Seattle City Council Public Assets & Homelessness Committee 4/19/23

We are recording.

Thank you so much, son.

The April 19th, 2023 meeting of the Seattle City Council's Public Assets and Homelessness Committee will come to order.

It is 2.01 PM.

I am Andrew Lewis, chair of the committee.

Council Member Morales is excused and Council Member Herbold let me know she will be running about 15 minutes late today.

Will the committee clerk please call the roll?

Council President Juarez.

Here.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Present.

Chair Lewis.

Present.

Chair, there are three members present.

Thank you, Mr. Clerk.

Just a couple of notes before we move on, move into approval of the agenda.

There were some updates to the presentation submitted by the presentation for the Third Avenue project.

No, sorry, for the Unified Care Team, my apologies.

Clerk's just correcting me.

My clerk, Jacob Thorpe, did distribute that updated slide deck, so committee members should have had access to that for, I believe, the last half hour, and just wanted to put on the record that substitution for members of the viewing public, and those materials will, I think, ultimately be updated for the record.

but just wanted to state that there are gonna be some changes and the unified care team can speak more to those changes when we get to that part of the agenda.

With that, if there's no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

Public comment.

The chair will moderate the public comment session.

I will give one minute for public comment.

How many folks are signed up?

We have one person signed up in person and one person signed up virtually for public comment.

Great.

Um, we will go ahead and proceed with the public comment period.

Uh, the first person, uh, signed up for public comment is Andrew Caston.

Andrew, if you would approach the microphone, you'll have one minute whenever you're ready to begin speaking.

Yes.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

Sorry, Andrew, it doesn't seem sound like the mic is on.

Andrew, could you try one more time.

Hello.

There's no this one.

I think it is working.

I'm sorry.

Sorry, maybe we go ahead.

Sorry, we will restart your time.

Okay, good afternoon, Councilman and all the guests in the chamber today.

My name is Andrew Kasten, and for the last several years, I've been on an intensive spiritual journey, and this has brought me to many places and shown me many things.

Most recently, I found myself houseless in Seattle, and I wanted to come here today to offer my thanks to all the resources that at every turn I've been given.

It's been a humbling and incredible experience being in this position.

And I just want to say thank you for all the work that you guys have been doing, and all the work that you continue to do.

On top of that, I have an illumination that I was given concerning one of the roadblocks that seem to be impeding some of the efforts regarding homelessness.

I'll be available after the meeting if anybody wants to give me a couple of minutes.

It just would take more than one.

Thank you.

Thank you, Andrew.

Our next public commenter is Bill Curlin-Hackett.

Bill, you'll need to press star six to unmute yourself, and then you'll have one minute.

Chairperson Lewis and council members, I prepared for the two minutes that was announced in the online.

I'm just going to start.

Reverend Bill Curlin-Hackett, Interfaith Task Force on Homelessness.

We recently turned oversight of our vehicle residency scofflot at University Heights Center, and those teams are operating under funding from the regional authority.

They also have a regional authority also has a vehicle residency work group, and a subcommittee whom you will hear from shortly that addresses just Seattle.

I had a prior meeting with Chairperson Lewis and I was able to update him on many innovations being considered.

And there needs to be more conversations that we know for vehicle residency because we've got too many unagreed upon protocols.

We've got enforcement of law and lack thereof.

We've got remediations and removals, even as you'll hear UCT team today.

Too much time is going by to alleviate the harm and the supplying the figure of band-aids in place.

But one of the things I discussed with Chairperson Lewis was having a summit, appropriate city partners, just like Mayor McGinn guided in 2011, when scofflaw mitigation formed.

You know, we had no impounds under scofflaw 2011 through the start of the pandemic due to the partnership with parking enforcement and municipal court.

Impounds are off the charts right now, so we need to work together.

Let's do this summit.

Let's talk together and work out better ways to do vehicle residency.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Kerlin Hackett.

Mr. Chair, that concludes our public commenters.

Thank you so much, Mr. Clerk, and thank you to members of the public who came and commented this afternoon.

Items of business, item one.

Will the clerk please read item one into the record?

Item one, presentation on the Third Avenue Project.

Our presenters are in person today, so I'll invite them to please make their way to the committee table.

Yeah.

Okay.

We've assembled the team to solve all of the world's problems today, apparently.

So I'm going to go ahead and start.

Why don't we start with Brandy and go down the table and have everyone introduce themselves.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis.

My name is Brandy Flood.

I'm the Director of Community Justice for Evergreen Treatment Services REACH.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis.

My name is Sean Blackwell.

I work for Public Defender Association, now known as Purpose Dignity Action.

And good afternoon.

I'm Lisa Dugard.

I'm co-executive director of PDA, which now stands for Purpose Dignity Action.

Sean and I both work with the lead project management team for this purpose.

Good afternoon.

I'm Stephanie Wheeler-Smith.

I am the co-owner and COO of WDC.

We deliver care.

I'm Dominic Davis, CEO and co founder of WDC.

Lou Bond, general manager at the Melbourne Tower 10 story office building at third and pike.

And I'm just here on behalf of all of the neighbors between pine pike and union on third.

And good afternoon.

My name is Chris Clayson.

I'm an HSD strategic advisor representing issues of homelessness and overseeing the Third Avenue project contract.

Thank you.

Excellent.

So members of the public who are viewing and for Council Committee members, there's been a lot of news recently about some of our activities on 3rd Avenue.

I'm just going to briefly begin at the front here and then hand it over to our presenters just to say it's been really good to see this work coming together.

We came together as a provider community, a business community, residents of downtown, after some backsliding in the 3rd Avenue corridor last summer in the summer of 2022 to really try to figure out what can we do to increase our presence, our activity, our focus on some of the chronic problems that have been associated for decades with the 3rd Avenue corridor.

We've learned a lot of great information.

There's been a lot of hard work from everyone who's been out there.

Every day when I'm coming into work, I see the We Deliver Care team walking up and down Third Avenue and it is great to see that standing and consistent presence there.

That's just taking this opportunity to do a little bit of background at the front and really excited to hear the presentation and then have the opportunity to ask questions and have council colleagues ask questions about this work.

maybe do a little bit of reflecting an open session on where we might go next and what we can learn from what we've done so far.

And I will hand it over to whoever is starting the presentation.

Is that Sean?

Yeah.

Okay.

All right, y'all.

So, as I said before, my name is Sean Blackwell.

I want to give a sincere thanks to Council Member Lewis and to the Council for having us.

I'd also like to thank Council Member Nelson, Council Member Herbold as well.

Special thanks to the mayor's office who funded this effort and to the HSD department leadership.

Several of whom are here, including Michael Bailey, Chris Clajon, Tanya Kim.

Special thanks to TAP partners who are part of this coalition of the willing.

These partners have stepped up to engage this effort to revitalize and to reactivate the downtown corridor.

If you want to move to the next slide, Uh, those, uh, partners, uh, include, uh, King County regional housing authority, downtown emergency service center, uh, uh, HSD hope team, uh, reach.

Co-lead, uh, help one Seattle fire department.

Uh, we deliver care.

Who's the backbone presence.

Um, and there's other partners who are likely to join this effort.

Um, what is it that we're doing here?

Uh, it is a multi-partner.

multi-pronged collaboration intended to address public safety and order issues on upper third Avenue.

You want to move to the next slide?

Um, and I just mentioned these agencies here a minute ago, if you can move on to the next slide.

Um, so what is it that we're doing here?

We have WDC is the backbone presence.

Um, we are, they are, uh, you know, tasked with deescalating, uh, potentially unsafe dynamics.

They maintain a presence out there seven days a week, from 6am till 9.30pm.

They engage individuals, you know, who are engaged in illicit commercial activity, that could be drug dealing, that could be, you know, going into stores, you know, boosting and stealing to maintain their habit or for other reasons.

They offer support to them to lawful income projects.

Those are in particular the folks that are engaged in illicit commercial activity.

And they make referrals for people who are unsheltered and experiencing behavioral health needs to other TAP partner agencies.

Involved in this process is, from the outset, was information gathering.

Early on, we got a data sharing platform called Jalada.

and we also engage the businesses that are out there in the TAP area to get a baseline understanding of what's happening.

We wanted to find out who's out here, what is it that's going on?

What is it that the businesses are experiencing?

We wanted to hear from the community because we understand this is gonna involve a coordinated community effort and we wanted to get a baseline understanding of that.

Those data that are collected, the people that we identify in the TAP catchment area, Their names, other identifying information are inputted into Gelato, which is the database that we have.

And we've created a by name list via relationships that we have with partnering agencies that are increasingly being built up.

And there's a lot of opportunities with those relationships to cross check the names and the TAP by name list.

against the names that are in other by name list around the city.

By doing so, we're going to streamline the process of identifying people who are in that area, and who frequent other areas of the city that come into that area to get their needs met on a daily basis, we're going to be able to better coordinate care and streamline the process of getting them the help that they need.

By doing so, that's going to reduce the public disorder issues out there.

While all this is happening, WDC is proactively and reactively engaging public safety and health issues in a way that supplements the work that our law enforcement partners are doing in that area.

They supplement that work by doing the things that I mentioned above, but by doing so they're reducing the amount of public disorder calls that are coming in by proactively and reactively engaging problematic situations that would otherwise probably escalate to a 911 call or some other emergency response.

This is extremely helpful to our law enforcement partners who as we all know are, you know, extremely short staffed.

They also, you know, deescalate by deconcentrating groups that are in that area that are engaged in illegal activity and connecting those individuals to services.

Lastly, before I pass it on, I'd like folks to know that we have enlisted the University of Washington to do a developmental evaluation.

They've embedded with the WDC team to assess what's going on and to provide feedback for rapid adjustments if needed for efficacy.

With that, I pass it to Brandy and Lisa.

Thank you, Sean.

Folks probably have figured out that TAP is the acronym for Third Avenue Project.

Brandi and I have a super short history segment here.

So, this area, the upper Third Avenue area, sometimes known as the blade from Stewart to University and sort of with wings down to Second and up to Fourth Avenue.

This has been an area very heavily impacted by unlawful street activity for decades.

So this isn't new.

And it's important, we often in public policy discussions have a super short time horizon or memory.

And so it's important that we remember this is not new, but it definitely did accelerate and intensify during the pandemic years.

So conditions were, I think everyone can agree, reached a high point of problematic, both dynamics and environment in 2020-2021.

And so we, all of the partners, sitting around this table, had been working on a multi-partner response to encampments in Pioneer Square, the Chinatown International District, and the downtown core called Just Care, which this committee has heard about before, and I think it's pretty well understood what that was.

key point was that we had begun working together with kind of the coalition of the willing that Sean is describing.

And the goal there was to use human services tools, housing, case management, outreach, but to achieve a felt impact in a very defined area geographically.

And in that way, hold the work accountable.

You can tell if it's working because the conditions are either better or they're not better.

That was significantly impactful in the 3rd Avenue area in 2021 through 2022. The last Just Care placement was at 4th and Pike.

in February of 2022, but then that project came to an end.

And in the summer of 2022, Council Member Lewis, representatives from the mayor's office, representatives of SPD, and some local business leaders called us in to ask what we could do now about ongoing acute public order issues, public health issues, public safety issues in the area that were not directly related to an encampment, but were posing really dire threats really to the viability of businesses trying to reopen in what is still a really challenging commercial environment.

And so we knew that it wasn't going to be, we wanted to tap that same magic that Just Care represented, which was doing things that were You know, blending what we had but in a new way to be more impactful.

We also knew that what we had at that time was not, you know, just like more of street based case management, which is what Brandy and and reach and PDA collaborate on with lead.

That was not.

going to, it is an element, but it is not going to be the response that the neighborhood needed because the issues were much more complex.

And so I'll turn it over to Brandy for kind of the thought process that led us to forming the Third Avenue Project Coalition.

Thanks, Lisa.

And also during that time, we're also on the heels of release brutality and the George Floyd riots and things of that nature.

And so we also know that a different dynamic with adding We Deliver Care versus how we did it for Just Care was we needed to build that trust in the community to come and access resources to work cross partnerships and things of that nature and so we were like we need this other dynamic to make this more effective about adding this preventative mill use support throughout Third Avenue, especially at a time where we didn't have those resources through the police department and other and other entities just due to lack of resources right.

And so we said we need this effective part to do it well and so that was why adding WDC was so effective to this Third Avenue project that makes it a little bit different from just care and I think you feel more of the felt impact by having that preventative mill use support, where they're in the community building relationships with people and businesses, and they're able to see what's happening right on hand to have innovative and responsive approaches.

to supporting people in that area.

Like Lisa said, it's been going on for decades, so it's going to be a complex approach and you need people there with immediate response to do that that are relevant to the community and can speak to the community in many different ways.

And the WDC team is next up.

The reason that we reached out and were able to reach out to WDC to bring that constant presence, Melia Management, is that they had already formed safety teams to do de-escalation and safety services in our Just Care facilities.

That is work that is potentially dangerous if not done really well.

And I can say that after two years, we have not had any serious dangerous incidents at Those facilities and really credit that to the skill expertise training and approach of WDC so this environment is one of potential danger that indeed is why it was getting so much attention and so you can't just ask anybody to walk into that.

it's potentially risky for their staff and might not be effective without these skills that had been demonstrated over the last two years.

So we're very glad when we reached out to WDC that they entertained that call and took about a month to decide that they wanted to step in to this work.

Dom and Stephanie, do you want to take it from there?

Thank you, Lisa.

I think the thing that really makes this project worked best is the people that we hired, right?

Those are the superstars.

The people that are out there every day, 16 hours a day, seven days a week, those are the superstars.

I feel like some of them should be sitting at this table right now in this conversation.

And the reason why I wanted to make sure that I lifted them up is because they have life skills that they've developed surviving in the same communities that they're walking up and down the streets in.

And then at the same time, we've been able to modify a training that attends or attains It puts them in a good space where they can take those life lived skills, combine them with the classroom training and the infield training, and then go out and use those tools to be effective.

And so it's a really cool combination of how they build on those tools that we were able to give them and the tools that they already had.

So we already have a lot of talented people.

in these streets, in these communities that just need to be brought into a space, trained up and put back into those communities to go enhance the work in those communities.

And that's what's making this thing work.

When we're walking up and down the street and we're out doing the work and I'm walking with my team or just hearing them come back with the stories or whatnot, it's really awesome to see that they have embedded themselves so deeply into that community.

They know everybody's name.

They know who everybody's connected to.

They know their background, their history.

They know each other.

And the people that are in the streets that we are serving know them.

And we share our own backgrounds.

And then we're also running into cousins and friends and old buddies and people that they might have served time with or people that they were in the streets with.

And so this union has been made with this community in a way where the trust has been built so strongly that when somebody is ready for a service or some help or any kind of thing that they kind of have a moment of enlightenment when they're sober or when they're not having any kind of crisis that they're saying, hey, where's WDC?

Where's the team at?

And they'll come search for us and find us.

and look for us.

We don't even have to go search for people half the time.

We're so embedded that we can throw a name out, hey, can you find this person?

Or can you go find this person that looks like this?

hour later, they're like, yep, found them.

It's just, it's been incredible to see how this thing has, I never, I didn't think about it like that.

I just thought we were going to go out and give people services.

But what ended up happening is we ended up becoming part of a community that is in need and in dire straits, right?

They really need some help.

And when they finally are ready for the help, they will look for that help through trust and relationship building.

And so I know we tried to solve these problems for years with a punitive lens, right?

And that didn't work.

Then we tried to do some case management.

Eh, that didn't really work, right?

And then we tried this, and then we tried that.

And all these things, none of that stuff really worked.

this combination, all the pieces of the puzzle coming together and uniting our services and our forces all together is what's working, right?

I'm a little disgruntled though because I read an article the other day and a couple of different articles where some of the people that are business owners downtown or some of the people that are residents downtown said, well, I'm not seeing a change.

I haven't really seen a change, right?

But if you see us out there 16 hours a day, that's a change.

Seven days a week, that's a change, right?

That alone is a change.

And then when people start saying they don't see a change, that means they don't understand that we have housed a handful of people here and there.

We have gotten some people some services.

People are being able to, we've administered Narcan to 20 plus people that would be dead right now.

That's a huge change.

Right.

And so I just had to talk that and say that real quick, that we are making change in a four month period of time.

And I don't know what people expected us to do in four months.

I don't know how much change they expected to see in four months.

There's change happening in four months and it's going to keep growing and keep happening.

And let's see where we're at a year from now, because those same people that are saying they don't see change.

I bet they'll be at the table saying they'll be our biggest cheerleaders.

Mike drop.

I just want to say what what we're really trying to do when we come into spaces like this is to humanize what's taking place out on third.

We're dealing with a lot of human beings who have lost their way, who have made bad decisions, poor decisions, who have decided that they want to be out there.

But that doesn't change the fact that they're human beings.

And so our whole thing for our team is helping them understand that we're dealing with human beings who have families who, when they were babies, got tickled.

and had their bellies blew on.

And these are human beings that we're looking at.

They're just in a bad state.

And so we have to be mindful of that.

And so one of the things as well that we are doing to take care of our staff is to make sure that we allow them space to process what they're seeing, because it's a lot and it's heavy.

And so we bring in specialists, counselors to help them process what they're seeing and what they're dealing with.

And that's an important piece that a lot of people don't understand is taking place, right?

Nobody wanted to go out to third.

Nobody wanted to go out and talk and deal with those people.

But the team that we are leading, It's phenomenal, to say the least.

Phenomenal people and the work that they're doing is phenomenal and we are excited about the changes that are taking place.

I think I'm next.

So my name is Brandi Flood, Director of Community Justice.

And so the arm that I hold in the TAP project is with REACH in general.

So I do manage our lead project that does long term case management with small time offenders.

But REACH as a whole does homeless services and outreach work and works for drug users.

And so that's the arm that we take on.

as we get referrals from WDC and we engage in the long-term case management that's needed to support people through.

And so my focus today really is to just talk about the fentanyl crisis and things that are kind of happening in that area and just give some overview of that.

And so one thing I do want to say is that we haven't had full confirmation that xylazine is at a significant higher rate in the drug supply in Washington State.

So more drug testing is going to need to be done to officially confirm that.

But we do know that the xylosine is here and it is in our fentanyl.

And we do know that we need to take some preventative approaches.

And we do know that we don't want to take a fear-based solution approach to what's happening right now in our streets around fentanyl smoking use.

For us as providers and treatment providers, this is a different type of monster that we're dealing with.

There's not a lot of science to guide us and the tools needed to be effective, but we do know there needs to be multiple approaches.

We do know there's not a lot of numbers yet, but just from our Washington medical examiners, they have seen this combination of fentanyl and shrink in the overdose deaths that they've seen recently, so we do know that for sure.

Not a lot of hospitals and treatment facilities are doing any testing of drugs right now, but there's a few.

And so some of our partners in Vancouver and SWIM have started testing in their patients' urine analysis and have seen a bit of a 10% increase of shrink in their patients that are using substances.

And so, you know, we know that a lot of the drug trends you know, they move east and they come west, so we know we have something coming our way this spring and summer.

Okay, you talking to my ear, my what?

So, and we want to use approaches that don't criminalize people, and so that's what I'm really even worried about with Biden's response to xylosine that's in our fentanyl is that, you know, we're going to criminalize the drug use.

One thing since I have the council's ear I just want to talk about for providers like myself and WDC, who are out there with the people that people trust them they're coming to them for support and so we really need to make sure we have legal protections for our providers and outreach workers to do drug testing.

So if somebody comes to them and is wanting to test their drugs to make sure there's no tranquilizers in it, we could save a life, but we don't want to be penalized for that.

So there needs to be more legal protections for drug testing.

We need to expand our drug testing sites.

In addition to that, a preventative measure would be to have preventative help hubs that are focused on drug users and being able to stabilize people after overdose, which includes engagement to effective resources for opiate use disorder supports and so what that engagement looks like are some of the things Don mentioned like really looking at the drug users physical health right these guys are out there, they're seeing people with despicable wounds, due to the drug use.

And it's hard now for us to even connect with people to come out there to address their wounds.

And the people's wounds are so bad, we can't transport them.

It's not safe to transport them.

It looks like having transitional independent and supportive housing for folks.

We are running into folks that if they were able to have some stabilized housing for a little while and some life skills building, they would be job ready.

and we would be able to support them in their drug use and we need maybe supportive housing for those who have more severe behavioral health issues.

Due to the highly addictive nature of these drugs right now, the fentanyl and even that combination, people are needing to use more.

The withdrawals are serious.

The folks have so much anxiety around going into withdrawal.

So even when they say I want to quit, and we could get them help.

They can't even make it through the screenings and the intakes because they need to go to use again.

And so that makes it complicated for any kind of medicated treatment because their tolerance gets higher because they have to use more.

So it's harder to get those doses up to a level to fight the withdrawals fast enough.

And the few drugs that do get up a little faster, the blockers are so intense that people don't want to lose that euphoric high that they have.

So it's a very complicated drug to treat, which is why you would need some stabilization centers, because people are going to have to go there multiple times to get help, multiple attempts to get people connected to service and ready to work.

A lot of our folks are even abandoning treatment because it takes a little bit longer for those doses to get up to a level where they could support their needs.

And so for outreach workers like WC, Reach Out, Reaching Myself, we need those stabilization centers to take people to when they say they're ready to get help.

They've overtone probably more than 30 overdoses.

There is no space to take that person to heal up and then connect to services.

And so just for our lead team alone, I'm not even talking about all of REACH or even COLE, just on lead, we've had 10 overdoses since January.

I don't know how many of those overdoses were connected with xylosine, but we've had 10 overdoses.

And so I'm just saying all this, probably preaching to the choir, but we need more creative approaches from all segments of our communities.

And one thing I heard from Mayor Herold on Monday was that we need multiple approaches.

The one thing he said is we're not gonna give up on people.

And so to me, that translates that we're not gonna do just one thing or the other thing.

We're gonna do all the things to support our drug users And what WDC is seeing on Third Avenue is disproportionately people of color, especially we have a lot of women out there and young women out there.

And so these are very vulnerable segments of our community that we need to take a health approach to drug users and not a criminal approach.

And we need to give providers the space and time for engagement.

It's not going to be a quick fix.

for any of those things.

We've never seen a monster come through in this way to kill and destroy the way this fentanyl and this drink is working together.

And so I just wanted to spread that and definitely ask for legal protections for outreach workers and providers to be able to test these drugs for our folks to make sure they have a clean drug supply.

I'll pass it over to Sean.

Can I give a couple minutes to Lou Bond of Melbourne Tower to a member of the business community out there?

Well, you know, uh, thank you to all of the groups because it's the first time in my 36 years, uh, being at third and pike that I've seen, um, collaboration, uh, a real collaboration.

Um, it's always been one group or another group trying to tackle it.

And it's so multifaceted, whether it be drug addiction, whether it be, you know, some kind of stress syndrome that happened in their past, whether it's a mental illness, uh, it's so, uh, rampant and that, It's just more challenging than just one answer or solution.

And so that's been eye-opening for us.

I say as a neighborhood, we have been challenged.

It has been the blade.

It's been that way since I was a kid.

The challenges is that we've got a couple of things that have happened.

One, we've become more permissive on drugs and it's become common use just to be in the open about it.

And that's been a real challenge.

The second part of it that's been incredibly difficult, and again, we all have, you know, our kids, our moms, our dads, our brothers and sisters, it's gonna affect anybody, right?

And so I really appreciate what you've said that these are people, right?

These are our brothers and sisters, right?

They could be any of them.

I talk to my kids all the time saying, be careful.

Don't, I mean, it's one thing to, you know, smoke, you know, dope or, you know, hash or whatever when you're a kid.

This is nothing like it is today.

And it's scary, it's frightening.

I appreciate the work that WDC has been.

We see them.

They've engaged our retailers.

They've engaged us and workers and people that are down there.

But they're also really a human face to connect.

I was shocked, Sean, WDC and everyone.

I was shocked that they've already accounted for 500 people.

I see regular people every morning, every afternoon, every evening, and it's a different group.

I was shocked that there's 500 names, 500 souls, 500 people that they've connected with.

And I'm really hoping that it doesn't stop here, that we're really are going to find shelter for them, that we're gonna take them off the streets.

We're gonna put them somewhere and get them the wraparound services.

I applaud council member Lewis, I applaud the mayor, I applaud the city council.

Because it's been a long time since everybody's really been pulling in the same direction.

So I pray that it really is a solution, that we really do help these people because they need it badly.

So thank you again for letting me be part of it.

Yeah, thank you, Lou.

Yeah, so my job is to kind of sum this up a little bit.

I think it's been said here a couple of times that this has been a longstanding problem for decades since Lou was a kid, he said.

So this has been there for a minute.

And so we got, you know, we got an issue that's been there for a long time.

How are we going to tackle this in a new, innovative, different way?

Well, Lou just highlighted that.

We're going to collaborate.

We're going to coordinate care for the individuals out there in a way that's never been done before.

And I think that's something that we need to really think about critically when we look at the different organizations that are collaborating on this, that it's not just a medley of organizations that are stepping on each other, that are, you know, there's waste, fraud, and abuse involved with that process.

No, care coordination is actually an evidence-based practice that has been proven to prevent the duplication of services when all the providers are working together and they're communicating.

That's the way that you're going to really tackle this problem proactively, reactively across the board.

So this is a different way of doing this.

WDC has collected Numerous names of, you know, individuals out there.

We, this week, right now, we are, we've screened a number of people.

They're gonna be co-facilitated into co-lead housing.

We're connecting with RHA.

We're building those relationships with HSD.

What we're really needing here is the prioritization of resources for Third Avenue, in line with what the mayor has, you know, asked for with the downtown activation plan.

We view third Avenue project as a major component of the downtown activation plan.

Um, supplementary to what SPD is doing, but also supplementary to what the other service providers are doing.

It's like a dual approach there that covers both of those areas.

We've collected those names.

We've identified who's out there.

We know that a large segment of the people that are on the Project for Zero list, that it's likely that a lot of those people frequent that area on a daily basis.

Me personally, I think that this site, you know, would benefit from being prioritized as a site.

I think that the level of need that shows up there on a regular basis necessitates that the city and the county coordinate very closely together with this project, use those names, use the Gelada platform that we have, harness this moment to actually tackle this problem and the way that it deserves to be tackled.

So with that, I'll pass it to Lisa.

Just one global remark.

Speaking of articles that we didn't all love, there was an editorial by the Seattle Times about too much of a good thing, too many organizations working in the same space with duplicative administrative charges.

I think it's really important to note that every organization participating in the third avenue project except WDC because they were asked to stand up a completely new wing or team of their their enterprise but everybody else is doing this work within budget so people are doing more work than they were originally contracted to do for no extra charge and it is very difficult and complex work but we I think we all get it that it's fundamental to our mission so um I would hope that that is the kind of one Seattle attitude that folks would celebrate because nobody had to do this and people step forward in that coalition of the willing.

So what's next?

We are really at an important moment.

As Sean said, this is really a data-driven effort.

We in record time commissioned the build of this information sharing platform so that we have a place for a by name list to sit.

There were A few weeks ago when the Seattle Times asked this question, 463 unique names and records in that database, there are obviously more now.

Of those, 424 were identified as unsheltered.

So I think, you know, the data tell us something that until now we could really only have guessed at, which is that we're not going to get very far.

with the chaotic life circumstances that people are in, unless there is a plan to house a significant number of those people.

What's great is that KCRHA, the Regional Homelessness Authority, has been tracking this project all along.

They have made their database available to this project.

So we can see the extent to which there is already overlap, or that what I think is generally going to be true, the names in the Third Avenue project by name list will be available to be integrated into the partnership for zero.

And then RHA has commented that this is an opportunity to shift focus with Partnership for Zero from what Mark Jones called fixed sites to a situation like this, where you have people who are there's not an encampment in this area.

Instead, there are a large collection of individual people who are unsheltered, who are having an impact in this neighborhood.

So that's just a different definition of the task.

And their openness is notable.

As well, even though most of the people who are in the area are people who have needs that can be addressed, and that's the strategy, there are some operations in the area that are exploitative, high-level trafficking, both sale of drugs and human trafficking.

And it's really been great that SPD has been open to coordination with us talking about the proper division of labor, very similar to what the mayor described on Monday.

in his downtown revitalization press conference about, you know, there are some tasks that are for law enforcement, then there's a much higher volume of people for whom the most effective response is gonna be coordinated care.

Finally, we see that there is a group of people for whom, who like Brandy said, are not in a position to even be able to coordinate with case managers.

That's kind of new for us decade that LEAD has been operating, almost everybody that we've ever been referred can work with a case manager.

But now there are people who are using so frequently and physically are so compromised by the nature of the current drug supply that that's not even possible.

So we're meeting to talk about the civil commitment, the incredibly broken civil commitment system for people in that situation.

And how to make it more usable for that slice of the population for whom nothing else that we're offering is even really gonna land the downtown Seattle Association which has been a great partner that I'm not sure we named.

is calling for a sort of, you know, mid way assessment roundtable next week where what do we know what does that mean about investments and policy and we will be there to share like Sean said this is a public you know public funds built it and entities that are publicly funded even if not with new money.

contributed to it.

Now we want to make it available to drive policy for the rest of the year and into next year and really hope that we can fine-tune the next six months so that we're working with better resources than we have at this moment for the people that WDC and the other partners have pretty thoroughly identified and mapped what the dynamics are.

Thank you.

That's all we had.

COB, Ryan Noleson & Gabbard.

He or she is not on mute.

What would that look like what kind of support and product would be most suitable for the population that you're interacting with on Third Avenue, knowing that there's probably a.

fairly significant degree of difference.

I mean, Lisa used to alluded to, there's a certain cohort where involuntary commitment is probably a strategy that might be warranted.

But I'm speaking more toward like the folks who we interacted with during, you know, through just care or whatever else.

Like, is it tiny house villages?

Is it hotels, motels?

Is it pallets?

And then what kind of wraparound services?

What kind of provider services do we need to be prepared to offer?

Because I think that would be instructive for our next steps to, you know, we have the list, we know who's there, we need to work on strategies to help them move on and not be on Third Avenue anymore.

And that means having places for people to go.

So, Brandy, it looks like you're eager to respond, so I'll start with you.

Not to be dramatic, Council Member Lewis, but we need everything.

We need everything so you need transitional housing.

We need permanent supported housing we need independent housing so that's just one segment.

We do need shelter, we do need some shelter to be able to take folks to in the moment when they're encountering people who for one do want to go to shelter and want to get out of the area there.

That also will support some of the business needs as well to push people along.

We also need stabilization centers or health hubs for our people who are post overdose are drug users.

We don't have any spaces, you know, they have really bad wound issues and things of that nature.

We don't have any place for people to stabilize.

And like Lisa mentioned, we don't have a civil commitment system.

So if somebody's having a mental health episode, the initial partnership we have, they don't come out for 72 hours.

Sometimes we've put in DCR reports and that might take weeks to come get somebody.

So if somebody is just kind of, for lack of a better term, wiling out in the business area there in the street, there is nowhere for WDC or Reach to Take folks.

For example, we do have a sobering center.

It's open from 5 p.m.

to 5 a.m., but it only serves people who use alcohol.

It doesn't serve people who use drugs.

We only have two detox centers right now that we could access.

One's in Ballard and one's with Valley Cities.

You need all of those multiple options to be able to take whatever approach based on what that person needs in the moment.

And so we need multiple shelter housing options to serve this very complicated population.

Right now, we don't have a back pocket for anything.

Right now, like if somebody's kind of wilding out and WC is caring for them, that outreach record is just with that person for three hours to keep them stable so they're not running in the street or anything like that.

So we need everything.

Can I zoom in just on the stabilization center for a little bit more clarification?

How many beds do you think would be appropriate for siting for a stabilization center?

What kind of hours?

Are we looking like 24 hours?

24-7, seven days a week.

24-7.

Then staff, how much staff is required to be able to operate a facility like that that's 24-7?

Then location would be my last question.

How close does it need to be?

To me, you mentioned earlier that a lot of it is is given with the tempo of using.

So how close would it have to be close to downtown and you'd be real close downtown where it's easy to get to not far at those sites, not only would you need, like, outreach workers and homeless services workers, you're gonna need nurses, you're gonna need medical providers, maybe a prescriber in that space.

And I hate to speak to it because just because you're homeless or on drugs doesn't mean you're violent, but violence does occur in some of these areas.

So you're gonna need staff there that are able to kind of manage the milieu around those things.

I'm not a medical provider, so I don't know the healthy therapeutic number for a site like that, at least 20 to 50 spots would be useful in this downtown area where they would be able to take folks to stabilize in seven days a week and 24 seven and low barrier.

Like it can't be a system to where the only people can refer or law enforcement or EMTs or firemen.

It needs to be able to be outreach workers, homeless service workers that can make that referral to get that person into that stabilization site.

Well, I think we need more than 50. We're talking 500 people already that we came across.

That's a huge number of people.

I'm not saying all of them would have to go to this crisis center or whatever we want to call it.

But if we're talking to 500 people in four months, just imagine how many people are going to run across in the next four months and then how many people out of those hundreds of people are going to need this service or need to be able to be provided a bed.

I just don't know the therapeutic number.

So whatever that is medically.

I was gonna say, I mean I think a stabilization center is by definition very transitory, we, and that has its place but where people, you know, at that.

Once they're there they have to exit back to the streets.

long-term emergency housing, transitional housing, what RHA calls or has called bridge housing, non-congregate shelter, those options.

So COLEAD was built to provide that and today and tomorrow we are placing some people from the Third Avenue project into the 10 co-lead rooms that HSD was able to allow us to use for this project.

That's obviously a tiny fraction of what is needed.

Once people are placed in that kind of low barrier, non-congregate setting, And it shouldn't just be one program having a what just care was very, you know what we kind of came to understand is that having a portfolio of choices like Brandy said many things are helpful so that we can do right match.

Sometimes two people can't be together in the same place so having more than one place is very important.

And sometimes people just it just for whatever reason location otherwise is a better match.

But once people are in a temporary lodging situation like that they also need.

a move on housing plan and so ultimately this all comes back to prioritizing this ecosystem for how permanent housing strategies and to get their shorter term placements, where we can really work with people remove barriers to housing.

and figure out what's deeply, more deeply going on.

So it sounds like in summary, the same kind of diversified portfolio of shelter options that we use during Just Care would probably be effective with this cohort, which included like the hotels, motels, tiny houses, and like kind of like nav center type placements.

Yes.

And then to Brandy's point, it sounds like an additional asset that would be helpful would be some kind of stabilization center as a first step.

for folks where a barrier is the tempo of their fentanyl.

So I want to move on to something that's related to that.

It was mentioned several times during the presentation that a number of folks who you are working with in this cohort would be good candidates for pursuing employment, ultimately, if there were the right opportunities and they had received some kind of stabilization services.

Can you talk a little bit more about that?

I did read in one of the recent stories that there is an initial partner, LAZ Parking, who is providing employment opportunities in this.

How is that program structured, or how is that anticipated to work?

Yeah, so we've connected with LAZ Parking, who stepped up really early on and said, you know what, this is something that we're interested in helping you guys with.

What's really been good about that process as well is that they've been able to see how, you know, a person who has a background who's in the TAP area engaged in illicit commercial activity, when we connect with LAZ and said, okay, here's what this looks like, then they had to think about their policies that were impediments to people to actually get gainful employment at their agency.

And so there's a major catch 22 with employment.

And I think that LAZ firsthand got to see how those impediments are, you know, leading to more people engaging in you know, illicit commercial activity in that area.

And so by working with us, there was a bit of an education process.

They had to bring in their national HR team and make some adjustments.

They've been super collaborative along the way.

It's been a really great learning process.

And right now they've said, you know, we have 10 to 15 spots that we could, you know, have folks from TAP who are having an impact in that area.

go in and work, you know, as roving parking lot checkers and, you know, jobs like that.

So we have developed a screening form.

WDC has screened someone who's gonna be like the first person that's gonna do that.

And we're gonna be really intentional about, you know, who we have go work with WDC.

In addition to folks, I mean, who would go work with LAZ, in addition to who will work with LAZ, We have folks who are gonna need light case management support, more robust case management support.

We worked with DSA who is really a leader in the city on like co-facilitating people who are homeless into gainful employment as mid ambassadors.

We worked with them, got a really good map of how they do that process.

We took those data And we're going to use some of those data to help us co-facilitate folks into employment with some of the other agencies that we're working with.

We've connected with Urban League.

We've connected with Conservation Corps.

We've connected with Uplift Northwest.

We've had meetings with their leadership and gotten an understanding of how can we work with folks who have case management needs How can we partner with those agencies to co-facilitate them into gainful employment?

So that's what we're doing.

And housing would be key for that.

I could go to work a lot better when I have a place to lay my head and take a shower in the morning so I could get to work and be successful.

Excellent.

All right, I'm going to turn it over to committee members and we were joined partway through the presentation by Council Member Herbold.

I should have said that on the record.

And Council Member Herbold, you had your hand raised earlier.

Did I ask your question?

It got covered.

Thank you for asking.

I really appreciate it.

Great, great.

Okay, I don't see any additional questions.

really appreciate the work that's being done here.

It's really starting to gel.

And I really look forward to the roundtable talking about the next steps with some of our external and executive partners on this and really figuring out how we can continue to work on the groundwork that's been laid.

And the first thing you need to do with problem is define it and the last couple of months we've done that to an extent that nobody has ever done on third avenue like we've always known it has problems but we've never really defined the scope and scale of what that problem is and now it's a matter uh as we did at the tail end of this discussion today about um but what do we do to really start working down the list and um you know i i really really appreciate the leadership of the Herald administration in investing in this project, really the leadership, everyone around this table, as well as the downtown Seattle Association, who isn't here as part of the panel today, but really appreciate the opportunity to be working on this.

In my experience from being here in this term, I think our history of dealing with Third Avenue was doing one thing for a little while and then kind of giving up and moving on.

And a big part of what we're doing here is we have to have the courage, the resolve, and the strength to really stick it out, to stay down here, to keep the presence.

I mean, I see Lou Nodding over there who's seen from his experience at Melbourne Tower, all these like kind of one time, couple months of stuff, and then we give up.

Like we gotta, stay in there we got to stick with it and we got to keep it up and sometimes it'll be two steps forward one step back but by really staying in there with this group i think we can really make a systemic difference on third avenue and it's not going to be overnight but it will happen if we stick to it and we give you the resources needed to be successful so thank you so much Okay, Mr clerk, will you please read item two into the agenda and then we'll give a grace period here to transition the panels.

Item to presentation unified care team.

Oh, yes, sorry.

I thought that was implied in my last comment.

But yeah, come on up to the committee table, please, presenters for the Unified Care Team.

Thank you.

I am recovering non-contagious.

So you'll see me drinking a lot of water.

Council Member Lewis, do you want me to just kick it off or is there anything that you wanna?

Yes, so we're joined here by a panel from the Unified Care Team headed by Deputy Mayor Washington.

And Deputy Mayor, why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself first and then we'll just go down the desk.

Awesome, so I'll start.

Deputy Mayor Washington, I'm the Deputy Mayor focused on homelessness and housing.

a senior operations manager in the mayor's office.

Maddie Hernandez, innovation and performance.

Yolanda Blackmore, unified care team manager.

And then want to recognize my whole team behind us who have the luxury of not presenting, but they are here as support for all of us and just as a symbol and recognition of this is the team that makes it all the things work.

So thank you guys for being here.

So the slide deck, I wanna start by saying we added some slides.

I think Council Member Herbold will be very happy about the slides that we added.

It's additional information around prioritization that I see the smile and the thumbs up.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

We are not talking about prioritization right out of the bat.

So we will get there.

There's going to be a whole time where we talk about it.

And so I'm gonna push us to get there and not jump ahead.

Next slide.

This is our agenda.

We just did intros.

I'll talk about history and highlights.

We're going to talk about why we're transitioning to neighborhood teams.

Then we're going to spend what I believe a lot of time on site assessments and calendaring, and then Q&A.

The result that we want to achieve from our time here is that there's a collective understanding of what the unified care team is, where it's headed, and what we anticipate will change because of neighborhood teams.

All right.

I don't know what screen to look at.

I should have brought my own screen.

You want the slides?

Yes.

Thank you.

Extra one.

Next slide.

Thanks.

All right.

So you saw the, we introduced ourselves up here and we talked about the folks that are In the audience, we have SPU leads, Curtis and Lee.

We have SPR leads, so that's Seattle Park and Rec's Donna and Tom.

We have our Department of Transportation lead, Ross.

Michael Bailey, who's here from HSD representing Christina, who heads our outreach.

And then we have Steven, who is the mastermind behind all of our data.

Next.

All right, so the UCT approaches our work in three buckets.

The first are activities that are directly coordinated by us.

This includes encampment resolutions, services that clean our city, such as trash mitigation, and coordination of referrals to shelter.

The second bucket are activities that we partner with others on.

This includes working with cross-jurisdictional agencies, such as the recent resolution effort in partnership with WSDOT, working in partnership with community members on long-term activation strategies in public places.

The third bucket are issues that are outside of the scope of UCT to address.

So we triage those to the appropriate pathway.

This could include public health and safety issues or other emergencies as they arise.

Next slide.

I am not going to read through this slide.

It's just an acknowledgement of the great amount of work the team has accomplished in a very short amount of time, thanks to the One Seattle philosophy that Mayor Harreld has.

Next.

But I do wanna talk about highlights.

And so we've accomplished a lot in a short amount of time.

The team has completed over 200 unique site resolutions, providing more than 1,800 shelter referrals in 2022. By the middle of 2022, 93% of our parks were fully accessible and open to the public for their intended use.

And this year alone, we've received 9,000 encampment service requests.

So nearly 100 of those were triaged in three working days by our customer service representatives.

95% of the requests were inspected by a maintenance worker within 10 working days.

And 80%, which is gone, but I'll say it because Maddie told me to, 80% of the sites we know about and did not rely on needing to be informed by the public.

Next slide.

So why transition and neighborhood teams?

And I said this last year, I would call this our theory of change.

that when a community is informed, involved, and updated, they will have the patience to engage in a person-centered process over time.

So in 2022, the team made some key observations that led us to the idea of neighborhood teams.

First one was there aren't enough places for our unsheltered neighbors to go, to refer them to.

and that there is a unique set of circumstances for those living in vehicles, which has increased tremendously and we are underprepared for.

The other issue is there are more sites that need resolution than the resources that we have available.

For example, in 2022, we had 500 active sites with 700 tents.

and we're down to 360 active sites with 400 tents now.

Those are too many sites and we don't have the resources to address them all.

The other thing that we observed was our regional homelessness authority is tasked with solving this resource issue that I just talked about, but they've only been up and running a little more than a year and they need time to develop a system that works.

Finally, we learned that community members wanna be informed and not just informed, they wanna help.

You had someone here from the business community sitting at the table just now.

If they are informed and engaged, they'll understand the unique problems surrounding any particular issue and will have the patience to wait.

So all of those observations led to a need for us to think outside of the box and develop alternatives to site resolutions.

Next.

So neighborhood teams overview, you see a map where we have created what we will call five neighborhood teams.

Those teams will build relationships with community and neighbors, both housed and unhoused.

There will be outreach teams and businesses within their regions where we will also develop relationships with as the teams are launched in each region.

The neighborhood teams will coordinate deployment of city and partner services such as outreach, trash mitigation, RV remediation, geocleaning, and site resolutions.

And what you see here is how we organize our work.

And we organize our work around five core activities that you see on the screen.

We triage community concerns and respond to changing conditions.

We bring people indoors through outreach and services.

We mitigate impact of trash debris and public health hazards.

We resolve priority encampment sites and we maintain and restore public space for their intended use.

I already introduced the folks behind me.

And so what I would say is that each neighborhood team is made up of seven core positions, which you see on the slide.

The neighborhood team who's delivering services within each area will work in collaboration with those who deliver citywide services.

And so you see there's a regional manager, a regional coordinator, a field coordinator, community liaison, contracted outreach, maintenance leads, and maintenance workers.

Next.

So the question we get asked all the time is when and where will these teams launch?

Our rollout approach has to be thoughtful and it has to allow for continuous quality improvement over the year.

In the first quarter of this year, the team launched the Northwest Regional Team.

That team was launched last month and is currently engaged with the Northwest neighborhood and constituents.

Our plan is to take our learnings from this first neighborhood team launch and incorporate that into additional launches.

Unfortunately, I can't tell you when each one will launch, but when a decision is made, just know that for each council member, we will engage with you very deeply before launching any neighborhood team.

The neighborhood team goals.

We create it because in order to achieve our stated mission, we knew that we had to have goals.

The goals are that the neighborhood teams will strategically deploy city resources to be responsive to the unique needs of each community.

We need to have a comprehensive understanding of what's happening in our public spaces.

We also set a goal to connect unhoused neighbors with service providers quickly and often until the site is resolved.

And finally, we want to work with partners to develop activation plans when and where appropriate.

Next slide.

So who do you contact?

If you are a community member who has a request, please submit a service request via the Customer Service Bureau online through the app or the phone.

If you already submitted a service request, you should have received a service ID.

Please note that the number of forms submitted, email sent, and phone calls made does not impact when your site will be resolved.

So that means I've heard a lot of people say, well, we submitted 15 forms through the Customer Service Bureau, why isn't our site being resolved?

And I just wanna be clear, and we'll talk about this later in the presentation, the number of times that you fill out a form about a particular site doesn't dictate how quickly that site will be resolved.

If you want to follow up on a site, you can send an email to the Unified Care Team, which is on the screen.

And then for our community members in the Northwest region, you have additional resources via the dedicated Northwest regional liaisons, and you see that on the screen.

So now we're going to transition into a conversation around how we use various data to develop a calendar for site resolutions.

But before diving in, I want to make some key points.

Next.

So earlier, I mentioned that there are currently more sites than resources available.

Given this, it was imperative that we develop a system to help us prioritize what sites need our attention at any given time.

Looking at the prioritization score is just the beginning of the conversation and does not dictate the next step.

Determining when a site is addressed is a process that considers the prioritization score, information from our teams and partners on the ground, as well as resource availability for those living at each site.

We created a process that is nimble and able to adjust to changing conditions.

And finally, please remember that this is still a pilot that has changed many times since its inception and will continue to change as we learn.

In a few slides, you will see live examples of sites where we utilize this process.

It is our hope that this will help you better understand how we build our calendar each month.

But prior to that, I want to pass it to Lindsay to talk about how outreach fits into this process.

Thank you.

Last time we were here presenting, the plan was to move the oversight of all unsheltered outreach to the KCRHA.

We were all on board and that led to a series of discussions between the city and the RHA.

After those conversations, we realized that it's still the direction we're committed to and building towards, but now is not the right time to make that transition.

The RHA is currently focused on several critical transformational efforts through the partnership for zero pilot, the rebidding of all homeless system investments in the five-year plan.

We understand this is an extended schedule past the March deadline.

However, we know you all agree with us and the RHA that the five-year plan and system rebid are critical to ensure we have the beds we need and a functional service system that rapidly houses people experiencing homelessness.

We are currently in conversation with Council Member Mosqueda about what comes next, so there'll be more to come later on that.

We continue to be committed to making this transition.

I do want to be clear, this has not slowed down the work we're doing today.

The RHA is finalizing their RFP process for encampment outreach right now that will result in the geographic assignment of encampment outreach to work in partnership with the neighborhood teams.

To support collaboration, the RHA has already worked with REACH to identify outreach staff for the Northwest Neighborhood Team, even ahead of their RFP results being finalized.

And HSD and REACH have been meeting to talk through what it means to move forward in a more collaborative, transparent partnership.

This is one of the key areas we're focused on in the neighborhood teams as bringing in our outreach partners earlier in the process from the time a site is being discussed to the time it is resolved.

This will support our collective understanding of what's happening on the ground and deploying harm mitigation strategies in response and make those adjustments as we work towards resolutions.

The regional coordinators will serve as the linchpin connecting city resources, services and information to stakeholders in the region.

I'll hand it back to DM Washington.

Next slide.

Now we get into what I think will be a very lively discussion, which is our prioritization process.

And I wanna start by just reminding us that it's more than the points.

The prioritization process used by the UCT is a continuous learning process.

What I will walk you through today reflects the process currently in use by the team, but please know that this will change as we learn more.

So the first step you see is a site assessment.

This is when a site is identified, and it can be identified in many ways.

It can come through an email, staff observation in the field, or through a service request submitted to the Customer Service Bureau.

Again, our preference is that all requests are submitted through the Customer Service Bureau as it ensures the site is entered into our system, and it's the most effective way for us to track and respond.

Once a site is identified, trained field staff are sent out to inspect the site.

Sometimes an issue can be resolved quickly.

For example, some reports turn out to be just debris and can be cleaned up quickly.

Other times, it is not something we can resolve quickly and a site assessment is completed.

From there, the system creates a score, which you'll see in a couple of slides, that considers several factors we call site attributes.

Those are listed on the right of the slide in the green boxes.

For example, we consider whether a right-of-way is partially or fully blocked, meaning can a wheelchair get through?

We consider if the site is near a waterway, which may indicate environmental impacts, and if the location is in a school walk zone.

Once that happens, we move to the prioritization discussion.

Elena, the UCT manager, receives a report regularly that lists all of the sites and where they lie on the priority list.

She brings that to the weekly discussion with the team behind me, who understands what is happening on the ground, and they talk about several factors, such as how many people are there, how many shelter beds are available, and what can be done in the interim to mitigate harm, such as address litter, debris, or hygiene support.

This is the step in the process that Lindsay described earlier, where we will partner with outreach early in these discussions to ensure information about the people is included early and often as part of our decision-making process.

The next step is calendaring.

After that discussion happens, the sites are calendared and reviewed on a regular basis to consider changing conditions on the ground.

I'm now gonna hand this over to our UCT manager, Elena, who will walk you through real life scenarios of where we've used this prioritization process.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor Washington.

So the next three slides are designed to demonstrate how the prioritization points help guide us in our decisions, but additional information provided by the UCT leads is also taken into account when deciding which sites to calendar.

So the slide that you see right now is site number 232. The site was located near South Hill Street and the 22nd Avenue South intersection.

It had a total score of seven points.

You can see how the points were assigned in the left top corner of the slide.

It was at the top of the priority list.

The site was discussed with the team.

Due to high community impact, the worsening site conditions, which included accumulation of debris and hazardous materials, the decision was made to calendar the site.

I do want to highlight that we work to remove hazardous materials without having to address the site sometimes, but in some cases, we remove materials such as propane tanks or sharps, but sometimes the accumulation outpaces our ability to address them.

The site was calendared and addressed in February of this year.

All people on site were offered shelter.

Next slide, please.

This site, site 1060, is an example of when the resolution timeline was actually extended to allow for outreach to complete their work.

Most of you are likely familiar with this site.

It stretched down South Royal Bromway.

The site had a total of eight priority points, you can see them on the slide, and consistently stayed at the top of our priority list.

There were several considerations that were taken into account when we decided when to address the site.

I do want to preface this with noting that UCT always partners with contracted outreach through King County Regional Homelessness Authority.

This site was slightly different from the rest of the sites because KCRHA were offering people permanent housing at this location, which takes longer.

This site was located in the Partnership for Zero Pilot Zone, and UCT and KCRHA led with Housing and Outreach First strategy.

The site was immediately adjacent to Sound Transit facility with ongoing construction there.

UCT unified care team communicated with the Sound Transit partners regarding the site and we informed them about the resolution that we were taking at this particular location.

When the site grew rapidly, more than doubling in size from 20 tents in October to 42 tents in November, unified care team work with the unhoused residents at the site and our partners at the sound transit first to allow the outreach to continue their work.

At the same time, Unified Care Team engaged with the site residents and were able to achieve voluntary compliance to regain access to the driveway so that the Sound Transit could resume their construction.

And our team continued to actively engage with the people at the site.

The site was successfully drawn down in January of 2023. Next slide, please.

So this one is a little bit of a reverse situation.

As you can tell, this site, site 438, only had a score of two points.

It was located at Jackson Golf Course.

This site was elevated for discussion by one of the Unified Care Team leads, Seattle Fire Department Chief.

She flagged that the site was a significant fire hazard due to its unique location.

It is hard to access.

There is a lack of access to water supply for a fire suppression in this location.

And in case the fire did break out, there was a high risk of it rapidly spreading both into the park and the adjacent apartment complex.

So when discussing the site, expert opinion of the fire department was taken into consideration and a decision was made to elevate the site.

It was elevated, scheduled and resolved in early, it was resolved in early December.

And everyone on site was offered shelter.

And now I will pass it to Maddie.

Thank you, Yelena.

To wrap up the prioritization process, I'm going to walk you through how the sites are assigned points in connection to the overall process.

I want to remind you that the points system help to inform the prioritization conversation and are a step in the process, but they don't determine what action we take.

The first set of points are primarily focused on site attributes that contribute to spaces being inaccessible for their intended use, such as mobility impacts, public health impacts to waterways, and impacts to vulnerable populations such as children.

Our trained field staff assess sites on a regular basis through inspections and update our information system to ensure site attributes are up to date so we can make sure we're tracking changing conditions on the ground.

As mentioned during the calendaring process, UCT leads bring additional information to the conversation to help determine next steps for a site, if any, based on people needs and resource availability.

Next slide, please.

The second set of points are related to fire and violent crimes that are in proximity to an encampment or are verified confirmed public safety events that are connected to an encampment.

Points for public safety incidents are generated from serious incident report data and are auto assigned when an encampment in the system is in proximity or at the geolocation of a site.

When we see a site is high on the priority list or sites are rapidly rising with the points, it's an indication that we need to take a closer look to see what's happening.

Verified and confirmed public safety events indicate that the surrounding area might be unsafe for those living unhoused and for the surrounding house community.

We have representatives from Seattle Police Department and the Seattle Fire Department who are part of the UCT that bring additional information to the table to help inform the public safety incidents connected to the sites and help the UCT determine appropriate next steps to ensure public safety for both our housed and unhoused neighbors.

What we're learning through this process is that in order to build towards solutions beyond removals, it requires more on-demand resources for crisis care, treatment, and behavioral health resources, as well as places for people to go.

While we work towards a more sustainable model with our partners, we will continue to refine this process and the point system to ensure our practices are equitable, human-centered, and reinforce the goal of ending unsheltered homelessness in our city.

And that's the conclusion.

Happy to take questions from council members.

Thank you so much.

So why don't we start out just talking about a little bit more about the process of trying to integrate the outreach a little bit more with KCRHA, if the team is comfortable just sort of discussing that a little bit.

It sounds like there's some discussions going on with council member Miscada's office about responding to the budget legislation that was responsive to that.

And I gather from some of the comments that were made during the presentation that the current plan is to use that money to hire reach for outreach services, but I just want to confirm that and maybe get into the detail a little bit.

Good question.

I would say that what we know now is that KCRHA is not in the position to take that work on today because they're launching the five-year plan and they're putting the entire homelessness system out to bid.

It was the concern that I raised last year about sequencing.

And so now we're in a position where Lindsay is talking to the chief of staff at KCRHA every day.

to come up with a proposal, essentially a timeline.

It's not if, it's when that will then be presented to Council Member Muscade and her team.

And once fleshed out and approved, we'll come back and present that plan to the team.

And so I don't know if it's going to be reached.

Is it too soon to answer that?

But we have to come up with something.

And don't forget to separate this piece of work from the outreach we already have, which is what Lindsay talked about.

They're currently going through an RFP process with those outreach workers who will be assigned to geographic teams as well.

And so it doesn't stop the work, but we do need to pause and make sure that we respond to council with a plan of how we're gonna get there and approval so that we can pivot.

Another thing that came up during the presentation and just, I mean, just to put a cap, look forward to following up on that further work to integrate our outreach with the King County Regional Homelessness Authority.

The other thing I just wanted to touch on that came up that also relates to the authority is the relationship of having a supply of enhanced shelter that can help us to effectuate this work.

in a way that allows us to remediate more sites in an effective and humane way.

And what should the city's role be in prodding along that process now that we've had a couple of years of experience working in partnership with the KCRHA and we haven't seen a colossal amount of new capacity come online for the work that we're trying to do?

What should our role be when we have such a big need in the community for that kind of a resource to work in partnership and contribute some of our capacity to bring that about?

I think the role should be working through the governing committee, which is governing over KCRHA.

Council Member Lewis, you have a seat.

Council Member Herbold has a seat.

I've said this to other council members.

It's that five-year plan that you all are going to be able to vote on where I believe that CEO Dones is saying, When I first started my tenure in homelessness, it was mats on floors are inhumane, which they are.

We need to move to enhanced shelter, which is 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

I don't have to stand in line every night with all of my stuff and wake up in the morning and exit a shelter.

So city heard that both council and the mayor and shifted our whole city, our whole system to enhanced shelter.

Then COVID happened and we had to take our congregant shelters for social distancing and open up a lot of hotels or kind of do tiny home villages, places with doors for social distancing purposes.

And now what we're hearing from people with lived experiences, I want a door.

Like now enhanced shelters, we don't want congregant shelter, we want non-congregant shelter.

And so whatever is approved in that five-year plan will, give KCRHA the marching orders for the system they are to build through the rebid process this year.

I think that's the way and asking a lot of questions about how are we gonna get there?

Are we gonna do one shelter at a time and do we need more spaces and does it cost more money, which I can't imagine it wouldn't cost more money.

So there's gonna be a robust conversation between the Governing Committee, the Implementation Board, and KCRHA to put them on the road towards getting those places where people want to go.

I think CEO Dones made a good point when they said, we can keep building places people don't want to go.

They're just not going to go.

And that's where we get the, is it a 30% shelter vacancy rate?

20% shelter vacancy rate because folks have just decided they're not going to go and congregate in shelter.

Yeah, I appreciate the information that we've gathered from talking to folks in the community about the shortcomings of traditional shelter options that just don't serve the needs of folks and what they're experiencing.

We, we do have.

some outstanding appropriations to the KCRHA to expand some enhanced shelter options right now.

I'm a little reluctant to put us on a posture where, you know, we need to wait for the rebidding process when we've given, you know, we've given the money now for, I believe, a couple of RV safe lots and 50 new tiny houses.

So at least one new tiny house village, maybe two.

And You know, I know that the RV safe lots, there's some progress on that and we have some sites selected, but I don't believe the tiny house village, there's been much movement on it yet.

I anticipate incidentally that through the five-year planning process, we will get a more clear and productive position for the King County Regional Homelessness Authority on tiny homes, but, You know, I don't want us to wait for the rebid for money that we have now resources we have now and as we've seen from the presentation.

We've got folks doing great work, but they're hitting this bottleneck of places for people to go, and I don't know if you have any additional response to that's a good.

distinguishing factor in terms of money put in the budget.

So Director Bailey has been asked by me.

I think I asked last week and we talked about it again today to get a status report from KCRHA on all of the money that was added into the 2023 budget and where they're at with it.

We will share that with you all as soon as we get it.

And then a conversation, we'll have a conversation because for some council members, it's not fast enough.

For others, there may be other questions.

And so, I think we can get that information.

My expectation is we can get that information next week because there was budget added to KCRHA's annual budget that increases non-congregant shelter spaces.

And so we will get you an update on that.

Great, thank you so much.

Council Member Herbold.

Thanks so much.

I am just really so appreciative that we have this information about the prioritization process.

I understand this is dynamic.

It's not just about points, but it is going to be very, very helpful information to share with the public, who some members of the public don't understand why the location that they filed a complaint on has not been prioritized.

Other members of public don't ever want any encampment to have this sort of engagement to resolve it.

in some cases where that might mean removing it.

And so it's really, really important to be able to share with the public reasons why particular locations have been prioritized.

I got an email from a constituent last week who, after I explained what the process was, he emailed me back and said, I just emailed the mayor and he called me and it was gone the next day.

And I'm sure there was, I'm sure there had been a long history of somebody else in his in his community filing complaints and following the process, but we cannot allow for any member of the public to think that that's that's the way the city is doing doing business in this in this really critical area.

So really, really appreciate.

having this information.

I understand that vacancy rates are different according to what type of alternative that we're looking at.

It's congregate shelters, different from enhanced shelters, different from tiny house villages.

But I would like us all to check our beliefs that I thought I heard somebody say a 30% vacancy rate in congregate shelter.

And I do not think that that is accurate.

And I think one of the most important things that we can do, again, when communicating with the public is addressing this perception that people have that people just aren't interested in leaving their tents.

We need to I think in our, in our community, my communication with the public, the mayor's office communication with the public HSD is communication with the public to really put detail to the reality that we find hundreds of units of shelter and temporary housing spaces, and they're.

across models and again I understand Congress shelter the vacancy rate is slightly higher, but they're almost entirely fill every day and I think we should be explaining that to people when people are feeling like the city isn't acting quickly enough.

We just received information in March from the King County Regional Homelessness Authority, where they were We're talking about their efforts and they they said in all on this on this particular week and all of King County there is one vacancy in a tiny village, two spaces for men in a large code shelter, two spaces for women.

in a large co-ed shelter, three congregate bunks for women only, and 10 beds in a congregate shelter.

So that is far less than a 30% vacancy rate over a system that supports probably around 6,000 spaces throughout the county.

So just again, a lot of the work that you're doing on the public side is about explaining to members of the public how you're making decisions.

I really think that we can do this issue a lot of service if we are transparent and honest about the resources that are available.

And in the resources that aren't available so that folks can can really understand.

So, yeah, that's that's my soapbox.

I did have a few questions if I could.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Go ahead.

Oh, go ahead.

Go ahead and ask your question.

Sorry.

All right.

So, on the sort of from a customer or member of the public point of view.

I often hear from constituents who want to report an encampment, the fact that they expect some sort of immediate response to the report by email or phone call.

I know that's not always possible, but can you just walk us through the communications that will be received by someone who reports an encampment And I thought I heard you emphasize making, filing requests for service via the customer service bureau over find it, fix it.

Did I hear that correctly?

Because we tell people both, but if there's a strong preference to use one system over the other, we'll do that.

We'll start telling folks that.

I did see in one of the one of the slides there's the whole who to contact and it refers to you'll you'll receive a service ID and notifications until your issue is resolved.

You could just in your answer explain a little bit what what resolved means because again we're hearing back from folks who get.

notifications that a location has been resolved.

But from their perspective, it hasn't been.

So maybe there's a definitional issue there.

And my last question, I'm just going to hold until I don't want to overwhelm with questions.

I did have one more short one.

Thank you.

You have the right person at the table.

And so, Maddie is here she works for the innovation and performance team in the city budget office, and they've loaned her to us to manage, along with Steve in the back to manage the planning development, implementation and data around regional teams and UCT as a whole.

And so Maddie actually focused deeply on the service side of this.

And so I'm gonna let her answer your question, Council Member Herbold.

So on the first question around what a customer can expect in terms of communication.

So if they submit a service request for an unauthorized encampment, they should immediately get an email, an automated email that gives them their service request number.

And then if there's a need for an inspection, they'll receive another email with a status update that directly comes from the field workers.

If we already know about the encampment, our customer service reps will indicate that, that we're monitoring the site.

And so I'm happy to maybe we could send like the whole process, but There's several different outcomes, and every step of the way, customers should receive an automated response.

So they might want to check their junk mail.

We have the city on there, but it is through the city's Motorola system for customer service.

And then the other question you had was around...

Resolved.

Oh, resolved.

We are aware of the errors where people are getting a resolved when it's not resolved.

Yeah.

Do you wanna touch more on that or just the next?

It's just, I mean, it's a process whenever you build a brand new database from scratch in six months.

We've been made aware, thanks to council members, quite frankly, saying to us, this person got a resolved.

I think all of you have sent one of them to me and I just drove past it and it's not resolved.

That's just growing pains of a brand new database that we're fixing Rapidly as we get that information.

I would say, I will look to Lindsay and Maddie to and maybe Lindsay you want to talk about when they do get an email and it says the sites resolved or Maddie What does that mean.

That was her other question.

Sure.

I wasn't assuming there was a mistake I just thought maybe there was a difference of, of definition.

There's different factors that go into it depending on when a field staff goes out and what they're seeing based on the information provided in the service request.

But typically if someone reports an active encampment, and we're kind of tracking it up until site resolution, resolution is supposed to mean that it's no longer there.

And in terms of like a service request being resolved, it could mean we don't have enough information that was provided.

And so there is no further step that the city can take.

The person might have to resubmit a service request.

So lots of different factors.

But Lindsay, if you want to add anything.

There are also situations where an encampment service request is submitted, but it's actually a debris or so the team will go out and clean up the trash and debris.

And at that point, the ticket would be closed.

And then you had asked about where to direct people so they technically they can go to they could call Customer Service Bureau, and they'll enter in the information for the customer, so folks who maybe don't have find it fix it was, which is just an app.

on their phone.

So you can send people to the Find It Fix It app that they can utilize on their phone, and that information goes into the larger ecosystem that the Customer Service Bureau works with.

So whether that's calling CSB, using the Find It Fix It app, there's also an online portal where they can select a service request to submit their complaint.

So I know it could be a little confusing on the names, but it all results in it being submitted.

No preference.

From your perspective, one's not better than the other?

No.

All right, great.

And then, Mr. Chair, if I may?

Yes, please.

Thanks.

Will a person filing a report be told if their location has not been prioritized?

Currently, no.

What we're working on, that's a very lively discussion.

We're considering all kinds of paths, would love feedback from council.

We recognize that your staff get asked.

A lot.

And so this goes to Councilmember her about my idea of either giving you all a report every month that says, here are the sites in your district and their prioritization, putting it online we're currently working with legal because we want to make sure that I feel strongly that online site profiles should only be provided if it's closed and not kind of identifying open sites.

I feel, and I know you all share that same thing.

So maybe we've thought about a lot of different things, but we are trying to get to a place where you can answer the question without jumping through 20 hoops and can answer why.

Because it goes back to the theory that if people are informed and engaged, they'll have patience.

It's the lack of information that's frustrating people.

And so that is our goal in the near future.

It will help Elena a lot for council members to have access to that information so that you can just say currently your site is not prioritized to be resolved in the near future.

The reason being and giving you guys the information.

And then the last question on the prioritization piece.

Again, I understand that the scoring system is, as you described it, dynamic.

Just because something scores low doesn't necessarily mean it won't be prioritized.

But my flip side of the question that I'm interested to know, if something is scored high, The conditions change because of work being done at the location, either by the UCT or other outreach workers working with folks living at that location to modify their practices, remove brush in the area that might be flammable, those sorts of things.

If things change, can a location become a lower priority?

Absolutely.

That's the dream.

That's the dream that by engaging with outreach frequently and early, that even though the site may not be high prioritized, or either way it goes, that through consistent outreach, consistent offers, knowing the people that are there, that sites will self-resolve.

That's our hypothesis.

We'll be looking for that throughout this process.

because it's something that we all want to see collectively, is that sites self-resolve.

In terms of a high score, the example, I hate to make this the example, is the CID.

It was number one and two for a year, I think, almost.

And there were so many people there and not enough places to go, we could not resolve the site.

And so the question can be well it's so high on the prioritization list.

How come you don't go and it's like because there's 100 plus people there, and we are not legally able to go and resolve the site unless all of them are offered a genuine offer of shelter and so we had to wait.

And thanks to our partners at KCRJ and WSDOT and all of the agencies that came around the table and said, I have two here, I have five here, I have 20 here.

We had to wait until we had all the spaces and then that site was resolved successfully.

So this is kind of my hesitation of bringing prioritization because I don't want people to over-focus on the points.

It just matters.

But I believe that as long as I can explain it, people will understand, and it's the lack of understanding.

I think we hit a, it was fine for the first year, and I think we hit a place now where people are like, okay, I need to understand the next level of this thing, so thanks for the push, Council Member Herbold, and that's where we're at now.

So hopefully this additional information will help people understand why their site is or is not being resolved.

Thank you so much, really appreciate it.

Thank you so much.

And I don't see any other questions.

We do have a couple more agenda items to get through before the public hearing.

Oh, sorry, Council Member Mosqueda.

Thank you so much.

Sorry, I was just looking at the screen.

I wasn't looking at the people on the diet.

Transition from being remote to in-person.

Talk about hybrid all in one.

Thanks for the presentation here today.

I did just want to appreciate that this is a work in progress.

I see your whole team behind you.

I know there's a lot of moving parts with folks external, as you mentioned, with RHA and community partners.

And I know it has been mentioned that we are in conversation about the unified care team statement of legislative intent that was included in the city's budget action and will be sharing with my colleagues as well the information that we requested with the crosswalk between what was included in the.

Largely stakeholder and carefully drafted language that we included in last year's budget, because I think that the vision is something that you've articulated.

There is still a commitment to, and that is wanting to work towards a system where the regional homelessness authority with the trusted partners that they have.

retain and grow the responsibility for making sure that somebody is being placed in the appropriate care and that the three Ps are met, that their personal belongings can come with them, their partners can come with them, or their pets can come with them.

And so I just wanted to flag for our colleagues, there is just the beginning of a conversation happening.

I want to make sure that everybody is involved in that, especially Council Member Lewis as chair of this committee, Council Member Herbold as chair of public safety and human services because these two were very much involved in the crafting of the council budget action in last year's budget as well.

The thing I wanted to just ask directly though, as we kind of figure out what the transition plan looks like to RHA when they have additional capacity, you mentioned that there's more need than there are resources.

And so part of the prioritization conversation that I was hoping to hear a little bit more about, especially in relation to, I think Council Member Herbold's last line of questioning around prioritization, is really more of that people question, right?

As you're engaging with individuals at a site, I would hope that the first question is, do we have the appropriate bed for this person?

And that really being the determining factor of whether or not a site is ultimately designated for posting because we know as soon as a post goes up, people move and it's harder to find them and get them placed.

And so can we chat a little bit or can you tell me a little bit more about how whether the person-centered and appropriate bed placement is at that top of the prioritization list versus the physical location of a site if there's not a hazard?

Well, welcome Council Member Mosqueda, you just asked a really exciting question.

I would say that's the dream.

We are not there yet.

And what I mean by that is, if there is a site that has unhoused neighbors there, Yes, outreach goes out that is non-city contracted outreach.

And they come back and say to the KCRHA, which gets communicated to UCT, these are the people there.

We don't have the right beds.

Like the folks there want this particular kind of bed and we don't have those.

So in that situation, a conversation occurs, which is, a risk analysis of how would it be okay to leave that, leave the folks there and tell the beds that they prefer are available?

Or do the attributes at the site require us to make an offer of shelter as outlined in the MDARs that may not be the preferred location?

We've done both.

There have been times where we paused and said, well, how long will it take?

And they're like a week.

And we're like, of course we'll wait a week.

So this, the person can move into a shelter or a place with their pet.

I wouldn't leave my pet.

I mean, just to be honest.

And then there are times where in this, like in the CID, I think it was how many propane tanks exploded?

A lot, like 20 propane tanks exploded in that situation.

I can't say we're going to wait two weeks because waiting two weeks can result in great harm being done to the community, both housed and unhoused.

So it's both.

If what CEO Dones is trying to accomplish in their five-year plan happens, then we will have a system that has more places where people wanna go, which is non-congregant shelter than not.

But in the interim, I can't take a hard line and say, I'm not gonna resolve a site because I don't have a tiny home in every case.

Whenever I can, I do, but I can't do it all the time.

That early collaboration to as part of what we're trying to shift to with the neighborhood teams and so rather than the city, prioritizing the sites calendaring them and then sending it out.

It's looking at which sites are rising to the top having that conversation early about who's, what do we know about the people who are on site is anyone already engaging with them and then it becomes a rolling list and then the people-based information can be part of how long do you think it will take and then we're calendaring in a more in a increasingly informed way about how long we think that resolution will take and being able to make adjustments versus making decisions and having to change those later.

So that early and often collaboration is part of the the model of the neighborhood team.

Great follow up Mr. Chair.

Yes please.

Okay, thanks so much.

And thanks for the honesty and transparency on where you're at and what's able to be accomplished in this first quarter.

I think that working towards the vision of making sure that a post never goes up until the conversations have happened with the folks on the site about what type of beds they need and really working towards placing folks in those appropriate beds before any post happens is obviously the shared goal.

I look forward to more discussions with our colleagues as well about the timeline for when the data system, all available beds in the universe of our region will be housed at regional homelessness authority.

Because as soon as that is collected and complete, then I think that we have access to really make sure that people are getting placed in appropriate placement that will not only stabilize them, bring them out of the elements, but will help our human service providers and our city be able to place them in to long-term housing.

So that's ultimately the goal.

And any additional information about the timeline for when that type of coordinated system with KCRHA might be available so that they manage the full list of available beds so that any contractor can see whether or not there's an appropriate placement versus just is there a bed open.

That's a good point that goes to kind of Council Member Herbold's question of, I don't think it's 20%.

Like, none of us really know.

For the reason that you said in terms of all beds in the system across the county are not managed by KCRHA and there's no, and I'll pass to Lindsay, there's not a system in existence where in a perfect world providers would just open their doors in the morning and go to their desk and pull up a database and click and just say, we have two tiny homes, three this, four that, that doesn't exist.

We need that very, very, very, very soon because there might be something in the system that is someone's preferred location that we just don't know about because no one has capacity to sit down and call 100 service providers to do that.

And so in terms of timeline, Lindsay, do you have a sense of Mark's timeline for getting the real-time bed availability up and running?

It's something we've talked about in terms of the CBA response is the timeline for getting to that real-time HMIS-based bed availability.

So it'll be included as part of the slide response.

So I don't want to speak to it or the CBA response.

I don't want to speak to it here ahead of finalizing all that.

So information to come will be timeline for when that full database gets set up for the appropriate bed, not just a bed.

And then along with that, I think just wanting to make sure that we have a clearer sense of the timeline of when the FTEs who are part of this larger concept, the people-focused employees, when those will be fully operational by RHA versus initiated by the city would be helpful.

We will get you that.

Okay, great.

Well, thank you.

I'm sorry.

I know yesterday we were going to meet and chat a little bit more about this.

We had a long council meeting yesterday, so we were not able to do that, but look forward to chatting with you and our colleagues more to make sure that the vision that we all bought off on collectively in that unified care team reworked statement of legislative intent gets realized.

We also recognize there's many competing priorities, we're going to get at this issue and avoid being on the same wheel over and over again.

It feels like urgency is there.

So thank you so much for the work that you've done, but also for the information you will share soon.

Absolutely.

And Council Member Lewis, happy to come back and might need to bring CEO Jones with me to the table to answer some of these questions.

Or we can just bring the party to the governing committee.

Yes, no, good to have you and thanks for this update.

It's good to publicly unveil the Unified Care Team information.

I think this is the first time we've had this discussion in the committee.

Thank you.

And I do just want to say anecdotally, I've really appreciated it.

There's a number of people in the gallery for people watching remotely who are associated with the Unified Care Team and the Human Services Department.

other agencies that are related to this work.

And I just want to say thank you to everyone who's helped build this.

Everyone's been very responsive to my office.

I know they've been responsive to my colleague's office and community members have been very grateful and appreciative of the work that the Unified Care Team has been doing.

And I just want to extend that here to everyone who's here in Chambers and really appreciate your service and commitment.

So thank you so much.

Thank you.

Okay, let's try to keep Council Member Mosqueda on time for the public hearing on the housing levy.

So will the clerk please read, and my understanding is that we are switching items three and four.

I think with your colleague's permission, we would amend the agenda to do item four third and item three as the fourth item on the agenda.

Thank you, so would the clerk please read item four into the record?

Agenda Item 4, Council Bill 120546, an ordinance relating to Seattle Parks and Recreation, authorizing the City of Seattle to enter into a non-government agreement with the Baseball Club of Seattle, LLLP, for the purposes of making improvements to the Rainier Playfield and ratifying and confirming certain prior acts.

Thank you so much, Mr. Clerk, and it is great to pivot to the public assets portion of this committee's mandate.

We have Tracy Ratzlaff from Council Central Staff, Deputy Superintendent Christopher Williams, and I think I saw Andy Scheffer on here earlier.

I don't know if he, oh, no, there, he's still there.

So should I turn it over to you first, Superintendent Williams, just give a rundown of this, and then we can go to Tracy if there's any cleanup we have to bat with Central Staff?

You bet.

No pun intended.

Good pun, Council Member.

All right, well, thank you so much.

So our department has a long history of partnership with the Seattle Mariners and Major League Baseball.

As you may have been aware, the All-Star game will be hosted by the Mariners in Seattle in July of this year.

Um, 20 years ago when we hosted an all-star game, uh, the legacy of that was the lower Woodland legacy field, which is our premier baseball diamond at lower Woodland.

Uh, and this occurred, uh, totally funded by the Mariners and major league baseball.

They are now coming back 20 years later.

and proposing to do a project in our city as a legacy project from the all-star game.

And we've been working with them to develop an agreement.

Andy Shepherd has done a lion's share of that work.

And as required, we are required to come here to get authorization to enter into an agreement.

So with that, I will turn it over to Andy Shepherd from our team.

Thank you, Christopher we're super excited to present this legislation, resulting in significant improvements to softball and baseball fields in southeast Seattle.

This is a great example of a public private partnership that will benefit.

Youth and families in our community, thank you to Seattle Mariners for this generous donation in conjunction with Major League Baseball hosting the All-Star Game in Seattle this coming July.

Next slide, please.

So starting with the scope, We've got two tiers low hanging fruit to be completed prior to the all star game in July, including replacement of site furnishings old bleachers replace improvements to the bullpen fencing back boards, etc.

Then we have a larger capital project converting to sand silt fields to synthetic turf.

It's important to recognize that these are softball fields as well as baseball fields.

As I mentioned, the first part of the improvements will be completed by July 2023. The second part will start design.

Upon approval of this legislation and construction will be complete.

Prior to March of 2024. We anticipate the budget being one to $1.2 million in design and construction funded by the Mariners.

Next slide please.

These conversions will increase playability.

The sandstone fields have very poor drainage.

They're very difficult to upkeep.

The synthetic turf infields will allow play in the winter, in the rainy months.

This will introduce a new life cycle for these fields and it will decrease maintenance.

Next slide, please.

First and foremost, our missions are aligned in our commitment to play equity, which relates and supports the quality of life and wellness for our youth.

Next slide, please.

Oh, Council Member, if the panel could maybe just take this question out of order from Council Member Mosqueda, who has indicated wanting to be recognized.

According to my clerk, but now I don't see her.

Okay.

There.

Yes.

Councilmember Mosqueda.

No, that's okay.

Thank you.

I'll hold.

Okay.

Um, go ahead, Andy.

Sure.

The proposed ordinance authorizes agreement between the city and the Mariners to fund this project.

The project, as I mentioned, makes substantial improvements to two softball and baseball fields.

And as Christopher mentioned, the Mariners previously funded improvements at Lower Woodland No. 1. play field that remains really the premier baseball field in the city.

Next slide, please.

This is the timeline.

We've completed planning.

Design will start upon approval of the legislation.

Construction will be completed in two phases, phase one by the All-Star game in July, phase two prior to the season in March of 2024. Next slide, please.

We are planning youth events in partnership with the Mariners around the time of the All-Star game.

There'll be more to come on those events and an exact schedule of the events, and I'd be glad to answer any questions.

Thank you.

Andy, thank you so much.

Council Member Mosqueda, let's put you first in line there.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Actually, I think I'm good.

I got my question answered.

Thanks.

Okay, excellent.

Are there any questions from other committee members?

Okay, thank you.

So just to catch up members of the viewing public on this too, this is an initiative that was alluded to in the mayor state of the city speech.

This legislation had been delayed a couple of times just to finalize a few more of the details.

Appreciate park staff being here to give their final go ahead and concurrence on this arrangement and definitely appropriate given the start of baseball season and the pending all-star game.

I don't know, Tracy, if you have anything you wanna add as the central staff.

No, go ahead.

No, I'm reviewing the legislation and it's ready to be voted out of committee, Council Member.

Great, thank you so much.

Okay, with that, I'm gonna go ahead and move Council Bill 120546. Is there a second?

Second.

Okay, moved and seconded.

Are there any further comments from committee members on Council Bill 120546?

Seeing none, Mr. Clerk, will you please call the roll on the Council Bill?

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council President Juarez?

Aye.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Aye.

Chair Lewis.

Yes.

Chair, there are four in favor, none opposed.

Great.

Excellent.

Well, the motion carries and we will recommend to the next full council meeting approval of council bill 120546. So thank you so much.

Council Member Herbold trying to vote twice.

Like this is the Chicago city council, but you know, but let's move on to the final item today.

which is gonna be item three, as a reminder, we took item four out of order.

So will the committee clerk please read item three into the record?

Item three, Council Bill 120547, an ordinance relating to Jackson Park, transferring jurisdiction of a portion of Northeast 130th Street from the Seattle Department of Transportation to Seattle Parks and Recreation for open space, park, and recreation purposes, transferring a portion of Jackson Park adjacent to Northeast 145th Street from Seattle Parks and Recreation to the Seattle Department of Transportation for transportation purposes, and finding after a public hearing that the exchange of property meets the requirements of Ordinance 118477 that adopted Initiative 42.

Thank you so much, Mr. Clerk.

And we are joined here with the same panel, but now with John Laser from SDOT joining us for the SDOT portion of the presentation.

And I believe Tracy is also staffing this item.

So Christopher Williams, I will hand this over to you for the panel discussion here on this item and take it away, please.

Great.

Thank you so much, Chair.

As you know, we are required to come here before we can, I think, cement the deal on a property transaction.

This is a property transaction we've been working on for several months with SDOT.

It is to exchange property adjacent to the Jackson Park Golf Course with the idea of creating improved pedestrian safety.

I think in anticipation of light rail, uh, coming to this part of town and John laser from S dot and David graves are here to, uh, brief you on this prop on this property exchange.

And, um, I think like was indicated, this meets the provisions of I 42, which is a requirement to exchange property of equal or greater value.

So with that, we'll turn it over to, uh, David or John.

I think I'm taking it Christopher.

Thank you.

You bet.

Thank you.

I'm John laser director of interagency programs with us Todd and I've been the city's lead for working with the city of shoreline on their interchange and Northeast 145th Street quarter project.

I'll try to work quickly through our slides.

Thank you very much for finding time on your busy agenda today for this item.

Next slide please.

Christopher covered many of these points.

The legislation before you authorizes a transfer of jurisdiction between parks and SDOT within Jackson Park and the adjoining natural areas.

The City of Shoreline has assembled funding to construct improvements along Northeast 145th Street, and those improvements include a widened sidewalk that will extend into what is currently Seattle Parks and Recreation property.

We've identified an appropriate property to exchange or to transfer jurisdiction, current unopened right-of-way on Northeast 130th Street that is adjacent to and supporting the Liquorice Fern Natural Area, and the exchange complies with Initiative 42, as Christopher said.

Next slide, please.

Just to orient you quickly, in the middle of this slide is Interstate 5 and the east-west roadway you see is NE 145th Street.

In the lower left-hand corner is the Lakeside School many would be familiar with, and in the lower right-hand corner is the very northwest corner of Jackson Park, or if you're a golfer, Hole 5. On the right side of the screen, north-south, you see the light rail alignment of Sound Transit's Linwood Link extension, and just at the top of the picture, the new station at NE 148th Street, also called Shoreline South.

Shoreline's project will replace the existing signalized intersections on the east and west side of the freeway with roundabouts and will include improved pedestrian and bicycle facilities on the north side and on the south side of the street.

In particular, in that lower right-hand corner, you can see a widened sidewalk area that's actually in this diagram and what is currently parks property today.

Next slide, please.

This slide shows both pieces of properties involved in the exchange, again, in the northwest corner of Jackson Park.

There's just a small sliver of property, about 3,500 square feet, needed to construct the roundabout and the widened sidewalk.

At the other end of Jackson Park are actually the natural area, the Thornton Creek natural areas adjoining Jackson Park.

Just east of 10th Avenue Northeast.

So for those of you familiar with 10th Avenue Northeast there's a there's a pea patch just south of Jackson Park, and this is just south of that where there's a bridge that crosses over the natural areas, and then unopened right of way of Northeast 130th Street.

This right-of-way provides habitat benefit to the adjoining natural area.

It also provides a level and relatively accessible overlook area for the natural area.

We feel that it's a really good option to transfer that jurisdiction to parks and allow it to be a part of that natural area.

Next slide, please.

And I think that actually sums it up.

Again, Parks and I really appreciate Parks collaboration with SDOT and with the City of Shoreline on this project.

We recommend approval of the legislation and can answer any questions if you have them.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, John, for that presentation.

And, John, you intimated that you estimate the amount of give from parks in that northwestern portion of the map at about 5500 square feet that would be going to the right of way for the 130th location that Estat would be granting to parks.

Do you have a square footage estimate for that?

Yes, I apologize.

The area of Jackson Park is a little over 3,500 square feet.

The actual figure is in the legislation itself, but it's 3,500 and change.

And the SDOT right-of-way is 12,000 square feet, so more than three times as large.

Much of the existing right-of-way is within environmental critical areas, both steep slope and riparian for the Thornton Creek.

There is a large, about 3,000 to 4,000 square feet of a level area that provides a relatively accessible overlook of the natural area.

So Parks is getting a ratio of how many square feet for the exchange?

It's something just a little more than 3 to 1.

Yeah, great.

That does seem to comply with the initiative 42 requirements.

Do colleagues have any additional questions?

All right, well, I'm getting dizzy just looking at pictures of those roundabouts, but I think we're ready to go on moving this one forward.

Unless, Tracy, do you have any other comments?

Only that you need to have your public hearing.

Right.

Yeah.

And that is that this we are satisfying through this committee meeting the pub.

Well, technically, you're supposed to say this is a public hearing for this purpose and this is what this is the committee is being held for that purpose.

So,

Yeah, all right.

No, I'll put that on the record.

So, I mean, as Tracy just indicated, this is the public hearing that is required under initiative 42 to consider a potential transfer of park property for another purpose that is not in the control of Seattle Parks and Recreation.

In this case, a transmittal of a portion of property near Jackson Park.

into SDOT for the right-of-way.

And we just heard through the exchange that I had with John Laser that parks will be receiving SDOT right-of-way in the amount of a ratio of three to one.

So that does exceed what is required from Initiative 42, which I believe just requires an in-kind one-for-one of park area within the same area.

I guess I should further add that we're carving off a little from one end of Jackson and adding to the other end of Jackson.

So it's related to the same park, which I think further meets the requirements of initiative 42. So for those reasons, I do concur in the judgment of the departments and for whatever it's worth.

can make my own determination as chair of the committee that the requirements of initiative 42 have been met.

Is there anything else to add from committee presenters or any questions from colleagues before we vote on this measure?

I would just add, Council Member, that this has enormous public benefit to it too, which is also a consideration in our decision to make this land swap.

Yes.

Well, thank you, Superintendent Williams.

We're going to go ahead and call the question on this ordinance.

I move that this committee recommend passage of Council Bill 120547. Is there a second?

Maybe, yes, thanks.

Having been moved and seconded and seeing no further comments on the bill, will the clerk please call the roll on recommending passage of Council Bill 120547?

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council President Juarez?

Aye.

Council Member Mosqueda?

Aye.

Chair Lewis?

Yes.

Chair, there are four in favor, none opposed.

Thank you so much.

The measure passes and we'll go to consideration at next full council for final passage.

Thank you to our presenters.

That is our last item on the agenda.

Hearing no further business to come before the committee, this committee is adjourned at 419 PM.

Thank you, everybody.

Recording stopped.