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Good morning.

The Finance, Native Communities, and Tribal Governments Committee meeting will come to order.

It is 9.32 a.m.

I'm Dan Strauss, chair of the committee.

Councilmembers Kettle and Saka are excused.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council President Hollingsworth.

Present.

Vice Chair Rivera.

Present.

Chair Strauss.

Present.

Three present.

Thank you.

Three present, two excused.

We have four items on the agenda today, and if there is no objection, I would like to amend the agenda to have the briefing on State and City Tribal Relations Framework be first on the agenda, followed by the two bills relating to Mayor Katie Wilson's shelter proposal, and finally the Q1 Grants Acceptance Ordinance.

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

hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

We are going to move right into public comment.

We have a number of people signed up, and checking the online public comment registrants, we have four, and Anthony, how many do we have there?

We have under 20. Everyone will have up to two minutes to speak.

As you heard, we have a very packed agenda and a hard stop, so any time back we get isn't hurt by us being able to pass the bills and or amend them.

With that, public comment period is up to 60 minutes.

Speakers are called in the order in which they registered, in-person speakers first and then remote.

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

And as Council President Emeritus Juarez says, Just please be nice.

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

I'm gonna call everyone in order.

Barb Oliver, Ken S., Margaret Shield, Kara Williams, Tan M., Madigan L., and Marta Kidane.

With that, welcome.

It's good to see you.

Good morning.

My name is Barb Oliver.

For the past five years, in the exhausting heat and freezing cold of the Hope Factory, I built hundreds of tiny homes and oversaw its operations.

In the past six months as a consultant, I have spoken to the principals of all the major providers serving our neighbors experiencing homelessness.

I have talked to several elected officials, including then-candidate Katie Wilson.

After studying the Mayor's current plan before you, I can tell you with 100% certainty that this plan is seriously flawed.

I applaud Mayor Wilson for her dogged determination to get something done.

Last year, over 400 people died in the streets.

We need to look at a long-term solution, not just a band-aid for an event that will come and go in just a few short months.

With two simple Google searches and a calculator, I found out that Seattle's unsheltered homeless population is not the 4,500 as the Mayor's office suggests, but over 7,000.

How can any plan that doesn't even know the number of people on the streets be effective?

There is a plan that services 7,000 people with only 1,299 units of transitional housing.

It shows the long-term operational costs, Councilmember Strauss and this committee, Councilmember Kettle, and incorporates several KCRHA projects, two of which John Grant probably doesn't even know about.

The plan features a critical way to communicate between our neighbors on the streets, our service providers, and the people like you who make them all accountable.

This plan significantly reduces homelessness in the first term of the Wilson administration.

Many of you on city council have already seen the plan.

I will be happy to review with Mayor Wilson and her staff.

With due respect, my ask of you today is to table this vote for just two short weeks.

Give us time to look at alternative solutions.

I will be here after this meeting to answer any questions.

Thank you.

Up next is Ken S., followed by Margaret Shield, Carol Williams, and if folks want to line up just so we can keep ticking, that's awesome.

Welcome, Ken.

Good morning.

My name is Ken Schlegel, and I'm the Chief Transformation Officer at Therapeutic Health Services.

I'm here on behalf of Therapeutic Health Services to lend our enthusiastic support for Council Bills 121185 and 121184. therapeutic health services has provided behavioral health services at tiny home villages operated by the Low Income Housing Institute since 2021. Working from a tiny home in their assigned villages, our behavioral health specialists work alongside Lehigh staff, providing de-escalation and crisis management, and support the enforcement of the village's code of conduct.

As a visible and accessible part of the village community, the behavioral health specialists also lower barriers for many village residents who have been hesitant to pursue mental health counseling and substance use disorder treatment, including medication for opioid use disorder treatment.

As providers of behavioral health services at 10 brick-and-mortar locations across King and Snohomish counties, Therapeutic Health Services knows firsthand how helping the most vulnerable in our communities improves the health and safety of our neighborhoods.

Thank you for your time and for your support of Council Bills 121-185 and 121-184.

Thank you, Ken.

Up next is Margaret, followed by Kara, and then Tan.

Good morning, Chair Strauss and Council Members Rivera and Hollingsworth.

Thank you for being here today.

My name is Margaret Shield.

I'm from Lake City and District 5. I support the legislation before you to add funding and remove red tape to create more shelters, many more, with strong services in every district.

I've seen what has been accomplished just four blocks from my house with the new Olympic Hills Tiny House Village run by Lehigh and CoLead.

Seeing all of the 44 tiny homes fill up quickly by skilled outreach workers has given me hope for the first time in many years that Lake City is getting services that make a difference.

Other neighbors are seeing it too, and we want to help.

This model brings people off the street and creates their path to better health, stability, and permanent housing.

The 24-7 staffing, case management, and services are essential and must be well funded.

The only concerns I have is that we need more villages like this, and we need to develop them faster.

Please invest in more shelter units faster to meet the scale of the need across the city.

Fund it, build it, support it now.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Up next is Kara Tannen and Madigan.

Good morning, Council Members.

My name is Kara Williams.

I live in District 3 and work at the Low Income Housing Institute.

I'm here today to speak in support of the legislation to give the Finance and Administrative Services Director Leasing Authority and to allocate $4.9 million to expand desperately needed shelter capacity.

Giving the FAS Director Leasing Authority will enable the City to prepare sites for shelter much more quickly than currently possible.

At Lehigh, working to identify and prepare land adds months to the timeline to opening new tiny house villages and sheltering many more people.

This change could make that process go from seven to 12 months to three to four months.

I also support the budget legislation allocating $4.9 million to support shelter acceleration.

This funding will back proven solutions that bring people indoors.

We are in dire need of more shelter that provides people a roof over their heads, a door that locks, a space of their own, wraparound case management, and behavioral health care when necessary.

All of these things help break the cycle of homelessness for community members with complex needs.

Please take this opportunity to be a part of the solution and vote yes on CB 121184 and CB 121185. Thank you for your commitment to ending homelessness in our city.

Thank you.

Welcome up, Tan.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Tanmakara Egg, and I'm an employee at the Low Income Housing Institute and a resident of District 3. As a volunteer coordinator, I have chatted with so many people across the city, whether it be Amazon workers, Microsoft workers, advocacy groups, or students engaged in service learning.

And across the board, our volunteers see the need for shelter and know how much more effective enhanced shelters and tiny houses are.

Their one question is always, why aren't there more?

The answer to that question is in your hands today.

I'm asking that you vote yes on both council bills to remove barriers to shelter expansion and fund supportive services.

Your vote of yes is a clear communication that you support shelters and supportive services and believe that it is our collective responsibility to uplift our neighbors in need.

We desperately need more shelter and we need it fast.

Your vote will determine how fast that city can develop the shelters and get more of our neighbors off the streets.

This is the first time in my three years here at Lehigh and in the city that I have felt hopeful about this state of homelessness in our city.

Many hands make housing work, and I hope that you are willing to be the hands that help pass today's council bills and increase shelter capacity in our city and to support our neighbors in need and their journey to stability.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Up next is Madigan, and then followed by Marta.

Welcome.

Good morning, Council Members.

My name is Madigan Lodahl, and I live in District 3. I'm here today to support the proposed legislation that will give the Finance and Administration Services Director leasing authority and to allocate $4.9 million to expand shelter capacity.

It is heartbreaking to witness the unsafe conditions that my neighbors live in every day due to a lack of services and shelter.

Unsheltered homelessness is a severe issue, putting many lives at risk daily.

This legislation would be a part of the solution that is urgently needed.

It is important to increase the number of beds in alignment with the behavioral health and case management services.

High support shelters are essential in ensuring that the unhoused population receives health care and case management that they deserve, helping them get into and stay in permanent housing.

I urge you to vote yes on both council bills.

Thank you for using your power to protect housing as a right for every resident of Seattle.

Thank you.

And up next is Marta, and Marta is our last in-person speaker.

Then we'll transfer to remote public speakers, Sarah Clark, Grace Stiller, David Hill.

David Haynes, you are not present.

Welcome, Marta.

Thank you council members for taking the time to hear from community members this morning.

My name is Marta Quirana and I'm the community engagement manager at Low Income Housing Institute, a shelter, urban rest stop, and affordable housing provider.

We believe that the homelessness crisis in Seattle must match the needs of our unhoused neighbors.

Having worked in nonprofits for over 15 years, it has become apparent to me that people need to be supported deeply to be capable of transformation.

The legislation before you today is an opportunity to implement a solution.

I ask that you support Mayor Wilson's expansion of shelter by approving the 4.9 million before you and allowing the finance and administrative director to identify and sign lease agreements for properties to allow city staff to coordinate with providers with the urgency that's needed.

Through both of these pieces of legislation and deep shelter resources, Seattleites in need of shelter will be able to find a bed and the supportive services to help reach self-sustainability.

Expanding services as quickly and as deeply as possible will save lives.

Through the decisions made by this committee, Seattle will be able to prioritize deep supportive services to make even more high support shelter available.

Meeting community needs is most successful when a wraparound approach, including case management, behavioral health services, are integrated.

Please make this a reality by passing the council bills before you today.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And we're now going to move to online public commenters.

Sarah Clark, followed by Grace Stiller, then David Hill.

David Haynes, you are not present.

If you'd like to call in now.

Waiting for Sarah Clark to be promoted.

Sarah Clark, I see you now.

Star six to unmute.

There you are.

Welcome.

Good morning, Chair Strauss and members of the Finance Committee.

My name is Sarah Clark, and I'm here today to testify on behalf of the over 2600 members of the Seattle Metro Chamber.

in strong support of Council Bills 121184 and 121185. First, I'd like to thank Mayor Wilson for treating the housing crisis for our unhoused neighbors with a sense of urgency, creativity, collaboration, and compassion the situation requires.

We all acknowledge that our region has been in a housing and behavioral health crisis for many years now and that the challenges associated with managing a project of this size to completion are significant.

I also want to thank Council Members Strauss and Lin and Council President Hollingsworth for expediting the legislative process needed to realize the Mayor's vision.

We respectfully urge you to pass these two bills with the same sense of urgency.

And while we remain ready to support this critically important work, we do have some questions about how the City plans to support these capital investments in the long term with the necessary operational support.

You should consider reprioritizing existing resources to maintain the ongoing operations of the proposed new units to ensure the city is achieving the kinds of outcomes voters want to see.

This package is a critical next step to move our unhoused neighbors off the streets of Seattle, and we need to ensure that taxpayer resources are used wisely to sustain the operations of these new units.

The business community stands behind the mayor and the proposed citywide approach, and we are ready to support city leadership with this monumental effort to meet the moment and chart a new path towards our local response to unsheltered homelessness using the ample resources at your disposal.

Thank you for your consideration.

Thank you, Sarah.

Up next is Grace, followed by David Hill, and David Haynes is now present.

Grace, welcome.

Well, we are promoting you now.

There you are, star six to unmute.

Welcome.

Thank you.

My name is Grace Stiller.

The agenda item that I'm providing a statement for is for passage of council bills ending in eight four and eight five.

Council members, I support expanding shelter villages with the case management and behavioral services in Seattle because it is an important and necessary part in solving the homelessness crisis in Seattle.

I've seen the results over the many years that I've been involved with Camp Second Chance as a Citizens Advisory Committee member.

I've been involved for over 10 years.

The Camp Second Chance is a transitional tiny house managed by Lehigh, the low-income housing institute.

their approach of providing tiny house shelter villages with on-site services works, and they have the data to prove it.

I support and urge the Council to pass Council Bill 121185, allowing the City of Seattle to allocate $4.9 million to fund shelter expansion plans, and Council Bill 121184, granting the Director of Finance and Administrative Services the ability to identify and execute leases for properties.

Please pass these bills so Seattle can successfully continue to help the homeless in our communities.

Thank you.

Thank you, Grace.

And up next is David Hill, followed by David Haynes, who's our last speaker.

Good morning, committee members.

My name is David Hill.

I've been a Seattle resident for 15 years, currently living in District 4. Over that time, I've watched our homelessness crisis grow, while the Council has too often failed to meet the challenge with the scale of action required.

I'm here today with the Transit Riders Union to urge your full support for Council bills 121184 and 121185. We believe that housing is a human right, just as safe and reliable transit is a right.

These bills are a necessary step toward providing the life-saving shelter and wraparound services our unhoused neighbors deserve.

Last year, a majority of Seattle voters elected Katie Wilson as our mayor because of her clear promise to expand shelters and bring our unhoused neighbors inside.

You have a moral and democratic duty to fulfill that mandate.

In a city of such immense wealth, there is no excuse for anyone to be unhoused while public land and resources sit idle.

Expanding the authority to execute leases and funding for these shelter plans is about basic justice for our community.

We expect this committee to honor the will of the voters and move these ordinances forward.

Thank you.

Thank you, David.

And now David Haynes.

This is our final speaker, David Haynes.

Welcome.

I see you there.

Star six to unmute.

Hi, thank you, David Haynes.

Stop the delay and improve the onsite services.

It's one thing to address drug addiction by requiring people to focus 24-7 in an authorized encampment.

It's quite another when you prioritize the tourist district and the business district and only help self-destructive people who are bothering other people and destroying themselves and act like you're doing the whole community a favor by warehousing people who are continuing to do drugs.

And we have this lie coming out of the industry where they claim that you're not allowed to do drugs in public spaces in this tiny village.

but they fail to mention that they're allowed to do drugs and spread your diseases inside their own personal space and inside the porta-potties and rummage through the kitchen touching other people's food, opening up your bread with their dirty hands.

Yet the people who are getting rich who are not qualified are hoarding people and making life a living hell for innocent homeless people who have to put up with a bunch of junkies inside the tiny village.

It's one thing to have an authorized encampment, and trespass all these self-destructive repeat offenders and require them to focus on their drug addiction 24-7 and graduate them to a tiny village.

And it's another thing when you're gonna hoard 250 people and have case managers who literally are totally unqualified to break the addiction of somebody else.

It's like when you give the big pharma alternative drool drug and brain damaging narcotics, it's supposed to be a one-time, are two-time try.

And as soon as you give that to them, you're supposed to feed them healthy foods to break their addiction, to get them strong.

Instead, it's, well, whatever comes by once a day.

It's like they have bad mental health because they have bad food, and they don't do the proper exercises.

And the people who are interacting with them are interacting with them because the other people, the contract holders, the executives, they don't want to deal with them.

And it's not fair that the entire existence of The expertise is give people alternative drill drugs.

It's like Afghanistan giving kids little poppy to shut them up because they're crying.

There's a distinct difference in the efforts.

Thank you, David.

David was our final...

public comment registrant in person or virtual.

And seeing as we have no additional speakers present, we will move on to the next agenda item.

We amended the agenda, so agenda item number four, information item 2873 is first order of business.

Will the clerk please read the short title into the record?

Item four, state and city tribal relations framework for briefing and discussion.

Francesca Murnon with the Office of Intergovernmental Relations for presentation.

Wonderful.

And thank you all for being here and being first on the agenda today.

We have Director Mina Hashemi, our Director of Intergovernmental Relations, Francesca Murnon, our Director of Tribal Relations, and we have Patty Camacho here as well.

Well, good to see you, Patty.

I'm gonna turn it over to you, colleagues.

This is a presentation that will prepare us for some of the work that we are going to endeavor in the coming months, and so we are going to have experts, subject matter experts, tribal leaders, and many others come to our committee with the assistance of Francesca, and today is Francesca's briefing for us to start learning, because it would be a little embarrassing for a really smart person to come here and we have very basic questions.

So today is a good way to just ask Francesca anything, and we're gonna take a conversational style, so don't need to hold your questions, but we do have a hard stop at 11.45.

Those are the constraints.

I'll turn it over to the committee table.

Director, if you wanna introduce the table, and we'll move right forward.

Sure, thank you.

Good morning, Chair Strauss and members of the committee.

I'm Mina Hashemi, Director of the Office of Intergovernmental Relations.

I'm joined by my colleague, Francesca Murnan, who serves as our Tribal Relations Director.

The Office of Intergovernmental Relations, or OIR, manages all government-to-government relationships for the city, and one of our essential portfolios is the Tribal Relations Program.

As this committee knows, city policy and services have far reaching impacts to tribal governments.

It is critical that the city respectfully engage sovereign tribal nations in government to government relationships on issues that may impact tribal interests.

In recent years, OIR has prioritized rebuilding and expanding our tribal relations program to be more proactive and accountable to tribal nations.

Today, OIR leads citywide events such as the Tribal Nations Summit and gatherings, coordinates engagements with city and tribal officials, and works collaboratively with city departments to improve tribal and urban native engagement.

When we reflect on where we have come as a city, it is clear that these collaborative efforts are resulting in more authentic, effective, and durable relationships across governments.

Yet we know this work demands sustained commitment across city government.

I want to thank Council for your support and leadership.

Councilmember Juarez and Councilmember Strauss have modeled this kind of sustained commitment to champion tribal-city relations for many years.

We are grateful to have collaborative legislative partners in this work.

We are pleased to be here today to brief the committee on important and informs our continued work together.

With that, I'll pass it on to Francesca.

Thank you.

Thank you, Director Hashemi.

And thank you, Chair Strauss and members of the committee for the invitation to share some of this contextual information with you all today.

It'll be a high level overview and happy to do any discussion or follow up as we go along and after this engagement.

My name is Francesca Bernan, for the record.

I'm a citizen of the Shawnee Tribe and of the Cherokee Nation in our Office of Intergovernmental Relations.

So I'll start out with our statewide framework and give you a glimpse at what this approach looks like.

And I find it very important to start with a quote from Chairman Ron Allen of the Jamestown Skollam Tribe, Chairman Allen is one of the architects of the most successful state tribal relations framework in the United States.

Washington state is nationally recognized for our approach to tribal and state relations.

There are several states today that are learning from the tribes of this region and Washington, but there is no state that has been as successful as we have in making an effective, durable, and living framework for these types of relationships.

Before we get into a few of the mechanics, it's important to understand why tribal leaders have championed this work for over 36 years.

And this quote from Chairman Allen said some light on the scenario that is quite familiar to us in local government.

Whether it's state, county, or city government, too often our non-tribal governments are unfamiliar with the powers, rules, and responsibilities of tribal governments.

This lack of awareness and understanding can lead to cyclical misunderstandings, disagreements, and overall ineffective intergovernmental relationships for all of the parties involved.

Fundamental to this work is understanding the paradigm shifts that created the pathways for these policy changes here in our state.

Across the country, tribal leaders from Washington are known for consistent and impactful organizing.

There may be no better example to look to in our nation's history than the efforts of the 60s and 70s where tribal communities of this region fought to protect their reserved rights to fish, hunt, and gather.

The protests and conflicts between state agencies and tribal members are now known as the fish wars.

But they weren't the only battles that tribal governments and communities were having at that time.

They existed long before and have since.

From health care to child welfare to taxation, many tribal governments have found themselves at odds with state government.

Tribal governments are often in the position of having to remind, educate, and advocate for their authorities to exercise their sovereignty and self-determination.

In our region, the Fish Wars marked a significant paradigm shift and opened those new opportunities to foster more effective relations.

Following the successful US versus Washington litigation, also known as the Bolt decision, that affirmed the rights of tribal nations to exercise their treaty-protected activities, we begin to see positive movements towards self-determination of tribal nations within our state government.

You could think of this policy area as a key milestone in finding pathways that better advance sovereignty and enhancement of treaty rights.

tribal and state relations.

It's no one document or one activity.

It's the culmination of many tools that collectively create a framework for practicing more effective government relations.

The Centennial Accord and the New Millennium Agreement, they're written documents.

They're publicly accessible on the Governor's Office of Indian Affairs web page.

But when you look those up, you will notice that they're quite brief, and they are high-level statements.

Yet they guide the rest of the work, and they act as that North Star for our shared values and principles.

Over the years, these nonbinding statements have become codified in statute in the revised code of Washington that now includes definitions, state agency duties, roles for tribal liaisons and training requirements, as well as an annual meeting that has also quickly become known as Centennial Accord.

Over the decades, state agencies have created dozens of tribal liaison positions across agencies and developed individual consultation policies tailored to the specific scope of work within their state agency.

And all of these things helped create more effective protocols and practices for engaging with tribal governments and urban Indian organizations on trust and treaty issues.

While the written and documented efforts are essential to establishing that high-level framework, the real work of institutionalization is built through the interactions of staff and elected officials on a daily basis as we practice this work together and build our muscle as a state to turn things on paper into the norms and cultural practices of our governments.

All right, before you move on, thank you, Francesca.

This is a really important slide, and it looks very straightforward, I would say.

Simplified.

Simplified, thank you.

In your opening remarks, you mentioned that the Centennial Accord is an effective, living, and durable document.

And I'll share the embarrassing part.

Colleagues here, I'd rather be embarrassed here amongst ourselves than when we have our subject matter experts.

years and years ago when I first learned of the Centennial Accord, there's a really big section of the state capital that is dedicated to explaining what the Centennial Accord is.

And no matter how many times I read it, I thought it was a point in time or a once a year, let's all come together and see how we're doing, right?

In my understanding of it was more basic that it had occurred at some point and that from time to time we checked back in.

What I really love about how our discussions have gone, Francesca, is your ability to share how each of these different puzzles, pieces of the pie I should say, are leading into another.

And so could we just spend a moment walking through these?

one by one, and the one that you have pulled out is I think what, in a basic sense, I would have guessed years and years ago when I looked at that information space in the state capitol about the Centennial Accord.

That's the Centennial Accord Pact, is that correct?

Yeah, that's that brief written document that was signed in 1989 at the Burke Museum amongst travel leaders and Governor Booth Gardner.

And that was a point in time.

but everything else that has come from it is what is continuing to live and remain durable because it is flexible and nimble yet strong.

And so that's where we come to the next slice of the pie, the Centennial Accord Annual Meeting, is that right?

That's where I was, when I was reading that information down at the Capitol, that's where everyone comes back together.

How does that play into the annual work?

Is it like what we're doing here with our Tribal Nations Summit where we're checking in regularly?

How does the annual meeting work for everyone?

Yeah, the annual meeting is that touchpoint among selected officials from the state cabinet and governor, as well as tribal communities.

And it has continued to grow, expand, and morph over time.

And under Governor Ferguson, it has gone through its own revitalization to ensure that it continues to be an effective space.

Because sometimes as we continue road exercises of meeting to meet, It's important that we revisit why we're meeting and that we are being accountable in between.

So you can think of the city's Tribal Nations Summit as a mini version of Centennial Accord, of that practice of convening elected officials to have those discussions, open, honest discussions around a shared round table.

But it's important that these other pieces of the pie exist to help in the time between.

And it's also important that some of it is reporting out on what state agencies are doing.

But what we've heard from tribal leaders about our work is that we're not just coming to tribal partners sharing what we are doing as the city.

We are listening to needs and priorities.

And we're receiving that feedback and integrating it into the work.

And then when we reconvene again, we can share those progress updates.

And we're making meaningful commitments in between.

So that's something that has distinguished some of our work.

And Centennial Accord, from the state level, is going through a revitalization of that effort, that intent, as well, as they are entering over 30 years of doing the work.

And thank you.

And so to make it not a rote meeting to meet, is this a single day, multiple days?

It's my understanding that there is more than...

It can take a week.

Exactly.

That there is more than just everyone getting together, that there's breakout sessions, there's working through things, working meetings as well as...

reporting out meetings.

Can you give us those flavors?

Yes.

When you think about the expansive nature of state government, the body of work with tribal communities has continued to grow over the years as more issues have become to be understood as impacts on tribal interests.

The meetings get larger and larger, and there's always a need to caucus as tribal communities, as state agencies.

So that is typically the first couple days of the Centennial Accord that can take half a week to a week, depending on the year and how it's organized.

It travels around the state to different tribal communities who host the gathering.

And then at least one to two days are with the governor and cabinet members and state agency representatives.

and the dialogue is happening around those identified topics of interest.

So everything from taxation to gaming to health and social services, it really runs the gamut of everything that our state and tribal governments have under their jurisdiction.

And is this the annual, I'm gonna call it week-long meeting, so the annual conference, if you will.

Is this a, are all 29 federally recognized tribes in Washington coming with elected leaders?

Are there tribes from Oregon and Idaho joining, and then who from, you mentioned departments within the state government, but are we bringing the directors of these departments, or are we bringing secretaries?

Can you talk through that a little bit more deeply?

In a future slide, we'll talk about the iteration of the Centennial Court, the pact itself.

It was not signed by all of the tribes in Washington at the time, in 1989. Some of that was a reflection of some tribes at the time having concerns that their primary relationship is with the federal government, and they actually hold more power and authority than state governments or local governments.

And so there was maybe some hesitation in those early years around if we acknowledge this relationship with the state government, is that somehow supplanting the prioritization of our role with the federal government.

And over time, that fear has dissipated, and all 29 tribes are now signatory to the pact.

and there were also iterations of unrecognized communities that became federally recognized tribes that later signed as well as tribes who have ancestral interest in Washington state but are currently located outside of the state in Idaho or Oregon that signed the PAC as well because the value of this agreement became very visible to tribal leaders and the power of having proactive, transparent, and accountable frameworks and communication on a government-to-government level is more effective than what historically we have done as a nation or as a state where we're coming into conflict and dispute over issues.

So instead of trying to avoid litigation as being the resolution point, sometimes that's inevitable, but sometimes we can be more proactive and have stronger relationships to understand each other's issues and work it out proactively.

It's a really great segue into that next piece of the pie, which is the New Millennium Pact.

That's, can you just, how is that different than Centennial?

Yeah, so about 10 years in, the state and tribal leaders decided to revisit the framework and say, you know, we've been working on this for 10 years, what's working and what do we need to invest in more definition around and refinement?

And so the New Millennium Agreement just helped set some implementation guidelines that were a little bit more specific.

How do we handle dispute resolution?

How do we create consultation policies that identify who, when, and how we engage with tribal governments and native communities?

So it got a little bit to the more granular pieces, and it was a reaffirmation of the shared values as well.

around this policy era, our Councilmember Deborah Warris actually served under two governors as the Governor's Office of Indian Affairs Executive Director.

So she was a key person in conceptualizing much of this work and helping carry the legacy into the new millennium.

and that cascaded, I'll just kind of finish this out here on the loop, it cascaded into how do we codify it into the revised code of Washington.

So they're not just executive orders, executive level documents, they're written into the legislative code which helps give those agencies at the state the authority to do the work That included the staff training piece requiring that Washington state employees have access to training from the Governor's Office of Indian Affairs.

Some of our city staff have taken that training as well.

It also codified work around designated roles within agencies, those tribal liaisons that are a primary point of contact for helping agency staff as well as tribal governments engage on issues and consultation policies, which is the codified documents that help us understand who, when, and how we engage in the discussion.

Is that helpful?

I mean, that kind of just flows into the staff training tribal leads on this consultation.

Yeah, they're both very related.

Right.

And I think that it is really critical for us to understand how an original agreement led to annual conversations, updated agreements, revised Code of Washington, and then starting to permeate how staff are onboarded, how the tribal liaisons work, and what consultation practices, how they are codified and how they interact with everyone.

Thank you for letting me just dig into this a little bit more deeply.

I know you and I have had many conversations about this.

Even still, every time we speak in depth, I'm learning more.

It's hard to put into a slide or a few slides, really.

In everything we just described, tribal leaders will often, Chairman Allen is quoted as using this term, aggressive incrementalism.

So that progression that we just shared is an embodiment of this phrase of how do we keep at this iterative effort over time.

And so this timeline goes over much of what we just discussed.

But I think the key thing to note here is that when this effort started in the early 70s, it was originally an executive order around an advisory council, a public advisory body.

And what state and tribal governments came to learn very quickly is that the function of a public advisory body cannot supplant government-to-government frameworks.

That's something we learned early on as a city that if we'll have a body like the Indigenous Advisory Council that can hold a place for elected tribal leadership, but it cannot supplant engagement with individual nations and their sovereign interest.

It is a good pathway for many types of issues, but we must also have the government-to-government pathway.

When Councilmember Warris brought this work forward to the city in 2020 and 2020-21, it was about revitalizing both channels and pathways to be successful, largely because we have learned this at a state level, is that you need both of those things.

So then subsequently, a few years later, they decided to spin out to the Governor's Office of Indian Affairs.

And this all started at an executive level until really in recent times when we started to see it codified in the early 2000s.

and just this past session, Governor Ferguson codified the Governor's Office of Indian Affairs into the state code and elevated the position to a cabinet-level position.

So really kind of creating that durability, but that has taken quite some time.

54 years to get to where we are today.

And I think what's not shown on this slide is how this process at the state level has helped us here at the city level to start mirroring it.

I hope that it does not take us 50 years to catch up just to where the state is.

And I know that your good work is helping us get there faster.

There's lots of lessons to be learned from other levels of government that have remained committed to this work and the advice that tribal leaders have been sharing with governments for a long time.

So that, I think, brings us well into how the city of Seattle has approached this work.

This is more of a contemporary slide about how I share about tribal and urban native engagement within the city.

I often think of things into these three pathways or buckets.

The work can look a lot of different ways depending on the project and department, but we do try to look through a lens of every opportunity here in local government.

Is there appropriate pathways for government-to-government engagement with federally recognized tribes and recognition of their interests?

indigenous advisory council to be able to put in those indigenous priorities, values and priorities into high level city documents and advise on different issues as well as indigenous community engagement.

We have residents, we have organizations, we have community interest groups that all represent a diverse range of indigenous people here in the city and that is also an important arm of what we do.

The government-to-government specific work here at the city has been happening for about 25 years and a few different spurts or iterations, so I featured some of those key milestones for you here.

In 2000, the Tulalip tribe signed an MOU with Mayor Schnell, and that was the first government-to-government agreement.

So again, like Centennial Court, it's a non-binding agreement between tribal nation and the city government, but it was our first time kind of going through that practice.

And then four years later, it was re-upped, and a few other tribes participated in that process of signing individual MOUs.

So you can see Mayor Nichols here in the top photo signing at a signing ceremony with Chairman Kledowsby of the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community.

in the early 2000s here at the Bertha Knight Landis Room.

Those MOUs are still in effect and were later added to in 2017 with the Muckleshoot tribe.

And then in 2023 and 2025, you all are very familiar with the Tribal Nations Summit work.

That was that next iteration, knowing that a written document can only carry us so far.

We have to build our muscle.

And the summit has really been an important framework for us to do that work.

And this is a really important slide for me, colleagues, because when Council President Emeritus Juarez tasked me with keeping this work going, there was a lot that Francesca and I were trying to uncover as far as what was the foundation in which we were starting from.

Our city has had a history of desiring engagement, but not having the durability and the living aspects to it.

And I think that's a really important aspect that Councilmember Warr has brought in with the Tribal Nations Summit.

And so even in our government to government consultation that Francesca and I have done with federally recognized tribes in our area, there was a lack of understanding of what these MOUs were for or what they do or why would we need to update them if we weren't using them.

And this is, I just take that moment to set us in the place of where are we today so that we can be better prepared to make this a living and durable experience.

Did you have any reflections from uncovering these MOUs and what they mean today or what they meant in the past?

They continue to be important guiding documents.

They help build the city's body of evidence around the critical importance of government to government relationships.

And I think there are a lot of opportunities to revisit how they could be revamped or other similar types of policy tools could be used to convey the same type of high level executive level priority sharing of our values and our understanding of the work.

and then things like the summit and the gatherings and all of the work that you all are familiar with through our briefings.

That's the important process that we continue to build as city staff.

And the tribal summit reports have been another critical piece of the city making externally visible commitments and then reporting out on our progress.

So that was something we built into the original framework.

when former tribal relations director Tim Raynon visited tribal communities in 2021 and 2022, the primary feedback was that we can't meet to meet.

We have to create meaningful work together and be accountable to each other.

So it's important that if we were going to go down this path, that we continue to build in mechanisms to make it impactful.

And we hope we're making good on that effort.

It is a long and iterative process.

So I'll just feature for you a couple of the key components of these MOUs.

They're all tailored to individual tribe, but their primary function is to affirm that government-to-government relationship.

It identifies goals like respecting tribal sovereignty, enhancing and improving communication, and a process for dispute resolution.

and it also adds a few implementation procedures, primarily through the tool of an intergovernmental committee of designated elected officials or their designees and how we would go about convening a meeting around an issue, discussing decision-making and identifying dispute resolution.

because it is always important to remember in this work, as individual governments, dispute is a natural process.

Conflict can be a natural process.

But having these types of tools and process can help us get to the other side.

And with that, that is our primary feature for today.

I know you have a very busy agenda, but happy to address any questions that may have spurred.

Yeah, on the last slide, pop quiz for anyone.

I'll buy you a coffee at John's Coffee Cart City Grind if you can tell me the significance of either of these two photos, and that goes to all of my colleagues by the end of today.

So not a moment of need to pipe up right now, but what is the significance of each of these photos?

Before I wrap this up, I want to check in to see if there's any questions, comments, or dialogue.

And I'll prep Francesca to share with us the background of the gentleman that's coming to our committee next month, who is a trainer from the state on the Centennial Accord and how to participate and how it's working.

So if you could give that brief update for our next meeting and then I'm gonna turn it over to colleagues because now is the chance for us to start digging into the who, what, why, when, how before we have somebody really smart before us that we don't wanna look too, we can look a little dumb, but not too stupid.

Over to you, Francesca.

Yes, we've extended the invitation to Gordon James of the Governor's Office of Indian Affairs.

Gordon literally wrote the curriculum for the state of Washington on much of the government-to-government background that is trained on for all state agency employees.

and Gordon provided the training to our city staff as well.

He's a former elected leader from the Skokomish tribe and has spent many years as a leader in his community and amongst state policy work around these issues.

So we're excited that he is willing to come and continue the discussion.

He has a lot of leadership and investment in helping local governments conceptualize how this work can look at a local level with cities and counties.

It's really great, and thank you for lining him up to come speak with us.

This is a really big deal.

Colleagues, any questions, comments, dialogue at this time?

Fantastic.

Seeing nothing further at this time, I want to thank both of you for coming down.

This is a really wonderful presentation, one that I've been pining for for quite some time, and so I'm excited that we...

And I want to...

The compliment is all for you, Francesca, for helping restart what had been a bit of a stalled-out process into becoming closer to being that living and durable document.

That's the North Star that I endeavor to...

to seek with you so that we are able to habitualize the practices of consultation, communication, and work together so that we're not just meeting to meet.

Every time we meet, there's a really great update.

Thank you, Chair.

It takes all of us doing this work together, so thank you all for your support.

Wonderful.

Well, thanks.

Well, we'll see you next month.

And until then, we're going to take up three pretty big bills right away.

So if the clerk could read item one, which is the second order of business, the short title into the record, and we'll have presenters come on up.

Item 1, Council Bill 121184, an ordinance relating to leases, expanding the Director of Finance and Administrative Services authority to execute leases when the land is used for transitional encampment purposes.

For briefing, discussion, and possible vote, presenters are Director Ali Panucci with the City Budget Office, Nicole Valles-Rosoper, Director of Policy and Innovation, and John Grant with the Mayor's Office, and Tracy Radcliffe, Council Central Staff.

Wonderful.

Great to see you all.

Colleagues, we have three more bills before us today.

We have the FAS Director's Signing Authority, which at our last committee was pretty straightforward.

The following item of business is the budget action, which I think is the big issue of today, followed by our grant acceptance, which I hope everyone's been able to review.

save my comments for that moment later.

With that, we have the FAS Director's Signing Authority Bill before us.

I'll pass it over to, I don't know if I'm passing it to, I will pass it to Tracy Ratzliff of Council Central Staff, who is stepping in for Jennifer Labreck, who has done a lot of really great work for us.

Over to you, Tracy.

I was going to actually just go through describing both bills quickly.

And then if you have questions that I can't answer, I will turn to our executive partners.

I have followed some of these pieces of legislation quite a bit with Jen, so know some things I can answer too.

So the first bill is Council Bill 121184, and in fact would expand the leasing authority of the Director of Finance and Administrative Services for lands used specifically for transitional encampments.

So under the existing code, the FAS director is prohibited from signing a lease agreement for a single building structure or other facility if the land exceeds 18,000 square feet.

The proposed legislation will increase the square footage limit to 65,000 square feet.

In addition, the current code caps the cost per square foot that can be paid for leases at $9.50 per square foot.

The proposed legislation would allow the FAS director to negotiate a price per square foot that is consistent with market rate.

The executive has stated that they believe the market prices are currently ranging from $2 to $12 per square foot.

There are no proposed amendments to this legislation.

Fantastic.

I'm going to turn it over to colleagues.

Any questions off the bat?

I'm going to turn it over to Director Panucci and Director Valestero-Soper.

And if you all have a presentation, which I see on the agenda, now would be the time to bring it up.

We have no new presentation, but I can pull up the presentation we gave at the last council briefing, if you'd like to see that.

I think I'll get here.

Might be.

You do not have a presentation that is about this bill.

Yes, that's what I'm...

It is the presentation that we presented to you previously, but I'm happy to pull that up and review it again.

Correct, which is not about this bill specifically.

It is about everything else.

Yeah.

We will...

No, it is about this bill specifically.

Yes.

I see it, yep.

Sorry, I'm getting mixed up with all of the slides that appear in all of your presentations.

So I think if you wanted to focus on either, if you wanna walk us through this, that would be helpful.

But I'm seeing that this is starting to cause a little bit more confusion.

It's right here.

Okay.

Thank you.

If I might, Chair, sorry for the confusion.

I think we were expecting just to answer questions.

We're happy to walk back through the intro presentations that we presented at the last committee.

It just took me a minute to get it up on the screen.

So thanks for your patience.

OK.

Thank you.

So this bill solves the primary issue of expediting when we can develop and cite a specific tiny house villages.

Service providers right now have to navigate permits, negotiating lease terms, and finding land that's suitable for standing up new shelter programs.

And typical micro shelter programs exceed 18,000 square feet, typically from 20,000 square feet up to 55,000 square feet.

And that time of identifying the property, negotiating the lease, and doing the development can delay seven to nine months just in site selection permitting and negotiating lease terms.

Would you go to the next slide, please?

So this policy allows FAS director greater flexibility in signing lease agreements, increases the square footage from 18,000 square feet to 65,000 square feet, removes cost per square foot cap to allow for market rate, and enables the city to lease sites that end due initial prep work for raw land.

Would you go to the next slide, please?

You are good right there.

OK.

Yep.

We don't need to do, I mean, if we want to go to the next slide that has all of the square footage, that's helpful.

Thank you for that little bit of wrinkle in our committee.

It is helpful for me that folks who are watching, even if they had missed the last committee meeting, that there is a little bit of both visual text via award-winning Seattle Channel as well as our verbal conversation.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Absolutely.

Colleagues, are there any questions on the FAS signing, the Director's Signing Authority Bill?

My only comment here is this conversation has brought up for me that there may be other places, this is a very narrowly crafted bill about transitional encampments and there are many other aspects of addressing homelessness that are not specifically transitional encampments.

So I'll just flag for the committee and for the viewing public, that I may be bringing another bill similar but different that will also allow us to continue addressing homelessness in the ways that are not necessarily transitional encampments.

So that's my comment, and that's part of why we don't have any amendments today.

Sorry, public comment was at the beginning of the meeting.

Appreciate you.

Happy to chat with you after the meeting.

With that, if there is no further questions or if there are no future questions, Shoot, I'm just getting all wrapped up.

If there are no further questions or comments, I know Joy's mom is watching and she's gonna tell me about my grammar as well.

If there are no further questions or comments, will the clerk please call the roll?

We have to move and then second the bill.

No final comments.

I move to recommend passage of Council Bill 121184. Is there a second?

Second.

It has been moved and seconded to recommend passage of Council Bill 121-184.

Any final comments?

Seeing no final comments, will the Clerk please call the roll?

Council President Hollingsworth?

Yes.

Vice Chair Rivera?

Aye.

Chair Strauss?

Aye.

Three in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

Council Bill 121184 is recommended, the committee recommendation that the council pass Council Bill 121184 and will be sent to the April 14th Seattle City Council meeting.

We'll move on to item two, the third order of business on our agenda.

Will the clerk move our second item of business?

And you can read the short title, not the whole title.

Item two, shelter budget bill for briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Presenters are Director Ali Panucci with the City Budget Office, Nicole Vestor-Soper, Director of Policy and Innovation in John Grant, Mayor's Office, and Tracy Radscliffe, Council Central Staff.

Thank you.

I already made introductions.

If you'd like to jump into the briefing of this bill, and thank you for having the PowerPoint up.

I will just quickly introduce the bill.

The bill would amend the 2026 budget to provide $4.9 million to support the capital and operating costs associated with standing up at least 500 new shelter units.

The total funds identified by the executive for this effort are $17.5 million.

The legislation appropriates two available fund sources for this effort, the Downtown Health and Human Services Trust Fund, $1.6 million, and Community Development Block Grant, $3.3 million, that's in the low-income housing fund.

The remainder of the funding needed to operate the new units has already been appropriated.

There are nine proposed amendments that I would be happy to walk through when you are at that point, or if you want to have the executive go through the presentation, we certainly can do that.

Fantastic.

Director Panucci, Director Vallestero-Soper, anything that you'd like to share?

And then I've got a few comments that I'll make before we get into amendments.

Thanks.

Good morning, Chair Strauss, council members, Ali Panucci, City Budget Director.

I think Tracy did an excellent job summarizing the bill.

I'm happy to go into more detail if you have questions, but I'm also happy to just let you move on to the amendment discussion.

Yep, that is good.

And so I'm going to move the recommend...

I move to recommend the passage of Council Bill 121.185.

Is there a second?

Second.

It has been moved and seconded to recommend the passage of Council Bill 121.185.

Before we move into amendments, I've got just some general remarks on the bill.

I will also note that I still have not had my question answered about...

tiny home purchases from the Hope Factory, if folks want to address that in your comments as we move forward.

I'm going to make some general remarks about homelessness in the city of Seattle over the last six years, which is that it has gotten better, it has gotten worse.

The city's ability to address homelessness has gotten better since the pandemic because we changed how we address homelessness.

Again, the navigation team led with police with social workers somewhere behind, we now have the unified care team that is led by the social workers with the police somewhere behind.

Every year it ebbs and flows depending on the weather or different microclimates, economic climates within our city.

But what I'm seeing right now in the last three months is something that I haven't seen in the last few years.

And what I'm seeing are that there are still tents and people in the places that they have been for the last six years.

And now they are returning, people are returning to the places that I have not seen them living in public spaces in the last few years.

I'm noticing this in Belltown in particular.

I'm noticing this in downtown in particular.

I'm noticing that we have not made the progress that I want to see us make in Chinatown International District, and that's not necessarily on the new administration, but what I am really concerned about is the change that I have seen in these last three months to the point where We have a structure built in the right of way in Ballard out of what I could presume would be stolen, or maybe they were purchased materials, that there is a building in the middle of our street that has a chimney.

This is something that I have not seen since the pandemic.

And what we're seeing today is that we know that we need to pass this budget, this funding for us to better address homelessness.

There are still a lot of questions on the how and who we hire and what services that we are selecting.

But I guess the point that I'm making today is that we cannot slow down.

while we're making these improvements.

What I'm really worried about is that we have slowed down, and one of the reasons why I am comfortable passing this legislation today without having all of my questions answered is that there will be a commitment that we work together to implement this legislation, that there's a commitment that we will work together to make the improvements that are needed, and that there is a commitment that we won't slow down in the meantime.

I know that this is true through our conversations.

I'm sharing this with the public as part of the transparent process of passing these bills.

And so we are going to take up this, and some of this is also that we are taking up this budget item outside of the annual process because for good reason.

And as was discussed in our last committee meeting, we don't get to see the trade-offs that we are making for the ongoing costs because it's outside of the annual process.

And this is where, Director Panucci gave us a very good response at our last meeting that we will work together in this upcoming fall process, right?

So there is a lot of, we are having a moment of trust that there will be collaboration in implementing how these funds are used because those conversations typically occur during the fall budget process.

We know that we can't wait till next fall to get more dollars out the door.

There is, a high level of concern on how we use those dollars, because if we are not being smart, nimble, flexible, and consistent in our approaches, that if somebody is housed, then they cannot pitch a tent in a public space.

These are things that we believe are occurring today.

And this budget item, it creates these ongoing costs.

We will continue to work together, and it's okay that we're doing this outside of the annual process.

only but for the commitment that we implement this together.

And so that is what some of these amendments get to.

Before we jump into the amendments, I just wanna check to see if anyone at the table has anything to share.

I didn't ask a question, but if you would like to share anything, you're more than welcome to.

Yeah, I'd love to.

In one of the previous hearings about these bills, you had asked a question about how contractors pay for tiny houses structures from Hope Factory.

I'd love to answer that question here for the record.

And so this is speaking specifically to the Hope Factory.

It's based in Soto.

It's operated by Sound Foundations Northwest, and it has a pretty deep partnership with Lehigh Low Income Housing Institute.

The way their relationship operates is Lehigh pays for the land, the rent, and pays for some of the staff at Sound Foundations Northwest, and then they fiscally sponsor Sound Foundations Northwest, which is its own entity that has sought its own independent 501 status.

Those organizations work together to raise philanthropic dollars that pay for the staff, and they offer us the tiny houses at a subsidized rate.

And so when they construct tiny houses due to the relationship that they have that creates kind of lower costs in the rent and also the subsidies from philanthropic dollars, it costs about $8,000 per unit of a tiny house produced by Hope Factory.

And they also sell those units to other tiny house providers, including Chief Seattle Club and Nicholsville.

And so, typical market rate and what it would cost without the philanthropic subsidy and the rent subsidy would be about $15,000 to $18,000 per tiny house unit that is produced by the Hope Factory.

And so I hope that answers the question that you were seeking in the previous committee.

Just wanted to make sure I had the chance to put that on the record.

In fact, that answer created more questions.

I'm not going to put them on the record at this moment, but I will say that I have a high level of discomfort in the way that we have been awarding contracts because we have been focused on number of units and not type of services provided.

Tiny homes are great for many people.

They don't work for folks who are in wheelchairs.

There's not enough room to have a partner.

Those are physical limitations of the building, not service provision.

Seeing as we have less than an hour left, I'm gonna take this part of the conversation, I'll save it for later, but I will say that I am more concerned now than I was a couple minutes ago.

OK.

Well, we can talk more about it.

And this is just related to the construction, not the subcontractors of Behavioral Health, which I will provide a separate answer for at a later time.

Thank you.

Wonderful.

Thank you.

We're going to move into amendments.

We have a consent package of amendments that were briefed at our last committee meeting.

Reminder, colleagues, anyone that wants, you can speak to these in the consent package.

But if you would like to pull it out, you may do so.

Tracy, would you like to read in, so actually I need to move Amendments 1, 2, 6, 8, and 9 together in a consent package.

Is there a second?

Second.

It has been moved and seconded to have Amendments 1, 2, 6, 8, and 9. And if anyone would like to pull those out of the package, we will pull it out of the package.

Just checking.

You're good?

I'm confused.

Are you good with those?

Can you please explain what the process is?

So we're pulling these together as a consent, and then we're going to move them as a consent, talk about them, and then count on them?

Mm-hmm.

Correct.

The 1, 2, 6, 8, and 9?

Just one vote.

Okay.

Are you comfortable with that?

Yes.

Fantastic.

Thank you for the clarification.

Wonderful.

So we have moved in Second Amendment 1, 2, 6, 8, and 9, sponsored by Kettle, Saka, Rivera, and Kettle.

And so Tracy, over to you.

Would you like to just read the title?

Want me to briefly read?

Please.

Okay, sure.

So Amendment Number 1, sponsored by Councilmember Kettle and cosponsored by Councilmember Hollingsworth, would request a report from the mayor's office on the implementation of the first 500 shelter units and a plan for how they will achieve the 4,000 new units overall.

And that report would be due September 14 of 2026. The executive would be requested to develop and implement a public safety plan for each new shelter, indicating how to keep the area surrounding any new shelter safe, clean, and free of unsanctioned encampments, and would require proactive communication with the neighborhood.

The plan should be submitted to the community one month prior to a shelter opening in that community.

It also would require each shelter provider to have a good neighbor agreement with the city.

Amendment number six is sponsored by Councilman Rivera.

The executive would be requested to operate at least one of the new shelters for people in recovery from substance abuse disorder and would request that a report be provided by September 14th to indicate whether they've accomplished that.

Amendment number eight would request that new shelter units be prioritized for people experiencing homelessness in the neighborhood in which the new shelter is located.

It would also request a report to the council on how prioritization will occur before opening the first new shelter.

And the final amendment, sponsored by Councilmember Kettle, would state the Council's priority to maintain existing permanent supportive housing and commitment to collaborating with the executive on maintaining that housing while also creating new shelter units and also addressing the structural budget gap.

Fantastic.

Thank you.

I know that Councilmember Kettle and Saka are excused from today's meeting.

Is there a colleague that is going to speak to these items?

Yeah, I'm sorry.

You're totally fine.

Council President, would you like to speak to Council Member Kettle and Saka's amendments?

Yeah, thank you, Chair, and Council Member Kettle's amendment that I'm co-sponsoring because I added some stuff in his amendment, so I just want to thank him for that.

It's just basically, as he would say, good governance.

His talking points are good governance and making sure that there is a plan for the overall commitment to the 4,000 shelters and figuring out, making sure that that report is due in September, I believe, and wanting to work with the mayor's office.

Is it September, Tracy?

It is.

September.

Awesome.

Just to have a plan forward, which helps the council as well as we are doing our budget process.

So it's something that I support and looking forward to that.

So thank you, council member, or thank you, chair.

You're the council member, but you're the chair.

Thank you, Chair Strauss, for that amendment.

And I can speak on council member.

Thank you.

Also, council member Saka's amendment, which is public safety.

reflects feedback, especially from residents that he has heard that are near existing shelters.

Example would be Camp Second Chance.

He requests the executive to develop and implement a public safety plan around new shelters that includes upfront safety assessments, cross-department coordination, ongoing neighborhood engagement and good neighbor agreements with neighborhood engagement mitigation plans.

Councilmember Saka understands that the mayor's office already anticipates doing much of this, but this amendment formalizes and clarifies these expectations.

And I just want to note that we have a lot of good neighbor agreements in Seattle, and one of the main missing pieces oftentimes is just the communication piece and a point of contact for those encampments.

and someone to contact besides their council member or the police or 911. And so that's kind of the biggest piece in that as well.

So I just wanted to highlight that.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Council President Hollingsworth.

We have had amendments one, two, and nine addressed.

Council Member Rivera, would you like to address yours?

Yes, thank you, Chair.

My two amendments.

One is making sure we talked about this the last committee meeting.

There are some folks that are trying to recover.

from addictions and it's not advantageous for them to be in a shelter with other folks who are using.

And so it is important for us to support folks that are getting treatment and want to stay sober and want to continue in their recovery.

So we need to make sure that we're putting our money where our mouth is in supporting folks who are trying to recover.

And so this amendment would require that at least one of the shelters is a recovery shelter that would be sober shelter so that folks that are trying to recover are best supported.

And then my second amendment goes to, it's important to prioritize wherever these shelters are being placed, the unhoused folks that are in that neighborhood to be prioritized.

not exclusively, but prioritized for shelter in that particular shelter, to be housed in that particular shelter.

It seems that if the neighborhood is absorbing the shelter that they should have a priority when it comes to the unhoused neighbors that are near that shelter.

It just makes sense.

So that's what these two are.

And then, Chair, I want to make some broad comments, so you tell me whether you would like me to do that now or after we pass these amendments.

Comments about the bill, the underlying bill?

Let's pass the amendments, and then we'll come back to comments about the underlying bill as amended.

Great.

So unless there are any questions about those two from my colleagues, I'm...

Fantastic.

I don't have a question for you, Vice Chair.

I do have a question for Tracy about your amendment on sober and clean shelter, which I find to be a very important part of the ecosystem of shelter and recovery.

But in this last year, under the new federal administration, we've seen a lot of funding shifts coming from the federal government.

Tracy, can you give us just a high-level overview of...

and maybe I'll state my assumption here, which is that there are fewer federal dollars going to low-barrier housing and shelter, more of those dollars going to clean and sober, abstinence-based housing and shelter.

we at the local level are now having to reprioritize how we're using our dollars because of that federal shift.

Is that correct?

Am I wrong?

Well, I would say that literally the jury is out on that.

We are in the middle of several lawsuits, I think, one in particular, but several, over the intention of the administration to try to do away or to minimize low barrier shelter and or housing in particular is what I'm most familiar with.

So it is clear that the administration has indicated its intent to want to support more recovery housing and less low-barrier housing and shelter, but the courts need to decide that, actually.

And that is a court decision about this last year's funding.

When they come out with their next year's grant cycle, they could just make those changes instead of trying to go back and reopen the existing contracts, correct?

I think that's unclear, actually.

They may be in violation of congressional action.

So I think, again, literally, this is in front of the courts to decide.

Fair enough.

Yeah, I sure hope that there's congressional oversight action.

Wouldn't we?

Right.

But with that, this just brings up the entire conversation.

I know Director Panucci and I and Councilmember Rink has been very active in having the COC funding conversation.

I share...

Vice Chair Rivera's intent here that we need to have all different types of shelter represented in expansion, and just noting my continued observation of if the federal funding is shifting, then that means that we are going to need to shift our local funding as well.

So, please.

Yes, Chair, and regardless of the funding that it's going, we need more recovery shelter in Seattle for folks that are trying to recover.

I've heard from folks in community who feel this way, and so we need to make sure that we are supporting our folks who are trying to recover, full stop.

Thank you.

Great.

Any other comments or questions on Amendments 1, 2, 6, 8, or 9?

Seeing no further comments, the amendments have been moved and seconded.

Will the clerk please call the roll on Amendments 1, 2, 6, 8, and 9 to Council Bill 121185?

Council President Hollingsworth?

Aye.

Vice Chair Rivera?

Aye.

Chair Strauss?

Aye.

in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

Amendments 1, 2, 6, 8, and 9 have been attached and amend Council Bill 121185. We are going to move on to the next set of amendments that were not briefed in committee last time, and so we're going to take a little bit longer to walk through them.

We are in good time right now.

We are at 10.50, and we have until technically 11.30, but we still have one more bill.

So that's where we are in our Google Maps navigation.

With that, I will move Amendment 3 to Council Bill 121.185.

Is there a second?

Second.

It has been moved and seconded to amend Council Bill 121.185.

with Amendment 3 as shown on the agenda.

Tracy, would you like to give a briefing?

This is a Councilmember Juarez amendment that I am sponsoring because Councilmember Juarez is not on the committee.

So this amendment would request the mayor's office to provide monthly reports on indicators of public safety in the area surrounding new shelters.

The report should be submitted to the council office in which the shelter is located.

And I have put the actual language of the amendment up on the screen for the public's enjoyment.

information, however you want to look at it.

Thank you.

Thank you, Tracy.

And so I'm going to share Council President Emeritus Juarez's comments.

So these are written by Council Councilmember Juarez describing the amendment before us, which is that she says it is the council's intent that the mayor's office will provide the council with monthly reports on the safety of shelter communities and the surrounding areas.

in particular tiny house villages.

The city is responsible for public safety and must be proactive in this role.

Homelessness today is not the same as it was 10 years ago.

We've gotten many people off the streets who have straightforward issues and the folks that are remaining on our street have the most complex issues.

Said another way, now this is my words, of tiny homes have been very effective solution for many people on the streets and the folks that are remaining today have not been successful in tiny homes.

And that's where I think we share a goal in addressing this population.

Back to Councilmember Juarez's comments.

This amendment would aid the city in identifying public safety trends and the effectiveness of tiny house villages and other shelter communities so that we may act when things are going wrong.

These reports would be pulled from already existing data sources, including but not limited to The critical incident reports a requirement of the current King County Regional Homelessness Authority project service agreements, Schedule A to Section 21, where service providers are required to report within 24 to 48 hours of any homicide, suicides, unexpected death, sexual assault, sexual exploitation of a child, physical assault leading to hospitalization or credible threats to persons or property or hate crimes.

These reports would also include the good neighbor agreements required by the contract, data from the unified care team relating to the shelter, find it, fix it service reports from the community about the shelter and surrounding areas, as well as 911 calls, including calls from the Seattle Police Department, Seattle Fire Department, and Care Department and what they've responded to.

This would be provided monthly to council members, both citywide and district by district.

That is Council President Emeritus Juarez's report.

Are there any questions from colleagues?

Vice Chair.

Thank you.

I just want to thank both Council Member Juarez and Council Member Saka for their public safety amendments.

I, too, was considering bringing amendments, and when our colleagues do so, there's no need for us to do so individually, but I wholeheartedly agree.

You've heard me say many times from the dais, including at that I believe the last meeting about my concern around the public safety issues that might arise as a consequence of where some of these shelters are placed, mainly because there are a lot of folks that come, including drug dealers, near those shelters because they have, sadly, a captive audience, and we need to make sure that we are supporting both the folks that are living inside the tiny homes and also the surrounding neighborhoods.

So I think the public safety plans are really important, and then reporting out on those plans as well.

And I'm also going to be, in preview, bringing something to our land use legislation related to public safety.

So really, again, want to thank council members Juarez and Saka for bringing this forward.

related to public safety.

I could not wholeheartedly agree more and would wish to co-sponsor if I could, but nevertheless, looking forward to passing these through.

Thank you.

Wonderful.

Council President, any further comments on this amendment?

No, not at all.

Thank you, Chair.

I'll just appreciate Council Member Juarez providing me service contracts and the actual language from King County Regional Homelessness Authority.

She has a contract for a tiny house village in my district that on page 19 of this contract outlines the critical incident reporting policy.

And then as an attachment to this contract, there is a critical incident reporting policy and template.

What I appreciate about this is that Council President Emeritus is not reinventing or recreating the wheel, simply asking for data that is already collected to be shared with council members period.

And so that's my moment of appreciation.

If there are no further comments or questions, I will ask the clerk to call the roll on Amendment 3 as shown on the agenda to Council Bill 121185.

Council President Hollingsworth?

Yes.

Vice Chair Rivera?

Aye.

Chair Strauss?

Aye.

Three in favor, none opposed.

Council Bill 121.185 is amended as shown in Amendment 3 on the agenda.

I will now move Amendment 4 to Council Bill 121.185.

Second.

It has been moved and seconded to amend Council Bill 121.185 with the amendment as shown on the agenda.

Over to you, Tracy, and then I'll make some brief remarks.

This provision would request the Mayor's Office to collaborate with the Council to convene a shelter acuity workgroup to determine the acuity levels to be served, the services, the cost per unit to be provided for the first 500 shelter units and any additional units created beyond those.

The proposal should be developed before any contract is executed with a shelter provider.

Thank you.

This amendment comes from the space of hearing some folks from public comment, working with other providers in my conversations with the mayor's office.

I think you all will be tired of me saying tiny homes work for some people, but it's not working for the folks that are remaining on the streets.

And the reason that I say that is because of how important this is to me.

I am not comfortable passing this budget today that funds all just straight tiny home villages that only have a front desk clerk and no case management.

I would have a real problem with that.

I am hopeful of and what I would add urgency and vigor to is opening additional shelters that are able to have folks who are in wheelchairs to have their pets, to have their possessions, to have their partners that come with that 24-7 case management with medically assisted treatment available to them so that they don't have to take two buses past three drug dealers to get to their clinic.

What I'm looking for is a, frankly, a higher cost shelter bed that is not undercounting volunteer hours and donated labor and donated materials.

What I'm looking for is a shelter solution that serves the people who are remaining on our streets today that have the most complex issues that cannot be solved with just four walls and a door that they can lock that really are solved with the level of service provision, case management, 24-7 care that is beyond just somebody sitting at a front desk.

And I know I'm looking at all of you.

You're not responsible for what has happened in the past.

I am just simply sharing with you what my outlook is for the future.

And had we had more time with this, I would have said I need to have in writing agreements that we are in line, but this is the moment of, if I was to pause and do all of that work today, we wouldn't get this money out the door to be spent this year.

And so this is the moment of me saying, I appreciate Mayor Wilson and her team for saying we have to move quickly, we have to move now, here's the funding available to do it.

what I'm and in that moment I request through this amendment that we work together to identify how many more high needs complex issue shelter beds do we have that come with that high level of care and how many more shelters do we actually need that just have a front desk clerk and the reason I make these statements is because every single shelter bed that we have can be used two to three times to help two to three times as many people as compared to today with a higher throughput.

And that's a conversation that I think that there's broad agreement on, but I wanna really get into that because there is not universal agreement in how many shelter beds that we need in this city to address homelessness, because I would like to see our regional neighbors participate more What and or but what there is agreement in today is that we know that we need more shelter beds today, right?

So what that high level number is, I don't think that there is universal agreement.

There is agreement that we have to keep moving today.

And so I appreciate Mayor Wilson.

I appreciate Mayor Wilson's team for keeping this moving.

And thank you in advance for partnering to understand how we implement these dollars.

So that is the intent of this amendment.

Colleagues, any questions, comments?

Vice Chair.

Thank you, Chair.

Tracey, are you able to tell me, I know you came into this later, so if you can't, perhaps the sponsor can address it, but who would be part of this work group and how would we find, since this is supposed to be done before any contracts are signed, how would council know what the work group decided in order to weigh into whether we agree or not in the particular contract?

aspects of this.

It almost sounds like a work plan.

So Section 2 of the proposed amendment talks about who is in that work group, and it includes Human Services Department, City Budget Office, King County Regional Homeless Authority, shelter operators, shelter service providers, council member offices, and central staff.

So that's who would make up that work group.

In terms of how would we know, I would hope that the how we would know would be because you're sitting around the table talking to one another.

and when you come to an agreement, you all know what that agreement is.

It does not ask for a formal report in this particular amendment, but I suggest that you all would be collectively making a decision around the table that could be formalized in a report or you are there with the decision being made.

Except for not all council members are going to be able to sit on this work group is my...

This is why I asked who's going to be on here.

Thank you for, and I'm just seeing this for the first time today.

So in terms of who are the shelter providers and operators, which there are many, so who exactly is gonna be on this work group and which council offices and then back to, because not all council offices I imagine will be part of this.

How will other council members know what came of this, if there isn't a report.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

There are some terms of art in this amendment which says that the Mayor's Office will work with Council.

I think that's something where Council President, myself, Council Member Lynn, Council Member Foster, who all have areas of jurisdiction within the shelter expansion conversations.

I'm not gonna come out here and say it needs to be me, but I will work in collaboration with Council President Hollingsworth, who leads our work down here, and that is why it says in collaboration with council as a department.

as well as within there it says council offices, so that if council offices are left out of the conversation, then that means that we haven't done the job correctly, as well as it would be cumbersome to find a time where all council members could participate.

So there are two terms of art in here that really facilitate us working quickly.

The Council President Hollingsworth can help us identify who the correct singular point of contact is.

And then the accountability framework within there is that all council offices will have access to this information in coordination with council central staff.

One of the reasons why I did not request a formal report is because much like our last presentation, this is intended to be a living and durable agreement in which we get into.

You notice that I don't just say the first 500 units that are proposed within this funding package today, but that this is an ongoing process for additional shelter units beyond these first 500.

Thank you, Chair.

I will say that though we all have areas of that we oversee via our committee meetings.

Really, that's just because not all of us can be on every committee.

And so I don't take it.

I mean, we are all responsible for all the work that gets done, whether or not we sit on a committee.

That's the point I'm trying to make.

So I just want to make sure for the record that before any contracts are signed, if we're going to have a work group and there's work product coming out of this work group, it sounds like, that the rest of us council members that aren't part of the actual work group that came up with whatever plan comes up with, the work group comes up with, that we have an opportunity to weigh in.

I guess that's my formal request right now in public from the dais so that I know that there are things that, you know, whatever comes out of this, we're all able to equally weigh in.

Thank you.

And I think in central staff's role, we certainly can make sure that the council members are informed of the outcome of that work group so that you all at least know about what has been decided, to what extent you get to influence that decision.

And that's where I'm going with it.

Thank you, Tracy.

I understand at some point we'll find out what happened with this work group, but more importantly is how do we all get to weigh in to what happens, what comes out of this work group?

That is important.

because I don't want to find out after the fact that a decision was made to do something that perhaps, you know, the rest of us don't agree with that weren't part of the work group.

So anyway, I think this is important.

Thank you.

Director Val Starros-Hoper.

Thank you, Chair Strauss.

Speaking to the need to move with urgency and speed, I'm grateful for this committee and recommending to move the budget items due to the urgency and speed of needing the stand-up shelter.

I could see this particular point creating a window in which we would slow down.

And so, if this is passed, would request that the council work with us with speed and to the urgency of this crisis that we're speaking to.

And I think this works well with some...

plans and alignment that we have with providers and with departments.

So this isn't asking us to do anything that is new work that we wouldn't be planning to do.

But where I have the concern is around the speed at which we need to operate together.

And so I'm just asking that council, we are willing to work quickly and that we can all work quickly together to meet the crisis in this moment.

Thank you.

Yes, we have two options presented to us in this very moment.

We can have these questions answered before we pass the budget amendment or as we implement together, and that's the choice.

And so I guess I'm checking in with the mayor's office now.

Would you rather us pass this bill today and work together to implement it together, or would you like me to wait and ensure that all of our questions are answered first?

What my specific question is not an either or, it's a question of our work together to move quickly at the speed of the crisis.

And so it is not, don't pass this, it's a, as you consider passing this, know that we will be talking to you a lot then, and seeking the responsiveness and the time.

I know you are all very, very, very busy people, so just want to make sure that we are carving out the time that it would take to do this together.

Thank you.

Yes, at this point in this juncture, the Council has been the body that has moved very quickly and beyond, and we have exercised tools that are unusual to help support this moment in crisis.

As you heard earlier today, the homeless situation in my district is worse today than it was a few months ago.

And so the question on this amendment is, If you are having concern with this amendment, we can pause today, but what I'm hearing from you is a commitment to work together because it is atypical for council to pass an amendment, a bill like this, without having these questions answered, and that is the importance of this amendment today.

Thank you.

I hear that loud and clear.

It's really a comment of, as we work to do this, we are hoping to stand up operators and providers in the next two or three months.

And so this is a request to work with us a lot.

And we are happy to do so.

Yeah.

I think it is very typical for council members to work with the mayor's office on a daily basis.

And so we welcome that level of engagement.

Wonderful.

Thank you.

Colleagues, any further questions or comments on this bill?

Thank you.

Will the clerk please call the roll on Amendment 4 to Council Bill 121.185?

Council President Hollingsworth?

Yes.

Vice Chair Rivera?

Aye.

Chair Strauss?

Aye.

Three in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

Council Bill 121.185 has been amended as shown on Amendment 4 on the agenda.

Council President, would you like to move Amendment 5?

Thank you.

I move to amend Council Bill 121185 as presented on Amendment 5. Thank you, Chair.

Second.

It has been moved and seconded to recommend passage of Amendment 5 to Council Bill 121185. Tracy, would you like to read this one into the record?

Yes.

This one would ask the Human Services Department to utilize shelter and service providers who have expertise in working with those most disproportionately impacted by homelessness when setting up the new shelter units, and to provide a report on their ability to do so by September 14th, 2026.

Thank you.

Council President, would you like to speak to your amendment?

Thank you, Chair.

I'll be really quick, because I know we're going against time.

But this, colleagues, we know that there are different populations that are impacted disproportionately by homelessness, and I'm hoping that we can have a multitude of providers be able to have access to this opportunity for our new shelters.

black population.

We're 7% of the population, but 14% of the folks on the streets.

And so this is an opportunity for us to diversify some of our providers during this process.

So that's what this is a request to our mayor's office as we work together on this.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council President.

Colleagues, any questions?

Comments?

Anything from the table?

Will the clerk please call the roll on Amendment 5 to Council Bill 121185?

Council President Hollingsworth?

Yes.

Vice Chair Rivera?

Aye.

Chair Strauss?

Yes.

Three in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

Council Bill 121.185 has been amended as shown on Amendment 5 on the agenda.

Council President, would you like to move Amendment 7?

Thank you, Chair.

I move to amend Council Bill 121-185 as presented on Amendment 7, Version 2. Second.

It has been moved and seconded to amend Council Bill 121-185 as shown on the agenda as Amendment 7.

And this is version two that was distributed to council members yesterday afternoon.

It replaces version one that is on the screen.

Very minor changes that were made.

This would require the human service or request the human services to open at least two new shelters for families with children and to provide a report by September 14. So the only changes to this amendment are to change it from women and children to families with children and to put in a reporting committee, which is the Finance Committee, for that September report.

Thank you.

Council President Hollingsworth, would you like to address the amendment?

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, colleagues.

This amendment prioritizes families with children.

As of now, there are approximately 2,400 families enrolled in the McKinney-Vento program.

This number fluctuates throughout the year, oftentimes.

It increases, not decreases.

So many of those families are currently living in shelter and actively seeking permanent housing.

So I know that we gave flexibility to the executive.

We understand the direction for the first 500 shelters, but want to prioritize families with children, which is is really key to making our community safe.

We always say, you keep your baby safe, the community is safe.

Oftentimes, colleagues, I am inundated with families that are seeking shelter that are within our district, and they are sleeping at different parks, at bus stops, family houses, different places.

prioritizing families with children is really key for us.

And we made the minor change because we had women with children and oftentimes there are just their families.

So we just didn't want to, you know, hinder and be too specific.

So would love your support on this, colleagues.

Thank you.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Councilmember Hollingsworth, for bringing this forward.

I'd love to co-sponsor if you're open to that.

Yes.

I will say, in addition to all, thank you, in addition to everything you've said, we know that families are also with their kids living in cars, and they often go undetected on purpose because they don't want to draw attention because they're trying to stay together with their families.

Sometimes that's because they have boys who I believe, Tracy, you can confirm this, but at the age of 14, I think boys can't go into family shelter They have to go into the men's shelter.

I think it's 14. But there is an age at which the kid, the son, would have to go to a male shelter.

And so then it becomes a family gets separated.

And so this is really important.

So thank you for bringing this.

Wanted to add a couple points.

And looking forward to passing this.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

I don't have any further questions, last comments, anyone?

Seeing none, will the clerk please call the roll on Amendment 7 to Council Bill 112185.

Council President Hollingsworth?

Yes.

Vice Chair Rivera?

Aye.

Chair Strauss?

Aye.

Three in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

And my apologies, I flipped two numbers.

Amendment 7 to Council Bill 121185 has passed.

Colleagues, that brings us to the end of our amendments.

We will now speak to the underlying bill.

I don't have further comments because I shared them at the beginning.

But I know, Vice Chair, you had some comments.

I did.

Thank you, Chair.

Please.

I just, in general, let me just say I support, as many of us do, tiny home villages.

It's inhumane to leave people living in tents on the street.

And so for temporary housing, tiny home villages is a more humane approach.

That said, we've seen there have been a lot of problems in some of the tiny home villages.

And folks are also, you know, as we've talked about, a lot of the folks that remained unhoused in unsanctioned encampments and in tents are a lot of the high acuity folks that need services in order to be successful.

We need to help people with their, whether it's alcohol or drug addiction, fentanyl addiction, they need treatment.

and they need sober housing.

And so I just want to say that while I support the tiny house villages and doing this sooner rather than later, I do have concerns about the ability of us within this current proposal to meet the needs of ensuring that we have the services that folks need, particularly the treatment services that people need in order to be successful.

And then some of the public safety issues that we can see arise because there are sadly folks taking advantage of vulnerable people.

As I said earlier, drug dealers being near the unsanctioned encampments, they're in the unsanctioned encampments.

There are also people sexually exploiting folks in these unsanctioned encampments and we want to make sure that that is not happening in tiny home villages and also that folks outside of the villages aren't trying to to take advantage of the vulnerable people as they're coming in and out.

So that is to say there are drug dealers that are outside of these places because they have a captive audience.

So I want to make sure that there is public safety in place to ensure that folks are really, the folks that are housed have access to services that they are able to or supporting their recovery.

that they feel safe, that folks around the area are also safe, and that we are not inadvertently creating a situation where folks aren't getting what they need, and it's also leading to public safety issues.

We've seen this with permanent supportive housing, and that has been unfortunate, and I just want to make sure that we're not creating these kinds of problems when we're citing things.

We want to make sure that we are both providing a tiny house village and bringing people indoors at the same time that we are providing services to folks so that they are successful.

True with permanent supportive housing, we want to make sure that people have permanent housing and that they have the services that they need simultaneously in place so that they are successful.

And so I understand the need to move forward with as the executive says, urgency.

And at the same time, I wanna make sure that we're not creating unintended consequences and that we really are helping folks and not just putting them in tiny house villages without what they need to succeed.

Because at the end of the day, a tiny house village is better than a tent on the street, but it is not better than permanent housing.

in general.

And so the goal isn't to have people stay in these tiny house villages forever.

And that's another concern that I have.

I have a tiny house village in my district.

Folks are, thankfully, there aren't any public safety issues.

Folks aren't getting taken advantage of.

At the same time, they've been living there for years now.

No permanent housing in sight for folks.

That is a problem.

So as we are building these responses, we need to make sure that we are putting things in place so that A, people are successful, and B, so that it really is temporary and not permanent.

And that we make sure that those tiny house villages really are providing services that we're not saying we're providing services, but then we're not.

Because we're seeing that too.

That is the reality.

That is the truth.

And so we want to make sure that that's not happening.

So I would like to see these tiny house villages succeed.

I would like to, and to me, success means that people living in there have what they need to be successful and to get, you know, eventually a path to permanent housing.

And while that's happening, make sure that the tiny house village is safe.

And safe means not having folks, taking advantage of folks that are living there.

So I have a lot of concerns about the proposal as it stands because there are a lot of unanswered questions about how this is all going to work.

There truly is.

And in an ideal situation, we would have had these questions answered and some of these things figured out before we move forward.

However, I also understand we have a lot of unsheltered folks on the street and we're trying to find a solve.

So perfect cannot be the enemy of the good.

And so I am supporting this but looking forward to the details and reserving the right at the back end if we need to make changes that the executive will work with us to do so.

because we need to make sure that this is a plan that's actually going to work.

And if it doesn't, then we need to own up to that and do something different, which is not something that the city of Seattle does very well.

So we need to make sure that we're honest about that.

And eyes wide open and transparency is going to be the key here.

So thank you, Chair, for allowing me to make some remarks, and I look forward to working with the executive to ensure that the tiny house villages that we stand up are successful.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

Council President.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I'll be brief because I know hopefully we're okay on time, but I want to thank Mayor Wilson and the administration for recognizing the urgent need to expand shelter capacity.

This is an important step, and I also appreciate the effort to address a growing crisis that we have seen in our community and talked about for a long time.

I also have questions about projected costs, especially for individuals with high acuity needs.

Service providers have indicated that 48,000 per bed is a midpoint on the estimate, and I know that we want to stand up 500 of these, and so I will be having questions about that, because I want to make sure that our commitment that we can continue to fund these throughout the process, and we can't just stop services just because we don't have the money.

So just making sure that we're transparent about the cost, and I think that needs to be communicated very clearly in full transparency as we are going down this together, this process together, which fully committed to.

And beyond cost, we also must address the treatment, because I think right now, it is really easier for someone to receive a harm reduction kit than it is to access treatment.

And that has been my problem since day one.

I've seen it firsthand.

I've lived it.

I've had a family member struggle in the system.

I went from living on 3rd and Pike into a shelter environment where drug use was still widespread and very rampant.

And there was no clear path to recovery and services were lacking.

only continued to exposure to that same challenges.

And tragically, unfortunately, he lost his life in an act of violence in that very same shelter, the parking lot.

That experience shapes my perspective.

So I'm going to be supporting very a comprehensive plan that has services, that has rapid amount of treatment, whether it's mobile treatment, whether it is we have sorry, lost my train of thought, mobile treatment or we have social workers folks that are going to be really connected with people on this recovery journey and a pathway out of homelessness and out of addiction and substance use disorder.

We often go back and forth.

Is it called substance use?

Is it called addiction?

Doesn't move that person closer to treatment.

So whatever we call it, I wanna make sure that we are getting the outcomes that is wraparound services for people so we can get them reconnected to their family.

So I am gonna be asking the hard questions What is the plan?

What are the outcomes?

What are we targeting?

How are we ensuring access to treatment?

and how are we holding these systems accountable from day one.

And I also wanna make the information more palatable for people.

So the information that's gonna be sent to me, we're gonna make graphs, information, links, so people can understand what is going on during this process.

So that is my commitment.

Just like you do when you can see how much we're spending per kid, education-wise in any school, making it palatable and break down so people can understand.

I know King County Regional Homeless Authority has a dashboard But we need to make it a little bit more accessible for people.

So thank you all.

Looking forward to working with you on this.

And you have my commitment there and on the record to do it together because this is very personal for me.

So thank you.

Anything from the table before we close out?

Just want to thank you all for your time and expediency in moving all of this.

I look forward to speaking with you almost daily.

And any other questions that you may have, I look forward to answering those over the process and the course of this work together.

We have an active interdepartmental team that is working on these issues as well as gatherings where we bring providers together to talk about how we do public safety planning and how we're mapping out this work.

And so looking forward to engaging with you and how we plug in central staff and counsel into that work.

Wonderful.

I want to just thank Mayor Wilson, thank you and your team again for moving urgently to address this need.

I know that the how we still have yet to work together and implement.

I will also say normal can be a really loaded word sometimes.

And it would be normal for us to have daily conversations on this.

It's welcomed, it's desired.

I open that door and that window to you because we all, the council is sitting here, even though we have questions left unanswered, we know the urgency of this moment to change the way that our streets are because people living on the streets is never okay.

And so while we still have a lot of questions, we know that we cannot slow down.

And that's why we're here today passing this budget as quickly as it has been transmitted to us.

We know that there's still a couple other, the land use bill has good and important questions that are being asked and answered today.

And I just set the stage for we look forward to the partnership to addressing the most complex needs on our streets because there are two things that are most important to me.

And this comes from at our last committee I shared five, six years ago, I had trouble getting folks into tiny homes.

Today, the problem that we have are folks have been kicked out of tiny homes because they were not successful.

That is a different, it is in some ways a good problem to have because we are getting more attuned to their need, the complex needs that folks, require to be solved, as well as the throughput is so critical.

We'll get three to four times as many people served with a higher throughput, and the inverse is that if people are languishing for seven months, then we are turning shelter into housing, and it is not okay to allow shelter to become somebody's de facto housing.

With that, Will the clerk please call the roll on Council Bill 121185 as amended?

Council President Hollingsworth?

Yes.

Vice Chair Rivera?

Aye.

Chair Strauss?

Aye.

Three in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

Council Bill 121-185 as amended passes and will be sent to the April 14th City Council meeting.

We are currently at 1128. We have a hard, we're supposed to be out in two minutes.

My apologies, I'm usually good.

We have one more presentation.

Will the clerk please read the short title of item, of the last item into the record?

Item three, Q1 grants acceptance for briefing, discussion, and possible votes with Director Ali Panucci with the City Budget Office in time, Mike Sell, Council Central staff presenting.

Thank you.

I am gonna turn it over to Director Panucci, followed by Tom Mikesell of Council Central staff.

Colleagues, I will say that I have reviewed this.

I'm comfortable voting on it today.

I have additional questions that I think that I know the answer to, and it's not worth slowing down the process, but I will be checking in with the budget director after this committee to make sure that my assumptions are correct so that we can continue moving forward.

But with that, I'm gonna turn it over to you, to walk us through the presentation.

Great.

Thank you.

Again, Allie Panucci, city budget director for the record.

This is the first quarter grant acceptance ordinance.

I will move relatively quickly to save time.

And I have two screens, so I can look at my notes and run this.

So if I get confused and forget to move the slide, just let me know.

Just always like to start with the overarching mission statement for the city budget office.

While this is up on the screen, I'll just note that this is the first of three sort of routine grant acceptance bills that the budget office typically transmits for the council's consideration each year, a first quarter, a mid-year, and then a year-end grant acceptance ordinance.

In addition, during the annual budget process, we will transmit an annual acceptance ordinance.

This is passed with the adopted budget.

These are for reoccurring budget grants that we are certain we will receive.

each year and are part of the adopted budget process.

And then occasionally, we will send standalone legislation for grants that are specific in nature and time sensitive.

So this is the first you're seeing this year.

The bill sort of does two things.

It accepts grants, so accepts revenues, as well as appropriates funds to spend that revenue if it wasn't already appropriated in the adopted budget.

This proposal covers the period from September 25 through 26. It accepts and appropriates approximately $4.5 million of general fund in four city departments and $32.5 million into other funds across four city departments.

I will note that the all grant match requirements that are described in some detail in the central staff memo are met by existing appropriations, and there are 32 grants in total.

This slide really just highlights a few of the A few of the grants that are newer to the city, like I mentioned in the previous slide, there are 34 items, so I wasn't going to walk you through each one.

There's also a summary in the central staff memo that provides a summary with a slightly different perspective, but overall, we're highlighting similar things.

On this slide, I'll just pull out a couple.

$6.4 million to the Human Services Department from the state that provides supportive services for older adults enrolled in the Apple Health Care Program.

There's $5 million to the Seattle Public Utilities Department from the state to support efforts for meeting the lower Duwamish Waterway Superfund site.

This is just a flavor of the grants that are supporting city work and helping us maximize local funds.

And so I will stop there.

Happy to have my colleague.

Tom Mikesell, add anything here and or answer questions from the committee.

Thank you, Director Panucci.

Good morning, committee.

Tom Mikesell, central staff.

Director Panucci covered the key concepts in the bill.

Just the only thing I would add is that the appropriations being made by this ordinance are non-lapsing.

So it's kind of slightly different than the bulk of the appropriations that that you all approve in budget bills, which end at the end of the year.

because these are grants and the performance period can extend beyond this current fiscal year.

They don't have elapsing provisions.

So they'll continue until they're either abandoned by a further ordinance or fully spent.

And that's all I've got.

Thank you, Director.

Thank you, Tom.

Colleagues, questions on grants?

As Director Panucci mentioned, this is the first of three of this type of bill that we will have this year.

I do have questions, but I'm going to follow up with you, Director Panucci, later, because I think that they're likely stupid questions, but they're good ones anyways.

With that, seeing as we have no further questions or discussions, I will move Council Bill 121187. Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It has been moved and seconded to recommend passage of Council Bill 121187. Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council President Hollingsworth?

Yes.

Vice Chair Rivera?

Aye.

Chair Strauss?

Aye.

Three in favor, none opposed.

Thank you.

Council Bill 121187 is recommended to be passed and will be at the Seattle City Council meeting on April 14th.

With that, is there any further business to come before the committee?

Seeing none, I will give us a little bit of an update.

This does conclude the Tuesday, April 7th meeting of the Finance, Native Communities, and Tribal Governments Committee.

Our April 21st meeting will be canceled as we just had the special meeting two weeks ago so that we could move this bill faster and forward.

So we will next meet on Tuesday, May 5th.

Seeing no further business, this meeting is adjourned.

Thank you.