you don't provide one, they have to move on, which in turn harms their clients.

We can't solve homelessness and the housing crisis without dedicated, compassionate, and experienced people who love their jobs.

So I'll leave you with a simple request.

Don't waste our money on officers with guns.

Spend it on the people who care.

Spend it on a bed.

Spend it on anything but the police.

I hope we've proven to you how you can increase public safety not by spending less of it as a department of the city and more of it as a group of humans who care about everyone's health.

Thank you.

Thank you.

What school do you attend?

We go to the center school.

Nice.

Well done.

Thank you.

So I think we have Marco Iles, Eleanor John, and Kelly McKinney next.

So those are numbers five, six, and eight.

More center school?

Well done.

Good evening, council members.

We're honored to be here tonight.

We're seniors from the center school.

My name is Mariko Islas.

My name is Adam Billen.

My name is Zivia Rich.

And my name is Maya Potey.

There are many center school students here tonight to testify on the budget, so we are going to try to limit our testimony to three minutes to leave room for all of us to speak.

In alignment with those peers, we're here to advocate for an increase in health and human services funding.

But we aren't here to talk about ourselves.

We're here to talk about Councilmember Herbold.

You passed legislation that gave millions of dollars to affordable housing.

You've seen how badly our communities are in need due to the rising rents within the city.

In order to keep our communities safe and healthy, we need you.

Council Member Harrell.

We both live on Beacon Hill and we see the effects of poverty on our community every day.

We know you see them too.

When you announced you weren't running for re-election, you talked about the opportunities you had because of the mentors, teachers, and family members who helped you along the way.

Funding youth development services helps young people who need the same kind of role models in their lives.

Council Member Sawant, you've been one of the most progressive voices in our city for years.

You fought for the working class, for renters, and for the homeless.

You know how important this is.

Keep fighting, we need you.

Council Member Pacheco, you work with UW's Office on Minority Affairs and Diversity.

The truth of our city is that people of color, especially black people, are vastly overrepresented in poverty and homelessness.

In order to help all of our city's populations, we need you.

Council Member Juarez, through your work on capital development projects, you understand the impact that public policy and funding can have on poverty and homelessness.

Continue pushing for high impact solutions like those that Health and Human Services provide.

Council Member O'Brien, you have been dedicated to fixing our city's homelessness crisis for a long time.

We urge you to act on your conscience in regards to the funding that Health and Human Services desperately needs.

Council Member Baxhaw, you talk about wanting to create a healthy and safe environment regardless of religion or race.

By not giving Health and Human Services the funding they need, youth of color will not be able to connect to their culture.

Council Member Baxhaw, we need your help.

Council Member Mosqueda, your goal is to lift up working families and create affordable housing.

Health and Human Services like the Downtown Emergency Service Center do the exact same thing and to be truly effective they require additional funding.

Council Member Gonzalez, you know firsthand from your experiences as a lawyer in Seattle that police can inflame rather than assist in many situations faced by Seattle citizens.

Health and human services is what is truly needed by our communities.

In a city where we've declared a state of emergency over our homeless crisis, only 10% of our general fund is offered to solve the issue.

The people of Seattle deserve better.

In order to get our citizens the help they need, we need you.

We need you to step up and to make the right decision.

Thank you.

Number six is Eleanor John.

Eight is Kelly McKinney.

Nine is Gerald Davis.

Hello, our names are Brandon Hopper, Clara Buccina, Eleanor John, and Sawyer Anderson.

We thank you for taking your time to hear us.

We have our sources with us today, and feel free to check them.

27% of the general fund, $409,538,851, is allocated to the police department.

Only 10% of the general fund is going to the health and human services.

We believe that the City Council should redistribute the $2,477,433 allocated for hiring and retention bonuses added to this year to Health and Human Services to aid Seattle residents who are experiencing or at risk of homelessness, abuse, or addiction.

There is no data to support the idea that more police officers equals less crime.

In a Marshall Project study, the ratio of police per 1,000 students has been dropping.

Meanwhile, crime rates in those areas have also dropped.

According to Alexander Wise, a police staffing consultant who has worked with police departments in Chicago, Albuquerque, and New Orleans, most police departments have issues not with the number of officers, it's with how they are deployed and scheduled.

It's more important what the officers do versus how many of them there are.

The key to an effective and respectful police force is not to increase the number of police officers.

It is to train our officers in being aware of their implicit biases, the correct responses to different complex situations without resorting to unnecessary violence, and using evidence and data analysis to schedule patrols where and when they are needed most.

Quality, not quantity, is what makes a police force that works for everyone.

Organizations getting funding from the City of Seattle on their Health and Human Services General Fund section are subject to intense regular audits and reports of how the city's money is being put to use.

The police force should also have to vote to provide the city and its people with reports about how their money is being used and how this is helping or hindering communities.

Organizations such as Southwest Youth and Family Services provide programs like opportunities to get a GED, credit retrieval classes, mental health services, community outreach, and family support, which are integral in building strong, healthy communities, getting people off the streets, and helping people get a second chance.

However, there is simply not enough money getting to these organizations in order to serve our people in the way they deserve.

Increasing funds for health and human services allows for organizations to do more important work with our communities and expand programs that not only help families, but reduce crime.

For example, the Housing First strategy is not only one of the most effective ways to help people suffering from homelessness get back on their feet, but according to the Urban Institute, connecting people returning from prison to stable housing decreases the likelihood that they would return to prison by 60%, according to data from the Returning Home Ohio program.

In addition, connecting ex-offenders with a steady job paying around $10 per hour halves the likelihood of them returning to prison.

We have been researching this issue for mere weeks, and we already fully understand and accept what needs to be done.

Each of you has had at the very least two years in office to gain this understanding.

We're counting on you to do the right thing for the people you promise to serve.

We will be watching.

Thank you for your time and please consider the incredible positive community impact for our generation and future generations that increasing funding for health and human services will provide.

Thank you.

Thank you all for coming.

Number 8.

Number 8 is Kelly McKinney.

9 is Gerald Davis.

10 is Andrea Porter.

Hello.

My name is Kelly McKinney.

I live in the Bitter Lake neighborhood and I'm gonna try and keep this short.

I'm gonna rotate this around.

There we go.

I support feasibility studies for Licton Springs Community Center and for 24-7 enhanced shelter in Lake City as proposed by Council Member Juarez.

Licton Springs is an underserved community in District 5 and needs a place for people to gather as its community grows.

And Seattle only has one enhanced shelter space in the city for adults, single adults, located south of the Ship Canal.

There is no shelter for single adults, in North Seattle.

I continue to support LEAD in North Seattle for three reasons.

The LEAD evaluations as conducted by the University of Washington were positive.

Every Seattle police precinct captain and lieutenant I've ever heard speak about LEAD has praised it.

And three, LEAD works with police.

I support the efforts to recruit more police and community service officers.

I'm skeptical of the increase in the navigation team.

While not opposed to the navigation team in principle, I kind of help but wonder how the navigation team can navigate people to shelter if we lack sufficient shelter and housing.

The number of people being successfully referred to shelter by the navigation team are not good.

Seattle needs to step back and consider why the referrals of the shelter by the navigation team isn't working.

Thank you, Kelly.

Gerald Davis, number nine.

Number 10 is Andrea Porter.

Number 11 is Erin Thomason.

My name is Jerrell Davis, and I am passing my time off to decriminalize Seattle.

Good evening, council members.

I am with Decriminalize Seattle, and we are calling on council members to reject the proposed expansions within the Seattle Police Department.

Please do not allocate $800,000 for the continuation of the emphasis patrols.

Please do not allocate $800,000 for the sworn officer hiring incentives.

And please do not allocate $1.6 million to recruitment and retention initiatives.

The SPD and city are still under federal consent decree.

How can we justify adding any additional funding when we are still out of compliance?

The total divestment of 3.2 million can make some real change for our communities.

The council should instead use this money to fund projects such as the green light project as proposed by council member Mosqueda to provide direct outreach to sex workers on Aurora, which they have been doing since April of this year, making sure that people have things such as latex condoms, Plan B, and supplies for safe injections.

and also Freedom Schools at Rainier Beach High School and Emerson Elementary, as proposed by Council Member Sawant, which serves young students of color in South Seattle during the summer, which we know is a crucial time for young people to continue their learning.

and also to support community-based first responders and bystander trainings for community members who are de facto first responders in non-medical emergencies.

And lastly, allocate funding to create a harm reduction working group that utilizes non-criminal legal solutions to create policies addressing challenges the city faces.

Thank you, council members.

My name is Allison Chung.

I'm with Decriminalize Seattle, Parasol, and All In for Washington.

This is an issue of economic justice.

We know that Seattle has the most regressive tax code in the entire country, which means that low-income black and brown communities are paying a much greater share than their wealthy white neighbors.

Our tax dollars should not be used to further criminalize our communities and harm our youth, our families, and the things that we need to make our communities strong.

I'm calling on all council members to reject the proposed expansions within the Seattle Municipal Court.

Please do not allocate $170,000 to the Seattle Municipal Court for enhanced probation.

Please do not allocate $150,000 to the city attorney's office for case conferencing.

The details of this pilot project are unclear.

I would like the council to allocate this $320,000 toward the youth consortium package, consisting of Creative Justice, Community Passageways, and the Safe Futures Youth Center.

Our resources should be used to heal our communities through programs like these.

My name is Mark Roughton.

I'm a student at Seattle Central.

I work in housing policy.

I just wanted to say, there is a direct inverse coalition between the amount of resources the community has and its crime rate.

Police don't exist to protect people.

They exist to protect property.

Stop using resources to lock humans away, and instead give those resources directly to the community through projects like the Green Light Project, PAWC Swap, and the Youth Consortium.

Thank you.

And we also have copies of our platform for the council members as well.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We have a few more remarks.

The council should also support equitable development and anti-displacement efforts such as the Equitable Development Initiative and community-driven planning like the Graham Street Station Project.

We do not support the criminal legal system using the language of harm reduction and reform to further invest and expand itself and harm our communities.

Study after study in places like Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and New Jersey have shown that increased probation does not result in lower crime rates.

Nationally, municipalities are moving away from probation, so it does not make sense for our city to double down on this program.

That is not our progressive values.

Our budget should be used to address the root causes of why people end up in the criminal legal system.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

And number 10 is Andrea Porter, 11 is Erin Thomason, and 12 is Kiyoshi.

Kiyoshi.

You golly do greetings.

My name is Lexi warrior.

I'm a member of Seattle made.

I'm here to encourage you to support funding for Seattle small scale manufacturers and producers in the Office of Economic Development's 2020 budget.

I manage Native Works, a social enterprise and vocational rehabilitation program that employs 15 homeless and low-income Native Americans and Alaska Natives.

Our apprentices create authentic indigenous art in Pioneer Square at the Chief Seattle Club that is sold at Pike Place Market.

We give our apprentices a safe, secure space to relearn employment skills and reconnect with the Native community while mentoring and guiding them into gainful employment.

Many of our apprentices have gained full-time employment and housing because of the Native Works program, without which they would have a significantly more difficult time doing so, finding jobs.

The support of Seattle Made for our program provides resources and training for our apprentices and has also given Native Works a voice in the noise of big business in Seattle.

Again, my name is Lacey Warrior, and I'm here to ask you to fund the work of Seattle Made in the Office of Economic Development's 2020 budget.

Native Works and hundreds of other small businesses benefit from it.

Thank you.

Thank you, Lacey.

Is there an Andrea Porter that's number 10?

She's with us.

You are all Andrea Porter.

We're all Andrea Porter.

Nice.

Thanks.

Hi, I'm Francine Mu Young, and I'm here with Seattle Made.

I would like to encourage you to support funding for Seattle's small-scale manufacturers and producers in the Office of Economic Development's 2020 budget.

My studio and shop are both located in Capitol Hill just off of Union.

I make leather goods, everything from leather earrings to bags and clothing.

I began this business over eight years ago.

Over this time, I've employed 10 people ranging from students, mothers, and any person needing a job.

If I could help them, I did.

I moved to Seattle because of its support for small businesses.

Having the Seattle Made organization here to help only emphasizes what I love about Seattle.

I want to stay in Seattle and continue to grow my business in a community that matters to me.

With the high cost of real estate and the new minimum wages, I find that I can turn to Seattle Made Group for resources and knowledge in sharing materials and information that would otherwise have costly learning curves.

The support and easy access to other manufacturers has helped me overcome barriers and obstacles.

Seattle has a culture that I'm afraid will be lost with the many tech jobs currently present.

People need to be aware that there is a healthy amount of manufacturing happening here in Seattle.

Everything from working artists like myself to manufacturers of beddings, bikes, a multitude of food items, and of course, coffee.

We are proud to be Seattle Made, and we need help in a noisy marketplace in letting people know we exist.

With more awareness, we can grow our businesses, furthering our impact in our communities, providing more jobs, and creating a healthy circular economy.

Seattle Made has almost 600 members.

Nearly 70% of Seattle Made businesses are women and minority owned, me being one of those.

And many of us employ other women and minorities.

If the city of Seattle is serious about its commitment to providing real economic opportunities for women and minorities, then I ask you to please support Seattle Made.

Again, my name is Francine Muyung, and I ask you to fund the work of Seattle Made in the Office of Economic Development's 2020 budget.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, I'm Art Stone.

I also support including Seattle Made in the Office of Economic Development Budget.

Seattle Made has been a great resource for me as I try to grow my business, which is Honest Biscuits.

I own in downtown Seattle.

We employ 10 people as we grow and make more delicious food.

And we have to expand.

We want to do that in Seattle and not have to move out to the suburbs like a lot of people have.

And it's the resources that Seattle Made provides that makes this sort of thing possible.

Thanks.

Hi, my name is Inderjeet Ramghotra.

I am an acupuncturist and herbalist, and I work in Seattle also.

I'm a board member for Seattle Made, and I'm here to reiterate our request for funding from the Office of Economic Development to support the great work that happens at Seattle Made in keeping and holding a diverse local makers economy here in our progressive city.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, all of you, for coming.

All right.

Number 11. We're now on page 2 of 12. Aaron Thomason, Kiyoshi, and then 13 is Jesse Moore.

Number 11, 12, and 13.

Hi, I'm Aaron Thomason.

I'm Russell Cody.

I'm Madison Chamberlain.

I'm Anya Navarro.

We are from the Center School and are here to advocate for human services.

Thank you for taking the time to listen and for giving us the opportunity to testify.

We'd like to start by acknowledging the work you have done for the city thus far and urge you to consider our proposal tonight.

On my way to school one morning, I saw a burned book on the ground.

At first, I was confused as to why it was there, until I realized that someone had no option but to burn their book to stay warm throughout the night.

I moved to Seattle this April, and I see people in South Lake Union who have everything, and others in Pioneer Square with the clothes on their back.

In the proposed budget, $357.21 million are going towards the police department, while homelessness is only allocated $80.2 million.

$2,447,433 are going towards hiring incentives for police officers, as well as recruitment and retention initiatives.

There is no empirical link to more police equating to less crime.

The consensus amongst police staffing consultants is that it's not how many officers you have, but how you utilize them.

According to the Marshall Project, Memphis, Tennessee hired 300 more police officers in an effort to reduce their crime rate.

Many of the police hired through the recruitment initiatives did not meet standard and were largely ineffective in upholding public safety.

The violent crime rate increased by 2.4%.

In New York City, a city very similar to our own with the largest homeless population in the U.S., the council took action to reduce the number of police hired and the crime rate dropped dramatically.

Hiring more police officers and giving them frivolous bonuses is not how we should be spending our money.

We should be focusing on retraining our currently employed officers to better deal with situations and assist our neighbors in need.

Instead of hiring more officers, it would be largely more cost-effective and beneficial to retrain our currently employed officers so that they can do their jobs more effectively.

We believe in restorative justice rather than mass incarceration.

There are more than 12,000 homeless people in Seattle.

In 2015, over 48 people died on the street, and half of those deaths were drug- and alcohol-related.

Walking down any street in Seattle, you'll only see the gold leaves dotting the city with their deaths.

A large majority of the homeless population are the elderly, many of whom have complex chronic medical conditions.

Access to health care is a major problem, and independent human service organizations are forced to pick up the slack and are easily overwhelmed.

They are often unable to provide adequate medical care due to a lack of healthcare professionals.

You all have the power to change this and to fulfill your promise of a just Seattle for all.

I was supposed to work tonight as I do every Tuesday.

Being kicked out, becoming one of those people in the street is a very real possibility for me and I can't afford to waste my time.

Instead of treating the symptoms of the problem and even then only barely brushing the surface, we need to address the root.

Getting people off the street will contribute to increased public safety.

Over the past three days, the center school has gathered over 168 signatures in support of our proposal to reduce the money allocated to hiring incentives in the SBD and fund health and human services further, specifically combating Seattle's homeless problem.

Every city council member has one common value, building a Seattle for everyone where we can all thrive and prosper.

You have a moral obligation to aid the most vulnerable and marginalized members of our society.

We strongly urge you to reallocate the $2,447,433 going towards hiring more police to homelessness relief initiatives.

Thank you.

All right, Kiyoshi, 12, Jesse Moore, 13, Seth Emerson, I think it's Emerson, 14. 12, 13, and 14, please.

Good evening City Council members and thank you for taking the time to hear us.

We are seniors at the Center School.

I am Levi Koenig.

I'm Kiyoshi Sakauye.

I'm Virgil Grooms.

I'm Camelia Maxson.

And this poem is titled Public Safety is Killing Our People.

Funding public safety is just another way to say gambling on lives.

The crimes never go down, like the bodies of innocents from the fingertip triggers of illegal executions, elevating, escalating situations, relying on incomplete concentration, seeing only colored skin, not human emotions, yelling, put the knife down!

Five seconds passed before John T. Williams was dead.

Four shots to his body, bullets decorating gun clicks and permanent wounds.

Three meters away from another human, but the police only saw a bullseye waiting to be targeted.

2. People in the streets of Seattle, 4.15pm and only 1. Survived and walked free, no charges, just a bit of paperwork at the police department.

You can't threaten a gun with a scrap of wood.

You can't stab a man with a closed pocket knife.

You can't take away a man's life without any blood.

And now he's a totem pole and not a beating heart.

Michael Taylor looked between two officers not being able to process information and real-time diagnosed with delayed response syndrome.

The police believed he was deciding which one to stab first, shot brutally like an animal in the jungle.

He didn't survive the confusion.

didn't have blood on their hands.

He was dangerous in the eyes of authority.

35 minutes after he apologized to a man for almost robbing him, he was shot dead by the government's hands.

He couldn't drop the knife because he didn't know he had to.

His father said he just needed love like everyone else.

But all he received was a bullet from a gun trigger.

She had four children and they will all grow up without their mother.

She had four children and two policemen shot her.

She had four children and Seattle Police Department shot her.

She had four children and public safety shot her.

50% of the budget is killing our people.

These are only three cases out of dozens of lost lives.

Public safety is killing our people.

Most of the victims are people of color being killed by white officers.

Seattle Police Department is killing our people.

Gone but not forgotten.

Charlena Lyles, Demarius Butts, John T. Williams, Shae Taylor, Yosia Falitogo, Sam Smith, Raymond Azevedo, Michael Taylor, Kyle Gray.

These are the names of who we lost.

Say their names next time you give a bonus to another police officer.

Thank you.

13, Seth Emerson, 14, and Sid Wombach, 15.

That is quite a tough act to follow.

No kidding.

My name is Patty Foley, and I'm the chairperson of the Georgetown Open Space Committee.

The Georgetown to South Park Trail is one of our community's top priorities, as defined in the Georgetown Open Space Vision Framework, the Duwamish Valley Action Plan, the Georgetown Mobility Study, the Neighborhood Plan of South Park, the Neighborhood Plan of Georgetown.

It's abundantly clear that Georgetown and South Park are both very interested in connecting our communities via a safe walking and biking trail.

Thankfully, we received funding for 30% design a few years back, and that work is now coming to completion.

So here we are again, advocating again to get the next round of funding.

If at all possible, it would be amazing and really most efficient to just fund this trail through construction.

I'm here today in hopes that this project will not stall.

Please help us connect Georgetown and South Park in a way that promotes health and community.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello, Council.

My name is Rich Brown.

I live in South Seattle in the Georgetown neighborhood.

I am a bicycle commuter and I've been commuting for over 12 years.

During that time, I've noticed many areas throughout the city that have received bicycle infrastructure improvements.

I have also noticed that in South Seattle, I haven't seen as much of that.

The residents in South Seattle deserve more infrastructure.

Lastly, I'd like to urge the council to work with SDOT towards making things more equitable for residents in South Seattle.

We need more bike lanes.

Thank you.

Hello.

Thank you for listening to everybody.

Also, big shout out to the seniors from Center School.

I think they're doing a great job.

My name's Marty, and I am a cisgendered male, Latinx, person of color.

My pronouns are he and him.

I'm a parent in Georgetown.

I have an eight-year-old daughter, and as this summer ended, I sat down with her and I asked her, hey, what did you think of this summer?

What could have been better?

What could have been worse?

And she said, Dad, I wish we spent more time together riding bikes like we used to do.

And so I'm here today to ask you all to help me spend more time with my daughter, to build and fund the bike trail from Georgetown to South Park, which would connect her to a community that's rich in her Latin heritage.

So please fund the Georgetown to South Park trail.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Rosario Medina.

I live in Georgetown, and I'm here with my neighbors requesting that you please fund our trail to the South Park.

I work in South Park, and I go there often to get fruit and vegetables from the fruteria stands and for many community engagement events that I also coordinate.

So I really appreciate if you could support my community.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah, we all worked as a community to do a lot of outreach, and the people we work with at SDOT said that we did a remarkable job.

We got over 400 people to give informed input, and we come up with a community-supported plan, supported by both the emergence associations and our neighborhood groups on both sides of the river.

We're exhausting the funding that was originally given, and we'll be out of money at the end of the year.

SDOT and the community are ready to go forward.

They've estimated finishing the design and building this will be, I think, $3.7 million.

I ask that you look at the money coming out of the Mega Block sale that has been designated for Bicycle Master Plan projects.

This project is in that.

Please fund as much as you can from that.

Thank you.

Great.

Thank you very much.

Were you group 13?

Are you Jesse?

Okay, very good.

You were the last speaker.

I was just hoping we had a Jesse here.

Seth, 14. 15, Sid.

16, Renee Murray.

Hello.

My name is Clara Cantor, and I'm from Seattle Neighborhood Greenways.

And we're here speaking on behalf of the MAS Coalition.

We're a coalition of transportation and environmental-focused organizations that came together to push for a whole slate of requests in the budget this year, improvements for people who are walking and rolling and biking and taking transit in Seattle.

Right now, this is a matter of climate urgency.

The Seattle City Council and the mayor's office have both signed on in support of the Green New Deal, which asks for 100% renewables by 2030. And transportation right now makes up over half of our carbon emissions.

So it's imperative that we invest now in safe places for people to walk and roll and bike and make it accessible for people to take transit.

This is also a huge safety issue.

We're in the middle of a pedestrian safety crisis and last night we had another tragic incident where a woman was killed up on Aurora Avenue being hit by a car.

That's happened way more times than it should, especially considering that we've committed to Vision Zero, which is zero traffic deaths and serious injuries by 2030. And it's also an equity issue because we all know that those impacts of traffic violence are affecting people of color, low-income people, unhoused people, disabled people at much higher rates than anyone else in the population.

Thank you.

Thank you, Claire.

With those things that Clara had mentioned in mind, here are some of our asks.

First of all, the Mass Coalition thinks that it would just be unconscionable to reach the end of the Move Seattle levy and not have a route to Southeast Seattle for bikes.

So that is a top priority for us, and we think that Martin Luther King Jr.

Way, Beacon Avenue South, and the South Park to Georgetown Trail are all critical connections for having a route that does make it to Southeast Seattle.

Second of all, we think that there needs to be delineated money for bikeway maintenance.

And we feel that poor maintenance of Seattle's bikeways is making them hard to use and unwelcoming.

And putting money toward bikeway maintenance will enable more people to bike safely around the city.

And then lastly, on my part, I want to say that the Mass Coalition feels as though we should put aside money to fund the transportation Equity Agenda, which was created by the Transportation Equity Work Group, which was formed in 2017.

Continuing on our asks, Ana Sivarts, Rooted in Rights, Disability Rights, Washington.

I want to highlight this resolution that you all so wonderfully passed in the beginning of September, talking about the need to build more dedicated off-sidewalk parking for bikes and potentially scooters in the future.

We want to make sure that that gets the funding it needs to roll forward.

in the New York because sidewalks are a critical piece of our infrastructure, of our transportation infrastructure for many people with disabilities, and having sidewalks blocked by bikes and scooters really limits our access to the city and to where we need to go.

The other pieces I want to mention are support for the connection to the Duwamish Longhouse, which you heard from earlier groups on, and also from the South Park Georgetown connection, which you just heard as well.

Thank you all.

Good evening, Councilmembers.

My name is Gordon Padelford.

I work for Seattle Neighborhood Greenways, and I'm going to highlight three additional projects that we think are really important.

The first is actually more of a position than a project proposed by Councilmember Mike O'Brien, and it's to fund an active transportation coordinator for the school district.

And the reason that's important is that the majority of kids in Seattle are required to walk or bike to school, which is a beautiful thing because they arrive healthy, ready to learn.

They've got their physical activity in for the day.

But the problem is there's no one at the school district helping those kids get to school.

And there's no one at SDOT whose job it is to do things like help with safe routes to school, trains where you walk with a group of students.

We've talked to principals recently and they're concerned about gang violence on the way or gang recruitment on the way to school.

And if we had some of these programs, we could help get kids to school more safely.

The second one is from Council Member Bagshaw, and it's around Thomas Street.

Thomas Street and South Lake Union could be the gateway to the Seattle Center.

Seattle doesn't have a central park, but the Seattle Center functions as our arts and culture heart for the city.

And soon, with the arena opening, there will be events two-thirds of the nights in Seattle.

And so we need to get people there in a safe and sustainable way.

And thirdly, the home zone pilot is proposed to be continued by Council Member Juarez.

Very exciting.

It's probably the most cost-effective program that the city runs.

For the cost of one block of sidewalk, you can make an entire neighborhood safer to walk in.

Thank you.

Good.

Thank you very much, all of you.

Number 15, Sid.

16, Renee Murray.

17, Cindy Krueger.

Please.

Hello.

Hello.

My name is Sid Wambach, and I'm here on behalf of Big Brothers Big Sisters Puget Sound and also the thousands of youth that need our help within the Seattle area.

First, I'd like to thank the council for voting for the cost of living increase for human service contracts.

I'm also asking each of you to support the Seattle Human Service Commission budget package.

While the redirect of funding under a safe contract to support youth ages 18 to 24 are important, it still leaves a significant void for youth development that are under that age.

It is vital for the council to support the youth development efforts to intervene much more earlier, just earlier in general.

for people and families to avoid the criminal justice system altogether.

I'm asking you to support the budgetary ask for the Youth Development Executives of King County and the Seattle Human Services Commission to ensure that all the youth and all the families can thrive within this city.

That's what I got.

Thank you, Sid.

Renee?

Renee, and then I think we've got an entire room full of the garden gnomes.

Hi, I'm Renee Murray with Youth Development Executives of King County.

We represent over 100 youth development organizations in King, the majority of which provide services in Seattle.

And I'm here as a member of SHSC also to encourage you to adopt their entire package.

And we also want to thank you for the human services cost of living.

But there's a couple other comments I'd like to make, and partly because We did ask for another two million to be invested in the Human Services Department Youth Development Fund.

And it's partly, well it's all because youth development is the missing piece.

You've done a great job in investing in the early learning and we have Seattle Promise over here.

But the CBOs of our region are willing and waiting to provide those extra services to get those youth from one to the other.

And the school services honestly can't do it on their own.

As of yesterday, here are some examples of our need.

We have 500 youth waiting for a mentor at Big Brothers Big Sisters.

Coyote Central that provides after school arts program has 800 kids waiting.

East African Community Services has after school programs.

They have 130 on their wait list.

Team Read that hires teens to tutor other children, they had enough mentors to serve another group of kids who were needing services, but not enough funds.

And so what we're asking for is an additional $2 million in the Human Services Department budget in order to help fill this gap.

We have programs waiting.

We have kids who need it.

And we want to serve those children.

But we need more funds in order to access access and fill their needs.

So thank you for your consideration.

We appreciate the work you do.

We hope you'll support us.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Renee.

All right.

Cindy Kruger and your team.

Well, good evening, my fellow gardeners and garden gnomes.

Thank you for this opportunity to bring our support for the mayor's proposed $3 million for the P-PATCH program and our campaign to save the Ballard P-PATCH to council chambers once again tonight.

Along with this large group of gnomes, we bring more than 3,000 volunteer-collected petitions and 18 letters of endorsement, and we submit these to the city clerk for the record.

These petitions entreat the city to make funding available to save the Ballard Pea Patch, to support the Ballard Pea Patch program, and they come from across the council districts.

Every council district has multiple P-Patches.

If you haven't visited those in your district, please do so.

Seattle was among the first cities in the U.S. to create a P-Patch program, and it remains one of our best and most imitated ideas.

In the first public hearing, we talked about statistics and Save Ballard Peapatch campaign details.

Tonight, we want to focus on community voices and concerns.

So why would anyone be interested in saving the Ballard Peapatch?

That's easy.

Peapatches are a buffer between poverty and food sufficiency, stretching the budget by growing nutritious organic food.

Food banks are big beneficiaries of peapatches.

Pea patchers share information with new and seasoned gardeners and visitors can learn innovative growing methods there.

I've used photos from Ballard pea patch in my lectures.

A lack of connectedness affects city dwellers and Peapatches address this.

They offer a vital connection with green and living things in a world of cement and plastic.

E.O.

Wilson argues that humans have an innate need to be associated with nature.

And Oliver Sacks observed that just looking at plants aids healing and well-being.

Peapatchers know these things and we work together to transform barren land into rich, fertile, and productive community resource.

We must support and preserve these special places, for once gone, they can never be replaced.

This unsolicited letter was sent to us by Sharon Coleman, WSU professor emeritus.

A Ballard Peapatch parent has told us, we have two young daughters.

When we moved to Ballard four years ago, we knew we wanted a Peapatch plot because we were moving to an apartment with no yard.

Our kids have been enthusiastic gardeners and vegetable eaters since they were small.

Many Peapatch gardeners garden for food security.

In Ballard, at least 50% of our gardeners are senior citizens, many living on fixed incomes.

A current Department of Neighborhood survey indicates that 33% of Ballard gardeners are eligible for low-income housing.

Pea patch gardening is a great way for all ages to enhance their diet while keeping aging bodies healthy and flexible.

Gardeners participate for fellowship.

Many of us live alone, and many Seattle residents are transplants without extended family.

It may sound corny to say that our garden friends become our families, but for many of us, it's the truth.

The loss of a garden like the Ballard Pea Patch has a ripple effect far beyond the 85 families that garden there.

It's a loss of 2,500 pounds of fresh and organic food to the Ballard Food Bank.

It's a loss of pollinators.

It's a loss to the neighborhood, a place to learn, walk, and be in nature.

It's a loss of 2,000 plus volunteer hours that enliven and maintain the space.

And it's a loss to volunteer opportunities.

We've all heard tonight many of the big challenging issues that Seattle is grappling with, many of which are without clear or guaranteed solutions.

We offered the P-PATCH program as an example that works, that provides huge benefits to the citizens of Seattle, and that is largely self-sustaining.

Only a hundred years ago, Ballard was an immigrant community.

Those immigrants were fleeing poverty and oppression in their native Nordic countries.

When they arrived in Seattle, they brought their values of self-sufficiency and communal support.

They also brought their traditional folklore, which included the garden gnome as protector of home and land.

Tonight, we ask you to be garden gnomes for all the community gardens in Seattle.

Protect them and help them grow.

Our city will be a better place for it.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you all of you for coming.

Numbers 18, 19, and 20 are Flo Beaumont, Lachlan Johnson, and Bill Kerlin Hackett.

Those are 18, 19, and 20. I see Flo.

Bill Kerlin Hackett.

Lachlan Johnson is number 19. 18 is Flo Boma, and she's right here.

Thank you.

Welcome.

Good evening, council members.

Thank you very much for this opportunity for us to tell you about one of our programs, Sacred Heart Shelter.

Barbara?

Hi, my name is Barbara.

Good evening to everyone.

I came, I wanted to come here to thank you, to continue to support Sacred Heart Shelter families.

My name is Barbara and my family and I were homeless.

Sorry, it's emotional.

No, you're doing great.

It hasn't been a long time.

Catholic Community Charities helped us find permanent housing two years ago.

Then CCS trained me to work in social services.

Today, I am a family advocate at Sacred Heart, where I love providing services to families who have struggled like me or like I did.

Sacred Heart is a truly A truly and low barriers shelter with a long history of successful serving high school need families in the homelessness.

We are a transitional shelter home that meets families where they are.

Welcome 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

We empower our families with tools, knowledge, compassion, skills to move from homelessness and integrity, stableness, I'm sorry, and permanent housing.

Today we are celebrating our fifth family moving out Sacred Heart into stable housing in just less than nine weeks.

Our families need safe place where they can go when life falls apart.

Please put a resource to keep the Sacred Heart Family Shelter and all the shelters open.

You will see that which stables and opportunities families to get back on their feet.

I also wanted to thank you guys for your opportunity to speak here tonight.

Thank you, Barbara.

Council members, my name is Flo Beaumont.

Sacred Heart Shelter is one of the oldest shelter programs in Seattle and it's been serving families since the late 1970s before CCS took it on.

Our mission hasn't changed.

We bring families inside who have lost their housing and we work with them to get back into housing again.

But the environment has certainly changed.

And I don't think I need to tell you about the problem of affordable housing and how hard it is for a family with a low income and a negative rental history to get back in.

But we work together, side by side, and we do it.

Five out of five families that exited in the last quarter from this program went into housing.

100%.

I don't know if we can ever do that again.

But we're really glad, and we want to keep trying.

But Sacred Heart, like St. Martin de Porres Shelter, which I talked about a few weeks ago, is coming up to a financial cliff in 2020. Both of them are big deficit programs, our agency can support them only so long, and City of Seattle funding has not kept up with increased costs.

I'm giving you advance warning of a serious problem with a couple of our oldest shelters, which have been a partnership between local government and private fundraising.

Whenever the Regional Homelessness Authority gets going, you are going to devote your human services dollars to that, but when you do, you're going to need to look at the scope of the need and you're going to have to increase what Seattle is doing in order to try to meet that need and not cut existing programs, which are really just stanching the bleeding.

I'm also here to ask you to please support the Comparable Wage Study.

We can't hire enough people to do the services.

It's hard.

CCS has gone out on a limb and we have given almost all of our staff a 5% cost of living increase this month and it's still not enough.

We're also asking that you support Home for Good, the proposed shallow rent subsidy.

This is for people who are on fixed incomes, on disability, who can really succeed in the housing market if they have some help.

They can't do it anymore.

You used to be able to rent a cheap room, but you can't do it on your own if you're on SSI or SSDI.

If you support rent, then we can move people out of shelters, out of homelessness.

So thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you all.

Lachlan Johnson is 19 and Bill Kerlin Hackett is 20, and 21 is Megan Murphy.

I would like to acknowledge that we are on the traditional land of the First People of Seattle, the Duwamish people past and present, and honor with gratitude the land itself and the Duwamish tribe.

We are here as members of the Democratic Socialists of America to support the Duwamish Longhouse Safe Street and Accessibility Project.

The road in front of the Duwamish Longhouse West Marginal Way is five lanes wide.

It carries 1,900 vehicles per weekday, 85% of which move faster than 45 miles per hour.

As socialists, we assert that mobility is a human right, and that right is not being distributed equally and fairly to all members of our community.

As the Longhouse is situated in an industrial area that is, much like the rest of Seattle, seeing rapid growth, the road is currently dangerously unsafe.

People speed through it much higher than in residential areas at 50, 60, 70 or higher miles per hour.

We encourage the Council to listen to and heed the words that Cecile Hansen spoke earlier, and we stand in solidarity with the Duwamish Tribe as they fight for these road safety features.

that the federal government has failed to uphold its duties and responsibilities to the Duwamish tribe, does not absolve the City of Seattle from upholding these rights of its citizens, let alone the moral duty that it has to respect the dignity of the First Peoples of this land.

With that, we would like to cede any remaining time to a representative of the District 1 Community Network, if they are available.

Hi there, Deb Barker with the District 1 Community Network, and we've already spoken our words and ask you to support the Duwamish Tribes funding request.

And thank you for everybody who supports that.

Everybody.

Thanks.

Thanks, Deb.

Bill Kurland-Hackett.

Bill Kurland-Hackett's your number 20. 21 is Megan Murphy.

Patricia Hayden is 22.

Council Member Bagshaw and Council Members.

Bill Carlin Hackett, I direct the Interfaith Task Force on Homelessness and I am a co-lead on the SCAFA Mitigation Team with Jean Darcy who sends her regards and approves all my comments.

We request your approval of the SCAFA Mitigation slash Intentional Vehicle Resident Outreach proposal before you.

We've done SCAFA Mitigation since 2011 with no public funding.

During that time, there has been little to no intentional vehicle outreach.

Lived-in vehicles are one-third of the unsheltered count annually, and recently, they went over 50%.

Expenditures on this population have never even reached 10% of all funding.

Further, there is no coordinated entry outreach to date for vehicle residents, thus no diversion, no vulnerability assessment.

The pathway to housing is invisible.

also of concern, there's little to no inclusion in HMIS.

Thus, systemic unsheltered homeless reporting excludes vehicle residents.

This funding will begin to change that.

We will include necessary partners, many funded to address unsheltered homeless, but few to none including vehicle residents.

We'll use volunteers who will help leverage outreach and extend use of funds toward those in need and not toward the system staff and support structures.

We hit the ground running because we will expand partnerships that we already have with LEAD and REACH and others.

We'll sustain scofflaw mitigation also with partners, Seattle Parking Enforcement and the Municipal Court.

And when the weekly scofflaw referrals lag, we will use our time to do that intentional outreach.

I've not seen anything in the budget directly addressing these homeless persons.

Yes, a lot of money to Seattle Public Utilities for trash collection around RVs, but not for the persons in the RVs.

And also a lot for navigation teams that don't navigate onto the streets.

The funds for our proposal and for, in part, beginning a necessary expansion of LEED would best come from the Mayor's budget where $1.2 million is aimed to dismantle two existing tiny house villages.

Keep the villages.

Thanks, Bill.

Pass some legislative tools to do it.

And use the $1.2 million to fund us and to help start that funding toward LEED.

Thank you, Bill.

Megan Murphy is 21, Patricia Hayden is 22, and Mohawk Kuzma is 23.

Okay, this is from Suwan's budget proposals.

I would like to see a right to a lawyer for all renters facing eviction, provide funding to hire housing justice attorneys to ensure that tenants facing eviction have the right to an attorney, property background checks for renters, create a citywide know your landlord database to help tenants seeking housing by compiling building information on ownership, housing code violations, and eviction rates, build more tiny house villages, Fund construction of 20 additional tiny house villages, a proven and humane way to reduce the harm of homelessness and help people find stable and affordable housing.

Fund renter organizing and empowerment in the community.

Fund community-based organizations to do renter outreach, education, and organizing, and help develop the independent voice of renters.

build more publicly controlled affordable housing, build 5,000 new homes with housing bond paid for by reinstituting a modest tax on Amazon and other super wealthy businesses, and safe youth shelter beds.

Central District Small Business Displacement Survey needs to be funded.

Funding anti-displacement community work in the Central District needs to be funded.

support Vietnamese senior association activities.

I say all this in honor of my son Ray.

I lived in Iowa and the state decided that I had a diagnosis I don't have and so I've since found out that I really do not have.

I found a lot of community here in Seattle and last week my son was able to give a special message to me And it was because of Swant who told me to organize.

I collected like 100 signatures and got through somehow to my son.

And organizing works and all these things are so worthy of funding.

Thanks.

Thank you, Megan.

And glad you connected with your son.

Patricia Hayden, good to see you.

This one works, right?

Mohawk Kuzma is 23. And Coach Lenny Wilkins, looking forward to you, number 24.

Good evening, Councilmembers.

My name is Patricia Hayden, and I'm the Chief Program Officer of the YWCA and co-chair of the Seattle Human Services Coalition.

SHSC members appreciate your work this summer to enact the automatic annual adjustment for inflation that will begin to stabilize human service contracts through HSD.

It is time now to take the first step to correct the long-term legacy of underpaying human service workers for the skills, education, experience, and integral importance of this work to build well-being in communities across Seattle.

You have expressed concern with the precocious state of inequity as well as interest in remedying it.

You have the opportunity within to You have the opportunity in this budget to begin We recommend that the city of seattle in collaboration with providers Conduct a pay equity analysis of human service jobs as compared with jobs that require similar skills education and difficulty We urge council members to allocate the resources for a robust comparable worth analysis of benchmark jobs this would require five hundred thousand and two twenty We also recommend a companion investment of $120,000 in 2020 for community-based organizations to coordinate participation of human service providers in the design and implementation of this analysis.

In addition, we encourage council members to restore funding for SPAN advocacy and invest in the four additional actions outlined in our recommendation.

Together, we can build a just and thriving community if we make it our priority, including a budgeted priority.

The members of SHSC, thank you for your leadership.

Thank you, Patricia.

I have a copy of this.

Mohawk after number 24, Coach Lenny Wilkins, and then 25 is Alav.

Is Seattle ready to end homelessness in six years?

I got your solution.

I'm not going to give all these solutions like everybody else wants to give all these ideas.

You want to know how to end homelessness?

I traveled to 23 states, one mission, was voluntary homeless in 23 states for one mission.

End homelessness in Seattle.

And I figured out how we can do this.

You know, you get about, you get 50 million in affordable housing because we currently need affordable housing in the city for people to actually afford to live in the city.

Also, we need about 75 million in addiction and mental health services increase.

Also, in the domain on abandoned houses and houses that are no longer given to homeless or rent them for low wages.

Give food delivery jobs.

I do a food delivery job.

I make $800 a week.

Like, it's easy, it's easy, if you have an open record, it's easy to get a job.

You don't need to beg for money.

Put change collection boxes.

Put change collection boxes like they did, like they do in Salt Lake City.

It reduced pen handling in Salt Lake City by 75%.

I've witnessed that.

Also, give, make, families, make sure it's two weeks.

Two weeks, if it's a family, and housing, a month.

A month if it's in a visual.

That's what I did in Cedar City, Utah.

Also.

Educate the homeless on job opportunities.

There's plenty of opportunities.

There's the app like Comedy.

There's plenty of opportunities out there.

I don't understand why our cities have the homelessness.

I already know how to.

It's not that hard.

Don't give money to show the revolvement around homelessness.

It's like the gospel mission.

All you do is sweep stuff under the rug, and they just keep giving the revolving to addiction.

They don't solve it.

They don't solve it.

They claim to do.

They don't.

So basically, at the end of the day, if you want to end homelessness, what's the point of being here?

I've traveled through the city, I've seen what can happen and how we can end homelessness.

If you just say I don't want to end homelessness, that's fine.

But don't expect me to stay around the city and watch the city be destroyed by your problems that you don't want to solve.

I could solve them.

Your choice, not mine.

Thank you.

Well, thank you for that.

Lenny Wilkins with Rise Above.

Hi, my name is Jackie McCormick.

I am from the Nez Perce tribe, and I am co-founder of Rise Above.

Rise Above is a Seattle-based nonprofit, and we focus on empowering youth, education, and creating resiliency in Native youth using sport as a modality.

We believe that Rise Above is one of its kind, and we're excited about the opportunity to bring this program to Seattle.

Indigenous youth are the most vulnerable group of children in our country.

Over a quarter of our indigenous children live in poverty, and they are twice as likely to be diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.

22.1% of Seattle American Indian and Alaska Native populations self-report in Seattle lacking a high school diploma.

In 2017, while 1.5% of the children living in Washington state were American Indian and Alaska Native youth, the foster care system disproportionately represented 6.3% of the population.

Indigenous youth are 30% more likely than Caucasian youth to be referred to juvenile court.

So what Rise Above does is rather than talking about a reactive approach, we're looking at a proactive approach to keeping our children on the right path.

And if you would have told me five years ago that I would have this dream team of people behind me, including one of the most iconic figures in Seattle, supporting Rise Above, I wouldn't have believed you.

So without further ado, Coach Wilkins.

Hi, I'm Lenny Wilkins, and I'm an advocate.

I am an advocate.

of supporting young people.

They're tomorrow's doctors, lawyers, citizens, and they're our future here in Seattle.

So I definitely support Rise Above.

Rise Above empowers native youth to live healthy lives by providing awareness, prevention, and character enrichment using sports as a modality.

So I support Jackie rise above because I'm all about the future of Seattle.

Thank you.

I'm Brad Myers, the co-founder of Rise Above.

And again, we're blessed to have Coach Wilkins to be one of our partners.

But there's two things I want to emphasize.

One is we're all about prevention and intervention.

We want to get to that 11 and 12 year old native youth, specifically urban native youth who doesn't have access to resources.

It may be disconnected from the tribe.

Doesn't have access to programming.

Youth sports are expensive today.

So we break down that cost barrier.

Brad, you can raise that microphone up.

I'm sorry.

There you go.

Jackie was a point guard.

So we get to them up front, 11 and 12-year-old, to interact through prevention and intervention.

We know the first use of drug or alcohol occurs when you're 11 or 12 years old.

So we get to them early.

On the back end, I'll give you a personal story.

I work with five Native Girls out of the city of Seattle came to our program in Spokane and came back.

Amazing young women.

They were 17 years old.

It was a decade ago.

We've lost three of them.

And the other two, I don't know where they're at.

Rise Above can fulfill that need to reengage those children as they age out of a program or a system or a foster care environment.

We can be that need and fulfill that gap here in the city of Seattle.

I want to highlight this too.

Basketball is a driving sport in Native American communities.

So if we say, Jackie and I, we're going to have a prevention clinic for drugs and alcohol, we'll have four kids show up.

But if we say we're going to have Coach Wilkins come speak to you, it's a free clinic or a free activity, and we're going to engage them in basketball, we'll have 300 kids show up and be engaged.

So sports is that modality we use to bring kids there.

And specifically in Seattle, urban native kids need a safe place to go, play, and participate.

And I guarantee you, they will come, they will play, and they will participate.

Thank you for your time.

Good evening.

My name is Gabriel Galanda.

I'm an indigenous rights lawyer with offices in North Seattle.

I've partnered with Rise Above, a nonprofit that I run, which focuses on incarcerated indigenous citizens and youth.

We've worked with the state of Washington to make sure that our incarcerated relatives get what they need to make sure that they're successful in their reentry to society.

And as it relates to youth, we're looking for opportunities to make sure that they find a better way than the one that has gotten them into juvenile rehabilitation.

The statistics that Jackie shared with you should be astonishing, particularly the fact that 30% of our indigenous youth are referred into the juvenile system rather than deferred away from the juvenile system, as are their Caucasian counterparts.

We work with Rise Above to get them before they end up in the prison pipeline system and are otherwise lost.

We would appreciate your support.

Thank you very much, all of you.

we have two letters we'll submit with the clerk for the record.

Excellent.

Thank you so much, Brad.

We'll be in contact.

Coach Wilkins, thanks for coming.

Brian Robinson, thank you for being part of this.

Appreciate it.

Okay, 25 is Alove.

That's Aurora, Licton Springs, Urban Village.

And then Deck Powers and Cassandra Gaspard.

Good, 25, 26, and 27.

Hi, my name is Leah Anderson, and as you mentioned, I live in the Aurora-Licton Urban Village, and I am a member of that neighborhood group.

If you're not aware, the Aurora-Lincoln Urban Village came into place by the city in the 90s, and the area is North 84th to North 110th and North Seattle bisected by Aurora Avenue.

We were fortunate to work with the city through the HALA process to get the zoning changed from commercial to neighborhood commercial, which will allow for more dense development along Aurora Avenue, ideally retail at the base, housing above, to add to all the density we already have on parallel streets.

But with that density, we need places for the community.

We don't have anything that is part of what should be included in a residential urban village.

We don't have services such as a major grocer, a pharmacy, a bank, a post office, and we don't have community city investments.

We have one park that doesn't even cover the whole area in the five minute walk shed requirement per the city.

What we're here asking for today is for you to fund the feasibility study for a community sensor sponsored by Councilmember Juarez.

Thank you.

Our community needs a place to gather.

We need a place for kids and families and seniors and teenagers to go after school, on the weekends, a place for programs and support services to get to our community members.

It's a nominal ask, but it is going to have a big impact on our community.

And the first step to getting a community center is the feasibility study.

So please approve that in the budget this year.

Very good.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Kevin Watley, and like Leah Anderson, I am part of the ALOVE community.

And just to echo a little bit of what Leah had to say, that We're one of the urban villages that is underserved, underfunded, and I believe the urban village system that Seattle has, it has high density and growth, but when you drive up through Aurora, people just want to drive through it.

They're not aware that there's actually an inclusive community that we're trying to build here together.

And that was really important for me when we started ALOVE.

In fact, our motto is building community together.

And when I sit back and I look at you all, I'm very happy and proud that you're a city council, because at the end of the day, it takes a community council like you because the idea of the community council is actually to build and support community, the same thing that we're trying to do here today.

And I just want to echo all the people that are here today.

Actually, I want to support all of you because it is amazing that we have this safe space for all of these diverse voices to come and gather and share opinions.

And that's something that we're trying to do in our community, that we have a lack of amenities, even as sidewalks, but people all people of color deserve to feel safe.

They deserve to feel safe for our vulnerable populations, for our young children, and having a basic community center where we're, Office of Planning and Community Development, we're actually one of the highest needs areas.

And we're actually one of the most underfunded community village in the entire part of all of Seattle.

When you look at Capitol Hill, Lake City Way, West Seattle, Ballard, all of these places have thriving business districts, which we're trying to build step by step.

But one of the things that's important in doing that is actually recognizing that community first and giving us a safe space to be able to gather and the safe spaces for all of these populations to come to first.

So this budget that's before you, granted, it is going to be very difficult for you guys to go through and actually have to make very tough decisions.

But this is a very small asset that will affect an entire urban village.

And it's a very small amount, I think just over $100,000, just $150,000 maybe.

That's all it's going to take to help build and invest in our community.

So I really want to thank your time.

I want to thank your leadership and the safe space just for all of these diverse opinions to be able to come up here, advocate for those causes, because I love Seattle.

I love our progressive values.

I love that we can come here, actually organize, be able to talk and share these things with you.

So I'll be brief and I'll get the rest of the minute to other people here.

So thank you.

Kevin, thank you both so much for coming.

Is it Dee Powers?

Dee Powers, Cassandra Gaspard, and then number 28. So we got 26, 27, and 28.

Good evening, city council members.

My name is Dee Powers, and I'm here with some of my friends from Stop the Sweep Seattle.

We are here to talk about how homeless encampment evictions significant harm and are a major drain on funding and resources.

I am here as someone with lived experience and first-hand knowledge to offer the city fiscally responsible and humane alternatives to encampment sweeps.

I've stood in witness as my unhoused neighbors are evicted from what little stability they have found within the communities they have created.

I have seen tears and sheer panic in the eyes of grown men as they scramble to save medicine and documents before the backhoe comes and throws it all in a dump truck.

I have seen the city destroy newly donated tents.

They provide people with inadequate but essential protection against the elements.

The medical examiner's office investigated 122 homeless deaths in Seattle last year.

With winter coming on, I'm getting worried about the thousands who are about to face a deadly season without shelter.

Encampment evictions scatter people.

It makes it difficult for smaller organizations to resume services as it can often take weeks to reestablish contact with households lost during the shuffle.

Additionally, replacing newly donated survival gear like sleeping bags is an enormous strain on nonprofits, resources, and budgets.

We discourage help from ever arriving if the helpers know it'll be trashed by the city.

So here are five ideas I would like to share as alternatives to the cruelty of encampment sweeps.

provide basic sanitation services for established encampments that are not on the hazard sweep list.

This could be something as minimal as meeting UN refugee camp protocols.

That's one portable toilet per 20 to 30 people and a weekly trash pickup.

I mean, preemptive sanitation options are always going to be less expensive than mopping up after what could be months and months of neglect, and that allows people to maintain their dignity.

We need to reduce the budget allotted to the navigation team's sweep activity.

Hazard and safety sweeps are necessary in cases where folks are legitimately in danger, but these are a small percentage of the sweeps currently happening.

It would be more cost effective to add more social workers, subtract law enforcement, and reduce the NAV team's eviction power only to hazard and safety sweeps where lives are in imminent danger.

We need to reaccept, thank you, We also need to reestablish an affordable, safe overnight parking program, with some of that money that we're redirecting from the navigation team and their cleanup crews.

Vehicle residency is on the rise, and I'm sure we can all agree that that complicates the lives of business owners and residents alike.

We need to build and support more tiny house villages, not be shutting them down.

Our homeless neighbours overwhelmingly prefer tiny houses.

They ask for it as first choice almost every time.

They're easy to secure, easy to maintain.

They create dignity and privacy within their communities.

It's what people want, and if it's going to house people better than shuffling them back and forth across the city, who are we to say no?

But last but not least, I ask that you as the city consider a policy change towards a Housing First program.

It has been proven to work in every area that has implemented it except Washington, D.C.

every area.

Seattle pioneered this style of service at 1811 East Lake 15 years ago and it's time to expand on it.

Repeat studies have shown that when an individual's environment is stabilized, their dependence on substances decreases and their preference toward getting help, getting psychiatric care increases.

So the time is long overdue to admit that our policies around encampment sweeps are cruel, ineffective, and fiscally irresponsible.

They run contrary to the values of our community, and we've got to decrease that suffering and get people housed.

Thank you, Dean.

27 is Cassandra, 28 is 28, and 29 is Reach Case Management.

Sorry, I cannot read.

Maybe, maybe Barbara is 28.

Thank you.

Good evening, council members.

My name is Cassandra Gaspard, and I am a resident of one of the homeless tiny villages.

And I want to say that when I became evicted from my house in April, I was living in my brand new car, which then got repoed.

And I can't tell you how grateful I am to have a tiny village house where I can close the door and not worry about my belongings be stolen, not worry about somebody trying to stab me on the street to get my shoes.

and let alone suffering with the elements in the cold and wet.

I can't speak for all the homeless people, but I can speak for myself that having a safe and secure and sober environment has given me the stability to become successful in the next steps to transitioning to permanent housing.

And so I ask for expansion of the tiny house villages.

Thank you, Cassandra.

Good evening, Council.

My name is Eric Davis.

I am a Lehigh site coordinator, but I'm also a co-founder of Camp Second Chance.

I strongly support the expansion of tiny house villages.

Just as my resident said, one of the strong things that we need is safety, support, and heat.

As this season goes around in the winter, this is the worst time that I remember experiencing and tense, and we just didn't have any way to stay warm.

Now, over the last couple of years, I want all the other homeless out there to experience the good things that we're feeling in these tiny house villages.

We need that.

We need that.

It's supportive, it's strong, it's safety.

People get up and go to work, they wake up with a smile.

And that dignity, you can't replace that.

We just want everyone to experience that, man.

It's just a little bit of that.

So I just strongly support that each of you take a walk through the villages in the winter and see what we're saying.

Opposed to being cold, you'll see us open a warm door and greet you.

Someone coming from work.

Someone not angry to see you.

Because all that stress is gone.

I just want some dignity for all the rest of my homeless brothers and sisters.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And I'm just the echoing voice of the many voices you've heard speaking about homelessness in the tiny homes.

It's a privilege to be able to speak on the matter and speak for all of us in that manner.

At the end of the day, it's about uplifting fallen humanity.

And we know those that are on the streets that need that helping hand or, you know, need that place where they can be warm, safe, and sure of their next destination based on having a roof over their head, being able to prepare for a job or come back from once having a home.

So, like I said, I'm just the echoing voice and I hope that you hear the echo because it's loud and clear.

My name's Stephen LaBerth.

I'm a vet.

How many of you have ever been in a homeless camp with a tiny village visitor?

Three out of four or five.

How many of y'all?

I'd invite you to come see Camp Second Chance up in Burien.

I think you'll find it kind of enlightening when you walk into camp and people greet you, hand you off your cup of coffee, or come ask you to build a couple houses in the camp.

I think you'd like that.

A lot of us weren't that way a year and a half ago.

I wasn't.

I was under First Avenue Bridge.

I was doing scrap, doing copper, everything I could to survive.

Now I have a full-time job.

I have a truck.

I'm on the board of directors at a camp.

I have my dignity back.

And you know what?

It makes a difference in your life.

When you got a community you can walk into and you can close your door or walk out at 5 o'clock in the morning and see 20 other people going to work.

This isn't your normal homeless village.

And this is what a good village works.

And a community makes a community to make it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm Kyle Malone.

I live at Camp Second Chance.

This is the only format that I have seen or know of that works to fix your homeless problem.

I have security there.

I have food and clothing there.

It is safe, and thank you for your time.

All right.

Very good.

Thank you all for coming.

Barbara, and then we have Reach Case Management and Somebody Johnson, number 30. So 28, 29, and 30.

Good evening, council members.

My name is Debbie Carlson and I'm the Executive Director of LGBTQ Allyship.

We represent nearly 4,000 community members in King County and beyond.

Allyship has been working on housing issues for over four and a half years.

In fact, from a report addressing LGBTQ inequities in housing and senior services, four out of five seniors experienced discrimination but did not report it, thus not receiving any legal recourse.

and it was discovered that 20 percent of LGBTQ seniors experience homelessness.

Out of Allyship's own housing report in 2017, we discovered that almost 30 percent of LGBTQ marginalized residents have been economically evicted, and over 60 percent have experienced a rise in rent over the last two years.

Allyship has been conducting renters' rights training since over a year, and we have our own LGBTQ renters' rights curriculum.

Through our work with renters, seniors, and homeless youth, we know that renter education, organizing, and affirmative marketing to LGBT communities about housing resources prevents unlawful evictions and prevents displacement for queer and trans elders, youth, and low-income renters.

We are a small LGBTQ-led housing and economic justice organization that knows what our community needs around housing justice.

Please fully fund our tenant education, organizing, and outreach work so we can truly address LGBTQ homelessness, displacement, and housing discrimination.

Now I would like to introduce you to Barbara Cyr, a member of our LGBTQ senior housing advisory committee.

Thank you.

Thank you.

It was 30 years ago, I came out as trans, and I faced a lot of anger, a lot of discrimination, and there were even people who were trying to kill me, including members of my own family, and from time to time, myself.

I survived all that.

And now I'm at a different point in my life.

I no longer face discrimination because I'm trans.

I now face discrimination because I'm old.

I'm 71. And I have been out in the community in which I now live, Being in that community is not just as simple as paying my rent on time.

It's about living with each other, literally in a small public housing unit.

And I faced, when I got there, every bit of discrimination that I experienced when I was younger.

And I faced neighbors, people that didn't want to know me.

I had to give back.

I had to make a formula to be able to live there and not go live on the street.

What I did was call on my skills.

I know everything there is to know about computers.

I had the skills, I had computers of my own, and I started teaching classes.

I taught people, I taught grandparents how to write emails to their grandkids.

I taught how do you use, how do you use catalogs?

How can you buy something on the internet?

How do you keep from getting scammed?

Suddenly, I was one of the hottest people in the entire building.

It worked so well that SHA decided to expand my classes to three other buildings.

And that's the kind of work that allyship contributes to the world, that peace through understanding.

And that's why I am so proud to stand here with Debbie and with...

Tobias.

Tobias, I'm sorry.

But I am really proud to be here and I really appreciate your listening, thank you.

Great, well I'm proud of you too, thank you.

My name is Tobias Doyle.

I am the Economic Program Coordinator at LGBTQ Allyship, funded through the OLS.

And I stand by everything said here.

Great.

Thank you so much.

I like that.

29 is Reach Case Management.

Then we've got, it looks like, maybe it's Carol, but it's Johnson, number 30. And 31 is Julie.

Hi.

Good evening, my name is Marcus Jones.

I am a lead case manager for the North team working specifically on Aurora.

I stand today before you as a veteran and as a profound mentor of the North team.

And I'm tasked with working with the men that live in our homeless on Aurora.

And these are men that are battered daily by vigilantes that are there to tear up their tents or throw bricks or shoot BB guns through their RVs when they're just looking for a warm place to sleep at night.

I'm tasked with, you know, breaking down vulnerability issues for these men throughout their lives and just kind of empowering them to be strong men in their community and be leaders of their community.

And one of the things I like to tell to some of my men these days is to have the ability to fail forward.

A lot of these men, you know, they fail every day of their lives, whether that be with their addiction or having to steal food just to get by for the day.

One of the men that kind of took to that is one of my favorite clients who chose to fail Ford, and now he is not serving a six-year sentence.

He's free out on his own.

He stays down at the Xanadu, and he's doing very well for himself, and he's looking to get his license now, and he's looking to get housed.

He's employed and has been employed, and he's been free from heroin for close to a year now.

We're doing great work here at LEAD.

And I am the only male for the team.

I work next to a gaggle of women.

But I just ask that you guys give us the grant so that we can continue to help these men and these women on Aurora fail forward instead of just fail backwards every day.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Marcus.

Hi, thank you.

My name is Stephanie Harris.

I'm also a case manager for the North Seattle Precinct 2, so I work up on Aurora.

My client load is mainly women who have been involved in the sex trade and are highly addicted, but I also want you guys to hear me as a survivor from the sex trade as well.

I used to work on Aurora for 10 years.

And so to be out there and to serve in a place where my personal trauma has been, has been rewarding and so privileged and honored to do that.

And I often look at my clients and the ability and like the, like our caseloads and the things that we're able to do with them.

And I wish that like all those years ago there would have been a case manager, you know, for me or my sister or any of the other women and men that I know out there.

And we need, at the end of the day, money is the motive and we need more money to help people who are just like me.

If we want to serve this population, then we need people with life experience to be able to come in and share that life experience to help them.

There isn't a proper ground to get there.

I was blessed enough.

You know, I'm a white woman in America.

I had a lot of privilege in my recovery.

But when I look at my women, the women of color who face the same story as me, their trail was a lot different than mine.

And so for me, yes, I get to do this work every day, but I see so many other people who could be doing this work, but don't have the ability to get there for whatever lack of resources.

So I really just want to push forward.

You know, a prime example of our caseloads and just how taxing this work is on us is today I was tied up with a client and Marcus found another one of my clients on Aurora in a bra and leggings, soaking wet, no food, nothing.

But I wasn't able to get to her because I was dealing with someone else.

Luckily, Marcus had free time, but it's rare for us to have free time.

So, at the end of the day, if we are the only ones on our team helping this huge population, there isn't people out here serving women who are working in prostitution, men who are working in prostitution who are highly addicted.

Yes, there are organizations around that are doing anti-trafficking work, but they're not serving people who are nodding off in their place.

They're getting kicked out for that.

So at the end of the day, lead and reach are the ones who are doing this work, doing it well, and so why try to fix something that is working?

You know what I mean?

We're doing it.

We're doing the work.

So please continue to help us and support us.

We're pretty badass.

Thank you.

Well done.

Are you number 30?

Excuse me, before you started, are you 30?

Yes.

Very good.

Hold it for just a second, will you?

And then Julie is 31, and Ida Bell is 32.

Ready?

Yes, please.

Hello, my name is Kara Johnson and I'm an advocate with the local campaign Yes to Drug User Health.

I'm here to ask for the Council's support for the methamphetamine research pilot and to thank Councilmember O'Brien for sponsoring this budget ad.

Thank you also to Chair Bagshaw and Councilmember Gonzalez for your support.

This proposal is coming from the University of Washington's own Dr. Judith Tsui, who is a national and local substance use disorder treatment expert.

It also has support from a wide range of diverse organizations, including Evergreen Treatment Service, the Seattle Fire Department, and Seattle Counseling Services.

This legislative body has shown immense leadership in providing funding intervention dollars for opioid use disorder, but we also have a real crisis of methamphetamine issues, and your attention is again needed.

This modest budget add can make Seattle a national leader in evidence-based, innovative treatment options for people impacted by substance use disorder.

I'm also here because I hold a master's in public health and volunteer every week at the needle exchange with the People's Harm Reduction Alliance.

The number one thing drug users request is drug treatment and accessible ways to reduce their use and related harms.

These folks are just trying to take good care of themselves and their bodies and would love to have evidence-based options for meth treatment.

Thank you for including this budget ad and supporting this much-needed research.

And I'll pass it to my colleague.

My name is Richard Waters.

I'm a primary care physician in the community.

I work with an amazing team of interdisciplinary professionals, including the wonderful folks at LEAD, and fully support their expansion.

One of the most rewarding things in our work is to work with clients who have opioid use disorder, to embrace them and welcome them with the dignity and respect they deserve, to see them linked with housing, opportunity, and hope for the future, and evidence-based treatments for opioid use disorder in the form of medications.

The transformation can be huge.

It is quite amazing to see the number of clients and the progress they've made.

We don't yet have the same treatments for methamphetamine use disorder.

There has been research, but not sufficient.

The idea of a city council funding a research pilot to broaden the knowledge scope to see what are our tools to help clients with methamphetamine use disorder may seem off.

And yet, this is of great importance to the citizens of Seattle, to those with methamphetamine use disorder, to the broader public.

There's certainly been an outcry hoping for solutions.

Certainly, some of the good proposals we've heard today, amazing housing can certainly help opportunities, economic justice.

Our ask is to fund the pilot for a methamphetamine study in the hopes of getting more information on whether A certain medication could be used to help clients reduce or stop their methamphetamine use.

Many of my patients desire that, but they're caught up in the cycle of cravings, use, and then withdrawal, struggling to break out of that cycle.

The social services and housing are an essential step.

This admittedly is one small piece, but could give us in the medical and social service community more tools to treat the crisis.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for your time.

You bet.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Also, Julie Idabel and Elliot Swanson is 33. So it's 31, 32, and 33 are next.

Hello.

Hi.

My name is Julie Stolman.

I'm here to support the Mobile Pit Stop program.

And a number of years ago, I came out from my house and saw human feces down the side of my neighbor's house.

And I cleaned it with a feeling of compassion and disgust.

And I guessed at how desperate that person must have felt.

They were in desperate need of a toilet.

Enter the mobile Pit Stop program.

These include not only toilets, but needle disposal and dog poop disposal.

They are mobile and they can be moved anywhere around the city in neighborhoods that need it, as needed.

They cost less than Portland's program, so we're not asking for some extravagant program.

And this is not just a matter of convenience, it's a public health issue that needs to be addressed.

I know that there have been some problems with toilets in the past in the city, that they've been used for drug dealing or drug use.

But these toilets have staff.

There are attendants who would be monitoring use.

And I think that makes a huge difference.

Let's see.

I have a friend who is a bus driver.

And a number of years ago, he was thinking about a birthday present for a friend.

And what he did was he took a key and he made a duplicate.

And he gave it to his friend for a birthday present.

And this key was a very precious birthday present because it was the bus driver's secret key to all the toilets in the city for bus drivers.

He's retired.

You'll never find him.

But I think not all of us have, not all of us have a bus driver friend, so I urge you to fund five mobile pit stops.

Nice, thank you.

Idabel 32, Elliot 33, and Katrina Johnson 34.

Hi, my name is Idabel Fosay and I'm speaking on behalf of the YWCA of Seattle, King and Snohomish counties.

Today I'm here to advocate for your continued support of the community-based health and human services funding that our participants need in order to move closer to thriving in their communities.

First of all, we would like to thank you for enacting an automatic annual adjustment for inflation on all of the human services contracts through HSD.

There's great work being done to build well-being in the communities across Seattle, and we urge you to support that by making no cuts to services.

One of our priorities for funding was not addressed by the mayor, and therefore we're asking you to please fund a long-term legacy of underpaying human service workers.

Human service providers are skilled professionals with specialized knowledge and years of experience.

Typically, once workers have acquired those skills, pay inequities in nonprofit work force them to leave and look for better paying jobs with the city or county.

This leads to high turnover of good workers and risks the participants that are not getting the highest quality help that they could.

We're asking that you allocate the resources needed to take on a robust, comparable worth analysis, which would cost between $500,000 and $600,000 in 2020, as a first step in helping end this inequity.

Secondly, we are asking that you take action on the Mayor's proposal to fund and implement a much-needed countywide domestic violence hotline, which will provide immediate crisis support and counseling and serve as a single point of contact to the Region's specialized advocacy services.

Survivors in the most need of help often have the fewest options for accessing it, and calling a hotline is often the only most way that they can access services.

Again, thank you for your work and your commitment to helping those most in need get the services and care that they require to lead healthier lives.

Thank you, Idabel.

So the next group is 33. You do not look like Elliot Swanson to me.

I do not look like Elliot Swanson.

Wait a minute.

Is it true it's your birthday?

It sure is.

Yes it is.

Happy birthday Allison.

Happy birthday Allison.

So please go ahead.

Thank you very much.

It has to be a round.

You say it's your birthday by the Beatles, we'll let you sing.

Otherwise, no.

Go ahead.

Well, since I have a cold, I'll just pause with the singing.

But thank you.

Elliot Swanson had to leave, but he was here to speak about the Home for Good program.

And I believe each of you received a letter earlier today from Susan Boyd, the executive director and CEO of Bellwether Housing.

My name is Allison Isinger and I am the director of the Seattle King County Coalition on Homelessness.

I thank you all council members for being here tonight and for listening to this wonderful array of heartfelt and smart recommendations for a budget that we all know needs to expand.

The Home for Good pilot program is a program that we are recommending that you fund as a pilot.

Now, I have to be honest, I don't go for pilot programs because they think, generally speaking, they're a way of not doing the thing that needs to be done at the scale that is needed.

But you've just heard from people that you have the opportunity to fund a pilot program for methadone treatment.

And similarly, this is a pilot shallow rent subsidy program that I want to again be honest with you about and say is not what we would typically recommend.

People don't need shallow rent subsidies.

For the most part, they need deep rent subsidies.

But the fact is that we are in a situation where we need to deploy all of the tools available to us.

Somebody who is receiving $771 of SSI per month is not at 30% AMI, is at 12% of AMI.

So in order for that person to be able to find and keep housing that they can afford, they need a subsidy.

And we are willing to recommend this program, even though it would mean that people receiving it would still be rent burdened.

We think it's a really smart investment and a way to put city dollars to use while we work with you to make a smart state recommendation.

hand my time over to Hilary and Jason.

Good evening council members, I'm Hilary Coleman with the coalition and I wanted to echo the asks that Patricia and Idabel shared for the Seattle Human Services Coalition.

We are a member of that coalition and support the full Human Services Coalition package and we particularly want to make sure that we are funding the comparable worth analysis.

We are glad for the unanimous passage of the inflation adjustment earlier this year, but as we all discussed during that time, that is just the start of what we really need to do to look at the wage gap.

Human services providers bring years of experience, both lived experience and experience gained in other ways, and provide well-being for our citizens.

So we need to make sure that we are funding that wage study.

Good evening council members.

My name is Jason Austin with the Coalition on Homelessness.

Prior to my current position, I used to be a case manager with the Housing and Essential Needs Program.

This means that I have helped countless Seattle residents make the transition from temporary state assistance to permanent federal disability income or SSI.

The day that a person's SSI is approved is supposed to be one of relief that gives someone hope for the future.

But because SSI lags so far behind the cost of housing in this city, it is a day that's oftentimes marked by fear and uncertainty.

I remember a man that I used to work with, a gentleman named Rodney, a joyful man with a giant smile.

He got the first permanent housing of his adult life through the Housing and Essential Needs Program.

He called me the day that he found out that his SSI benefits were approved and left me a panicked voice message asking if there was something he could do to appeal that decision.

He was willing to go as far as considering hiring a lawyer to reverse the benefits that he had spent years fighting hard to acquire.

Roddy was scared because he was facing an impossible choice.

Should he stay in housing that he could no longer afford and risk the cascading consequences of being evicted?

or should he walk away from the only stable housing he's ever had?

Rodney was set up to fail.

We may not be able to address every single factor that contributes towards homelessness, but we do have an obligation to create a system that itself does not perpetuate the problem further.

Please allocate no less than $750,000 towards the Home for Good program so that we are not needlessly making this crisis worse than it already is.

Thank you for your time this evening.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate you all coming.

Next one is Catherine Johnson, 34, Tiara with the Washington Recovery Alliance, 35, and looks like Danny Garcia with REACH, 36. So could I please ask the next two to come up as well so we're ready to go?

Catherine?

My name is Tracy Gillespie, but I was signed in on behalf of Katrina Johnson.

Okay, and you've got your 34 card?

I do.

So thank you so much.

My name's Tracy Gillespie.

I'm one of the project managers for the LEAD program up in the North Precinct.

So I oversee the Aurora Corridor.

And I'm here to talk about two populations that are largely underserved.

First of all, I know you all heard testimony last night in regards to the sex worker population.

And I want to echo some of the sentiments that were shared, specifically that people in this sex trade do fall along a continuum.

And the harms associated with folks in the sex trade are even more profound for people who are engaging in street-based sex work.

So any type of intervention and diversion intercept have to reflect the continuum of populations within the sex trade and street-based sex work and also be really competent in the harms associated with those populations.

So, interventions and services that I am here to promote and really ask for financial support is the POC Swaps Greenlight Project, which provides harm reduction outreach-based services, Aurora Commons drop-in services.

Of course, you have heard from our amazing lead case managers who are doing arrest diversions and intensive harm reduction case management.

And I also am here to promote the Organization for Prostitution Survivors who do prosecutorial diversion and survivor services for people in the life as well.

All of these agencies largely employ people with lived experience and are providing unparalleled services for people involved in street-based sex work.

Secondly, I would like to plug on behalf of vehicle residents, the scofflaw mitigation team.

They are one of the only programs that I know about that is doing assertive outreach with people who live in their vehicles and is supporting them with their very specific sets of needs.

So thank you to all the council members who are championing these initiatives and these programs that are serving these largely underserved populations.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with these programs, our proposals, I really urge you to look into them and to vote in support of their funding requests this budget season.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you, Tracy.

35 Tiara, we have a group, and Danny Garcia has a group, and Katie Wilson has a group.

So you're the next three up.

35, 36, 37.

Hi, I'm Amanda Richer.

I'm a displacement consultant here in Seattle, and I'm here on behalf of Washington Recovery Alliance and Seattle Harm Reduction Coalition.

I'm asking you to not only keep funding LEAD programs, but we need expansion as well.

Working within harm reduction, last Sunday we saw 70 people in two hours for harm reduction, that's not counting lunches, that's not counting other supplies.

It would be, in the conversation for us to say, it would be great to reach out, to reach or lead and get people into treatment when we have people approach us and say, I want out now.

And we're, hopefully you stay alive until tomorrow.

These services, these wraparound, these collaborative service and comprehensive services are essential to keeping people from not only re-offending, but becoming parts of the community.

It stops that institutionalization into different forms of, whether that be jails, whether that be, being homeless is a form of that.

Being vulnerable is a form of that.

And so in order to lift these people up, we need these comprehensive services.

We need these wraparound services.

We need to not only fund them, but we need to expand them because they work.

And we know right now that a lot of talk goes into solutions.

Well, we have one.

It needs to be refined.

There are some flaws I'm sure that we can work out, but it works.

And it works not only here, but it works globally.

So that's what I'm asking you, is to fund what works.

And I can tell you that I am living proof of it working.

I had to live a year and a half under a bridge while I underwent brain injury treatment.

I've been housed now, I have my own company as a displacement consultant, and I connect nonprofits to each other and I connect people to resources.

But I can tell you that none of that, none of what I have been able to give back to my community, none of the people I have been able to help heal would be possible without wraparound services that first helped to heal me.

You can't have a healthy community without healthy individuals.

Give people a chance to not only survive, because survival is hard.

When you are just surviving, it is very hard to make these meetings, to speak up, to talk to the people that you need to.

It's much easier when you're allowed to thrive.

So that's what I have to say.

I know I have more time, but I'm gonna let it go.

Thank you all.

Daniel Garcia, followed by Katie Wilson, followed by Pamela Bradburn.

Hi.

Good evening.

Thank you for the opportunity to come and speak to you about the importance of the work that my colleagues and I do on a daily basis.

My name is Daniel Garcia, and I am a Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion case manager with the REACH program.

In the last five years as a lead case manager, I have had the opportunity And good fortune to work with some of the most vulnerable people in our community.

These incredible people are struggling with homelessness, are having to deal with untreated mental health issues, are living with chronic health conditions, and are struggling with substance use disorders.

And in most cases are struggling with all four.

and for many decades.

The work that my colleagues and I do allows us to walk with these resilient and resourceful people who have lived through painful life experiences and poverty.

Their substance use can intensify these struggles, but as providers, I can tell you that what these people are doing is what they know to do to deal with that pain and to survive.

As a lead case manager, I get the opportunity to advocate for people within the legal system and explain to judges, prosecutors, and police officers why criminalizing drug use is not useful and the traditional jail sentences are not effective.

What we are witnessing is that the war on drugs is ineffective and the casualties of it are people living in poverty.

Many of those people are people of color.

individuals who already have to face oppression, discrimination, and historical traumas.

As providers, we have a unique opportunity to help address this by meeting people where they are, supporting them and providing vitally needed services, services that are difficult to access because of things like racial bias.

What we have is the ability to speak up and to fight for the people we serve.

Please understand that the services we provide require an enormous amount of time and trust.

When we meet our clients, they don't trust us because of the experience that they have had within the system.

The work requires that we be trauma-informed and client-centered, and requires that we have the time to develop relationship and trust.

Recently, for example, I lost a client.

She was a remarkable human being.

and a fighter in every sense of the word.

She was living with some significant health issues and had been struggling with substance use for over 20 years, and many of those years while living on the streets.

It took me about a year to get her to believe that I was there to help her.

And in one of our final conversations, she would say to me, I know you have my back, and tell me that she trusted me.

This work requires us to do intensive outreach.

That means that we need to go out under bridges, in parks, on the streets, in jails, hospitals, and be present for them where they need help.

I must tell you that this work is difficult some days because I see and I'm aware of the pain it has on our clients.

that can be exhausting and challenging because of the size of our caseloads.

Earlier, I stated that I had a personal connection to this work, why I believe the services we provide are crucial.

About 10 years ago, I was a man of color struggling with untreated mental health, living with an untreated health condition.

I had been homeless off and on for 12 years and struggling with a substance use issue to help me cope with my own demons.

Fortunately, I had case managers who provided me with the services and helped me so that I could be here today to speak with you.

It can be exhausting and challenging to listen and hold space for an individual's experience and trauma.

At one time, I had more than 40 clients on my caseload, and 25 to 30 of them required my help and attention.

At that time, we were only in two precincts, and now that we are in five, the work has become even harder.

Because there are not enough of us, the people who are being referred are falling through the cracks.

They are unable to get the services they need and find their way out of their circumstances.

As providers, we are asking that you please see how harm reduction approach is effective.

It allows us the ability to treat people with dignity, compassion, and respect.

We show up without judgment.

We see them when others don't want to and make them feel invisible.

Please help us by not cutting the funding we need to keep doing this work, work that could impact issues such as increasing deaths that we are seeing as a result of overdoses.

I am asking you, we are asking you to please help us continue this work.

With your help, we can do the best to impact the issues that we are facing as a community.

Danny, thank you.

I'm going to ask you to wrap up.

OK.

Well, with your help, we can impact the community.

Very good.

Thank you so much for coming, the three of you.

Katie Wilson, nice to see you.

Are you having a group?

My colleagues had to leave, so two minutes is fine.

I'll keep it short.

Great.

Thank you.

Katie, after you.

Pamela Bradburn, 39, Aaron Lovell.

Hi, my name is Katie Wilson.

I'm here representing the Transit Riders Union.

Thanks for hearing our comments tonight.

I just wanted to express TRU's support for a few of the programs you've heard about today.

First of all, we support funding.

Real changes call for funding for not one, not two, definitely not zero, but five mobile pit stops in this budget.

People need a place to go to the bathroom.

It's as simple as that.

Secondly, we support the Home for Good program.

We need to help people with disabilities who are living on SSI stay housed, get housed.

There's no way that someone living on that much money can afford to live in this city.

You can help fill the gap.

Thirdly, we support our friends at Nicholsville and we support funding for tiny house villages.

Tiny houses save lives.

Yeah.

So we do not support the part of the mayor's budget where money is being spent to close down tiny house villages.

We need your support to keep them open.

And Nicholsville needs your support to maintain their self-management model.

Finally, you heard earlier tonight, it feels like hours ago, from some of my colleagues in the mass coalition, Move All Seattle Sustainably, speaking about our transportation package and some specific budget asks.

Obviously, we also support all of those.

And I just wanted to say a word about transit funding.

We need more dedicated bus lanes all over the city.

And so we are happy in the mayor's budget about the significant investments in the Rainier Corridor.

Of course, we're all looking with trepidation at what's going to happen with Initiative 976. In a couple of weeks, everyone vote no on 976. If the worst happens, we're going to be looking to you all to find new revenue because no is not the answer.

We're in a climate crisis.

We need to be investing in green transportation.

We need to give people better options than driving.

Thank you.

38, 39, Aaron Lovell, and Tanika Thompson, 40.

Welcome.

Pamela Bradburn.

I am also here to talk about the mobile pit stops.

I'm a longtime resident of Seattle, and since 1985, I've lived in District 1. Another graduate student and I were the first two research staff working for the city council.

You've got huge staffs now.

It started with two part-time graduate students.

So that was a long time ago.

Each of you and I are privileged to live a sheltered life.

Not only are we housed, but we're sheltered by our privilege from many, many issues that other people have to deal with.

That fact is temporary.

We would like to think that we control the conditions of our lives, but it's not correct.

A benign brain tumor.

a lost job, you're all up for election, I'm sure you're facing that.

Not all of us.

A divorce.

A variety of issues can arise that totally change our lives and take us away from the connections that we've had and the comfort that we've lived in.

However, when the conditions of our lives change, our bodily functions don't.

I knew that I was coming to talk to you, so I noticed I used the toilet four times today, and it would have been higher if I hadn't been waiting in line since 3.45 to talk to you.

How many toilets are available to people who can't afford to buy access?

When I needed one urgently, I was able to buy access.

These are for people who can't.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for coming.

So we have 39, Erin.

Good evening, council members.

Hold on just a second.

39, Erin.

Tanika is 40 and Nancy is 41.

My name is Erin Lovell, and I'm the Executive Director of Legal Counsel for Youth and Children, LCYC.

At LCYC, we work to improve the well-being of young people by advancing their legal rights.

We provide direct legal services through four programs, child welfare, juvenile court, youth and family immigration, and youth homelessness.

I'm here today on behalf of LCYC to seek support for our Youth Homelessness Legal Services Program.

Through this program, we provide critical, holistic, civil legal aid services to hundreds of young people between the ages of 12 to 24 years of age who are or are at risk of experiencing homelessness alone.

Between September 1st, 2018 and August 31st, 2019, we served 200 young people in Seattle through this program.

The majority of youth served are youth of color, about 20% identify as LGBTQ, about 17% are immigrant youth, and consistently over the past three years, half of the young people we serve every year through this program are minors.

They're minors that are facing homelessness on their own.

All minors struggling with homelessness alone have a legal issue because someone is responsible for meeting their needs.

And most young adults struggling with homelessness have multiple legal issues.

We address a number of civil legal issues that directly impacts young people's safety, stability, and access to education, employment, income, and housing.

Some of the issues we advocate on include warrants and sealing records, medical debt, charity care, accessing child protective services and orders of protection, name and gender marker changes, landlord-tenant issues, evictions, and public benefits.

Over the years, our referrals have steadily increased as our community partnerships have grown in number and strength.

We embed ourselves in partner organizations such as Youth Care and Seattle Public Schools Interagency Academy so that we can conduct regular intakes at locations where young people already are.

We receive no city funding for the services that we've been providing and over the past three years since they've been provided, there's been a drop in King County homelessness in terms of young adults and minors.

We're asking for support in the amount of $100,000 in the 2020 budget.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening.

My name is Tanika Thompson and I'm the Food Access Organizer for Got Green.

I'm going to be really brief because I have been before you so many times this year.

So when the sugary beverage tax was announced, grassroots organizers in these communities worked hard to ensure that the city would direct those SBT revenue into community-driven food access programs.

Got Green and their allies in the coalition have been working tirelessly to tell people who are most impacted by this tax that this revenue is going to expand and increase city funding for fresh bucks so it can reach more people in need.

People who are in the food security gap, for example.

They've been communicating that the city is going to be equitable with the tax revenue and accountable to its intentions.

And I believe that the city council is going to do just that.

My concern today is, and a concern of a lot of friends of mine, is that $3 million that the mayor is proposing go to the pea patches.

My understanding is that the pea patches are supposed to go to Ballard.

The pea patches in Ballard.

Well, what about people in the South End?

We need food for people in Seattle, not just Ballard.

Three million dollars is a lot of that money.

It's a lot of the revenue from the sugary beverage tax.

And we need that money to feed all families in Seattle.

Thank you.

Oh, and one more thing.

I'm just, I've just been appointed to the Community Advisory Board and I would like to share with you the recommendations for that three million dollars.

For water filling stations for schools and community centers, micro grants for food access and early learning programs, evaluations, CAB support, So why $3 million to pea patches and only $825,000 to food banks?

Hi everyone, I'm Nancy.

This is a statement from Simone Adler, organizing director of Community Alliance for Global Justice, a member of the coalition to close the food security gap.

This summer you stood by the values of accountability and equity and approved creating a separate fund for the sugary beverage tax revenue when Mayor Durkan attempted to supplant the general fund money with SBT funds.

He voted to ensure that SBT funds would fund programs in line to expand food access programs and they would provide support for communities who are most impacted by attacks on sugary beverages, people of color, low-income people, and working families.

It's these communities who are targeted by Big Soda and the sugary beverage industry.

Mayor Durkan is now proposing to use $3 million to fund the P-Patch program.

This should not come out of the SBT revenue.

Currently, the Fresh Bucks program is only receiving $2 million from the SBT.

The mayor is proposing to put more money into P-Patches than a program that has been in direct response to community concerns.

The mayor is trying to fund a program that is not in line with the recommendations from the Community Advisory Board, and that is not only unaccountable, it is wrong and unacceptable.

While peat patches deserve the city's resources to increase local food access, the mayor is yet again causing confusion among the public around the city's priorities and how they are getting funding.

This cannot come at the expense of accountability or equity to the communities most impacted by the tax or by creating fear and division around limited resources.

The CAB is working hard to ensure their recommendations are aligned with the people directly impacted by the tax, and today you have the opportunity to demonstrate your support for the recommendations of the CAB, which include funding water hydration stations, scratch cooking classes, and specific food access programs that are driven by community.

Do not approve the $3 million from the SBT Revenue Fund for peat patches.

Invest this money back into impacted communities.

And as Nancy, I stand in solidarity with Decriminalize Seattle and the youth from the center school and support their demands.

Thank you, Nancy.

Next three speakers are Will, is it Tosburn, Tosburn, and then Joan Irvin, then Dennis LeClec, Will, Tracy, and Dennis.

Hi, my name is Will, and I am testifying on behalf of Solid Ground, Poverty Action, the people I work with, and most importantly, the communities we serve.

At Solid Ground, we pursue our mission of building community to end poverty by providing a wide range of supports and services, as well as organizing and advocating to undo the oppressive systems that are the root causes of poverty.

In that spirit, my coworkers will be testifying on behalf of a number of critical programs.

We also want to make sure we ask for your support for fair wages for workers providing human services.

The pay of human service providers does not at all reflect the education required, difficulty, or value of their work to serve our communities.

It is increasingly difficult for human service workers to live in our communities and stay in human service jobs.

The result is high turnover and the burden of that is on the communities we serve.

We thank the council's leadership on raising the cost of living for human service providers, but we're asking the city of Seattle to work with providers to conduct a pay equity analysis of human services jobs and allocate resources for a robust comparable worth analysis.

This is an important step in the just treatment of human service workers and the communities that they serve.

First,

Hi there, I'm Jay Doran with the Statewide Poverty Action Network.

Poverty Action advocates at the state level to change policies and systems that create and maintain poverty.

I'm here to ask you to increase funding for state-level advocacy and your balancing package.

This funding was slashed by $65,000 in the mayor's budget.

For about a decade, we have had a strong partnership and contract with the city, and with the modest investment by the city, we bring a substantial return to the residents of Seattle.

A few highlights for you of what the city's contract and investment in poverty action has done over the last two years.

We've increased the benefits that people receive from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program by about 10%.

We've expanded housing services for people with disabilities by expanding eligibility and increasing investment in housing and essential needs and the Aged, Blind, and Disabled program.

We've helped reform the state's legal financial obligation system.

We've made it easier for previously incarcerated people to reenter the communities by simplifying the process of vacating records.

And we've helped to regulate debt collectors and strengthen consumer protections for all Washingtonians.

So again, please fully fund state level advocacy by adding $65,000 back into the budget.

Thank you so much.

Hello.

My name is Frank Miranda.

I'm here representing Food System Support, a program of Solid Ground.

Food System Support is a program that supports the food banks of the City of Seattle through its support of the Seattle Food Committee, a coalition of 27 food banks that operate in the city.

I'm here to thank you, first of all, for your support of vital food bank nutrition, education, and coordination services in the city.

and urge you to fully fund food system support, nutrition education services, as well as other requests from the most recent RFP.

And then also want to recognize the push for achieving an achievement of restoration of city food bank funding into the city's general fund as well as the institution of the automatic inflation adjustment for all HSD contracts.

In addition, like many of my peers, I'm here to urge Council to make the comparative worth analysis a priority in this year's budget.

Non-profit workers, including human services, find it more difficult to maintain inflation than for-profit, which makes the inflation adjustment so important.

Inflation adjustment satisfied.

Current pay rates for many workers in the non-profit sector often enough make them eligible for the services that they are providing, especially in an environment of growth such as Seattle has experienced over the past few years.

The comparative worth analysis seeks to resolve the question of how much of a gap may exist And once complete, should be able to help quantify that difference, allowing for not only informed decision making, but also to push the conversation forward towards pay equity.

Thank you.

Hi, today I'm here to discuss tenant counseling.

Despite a large increase for the Department of Construction and Inspections, dollars allocated in the mayor's budget go towards permits and away from funding for tenant counseling, including Solid Ground's bilingual tenant hotline serving over a thousand people each year, along with in-person workshops empowering Seattle renters to understand their rights and responsibilities.

Our funding for this vital service has declined in past years from $175,000 in 2018 to $128,000 in 2019 and we've been recently told to expect another cut in 2020. I urge the council to reinstate full funding for tenant counseling to continue providing these valued services for thousands in our community.

It's a critical component of homeless prevention.

And it's our responsibility to ensure we're preventing eviction and combating the cycle of housing instability and experiences of homelessness.

Thank you.

Good.

Thanks.

I believe 44 is next because Tracy Gillespie spoke with a different group.

Joan Ervin, 44. Dennis at 45. And Melody Reese at 46. Hello.

Hello.

My name is Joan Irvin, and I am a lifetime member and a dedicated volunteer at the Central Area Senior Center.

You've heard, you have a lot of information about us, but my point today is just to relate to you our support, our support in our community.

Most recently, I was part of a team, a phone team, because we had a campaign going to raise $55,000 in about a week to meet the requirements of our ownership.

So we took that on, and I called many people.

We spoke to, when Diane, our director, presented this challenge, I thought this was an impossible feat.

But I was encouraged by the immediate response.

People lined up at our doorstep to make donations.

The phones rang off the hook with pledges.

The poor receptionist, she was overwhelmed and needed help from staff and volunteers to take in the donations.

The donations came from all our ethnic communities, our businesses, people of color, all colors, members from far and near.

Donations kept coming and we exceeded our goal.

I spoke to one lady who was not able to, she said financially she was not able to support us, but she would pray for us.

And I said, prayers are a pretty strong force and we welcome that too.

Thank you very much for, oh Monday, I just want to say this past Monday we gave a thank you to, we had an open house for a thank you to all the community for supporting us and it was a free lunch and we had activities and it was a very good event.

Thank you.

Council members.

My name is Gwen Wrench, and I've lived one mile from the Senior Center since 1970. I'm active in the Enhanced Fitness and other programs at the Center, and I, as well as many others, want to be able to continue to take advantage of its programs and close proximity.

Past mayors supported maintaining the center as a community resource, and two years ago, a consultant recommended that the city transfer the deed, and yet it hasn't happened.

Why not?

Why wasn't the transfer part of the mayor's budget?

The City Council passed a resolution providing for the transfer, and yet it hasn't happened.

Why hasn't the City Council forced the Mayor's hand?

To give the Senior Center to developers for so-called affordable housing goes against the 1975 Referendum 29, providing for the Senior Center to serve as a community center open to the public.

The Central Area Senior Center needs to continue to be the great community resource it is.

Mayor Durkan, transfer the deed.

I also find that we were under 69, so you might want to revise that.

Okay, thank you.

I am Joan Paulson.

I'm speaking in support of the MOB, Greenwood and Capital Central Area Senior Centers and Bird Bar Place properties to be transferred by a legal instrument of a deed so that the ownership change will happen from the City of Seattle to these three community organizations this year.

This deed transfer effort of ownership for these three organizations has been thought of a 50-yard dash.

However, it's really more of a 26-mile marathon over the past 40 years.

Mayor Ed Murray had been supportive of these deed transfers.

However, for the past two budget cycles, our current mayor has not been supportive.

Therefore, it will take, again, the majority of the support of the members of City Council to make this deed transfer happen this year.

Please continue your efforts and make this effort of deed transfer cross over the finish line for these three organizations.

We thank the City Council last year and Lisa Herbold and Michael Bryan for chairing the effort to make the resolution happen that we are to have ownership of the building in this year and we have continued to wait.

Every day we have a new criteria to meet.

Joan was celebrating our $97,000 success because the city said we had to have at least $50,000 in the bank for maintenance.

Well, we paid $680,000 worth of maintenance from 2014 to 2019. So, every day there's a new criteria and we would just like for you to use all of your effort, resources, and power to make sure that the transfer of the three mutually offsetting benefit properties happen this year.

Thank you so very much.

Thank you, Diane.

Thank you all of you.

Joan.

for a 7 o'clock meeting at your place.

I literally just left your place 20 minutes ago.

45 Dennis, 46 Melody, 47 Anika.

Sorry, hello, I'm sorry.

Excuse me, Council Member Herbold, were you talking to us?

No.

Oh, sorry.

Dennis, thank you.

46, Melody, and 47, Annika.

Please, go ahead.

My name is Dennis Lecleche.

I am an alumni status of the LEAD program.

Three years ago, I was in my tribulation, darkness, and the grip of my disease.

Heroin, cocaine, methamphetamines.

And I say that specifically because these certain drugs affect me in different ways.

Today, I have two years and six months clean.

The LEAD program has been my foundation.

struggling with 30 days clean, 30, 60 days clean, and I knew about the LEAD program.

I was in King County Jail, and I actually heard about the program from other inmates, and even on the streets of Seattle.

And I remember being, booking, knocking on the window, seeing Felix, one of the SBD officers, just longing for the LEAD program.

Said, Felix, Felix, please.

He came to the window, he talked to me. please, I need this program.

And there were a few other steps.

And I'm glad I had this opportunity because the LEAD program has changed my life and saved my life significantly.

They've done incredible things through coming to court with me and advocating for me, helped me into sober living, taught me budgeting, all types of different wonderful things.

With the help of harm reduction medicine, Narcotics Anonymous, the fellowship, and the genuine love of this program, it's saved my life.

Today, I work at Thunderbird Treatment Center as a counselor's aide, almost done with my degree in chemical dependency.

And I have a beautiful daughter back there.

and my mother here.

And to see the smile on my mother's face is priceless.

Well done, Dennis.

Thank you.

Because I put my mother through hell.

I'm a single child from South Seattle.

I put her through hell.

Sometimes I'd be so broken and loaded, I'd be on the floor, on her floor, just praying for the next day to come for another chance.

Desperate for this program, desperate for just a new life, and this program has given me the ability to be my true, authentic self.

Great, Dennis, thank you.

Three years ago, I...

Thank you so much.

So Melody.

Hi City Council.

Hi Melody.

Good to see you.

You're 46?

Yes.

And Anika is 47 next and Chris McDaniel is 48.

Thank you.

Excellent.

So my name is Melody Reese.

I am a lead project manager with the Public Defender Association.

I also am a former employee of Swap Seattle.

and an active sex workers' rights activist in the Seattle community.

And as a project manager for LEAD, I just want to fully advocate for the full funding of the LEAD program, as well as funding other community service providers that overlap with the LEAD populations, including POC Swap and Green Light Project.

I also want to clarify some misconceptions about the LEAD program as came to public hearing last night from Swap Seattle.

So when LEAD is at Fidelity, Interaction with the police is not actually required for referral into lead services.

So the idea that sex workers have to come into contact with police when this model is fully funded is not actually accurate.

However, it's being operationalized that way currently because we have to prioritize referrals in order to balance capacity issues.

It's vitally important that we keep the lead mechanism intact and operating at fidelity in order to have the best outcomes for the population and for the rest of the community.

Additionally, our case managers that we work for at, that we work with at REACH are absolutely sex worker competent and many of them have been, are survivors themselves and have been members of the life, as you heard earlier.

And there's a range of reasons why people are doing sex work on the street, and our services should reflect that.

Green Light Project has been ground zero for this population and services, but LEAD case managers specifically are the best way for police to interact with this population and to manage all appropriate services for this population.

So once again, I just really want to advocate for fully funding this LEAD program as it's the most appropriate mechanism, and then also community-based wraparound services.

Thank you.

So Annika, Annika Lumberger, it looks like you've got a lot of people behind you.

So welcome to the group, and I appreciate you talking about tiny houses.

Yes, so hi, my name is Annika.

I live at Georgetown Tiny House Village with my fiance and my two-year-old daughter.

Over the past two years, Georgetown has been a model of acceptance, compassion, recovery, and success.

Our village, working with Lehigh and the navigation team, serves some of Seattle's most vulnerable homeless adults and families, some who have been on the streets 10 to 15 years.

Should our village end, 60 adults, one child, and 22 pets would be back on the street or in a shelter.

They would no longer feel accepted, but instead be the outcast of society once again.

To keep our village would be the continuation of stability, and the opening of more villages would help thousands more homeless individuals feel the dignity and community that we feel from our village daily, as well as from the Georgetown neighborhood.

I would like to end with a quote from the book Community Growth by Gene Veneer.

When we pull our strength and share the work and responsibility, we can welcome many people, even those in deep distress, and perhaps help them find self-confidence and inner healing.

And I would like to yield the rest of my time to Barbara Hill.

Thank you.

Welcome, Margaret.

Hi, everybody.

I'm Barbara Grace Hill.

I am a member of the Georgetown Community Advisory Council and have had the honor and the pleasure of working with the village since its opening, and it's been an incredible experience.

I'm here to ask you to please keep funding more villages and to please keep the Georgetown village open as well.

The cost to close a village is approximately $300,000, and that's the cost of building approximately one more village, which we desperately need, as I think we all know.

Or it would provide salaries for around six to eight case managers.

for up to a year.

So as we've learned over the past few years, more case managers result in more people moving up the housing continuum into permanent housing.

That's a critical need as we've heard from many this evening, including those who have risen from homelessness to become case managers, mentors, teachers.

This leadership development is one of the unexpected benefits that I have witnessed within the Georgetown Village.

Annika is a leader in her village community, and I have confidence that she will continue to grow in this ability.

Patty here is another village member.

She's working across the country, carrying the message of success of the tiny home village model.

Andrew also is doing that, and he's a village resident and leader, and with all due respect to Mayor Durkin, I'm pretty sure we may one day call him mayor.

These three are modeling leadership, collaboration, and democratic decision-making to all the residents as are all the residents back to them.

They work with the neighborhood on numerous events and with those of us serving on the CAC in concert with the Human Services Department, the Department of Neighborhoods, and with Lehigh.

Recently we've had the pleasure of sitting and speaking with some of you and we're very grateful for that time and that collaboration with all of the city.

That relationship is growing and getting better every day and we're really excited about that.

Our community largely supports, our Georgetown community largely supports the continuation of the Georgetown Village.

Georgetown is a model for this city and the country.

Let us all continue to do this transformative work together and make a difference for everyone.

Please continue the villages and Georgetown specifically.

Thank you.

Congratulations on a village well tended.

I appreciate hearing this.

Chris McDaniel is 48. Devin Andell is 49. And we have a number 50. It looks like Naomi.

Chris?

Hello.

My name is Chris McDaniel.

I live at Tiny House Village in Georgetown, Tulsa.

I've been sitting here listening and trying to think of what to say.

And I'll be brief.

Kim.

Bama, Moe, those are three people that once lived at Georgetown Tiny House Village, but for various reasons left.

They're dead now.

They didn't kill themselves, they were killed.

If you close this village, that's gonna happen again with other people.

You need to open more villages.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Are you Devin?

Yes, ma'am.

49. Devin, hold on just a second.

Naomi is 50. And Brid Fleming is 51. Thank you.

Welcome.

Thank you for your time.

My name is Devin Nadel.

Last year, I had moved up here after moving out of a very extensive situation.

And I came up here with nothing but the clothes on my back.

Since staying at the UGM, I was then led into the Georgetown Tiny Home Village to where I have been there for almost over a year now, and it has sheltered me from the cold, from the violence, discrimination, and hate.

These villages that you have all the way around, we've visited many different ones, many different cultures, and many different kinds of people that have many different ideas.

These villages promote these ideas.

the growth of these ideas and also the growth of their personal potential well-being.

The $600,000 that were allocated to demoing these videos or reallocating them could, as spoken earlier, open up two more, which then would make it 22 more villages off the $12 million that was proposed to open up to 20 more villages.

And that's all I have to say.

I'm going to give it to my friend Travis here for the rest of my time.

Great.

Thank you.

Hello, I'm known as the Guru Travis.

I have been a member of this community for the past 10 years now.

I moved here very young.

I was the first underage person at the Union Gospel Mission.

At the minimum age requirement was 18. I was 16 at the time.

was a terrible place.

Then I left and got in a tent in front of the city hall here with my mother.

I got referred by the Reach Team and now I'm a current resident of the Georgetown Tiny Home Village.

It has saved my life.

I have personally been blessed by it in ways you would not understand.

And I thank you all for listening to me.

Thank you for coming, Travis.

All right, number 50 is Naomi, 51 is Brid, and 52 is Alex Finch.

Good evening.

My name is Naomi See and I'm a student at the University of Washington.

I would like to first speak on Ms. Wan's budget proposal allocating money to the Office of Planning and Community Development to contract with a community-based organization in the Central District, like the Black Dollar Days Task Force.

to support black churches and cultural institutions develop their vanquished and underutilized properties.

Growth in the city of Seattle should never come at the cost of displacing and disenfranchising groups of the population.

It is the responsibility of all of us to empower communities throughout Seattle to advance economic opportunity and develop safe and culturally relevant neighborhoods.

We cannot recognize growth as progress if we are not doing this work.

I would also like to speak on behalf of the Tiny House Villages.

As a volunteer with the Low Income Housing Institute, I feel privileged to have had the opportunity to spend time in these incredible communities.

It is clear we are calling to solutions to this crisis, and Tiny House Villages is one of these solutions.

Please hear the voices of those impacted by the villages because they showed up to talk to you today.

And remember that when you invest in a tiny house village, you are investing in the beautiful, courageous, and important lives they support.

Thank you.

Thank you for coming.

So we have Brid, Alex, and then Sean Smith.

51, 52, 53.

Hello.

My name is Brid Fleming.

I'm a member.

resident at Second Chance Tiny Houses.

I became homeless 10 years ago, suffering in all the usual ways.

In the beginning, I stayed at missions and overnight shelters, being kicked out the next morning in despair.

loneliness and desperation, and I turned to drugs.

It was an easy way out.

It was a way for me to feel good.

And in turning to drugs, it didn't last long, the feeling of security and all that.

It made it worse.

so I turned to other methods like harm reduction.

I was able to get sober, and in getting sober, I found myself in places like Tennessee, where I was still in a tent, suffering, and becoming more and more debilitated with arthritis.

And along the way, getting sober and healthy, I found out that I had other things going on, like liver disease.

I've been on the list for Seattle Housing Authority for five years now, and still no housing available.

But now with Tiny House, I'll have a house and a home that I live in when I receive a new liver, because I'm now on the transplant list.

So I'm just glad I have a home to live in.

Thank you.

Thank you for coming, Britt.

Alex Finch?

Sean Smith is 53 and Rebecca Finks is 54.

Somebody apparently left a phone up here.

First off, I'd like to start off by thanking you all for staying with us this long.

My name is Alex Finch.

I am the External Affairs Coordinator at Nicholsville Northlake.

I could talk to you about how Nicholsville has helped me with all the positivity in my life since moving into Northlake.

But I won't because it's a story you've all heard multiple times tonight.

Not to mention, I really could not top those kids with that poem.

So instead, I'll ask you all a question.

And it's a question I posed slightly differently two years ago with the EHT and that is, Are you all happy with your legacy as Seattle City Council members?

I know some of you are leaving at the end of this term.

Somebody else will take your spot.

But are you happy with your legacy?

A legacy in which homelessness deaths have been increasing.

By example, when I first started talking, there were 67 at this time.

As you heard earlier, there was 94. It's a legacy where a massive amount of data that would put the post office's servers to shame is more important than the flesh and blood people who are here begging you to govern with compassion to save lives.

I'm not up here just for me.

I'm up here for the person who will be in my shelter after me. when I no longer need it.

So please support someone's amendment to fund more tiny house villages, to not close Georgetown or Nicholsville-Northlake, and to help the mayor follow through on a campaign promise of opening more tiny houses.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Sean 53 Rebecca 54 and Lindy night, I think that's night 55 Good evening council.

My name is Sean Smith, but you already know who I am Tonight I could talk about who invented self-management, but I won't I Could talk about who invented tiny house villages But I won't Instead I'm here to ask you to be honest with yourselves, and look at the crisis that we face on the street nightly.

3,000 people spent the night outside in the rain last night.

We need you to vote for Council Member Sawant's amendment, $12 million for 20 more villages, We cannot afford to shut down.

One, we're not even close to building the housing that we need.

Please, let's get back to work and help people.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks, John.

Rebecca, Lindy is 55, and Jason Austin is 56.

Hello, I am Becca Finkus.

I work for the Low Income Housing Institute with the Tiny House Program, and I'm so grateful for all the residents that came out tonight to speak about their experiences and their willingness to be vulnerable and open about those.

And with that in mind, it's not my role to speak on their hardships at all, but I do want to bring up a population that our villages serve that are left out of these discussions oftentimes.

The 2019 point in time count identified 1,583 children under the age of 18 experiencing homelessness this year on one night, and that's probably an undercount.

The tiny house villages currently offer safe and dignified shelter for 26 of those children experiencing homelessness and 71 total over the past year.

I like to spend a lot of my time in Othello Village.

The kids there ride around the village on their bikes, they love to play hide and seek, and they're the sweetest, goofiest little humans I've ever had the pleasure of meeting.

The villages offer a place for children to take a shower before school, the security to get a full night's rest so they can do their homework, and the stability to think about who they want to be when they grow up.

I urge you to support increased funding for more tiny house villages.

I think that we must acknowledge that we can do better for children experiencing homelessness in Seattle, and this is a step in the right direction.

And to do otherwise, and to look the other way, is not only a disservice to our community, but also our future.

I spoke on similar sentiments last week, but again, feel free to reach out to me if any of you are interested in visiting a village and meeting some of our next astronauts, teachers, police officers, and hopefully presidents.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Lindy, 56 is Jason Austin, 57 is Joss Castle.

Okay, it's Linda, actually.

It's the spelling, it's German.

Thank you, Linda.

Okay, so I came here to talk to you about some problems that are coming up that you may not even be aware of.

Santa Rosa, California was in the wildfires that hit California, and that wildfire destroyed 8,000 structures.

in many communities, both high-end, middle class, and lower class.

The city lost 5% of their housing stock.

Imagine that happening here.

One bright, bright note in this whole thing was one construction company owner built a tiny house village for some of those who lost their homes and donated the land to put it on.

Each home cost $15,000 to construct and a lot of the work was donated by not only carpenters, but electricians and plumbers, the expensive stuff.

And these are permanent homes.

They are not what you think of when you think of the tiny homes of today, which are extremely important.

But what I want to tell you about is something that's not so good coming up in the future.

I live next door to a man with dementia.

And he was crying to me the other day because he lost $20, which he cannot afford to lose.

because there were holes in his pockets and he couldn't figure out that he had to take clothes that had holes in the pockets off and put on clothes that had no holes in the pockets.

So I had to guide them through that, just like I would a child, but without messing up his self-esteem.

Then I found out his jacket had holes in the pockets, so I gave him one of mine that did not.

Two minutes already?

We have got to construct tiny houses permanently for these people and their caregivers because we are due in a projection to have 140,000 more people in the state of Washington with dementia.

Thank you for coming tonight, Linda, and giving us that information.

OK, Jason Austin, Joss Castle is 57, and Art is 58.

Good evening.

Good evening.

You don't look like Jason, but we're happy to see you, Daniel Malone.

Yes, thank you.

So we're slotting in.

Hi, thank you.

I'm Daniel Malone.

I'm executive director of DESC.

I'm here with my Harborview colleagues to speak in favor of Councilmember Bagshaw's proposal, supported by several of you, to invest $2 million in the construction of a new medical clinic to be located in Hobson Place, DESC's new apartment building in North Rainier Valley.

With this funding, we plan to build out a clinic, a high-quality integrated physical and behavioral health care to become a reality for thousands of people with significant behavioral health and medical needs.

Here's why this is so important.

The homeless adult population is older than it used to be and we're seeing increasingly complex health conditions among people currently or formerly homeless.

People with both serious behavioral health and physical health conditions often get inadequate care for either type of condition.

This project builds on and expands existing DESC and Harborview partnerships to serve clients in an integrated way so both conditions are more effectively treated.

Hi, I'm Tricia Madden.

I'm with Harborview Medical Center.

And we have nurses, doctors, physical therapists, and nutritionists, and psychiatrists working hard every day to treat people who are unhoused and dealing with poverty and social determinants of health issues.

We have partnered with DESC for well over 45 years bringing nurses into shelters and then initiating that first partnership of Housing First with 1811 Eastlake.

And this project is really the next step as you're hearing everybody talk today about needing housing.

needing this integrated care model of people who are going out on the street and doing street services, as well as enough access to a primary care clinic that is integrated with chemical dependency and mental health treatment and psychiatry services, case management services, payee services.

It is really a comprehensive integrated clinic that is going to have 175 units of housing.

I really think this is kind of the next step where we're cutting the edge with 1811 East Lake.

I think this project is the next step for that.

I feel like we've heard plenty of people here talking about the effects of being unsheltered and unhoused on your physical and your mental health.

And this would just be a great project to be able to try and help address those needs.

DESC and Harborview are excited to make this clinic and the care will provide a reality.

The total project budget is approximately $22 million.

We have most of the funding from a state allocation and new markets tax credits.

We also have a request working through King County and are appealing to philanthropy and other grant makers.

Any remaining gap will have to be covered via debt, but we're working to keep the debt low so as to keep operating costs unrelated to direct care as low as possible.

This kind of integrated behavioral and physical healthcare, along with badly needed supportive housing units that will also be constructed in the building, is a major piece of the puzzle to solving homelessness and its impact on our communities.

Thanks for listening to us and for listening to everybody you're hearing from tonight.

Thanks so much.

All right, Josh Castle, nice to see you.

And do you have a group with you, or is it just you?

Just me.

Good to see you.

Thank you.

Good evening, guys.

Good evening.

I'm Josh Castle.

I work for Lehigh.

196 people died living on the streets last year.

Nobody should have to die due to lack of shelter in one of the wealthiest cities on the planet.

We are grateful to all of you and to our partnership with the city in the funding and the support of eight tiny house villages in Seattle, which has greatly saved and greatly improved thousands of lives since the first village opened three and a half years ago.

These are not a permanent solution, but it's a critical stepping stone from homelessness to housing.

They provide shelter, community, and safety to close to 1,000 people per year and have high rates of exits to permanent housing and long-term housing compared with other shelter programs.

Even with the severe lack of affordable housing in our city, our case managers have transitioned over 500 tiny house residents into permanent housing since the program began.

Right now, City-owned, private and faith-based land exists to accommodate more villages, and thousands of volunteers are ready to jump in and build them.

We are requesting the City Council support the allocation of $6 million from the sale proceeds of the Southlake Union Mega Block and other sources to support 10 tiny house villages with 20 to 60 tiny houses each.

300 to 500 tiny houses can shelter an additional 800 to 1,200 homeless women, men, and children and keep them safe in warm, heated tiny houses with hygiene and community facilities.

Please also pass Councilmember Sawant's legislation to authorize more tiny house villages in Seattle.

It is crucial the tiny house order passes before the end of March 2020 when temporary permits extensions expire for villages that are not church-sponsored.

Residents of most of the villages are here today to share their stories of how the villages have made a difference for them, and please listen to them.

Please support more funding to help the many people and families forced to live in their vehicles as well.

We're requesting the council add funding to support more safe parking.

The University Heights Board voted to support safe parking, and I wanted to thank Councilmember Pacheco and Councilmember Mosqueda for participating in that forum a few months ago.

Lastly, more support is urgently needed for urban rest stops, and we enthusiastically support the Real Change campaign for five mobile pit stops.

Thank you.

Thanks, Josh.

Are you Art?

Are you Art 58?

Not Art.

Art gave me his card and left.

Is that okay?

What's your name?

My name is David Delgado.

Okay, just a moment.

With the BIA.

Hold on, David.

I recognize you.

Hold on just a moment.

So, after David is going to be Renee McCoy and Shoshana Winebury as number 60.

So, we're with a group.

Okay.

Go ahead.

All right, thank you.

Would you set his time for five minutes, please?

Thank you.

Good afternoon, good evening actually now at this point.

Good evening City Council Members.

My name is Devin Reynolds and I'm here on behalf of the Ballard Alliance, an organization that represents hundreds of businesses and thousands of residents in Ballard Corps.

We're advocating for a green sheet sponsored by Council Members Pacheco and O'Brien that would provide supportive funding for REACH outreach workers in Ballard and the U District.

The Ballard Alliance first contracted with REACH in 2017 to provide neighborhood-based outreach for unhoused individuals in the Ballard community with the goal of offering services, shelter, and housing.

This program has worked really well.

For example, this year alone, our outreach worker has averaged 85 contacts per month, 71 individuals have received shelter this year, and 18 individuals have moved into permanent housing this year.

For 2018, the city provided funding to support, to help support the cost of the REACH program in the Ballard and New District BIAs.

The Green Street proposal before you will provide partial funding to continue this program for 2020 and 2021. We believe this program is a successful public-private partnership that provides a critical tool for serving unhoused individuals in our neighborhood.

The Ballard Alliance is committed to this program, and we encourage continued commitment from the city to help support this initiative.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Good evening, my name is David Delgado and I am here today in support of the BIA Outreach Program.

The title given to me was University District Outreach Coordinator, but I'll always be a social justice advocate first.

I say this because I want the council to know that I would not speak on behalf of a program for employment security.

I am here today because I am convinced that assertive neighborhood-based outreach is currently the most effective outreach model for meeting the needs of some of our most vulnerable populations.

The BIA outreach program not only helps our community with individual needs, but this program has positive meso effects that I don't want to go unnoticed.

Yes, during my work days, I am doing the micro work, such as helping people get into shelter and housing, obtaining IDs, providing harm reduction services, or helping people get accessing mental health and chemical dependency services, things that are being recorded.

The BIA outreach workers also does lots of work that tends to go unnoticed.

For one example, conducting safety checks on people experiencing emotional and psychological distress.

Because of the nature of mixing REACH workers with the BIA, I have had the honor of working with the whole community.

With the help of the SPD and the local businesses, my ability to help others has greatly increased.

In my short time working with the BIA, I have found a missing person and reconnected him with his parents.

I found a newborn that was in an unsafe situation for CPS.

I have housed two mentally ill persons with hoarding behaviors on an ave and not just moved them around.

Sorry, give me one second.

It's been a long day.

You're doing great.

Where was I?

Oh, yeah.

I also help people find, meet people.

I often get calls from the police requesting support for either a person who is unhoused or someone who thinks that they are mentally ill.

I also get calls from businesses directing me to help unhoused peoples, or sometimes the store will call me to help de-escalate an unhoused person who appears to be in distress.

I feel like I'm being used as a tool for the police and the businesses, and I welcome it.

I think it's a good thing that our police has a social worker at their disposal when dealing with complex social issues in regards to our unhoused community.

And I often hear from stores and property owners that before they had my number, they used to just call the police since they didn't know who else to call.

Now the public has more options to better the safety and cleanliness of their neighborhood in a way that is more ethical than before the outreach BIA program.

Again, I think neighborhood-based outreach is effective and currently the most ethical means of doing outreach.

My hope is that this council will recognize both the micro and meso benefits of the BIA outreach program and support it.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you, David.

Good evening.

Good evening.

My name is Mark Crawford.

I'm serving as the Executive Director of the U District Partnership.

We began our pilot program in March, deploying David Delgado in our community.

David has already spoken to you, but I'd like to take this opportunity and I'd just like to publicly thank him for all he has done for so many people in such a short time.

He's made a profound difference and we are grateful.

We have a lot of data, and I'll be glad to leave our cumulative report here with the staff, but in seven short months, David has helped 44 individuals with substance use referrals, 35 individuals with short-term shelter resources, 26 individuals with longer-term housing access, 28 individuals with medical referrals, and much, much more.

To launch this pilot program, the UDP and the BIA provided funding, which we did in partnership with Citi and the Rotary.

We were grateful for that launch funding, and we would like to continue the program.

We will also commit to the continued framework of private public funding to support the program, and so we're asking the City to support us at the 60 percent level, and we will raise the private funds for the remaining 40 percent.

Simply put, this is a program that works.

It has the support of the community, both in terms of the programmatic buy-in and the willingness to provide a sizable percentage of the funding.

It is efficient, it is effective.

We hope the council will support the request to add dedicated funding for this program in both Ballard and the U District.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Okay, thank you.

Sorry, I was concentrating a bit.

Okay, thank you.

After my able assistant just geared the pudding out of me.

We've got Renee and we've got Shoshana and we have Sunny.

Good afternoon.

Are you 59?

Are you 59?

I'm sorry.

Oh, I'm 59. Okay, very good.

Thank you.

Please go ahead.

First of all, I'd like to thank each one of you because chances are I might not see you again and I have been down here many times to speak on behalf all of Humanity for Affordable Housing and things like that.

But I really want to thank you, each one of you that won't be returning for your service and I do wish you the best.

So the LEAD program, It is wonderful.

I definitely support more funds than that.

Keeping people out of the judicial system is the best thing, actually.

Anyway, mobile showers.

I had this idea a long time ago, so I was happy to hear that people were talking about this.

But these mobile showers, they start at like $22,000, on up.

I mean, for $48,000, you can get And you can just Google it, they're right on there.

And they also have some laundromat facilities with them.

Some of them have bathrooms.

But as far as personal hygiene is just so important for anyone.

So we can't have housing for everyone right away, but the best way to have people have dignity to be able to get out and feel okay in society is first and foremost, but I'm not seeing any of these practical things take place.

And I'm out on the street every day.

And I'm also concerned about my safety as well as other people's safety, but I'm gonna address that in a minute.

Anyway, so the mobile showers, you can get bathrobes while they're washing their clothes, have them sit with, after they've taken a shower.

I mean, these little details are just practical and can happen.

Tiny villages, absolutely.

Without the money to be able to have the millions of dollars of cost for other things, tiny villages are also just common sense.

Renee, can I ask you to get to the last sentence, please?

To the last thing?

Last sentence.

And I do support hiring more police.

Because, yeah, because we do, it's really good that they have accountability and that they're being retrained, but also they're.

Thank you.

Thank you for coming.

Shoshana Weinberg.

And I understand that 61 has left.

So is Sunny 61?

Not here.

Okay.

So Bradford Gerber 62 will be after Shoshana.

Good evening, council members.

My name is Shoshana Weinberg.

I'm here on behalf of Youth Care in support of SHSC's budget package for a just and thriving community, as well as a budget request for legal counsel for youth and children to provide legal aid to youth experiencing homelessness.

Thank you for unanimously supporting the annual inflation adjustment for human services contracts this summer.

We urge you, however, to take the next step in supporting a comparable worth study submitted by Councilmember Sawant to assess the chronic underfunding of the field and create new wage benchmarks.

We are already starting to see smaller community-based organizations close their doors because they can't pay staff or keep up with rising costs.

Human services create the foundation by which all people in our community can achieve stability and success, and we cannot afford to lose that foundation.

And on that note, Youth Care relies heavily on our partnership with legal counsel for youth and children to help young people experiencing homelessness achieve stability.

And unfortunately, as was mentioned earlier, that legal aid is also at risk.

I want to echo the words that were shared earlier, that the young people we work with, but especially minors, are often navigating multiple systems with complex legal needs.

And our partnership with Legal Counsel for Youth and Children has been transformative in helping youth address the types of legal issues that create barriers to accessing housing and long-term stability.

So thank you to Council Member Gonzalez for supporting this work, and we urge the full council support for both of these important issues.

Thank you.

Great.

Thanks for coming, and thank you to Youth Care.

Really appreciate all the work you do.

62 Bradford, 63 Maureen, and 64 David Rosen.

Hello and thank you council members.

My name is Bradford Gerber and I'm a program manager at the Low Income Housing Institute.

I work on the tiny house program.

For the past three years, I've worked on the tiny house program in these communities where I've served as liaison, project manager, advocate, and most importantly, student to the people who are living in these villages and working in these programs.

And in this work, we have never not been busy.

Most recently, We have added a new kitchen and community area to Camp Second Chance.

We've added hot showers to Camp Second Chance.

We've added toilets, a kitchen, laundry facilities, and new showers at Interbay Village Safe Harbor.

We've built accessible ramps, added accessible gravel, added porches with handrails to Georgetown Village.

We've added 12 tiny houses to Othello Village, et cetera, et cetera.

All of these things fueled by volunteers and funded by the community.

Seattle is unique.

We have unique challenges, with more people per capita experiencing homelessness in this city than any other major city in the country, and a climate that is not forgiving.

We have unique solutions as well.

The public-private community resident partnership of this program is unique in the nation, and the nation is watching.

One village opened in Bellingham after having come and received some assistance from residents as well as our organization, which was pretty interesting.

One opened in Denver.

Eight are opening in San Jose.

One opened in Sacramento.

Two opened in Olympia.

Three have opened in Oakland.

One opened in Hawaii.

One opened in Minneapolis.

And there are others.

The list goes on.

And all of these groups have learned from Seattle's work.

And so have we.

The data is there.

Tiny houses in Seattle are more effective and cost effective than any other option that this city has.

In this truth is Seattle's unique opportunity.

Please visit these communities, all of them, as they're all different and they all have different things to teach us, support more villages, support funding more villages, and hold the regional authority accountable to do the same.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Maureen, before you get started, Maureen, you're 63?

63, Maureen Ewing, EDU.

Thank you, and David Rosen, 64, and Matt McGregor is 65.

Thank you for the opportunity and for hanging here with all of us this evening.

I am here to represent our board of directors that unanimously approved launching a safe lot at the University Heights Center, and we are extremely grateful for your support and including not only the continuation but the expansion of that program.

Other West Coast cities have figured it out.

I have been spending hours and hours every week talking to them, particularly in urban areas like L.A.

I can't express the need better than the folks that have gone before me with lived experience.

But it's important for the U.

Heights Center to be a place for all.

And our lot is basically an unsafe lot right now.

And so we can provide a pathway to housing there in a regulated way.

Right now there's a minimum of over 2,100 vehicle residents in our area.

And our budget includes not only providing a parking space, but we're providing hygiene services, trash collections, meeting basic needs.

And we need to meet people where they are and we need to know where they are in order to reach them when housing is available.

So it's so critical that we provide the service.

Different cities, as I mentioned, employ different models.

There are strong opinions about how to run the program, how much to staff the program, what works in more suburban areas may not work in the U District and more urban areas.

But what we can agree on is that we need to We launched this program and we need to do it now.

This is a pilot, we're adaptable.

We are surrounding ourselves with all the key partners in the U district.

The Y has offered showers.

We've got support from all the other local service providers and faith-based communities.

And we would greatly appreciate your support so that we can be the second lot in Seattle, which we really need to get going on this.

And inspiringly, a lot of our students Elementary schools are rallying around this project as well.

So, thank you very much.

Thank you so much for coming.

David 64, Mac McGregor 65, and Danielle Gonzalez 66.

City council members, my name is David Rosen.

I'm a District 4 resident, second year MPA student at the Evans School of University of Washington.

and currently a board fellow for the University Heights Center.

I'm here to advocate for the funding to help us establish a safe lot at University Heights.

At this very moment, there are over 2,000 vehicular residents in this area.

Their cars are their home, their transportation to work, and very likely their last bastion against sleeping on the street in the cold and the dark.

We all know the story.

Rents are increasing with wages being left behind as inaction at the federal, state, and local level fail to stem the tide.