Seattle City Council Public Assets & Homelessness Committee 3/15/23

Our recording.

Thank you, son.

The March 15th, 2023 meeting of the Seattle City Council's Public Assets and Homelessness Committee will come to order.

It is 2 p.m.

I'm Andrew Lewis, chair of the committee.

Council President Juarez is excused from today's meeting.

Will the committee clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Herbold.

Council Member Morales.

Here.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Present.

Chair Lewis.

Present.

Chair, there are three members present.

Thank you, Mr. Clerk.

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

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

Public comment.

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

The public comment period for this meeting is 20 minutes.

Each speaker will be given two minutes to speak and the public comment period will be moderated by the committee clerk.

How many speakers do we have signed up today, Mr. Clerk?

We have two people signed up in person and one person has signed up online.

Right.

And just a comment on the time.

I did indicate two minutes instead of one minute.

But otherwise, you can proceed with the public comment period.

Our first in-person public commenter is Marguerite Richard.

My name is Marguerite Rashard.

I am speaking and addressing something that is really messed up right now, which is unsheltered homelessness and actual, the Michael Bailey Human Services, present deputy director in which I asked to meet with him only because I have that right.

I don't Who has the right to tell any indigenous black person no?

At the point where we are, when they had that situation at that park over there, they said 90% of those men over there that was living on the streets were indigenous black men.

That's a problem.

You're picking and choosing who you're going to discriminate against and use racism towards.

And discrimination is illegal in this country.

I don't know what else you expect me to do, because I'm not the commander-in-chief, you know?

Because if I was the president, you probably wouldn't even be sitting there working.

Because we don't have no more time to use on how you gonna manage your position in life.

We've been through every extremism and homelessness.

Have you seen them out there?

Looking like destitute.

and no reservation for them but a tent or a great graffiti wall or some type of drunkenness or something, some kind of spirit going on out on the streets.

And they're not all at fault because of what's happening.

People to create these atrocities that are going on right now before our eyes.

That's why you better pray God don't turn me into God, a real God.

Yep.

Because if that is, oh, that's your time.

Thank you.

Our next public commenter is Asian a Smith.

Um, hello.

Yeah, my name is Asian a Smith.

I'm nice to meet you, Andrew.

I'm hopefully I got your name pronounced right.

I would like to speak about homelessness because when I'm a person that faced homelessness and I've been born and raised in the city of Seattle and so have my family and I have a problem with how you guys deal with the homeless.

Sometimes I feel like you guys deal with the homeless like they're not human, but they're still human just because they feel like they shouldn't work.

Maybe there's a reason on why they don't wanna work.

Another concern that I have is about the public, especially when it concerns to City Hall.

Recently I figured out that the fourth, fifth, and the sixth floor are closed, and the seventh floor are closed, but there's no actual reason why.

These are closed.

And I feel like there's already a barrier with dealing with you guys in the first place I already have to go to a screen and pick up a phone to even contact somebody.

And then now I can't contact anybody unless I have a meeting with them and then I have to have a conversation with them on the first floor.

But what if I feel like that conversation shouldn't be had on the first floor?

What if I feel like that conversation is private?

I don't feel like that's right and I don't feel like that's just And that's what you guys are supposed to represent.

You guys are supposed to be doing things that are right for the people, not against the people and push the people away.

Because all you're doing and standing for and saying when you're closing these floors is saying, oh, well, I don't want to deal with the people and I don't want to deal with the community and the community is going to have to deal with that.

But you work for the people.

and it doesn't really make any sense to me, but I don't dislike any of you, you know.

I don't have any hate towards any of you, even though my aunt and certain people might have dislikes, but I don't.

Thank you.

We have one public commenter who called into today's meeting.

That's Nancy Delgado.

Nancy, it's your turn to give public comment.

You'll have two minutes.

You'll need to press star six to unmute and then you can begin giving your comments.

Hi, good afternoon.

My name is Nancy Delgado and I'm currently a first year master of urban and regional studies student in California.

but I am a Whitman College alum class of 2021. I'm calling because aside from this public comment being a class assignment, I find it fascinating that Seattle has a commission specifically designated to addressing homelessness.

I will say that after perusing today's second agenda item on updates to unsheltered homelessness, I'm struck by the number of individuals who are BIPOC but do appreciate the inclusion of these statistics since it's critical to address, you know, the socio-political issue in an empathetic manner.

And I'll just end by thanking you for your time and attention.

Thank you, Nancy.

Mr. Chair, there are no remaining people signed up for public comment.

Thank you, Mr. Clerk.

The public comment period is closed.

Item 1.

Will the committee clerk please read item 1 into the record?

Item 1. Appointment 02500. Appointment of Justin P. Umagat as board member, Woodland Park Zoo Board of Directors for a term to December 31st, 2025.

Thank you so much, Mr. Clerk.

And we do have a panel with us to queue up the appointment of Justin Umagat.

And I believe, do we have the nominee present with us?

We do.

I see Justin on there on the Zoom screen.

So who is going to speak first to kick us off?

It'll be Director Herrera.

Yes, hello council members.

You have the floor.

Thank you.

Yeah, so I'm Marlon Herrera, and I've had the privilege of serving on the board of directors of the Woodland Park Zoo since 2018. Also since 2016 I've served on the city's Board of Parks and Recreation commissioners, which is probably where you've seen my face before.

I'd like to thank you for your time today and for your ongoing support of both the zoo and the parks and rec system, the fresh round of parks district investments and the ongoing partnership with the zoo for global wildlife conservation mission is truly a great asset for Seattle lights and people across the globe.

I first met Justin here four years ago when we sat next to each other at Sound Transit.

I've always looked up to him as a community-driven leader, and I'm privileged to continue serving with him both at the Parks Commission and the Woodland Park Zoo Board.

In addition to his extensive history delivering major capital projects, Justin spent his whole life here in Seattle, and he has an intimate lived experience of how our park system enriches everyone's lives, being the foundation of our very communities and the environment we call home.

Justin is passionate about giving back to our communities.

He had played basketball in our community centers growing up and has more recently coached some of our youngest neighbors in these very same facilities.

Justin is also president of the Associated Recreation Council, or ARC, whom you may know partners with the Parks Department to deliver our vast recreation program portfolio.

This includes being the city's largest child care provider.

Justin here was president of the board and continues to lead ARC through the pandemic, the recovery, and the future.

On the Parks Commission, I've heard Justin speak multiple times from his own experience, sending his kids to our parks through community centers and rec programs as well as bringing them to the Woodland Park Zoo.

All this is on top of his excellent strategic and operational acumen.

I saw this firsthand working with him at Sound Transit where we're delivering the nation's fastest-growing transit system, and he's always quick to find collaborative solutions to the thorniest problems, making every stakeholder a winner.

Justin will be a perfect fit to advocate for our communities on the board of the Wilton Park Zoo.

Are there any questions?

Why don't we hold our questions until after we give Justin an opportunity to address the committee.

So Justin, I think I'll turn it over to you and then Director Herr, if you could stick around in case there are any additional questions after Justin speaks, that would be appreciated.

Justin, I'll turn it over to you.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis.

Really excited to be appointed to this position.

As Marlon had said, he did a real great detailed explanation there.

But yeah, I've been in the Parks and Recreation System, resident of Seattle, I've been volunteering my time in this kind of capacity for over 2 decades now, and I'm really excited to be able to continue to provide that perspective and support.

And bridge kind of my lived experiences with my professional ones to continue advancing the mission of the organization.

Thank you.

Excellent.

So I'll open it up here to committee members for questions.

I have a couple of questions of the nominee, but I'm happy to open it up first to colleagues.

Seeing no questions from, oh, go ahead, Council Member Herbold.

Not a question, just a comment.

Hi, Justin, so good to see you.

Hope we're not losing you on the Parks Board.

You've been a fantastic representative of District 1. That's all.

Yeah.

Thank you so much.

Council Member Herbold for that vote of confidence in the nominee.

So Justin has already been going to, provisionally going to some of the meetings over the Woodland Park Zoo Board.

I serve on that board in an ex officio capacity by virtue of my position as chair of this committee.

So Justin, why don't you share from being engaged in that work, you know, what your, initial committee assignments and interests are in engaging in this partnership between the city and the Woodland Park Zoo as we go forward to figure out how to activate our public spaces post-COVID and really reinvigorate our institutions, including the aquarium and the zoo.

Absolutely.

The two groups that I have been supporting as of late is the Public Affairs Committee, As well as the design and concept task force, uh, as, you know, the public affairs committee is really looking for advocacy of the zoo.

I'm kind of looking at that strategic outlook for where they're trying to go with their particular mission and trying to align themselves to that vision.

Um, and as far as the concept and design task force, that's really where I get to.

Uh, let my professional experience shine in that aspect as they continue to build out the assets to hand over to the city.

Yeah, it's really been good to have your energy on the board of the Willam Park Zoo.

It's a time of turnover there as you're well aware there's a couple of new board members coming on yourself among them and it's been really good to have folks with that passion for parks open spaces and our institutional partnerships.

particularly with our public assets that fall under this committee.

So really excited to have you there as a partner in this work and really looking forward to work with you once we hopefully approve your appointment here in just a few minutes.

So with that, I'm gonna go ahead and move that the committee recommend passage of appointment 02500. Is there a second?

Second.

Okay, moved and seconded.

Will the clerk please call the roll on the passage of the appointment?

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Mosqueda?

Aye.

Chair Lewis?

Yes.

Chair, there are four in favor, none opposed.

Thank you so much, Mr. Clerk.

Unlike most of the board appointments that this committee oversees, in this case, the committee vote is the direct appointment to the relevant board.

So this vote in committee today in open session confirmed Justin's appointment.

it does not need to go to full council.

So that was final action on this particular confirmation.

So congratulations, Justin, and look forward to continuing to work with you in this new capacity.

So thank you so much for dropping by today.

Thank you for having me.

Okay, Mr. Clerk, will you please read item two into the record?

item to update on activities responding to unsheltered homelessness.

Excellent.

And we have a big panel for this next agenda item.

We are joined in council chambers by Jeff Sims from the King County Regional Homelessness Authority.

We are also joined via Zoom by some representatives from our Human Services Department, Deputy Director Michael Bailey, who I believe has brought some additional team members with him.

So I'll leave it to Director Bailey to introduce any supporting presenters.

And I believe that it's only Jeff from KCRHA.

Okay, excellent.

So, Director Bailey, why don't I turn it over to you first?

All right, perfect.

And to clarify, it is just myself.

I may have someone else on the Zoom call for technical assistance, but yeah, it's Jeff and me today.

Excellent.

That being said, I will bid good afternoon to you, Mr. Chair, and to the other council members.

And for the record, my name is Michael Bailey, and I have the pleasure and privilege of serving as the deputy director here at the Seattle Human Services Department.

And I will say on behalf of the department, I'd like to personally thank you for providing our team with the opportunity to join your committee.

Our goal for today is to highlight the One Seattle approach that we're taking to address unsheltered homelessness here in Seattle.

It's an approach that everyone here at the department is excited to promote.

And while we're continuously striving to improve our approach and our outcomes, we're encouraged both by the progress that we've made, the partnership that we're nurturing with the King County Regional Homelessness Authority, and the opportunities that we have to work with this council to move all of that work forward.

So again, thank you for the opportunity to join and the information that we'll cover as part of our presentation is really intended to summarize the results from our Q4 statement of legislative intent, otherwise known as SLI.

And this includes a comparison with prior year outcomes.

You mentioned earlier that Jeff Sims is here, so we're incredibly thankful to have Jeff.

Jeff is here to represent the King County Regional Homelessness Authority, and has agreed to join in answering any questions when appropriate.

That being said, if you have hard questions, feel free to send them to Jeff, and I'm happy to take the easy ones.

All right, so so Michael, do you have a presentation because it's not showing up on it?

Oh, I'm so sorry.

But that's why you brought along someone to help with technical.

See, it's right.

So continuous improvement, as I mentioned.

Yeah.

Can you see it now?

We can.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you for the flag there.

All right.

So today's agenda looks a little like this.

Well, well, Since we have members from the general public listening in, we'll start by providing really just a high-level overview of the Seattle Human Services Department, and this will allow us to clarify how we're supporting the larger ecosystem designed to address homelessness.

We're just a piece of that puzzle, but we're very committed to doing our part.

Following our overview, we'll review some data.

The data includes outcomes from Q4 of last year, our full year data outcomes for 2022, and a few comments around trends.

We'll then transition into highlighting some of our outreach activities taking place in partnership with the King County Regional Homelessness Authority, and we'll conclude by providing a brief operations update and opening the floor up for any questions that you or other council members may have.

All right, so here at the Human Services Department, we strive to connect people with resources and solutions during times of need.

In pursuit of that mission, our many divisions are working collaboratively to grant all Seattle residents the opportunity to live, learn, work, and take place in a strong and healthy community.

This includes both our housed and unhoused residents.

And the Seattle Municipal Code actually outlined six ways of doing this, which we often refer to as our six impact areas.

Those areas include preparing you for success, supporting affordability and livability, promoting public health, supporting safe communities, promoting healthy aging, and last but certainly not least, addressing homelessness.

As such, addressing homelessness remains a priority for the department, despite HSD transitioning its homelessness contracts over to the newly formed King County Regional Homelessness Authority.

And to clarify, much of those contracts were transferred in January of last year.

HSD's regional coordinators, formerly known as system navigators, remain here at the city as part of the Unified Care Team, also known as UCT, and serve a unique person-centered role in accordance with the MDARs, otherwise known as the multi-departmental administrative roles.

This includes the shelter recommendation and referral process with the KCRHA and their contracted outreach providers.

And when done well, it ensures a safe and efficient connection of unsheltered individuals with city-funded shelter resources.

While much of this work takes place at encampments and priority sites, HSD is not responsible for leading encampment removal operations, nor are we responsible for prioritizing sites.

that lives with the larger UCT team.

Our focus remains really around centering the connection of people with resources and solutions as evidenced in our mission.

All right.

And as we transition slides, We'll create space to talk about our outcomes for Q4 of last year.

Before I jump into the slide, I just want to recap the process at a high level, just so that folks have a clear understanding of some of the terms and definitions that we're going to be calling out.

So step one, our team typically engages the individual on site, engages in a conversation, and identifies a need related to shelter.

This could be that the person has a pet or that the person is a couple and would like to be housed as a couple.

And here again, this often takes place at priority sites, but we're hoping to expand that in our One Seattle approach.

Step two, a recommendation is submitted.

So this means that through the engagement, an outreach provider has identified a potential match with an available shelter unit and has sent that desire to HSD to perhaps reserve that match.

Next, an offer is made.

If the match is confirmed by HSD and the owner of the available unit, the offer is officially made to the individual.

If that offer is accepted by the individual, we would classify that as a referral in which we would officially notice the shelter that this person has accepted shelter.

And then that final step would be the enrollment.

And this really represents the individual arriving at the shelter and completing the intake process.

We're going to be talking about recommendations, offers, referrals, and enrollments.

So I just wanted everybody to have a high-level understanding of what we mean when we call out those terms.

So overall, HSD coordinated a total of 433 referrals for 378 unique individuals during this quarter.

Of those referrals, 353 were initiated by HSD system navigators, now known as regional coordinators.

and this represents approximately 87% of those referrals.

The remaining 80, Council Member, do you have a question?

When there's a good moment to jump in on the slide.

Okay.

Go ahead.

Finish your thought, please, and then I'll jump in.

Certainly.

The remaining 80 referrals were made in collaboration with the 18 outreach providers, and referrals in this quarter are a result of work that took place across approximately 114 encampment sites.

And happy to pause here before defining some of the terms, if appropriate.

So Mr. Chair, happy to hand it back to you.

Thank you so much, Deputy Director Bailey.

And this may be a place for Jeff Sims to jump into too, depending on how both of you interpret the scope of the question.

For For the portions of this that are involving the 18 different outreach providers, how much coordination is there and how is the coordination facilitated between HSD and the King County Regional Homelessness Authority for the areas where both agencies have significant activity and commonality of interest?

This has been an ongoing transition that the council has been interested in reconciling to make sure that there isn't a duplication of outreach effort or a duplication in resource.

And just wanna clarify here, when we're looking at the 433 referrals and we're looking at the different places those are coming from, is the KCRHA role, the 80 referrals, from the different outreach providers, or is there a KCRHA role in the HSD system navigator portion of this?

Can we get a little bit of a breakdown in the economy of how these offers are being done and how it's being coordinated to not be redundant or overlapping?

Certainly.

And Jeff, I recognize that you're in person, so I cannot see you.

Do you have a preference on who takes that question?

I'll let you go first and then I'll chime in.

Awesome.

So we are coordinating with the King County Regional Homelessness Authority and their contracted outreach providers.

This typically takes place in our outreach huddles that we host in partnership with RHA.

So a lot of these are neighborhood based, but regionally based as well.

And that time together allows for both case conferencing and the review of upcoming removals and any timelines associated to that removal.

So our goal is to be in true communication and partnership with all contracted providers, and that includes RHA as well.

So this number that you see here is representative of that collaboration.

To the best of our ability, we're hoping to reduce the duplication of any work.

I recognize that RHA is working on a larger data system, which will help further advance that work.

Jeff, if I misspoke or if I left anything out, please feel free to chime in.

I took the question to be more about the operational specifics and less about the data pieces.

So I'll rock through that just to make sure it's apparent for everyone on the committee and the public.

And Deputy Director Bailey, please correct me.

A lot of this is under your purview or also things that are going to be transitioning, I understand in some ways, so I don't want to mislead people about the situation.

Generally speaking, the prioritization of a location is done by the UCT.

That's communicated to RHA, and then there are weekly meetings that are largely regional.

So the outreach agencies are told where that activity will be occurring over the subsequent number of days.

It's usually about monthly.

Those meetings then are focused on, you know, who's here, who's there.

I'll highlight that outreach agencies, as they operate currently, are focused on the individuals in an encampment, not in the concept of this is an encampment that is ours.

So there might be an encampment at a priority location that has 20 people.

10 of the individuals there, one agency might be going to, whereas another five might be linked with a different agency, and the other five might be some mix of other agencies as well.

That's where the role of the system navigators are now regional coordinators.

will largely step in when you're talking about the prioritization of a site and needing to assemble a by name list, they collaborate, but primarily I think through either those those weekly meetings, or through the regular conversations that they're having to get the information they need to develop a by name list.

Understand everyone that's there what kind of needs are present things like that.

That's information that they collaborate with outreach agencies to get.

And then the system navigators or regional coordinators are the ones that are ensuring that the all administrative rules that have been put in place are being met by the city, and over the course of its activities.

throughout all of that, or maybe separately.

I'm not sure where to position that spatially.

There is ongoing work that an agency, so Outreach Agency A, might be going to all these different locations.

They might work with 10 people at an encampment that's a priority.

And one of those individuals might, as they are told that a certain sheltered bed is available that day or has a vacancy, they could nominate that individual for placement there.

That goes to the Unified Care team, actually the HOPE team in this case, to do that matching based on a variety of factors.

And that's when you look in the report, the numbers are actually from HSD, but when you see the 877 shelter recommendations, that's what's going on there.

As an outreach agency is making the recommendation, I have a person that matches the resource that's available today, I would like to put them in there.

The unified care the hope team is doing the matching process, in that sense, and so that resulted in foreign and 38 acceptances of those recommendations so the provider could then go back and actually offer it to an individual.

So that's I think what some of the nuts and bolts questions were on your question, or where I can also go into a little bit of the authorities work.

in areas where we have a heavy field presence, either through our system advocates or through other teams that are contracted.

It's all through right-of-way funded work with the governor's initiative, but I wasn't clear if that was part of your question or not, Mr. Chair.

Jeff, I appreciate those clarifications.

I think that purely for within the contours of the slide, we could have a bigger conversation about the overall system later in the committee.

I don't want to completely derail Deputy Director Bailey's presentation.

I think what I was just trying to get at here was within this outreach work that HSD is doing, if one of the places that it was touching the KCRAJ work was this case conferencing and coordinating for this bulleted bucket of 80 referrals that are coming from these different outreach providers, it sounds like that's getting case conferenced through the table that KCRAJ has convened from your answer.

Is that an accurate way to say that?

Um, I believe it's pretty close to it.

Yes.

Um, those regional those regional meetings are actually led by the hope team, not by RHA, and we have a presence there, and I am not a regular participant in this I can't speak to the degree that there's a specific case conference, and then also in talking with the members of the hope team they know that like, They might be at some location and happen to see the relevant agency and just connect that way too and have a discussion that way.

So a lot of the, as we've laid out like rules and procedures, things like that, we've acknowledged the fluidity and the organic nature that the conversations have to take.

Okay.

Deputy Director Bailey, why don't we Because, again, I don't want to derail this.

Why don't we go ahead and continue with the presentation and I'll try to hold my comments to clarifying questions and ask the committee members do the same so we can get through this and then have the longer conversation that we're almost certainly going to have at the end.

Yeah, certainly.

All right.

So, peeking back up here, all referrals in Q All referrals in this quarter were made to 24-7 enhanced shelters or tiny homes.

Enhanced shelters represent approximately 77% of the share, while tiny home villages made up the remaining 23%.

This breakdown is similar to the last quarter as well.

In terms of the individuals served, approximately 52% of referrals were made to people experiencing homelessness who self-identify as Black, Indigenous, or people of color.

And just to kind of round out the slide here, and you heard Jeff make mention of this, HSD-coordinated referrals based on 8,877 shelter recommendations from contractor providers, and this data point is duplicative, meaning that the same person could have been recommended multiple times during the quarter prior to an eventual referral.

All right, so of the referrals coordinated 186 individuals were confirmed by HSD as enrolling into the shelter, they were referred to.

This represents an enrollment rate of 49.2% of the quarter and a 22% increase in the number of enrollments compared to quarter four of the preceding year so 2021. I should note that this also represents an increase compared to the 46.1% data point that we recorded in Q3 of last year.

An important caveat to note is just the fact that the number of confirmed enrollments which we presented here is likely to be higher because this is likely to be an undercount.

This is due to challenges HSD and other homeless programs experience when trying to match administrative data with HMIS and for the viewing public HMIS would be the homeless management information system.

It's an electronic information system that essentially collects and stores client level data for those individuals receiving homeless assistance.

The reasons for those challenges are primarily around just the reality that folks must opt in to share personally identifiable information with the system.

So for this and other reasons, the data point that we have here is likely to be an undercount Regardless, we'll still continue to track in a forward direction there.

All right.

So as discussed during our committee presentation in January in Q4, HSC voluntarily began tracking reasons for decline offers of shelter, and this was really after Councilmember Lewis and others shared their desire to better prevent displacement.

And while displacement is never our goal, we also recognize that some individuals will decline shelter.

So kind of the theory of change that we're operating here is the fact that everyone deserves the opportunity to transition inside.

And in support of that goal, we want to better understand the barriers that prevent our unsheltered neighbors from doing so.

So after our first quarter of tracking, we're able to track and categorize over 200 instances where an offer of shelter was declined.

The top four reasons are listed on this slide.

And for more detailed information, we encourage folks to take a look at our slide, but it's work that we plan to continue and it's work that we're excited about.

I should note that University of Washington volunteered to meet with us prior to execution of this.

And over the course of those conversations, they did suggest that, you know, a nice compliment to this data maybe reaching out to shelters to have a better understanding of why people accepted the offer.

We've had at least one provider volunteer to help us collect that data.

And we've reached out to RHA to request permission to work with them to survey some folks within the enhanced shelters.

That being said, you know, there's some speculation and kind of several potential reasons.

why a higher acceptance rate may be correlated with some of the activities that our outreach providers are doing.

It could be the number of times you offer shelter.

It could be the number of times you have meaningful conversations with a person before you offer shelter.

It could be their desire to enter shelter alongside someone within their social community.

So having that data and having that understanding will allow us just to be better partners to both our contracted partners, but also to the individuals that we're serving.

So more to share on that in the future, but just kind of want to give a heads up to council there.

Michael, can I, or Deputy Director Bailey, can I jump in actually just, I mean, I know we're only two slides away from the end, but just to jump in on that last slide on slide six, wouldn't the consultant we hired just come back and indicate that people want more tiny homes based on the data we've already collected?

Yes.

You sort of glossed over that bullet point there in the presentation.

So I just wanted to come back and have a brief discussion on that.

Yeah.

So we recognize that we are collecting this data to inform policy decisions.

Those policy decisions are likely to be made by council, the executive, RHA.

Our job is just to inform folks with the information they need to make an informed decision.

So we recognize that multiple people are suggesting that they're declining shelter because of a lack of a tiny home.

But how we use that data to inform future investments would be up to this council, the executive, and RHA.

Can I ask qualitatively how that answer is being elicited?

Because I don't see a similar breakout category for other categories of enhanced shelter.

I don't see someone indicating, I want the Salvation Army Soto Shelter as a bullet point on this.

Maybe that's in the broader report.

But did people volunteer saying tiny home or did they pick tiny home from a menu of things that the outreach workers surveyed them on?

Certainly.

So the process is as follows.

For every offer we make, if that offer is declined, We intern the reason for decline, and if someone is unable to provide a reason, we typically list unknown.

But for folks that do respond, we ask, you know, is there a resource that you would be interested in accepting if that were offered?

And those are the data points that have been collected here.

There was some conversation with RHA last year about maybe getting pictures of certain shelters and just having a more, intentional conversation about what's available and seeing if folks would like to pick from that menu per se.

We haven't moved in that direction, but we recognize that this is just one quarter of collecting this data.

We're open to recommendations on how to improve.

We're hoping to continue conversations with University of Washington to improve our data collection.

And we also look to RHA to provide feedback as well.

Yeah, I mean, if what it takes for us to kind of commit to building more tiny homes is having our next step being showing them a picture of the tiny home that they already know they want, that's fine with me.

I guess I would just suggest that this data seems to indicate, as your response indicated, people are voluntarily saying, it sounds like without any prompting, they're using the term tiny home.

Is that accurate?

I think that's an accurate description.

Yeah, I mean, I guess I would just say, we should always be reflecting on diversifying the products that we are offering as part of this to be more responsive and have a more diversified portfolio of items.

It is fairly clear that there is a sustained and significant popular demand for this particular intervention.

And this data seems to bear that out.

So I do just think we, I don't know that we need more process to understand that component of it.

But certainly, there are other products that aren't listed here.

I could think of hotels and motels, or maybe people are less familiar with pallet shelters, for example.

But it does seem that part of our mix, and we shouldn't be I'm a little hesitant to walk and shoot them at the same time to look at ways to expand our portfolio of tiny homes based on this information and really appreciate the department is collecting this information.

And Councilmember Herbold has a follow up question.

One is a request as it relates to these reports and for you, Director Bailey, and then the second question, I have a question for RHA, so we'll direct that to Jeff.

I just, the way this information gets reported out sometimes lacks context.

And I would just request that rather than this data point number one being does not want shelter, because as soon as this report goes out, the takeaway is people don't want shelter.

And I think it might be more instructive to the general public who is either consuming media or is a stakeholder.

involved in reading these reports, if we instead said something like, shelter does not meet their needs, I just think that that is more rich language that explains the issue, rather than 24% of people want to keep living outside.

Because that's what that says to me, as reported, and we all know that that's not the case.

Um, so, um, that's that's just a request.

Um, and then as it relates to the data point on tiny homes.

Um, you know, this, this data point for this survey is. results in a sort of a different conclusion for policymakers than the survey done by RHA informing the five-year plan.

And I would just request that RHA consider whether or not the fact that we have such a large number in this survey of people still choosing tiny homes, whether or not that is a good reason to reconsider the methodology used for the five-year plan.

Yes, thank you, Council Member.

First, thank you for pointing out the phrasing of the first response is very important.

For example, I can think of a person that was an individual of interest yesterday that would probably fall into that bucket.

Realistically, there was only one option available that would allow them to bring their pet with them.

And for safety reasons, they could not be at that particular location.

And so the response was, I don't want to go to the shelter today.

Well, that's very different.

then I don't want to go to shelter.

I think that without getting into the granularity of what is it about the things that are being offered, the three Ps, pets, partners, and possessions are substantial, that we lose sight of what is really going on with why a person would say no and why they're choosing to continue to be exposed to elements and have safety and vulnerability rather than moving into a facility.

On your second question we are actually looking at a way to better articulate how modeling is done around tiny homes in our five year plan.

I think that we're talking about their style like I'm not going to play the card now but we are looking at how to fix that, um, I would say that the the primary thing is that from our chase perspective, and Mr. The question for us in when you ask someone about a tiny home it already that tiny home answer usually already includes other types of structures, for example, we have some tiny homes that are palate structures not what we have come to understand is like the particular structure built by a subsidiary of Lehigh, there's it's a, and so what people are asking us for is. something that has a door that can close, offering privacy and security, and storage of possessions, personal space, things like that.

And those are the traits then that when you look even in our five-year plan, and it's actually explicitly articulated in the five-year plan around We understand that these are the things individuals are looking for in one and recognizing that this would match my needs and create a feeling of safety and security that I would move into readily, and they were trying to reflect that and I think that on the request to have more granularity also around like what is a tiny home mean.

is probably lost on this, like for someone that's in an encampment that there's numerous things that meet the needs that they talked about.

For example, we are typically not with our right away work, offering a tiny home village, and to go to we're offering usually a hotel room, we have 118 acceptances out of 119 people we've engaged with.

That's a substantially higher number than some of the data being presented here, and I think it articulates another on another viewpoint on what's going on when you think about what people are asking us for, and how do we meet that and tiny homes can be one way of doing that but not not the universal way.

I think it's fine to digress a I'm not seeing a reevaluation of the initial formula that was proffered for the five-year plan.

I do think, I'm a huge fan through the work we did with Jess care on hotels motels, we need to do more of it.

We need to do more acquisition.

Jeff, you're personally well aware of that from from your time here working to get around central staff that we want to acquire hotels motels and use them for this work.

One thing that is comparatively attractive to complement that work with tiny homes is the.

the modularity in siting.

So I mean we hotels and motels are kind of a finite resource comparatively like any 10,000 foot plus lot can conceivably be used for a tiny house or pallet shelter site and there's just a little bit more mixing matching and an ability to take full advantage of those opportunities and cost per unit I imagine is generally speaking lower unless we get a screaming good deal on a hotel motel.

So a lot of this is, you know, we have a significant amount of consumer demand demonstrated by every single statistic except for whatever the original formula was for the KCRHA five-year plan.

But everything else that is informed by actually asking people who are experiencing homelessness where they want to go has consistently and repeatedly indicated that tiny homes are something that are desirable.

The whole reason that There is not a homeless encampment currently at Ballard Commons and Woodland Park and you can go through some of the sites that the city remediated toward the end of 2021. All of it correlated to getting 90 additional tiny homes online.

So the only thing I would say is We can dress up however we want it to with consultant reports, with formulas, but at the end of the day, this is something that clearly we need more of.

Clearly, if the public wants to see action on tenant encampments, this is going to be the fastest way to provide, compassionately provide relief, so that instead of just moving people from a tent encampment location.

We're actually moving them into a place where they can go and be stabilized and not re-enter homelessness or not re-entered unsheltered homelessness in the short term.

And I would just really, really encourage us to focus on ways to take advantage of currently vacant sites that could host these kinds of enhance shelter and to really try to work on this component of it that we see year after year there's strong demand for.

And for some folks that are involved in the policymaking decision to get over whatever their issue is with tiny homes and just embrace the fact that the general public and people experiencing homelessness really need us to do something to move forward on this crisis.

And this is clearly the policy intervention that we can move the fastest, that has the most utility, and that has a reasonable price point on it to make an impact.

So that was editorializing.

There's not, strictly speaking, a question in there for the panelists.

But if they want to respond, I'm happy to turn it over to Jeff and Deputy Director Bailey.

I mean, I don't have anything to, any quip with that.

I think that you're exactly right.

We have a dearth of resources that are meeting the needs that people are outlining.

And RHA is also grateful to the council and the mayor for expanding on some of those.

And the most recent budget adds tiny home village spaces, understood to be more than not a hotel, but something like these micro modular type of units.

And we absolutely are planning on standing that up and moving forward with it.

And you're right that we need as many We need a substantial increase.

If you get nothing else out of our five-year plan than that, I think you'll walk away with the message that we are under-resourced as a system in order to actually be able to respond to the incidents of unsheltered homelessness in our communities.

Yeah.

I am eagerly looking forward to the new formula.

So thank you for that.

Deputy Director Bailey, before we move on to your last couple of slides, if you have any comments on this conversation.

No additional comments.

As previously mentioned, our goal is just to make the data available.

And we trust council, the executive and RHA to make an informed decision.

If I could respond to Council Member Herbold, we are in receipt of your request and happy to accommodate that.

I will say that in some cases, individuals are declining to enter shelter due to social reasons.

So there is a informed decision not to enter either a tiny home or enhanced shelter.

I think with the next quarter, we can improve some of those follow-up questions.

And here again, we can provide council, the executive, and RHA with data to inform policy decisions.

Michael, thank you for that.

And please go ahead and finish the presentation and we can back clean up on questions.

Right.

Right.

Looking at some of the full year outcomes, providers and service organizations made a total of 4,446 shelter recommendations.

Over the course of the year, as a reminder, this data point is duplicated, meaning that an individual may have recommended, may have been recommended multiple times for shelter.

That recommendation becomes a referral when the individual agrees to accept shelter.

Of the 1,800 referrals made, HSD confirmed 746 enrollments into shelter in 2022. This represents an increase of 30% compared to 2021. It's important to note that this is also a duplicated number.

If we're looking at the non-duplicated numbers, 680 unique individuals were confirmed as enrolling into shelter, which is an increase from 512 in 2021. And as mentioned in our previous slide, we believe these to be significant undercounts due to the challenges of tracking this data.

But this data helps us to track historical trends, as you will see on the next slide.

All right.

So this slide compares HSD's 2022 efforts with full year Data from previous years, as you can see, 2022 results surpassed previous full year totals for referrals and confirmed enrollments.

To clarify for the viewing public, referrals is a duplicated number and represents the total number of shelter referrals made by HSD and outreach providers.

That being said, a single individual can receive multiple referrals.

Individuals referred represents a count of the unique persons who received a shelter referral during a given time period.

HSD confirmed shelter enrollments in 2020-22 reached 746 and exceeded 2021's total of 576. And here again, to clarify for the viewing public, enrollments is a duplicated number and represents the total number of shelter enrollments made from shelter referrals.

That being said, a single individual can enroll in shelter multiple times.

680 unique individuals were confirmed as enrolling in shelter in 2022. And every time we present, folks tend to ask about the lack of 2019 data for enrollments and individuals enrolled.

The reason for that data not being represented here is because HSD began tracking that data point mid-year.

Yeah, it is interesting how much data wasn't collected before, isn't it?

But we're happy to improve data collection moving forward.

Yeah.

All right.

So this slide highlights some recent key outreach activities, but I also want to use it to set the stage for what's possible.

In the past year, HSD continued to coordinate efforts with KCRHA system advocates and the Partnership for Zero initiatives.

And this was really to make a meaningful and visible difference in our fight to end homelessness.

And true to our desire to implement a range of solutions that go beyond removals, this includes participating in events such as the services and benefits fair that RHA held in the Chinatown International District.

As part of our desire to support our partners, both internal and external, HSD continues to facilitate outreach huddles with RHA and contractor providers We spoke to that point earlier in our presentation.

And again, these huddles allow for problem solving at specific sites.

And it's also an opportunity to case conference around specific individuals in need of support.

This work is laying the groundwork for the future geographically based outreach approach, which Deputy Mayor Washington will present on in a few weeks.

And as many of you know, HSD was directed by council to work with the mayor's office and RHA to align on a strategy for the UCT's new geographically based strategy.

That work is still ongoing, but I'm encouraged by the progress made and the amount of good it has the ability to produce for both our housed and unhoused neighbors.

So more to come on that piece.

This also includes some of the complimentary efforts taking place between UCT, which HSD is a member of, and RHA to further improve service delivery.

And Deputy Director Bailey, will this be part of the UCT update that we're expecting in a few weeks?

I'm happy to confirm that with Deputy Mayor Washington.

I am not aware of her presentation materials, but I will certainly flag that for the mayor's office.

And we will respond back to you and other council members with an update once one is available.

Thank you so much.

And Council Member Herbold has a question on this slide.

Yes, thank you.

My review of the Council Budget Action related to this item was that HSD and King County RHA is either intending to, as part of the 2023 Master Services Agreement, or an MOU, I'm guessing by the answer director Bailey that the March 1 timeline is not one that we're going to be meeting, but I am interested to know.

I think that there's a lot to be said about this budget action.

Even if it's not, there's a lot in this particular budget action.

There's a lot of questions that this budget action asks to be addressed operationally.

saying the same thing, what does geographically-based strategy mean to HSD and King County RHA?

That's just sort of like, I know what I mean when you said it, and I think I know what I meant when we worked on this particular budget item, but I just would love the reassurance to just understand from your perspective what that means to you.

Certainly.

And here again, I cannot see Jeff.

So Jeff, do you have a preference on who goes?

Jeff will be in person together next time.

I promise.

Do you have a preference on who goes first?

This is primarily around UCT and then chime in afterwards from where?

Certainly.

So when we look at geographically based models, you could point to the districts throughout Seattle is a geographically based model.

For us, and what does it mean to us?

It means that we have a boundary and we have a dedicated team.

And we have the opportunity to establish ongoing relationships, both with individuals that are housed and individuals that are unhoused.

For us, it's an opportunity to get to folks faster.

And when we get to folks faster, we have a better chance of building that relationship, improving an opportunity to get them indoors.

But I think When we look at the One Seattle approach and we look at the UCT, we recognize that we want to have a person-centered approach for a lot of the human services that we're administering.

That's our piece here at HSD.

Here again, the prioritization, the encampment removal operations that lives elsewhere.

But for us, it's really about having a dedicated region that we can dedicate it or that we can dedicate staff to and ensure that relationships are built, ensuring that folks are getting getting services sooner than later and improving their ability to go indoors.

Jeff, is there anything that you'd like to add to that?

No, I think that like for our days work is a little bit parallel to the work that's underway related to the UCT right now so any of our agencies that are listening I hope you go to our website and apply.

We have an hour, we have shameless plug.

We have an RFP posted to create a geographically oriented outreach.

to create awards that are geographically oriented.

To answer your question, Council Member, I would describe that as literally within that RFP, there's, I think, six regions.

It's like Central Seattle, Northeast, you know, and then there's one even for the CID, per council direction and recent budget action.

And it is the, we intend to make awards based on those six, so that you will know in region C, This is the agency, and an agency could just do vehicles, could just do tents, could do both.

There's an option to kind of have flexibility there.

You'll know who that is, who the agency is, and they will have provided us a budget and expectations and a service delivery model for that space.

There's a lot of, we outline what that is in our scope of work and how it needs to function, but that's what we're moving towards.

And indeed, many of our grantees have already moved to that.

I think for, I won't call out specific ones, but I think we all know that many of them already are operating largely in that way and our contracting structure will just more explicitly lean into the reality that's on the ground.

That's great.

Thank you.

Thank you both.

Just a quick follow-up on that.

Does that mean also that the data that you'll be reporting will also be capable of being shared geographically based so we can see where the teams have been?

We can see sort of the impact of those engagements throughout the different regions.

That's a good question.

I don't want to over promise and then under deliver.

So I'm not going to say yes, because I don't know with certainty that answer.

There is a lot of change in the approach to data.

And for example, like our outreach model right module right now allows one outreach team and another outreach team that are all engaging at the same encampment.

to identify that they are part of the care team for individuals that are there and collaborate more effectively.

So we're trying to move to things like that that do utilize that geographic nature and are very focused on how do we make sure we're working together.

So I'll have to get back to you on if we can report out.

I could see a challenge arising if we have one agency that's covering four regions, let's say.

I don't know for sure how we'll report out and if we can break that out or not.

I just don't honestly know the answer.

No more follow-ups, Council Member Herbold.

I can ask the question at the next meeting when we talk more about the UCT, but just would be interested to know from the city perspective whether or not reporting out geographically is a possibility as well.

But happy to hold that question to April if that's better.

Yes.

It might be more appropriate for Deputy Mayor Washington to weigh in.

HSD is happy to collect data to once again, support our policymakers.

But as far as the larger UCT, that's a question for Deputy Mayor Washington.

Very good.

Thank you.

And we have a couple of additional questions.

Council Member Morales, followed by Council Member Mosqueda.

Thank you.

I want to go back to Thank you.

I have a question that Councilmember Herbold was asking.

If I'm understanding this slide right, the need for reaching the agreement about how this So I just want to make sure that I'm understanding that.

And if that is the case, if you can talk about what work needs to be done to complete that agreement so that those teams can get their way.

Certainly happy to take that question.

And I believe the mayor's office has been in conversation with Councilmember Mosqueda regarding our request for an extension.

I do believe that we are near the end of our process.

There's conversations happening on both sides, but I suspect within a few weeks time, we'll have a formal agreement between all three parties.

I'll look to Deputy Mayor Washington to weigh in on how that information is related to council.

But we have attempted to brief council and are doing everything in our power to follow through on our commitment.

I'll just add that we did, I think that we have reached the high level.

or maybe very detailed level agreement.

There was actually a document that we did provide to HSD that I understand is largely fully acceptable.

And the review is at this stage, not really substantive, but more about the opportunity to just go through the process of a review and making sure that things are at the appropriate level in terms of specificity or generality, things like that.

Obviously, I defer to Deputy Director Bailey on that regard, but we are very close.

Um, thank you both for that.

Uh, I just, you know, I think we are in year six, seven of this crisis now.

And so I just want to urge everyone to get these review processes done quickly because it feels very often like these review processes gum up what we are trying to get accomplished.

So, uh, look forward to that process being done so we can move it on it.

Yeah.

Thank you, Councilmember Morales.

Councilmember Mosqueda.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks for the presentation, and Deputy Director Bailey, I appreciate that you are one of many people working on this issue, and especially related to the Unified Care Team, that the report will be more detailed to Deputy Mayor Washington and team.

I just really wanted to thank as well Jeff Sims and the team at RHA.

I hope, I assume in collaboration with some of the service providers who worked with us as we crafted the budget.

I just wanted to provide additional context, Mr. Chair, for folks who are maybe trying to follow along with the tee up of this conversation to come in the next few weeks here.

A little bit of background for folks on why we're so excited or why we're so interested in getting an update.

And this is related to HSD 035A in the budget that was adopted last year.

We had included funding in partnership, negotiated language carefully with the mayor's office, regional homelessness authority, and involved a handful of human service providers as well to make sure that we were setting up a process in first quarter of 2023 to create distinguished roles for the city and for RHA and to really Um, be visionary and how a unified care team could be pulled together, but reliance upon the regional homelessness authority for the direct outreach, trusted partnerships and connections with folks who are experiencing homelessness throughout the city.

And that there's more information coming on that, but that the geographic focus as you're talking about, and I think knowing that there will be a trusted local community organization is going to be really helpful for folks on the ground to have that trusted partnership.

And the distinct role for the homelessness authority and the outreach contractors would be to meet the needs of people.

Then the distinct role for the city departments would be focused on the location.

People focus versus location or grounds focus, and that we wanted year-round services not tied to removals, so that people were really getting care and services, whether it's hygiene services, garbage pickup, or the direct outreach and engagement that RHA partners do.

I'm looking forward to this conversation to come as well.

Just wanted to make sure the members of the public knew that this included you know, $400,000 in 2023 and increase to our human service outreach providers as well via KCRHA of $800,000.

A lot of folks just hear unified care team and they think that it's, you know, maybe only garbage pickup, but this is really a dual role that we're excited to, as you can clearly tell, excited to hear more about and making sure that people can maintain those connections and partnerships with trusted community partners through KCRHA's outreach system is going to be really important.

Much more to come on that and I'll just underscore the importance that Council Member Herbold and Morales noted of really diving into the details as soon as possible.

We appreciate that we received an update on March 3rd from the mayor's office and that the HSD and KCRHA teams have been working collaboratively.

This is great news to hear directly from your mouth, Jeff Sims, that they're very close.

And while I understand that there can't be a direct update on this topic here today, we don't have the full details yet.

I'm really optimistic and look forward to hearing more about that.

I did just want to flag one concern.

As you're thinking about, Jeff, I think you mentioned your RFP is out there.

One of the concerns that I heard, and this is not directly connected to the Unified Care Team, so just shifting topics here, When we think about how we're tracking where folks are and the types of services that are being provided, I appreciate the question that Council Member Herbold asked, and of course, I would love to see that data too.

I just want to make sure that I'm raising the concerns that we are also hearing, that it is concerning to have a geolocation system for folks who are doing outreach.

It can turn into what some providers think of as hotspots that then equal areas for people to I don't know target with removals potentially and so there's a big concern about the practice of using geolocation and I wondered if you could speak to this since it sounds like.

You know, you're working on improving data, but given the concern out there about geolocation to extract locations, can you talk about how we can make sure that that type of data is actually not being collected and to protect workers and locations?

Yes, certainly.

Hold on, Jeff, just one second.

Council Member Herboldt indicated she wants to make a quick clarification before the panel answers.

I just, the question, I don't want the question to confuse what my question was, and I totally appreciate Council Member Mosqueda, your concerns, but I don't want anybody to take away that I'm looking for data, reporting data on locations that are currently being worked on.

I'm talking about after the fact.

data on resolved locations.

For exactly the same reasons that Council Member Mosqueda is expressing her concerns about people unfairly targeting individuals and locations.

Absolutely.

And that's, it's not a concern that has not been articulated in other ways to there's also in certain communities there's deep seated and historical ramifications when you when that kind of a data point comes up so we're aware of that and make it trying to make sure that we.

revise our approaches to make sure that that'll meet the, address the concerns that are being raised.

I think that I'd point out that our primary goal here is similar to the example I gave already, that we can make sure that care teams are engaged with each other and that we truly do have engagements at a location and can follow up on that in a holistic way.

It's not about, as RHA has already demonstrated with our current activity, even without this, We are approaching all of our engagements with unsheltered and unsheltered locations, with the goal of moving people fully into a better place.

And that's primarily housing our partnership for zero initiative is focused only on moving people into housing.

I brought up earlier that out of the hundred 19 people we've encountered.

We've had 118 that have accepted placement indoors.

So that is absolutely how we are seeking to utilize our data.

and the approach that we're trying to make.

And it is not to further the use of that information to set up a sweep or anything along those lines.

We are seeking not to displace people because we recognize the harm that that can cause.

That's great and I think Councilmember Herbold and I are saying the exact same thing.

So appreciate the clarification.

I definitely didn't want to misinterpret the desire for data is something that we all have and really excited about the expansion of the type of work that you're doing.

But thank you for flagging that sort of.

there's a potential for misuse or abuse if it looked more like it was providing hotspots of targeted activity.

We just don't want that to be something that is causing additional harm versus allowing for us to make informed public policy decisions about how we can better serve folks and get them into the right type of housing and emergency housing.

So thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Muscat.

I don't see any additional questions on this topic, so Deputy Director Bailey, why don't you go ahead and finish your presentation?

Hold on, Mr. Chair.

Perfect.

That was fast.

Yeah.

Excellent.

Do you have any closing remarks before we open it up for questions on the entire presentation?

Much to share at this point.

You know, I just want to thank this group here again for being partners in this work and want to thank Jeff Sims for his attendance today.

And listening yesterday, I recognized that it was wage equity day.

So our team was chatting and trying to figure out, are there any, you know, observations that we need to be honoring in the month ahead?

And I will share that we came across somewhat of a quirky observance, and it's March 26, and it's known as Make Up Your Own Holiday Day.

So it's a legit holiday.

You can Google it.

And I think the holiday that I would choose to celebrate, and I would encourage you to share this with your constituents, is maybe to celebrate this as 359 Day.

And for folks that are history buffs, back in 1952, there was a gentleman by the name of Roger Bannister, And what he did is, um, he challenged the world on what the world saw was impossible.

And he did this by breaking the four minute mile and he ran the event and three minutes and 59 seconds.

And the years following thousands of athletes came to break the same record.

So when reflecting on the accomplishment as a whole, I think he both generated momentum.

Um, but he reminded people that impossible is just an opinion.

So I recognize that there are people here in Seattle and probably throughout the world, I think ending homelessness is probably impossible.

And just hoping that the city in partnership with council and the mayor's office and all our contractor providers can channel Mr. Bannister and show the world that that too is just an opinion.

So just trying to lead people on a positive note.

But that being said, that concludes my presentation.

Mr. Chair, happy to hand it back to you.

that is a coincidence that our next committee meeting will also coincide on a holiday given that we are here on the I didn't want to go with that one.

As a proud believer in democracy, I'm going to go home and light my Ides of March candles later, or whatever.

Anyway, no, that's great and appreciate the closing.

I didn't know that that was what March 26th is, so that was something new that I learned today.

Committee members, does anybody have any additional questions from anywhere in the presentation?

I know we stopped here and there to kind of jump into a couple areas of interest.

I also want to give Jeff Sims a moment if there's any closing remarks on the presentation from KCRHA's perspective.

No, there's not.

Thank you for the opportunity to be here and for the continued support of the City of Seattle for RHA's work.

One last thing that I would say is I really do want to lift up.

given Deputy Director Bailey's very kind words of engagement at the beginning of the presentation.

As alumni of the committee know, those words of engagement have always been what HSD says at the beginning of our committee meetings and has consistently been the relationship.

But I do just want to reciprocally say that working with HSD over these past year and a couple of months has been a very productive experience.

The data that is in this report back indicates the focus on outcome and the focus on collecting information that the Human Services Department has made a big priority to inform how we can do this work better and how we can do it more effectively and compassionately.

and continue to make progress and to not hide from hard questions.

And a lot of the data that we collected over the course of last year that has manifested in this, it has a lot of tough information for us and really lays bear the things that we need to do to get a handle on the homelessness crisis that we have in our community and be able to give people desirable, comfortable places to go that emphasize privacy and the ability to have access to a well-resourced place to live and a path to permanent housing.

You know, only by putting that data out there like we have in this report, can we possibly begin to build a strategy to get to that goal that we all want to get to.

So I do want to thank the department for striving to collect comprehensive data and to present that and to take on this work as hard work.

And I look forward to us using that data to build and develop strategies and approaches that help us get through this crisis that we're experiencing in our community.

So Deputy Director Bailey, thank you.

And Jeff Sims, thank you so much for attending this afternoon and looking forward to getting more work done this year.

Thank you.

And Mr. Chair, if I could make one last comment.

I recognize that we had a few individuals share during public comment that they were unable to gain access for a meeting.

I just wanna publicly state that I'm happy and willing to meet with anybody who has an interest in supporting our work around homelessness and I welcome those invitations.

So just want to clarify that.

I do apologize to the individual who made the comment, but we'll go out of my way to make that connection.

Thank you so much, that commitment is greatly appreciated.

Okay, with that, committee members, we don't have any other business before the committee.

Are there any remarks for the good of the order?

Seeing none, it is 3.21 p.m., I'm gonna go ahead and say that the committee is adjourned, thank you so much.