Seattle City Council Briefing 9/30/19

again we are we are on so the September 30th 2019 council briefing now comes to order just by way of disclosure here, we do have three excused absences from the briefing, council members Mesquita, Gonzalez, and Sawant.

So we'll be a little short on numbers, but mighty in power and strength.

And so let me say we are joined by Council Member Juarez, Bagshaw, and Herbold, and myself.

And if there's no objection, the minutes of the September 16th and 23rd, 2019 meeting will be approved.

Hearing no objection from my colleagues, the minutes are approved.

I'm going to I'll tell you what we'll do the preview of today's full council actions after our Mornings briefing because we're really excited to have our team up here So why don't our team on the second quarter homelessness program performance presentation?

come to the table and When you get here, we'll start with introductions and just defer to you on how you'd like to proceed and just by way of the viewing public We there were some issues and some overview that we were unable to do at the SLEC and meeting and we thought during the budget this would be an appropriate forum to just go over a few issues on homelessness.

And did Council Member Baxter, would you like to say a few things?

Thank you very much for coming, and I wish we had our full squadron here, because I want everybody to hear this before Wednesday.

And I want to acknowledge the fact that we're going to have a full house on Wednesday to talk about, and this is part of our budget, to talk about what all departments are doing.

So another crosswalk here, and you've given us a great handout.

Thank you for that.

This week, we've got on Wednesday, besides you and Human Services Department, Seattle Public Utilities, our Finance and Administrative Services, SPD, and Parks are all coming talking about what, as a group, we are doing to address and to assist people who are homeless getting into healthier conditions.

So I just really want to acknowledge all the work you've done.

Thank you for that.

Thanks for this PowerPoint.

And we will, of course, share this with our colleagues.

So please.

All right.

Good morning.

Jason Johnson with the Human Services Department.

Good morning.

Diana Salazar, HSI Division Director.

So I want to, before I jump into the presentation, welcome and introduce you to Diana.

Diana Salazar is our recently hired Division Director for Homeless Strategy and Investment Division.

Diana comes to us from Los Angeles.

And there she was the Associate Executive Director of Imagine Los Angeles, which is a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending the cycle of family homelessness and chronic poverty through a blend of mentoring and social service access.

Diana also has experience as the Assistant Director of Chicago's Homelessness Division in that city's Department of Family and Supportive Services.

Diana also has been a program manager in the Tenderloin District at Tenderloin Housing Clinic of San Francisco.

So just wanted to take a moment to introduce you to Diana, who will be leading a very dedicated team as the city addresses homelessness.

I just want to say welcome, Diana.

I look forward to hearing from you.

But in this first time I met you, of course, I heard about you.

This is exciting to have someone with your, at least personally, your expertise and your commitment to this space.

I mean, you're not dabbling in this.

You are putting a profession into this.

So what a welcome talent to the city.

Thank you.

And it's going to be pretty much dry and sunny like this almost every day.

So don't worry about the weather.

We'll get through this.

I've been in Chicago, so this is nothing.

OK.

All right.

Exciting.

All right, so our presentation today really focuses on our performance results based on the investments that we've made in addressing homelessness.

So I'm going to walk you through the results.

These are data that covers the time period of January through June of this year, and we're comparing that data to the data that we pulled from last year.

And so I'm going to make my way through a variety of slides.

We'll see a breakdown of these performance outcomes by investment area or program area.

And then we've allotted some time at the end of the presentation for your questions.

Thank you.

And if I can just introduce Council Member O'Brien to Diana Salazar.

She's our new HSI director and come to us having had experience in Los Angeles, Chicago, and San Francisco in this area.

And Councilmember Pacheco just walked in.

Councilmember Pacheco, you sneaked in too.

Thank you, please go ahead.

All right.

So this first slide highlights that we are seeing more households prevented from becoming homelessness.

We are seeing more households exit their experience of homelessness for housing.

And we are seeing more households that remain stably housed from and are prevented from experiencing homelessness again.

So these are at a really high level encouraging results.

We are seeing that the investments, the very strategic investments that the city is making to address homelessness are not just working but continue to improve their outcomes.

You can see that in the prevention space, we're seeing an increase of 20% over 2018. Programs that exit people from homelessness into housing, we are seeing a 6% increase when compared to the same time in 2018. And households with disabling conditions, a lot of times we talk about this as a chronically homeless population.

We are also seeing that a number of people, 2,127 households, remain stably housed in permanent supportive housing.

And if I can just throw in, because we had talked about this when we met last week, that in terms of numbers, that there are 400, and the increase of 20% equals 461 households, 704 individuals.

And I think those numbers come up later in the stack.

But for folks that are just wondering what 20% equates to, that's 704 individuals over the previous year.

That's correct.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And we'll go into that level of detail soon.

Yeah, if we could go back to the slide.

I'm still on the slide.

That's the television broadcast.

So I have a head cold, but I'm not seeing a difference between the first column and the second column.

Me either.

I was confused about that too.

More households prevented from becoming homeless, more households prevented from becoming homeless.

Oh, I'm so sorry.

The middle one should say moved.

Okay, what?

It should say moved.

Prevented, moved.

Which one, the second one?

The second one, yeah, should say moved instead of prevented.

Into permanent housing.

So that's the exit rate.

Are there going to be other?

I'm also, I'm going to hand this to you.

Fantastic.

Thank you so much.

So one person caught that in this entire diastere.

Some of us have it in front of us.

Okay.

All right, so an overview, again, these are our performance outcomes.

This reflects our strategic investments in programs that we know are working well to move households from homelessness to housing.

We evaluate both how many people are moving into housing and how well systems are serving, how well programs are serving these people.

All reports used are communal, my goodness.

Good morning.

I know.

I need another one of those.

So I just want to highlight that a lot of times, you know, we're coming to you at the end of Q2, but this data covers Q2, which includes Q2 and Q1, which includes the full six-month period from January 1st to June 30th.

And just as a reminder, this is data that's pulled out of our Homeless Management Information System, or HMIS.

Okay, so we've used the word more, we've used the word increase.

I wanted to dive in a little bit about what that actually means.

So in this slide, we are showing that while we're seeing improved outcomes by programs, we're also seeing that programs are serving more people.

So you'll see when compared to the same period of time in 2018, In 2019, we have served more programs through our city investments.

And that total is 18,836 households, which is made up of 21,800 individuals.

And that's across prevention?

It's across all of our program investment areas, correct.

Permanent supportive housing, prevention, diversion, rapid rehousing, all of our shelter programs, outreach, and transitional housing.

And these are unduplicated households as well?

That is correct.

These are unique households and individuals.

All right, so highlighting exiting from permanent housing, we see more people, more households exiting homelessness to permanent housing or prevented from experiencing homelessness.

So this figure includes all households who moved from homelessness to housing, were prevented from becoming homeless, or moved from a permanent supportive housing unit or project to another permanent housing destination.

And we're seeing increases that continue.

We included 2017 in here.

That is the year when we ran an RFP and really changed and were much more strategic about the investments we were making.

Likewise, it's when we really started to focus in on ensuring that the program investments that we were making were exiting people into permanent housing.

So we wanted to add 2017 just as a baseline for how programs were doing before that RFP.

Jason, may I ask you a question, please?

This is very promising, and thanks for presenting it in a way that's very understandable as well.

Would we still be able to tell, even with these outstanding results in 2019, how many households are still not getting the kind of service?

Where is this relative to the problem?

Are we making a dent in it, or is this, I mean, I know it's sort of hard to get at, but that's sort of the gist of what we do, right?

How much of the problem are we affecting with almost 4,000 individuals and 2,400 households.

Are we able to get that in any way?

Yeah, I think the system-wide, I think the best set of data that really shows inflow, which I think is what you're talking about, is how many people are becoming homeless in a year, how many people are moving through or accessing services in the system as a whole compared to how many here are exiting as a total.

And as you try to at least probably struggle with the answer, that's the hit that everyone takes, right?

Is that we try to defend not only the amount of our investments, but the smartness of our investments, the wisdom of our investments, and what we're doing.

Almost everyone here has been at a forum where we're trying to describe our best practices approach, and they'll say, yeah, but I'm looking at this every day.

And so it's always important, I think, to put in what we're doing in the context of what the problem is.

And that's one of the challenges in some of these kinds of presentations.

So if you don't have the answer, that's fine.

But I think that's the kind of rich information that we need.

Yeah, I think the All Home website has a dashboard that really shows the inflow into the system.

It also shows the number of people that are currently in our system.

And when I say system, I mean a system of programs that are trying to work together to get people exited from their experience of homelessness and into housing.

So today's presentation is really about how our investments are performing.

I'd be happy to provide data about the whole system, both showing that.

full countywide inflow data and how it relates to people exiting.

I'll admit, you know, these investments are important.

We have really changed strategically what kind of programming we're investing in and we're seeing good results.

That said, we know that this is not enough.

We still see people living outdoors, we know that there are thousands of people experiencing homelessness every day in our city and across this region.

But the investments we have, the investments that we're making, and the strategic decisions that we've made with those investments seem to be working.

Council Member Juarez.

Thank you.

Just another clarification.

So the title is more unique households exit to permanent housing or are prevented.

So the number then is exits to permanent housing.

You're combining that with people who are also prevented from becoming homeless.

That's what the 2400 number is.

That is correct.

And I'll break those down in the next slide.

Let me ask a quick question.

So, and then can you again just explain for me, maybe I should drink some coffee.

So then you have the 3,700 individuals.

So that's in addition to, or I'm not sure why that's there.

Yeah, so just a definition.

So we use households, and a household could be a household of one or a household of four.

And we had been consistently asked for the real person impact.

How many actual, you know, real people who have been experiencing homelessness are impacted?

And so we wanted to offer both the number of households, which is typically the data we look at.

We want to understand how many households are moving through the system.

But we also wanted to offer how many individuals those households make up.

So you'll see that the 2,433 households, there are 3,780 individuals living as part of those households.

Okay, got it.

Thank you.

Is that based on an average household size or is that actual?

Nope, this is actual data.

Okay.

All right, so we want to talk a little bit more about prevention.

You'll see that investments in homelessness prevention programs seek to make homelessness rare.

We want to keep as many people out of the homeless system as possible.

And data to date shows that 20% more households have been prevented from becoming homeless than last year.

That is 461 unique households representing 704 individuals were prevented from becoming homeless.

Again, this is an increase of 20% over 2018. I want to highlight that we made a number of new investments in addressing or preventing homelessness last year.

And those programs took a little bit of time to ramp up and get started.

They're fully operational, and I think that's why we're seeing such a big increase when we compare this to last year.

Last year, especially in January, February, programs were just getting ramped up.

And so now I think we're seeing the full year and full impact of those programs as part of the system.

A question about that.

So, diversion is considered a prevention service, is that correct?

It is not.

Oh, it's not?

No, diversion is a different intervention, and one that is typically accessed once someone has experienced homelessness.

Okay.

So, these prevention efforts are really intended to help when someone is at imminent risk of becoming homeless, and these are interventions or cash assistance that help them maintain that housing.

So a question about diversion will wait till the next slide, right?

Sure.

Yeah, I have a whole slide on diversion.

All right.

So brief, we want to make sure that if someone is experiencing homelessness, that they are only having that experience of homelessness for a very short period of time.

Investments in programs such as enhanced shelter, diversion, outreach, transitional housing, and rapid rehousing help us reach this goal.

You'll see that 1,936 households representing 3,000 42 individuals were moved from homelessness to housing in 2019. This number does not include the prevention data that I just went through, nor does it include households who moved from permanent supportive housing to other permanent housing.

When compared to the same time period in 2018, this represents a 6% increase.

So again, we are laser focused on making sure that when people access programs that the city is invested in, that they are doing everything possible to exit them to permanent housing.

And we're seeing that more and more of our programs are making that possible for individuals.

The Count Us In report suggested a significant reduction in numbers of people who are chronically homeless.

Do our numbers, can we pull out different populations of people to see which sort of demographics of people are moving from homelessness to permanent housing?

We can.

I just remember there was a lot of question about whether or not that analysis was accurate, and what does it mean if it is accurate?

Yeah.

We absolutely can.

So we look at population data, especially for certain programs.

So we know that permanent supportive housing is a successful intervention for people who are chronically homeless.

The data and one of the reasons we bring forward the data about how many people are able to maintain that kind of housing is it shows that that's the appropriate intervention, that there is a service, you know, in rich programming paired with housing.

that keeps people who are chronically homeless stably housed.

But yeah, we can dive into different data sets.

I just think that if by diving into different data sets we're able to confirm what the Count Us In report seemed to indicate that we are being successful in moving larger numbers of chronically homeless people out of homelessness into permanent housing, that tells us potentially a little bit more about who is currently unsheltered.

It may not be the chronically homeless population.

It might be folks who are newly homeless and we may be well served in thinking around more support of interventions specifically targeted to those folks.

Yeah.

So, can I just do a quick follow-up?

Was your question aimed at ethnicity, race, or...

No, chronically homeless.

But just that particular group of folks.

I'm also really interested to know if either we have or we can look at data across the county, so that I'm interested, especially as we're moving forward with our regional project, Can we identify Like if Seattle is making marked progress by the percentages you're talking about, what's true about the other cities?

Because we've got 39 cities.

I know our friends in some of the suburban cities are still struggling with, do they want to join us or not?

And we need them.

We need them as part of this program.

But can we have data that could go back and say, if you were investing in all of these things, you would help, from a region, reduce the problems that we're seeing?

Yeah, and I think the, you know, we've done a good job as a region pulling regional system data.

And again, I point to and I look at often the all home dashboard to see how we're doing programmatically.

That dashboard does break out.

by the different program areas.

And so we can see regionally whether it's an investment that the city makes, that the county makes, that another city is making.

We can see countywide what sort of impact those collective investments are making.

So you're directing me back to all home.

I don't know exactly.

I haven't seen that specifically.

Yeah, we'll make sure that's available to you.

Again, today's presentation is really laser focused on the investments that the city is making through the Human Services Department, but we can absolutely provide the sort of broader portfolio of investments.

And again, I look to All Home and All Homes Dashboard to look at that data.

But we can make sure that's in front of you as well.

Or just get me to the links.

That would be helpful.

Absolutely will.

Thank you.

Okay, please go ahead.

Sure.

So, non-reoccurring or one-time.

We want to make sure that, you know, when service providers are able to make a permanent housing placement, that it's one that sticks, that it's one that works for the individual.

We don't want to see them falling back into the homeless system after they've been placed in permanent housing.

So what you'll see here on slide eight is that, you know, we do this by providing permanent housing such as rapid rehousing and permanent supportive housing services.

And over the last two quarters, 2,127 unique households who have experienced chronic homelessness were supported to remain stably housed in permanent supportive housing.

So, you know, back to this question about how we serve a chronically homeless population, and just so we're clear about definitions, we define chronic homelessness as individuals or households who have experienced homelessness multiple times throughout the years and are living with a disabling condition.

So these are our most challenging households to serve, both because they are caught in a cycle of homelessness and they have, typically have a pretty high service need.

both medically and behaviorally.

They have service needs that are pretty high.

So this is promising data that shows that, you know, when we move that chronically homeless population into permanent supportive housing, that's the intervention that's working.

And I'm glad that you're bringing this forward, but it's also something that we believed in the past without the data, that this group that has experienced being homeless repeatedly, getting them into housing where they're stable is the answer.

We keep talking about what, you know, people always ask me for the solution.

There's no one solution, but there's strategies that are working, and this one, along the lines of housing first is demonstrating the wisdom of that approach.

Very true.

I do want to add the other data set that we look at is returns to homelessness.

So we want to always be looking at that once we made a permanent housing placement, we want to ensure that those individuals are not falling back into homelessness.

So we look at our homeless management information system to see if they are back in the system, back accessing services.

And the data from January through June shows that 10% of all households that left homelessness for permanent housing from these programs, returns to homelessness within six months.

So we're seeing a 90% success rate at the six month period.

And so again, that's data that we always want to be paying attention to.

Right now, it looks like the programs that are placing people into permanent housing are making the right placements, that they are working over a long period of time.

But that's data that we always want to be paying attention to because that shows us really if these permanent housing placements are the right ones.

And Jason, I just want to confirm an assumption or at least on the math here.

So folks that are exiting homelessness into permanent supportive housing go into a slot.

My assumption is that those permanent supportive housing spots are, we don't have problems filling them up.

And so to the extent when we see the number going up like we have in the past, is that an increase I mean, my sense is, okay, there's a couple things that could possibly go on.

One is that we're increasing the number of new permanent supportive housing units coming online.

And so that gives us more places to refer people.

Or people that are currently in permanent supportive housing are vacating to open it up.

And so some, hopefully very few, will revert back to homelessness.

That would free up a spot for someone to come in.

Some, hopefully, are maybe advancing to another form of housing.

And so that frees up a permanent supporting bed.

And is there anything else in the mix that I'm missing?

I mean, is that basically the chemistry equation of what's going on?

Yeah, I think you have that right.

So we don't really have a problem filling a permanent supportive housing bed.

There's a wait list for that.

So if we want to increase these numbers, the things we need to do, assuming we don't want people to revert to homelessness, would be continue to increase the production of permanent supportive housing and increase the throughput of people that are currently in permanent supportive housing to get into another bed.

I noticed you've used and the slides have used permanent housing and permanent supportive housing somewhat interchangeably, but I know that some folks say that there's a lot of folks that need permanent housing but don't necessarily need the supportive aspect of it with 24-hour services.

And so, can you talk a little bit to that?

My sense is that we're, from a cost perspective and efficiency perspective, we're trying to find ways to identify folks that, hey, You don't need to be, you know, the high level of needs that some of the folks do if we can just get you regular housing.

Yeah.

So I think, first I just want to add, I think over and over again we're finding that including services, making sure that service access is part of any intervention has shown itself to be more successful, even in a shelter space.

So making, you know, enhancing shelter to have services that are paired with that overnight stay have shown to be five times more effective at getting people through shelter and into permanent housing.

Can you describe, just give us some examples of services just for the viewing audience?

Sure.

So there is services, we typically refer to them as case management, but it really is having a connection to a social worker inside of programs who can help them navigate to what they need.

Sometimes that's a housing navigator.

But sometimes that is someone to help them recover things that they need to be housing ready, such as ID.

It can be someone to help them get back into the workforce.

It can help someone access medical and behavioral health services that they need.

It really is someone to help them on an individual basis access the things that they need to survive and thrive.

And I have been using permanent supportive housing and permanent housing interchangeably.

And that really, when I talk about permanent supportive housing, I really am more focused on the housing needs for people who are chronically homeless.

There is a, you know, while incredibly effective, it's also very expensive and it's service enriched.

So we want to make sure that we're placing people in a permanent supportive housing, the people who really need that level of care.

There are a lot of people who access the homeless system who find themselves experiencing homelessness.

who do not have those chronic needs, do not have those chronic conditions, and therefore really just need help navigating a system so that they can access permanent housing, but not housing that needs all of the service enrichments that I described before on a long-term basis.

Thank you for that definition.

Okay, so on this slide we're really wanting to break the data out by program area or investment area.

You'll see that across the board we're seeing improvement.

So this is, you know, whether it's an investment in villages, enhanced shelters, we've talked about prevention, but we're also seeing increased performance inside of transitional housing and rapid rehousing.

So I wanted to highlight this slide and really break it out by program area so that you could see that the investments in specific programs that they are also seeing the same levels of improved results.

Yeah, so the rate of exit by program type, that rate is really of all of the individuals who exited a program.

These percentages are those who exited to a permanent housing.

So this is, you know, not a percentage of all individuals who access those programs or who were enrolled in those programs.

But these are, of those that exited, this is the percentage who exited into permanent housing.

Can I follow up?

So basic shelter has the lowest numbers, and so is the correct takeaway that people will access basic shelter, and then after a period of time, they're no longer in basic shelter, but very few of them have left to go to housing.

They've gone to a different shelter or back on the street.

Whereas when you look at someone that's in more even the villages, it's still relatively low, but it's much higher than basic shelter where the folks, when they leave, A bigger chunk of them are going on to something permanent.

Yeah.

And in my opinion, that comes down to service availability.

Basic shelter programs do not have the rich offering of services that people need.

It really is an important program investment in our system.

It provides safety, a roof overhead for individuals to come in.

and get a night's sleep.

But typically in basic shelters, people are coming in late at night, they are leaving very early in the morning, and there are not opportunities for those individuals to access a case manager and continue to work with that individual in order to access housing.

As where you'll see an enhanced shelter, and in the villages, the villages operate as enhanced shelters.

They are 24-hour spaces, they have access to case management, they have access to housing navigation services, and so in those program areas, you'll see that people are engaged.

They are engaged with a service provider.

They have 24-hour stays, so they have the time to access the services that they need, and therefore, we're seeing much better results.

We have a question over here, Council Member Morris.

Thank you.

First of all, thank you for all the work you've done.

We've been dealing with this, well, we've been dealing with this for a long time, myself as an elected since 16, obviously.

One of the things that I'm looking at these numbers makes me feel so much better.

I may go back a little bit in the time machine here.

So looking at the basic shelter, and we know that it doesn't have the services, but it does provide, like you say, the roof and the safety.

Is this because we had this whole change of theory with Barb Poppy and we're not just putting mats or cots in a church, but we're really, like you keep saying, strategic, and this is the data we can actually point to to show people that just putting a hundred people in a tent or a FEMA or a, you know,

or in this building where they kick them out.

Yeah, I mean, that it just doesn't work.

Because I remember like two years ago, people were really fighting over this whole theory of change and how we're looking at it differently.

Is it fair to say that, and again, the trend looks good, but are we being cautiously optimistic?

But is the data telling us that it's really working, that we actually did something right?

And I say that a little bit sarcastically for those of us that are kind of taking incoming on this issue.

Yeah, I think, you know, When I think about my role as public steward of public resource, it is an important part of my job to make sure the investments we are making are strategic and are working.

If I had my way, we would change our entire shelter model to be enhanced.

mat on floor, shelter model, again, it serves an important purpose.

And so I, you know, I don't want to see any reduction of those beds.

But we have been, and the Human Services Department, partnering with providers to really transform existing overnight only beds to be enhanced.

to stay open 24 hours, to have access to services that are needed because we see it working.

We've made these investments in 2017. We saw that they were working well.

Throughout 2018, we transformed more of our overnight only shelter beds into enhanced, again, because we saw it working.

We saw that it was able to in a way that overnight only shelter does not, move people through those programs and into permanent housing.

So I am optimistic about these investments.

I think we made smart strategic decisions to invest in more enhanced shelter.

I do want to say that not every program can be an enhanced shelter.

Council Member Bagshaw, you just mentioned that hundreds of people use City Hall overnight.

City Hall has a day use, a day purpose.

We're open for business in a way that does not allow those hundreds of people to sort of stay here and access the services that they need in the same way that enhanced shelters provide.

So there's still some work that we have to do to find ways to continue to enhance and make 24 hours those overnight shelter programs.

But again, I don't want to, you know, my excitement about how enhanced shelter is working, I don't want that to be seen as a slight on our important overnight shelter beds.

Those are a critically important part of our system and quite literally save lives.

So I have a few questions and if this is possible, we have like punchier questions and answers because I only earmarked so much time for this briefing, so we just sort of bottom line one another.

I apologize, that's my fault.

No, the answer's a little long too, but I know you're trying to give us as much.

I didn't mean to, no personal criticism.

I just want to understand this chart a little bit if I could, Jason.

So on villages, as an example, I understand it's gone up from 17% to 37% from 18 to 19. That's 30% of what?

So what does 63% mean?

of people, how do I read this chart?

What is the because none of that equals a hundred percent.

So that is correct.

So this.

Yeah, we can get the total exit data for you.

But this 37 percent of all households who exited villages exited to permanent housing.

So the rest of the folks exited to another destination.

Gotcha.

OK.

And that goes to the point I made earlier.

And I'm hoping perhaps next year that again, What's not in this chart are, I would assume, unsanctioned encampments or people not in any place sleeping under a bridge.

That's not captured in these three, six categories, correct?

That is correct.

Unless those individuals used a village or an enhanced shelter or a rapid rehousing program, they wouldn't be captured in this data.

Right.

So when we present data like this, one of the challenges I always have is what's not there.

Because that seems to be the problem we're fixing is out there.

And I never know how this kind of data reflects to what's out there, the person in a tent under a bridge.

Second point is, can you just very quickly...

describe those areas, particularly for the viewing audience that may not know the difference between basic shelter and enhanced shelter.

Just a few words quickly, starting from village all the way down to wrapper.

What does that mean, just real quickly?

No problem.

So villages are also referred to as tiny home villages or tiny house villages.

We have eight of these programs citywide.

They are 24-hour individual wood structures where people have access to their own space, a locked door, a place to store their belongings, that kind of thing.

Enhanced shelter is a 24-hour congregate shelter setting where people have access to services, typically can store their belongings.

It's typically a very low barrier.

People can access with their pets, with their partners.

And I think most importantly, it's open a 24-7 period of time and has access to services.

How many of those do we have now?

I know that we've got the one on 12th.

We have the one up at the Presbyterian Church.

I would have to look that up unless you have...

No, we'll get that to you.

Okay.

Basic shelter.

This is overnight only shelter.

This is typically mat on floor inside of a building like City Hall or a church basement that's open just during the overnight hours.

Prevention, we talked about a little bit before.

Prevention are services that are accessed or offered to individuals who are at imminent risk of experiencing homelessness.

It's typically cash assistance that's paid to keep them or help them maintain their current housing.

Transitional housing is a very specialized kind of housing.

It is 24-7 housing that has tailored services to individuals.

Most of the time we use transitional housing for specialized populations like young people, people who have experienced domestic violence, a lot of family transitional housing still exists.

This is housing that can be accessed for a maximum of two years, so it's a little bit of a longer period of engagement with households.

And then rapid rehousing is a program that helps get individuals into typically market rate or non-profit owned housing.

It is cash assistance paired with case management services.

And it is a housing subsidy that can exist for a longer period of time, but it is not intended to be permanent.

At some point, the rapid rehousing voucher does expire.

Thanks, Jason.

Council Member Herbold.

Thank you.

And as we know under results-based accountability, each of these interventions have different desired outcomes per program and per contract.

I'm just wondering, how are we doing on these averages as compared to our desired outcomes for each of the interventions?

So, we are laser focused on the rate of exit to permanent housing, and that's why we highlighted on this slide.

For most programs, we set a, I should say most shelter programs, so that's the villages, the enhanced shelter, and the basic shelter programs, we have a benchmark of 40%.

So you'll see that none of the program areas are yet meeting the desired target, but we continue to see increases.

We continue to see programs that are getting very close.

We have programs that exceed that target, and we're working closely with those programs that have not.

Does it make sense to have the same goal for all three interventions, villages, enhanced shelter, and basic shelter?

I mean, you just said yourself, as it relates to basic shelter, that it's very unlikely that they're going to have the same sort of outcomes as enhanced shelter just because of the access to services.

I think that's a good question.

We have worked as a region to set these targets.

And as we move toward regional governance and the creation of a regional authority, I think these are really good questions for us to take into consideration.

It's just difficult because we set up a system that's about accountability.

And I totally understand that under an accountability system, you have to always be nimble and examine the outcomes and make adjustments to what our expectations are.

But if we're starting off by setting accountability goals that are just simply unrealistic from the get-go, then we're not using the accountability framework.

We're opening ourselves up to criticism, right?

Because the call is, well, if basic shelter is only exiting 4% of people out of homelessness, but in the goal under this accountability framework is 40%, why are we continuing to fund any basic shelter?

And of course, we know why we're funding basic shelter, because it serves an emergency need.

But I really think we need to true up the expectations with what's reality, or else we're opening ourselves up to, I think, some really unfair criticism.

That's a really good point, if I can just pile on that slightly.

Basic shelter, and you and I talked about this last week, the best phrase that we spoke about is the purpose is to keep people alive tonight.

That's really what the focus is.

And it's giving them a place to come in.

And then the villages, the enhanced shelters, all have a different purpose on a continuum.

And I think if we can define that, just like what Council Member Herbold is saying, lets people know that we're thinking about this in a strategic way.

But not everything is going to be for every person.

Yeah.

Very good point.

All right.

So as I mentioned, we wanted to talk a little bit about diversion.

So building on collaborations that began in 2018, HSD and system partners have changed the way diversion resources are contracted and delivered in 2019. Diversion resources are now available more broadly to people entering sort of the front door of services, shelter, outreach, rather than through specific diversion programs.

So this is a change in how we are using diversion system-wide.

It used to be that there were very specific diversion programs that people had to access in order to get the cash assistance they needed.

But now we are really, incorporating diversion practice, this sort of art of interviewing individuals, finding out exactly what they need with the cash assistance they need to move forward, hopefully to move forward into permanent housing.

And so what you'll see is the diversion is no longer a standalone program or investment area, but that diversion is now integrated into all of the program areas.

So when you see the data that, for example, enhanced shelter was successful, it may have been that that enhanced shelter case manager used diversion to help get their client through that program and into permanent housing.

Yeah, diversion is a national model and it is intended to mean that it helps divert an individual rapidly from their experience of homelessness, their access of a program, and immediately into permanent housing.

And instead of having someone use sort of the full continuum of accessing shelter, then going into transitional housing, then some sort of permanent housing with supports, and then on their own.

There are a number of individuals, especially who are accessing shelter, or who our very skilled outreach teams are coming into contact with, that will be able to use quick diversion as a way to get them into permanent housing, into the job they wanted, get them back to a community where they have natural supports.

So it is a tool that shelter case managers and outreach workers can use to quickly get people the services or access to permanent housing that they need.

Council Member Herbold, do we have any extra handouts of the slide presentation?

Yeah, I gave my last one away.

No, that's okay.

Let's go.

We can see it.

Council Member Herbold.

Thank you.

As it relates specifically to diversion, one of the recommendations of the city auditor in their audit of the navigation team functions was to ensure that the navigation team was both trained in diversion or accessing diversion funds as well as actually having access to it.

Last I inquired with HSD I learned that navigation team access to diversion funding was was possible through the centralized fund.

HSD was in the process of allocating dollars for the system navigators to access with the intention that it would be available for all navigation team members.

But then I also learned that the centralized fund had been expended, but that HSD and the county were working to identify additional funding.

So auditors, recommendation, navigation team should have access to diversion, got them trained up, got them access to the centralized fund, but then the fund was, expended and there weren't any available funds for the navigation team to access.

Where are we at on that right now as it relates specifically to the navigation team?

Yeah, I'll have to get back to you to answer that question specifically, but...

Identified as a need early September.

And we agree with that.

And, you know, across all outreach teams, we wanted to make sure that, you know, when someone had an engagement, that was a real opportunity.

and that outreach workers were hearing people say, if I only had X, I could make my way, you know, through.

And so this change is very much in alignment with what the auditor called for systematically, but specific to the navigation team.

I can get back to you about what that looks like.

I'm just interested in the information I got from central staff was specifically HSD and the county are working to identify funding and I'm wondering one of the uses of diversion funding is reunification and we of course have heard a call from a county council member for reunification funds, which is, of course, something we at the city have been doing now for a long time.

And that was made to sound as if it would be a new intervention when it was called for by Mr. Dunn.

But I'm just wondering, is the timing of the fact that we're hearing that linked to the fact that we're actually trying to get more funds?

for this purpose.

It just seems a little coincidental.

Yeah, from the city's perspective, no, there's no tie there.

We've been, again, trying to integrate diversion into programming, especially for outreach teams and for shelters, for some time.

We feel like, and what we've heard from those practicing in this field, is that if they have access themselves to diversion instead of making a referral to a diversion program, they can more quickly expedite help for the individuals that are in front of them on that day.

Thank you.

I think Council Member Herbold's brought up a great point.

We're also hearing this from the Muni Court judges that if they had more places to which they could refer directly As an alternative to putting people in jail, they're really looking for more tools.

And they were here last Friday talking about it.

I'd love to know whether you all are talking with the Muni Court judges, offering them both this background and also any prospective new tools or places to direct people.

I can see Council Member Harrell is getting a little anxious.

All right, so I think I have Two more slides.

And one is critically important.

HSC's homeless service investments seek to address racial disparities to ensure that all people, regardless of race or ethnicity, have paths out of homelessness.

Data shows an increase in the number of households exiting to permanent housing and the rate of exit for all racial identities compared to 2017 and 2018. A few of those that I just wanted to highlight, we are seeing an improvement in the rate of exits to permanent housing for American Indian, Alaskan Native populations, Hispanic Latino, and Black African American populations.

We see this as, again, the result of very strategic investments to programs who serve these populations, who are, you know, integrated into the community and know best how to provide culturally competent services for a very targeted population.

So we're, continue to be encouraged by the data we're seeing when we break it down by race.

Jason, what's the baseline there?

What's the overall population?

I know the homeless population is disproportionately people of color.

Do white people also exit housing at a higher rate than?

They are.

So we saw white households, the exit rate to permanent housing was 23%.

That's a 6% increase overall.

So if we had a bar up there for the white or Caucasian population, what you would see is a 17%, then a 23%, which is a 6% increase.

So this is one of the areas where we're actually doing better for people of color because of intentionality?

Again, we're, yep, with intention, being very strategic about the investments we're making.

We also call out the expectation to serve this population and serve these populations well in our contracts.

taking any adjustments in those contracts?

I know that's only been functioning a year.

And just to call out Chief Seattle Club, Colleen Echo Hawk is one of our heroes.

We know that she's made some terrific strides and people are looking at her model as one that's been really successful.

Is there a point in time where we're going to say more money to that particular entity because we know that they're achieving the success models we're looking for?

Yeah, so we look at this performance as well as the overall performance of programs.

We're seeing across the board, not just by Chief Seattle Club, but by many service providers, they've increased exits to permanent housing for American Indian, Alaskan Native population by 12% when compared to last year.

So we, again, continue to stay encouraged by that data, and that data shows us that they are serving that population better than they were before, and we want to continue to pay attention to that.

Thank you for that, and I want to thank Council Member Bagshaw.

She's been shoulder to shoulder with me in making sure that we got money to these particular groups, but I think we have to take a little credit here that for the first time in the last two years, we were also giving money to, even though it's not their core mission statement, to United Indians and Mother Nation.

that are working on, which was, and thank you for that, because a lot of people, they weren't applying for money or during budget because they were saying, well, we're not laser focused on homelessness.

We provide all these other services, but they were still doing those things.

So we got those, we got it in the budget and your group worked phenomenal with Mother Nation, United Indians, and Aurora Commons and God's Little Acre to say, I know that that's not one of your core, but that's what you're doing and that needs to be counted.

And I think that has something to do with this.

So thank you very much.

Thank you.

Governor Mosqueda.

Thank you for this and I don't mean to cut you off before This is your last slide, but this is the conclusion slide.

So I Do want to appreciate the work that some of our key partners?

Like Colleen echo hawk and others are doing like youth care are doing And as we do that though, I think we're making their job harder when we don't couple this type of work with building affordable housing.

The numbers of individuals who are experiencing unstable housing, especially in zero to 30% AMI, do we have that reflected in here?

It is not.

Okay.

So I will be looking forward to future presentations where we get to see the number of individuals who are currently living in unstable housing, zero to 30, 30 to 50, 50 to 70 even, but really focused on the zero to 30% AMI.

so that we can show how hard it is to house some of these folks.

And I think the issue on the horizon with people potentially falling into homelessness, I know we have, you know, what was it, 90 to 120,000 homes that are coming off of the market, especially for our lowest income folks.

And so if we're not building those housing and we're expecting people to rent at market rate, we're doing ourselves a disservice by holding these folks accountable and we're making it harder for the very organizations that are trying to house folks out of homelessness.

to get a stable home.

So I think this is part of the story and the much bigger story is to be told when we look at the number of individuals living in unstable housing.

Is that fair?

Yeah, that is fair.

And, you know, I think that the partnership between the Human Services Department and the city's Office of Housing is an incredibly valuable one.

And I would, you know, welcome to join you in a discussion with Emily so that we can pair these two data sets together.

And just supporting what Council Member Musqueda was talking about, we saw as part of the regional governance a new study that's coming out and saying if we can focus on that zero to 30 percent, and it's something that many of us at this table have learned, that that's going to be one of the most important ways that we can invest our homelessness dollars.

Once again, we need it all, so it's not a question of either or, but Adding more on the 0-30% is going to help the providers who are really trying to do their best for that harder to serve population.

Couldn't agree more.

So in conclusion, I just wanted to restate that HSD is encouraged that performance outcomes continue to improve and we will continue to monitor this performance.

HSD will continue to partner with agencies to provide individual assistance and TA when programs are challenged to meet program goals.

But what we know is that these strategic investments really do seem to have been the right ones.

The success that we're seeing with rapid rehousing, permanent supportive housing, as well as prevention show consistently high number and rates to permanent housing.

So we're encouraged by the data we have to date.

Thank you.

Thank you Mr. President.

So I'm gonna send a series of follow-up questions because I wasn't able to be here for the first part of the presentation.

A number of them do relate to how do we juxtapose this with the lack of supply of affordable housing even if we were to Triple our support for rent subsidies, even if we were to quadruple our ability to do site acquisition We know that those efforts would be a drop in the bucket compared to the type of housing that we know needs to be built Given how many people are renting at market rate for zero to thirty percent AMI So I have a handful of questions related to that I also have some lingering concerns based on the presentation that we heard at the last select committee on housing and affordability from some of the folks at the table, youth care, folks who work inside DESC as it relates to how we're measuring outcomes.

And the data that you provided is really important.

And just like in healthcare, when we do performance-based contracts in the you know, my previous world, we don't want folks to be in a position where they're unintentionally being incentivized to serve the easier to treat folks.

And my concern, especially when it comes to tracking organizations based on performance-based contracting, especially for our youth, is that we're not looking at the right indicators.

So I'll be following up and I'm happy to copy the council.

on a series of questions that we have related to the metrics provided here how it is in How it compares to housing and access to the lowest income housing and then also some of the lingering questions and concerns we have about performance-based contracting Thank you Thank you very much and look forward to working with you Diane is it Diana or Diane?

Diana

Diana got Diana.

Thank you and Look forward to the next select meeting as well.

So, okay I go around the table real quickly.

We do have an executive session.

So So let's do this.

We have nothing up for vote this afternoon from the governance equity and technology committee And so I'm gonna stop there and turn over to councilmember Juarez.

I

I'm glad you're here, Council Member Mosqueda.

I don't have to read your notes because they're very lengthy.

Not that I don't want to.

So briefly, you will see four items on the introduction referral calendar this afternoon.

The first is Resolution 31911, a resolution opposing IMN's initiative I976 and urging Seattle voters to vote no on the general election ballot.

If his initiative passes, the regional transportation system that Sound Transit has built over decades will be crippled.

Some will say collapsed, putting the greater Puget Sound region in a state of chaos.

I'll be bringing this to council for the October 7th council meeting.

The last four items for our committee will be on December 4th.

There are three appointments and one is a park and rec ordinance.

Let me quickly talk about Tomorrow, Tuesday, October 1st, the NHL and Simon Properties, as well as OVG, will host an open house at Northgate Mall for the community to view their latest plans and hear about the collective vision for the future of the arena in the area.

That's going to happen at the training center.

along with the development that's going on besides the three sheets of ice.

I think that's really important for the community to hear that we're going to have market-rate housing, I think 1,500 units, two hotels.

We're in negotiations for other important essential governmental functions on that huge footprint, as well as two office buildings.

And as you know, light rail will be coming to Northgate in 2021. Yay.

So we're anticipating ridership between 40 and 50,000.

So needless to say, we did up zone that area.

The density is welcome in this community, and I'm really proud of the people that live in D5 who welcomed this density.

transit-oriented housing, transit-oriented development, and we hope transit-oriented childcare.

So NHL and Simon will highlight the exciting opportunity for growth, how they are serving the community, and how that will evolve as their plans develop.

And by the way, we have been in contact with them, myself, as well as the mayor's office, and of course, Council President Harrell.

So the open house will be Tuesday, that's tomorrow, from 5 to 7 p.m.

It's at Northgate.

At Northgate.

The training center downtown.

No, the training center is at Northgate.

So that's where we will go to watch our games.

I'm hoping it's the Seattle Sockeyes, but that's just my plug.

So I think it's better than the Kraken with the mayor one.

They're already Stanley Cup winners.

Yeah, exactly.

Or they could be the Little Debbies.

I don't know, throw that out there, but okay.

The Little Debbies?

Yes, I thought that'd be good.

That sounds ferocious to me.

I don't know about you guys.

Okay, so let me tell you what happened Saturday.

Because, you know, last time we got rained out in our Live in D5, we have done Live in D5 four years in a row.

And so this was our fourth annual one, no cost to the taxpayers.

We raised the funds privately from local business and from North Seattle College.

And so we hosted it from one to four at Hubbard Homestead Park.

It was great.

We had the tail end tribe came down Mr. Gobin and they brought food and salmon and rice and fry bread.

We had our petting zoo.

We had our phenomenal jazz, several hundred people attended, and it was wonderful.

Oh, and we also had our friends there from Outdoors for All who brought their adaptive bicycles and set up a track.

And he set up a track, Ed did, and so we had a line of people, including a lot of disabled adults and children.

and elders that were actually getting in line for Ed to take him around the track.

And it was phenomenal.

He was great.

You know Ed, he's a wonderful man.

Those are great people.

So anyway, let me just end with this.

Parks, of course, did a great job.

I want to thank Parks and the superintendent, Aguirre.

Their team was out there early.

We were out there early.

And you're going to love this.

I want to thank Old Debbie's McFarm.

That was who provided the petting zoo this year.

Michael Stevens from Seattle Center, who is amazing, who has worked with us four years in a row now.

And like I said, it was wonderful to have, we had over 20 community booths.

So we had Department of Neighborhoods, OPCD, SBD, ALOVE, Thornton Creeks, every community group you can think of in the north end was there.

handing out material, which is always nice, including North Helpline Food Line, a huge community group that is working on the 130th Street Station.

We're hoping that comes in seven years earlier.

So they're having these kind of community groups from everywhere, not just D5.

It's really important for community to get together and actually to meet each other.

And I want to thank the mayor.

The mayor came, which was wonderful.

and we had a major turnout, considering that we got rained out and Council President Harrell got all of our salmon and fried bread last time.

So we got it all back this time.

So thank you.

Great.

Very welcome.

Thank you.

Thanks, Council Member Juarez.

Council Member Bagshaw.

Thank you.

And I do want to acknowledge the great work that you've done up at Northgate, looking forward to 1,500 more units and making sure that light rail is getting up to 130th eventually.

I'd really want to recognize the work you've done around our hockey team.

But that's not even counting the 5,000 to 1,000 units of low-income affordable housing on the Sound Transit or the Metro King County piece that we're still working on, that we got, that imprint is there.

Right.

With Speaker Frank Chopp.

Big change and thank you.

Thank you.

Building on what we just heard from Diana Salazar and Jason Johnson, This Wednesday, we're going to continue our budget discussions with this cross-cutting day.

As I mentioned earlier, we're going to be hearing from the departments again.

I think Jason will be leading this, but HSD, SPU, FAS, SPD, and Parks.

Alphabet Soup will all be here talking about what and how they are assisting to address these homelessness issues that were raised.

We're also going to hear from our friends at LEAD, And that includes Lisa Dugard and King County Prosecuting Attorney Dan Satterberg.

They'll be here.

And then we're going to have another panel, internal panel, that's just going to be focusing on lead.

And then we're also going to pick up OSC at the end of the day.

Remember on Friday, I made an executive decision fairly quickly as one of the discussions went on about an hour longer and anticipated with questions.

So that's good.

And our first public hearing of two is going to be this Thursday, October 3rd, starting at 5.30.

The doors will be open at 4.30 so people can sign up.

I promise the public that I will stay here until the last person speaks.

And I know many of you have other commitments that you're maybe going to have to leave for, so I'll be holding doors open and holding down the fort until everybody has a chance to speak.

Also, as a reminder to this crowd and to our members of central staff know this, but our legislative staff, all initial proposals on any issues are due 10, 10 at 10. So October 10th at 10 a.m., we want to have those initial proposals on issues.

Is there a starting time we can get them in?

How soon can we get them to you?

Right now.

The sooner the better.

So if you've got anything you want me to see, of course the guys that get them in first get the first dibs on the money.

It's the way I'm looking at it.

It's first come, first served.

10, 10. That's an easy number to round.

10, 10 at 10. It doesn't matter how much.

Oh, absolutely not, especially if it has something to do with homelessness and mental health funding.

Those are the ones that are going to get prioritized.

I'm not trying to pull rank, but that is my birthday, so I expect a little special treatment on that one.

Okay, that's very good.

No, you got all that rank to pull.

Also, I just want to say thank you to our Crisis Connections, Allie Franklin and Brooke Butner from King County, they had a marvelous event Friday night, and I just want to acknowledge the good work they have done to help us with our low acuity work.

And our Fire Chief Scoggins has been super.

That's it, goodbye.

Thank you, Councilmember Baxter.

Councilmember Herbold.

Thank you.

I'm going to start off by distributing a proclamation.

This proclamation is honoring Julian Wheeler, who I know many of us have worked with.

And in particular, this proclamation recognizes his work to organize the committee to establish a Seattle Disabilities Commission in 2009. We're coming up on the 10-year anniversary since the Commission for People with Disabilities founding in November.

And there's two copies there to sign.

As far as items that I have up in full council today, coming from the Civil Rights, Utilities, Economic Development and Arts Committee, I have several tenant bills.

One is Council Bill 119658, a bill that protects survivors of domestic violence from being held liable for damages to a unit caused by their abuser, as well as establishing a damage mitigation fund for landlords to access.

The other is Council Bill 119606. This is a bill that allows tenants to share the costs of rent with roommates and family members by disallowing landlords from restricting occupancy levels to exclude roommates and family members, but still maintains the occupancy limits established by local, state, or federal law.

Council Bill 119619 is a bill that requires information on the rights and resources of tenants to be included on notices to terminate tenancy, increase rent, or for the landlord to enter a unit.

Council Bill 119620 is a bill that authorizes the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections to enforce compliance to state law to require receipts for rent payments, but it also prohibits the requirement for electric payment options only.

And then finally, Council Bill 119621 is a bill that requires a landlord to register the rental unit with Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections before filing and issuing an unlawful detainer to terminate tenancy.

We also have a couple other bills related to Seattle Public Utilities.

One is Council Bill 119639, This is an easement to authorize SPU to have access across portions of the Cedar River water pipeline right of way in order to serve adjacent properties that would otherwise not have driveway access.

This easement will resolve a property owner lawsuit and allow for compensation of $3,500 to the city of easement rights.

Then in addition we have Council Bill 1196-59.

I think we'll hear more about that from Council Member Mosqueda when she gives her report.

But this trues up some policies within the Emergency Assistance Program and perhaps when Council Member Mosqueda talks about that bill, I can talk about an amendment I have as well.

Does that seem like the right way to do it?

Okay.

And then also, I have a bill that we'll hear more about in Councilmember O'Brien's report on the Transportation Committee, and I'll hold my discussion of that as well, the resolution, the sidewalk resolution.

And then I think finally, as far as events coming up this week, Thursday, we have the Chief Sealth Club Luncheon.

Saturday, I'll be speaking at the LGBTQ Generation Celebration Gala.

And then also on Saturday, I'll be attending the Southwest Youth and Family Services Giving Gala.

That's it.

Very good.

Thank you, Councilmember Herbold.

Councilmember Pacheco.

Good morning.

There are no plus related items on the full council agenda today.

However, there are going to be two plus related items making their way to the full council in the coming weeks.

And so I wanted to give you a bit of a heads up.

One is Council Bill 119600, which updates our SEPA policies.

And that will be at the full council next Monday.

And a contract rezone of 5256 Rainier Avenue South, which will be coming to the full council sometime in October.

If there are any questions regarding either of these items, feel free to contact my office.

And then, just really briefly, events this week.

Well, first, let me start by saying that, unfortunately, I had to, at the very last minute, miss live in D5.

I wanted to, but it was the Huskies, the USC game, and my dad flew out here, so I was there the entire time, because my dad wanted to make sure until the very last play.

So, I'm sorry to miss that, Council Member Juarez.

And so events this week is the U.S.

Global Leadership Coalition with Representative Jayapal, as well as on the Evans School dinner.

A number of Evans graduates are in this building, and so I will be joining that dinner in celebration of both the Evans School as well as the retirement of Dean Archibald.

And then Friday, a breakfast for Mercy Housing, and that is all for me.

Very good.

I'll be at the Evans School lunch with you, too, for the function.

That'd be good.

Council Member Esqueda.

Good morning, Mr. President.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Colleagues, there are five items from the Housing, Health, Energy, and Workers' Rights Committee on today's full council agenda.

This is our grand finale related to Seattle City Light.

So first is Council Bill 119631, which is authorizing City Light to enter into a two-year funding and planning agreement with the Regional Electrical Transmission Planning Organization, known as Northern Grid, and two-year extension of the agreement without further council review or approval.

The second is Council Bill 119632, and this would authorize City Light to offer a pilot program for rate redesign research purposes.

There's about a handful of pilot programs, if my memory serves me correctly, four, that would really be looking at everything from residential assistance to how do we pilot some more equitable rates for some of our larger companies.

wanting to see those go live in 2020 so that it will inform any of the rate decisions that we make next year as a council that would then go into place into 2021. The third item is Council Bill 119633. This would amend City Lights rates and fees in three areas.

The first is a sort of a hodgepodge.

The first is the rate of City of Burien customers.

The second is the automatic cost adjustment related to Bonneville Power Association.

And the last is charging station rental fees.

The fourth piece of legislation is Council Bill 119659, which Council Member Herbold alluded to.

And this bill would make rate assistance more accessible and align City Light and public utilities assistance programs.

Council Member Herbold, maybe I'll just finish with the bills coming up.

I wanted to say thanks to you for reaching out and helping to harmonize our efforts between City Light and Seattle Public Utilities.

and thanks to our staff Alex and also Aaron House from our staff who helped to expedite some of those changes.

And the last bill that we will be considering is Council Bill 119635 which approval of this would declare City Lights former properties at Loyal Heights Substation property and the former Finney substation property as surplus to the city's electric utility needs and therefore transfer the properties to the Office of Housing from City Light.

So this transfer is at no cost and the really exciting part about putting this property at the Office of Housing is is that we will now be able to develop permanently affordable housing options, home ownership options for first-time low-income households at or below 80% of the area median income.

And I just want to take a quick minute to say thanks to all of you.

This is the big piece of policy that we passed last year.

Both, it was two ordinances, one specific to City Light and one citywide.

that said that anytime there's surplus property, we should really be retaining that property and building affordable housing.

That's exactly what we're doing.

They're relatively small pieces of property, but as you can imagine, every piece helps, especially when you think about helping to get folks out of generational poverty, and this is going to be first-time home ownership options.

So I'm really excited about this because it carries forward on that momentum that you all authorized last year and puts into place these two properties from City Light now going to Office of Housing.

And then before I go on to any other items, the last item that we have is the reappointment of Leon Garnett to the Seattle City Light Review Panel.

This will be his second term serving on the review panel and he is the Chief Operating Officer at Bird Bar Place, which we've been talking a lot about lately.

So I'll stop there and looking forward to hearing more about the amendment that Council Member Herbold has on the bill we worked on.

Council Bill 119659.

The review panel, I think as memory serves, there's five people on it.

Are we fully populated with people there?

Because for years they were always concerned about working without a full group, but it seemed like you've done an excellent job making sure all seats have been filled.

I believe we are, Phil.

I will double-check with our team, but I think we're actually up to 14 people now.

Oh, it increased.

Yes, and you're right that they had been working at a deficit for a long period of time.

So we work to get more individuals from the consumer advocacy perspective and also diversity on there.

And a huge amount of appreciation for them, which I should say later today.

They've taken on this charge that we put in front of them to look at rate redesign and make it more equitable.

And they did a lot of work earlier this year.

So we're looking forward to implementing those pilots so we can then launch a rate redesign change.

But you're right.

They are all volunteers, which I had no idea when I first started sharing this committee.

And they really do put in a lot of time and effort.

So we appreciate their work.

Excellent.

Thank you.

So I just shared an additional amendment.

relates specifically to Seattle Public Utilities and it makes the ordinance consistent with current practices.

The ordinance as drafted states that a qualification for access to emergency assistance is that the customer is already in a payment program and has made a payment arrangement for the remainder of any unpaid bill that is a barrier to accessing emergency assistance.

And while it's true that the ability to access emergency assistance may, in those cases where there is an outstanding bill, allow and facilitate the participation in an ongoing payment plan that is not necessary in all instances.

Sometimes the emergency assistance itself will satisfy the bill and thus there's not a need for a payment plan.

So this amendment as it's written both removes a barrier in the ordinance and also it makes the ordinance itself consistent with current practices.

Thank you.

I'll just also add to this.

I fully support this amendment and I think it's important to note that if you take a listen to last Tuesday's Housing Health Energy and Workers' Rights Committee where we discussed this legislation, it also brought up the larger conversation that we've been having with Seattle City Light.

An important technical element of this amendment was to really remove the reference to disconnections, and there are some, I think, really good policy changes on the horizon for Seattle City Light, both as it retains to their policies around shutoffs, which have been, there's been a moratorium on for a while and will continue to be, thanks to the good work of, I think, between our office and Deborah Smith at Seattle City Light, really appreciate that.

And in addition to that, changes, in how we talk about it.

And Council Member Herbold has been instrumental in changing how SPU has talked about their policies.

And we want to do the same at Seattle City Light so that when people receive a notice, it doesn't cause them fear, anxiety, or to shut down completely and not know about the options for various forms of repayment or payment plans.

So this is important, both from a technical aspect so that we're not referencing a policy that's not in existence, And I think it's important in terms of our values that Councilmember Herbold just outlined.

I had a question on just not the policy piece of it, just a practical application on the emergency, the assistance.

We use terms in our ordinances always like 80% of median income because it could fluctuate and we want to make sure it reflects that demographic.

But the average person, I don't think they would know what that means, right?

They'll look at that and say, am I in the 80% or is my family in the 80%?

So do we, are the utilities, do they publish materials on an annual basis on what that means if you make $80,000 a year, $40,000 a year, $30,000, so they can know, oh, I'm eligible or I'm not eligible.

Do we know how we translate our ordinance language and jargon to lay terms such that the public could readily know Because they may not even know where to find out where the Washington State median income is, none the less the percentage of it.

So do we know that at all?

It is available on Seattle Public Utilities' website, whether or not...

Dollar amount?

Yeah.

the dollar amount for what the income eligibility is as it relates to 80% AMI or 70% AMI.

But whether or not that information is conveyed in other ways other than the website, I don't know.

There may be a billing insert with just, because that assumes they have a computer to get online.

So maybe a billing insert just saying if you make 37,000 euros or something like that.

Council Member Muscat, did you want to?

Yeah, I think you're exactly right, Mr. President, and that's a part of what we've asked Seattle City Light to do, and perhaps we can harmonize the language between both utilities.

When it comes to the notification that residents are receiving, we've asked them to stakeholder this with a broader group.

So, for example, pulling in folks from statewide poverty action, in addition to the low-income utility consumer kind of coalition.

They're going to be looking at draft language and actually trying to break it down to make sure it's actually digestible.

Having an insert that would be a regular thing as well prior to having any bills that are overdue is a great idea.

So we'll follow up on that from our end at Seattle City Light.

But just know that the part of the work that I was highlighting and applauding that will come soon in the form of a change in communication will be informed by stakeholders, consumer representatives, and low-income advocacy organizations so that we can really make that information digestible.

Very good.

And I'll just add that on the website for the UDP, they do list it all out.

It depends on household size.

And so, for instance, they have, if you're a household size of four, your gross monthly income less than $5,400 or gross yearly income of $64,884.

Household size of one, gross annual income of $33,744.

I was more concerned about, I figured the utilities are smart enough to make it accessible.

I'm more concerned about the elderly that may not be as computer littered or people that speak English as a second language that may not.

have some of the resources.

So anyway, just make it as easy as possible.

I don't know if they fit into the demo.

That was really just the point I wanted to make.

I do have, because one of the other things that I've been looking at is their shut off notice policy for Seattle Public Utilities and how the notices are delivered in rental housing.

And so I have examples of all the shut-off notices that is another place where they could be providing information about income eligibility and that is not contained in the shut-off notices so it's a good good catch.

Okay, Council Member Scanlon.

Thank you.

A quick correction there's nine members of the review panel and we are all staffed up though.

I remember the shift to nine so that's okay.

I added your five with my nine.

Okay, and just wrapping up.

I have one more item There are no committee meetings.

I promise our council colleagues on that committee that I would not add any more I will not add any more meetings For the remainder of the year and my customer back shot chair of budget.

I will be with you on Thursday night Into the wee hours happy to be there with you The last item I have on our agenda is the infants at work resolution We are going to be asking for council colleagues to take a vote on this this was introduced timely last week and I had a chance or my team did have a chance to talk with and This is a really great resolution that asked the executive to come up with a pilot program to allow parents and guardians to bring their children to work during their child's infancy.

So you can imagine after family leave has expired, it is very, very expensive for families and hard to find.

infant care.

So there are some great models out there that we are pulling from, King County being one, the state of Washington, and the Chamber of Commerce has a similar policy.

So we are asking for this city to work with the executive and come up with an infants at work program that allows for us to really continue to be a place where employees want to come.

We've seen where there's been infant at work policies implemented in the past, higher retention, higher workplace satisfaction, less health complications for both infants and parents, and longer term job satisfaction.

So we look forward to working with the executive as we develop this plan.

Just in terms of timing, so folks know, we are asking for basically about a six month period that would allow for the council to consider any policy recommendations coming from the executive and any financial needs or policy details.

We will be working in tandem with them as they come up with a policy and strategy to make it good for those who don't bring their efforts to work and good for those who do.

Thank you, Councilmember Esqueda.

Thank you.

Councilmember O'Brien.

Thank you.

A few items for the Sustainability and Transportation Committee on this afternoon's agenda.

The first, we have the final ordinance for a street vacation.

This is a car place, which is around the North Transfer Station.

just north of Gasworks Park in Wallingford.

This is something that, a project that began years ago, but they finally met all the requirements, and so we'll do the final vacation around that.

We have a resolution related to sidewalk maintenance policy.

Why don't I go ahead and talk about that now, and we can walk through, Council Member Herbold can discuss it too.

What the sidewalk maintenance policy does is it's a resolution and asks us not to come up with policies around both how kind of looking around the country at different options for us to do sidewalk maintenance.

Denver has been cited as an example of a city that's had some creative solutions.

But whether they're options for kind of do-it-yourself fixes that homeowners could come out and do to repair where sidewalks heaving or opportunities where the city can come and do it.

We know that our sidewalks, in addition to lots of neighborhoods not having sidewalks, a lot of our existing sidewalks are inadequate.

And the financial resources to fix all those on a time frame that we would all like to see happen just aren't available.

And so creative solutions are necessary.

The second part of this resolution also asked the department to come back with a resolution that would allow us to look at how we can improve our sidewalks.

plans and programs for when it snows again.

I suspect it will at some point.

And, you know, last year there was a lot of, with the snow that stuck around for over a week, a lot of folks who really struggled to get just, you know, a few blocks to a grocery store because of the conditions.

So there's a requirement that people responsible for clearing the sidewalks in front of their property.

Obviously, some people aren't capable of doing that.

Some people are capable and don't do it.

And so putting a program in place and public awareness and including suggestions for commercial property owners having 12 hours to clear the spots in front of their spaces.

So again, this doesn't stipulate what it would be, but just ask the department to come up with some proposals and plans for how we address that.

Very good, Council Member Herbold.

Yeah, I was asked by Rudin and Wrights and the Mass Coalition to sponsor this resolution.

And I think both of those organizations for their advocacy and thank councilmember o'brien for allowing me to hear it in his committee.

We have a couple more items as a separate resolution asking the Seattle Department of Transportation to come back and create a traffic signals policy.

My understanding is such a policy doesn't actually exist anywhere in the country obviously there are guidelines that folks use but this would address Simple things like, how long is the walk signal flashing?

We hear from folks that, depending on their ability, the light changes and they start walking and they simply cannot get across the street in time before it turns.

to do not walk.

And we don't have specific rules in place that stop that.

In fact, Rooted in Rights put out another video over the weekend talking about how different roadway users, toddlers, folks in wheelchairs, seniors, the different times it takes them to cross.

And when we have able-bodied people that are largely responsible for setting these times, we have a bias towards what it takes.

And so putting policies in place that are really clear about how that works, how long people have to wait, there's a whole host of things.

And so this resolution asks that they propose a draft set of policies in two months, so early December.

And then they're planning to convene a group of stakeholders and do public outreach and come back with a final set of proposals in June of next year.

And it's something that they've been working on for a while, but we really want to see this formalized.

The last dimension on the traffic signals customer skated a comment.

Um, this is very exciting Did is this going to also apply to temporary signals where there's construction occurring?

Because down at the waterfront for example when I had my crutches It gave me eight seconds to cross and I was midway through the intersection when the light turned green now I don't think anybody's gonna hit a pregnant woman and crutches, hopefully but What's that

Not in d5 no but would love to know if it was going to apply to those temporary crossings as well, so I don't believe the language in there calls out specifically that but certainly the intent is that this is a very pedestrian focused and other roadways are focused.

And that would certainly be my intent that, yes, we need to honor that.

If you wanted to put some specific language in there, we could do that.

But I'm more than happy to convey that to the department director and just say, you know, this is another example.

And we want to make sure that this is universal, not just for the...

Councilmember Baxter had a similar experience Absolutely with my spouse who's got muscular dystrophy trying to get across and it was eight seconds.

I concur with that But I also wanted to ask whether that you know The Vancouver model has that how those half signals that you can my understanding is that you can push a button and and get more time depending upon your need, and I thought that made a lot of sense.

Other question that I would have is, how would somebody let the department know that here is a signal that isn't working?

So, you know, I mean, it's kind of like, you know, our project that we have, you know, the see it, say it, find it, fix it, yeah, that if we've got something, where we could actually alert the department that there's a problem.

I think those are the types of ideas that we'd like to see out of the policy about how we do that.

There's obviously complaint-based systems we can put in place, and I'm sure that that'll be a component of it.

But it's also critical that we have broad system-wide policies so neighborhoods or populations that may not be as likely to complain still have access to safe crossing.

So hopefully doing both those in there.

And this will be something that we collectively will need to watch over time to ensure that we get that right.

Thank you, Mr. President.

I almost fell off my scooter with joy in DC when I saw a 60-second cross signal, and it just counts down the whole time.

And I was like, that's impressive.

So looking forward to supporting this.

And if you think we need clarification, happy to work on that with you.

If you think that communicating the need for this to be applied to temporary signals as well is sufficient, that sounds good.

I'm happy you're moving this forward.

I'll check with my staff on that.

Thanks a lot.

Last few items we're gonna have three reappointments to the Transit Advisory Board and two appointments to the Bike Advisory Board.

All right.

Traffic signals are a controversial thing.

I'm glad to see I didn't realize we did not have a policy in place.

There's we've talked about that for a while.

So thank you for doing that be interesting to see what other parts of the country are doing as well.

Okay, we're gonna go into executive session.

And as presiding officer, I'm announcing that the city council will convene an executive session and the purpose is to discuss pending potential or actual litigation.

This gives us an opportunity to discuss confidential legal matters with our legal counsel as authorized by law.

However, a monitor is always present to make sure we reserve questions of public policy for our public open sessions.

And I expect this one to last for 30 minutes.

So that'll take us to 11.32 this morning.

And if it goes beyond that, I'll announce it in public session and its expected duration.

So with that, let's move to the executive session.

11.42.

I'm pretty good at math.

Why did I say 11?

What did I say?

11.32.

11.42.