Seattle City Council Select Budget Committee 10/3/18 Session I

Good morning, everybody.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Thank you all for being here.

Today is October 3rd.

It's Wednesday.

This is our special budget committee, and it is 933 a.m.

Thank you all for being here.

Appreciate the fact that we've got the mayor's office, human services department, office of housing, our council central staff, and so many more.

I've got a few minutes of presentation that I want to get going on before we ask for folks to begin their comments.

But Jody, I understand you've got an announcement.

And everybody, I hope that you will listen for just a second.

We have been notified that at 11.18 a.m.

all of our phones are going off.

Jody, do you want to describe this, Jody?

That is correct.

You want to say why?

I don't have the script, why?

I'm happy to talk about it.

As the chair of Public Safety Committee, I can share that we received a notification from Barb Graff, our director of the Office of Emergency Management, notifying all city employees that FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, will be issuing a nationwide test.

This is a new thing that they're trying in terms of being able to utilize cell phone-based technology to notify people across the nation about potential natural disasters and emergencies and responses that are required as a result of those natural disasters.

So, today in chambers, while we are likely all sitting here doing our work session on the budget, our phones will all collectively go off at 11.18 a.m.

with that notification, and in order to make it stop, you actually have to actively make it stop.

So take your phone out when that happens, push the button, and it'll stop making the tone, whatever the tone is.

Thank you, Council Member Gonzalez.

So it'll be about an hour, it looks like an hour and 45 minutes more or less, so we'll be ready to go when that happens.

Okay, so we had our first presentations last week for our Special Budget Committee, and I want to say thanks to all the departments who came.

Office of Housing and our Human Services Department were part of those conversations, but we specifically asked them to come back today.

And that's what today is going to be designed to do, to allow us to ask and answer questions about how are things going?

What are the total investments that our city is making in human services, whether it's an emergency, whether it's the alternatives that we have seen to get people off the street?

This afternoon, we're going to be hearing from our navigation team.

We'll learn more from Seattle Public Utilities and Parks on how we are picking up garbage, what the costs are, and how effective that is going to be.

We are going to take a recess at noon.

We'll be back at 2 o'clock this afternoon.

Public comment will be received after the afternoon session.

So we will look forward to hearing from folks.

Now, I do want to talk briefly about The way I want to frame this today and my goal from council central staff and with human services department and office of housing is really to look at how we are collaborating to solve this problem with the city, with the county, with the state if there is state help coming in.

I want to frame this in such a way that it's designed to say what is working?

What is helping people move off the streets into housing?

What are we doing that is successful?

How are we responding with like last year with our request for proposal?

How is that working?

What are we know?

What do we know is actually helping us move the needle?

I want to also acknowledge last year that We, during our conversations with the budget, the conversations over the employee hours tax, that it became, in my mind, so divisive that we were losing sight of what it was we want to accomplish.

And I'll tell you what I want to accomplish during this budget season is to acknowledge the fact that homelessness is not just the city of Seattle's problem.

People who are homeless are homeless for many, many different reasons, but what we do know is that one of the biggest problems that our region is facing is the fact that the fair market rent has gone up so much and that it has risen like 12% a year on average over the last seven or eight years, which is putting many people at risk.

And we do know that there are lots of triggers of homelessness.

We focused on that last year during the one table.

The McKinsey report came out and also acknowledged that an unexpected expense, whether it is arising from A health issue, a loss of a job, domestic violence being reasons that we recognize that people are suddenly finding themselves homeless.

But the thing that over and over we're hearing is that the rapid decline in the stock of affordable housing is what is getting more people out on the street and finding it harder and harder for people to find a suitable alternative.

And if somebody is evicted on the front end, we have seen over and over again that nothing good happens from that.

If you are evicted, things only get worse.

And we do want to acknowledge that 10 years ago in our city and in the county as well, we had pockets of less expensive apartments, pockets of what were known as the cheap motels where people could go.

If they were to hit bottom, they could still find a roof.

Less and less of that is available to us.

So as we're talking again today, I want to acknowledge that the supply gap, supply gap of affordable housing, and this is using not just McKinsey's numbers, but Eco Northwest and other reports, supply gap within the city is now 60,000 homes.

And Office of Housing has been super about increasing the supply by thousands over the last 20 years.

Our Seattle Housing Authority, likewise, increasing supply.

King County Housing Authority, increasing supply.

But we still know that in the tri-counties over the last 20 years, we're something like 175,000 units short.

So as we're looking at this, and one of the phrases that I've already used and I'll continue to use, is that the city can do anything, but we can't do everything.

So I want us to be focusing today on what we are doing well, how we can bring those numbers up, but how we can also reach out to our partners, which we're going to have to do within the community, within the state, and hopefully someday again with the federal government.

So with that, I know we're going to hear more about rapid rehousing, permanent supportive housing, our housing resource center, our landlord liaison project.

I think there's many opportunities here to increase that supply.

And we also recognize that we're putting in something like somewhere between 100 and 200 million into this, solve this problem within the city and the county.

But the estimated budget to really get a handle on it is somewhere between 360 million and 410. That's based upon McKinsey's numbers in their report last spring.

So I'm hopeful that we'll hear more about what we can do.

what we are doing successfully, and then for us collectively to be saying how we're going to go forward in spending our money in 2019 and 2020. Okay, with that, thank you.

At the table, would you introduce yourselves starting with Eric?

Hello, I'm Eric Sund, Council Central Staff Budget Coordinator.

Allison McLean, Council Member Begshall's office.

Tracy Ratzliff, Council Central staff.

Alan Lee, Council Central staff.

Great, and I also want to say thank you to my council colleagues who are here, starting with Council Member Juarez, Ms. Skater, so on, Council Member O'Brien.

It looks like we're all here.

Great.

Council President Harold Gonzalez-Johnson and Herbold, thank you very much, and please proceed.

Well, while the HSD, while they're coming to the table, I'll just remind the council members that at the inaugural meeting of the Select Committee on Homelessness and Affordable Housing, the department had the opportunity to provide a comprehensive report on what the city is currently spending in 2018. comprehensively across all departments.

And I believe today's presentation will very much follow the same structure, will not be isolated solely on the human services department as we have, as the council has typically received such presentations in the past.

They're going to use this model moving forward that shows all investments across all departments.

Great.

Thank you very much.

Do we have everybody introduced?

Not Tiffany, not Jason.

So, do you want to continue with introductions here?

Sorry.

Ben Noble, City Budget Director.

Jason Johnson with the Human Services Department.

Tiffany Washington, Human Services Department.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Steve Walker, Office of Housing.

Julie Dingley, City Budget Office.

Good.

Thank you.

Welcome all of you.

All right.

So, Ben, are you kicking this one off or?

Jason's going to kick off, and I'm going to step in, and then we'll hand it back and forth a little bit.

Okay, very good.

Great, good morning.

Thank you, Council, for the opportunity to be with you.

As Councilmember Bagshaw introduced, this morning we're going to be talking about our homeless system broadly.

We're also going to be talking about the performance of that system, specifically the performance of the investments that the city makes into that system.

Later this afternoon, we'll be joined by the navigation team for a discussion about our outreach efforts, and then followed by a deeper discussion about cleanup activities throughout the city.

Help me keep an eye on this side, okay, if you have questions.

I wanted to start at a high level, giving you a sense of the overall budget of the city's homelessness response.

Again, this is not just within HSD, but across the city.

And over the course of both the morning session and the afternoon session, we'll talk about the various programs that are funded here.

What you're showing here is 2017, the actual spending that occurred, the adopted 2018 budget.

And then the amended 2018 budget, a number of significant additions occurred mid-year.

Essentially $10 million of additional spending was appropriated.

And then 2019, as shown in the proposed budget.

Note that the increment from the 18 amended to 19 proposed is relatively small.

But I think it is worth noting that there is significant increase relative to the 2018 adopted.

And I think you know if we took this chart backward, you would see a comparable slope to that curve over the past three or four years as the city's investments have continued to grow.

Before I make a couple comments about some individual categories, I just wanted to echo something that Council Member Bagshaw started with.

This is the spending.

Much more important are the actual effects, and that's much the rest of this presentation.

We'll talk about what's working, if you will, and where we're investing as a result.

Just to highlight a couple of points that are essentially, well, some technical, some not.

You'll note that in general, funding is increasing across these categories, but there are a couple exceptions, and I want to explain them.

So between the 18 amended and the 19 proposed, you'll notice a decrease in prevention spending.

That's in some ways, Well, it's directly a result of the one-time investment that was made mid-year 2018 in the SHA program to help move folks off their wait list into housing.

That is a one-time pilot that isn't funded in 19, but it's important to recognize that the one-time funding that was provided in 18 will actually be spent in part in 18 and in part in 19. We've shown it in 18 because that's when the appropriation occurred.

But that spending will actually, the pilot will run through 19, and then we'll make a determination for 20, what's the next appropriate step.

But that isn't, in some sense, a real decline.

It's just that one-time program.

It is not a real decline.

Exactly.

It's that one-time program being spent out, will be spent out over those two years, shown as the appropriation in 2018 only.

So can I, Ben, can I just interrupt?

We're going to hear a lot more about prevention overall.

And I think sometimes that we get the definitions, if not mixed up, they mean different things at different points in time.

because we talk about prevention as keeping people in their homes and what we're spending.

And some of the housing spending, I think, is keeping people in their homes.

So as we're going through, if we're talking about prevention, can we also be very clear about where that money is going?

And as we get into the details, we'll do exactly that.

Just having put this picture up, I needed to qualify it or explain it in a couple ways.

The other one I want to highlight, the apparent decrease is in the access to services category.

And this gets to essentially the point you were indirectly making, which is the way we categorize these things, it's not arbitrary, but it can be difficult to put things into simple buckets.

And as we looked at this harder for 19, we realized that in previous years, we had included some things in that category that weren't really directly related to homelessness.

We did not go back and adjust the buckets that we'd accumulated for 17 and 18 adopted and 18 amended, because we have put those numbers out publicly before and didn't want to confuse things.

But in some sense, that's not an apples to apples comparison.

For 19, we have taken a step back and tried to be as thorough and clear as we can about the spending.

So that's why that apparent drop.

But in terms of the actual investment in homelessness-related access to services, there's not a decline there.

Again, it is the way we've characterized things.

And it's always a toss-up about, you know, we figured out we didn't do it right before.

Should we change it and introduce this inconsistency or just keep going?

And we decided it was better to be clear introduce inconsistency and then have the likes of me explain why it's the case.

So I appreciate that.

Sometimes it's an accounting feature that we need to say this is the way we're accounting.

What I'm really interested in is how much are we spending and how many people are better off because of our investments.

And that's exactly what we're trying to show here.

And if you dig into the budget book, and when we were going through HSD's budget previously last week, I mentioned this too, there are some other shifts in categorization that are going on as well.

We will try to be entirely transparent about when we've, things that were funded, some of them on a one-time basis for 18, virtually all of that has been continued into 19. There are some exceptions that we try to be very clear about those.

We've been answering questions to highlight those as well.

So, anyway.

high level picture of the city's continued investment.

I do think the slides that follow the talk about what's working and what's not are actually in some ways more important.

Great, thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Just a few questions here, and I'm looking through my materials, so tell me if there's a place that you can direct me that this information's already included.

I'd like to have a better sense of how this bucket of $87 million is divided between state, federal, and city funds.

I guess one could take away from here that this was all city funds, but if there's state and federal in there, I'd like to have a better sense of that.

Also, a better sense of which which of these dollars are true capital investments.

We talked a little bit about this previously with the Office of Housing, and I know that the housing bucket is not fully representative of capital investments that the Office of Housing is doing overall, but the capital versus the operating expenses would be super helpful for me.

And then lastly, when we talk about some of the prevention services, emergency services, we do a lot already in the city with Cleanups and parks making sure that they're clean in terms of garbage cleaning up sharps, etc Some of this information or some of these activities are not directly related to homelessness services And so I want to have a better sense of whether or not we're also capturing all of those dollars in here And if that's an accurate representation of funding that we would be spending otherwise and not just on homelessness services Can you comment on those?

Yeah, so those are obviously all really good questions.

I'm going to not try to answer them all here on the spot.

There is a mix of funding here between sources of both the city's general fund and other sources.

Most of this money is operating.

Some of that gets a little bit subtle about how you think about, for instance, setting up the supporting encampments and the tiny homes, how much of that you think about as capital is operating.

But we'll get you an answer that is much more clear about that.

And I understand your point, I mean, a bunch of indirect costs, I think about parks, I mean, the folks are out there emptying trash cans and cleaning up generally on an ongoing basis.

The numbers here aren't reflective of that overall effort because it's not targeted, but we can get you some more information about what parks, just as an example, perhaps also SDOT is spending generally on those sorts of activities.

It wouldn't be attributed directly to homelessness, but I think it does give you a sense of additional spending by the city in that space, if you will.

And if I could just piggyback on that answer, the housing category you see on here includes permanent supportive housing investments from OH and HSD, rapid rehousing, diversion, and then the housing resource center.

So this is the operating dollars to the best extent we can capture them.

And then similar to how we presented in the select committee briefing two, three weeks ago, we sort of count that capital OH investment below the line, and that's on a later slide.

I can get you the slide number, but it's, we'll be covering that a little later.

All right, thanks Ben.

So the slide here is really an attempt to show you visually the 2019 proposed budget as it's broken down by some important program areas.

You'll see that the majority of the investments are made to emergency services.

Those emergency services are programs like shelters, villages, hygiene centers, outreach programs, our navigation team, and transitional housing.

Followed next is housing, and when we talk about housing here, we are specifically talking about permanent supportive housing, rapid rehousing, and diversion investments.

We also have a significant amount of budget in the operations, prevention, and access to services.

And we're going to be going through each of these program items in great detail to talk about both the 2018 performance of those investments, as well as any changes in the 19 proposed budget.

27.8.

Yeah, Council Member O'Brien.

Thank you, Jason.

I have a couple questions of that large bucket of emergency services and what's in there and what it means.

So I'll ask my questions and if there's a better time to ask it, that's fine.

Does that include the 378,000 towards basic shelter beds that will be carried, I think, just through the first half of the year in the proposed budget?

Those are the typical share wheel, I think, is the one that operates those.

Correct.

So I'm interested in understanding what the transition plan is for those.

We've had this discussion in previous years.

And my second question is about vehicular living.

I believe there's about $250,000 in new money in here.

Is that included in that?

red bucket and what will that go to?

Yes.

Okay.

Yep, and we're going to go dive deeper into the emergency or crisis program area very soon.

Great, thank you.

Please continue.

Great, so I know that you're anxious to sort of get to it and to start really diving into each program area and asking your questions related to the budget.

I spent a significant amount of time with you last week talking about our results-based accountability, how we and when we put investments out to bid, and so I won't go into a great level of detail about our process, but I do think it is important to understand that the Human Services Department, and really citywide, we have some core principles at play when we make funding investments and when we're looking at the performance of the homeless response system.

Those principles are that it needs to be a person-centered response.

For us, what that means is that we're investing in systems and programs that can respond to the needs of individuals.

I think a good example of this is the flexible dollars in diversion programming as well as in rapid rehousing.

Those are programs that can meet an individual or family need.

can have staffing attached to figure out what that need is and some cash assistance to get that individual or family into housing.

I think another example of person-centered is the enhancements that we've made to shelters.

So these are making shelters 24-7, offering a level of staffing, some ability to store belongings.

So again, we're really thinking programmatically or system-wide and making sure that the programs in that system are meeting the individual need.

And we are no longer requiring that individuals jump through programmatic hoops or program regulations in order to get service.

Can I just underscore one thing there?

I am so thankful to you for really adopting this idea of the 24-7 shelter.

I know that many of us here on the dais have been pursuing this for many, many years.

I know it takes a long time.

Each one is difficult to find and cite.

But as you will come forward with the numbers, I know that you have them in the next few slides.

Moving people out of those 24-7 shelters and into permanent housing is significantly, I think it's three or four times more than the just overnight shelters.

Now, we know that there's a place for overnight shelters.

And we're going to have to deal with that.

I'm going to talk about how we're going to work particularly with the faith institutions that are offering, you know, mats within their space.

But then when people are out on the street again at 6.30 or 7 in the morning without another place to go, they do not get stabilized.

So I just want to underscore that that is working.

It's the investments that are working.

And as we're looking to our county partners as well, that this is an area where we just need to beef that up.

Thank you.

The next principle that I want to highlight is addressing racial disparity.

We acknowledge that race matters, that there are significant disparities that show up in the homeless population.

And there are systemic reasons for that.

There are systems that, again, a higher number of people of color are using.

And those systems are failing them in a way that leave them no option but to live unsheltered on Seattle streets.

So for the Human Services Department and citywide, we want to make sure we are doing everything possible to address those racial disparities.

And in 2018, through our RFP and through our 2018 contracts, we've set very specific racial equity goals so that we could really move the needle to reduce those disparities that exist.

And in 2018, in our 2018 contracts, We've asked that programs primarily focus on addressing disparities for a native population as well as a black African American population.

The third principle at play is that we want to make sure we're investing in programs that work.

When we say investing in programs that work, ultimately what we mean is that they work in getting people out of homelessness and into housing.

We want to make sure that we're paying attention to a set of performance indicators that show us that programs have the ability to move people through their programming and into housing.

We no longer want to simply manage someone's homelessness and have that experience of homelessness extended.

What we want to make sure is that we are as quickly as possible addressing the issues for an individual or a family and that we're doing everything we can in partnership with community-based organizations to get that person into housing.

So I wanted to just highlight those three principles because they are ever present in the work.

And as we go through each program area and as we highlight the performance of those program areas, I want you to sort of understand that these principles are always in play for us.

I think it's also worth noting just a little bit of context.

I think as a department, as a city, we're in this continual improvement process that really began in 2014. In 2014, the department began a very intensive and detailed analysis of our homeless investments.

Homelessness and our homeless investments previously were both organizationally as well as philosophically part of a larger anti-poverty set of investments.

And we began in 2014 really trying to understand what are the investments we're making to address homelessness.

And we got really specific about what those investments were and started down, started a journey to find out how well those investments were performing.

We also invited two national experts to look at and help us think strategically about those key investments.

We invited Barbara Poppe, as well as Focus Strategies, to dive deeply into the activities that were currently underway, as well as help us craft some new strategies that might help us have a greater impact in our ability to address homelessness here in the city of Seattle.

and regionally across King County.

And through that strategic work, we as a department crafted the Pathways Home.

That is our strategic plan.

That is a set of key activities that we put into motion last year by releasing our Homeless Investments RFP and this year by implementing those contracts.

I think it's important to note sort of what those six key activities or strategies in Pathways Home were.

One, we made a new commitment to people who are living unsheltered.

Two, we wanted to expand 24-hour shelter options for individuals that needed an emergency shelter.

We wanted to actively problem solve wait lists.

Those are wait lists in our coordinated entry system as well as wait lists that exist in the public housing.

And we wanted to make sure that we were connecting people to services.

That connection to services needed to be made at sort of all elements, all the way through our homeless system.

Likewise, we needed to make more rental units accessible, and we needed to ensure good government and good performance.

That's our role as public stewards.

So those are the six sort of key activities or strategies that were developed through this process of first, investment analysis, and second, some real deep strategic work with our national partners.

Barb Poppe and Focus Strategies.

So I just wanted to highlight that and let you know that those two, just like the principals, are in play as we move through each program area and share the performance of each of those areas.

In the development of the pathways sort of philosophy, I guess a simple question I would have is, because we know the path to homelessness is, there's several paths, right?

Whether it's mental illness or drug and alcohol problems, a recently released person from from prison who has a hard time getting a job because of their label an ex-offender.

There are several paths.

A medical bill just took a family under.

So part of my support for the pathways is that I thought we'd be able to look at the different paths more specifically and then do the preventative work.

An example would be If, in fact, many people who are struggling to find jobs are labeled felons and that prevents their ability to get a job and they just can't sustain themselves, then should we go deeper into that realm of investments as an example?

So that was sort of my takeaway when we looked at the POP report and the individualized approach.

And so I guess my question is, are we sort of at the place where We sort of know the different causes in broad terms and then that helps us guide the investments to the individual or are we still trying to figure that part out?

Because we spend a lot of time just looking at the tangible house to put the person in.

I understand that.

We talk about housing and the need for housing.

But we also are now spending time on the preventative work and the different causes.

And I think we keep saying there's so many, there are several different causes.

And I don't know if we're there yet, but I hope my question is clear.

Yeah, thanks.

I think it's a both and.

I, you know, with intention talked about this as continued improvement, continuous improvement that we're still in.

I think, you know, I was part of and helped facilitate one of the groups through the one table process that focused on the criminal justice system.

And, you know, there were other systemic reasons that we all know contribute to someone's experience of homelessness.

Housing affordability, which Councilmember Bagshaw has already mentioned.

There's also employment, the criminal justice system, our foster care system.

And so it was with the intention of really exploring some of those systemic, or as you've referred to, maybe preventative elements that might have an upstream or root cause impact on our ability to address homelessness as a community that I think were the very reason that Mayor Durkan and Executive Constantine got that group together.

I think that work continues.

There is still work being done between the city, county, our suburban city partners, as well as our partners in philanthropy to explore this.

But the Pathways Home strategic plan really did focus on our crisis response system.

When I list out those six key activities, you'll see that they really are about improving this system that supports individuals who are currently experiencing homelessness.

And with thousands of people still living outdoors, that becomes and continues a real focus area for these investments.

But I think there is a bit of editorial commentary, I think there is a lot more that we can be doing in partnership with the county, in partnership with the state, to address some of those systemic or root causes that people are becoming homeless in our community.

And I'd just like to respond to Council President Harrell as well.

I think that the report that came out of One Table was very specific about acts that we could be taking in those areas where we know the root cause of homelessness.

And in particular, persons returning from prison is one we know what we need to do.

And it's a very difficult area, but within the One Table report, a list of acts that we could take as a city that could help respond to that.

And I appreciate that.

I appreciate your response, Jason.

And I guess I was hoping through this budget process, and I don't think we're there yet, and I'm going to see how we might be able to get there, just to be able to sort of look at the dashboard to say, well, in X number of people experiencing homelessness, we know that 25% of it, that the preventative work needs in this, we're in 25% in this area, and we start getting this kind of sort of investment dashboard so it could help us guide our investments.

And I think we have to respond to the crisis and we have to build houses and all of that.

Tiffany, do you want to say something?

I think that one thing to remember is that HSD has an entire department that goes through the entire life continuum.

And most of the prevention programs are in the youth and family empowerment division.

And so when we talk about prevention today, one of the things that I'm going to be asking you all is, where on the continuum are you talking about prevention?

Because it's birth.

to passing.

And so DEEL has prevention programs, YFE in their community safety, tutoring programs, youth development programs, feeding programs, they have prevention.

And so what I hear you saying is it would be nice to see all of those a dashboard that shows how all of those programs feed one another.

So how is the prevention work side of HSD impacting the emergency services side?

Are we actually preventing people from being homeless through family support and family centers and all of those things?

It's like the continuum of the department.

And I would say yes.

That's my question.

So you're saying show us.

Yeah.

Well, particularly for those experiencing homelessness right now.

And I know you're doing a lot.

I mean, I know what you're doing in prison reentry and some of the other work.

But as we go through the budget, we're going to start calibrating.

We double down here and we pull back from here.

That's what we have to do.

And again, I'm particularly on the preventative piece.

We're going to focus a lot on the housing piece, but on preventative piece, I'm still trying to get a good figure on those experiencing homelessness where we get the most bang for the buck, so to speak.

Great.

Thank you.

I do want to just highlight that when today, in this presentation, when we're talking about prevention, we're talking about very specific investments that pay for and offer a level of rent assistance.

to keep people in their housing.

So there is broad prevention work that the department, that the city is part of.

A lot of that sits in our aging and disability services division with the case management, the in-home care that's provided, but for The investments that we're talking about today and the investments, the numbers, the program data that's in front of you really is about a rent assistance program.

So I just wanted to, you know, we could talk about prevention, we could talk about root cause.

We're going to be using that word prevention quite a bit today.

But for the purposes of today's presentation, the investments that we're discussing are really about a specific homeless prevention activity.

that we fund.

Alan, did you have something you wanted to add to this?

Director Johnson just addressed it.

So I think the question that Council President Harrell asked is something we're all going to want to look at.

So maybe we can put that on Alan's to-do to work with you, Tiffany, because I know the information is available.

and come back and highlight that, but let's continue with your presentation.

Council Member Mosqueda first.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I guess the disconnect that I'm having is I just want to make sure that we're all on the same page when we're looking at the proposed budget here because I think what you just said is accurate.

What I see in the proposed budget is a real emphasis on the day-to-day alleviation of how we help those who are unsheltered.

an emphasis on basic shelters, enhanced shelters, outreach, the navigation team, et cetera.

But I guess what is going to be interesting for me is how we get into the longer term supports.

That's why I asked about capital investments.

And I just want to make sure that I am accurate in my understanding, my assessment of the budget in front of us, which I think really places an emphasis on enhanced funding for those immediate day-to-day assistance versus the longer-term housing needs.

You know, just to be clear, much of what the one table discussed, and I think Council President Harreld's points are well taken, we can't help get folks out of the prison pipeline.

We can't help people stabilize by getting into education or into a job.

We can't help people get their medications either to address mental health issues or substance abuse issues when they don't have housing.

And I guess what the disconnect is for me is, yes, I think we need to focus on many of these day-to-day things that you're going to walk through.

But my interest is going to really be into how do we make sure that we have those long-term housing assessments?

Because my understanding, and perhaps this is just a precursor of what we're going to get into in a minute, but my understanding is the housing, the actual capital investments, are really held stagnant from the 2018 numbers.

And if you could comment on that, that would be great.

I do love that we're seeing enhancements.

what I would consider more day-to-day prevention issues.

I really appreciate that.

But is that not compared to a 2018 amount that we are continuing to go forward in the actual housing and capital investments?

That's where I see a disconnect.

Yeah, we will.

We're going to really focus on housing later in the presentation.

So I'll save a response for that time.

Okay, you've seen this slide before.

I'm not going to walk you through it.

But what this graphic highlights is when we're talking about a homeless prevention, sorry, our homeless system, these are the elements that we're talking about.

We're talking about prevention.

Again, prevention as a rental assistance program that helps to keep people housed.

We're talking about an emergency or crisis response system.

Those are the elements that I discussed previously, emergency shelter, hygiene centers, day centers, et cetera.

We're also talking about housing programs.

These are diversion investments, rapid rehousing investments, affordable housing, and permanent supportive housing investments that we make specifically for people who are leaving the homeless system, leaving their experience of homelessness.

So I just offer this again as a reminder that these are the system elements that an individual or a family experiencing homelessness are reliant on, and these are the specific investments that we'll be discussing with you today.

Chair Beksha?

Good.

Please, Council Member Herbold.

A question related to this chart and an investment in this year's proposed budget relates to the vehicular residency funding of $250,000 a year for new programming to target vehicular residents.

Just wondering where that fits in on this chart.

Yeah, so there's, potentially it fits in two places.

So that's the outreach, you'll see across the top, which outreach and case management or basic services are across all of the program elements.

Likewise, if there was a, for example, a safe parking program, something like that, then That would likely be in, you know, option two, option three.

We would consider that a emergency response similar to our, the villages or the sanctioned encampments.

So that is telling me that those funds are for a program that will include both outreach, so working with people who are living in their vehicles and outreaching to them and getting them to move to a place that the other part of this funding will fund, which is the place.

Is that correct?

And so that $250,000 will fund both components?

Yeah, just the emergency outreach.

So it really is a outreach strategy.

We've tested a number of outreach strategies for people living in vehicles before.

And this is $250,000 that really is going to be a more intensive and targeted outreach to individuals living in vehicles.

But no lot, basically.

Got it.

I mean, the sort of reality of whether or not there will be a lot or not at this point is still unknown.

The existing outreach includes outreach to folks who are living in vehicles.

So it's not that that increment has to be entirely focused on outreach.

We have significant outreach.

The question is, having outreach to folks who are living in vehicles, do we have meaningful alternatives?

And the goal of the 250 is to help to develop, to the extent possible, if you will, a meaningful alternative in terms of a safe place to move a vehicle.

And the details on that are still under development.

Yeah, I'm hearing all kinds of different answers on that question.

Related to this, it would be great to know how the funding in last year's budget related to vehicular living, specifically using the LEED program as an outreach and services program targeted to the residents of vehicular vehicles.

That would be really helpful to know how that's going.

So the mayor wants a lot in 2019. That's the answer.

So we answered that question.

We just submitted answers to Alan Lee.

What Jason's talking about is we have to enter into a planning phase to figure out where, how, who.

And so the logistics of that have not been worked out yet, but she has asked for a lot.

Council Member Gonzalez, did you have a follow-up on that?

I do.

Thank you for taking my...

reading my body language, I appreciate it.

It was just a finger drumming that I.

Well, I'm just getting impatient because I just, yeah, I feel like we've covered the first six slides ad nauseum in prior committee hearings, but I appreciate the reminder of all this information.

So I, on the vehicular resident, issue which appears on page 168 of the budget book.

There are almost no details in the budget book or in today's presentation about what the details of this particular programming will be as it relates to focusing particularly on those folks who are experiencing homelessness in cars, vans, and or RVs.

And I just want to signal some concern around how we got to the number of 250,000, given that we know from the 2018 point-in-time count that the population, in terms of vehicular residency, jumped.

by 46% countywide and so I'm a little concerned about whether or not $250,000 is going to create an appreciable difference in terms of the number of people who are experiencing homelessness in in vehicles so so I I feel like I need some more information to be able to understand what the department's anticipated goals and impact will realistically be as a result of a $250,000 investment.

And given that this is the most significant, one of the most significant areas of concern that I hear from constituents on a day-to-day basis, I feel like I need to have much more clarity on the details and particulars around how these dollars will be implemented before I feel comfortable with this proposal.

So that's one thing.

The second thing that I'll say is that I would also like to get a sense as part of a response to this inquiry is sort of whether there's gonna be a geographic focus and that's why it's only $250,000.

And if so, where is the geographic focus going to be?

How is the geographic focus being determined?

and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Yeah, those are great questions.

To go back to, so I have a couple points.

That whole middle part of emergency services where you see that people are living unsheltered, you have, as you know, people living unsheltered in their vehicles and people living unsheltered on the street.

And so I think to answer kind of why the 250, one reason, and from my perspective, is because we have to prioritize where we're going to put dollars at, and it's not saying that people living in vehicles are less important than people living on the street, but it is to recognize that there are people that are literally living on the street.

So that doesn't answer that, but the second, but the reason why we're saying we need pause so we can have a planning process is to tease out exactly every single question you asked.

So we are unable to put forth a proposal or contract with anyone unless we answer those questions.

Where, how many?

And is anyone better off?

The third point is, I'm currently in a planning process with the mayor's office to answer all those questions.

And we had a request from Council Member O'Brien's office for Jesse, who specifically asked, can he be a part of that planning process?

He will soon be invited to be a part of that planning process to help us tease out those questions.

And so I know it's frustrating to not have the answers yet, but just know that we will have the answers before any money hits the street in 2019.

I do also just want to add the $250,000 wasn't pulled out of thin air.

We believe that we can serve 90 households with that money.

And we believe that we can implement a program that serves roughly 30 households at a time throughout the year.

So we're basing that on expenditures in our basic shelter models.

We're also basing that on some expenditures that exist.

with our sanctioned villages.

So I do want to just.

You know, the 250 is there with the belief that we can, with that money, serve about 90 households.

And it's not just 250. There is an outreach continuum in that middle bucket that says there are people on the ground whose jobs are to outreach to people who are unsheltered, which includes vehicles, tents, doorways.

And so I think a second question, and tell me if this would be helpful, is really, Who are we reaching in that middle bucket?

Where are they at?

And are they in tense vehicles?

Because I don't wanna give the impression that there's only $250,000 in the budget that are gonna go towards reaching people in vehicles.

But that is the impression I have.

Okay.

And the reason I have that impression is because that's what the budget book says.

So page 168 of the budget book, which is the only thing I have to go by, because that's what is transmitted from the mayor's office to us, in our deliberative process and evaluation and analysis of this budget is there's one category, and it talks about vehicular response, $250,000.

This program will provide outreach to individuals living in vehicles, a safe space for people to park their vehicles, and connections to other services like diversion and rapid rehousing that HSD funds.

The 2018 point in time count highlighted the ongoing need for a program targeted to the unique needs of this population with approximately 51% of unsheltered individuals in Seattle living in vehicles.

And so if you are telling me now that $250,000 is not the total amount of money in this proposed budget that is being allocated and proposed to being allocated to the vehicular response, then I would really like to get into the granular details of what is the amount.

Yeah, so there's in outreach specifically, also in the budget book, there's a million dollars, which is the service element for the navigation team.

What page are you looking at, Director Johnson?

It's, I'm not.

The budget book is, can't be written in a way that anticipates every potential question.

So there is the outreach, there is funding for outreach generally, a portion of that is directed towards folks who are living in vehicles and a portion not.

So we're happy for the Q&A both particularly in written form because a lot of these are very detailed questions and that's why we have an entire protocol about that so that we can get to these specific issues.

So that it's less a question of you can slice this in various ways and we've tried to be

You know when we have an increment specific increment tried to describe what that is But the the base level funding for outreach includes outreach to a variety of situations if you will So I would like to point out councilmember Gonzalez's question goes under a category called proposed change So if there's a baseline, I think what I'm hearing her say and everybody up here would agree is what are we spending now on the vehicular outcomes and outreach and and location, and if we add $250,000, how many more people are going to be served and what do we think is going to be the positive impact?

And then Council Member Swatz next in the queue.

Great, so in the 2018 budget, we have investments for the navigation team.

We have outreach that we purchase through Reach.

We have outreach that includes a variety of other outreach programs, totaling $3.2 million.

We have a $1.7 million investment in LEAD, where we specifically call out outreach to vehicles.

So we have a lot more.

investment in this outreach and we are adding 250 to be specifically targeted toward individuals living in vehicles.

That's helpful and I guess what I'm asking is if I could get just a more detail on exactly what our investments are in this area.

particularly since more than half, slightly more than half of our unsheltered population or populations experiencing homelessness in the city of Seattle are experiencing homelessness in a vehicle.

I think that that makes this much more important in terms of understanding how we're gonna prioritize dollars in this budget.

While I recognize that being in a vehicle is probably and likely a lot safer than just sleeping exposed in the elements on the street.

And I appreciate Tiffany, you making that point.

But we cannot ignore the realities of the increase in the number of folks experiencing homelessness in vehicles.

just because they're in a vehicle.

And so I think that, from my perspective, there's a level of frustration in being able to really see a cohesive strategy in this space and to be able to see that that strategy is being supported with meaningful investments to address the realities of individuals who are experiencing homelessness in vehicles throughout the city.

Understood and happy to talk about that when we get to the outreach slide as well.

Thank you And then the the last thing I'll say since you brought up the navigation team is that I had an opportunity to take a look at the excerpts of the 2019-2020 proposed budget for King County and and which I can be doing a lot of this budget season since we keep hearing about this supposed regional approach that we need to make sure that we continue to support.

The only thing I notice on the 2019-2020 proposed budget summary from King County is one bullet point that talks about, quote, support and collaboration with the city of Seattle for the navigation center and navigation team.

Do you all have a sense of what that means and how many dollars are attached to that particular sentence.

The county provided $500,000 to the city in 2018 to expand navigation team efforts.

This is for 2019-2020, not 2018.

Yeah, next year they gave roughly a million dollars in investment to support the navigation center, and I believe that their investment to the navigation team continues at the same level.

Okay, and is that something that's reflected and incorporated in the proposed budget for 2019-2020, or is that part of a baseline budget that I can't see?

Councilmember, I believe the $1 million navigation center ad is part of the proposed budget.

I am not clear about the $500,000 in county funds from the navigation team.

So when you say the $1 million is included in the proposed budget, is that from our dollars or from the county?

Because I'm asking specifically about the county.

From the county.

OK, just wanted to be clear about that.

And is the navigation center we're talking about Harborview?

No.

No, the navigation center run by DESC on 12th.

in the Pearl Warren building.

And further explanation, clarification, the 500k that was for navigation team operations from the county for 2018 was one time, and we are picking up those expenses for 19 and 20.

Okay, because I just again, I just I'm not you know beating you guys up about this I'm just sort of reading directly from King County's documents claiming that they are going to continue to support and collaborate with the city of Seattle particularly and they list in particular both the Navigation Center and the navigation team for the 2019-2020 proposed budget.

So I just want to get a sense of whether you all have received specific commitments from King County as it relates to both the navigation team and the navigation center for 2019 and 2020. And so far, what I've heard is a clear answer on the navigation center, but not necessarily on the navigation team.

That's correct.

And unless I cast aspersions on the county, let me we will confirm that information to you.

No, they have been partners in this.

I wouldn't want to do that unnecessarily, if you will.

So that is my understanding.

If that is incorrect, we will change.

We'll fix the record.

Thanks.

I appreciate that.

Council member Swann.

And then I'm going to see if we can move past page four.

I already have.

I agree we should be moving.

I am also concerned that we see a lot of recycled information in every presentation.

And yet, despite all of that, when we ask basic questions, we're always told, well, we don't know the what, where, how.

I mean, I just don't understand how this is possible and how much time the public should see the city council continue to just regurgitating information as if we're doing something useful while the housing crisis and the homelessness crisis is raging out there.

So, I mean, I think it's a fair question that, you know, what is $250,000 actually going to do when close to half of the unsheltered people are seeking, you know, are seeking to be vehicular residents?

And what I hear you saying is that you don't even know how many families or vehicles that is?

Estimate, sorry?

That's 90 households that are living in their vehicles.

I'm asking you, when we say 46% of those who are experiencing homelessness are now seeking vehicular residence, how many families is that?

How many are...

Sorry.

It's 2,279.

Yeah.

2,279.

From the one-night count?

Correct.

Right.

Obviously, the number changes, so just any point in time estimate is good enough.

2,279.

That's from the 2018 count.

No, the number I have is countywide.

It's 3,372.

Sorry, this number is just for the City of Seattle.

I should have clarified.

Okay.

So it's 3372 county and for Seattle it was how much?

2279. I mean most of them are in Seattle, obviously.

I mean, look, I want to be clear.

I think the buck stops with elected officials, not with staff.

If you're just doing your job, yes, but at the same time I have a problem with this sort of mystified presentation of everything.

Like, you know, everything, like, you know, oh, my God, we don't know the numbers.

We still need to continue to do research.

I mean, how many years is this tone going to be used, that we're just going to continue to do the research?

We don't know.

I also don't appreciate council members who are asking just very Like, as if we don't know anything, like, oh, what is the definition of this or that?

Who are homeless people?

I think we have more than enough studies to tell us who the homeless people are, what the demographics are.

And I think, Tiffany, you agree that we do have a lot of information.

And I think the question is not, can we do more research on who homeless people are, but can we actually implement something useful here?

In relation to vehicular, and I won't repeat the questioning that Council Member Gonzalez did, which I agree with, but I heard Mr. Johnson say that and also Mr. Noble say that you can't just count $250,000 because there's other dollars that also are included in outreach to all homeless people, including vehicular residents.

But all of that is contained in the investment and navigation team.

That's what I heard you saying, baseline outreach.

What does baseline outreach mean?

So if you look at that chart, the option three, the living unsheltered population, that is who all outreach is responsible for reaching.

Anyone living unsheltered, it could be a car, an RV, on the street, in a tent.

And so what we're trying to say is the $250,000 is an ad for a pilot program to try something specific.

I appreciate...

Which is what?

Can you tell us what that is?

So I appreciate the comment about planning.

I think it's a communications...

I think we have to get better at communicating clearer.

Everything's not being researched.

We have a mandate to have a safe parking lot in the first quarter of 2019. Right now, what we are doing is a mix of community engagement, which is asking those living unsheltered what services would look like that would be helpful for them.

That takes like 30 days.

Then we'll come back.

We'll use data from best practices, models from San Diego and other areas.

We'll bring all that information together.

And then we'll sit at a table and say, given all the information, we believe that we can have a very high impact using this safe parking lot model.

We'll pilot it, and if we see favorable results, then we now have a case to increase funding for that area.

But it doesn't mean that's all we have for vehicle residents.

Any of the, I think we have 10 outreach agencies, are required to go out and find people who are unsheltered.

And so I think I will work on getting better at being clear, because I do think the answers are, I mean, the questions are reasonable.

Thank you.

And I just want to ask one question, which I want to follow up later in the afternoon session.

Is it accurate to say that all the departments involved and the mayor's office, you evaluate success basically on one specific metric, which is transition to permanent housing?

Is it accurate to say that that's At least the spirit of what you're...

No, I think the investments that we're talking about here, a majority of these live in the Human Services Department.

We are primarily looking at exits to permanent housing, but we're also looking at whether or not programs are at capacity.

We're looking at length of time that individuals spend in those programs.

We're making sure that individuals who use those programs are So we're trying to be really targeted with who accesses those programs.

So there are a variety of elements that we're looking at.

And the city is looking at those key performance measures in partnership with King County and United Way.

So these are our sort of system elements that we're all trying to pay attention to.

But our primary is whether or not people are exiting programs and moving into permanent housing.

We monitor that because we want to see an end to the experience of homelessness.

And we want to see that as quickly as possible.

Good.

Council Member O'Brien.

I believe it was in last year's budget.

We put $50,000 in to do a needs assessment for folks living in vehicles, just to get the kind of data so, you know, if we're going to spend $250,000 or whatever it is, we have a sense.

And has that money been spent?

Did we do that assessment?

That's the community outreach part that I was talking about.

Because we have this pilot that we need to launch in the first quarter of 2019, we want to make sure that we're asking the people who are experiencing living in their vehicles what they need.

So yes and no.

We're asking people.

and we're trying to figure out how many people can we ask to make sure that we're being informed by content experts without taking our usual six-month planning process, because we need to have something operationalized in the first quarter of next year.

So how much of the $50,000 we'll spend, we don't know, but you'll definitely, and I answered that question in detail in the budget, will definitely satisfy the intent

I appreciate that, Tiffany, thank you.

I'm piling on a tiny bit here, but Councilmember Sawant and I, two or three budget cycles ago, I remember we had $200,000 that we had budgeted to find spaces for people in their cars and RVs.

And we all knew that wasn't going to begin to solve the problem because there's so many more that are coming into the situation.

But I just really think that if we look at models like what San Diego's done, Santa Barbara's done something.

We know Eugene has, even Kitsap County has done something where it's more of a KOA type campground.

Here's where you can go with your vehicle and have water.

I'm hopeful that whatever we're talking about here, that we can do more faster and finding places for people to go that they're safe.

And of course, we don't want people living in their cars.

Of course not.

Which comes back to the affordable housing point that Council Member Mosqueda brought up and I spoke to in the beginning.

We just need a whole lot more of that.

and a lot faster.

So without making you feel like we're beating up on you now, it really feels to us up here, well, I should say to me up here, that we have been doing this for the nine years that I've been doing the budget with knowing what the problems are, hoping that we can move things faster.

So I'm today going to be asking you, what can we do in 30 days, 90 days, not, you know, sitting here a year from now asking the same questions?

Okay, next slide.

Yep, I'm going to pivot us to the 2018 results.

So these are, again, our 2018 investments.

We've been monitoring to and specifically focused on exits to permanent housing to ensure that the investments that we're making are person-centered, there's flexibility, that we're addressing racial disparities, and that we are investing in programs that work.

And so we're going to go program by program area.

Tiffany's going to walk us through so that we can first see how those programs are performing and then dive into questions about, any questions that you have about the specific programs that exist in those program areas.

Just some key highlights.

We are seeing 35 percent increase in exits to permanent housing.

over the same time in 2017. This is a higher rate of exits to permanent housing in all three program areas.

This is also a higher rate of exits to housing for enhanced shelters.

And likewise, we're seeing, I mentioned, a really targeted focus on disrupting some racial disparities.

We're also seeing a 10% increase in the rate of exits to permanent housing for a Native population as well as for a Black African-American population.

So these are just some key takeaways that we're really excited and remain hopeful about halfway through the year.

I want to mention- May I ask a quick question?

Quick question.

On the key takeaways, and the emphasis on the exit rate is prevalent in just about every single one of these slides.

And I just, I want to get a sense of how, because on this slide, this is a 35% more access to permanent housing that's just sort of in the aggregate.

Is that accurate in terms of, it's just sort of like in total, all of these programs, 35% exit rate.

average.

Okay.

And do you have a sense of or do you evaluate sort of who, in terms of the people our programs are serving, who is seeing increased rates based on their needs?

So, you know, Is it women?

Is it children?

Is it chronically homeless?

And then sort of digging down into each of those in terms of the racial disparities.

And I think this kind of gets back to Council President Harrell's question as well as sort of around How are folks arriving to a state of experiencing homelessness?

And then what programs are we utilizing that we are seeing are creating success in terms of in a more high likelihood of exiting to permanent housing?

We do.

So there's a, you know, again, we have really targeted and sometimes here in the key takeaways, this is a pretty high level response to the data that we're seeing.

But we also can go, and we will be going today, program area by program area, and we take a look at what are the impacts to certain populations.

So I'll just quickly offer that for diversion, for example, we're seeing that this year in 2018, we doubled our investment in diversion and we're seeing that that's a really impactful and immediately helpful response for people of color in a way that maybe our traditional shelters were not.

Likewise, in rapid rehousing, we're seeing that our rapid rehousing investments are able to serve traditionally difficult to serve, especially families, maybe families who are large, multi-generational.

We can use a really flexible rapid rehousing voucher to get them into housing in a way that maybe our traditional housing path didn't support.

So we do look at sort of the sort of real world on the ground impact that these investments are having.

We also, you know, we hear a lot from the providers.

We don't do this in a vacuum.

We are doing this in partnership with community-based organizations who are doing this work.

We engage with them.

We call it active contract monitoring, but basically that's having ongoing conversations with the community-based organizations that we invest in.

We're also hearing from them about what programs are working and what programs are working for specific populations that they serve.

Do we also hear what programs are not yielding as great success?

We do, and I think we'll go through some of that as we go through each program area.

And do you track those programs that you know, need improvement, however it is we define that.

Do you track sort of which populations they might be good for and which populations they're not as good for?

I think, you know, a great and really clear example of that is some changes that we made to investments in transitional housing.

So we know both through our own evaluation as well as what national experts say that transitional housing is really impactful for some targeted populations, specifically young people.

And so we've really tailored and transitioned much of our investment in the transitional housing space to focus on young people.

And what we saw is that transitional housing was quite expensive for sort of a mainstream population.

And that it was a level of service that maybe not every individual or family staying in transitional housing necessarily needed.

So we do that evaluation, we do that analysis, and try to make investments based on that analysis.

And again, as we go through each program area, we'll talk about things that we're particularly excited about and can also highlight areas of concern.

Great.

I really appreciate you bringing up the example of transitional housing, because that's what I was thinking about.

And I would really appreciate you, as we continue the conversation, flagging those areas where you've engaged in that analysis and giving us an opportunity to sort of hear and understand your analysis and your calculations and your math around, for lack of a better analogy, your math around how you came to the conclusion in this proposed budget that XYZ programs should be funded because it helps XYZ target a population and we know that because of whatever it is you're going to tell us that you know that.

Great.

Council Member Herbold.

Thank you.

I have a I don't understand these numbers question and I have a follow-up.

The first graphic with the words next to it says 35% more exits to permanent housing which is 692 exits and then the third one with their little group of houses has 2,644 exits to permanent housing.

How does the 692 relate to the 2,644?

So the first one is just telling you that we have more exits to permanent housing overall from this time, from June of this year, through June of this year, to the same time compared last year.

So the 692 is the 35%?

It's the increment.

Got it.

Yep.

Thank you.

And then the last data point related to the 10% increase in rates of exit to permanent housing for Native American, Alaska Native, and Black African-American households.

You'd mentioned diversion as being one factor for this increase.

Are there other programs that we should know about that have been particularly successful and resulted in this 10% increase in the outcomes?

There are, and we'll highlight those as we move through each program area.

Hold the questions.

Thank you.

Okay, good.

Let's hop into those actual specifics that I think everybody's anxious to get into.

I agree.

I do just want to highlight this slide before we go into each program area because this is a critical element of our work.

Addressing racial disparities is a sort of foundational principle of this work, and so I just wanted to highlight that we are, you know, when we compare this period, January, June 2018, to the first half of last year, we are seeing that the investments that we've made across the board are having the impact we desired.

So I just wanted to highlight a little bit of the specific detail.

Again, this is aggregate.

We'll highlight this by program area, but I think it's important for us to see that the investments that we made in 2018 are having an impact for target populations, but also having an impact for people of color who are using this system across the board.

Madam Chair.

Is somebody talking to me down there?

Thank you.

Just very briefly, and I know that you're going to get into this question later when we get to slide 26, but just so that I'm aware, when we're talking about exits to housing, exits to permanent housing, we know that when people get into permanent supportive housing, they often stay there.

And so I guess what I'm wondering is, does the number of permanent housing include individuals who've already been in permanent supportive housing?

So is it a carryover number or are you looking at individual exits and not duplicating the number?

So we separated it.

We separated it.

So 2,644 are people who exited to permanent housing.

1,815 are people who maintained housing.

So the actual number of new entrants into permanent supportive housing would be 2644 minus 1815?

Just a point of clarification around terminology.

Not all of the 2644 are entering into permanent supportive housing.

They have made a permanent housing exit.

They may have done that through our diversion program, through rapid rehousing program, which rapid rehousing vouchers are used mostly in the private market.

They also maybe moved into an affordable housing unit, and then some portion, and we'll get into the specifics about that when we talk about permanent supportive housing, but some portion of that over 2600 number went into permanent supportive housing, which is a very specific housing type.

It is, as you mentioned, typically long-term for individuals with chronic medical or mental health need.

and have a rich array of services attached to that housing.

Which we know is a lot more expensive.

It would be very helpful, I think, in follow-up, or maybe you'll get to this in slide 26, to have a better sense of the exits to permanent housing, how much of those are individuals entering permanent supportive housing or alternative housing.

Yeah, and that data is, yeah, on slide 26 when we get there.

Okay.

Thanks.

Please continue.

Okay, we get to dig in now.

So we're going to go program area by program area.

The first one is emergency services at around $46.6 million.

So this slide, we tried to define, I think they defined for me what all of these mean.

So outreach to people living unsheltered and case management for people seeking housing is what we define as outreach and engagement.

And so what you see here, and I'm just gonna go over the highlights and then you all can ask me specific questions if you have any.

The rate of exit to permanent housing we see here is high.

But we also see that the total program exits to any destination is low compared to the number of households served.

And it's because people tend to remain enrolled in outreach programs for a while.

So I'm going to pause there and allow you a chance to look.

And again, I'm going to do high level, and then you all can ask me specifics.

Keep going until somebody asks.

So the next is day and hygiene, and this program area provides respite and a place for people to tend to their basic needs.

And I know we had a lot of conversation about this the last time I was at the table, and I think the key thing to point out here is that you see the number of people served, and you see the investment going down a little bit in 2019. And that is because we reclassified some of our day shelters to enhanced shelters through the RFP.

So places that were standalone day centers applied to be enhanced shelter, which mean they applied to attach their enhanced day center to a 24-hour shelter.

Hence for that particular program moved into the enhanced shelter bucket.

So will you remind us how many places are we funding now where an individual can go and get a shower, get cleaned up that is not associated with the 24-7 shelters?

So I know that we've got, I think, six of our parks, our community centers are open and available during daytime hours for individuals, and we're paying for urban rest stop.

Can you just, what's the universe there?

So I'll get the universe number by my lovely staff that are sitting in the audience.

And when they send it to me, I'll give it to you.

So you want to know how many agencies do we have open that are not connected?

How many locations?

Not connected to 24-hour shelter or open for people to just drop in.

Correct.

So that if somebody is living in an RV or they're in a tent outside, where can they go to get a shower during the day that we're paying for?

Yep, they're tallying it for you now.

Council Member Borges has a question.

Thank you.

I have a few others, but I'm going to hold up on them just because I want to focus on the 24-7 shelter, five days a week, 12 months out of the year.

Thank you, Chairwoman, for bringing up the actual location because I am going to be very specific, not just citywide, but in District 5, we still lack 24-7, five days a week, 12 months around the year for male shelters.

Right now, we just have one agency and that's God's Green Acre Mennonites.

We do not have that.

I will be, of course, I'm making a plug here because I know Council Member Bagshaw is chairing budget.

But I'm going to be pushing really hard on that because we have been dealing with, kudos to the navigation team for some folks that we just placed into housing.

But in D5 alone, and my concern is this, because now we are at a ratio where we have higher renters and we have more RVs and we have way more homeless than we've had in the last two years.

So that is very key for me, not just for District 5, but district wide to see what actual places are providing what services because Obviously I represent district 5 but I represent the people of Seattle as well.

I can't measure Where their services are going?

I know the the majority of them are south of the ship canal and I understand that need but I still need to focus and I can't speak for district 4 or 6 but I can speak for district 5 on the ground and physically me being out there, you know, Grocery Outlet, Thornton Creek, Aurora, Licton Springs, that we are in real crisis and we don't have those shelters.

And so that kind of mapping will help us work with those, not just the service organizations, but the faith communities as well.

So thank you very much.

I really appreciate your work.

So just to put a fine point on that, Councilmember Juarez, are you looking for locations of showers, locations where people can get temporary housing now, the whole gamut?

What specifically are you asking for?

Well, I'm asking for that, but I guess what I'm starting to see in the gaps, this kind of goes back to what Councilmember Sawant was saying.

We have the 24 shelter and then we also have the enhanced and then I know that we have a mixture of people that come into the shelter Enhanced and when we're you're talking earlier about our terminology I know that a lot of our faith-based and other organizations are also dealing with social services trying to get the Medicaid mental health, so they're not just providing a cot and a blanket.

They're applying a cot, a blanket, food, Medicaid, housing, behavioral health.

Our clinic is now five days a week and is overflowing.

So maybe I'm not really sure what I'm asking.

I just don't know how we're making that transition and then how that translates into, which I will continually push for, is brick and mortar to be able to provide those services so people are deployed in those neighborhoods in which people are experiencing unsheltered.

So I may look to your expertise and your expertise, Tiffany, to help me with that.

I just wanted to, I was reminded that we presented the hygiene map at select committee about a month ago.

And it highlights all of the locations, whether they are sort of formal day center and hygiene center locations throughout the city.

Or if they are city owned facilities that are a little bit more open generally to the public or where there's programming at specific sites at specific times for individuals experiencing homelessness where they can take a shower, use a restroom, those kind of items.

So I just want to sort of offer that as a reminder and in response to your question, we'll be using that map to respond and make sure that council's clear about where those day and hygiene centers are located.

Super, and I think one of the things we asked for and maybe it came through and I just missed it, but I love the map.

We had asked for that.

We got the map, but then to put it in a matrix so we know in District 5, here's places where people can go and here are the hours that they can go.

And I think you were working on it, but I'm not sure I've seen it.

We'll get it.

Great, but I have great staff so they already answered your question.

Yes.

Which is there are 14 HSD funded programs that have drop-in even if they are attached to shelters.

So 14 places people can drop into plus the 11 community centers with hygiene access that you mentioned.

Okay so we've actually we've for a period of time I think parks had opened six they're now they've now opened 11. So we've got 25 places across the city that we're funding where people can get it on a matrix for you.

Right.

Thank you.

Just a quick question or a quick quick point.

But we also need to know that we're only focusing on either female or male.

And in D5, we have no male, 20, 12 months out of the year, five days a week.

Seven days, I'm sorry, seven days.

For men, we have Mary's Place, and we have some female focus in children, and I understand that.

But there is a reason why we have so many unsheltered men on Lake City Way, and Aurora, and North, is because there's nowhere for them to go.

And this has been a perennial issue that I have been harking on for now my third budget.

So if you have that kind of map, then that help makes it easier for me to do the ask.

So thank you.

Councilmember Mosqueda so just to follow up in terms of how we're using all of these touch points to get individuals into Housing and make sure that they are getting the services that they need when I look at this chart I see a significantly higher number of individuals that we serve from January to June in these day and hygiene centers and Yet the number of individuals who we serve that are exiting into permanent housing is much smaller.

So can you tell me how these enhanced day shelters or hygiene services are actually helping to get clients and individuals, families into permanent housing given the high volume of people that are using it?

Over 8,000 people using these day hygiene centers.

in 2017 and 2018, I would hope to see higher opportunities for people to get into housing.

Can you tell me how we've changed our model?

So from the system's perspective, which is that chart we won't go back over again, there's many different touch points.

And each touch point is there for a specific reason.

And so hygiene is there.

primarily for people to be able to take showers and get themselves, to get what they need in order to look for a job, in order to do all of those things.

They actually aren't designed to exit people to permanent housing.

They're designed to pass the baton to the next group, which often is housing resources, housing navigators, case managers, and so you have a mix.

You have some agencies that have a day center, And they happen to have a shelter.

And they have housing navigators.

And they have case management.

And it's really easy for them to say, hey, John's desk is right over there.

Do you mind?

You have 10 minutes.

I know you just came in here to take a shower, to just talk to John and see if there's other things that we can help you with.

That's a very easy kind of baton pass.

But a standalone day center that's just for people to get hygiene services, that may look different.

It might be a flyer or, hey, have you heard that agency X is going to have this event?

And so by design, it's meant to do exactly what it's doing, which is to have people have a place to go to get hygiene services.

We are lucky or blessed to have places that have all of those services and the touch points are easier.

And so when you see exits, rate of exits to permanent housing, usually it's because it's one of those agencies that have case management on site or housing navigators on site.

And so they are able to connect them to services while they're getting their hygiene needs met.

Thank you.

Does that make, do you have more questions?

I mean, we know that it's important to work with folks when we have a point of contact, when we have a point of service.

And to ask somebody to make a follow-up appointment or give them a flyer doesn't work.

And so when we talk about enhanced hygiene centers, I understand that these are not often, you know, people come because they need to take a shower, they need to wash their clothes.

I get that and I'm glad people are using it.

But when I see over 8,000 people using it year to year, I don't think that it makes a ton of sense for our return on investment to just pass them off or hand the baton over or give them a flyer.

If that's the only point that they're accessing the system, I think that we should change our thinking on that.

Are other cities looking at how you're using that point in time service to get people into

So this great clarification, let me try to say it a different way.

I'm saying that hygiene centers are not designed to exit people to permanent housing.

Where you see exits to permanent housing is because that is where a client went to an enhanced.

Maybe a better question, I'm sorry Madam Chair, just on this point, I hear you and it's just in terms of the definition of what success is, right?

I think Council Member Sawant mentioned it before, we've heard other folks in the community mention, perhaps in this example, exits to permanent housing is not the best indicator of what success is, and so to the point that was trying to be made earlier, I think it would be better if we could identify if this is not the purpose, then how do we get folks into maybe that case management or into the next service?

Yep, I agree.

Which is the very reason why we want to show how many people, sort of the volume of people that are moving through, because they do serve an important role.

And we want to highlight that, you know, over 8,000 people are outdoors and need access to critical day and hygiene services.

We can make that change.

It's actually a good, it's just shifting it to where it actually landed.

Right, right.

All right.

You're all right.

Good enough.

Thank you.

So can you continue?

Next slide, please.

So basic emergency shelter.

These shelters are successful when people leave a shelter program and move into permanent housing.

And so what you'll see in BASIC is that there's pretty much steady performance when compared to last year.

The rate of exit to permanent housing is 4% this year to date and 3% last year at the same time.

So it's pretty steady.

Again, we've talked about this over and over, that BASIC shelter is really designed to provide a safe place for folks to sleep at night and it has minimal services and supports.

So I just want to acknowledge and thank our departments for moving forward with the 24-7.

And as I started some of my remarks, when I was first here nine years ago, there was no such thing as 24-7.

There was no encampments.

And I remember Allison Isengar is not here now, but she was.

that there was a time when they were saying, open the red doors.

And that was considered to be a big advance that we brought people inside City Hall.

So incrementally, we're making some good changes.

Now it's like, all right, get the system to work.

So thank you for focusing on that system work for us.

Yeah.

Chair Herbold.

Thank you so much.

So according to this data, we're looking at a 4% exit rate to permanent housing in the first six months.

And that's of 588 basic shelter beds as of the second quarter of 2018. I appreciate the work that HSD has done with ShareWheel on their reporting on their exits.

But it feels like we're a little bit at the same place as we were last year as it relates to as it relates to their exits, they report that using the same database, the HMIS Clarity Database, the share wheel exits were 31 of 100, I'm sorry, yes, 196 exits, 31 to permanent housing, and that's a 16% exit rate to permanent housing, and they have a total of

217 shelter beds So I don't know the specific number my handy-dandy staff are finding it But yes, they have recorded exits to permanent housing this year in the database and that we all agree on I don't know the which is the change we agree the specific number.

I'll have them my staff's so I mean how does that figure into this 4% it seems like they have if they have a 217 of the 588 basic and we're reporting a 4% for the entire system and they're reporting 16 for a little under half of those beds.

It sounds like they're doing very well and some others are doing much worse than 4%.

I don't wanna lose that.

So we don't have quarter three.

So it depends on what time frame they're talking about.

So I'm interested in seeing quarter three.

And then I would also say, for us, I think where we get stuck is we only have the information that's in the database.

And so we just run it.

The database tells us who and what.

And so I guess what I'm interested in finding out with my staff is if our numbers don't match, if they have a slightly higher number, then it's just really talking to them about, Did you click the right box or just figuring out the discrepancy?

Because we are unable to record any number that HMIS doesn't spit out.

But they're entering them in this year.

All right, thank you.

Chair Herbold?

Please proceed.

I don't know who's chairing, but.

I'm chairing.

That's what she said.

If I can.

Technically, it's supposed to be me because I'm vice chair.

You're going to see it.

I'm not doing it.

Council Member Sawant.

Thank you.

Just to follow up on that question, Correct me if I'm wrong, but to me it sounds like the departments are not confident to either confirm or refute what SHARE is reporting in terms of their percentage exits to permanent housing.

They say 16%.

You don't seem to be saying one way or another.

And maybe you should clarify that.

And this is a very important question because the mayor has decided that the 11 shelters, indoor shelters, and the wheel low barrier women's shelter are going to be defunded as of June 30th, and I also want to make the point again, again, this is not directed at staff, but this is the only forum where we're able to speak, you know, really these questions are to all the politicians of the city, but why is it that a program that demonstrates effectiveness at a very low cost, and you know, in their letter they talk also about how much money they spend providing one bed per night, which is a very important variable that we need, we want to take into account, the cost effectiveness.

Why is it that share and wheel programs are continually nickel and dimed in this way?

I mean, there was a problem when we came into this new year as well with wheel shelter, and the movement fought for it and prevented those cuts from happening.

But it's like you're, you meaning not you, but the city, sorry, I don't know what else to do because you're here, but the city's, decision makers, which is the elected representatives, keep forcing these programs that have proven effectiveness, that have continued reliance from community members who will actually be bereft without those shelters.

Why is it that these programs are continually forced to tread water?

And maybe we will prevent this defunding from happening, but rather than going forward and fighting for more shelter funding, fighting for more affordable housing, were forced to keep the existing programs from being cut.

This is not the spirit in which I think the city should be responding to a crisis that is growing greater and greater in magnitude.

And while I have this point, I also wanted to read out allowed something that the first page of the Seattle Human Services Coalition's analysis says.

It says that the mayor's proposed budget does not maintain the level of services currently provided.

There are three major points City Council members must address in order to achieve this basic priority.

While the mayor does propose continued funding for much of the 15 million homelessness services programs, her budget will actually cut 217 overnight shelter beds, and this is what they're talking about, Chair.

for over 50 people temporarily accommodated in tiny houses, plus the space for 50 people accommodated in tiny houses.

This capacity must be restored.

The mayor also includes only half of the funding for inflation adjustments needed for the same level of services.

And the mayor's proposal also cuts funding for grassroots advocacy to bring state resources.

So I was just abbreviating it.

And that's the one.

What are you reading from?

Sorry, I missed that.

the Seattle Human Services Coalition analysis.

And at the bottom of those three bullet points, which I abbreviated just to be quick, it says the bottom line is that this budget, as proposed by the mayor, doesn't even allow us to tread water.

I mean, this is an ongoing problem year after year.

And I'm not sure that this is a question directed to you, but I just wanted to say it as part of the committee for the record.

Thank you.

So Sharon will, as of quarter two, have a 7% exit rate to permanent housing.

And we'll, I'm happy to, we can meet and go into detail about that.

I just want to, before we move on, provide context around- Sorry, on that, if you don't mind, Tiffany, I would really hope you can set up a meeting with my staff, but also if you can email us your analysis on how you arrived at that number.

The context would be that we ran an RFP process, we meaning HSD, and we had a group of people who were non-HSD staff, community members, other nonprofit agencies who were not applying for the funding, rate all the applications, and Sharon Will did not get accepted to move forward for funding.

So I just want to add that context.

And the funding that is no longer available in 2019 is actually not a cut.

It was bridge funding from the mayor's office to continue them on through this year and the first six months of next year.

And so I just want to make sure we don't remember that we don't forget the genesis of why share and wheel are not being funded.

Just a point of clarity.

The mayor's office provided six months of bridge funding this year and the council as was noted before Provided additional bridge funding to make that whole for 2018 councilmember Herbold.

Thank you.

I appreciate the context that Resulted in the council working to provide this bridge funding.

I also appreciate the the history of the fact that share wheel was not selected for funding through the RFP and That is why in my first question on this slide, I referred to the lack of agreement around exits to housing.

That is why they didn't get funding, is because their exits to housing were reported to be very low.

And so, again, many thanks to HSD for sitting down with me and sitting down separately with them to try to get on the same page about how to move forward.

The, I think, the thinking of this council as it related to the bridge funding was there was a lot of concern that we didn't have a way to actually transition people, the 200 some odd people every night, who are staying in share wheel shelters to another shelter system, enhanced system.

So it was intended to, give HSD the opportunity to create that transition.

So that will be one question.

But I also want to just, again, in the interest of transparency, in the conversations that I had with HSD staff and with Sharewheel in the past, I have been up front about sort of the origins for the bridge funding, but also my interest in if we get some agreement on the exits to housing and they are performing well, regardless if they didn't get funding under the previous RFP, I'm gonna continue to advocate for their continued funding if we can demonstrate that they're performing as well or better than other recipients of funding for basic shelter.

So just to address the transition plan, yes, we appreciate it and it's helpful for us because we are, initially when we thought they would go offline after the first RFP, we asked all agencies who weren't funded to submit a transition plan to us.

All agencies did except Sharon Will.

They responded and said we're not going to submit a transition plan because we're not going to close.

And so we're going to be right back at that same place.

I think through relationship that has been strengthened throughout this year, through conversations with your office and members from Sharon Will, I'm hopeful that we can start that conversation again.

And I believe that they will be willing.

to submit a transition plan because we need to start that now.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and my comments are not directly related to one service organization or another, but I think that this is a theme that I'm going to continue to ask about in terms of how we are defining success.

We already had the conversation around whether it's exits to permanent housing.

I'm also concerned that if we are using the definition of exits to permanent housing and meeting a certain threshold, my understanding is from the previous RFP, we were hoping for a goal of around 40% exits to permanent housing.

But we started this conversation today acknowledging that we haven't invested a significant amount of dollars more into creating the actual housing that are required to ensure that people who are in shelters, even enhanced shelters, can get into that housing.

So I think that this is an admirable goal to make sure that people get into housing.

I think we've all said before, someone who is in basic shelter or even someone who is in enhanced shelter is still technically homeless.

The goal ought to be to make sure that folks are getting into housing.

I agree But I think the underlying issue for me is going to constantly say we can't hold ourselves to this threshold of exits into housing at a certain high level of 40% when we haven't invested the resources that are necessary to make sure that that exit can happen, when we still have shelters at over 90% capacity, when we haven't invested a significant amount in the previous year or even apparently in and this proposed budget into creating new houses.

I think that we're in this we're in a you know chicken or egg question so for me I think that that's going to be a fundamental question is how are we defining success without that housing available and how can we do more to create that brick and mortar.

So we're coming right back to what you were saying earlier Council Member Mosqueda and that you were championing in your in your own committee about having places for people to go.

Diversion to what is a big question that everybody's asking.

And I think Council Member Muscata you brought up some things when you went to your trip to Los Angeles to seeing some things.

Oh good it's 12 it's 11 18. Nice.

All right.

Just delete, delete it goes away.

Thank you.

That was quick.

But I just want to follow up with that briefly that partly what we're looking for are a whole lot more places for people to go where they can be warm.

They're sheltered and that ultimately that it is good permanent housing.

And that is our system effort here.

And I think we're focusing and the frustration you're hearing is that there's And I know you share it, is that we spend millions of dollars for hundreds.

of people, hundreds of families, is contrasted to the thousands that we're going to need ultimately.

Council Member Sawant?

To start with, for the context, and Council Member Muscat's point is well taken, but I do want just to note that there are tens of millions of dollars, and we'll get to the details, being spent every year for permanent housing.

Whether that is sufficient, at some level, there is virtually no number that is sufficient, but through the housing levy and through various other programs, MHA bonus and the like, there are tens of millions of dollars being brought in each year and invested and leveraged into permanent housing.

Again, I'm not here to tell you that that's necessarily sufficient, but I don't want to give the impression that that isn't going on.

And I know that's not your intent.

I just wanted to provide that context.

Yeah, thanks, Ben.

Council members, can we do short here?

Because we've got to keep them moving forward.

Well, it's the most important point, so I don't think you should be preempting me.

I mean, it's...

Everybody has taken a lot of time, and we're talking about affordable housing.

It's strange for the budget committee chair to say that.

I don't think anybody's making the claim that no dollars are being spent on affordable housing, just to respond to what Mr. Noble said.

But it's also not a question mark.

I mean, we don't know if that's enough.

Well, we know that's not enough.

We know what's being spent is not enough.

I mean, can we at least sort of just agree, just be honest in this discussion and agree that what's being done is nowhere near enough, you know, because that's a basic minimum starting point.

And what the dollars that are being spent on housing are in the mayor's proposed budget Just to be clear, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but this is the analysis that my staff and I have arrived at based on the numbers we have, is that the only dollars that are allocated to build affordable housing are the dollars that were already legally allocated for affordable housing, meaning through levy monies or state and federal grant monies.

Obviously, you know the details more than I do, but these are dollars that were already allocated.

These are not discretionary dollars that the mayor, in her wisdom on the need for affordable housing, decided to allocate from the city's budget.

If you look at the $5.9 billion budget, and again, I invite you to correct us, correct my office if we're wrong, but this is what we've arrived at.

Out of the $5.9 billion budget, which includes all the levy monies and so on for this year, less than 1% 0.8% of the money is for affordable housing and none of that is money that has been allocated by the mayor saying we think that this is important, it's an important priority and we need to do this.

This is money that would be going to housing anyway because of the levies that have passed and the grants that have already been And I wanted to contrast that with the discretionary spending that the mayor has included for the police department.

The police department's 2018 budget comes here, and then that's the increase.

And the money allocated to the Office of Housing for affordable housing, new dollars for affordable housing this year, in the next year, in the proposed budget, is so tiny that it doesn't appear on this graph, I mean, to scale.

So I mean, you know, staff are free to give whatever answers they want, but I would at least urge everybody to proceed from an honest standpoint, that it is not a dog and pony show of, oh, well, we're doing great.

We're not doing great.

It is not great.

It's not great for people who are going to become homeless, who aren't homeless already.

We all agree we need lots of affordable housing.

How can we square that, that we all agree with, how can we square that with a budget that includes no discretionary dollars for affordable housing?

A couple of points.

One is that to quote the percentage relative to the $5.9 billion is deceptive at best because a significant share of that money, $2.6 billion in particular, is for utilities and cannot be used for housing as a matter of law.

That's fine.

We can correct that.

If we're dog and ponying, let's be clear.

There is a small increment on the discretionary side.

In fact, it's picking up the costs of the $30 million that council appropriated for affordable long term affordable housing, which without having identified a funding source beyond 2018. So there are discretionary resources in 2019 and 2020 to pick up those costs.

And it highlights the challenge about finding discretionary resources to put into affordable housing, For instance, if we were to issue debt, there would be a long tail.

I think you have seen in the graphics to date that there is a demonstrated commitment to using discretionary resources for homelessness.

It is true that there is not enough money for the city on itself to take on both the emergency crisis and the long term affordable housing.

I'm the guy about resources and I'm here to tell you there are not enough.

So we have made difficult choices about how to do that.

And a recognition that there is a need on the long-term affordable housing side.

There are not immediate and easy solutions.

So I don't, I'm not contradicting what you're saying.

I'm only trying to place some context on it.

So I think that is a very real challenge for the city going forward.

Absolutely agree.

Chair Bagshot, may I?

Sure.

Thank you.

Councillor Gonzales.

Thank you.

I have a couple, two points I want to make here.

One is just to dovetail what you just said right now, Director Noble, about how The city alone doesn't have enough resources to address the realities related to both the response to the crisis and addressing fundamentally the root causes of people who are experiencing homelessness.

Last week, when we spent multiple hours together in chambers doing the departmental overviews, I had mentioned back then that when we talk about our investments in homelessness, I think it's really important to make sure that these presentations reflect what we believe to be other resources that are also being allocated and dedicated to addressing both the response to the crisis and to addressing the root causes of homelessness that the city of Seattle will likely benefit from.

And I continue to see presentations that don't have any sort of information that the council can consider in its budget deliberations that really give me a level of understanding of what again this regional approach is or is not and you know if people are going to continue to say that we're doing this not alone and through a regional approach then we need to talk about our budget in a different way and I feel like we're just continue to talk about it as though it's just us dealing with these issues and that creates concerns within you know, my mind and also I think creates concerns in terms of the public's level of confidence in how we are approaching the construction of our budget in that regional context.

And so this is another example, I think, of where I feel like we can do better at presenting our information and how we are making critical funding decisions in this space in the full context of what our entire region is planning to do to address the crisis around people experiencing homelessness and addressing the root causes.

So I'm gonna give another plug, and that I would really appreciate it if we could have that context, not for purposes of shirking our own responsibilities as a city of Seattle about what we need to invest to address, the realities of the crisis and how it plays out in the city of Seattle, but because I think it gives us a fuller picture of how we are playing with regional partners or how we're not playing with regional partners and vice versa.

And so, you know, just again, in the 2019-2020 budget being proposed by King County, there's several mentions in that document that talk about some of the enhanced shelter investments they're planning to make, particularly at the Elliott Congregate Modular Shelter that has 72 persons on county-owned land in Seattle.

I don't know what kind of partnership we're gonna have with them around that, how that plays into our budget, whether that's part of the transition plan for some folks who aren't gonna, whose bridge funding is ending.

The Harborview Hall renovations, you know, Lord knows Council Member Bagshaw has been you know, advocating for this and talking about wanting that to happen along with Councilmember Mosqueda.

There's also funding talking about modular housing pilots, which I know has been an incredible interest to Chair Bagshaw.

It was recently written about in the Seattle Times.

I have no idea what our partnership is going to be with them in that regard.

And so I just, again, I think it's I think it's really important for us to have a fuller understanding of how we're going to leverage our dollars with other dollars to make an appreciable difference for people experiencing homelessness in the city of Seattle.

And I want to commend Councilmember Gonzalez for reading two budgets at the same time.

I'm probably crazy, but this is really important.

You know, we, when we were deliberating the employee hours tax, we were trying to contribute a significant amount of dollars towards a very significant, what sometimes feels like an intractable problem in our city as it relates to people experiencing homelessness and providing them some relief to that human suffering.

And we were promised that we were going to have a regional approach And to me, that means that we were going to have state partners and county partners and other suburban city partnerships to be able to address the realities of homelessness in a regional fashion.

And so this is not, I hope, going to be the same status quo budget that we keep talking about just what we are investing.

Because to me, it puts me in a position where I feel like I'm just gonna do more of what we did last year and the year before.

And I think that that is probably a frustration that is not just my own.

I think that it's a frustration we all share.

We wanna make a difference here.

And so in order to do that, we need to get a full understanding of the impact of our investment, whether it's just ours, whether it's in combination with other dollars as well, I think is an important part of, at least for me, it's an important part of my exercise here.

Great.

Well, very well stated.

Thank you.

Agreed.

And we can do better in portraying what others are spending both within the city and then also even with outside the city, including King County's investments.

I mean, we know that homeless population isn't restricted to municipal borders.

And so understanding what the overall countywide investments are, I think, is also important.

You know, in terms of the regional effort, that is still an evolving concept in terms of our ability to be deeply coordinated, but we can provide you information about other spending.

We will rely on them for some of that information.

And with that, I'm going to...

Julie, is that something?

Sorry, I defer to my boss to finish his point.

No, please.

Oh, I just wanted to note that we alluded to this in the select committee presentation a few weeks back, but we are currently working to build that very approach you described, and we're on track to deliver that in December.

Okay, that's after budget.

It is.

It's not helpful to me as a policymaker looking at budget decisions now and in terms of what we should continue to invest in and what we shouldn't continue to invest in because we're either going to see regional support or we're not.

That's my point.

We can absolutely get information in whatever category you're looking for that the comprehensive look with the regional approach is what I was referring to that will be more fully delivered in December.

So I'm going to ask to continue, but I do want to underscore what Councilmember Gonzalez just said.

There is a major frustration that we want to move and we want to be your partners and we want to be the mayor's partner.

and working with Dow and working with the state, and it just seems like oftentimes we are working around the edges, and I want us to really be able to get right at the core with you.

Okay.

Anything else?

All right.

So, let's continue.

By the way, Tiffany, I want to say thank you for the clarity.

You're calm.

I know that we can be annoying, but you're doing a great job.

Thank you.

So, let's keep going.

I'm the biggest troublemaker you know, so I have to give back what I dish out.

So thank you.

The next program area is enhanced emergency shelter.

And from a high level, what you see is a continuous increase from 2017, 2018, and 2019, a continual increase in beds, a continual increase in those served, exits, and exits to permanent housing.

And I think we've talked in great deal about enhanced shelter being five times as effective in connecting clients to housing as basic shelter.

And I'm delighted to see that between 2017 and 2018 that we have, I mean quick math here, that we've done at least 50% more in having our 24-7 beds.

Great news and as we're all talking about we need to double, triple, quadruple that.

Next program area, city permitted villages.

Again, villages are successful, so there are two success points when we're talking about permitted villages.

One success point is people moving from living on the streets into a village.

We consider that a success.

And then moving from a village into permanent housing.

And so what you see here is that We have a decrease in the rate of exits since 2017 and that is likely because we've added three more villages and because the number of clients are smaller.

But what we do see is a total units for 2017 and 2018 there's an increase in units and you'll see an increase of units in 2019. Great.

Chair?

Yes.

Thank you.

I have a question about the level of investments as compared to the number of units.

In 2017, the annual investment was 1.5, and there were 255 units.

In 2018, there was an investment of 4.3, and it looks like only less than an additional 20 units.

Yep, that's a good question.

Councilmember Baxton and I have talked about this a lot.

We've learned, and so if you remember just kind of the history of Tiny Village, they started as encampments that moved around, and we had a few of those, and then we decided to permit them and make them kind of stagnant or in the same place for up to two years.

And what we've learned and we're implementing this year is that in the same way that we need enhanced shelters, we need enhanced villages.

And what that really means is the increase in funding you see is primarily saying we need to have services at these villages or they're not gonna move anyone to permanent housing either.

And so your observation is correct.

I think the best way to answer it is the funding is going more towards services than units.

So there's a $2.8 million increase in the investment, which results in only about a 16-unit increase.

But we have a reduction in the rates of access to permanent housing.

So something's not matching up with our intent here.

And it can't just be attributed to more units, because it's only 16 more units.

Correct.

And so what you're seeing, this is our hypothesis, because we're asking ourselves the same question about the rates, and I'll let Julie jump in if she wants to.

What we're learning is that it's expensive to run an enhanced village.

You need case management, 24-hour security.

And if you even look at the slide that's up right now, and so you see some of our legacy villages have lower case management.

So Licton Springs has two case managers for 50 units.

Lake Union Village has two and a half case managers for 22 units.

And so the reason you see that is because we're learning that we need to have increased services because the folks that are being referred to the villages primarily from the NAV team are long-term They're long-term homeless individuals that need a very high level of services offered to them.

And so that doesn't get at the difference in rate.

Again, that's our hypothesis, but we're actually, in addition, currently writing our village evaluation.

So the answer to the rate is should be in that report when it comes out.

Council Member Johnson.

Thanks.

We have in front of us a proposal that would increase the number of units in quarter two from 271 to 328 by second quarter of 2019. But I've been reading a lot about the closure of the Licton Springs tiny house village and the 50 units that are comprised of that tiny house village.

So can you talk to me a little bit about the plan for either residing in an alternate location or extending the timeline and and how that impacts the growth of another 50 or so units that we plan by the second quarter next year.

So we were just talking about this yesterday and we need to come up with a better term because closing is not a, it's not reflective.

And so what we've come up with is shifting capacity.

And so Licton Springs permit is up.

The community is ready for us to honor our promise to move the village to another community and what we've decided is that the folks that live in Licton Springs and again this is a really this is a longer conversation that I'm happy to come to any of your offices and kind of go in detail the folks that live in Licton Springs are have multiple needs, and they've also been there a really long time.

So we're not seeing throughput.

And so our plan right now, what we have on paper, is we reassessed everybody that lives at Licton Springs two weeks ago.

And what we found is that most of them went to the top of the coordinated entry list.

their VI-SPDAT scores are high.

And in two weeks, we've moved nine people from Licton Springs into permanent supportive housing.

And so with the VI-SPDAT scores that we see from the clients that live at Licton Springs, our hope is to either get them into permanent supportive housing, permanent housing, or relocate them with the village.

No one will become homeless as a result of Licton Springs being moved.

I appreciate that.

I also want us to set ourselves up to be successful and recognizing that the amount of time and energy that it took to relocate the Ballard village to my neck of the woods on North Lake was about six months longer than we'd anticipated.

So just want to make sure that as we contemplate those kinds of challenges in terms of site control and management, that we're being responsive to that.

And relocation of people is a difficult thing no matter whether you're housed or temporarily housed or in a tiny house village.

It's a stressful thing to move.

And so I just wanna make sure that we're being cognizant of that and we've had enough lead time to be successful in opening another 50 or so units while shifting around those individuals that you talk about that may still remain.

Thanks.

Thanks.

I just wanted to add, you know, thank you.

I agree that moving and reciting, I mean, that is difficult work.

It is not only difficult for the individuals who are needing to relocate.

It's also hard for the city to often sort of move, recite, go through and help organizations through the, you know, wide variety of details all involved in a move.

But I think it's important to just be reminded sort of why we move, why we don't permanently site these locations.

One, I think that it is an easier conversation with neighborhoods to talk about a temporary siting of a program like at a tiny village.

It is a better starting point with community members about what they can anticipate and for how long.

I think likewise, We did some deep analysis with our partners at Public Health.

And there were a variety of environmental as well as public health and individual health concerns for the individuals living in those encampments.

If the site was going to stay there for longer initially, they said a year, but agreed that we could probably sort of extend some of these to a second year without great impact.

But there is concern that if we sort of permanently site it at one single location, these tiny villages, that there could potentially be environmental and public health impact.

So I just wanted to sort of, you know, it is a lot of work, it is a lot of effort, it is a big impact to sort of move and relocate these programs.

But I want to just sort of restate, we've talked about this before, but just restate the rationale behind moving the locations and the sort of time period that those permits are active.

And we have the same goal, which is, again, to remind the nine people, they're in a permanent place.

So the goal is that we're not moving people multiple times.

So I think we all have the same goal of if we move someone, our goal is to move someone to somewhere where they can stay and have permanency.

And I just want to say, sorry, final thought, Council Member Bagshaw.

You know, I think that the public perception about tiny house villages has changed really dramatically over the last couple of years.

I remember knocking on doors in 2015 and hearing a lot of opposition to the idea of expanded tiny house villages.

And now when I'm talking to community council presidents or other folks, there is a strong recognition that we have got to have more options to give people than sleeping outside.

And so as we contemplate the relocation of 50 units at Licton Springs and contemplate the growth here of an additional 50 units, that's 100 units.

That's going to take some time for us to cite.

And I'd like for a follow-up conversation maybe with central staff to really better understand how we're going to set ourselves up to be successful.

Because six months from now, we want to have 100 units in operation in locations that they don't exist today.

Or maybe we want to expand some of the existing villages that are going to continue.

And I think we just want to be mindful of the impacts that those are going to have all throughout the city.

So thanks for that.

No, thank you very much.

When you come back, and let's not dwell on it too more deeply today, I'm very concerned about what I hear from Licton Springs about the neighbors' worries about the low barrier.

Now, I'm a fan for recognizing that people need the help that they need, and especially if it's like with our public health clinics, and Councilmember Mesquite and I are working on this to have the the type of on-demand treatment, whether that's buprenorphine, what we need to do.

But one of the keys that I have heard over and over again from people is that the drug dealers have got to be arrested and they must not be allowed inside the tiny home villages.

So when you come back, I'd love to be able to talk about and to the neighbors of what we're doing to make sure that people are getting the health care and treatment that they need and at the same time that we're not making their neighborhoods worse.

So I just wanted to quickly go over the path to 500. It's Mayor Durkan's plan to expand shelter and village capacity by 25%.

I did get a request for a one pager that has all of the sites listed.

Allen Lee, I have that for you and can email it to you and you can share it with the council members.

Where we're at right now is 229 new beds or units were online as of the end of September.

We have an additional 287 to open in 2018 and we're confident that those will open.

Okay.

Council Member Bryan.

Did this new investment go through an RFP process or was this just partnering?

It was just partnering.

It was we, my staff called pretty much every single shelter that we have in our portfolio and asked Are you in a position to quickly help us stand up beds?

And the folks that said yes are in the path to 500. And the folks that said no, we can't do it that fast are not.

And then there were some folks in the middle who we have on a list that said we could, but that was just too quick.

So please keep us in mind.

I just want to add, there were two other elements that came, that got us to this 500 list.

One was that we had an RFP.

We went to revisit shelter proposals that were not funded and then got back in touch with those providers to see if they were, you know, still able to, some one-time funding to implement those programs that they had proposed.

Likewise, we had a number of opportunities that came up.

One at Haddon Hall, which was a vacant building owned by one of our nonprofit partners that with some service funding and some capital enhancements would be ready to house people this year.

So it was a variety of this sort of cold calling that Tiffany described, a look back at our 2017 RFP, as well as making considerations about opportunities that were in front of us.

Good for you.

So I'd also, and this will be a question for Steve Walker when and if we ever get to your Office of Housing presentation.

And Council Member Mosqueda and I were talking yesterday, I hope she comes back to hear the answer, but some cities that we've seen are working well with faith institutions, faith institutions that oftentimes because of diminishing size of congregations are finding themselves in a financial need.

but may have parking lots or may have spaces within their building that we can access for affordable housing or even if it's more than just simply temporary.

So when we get to Office of Housing, I'd love to ask you, what are you doing with that?

What kind of cold calls are we making?

What sort of institutional?

And I happen to have talked with Pastor Sandy Brown up in Edmonds just a couple of weeks ago, and that's something they're thinking about So I just would like to know that we're being as creative as possible for space.

That's already there Okay Go ahead.

Thanks.

Um, just because we skipped and I understand we had to do it for time I just want to identify a couple questions related to the budgets for the tiny houses one.

I'm concerned that the Myers Way encampment only has a single FTE case manager, despite having the second most number of units.

And two, I want to flag the real need for additional mobile hygiene services at Myers Way.

There's apparently an issue with a lack of ability to plumb the area, and they have a once a week visit from the UGM van, and we need to do something about that.

They need additional, it's a very, very remote place, as you guys know, so thank you.

Okay.

Chair Bagshaw.

Thank you.

Oh, Council Member Gonzalez.

Thank you.

Just to pile on to what Council Member Herbold said, Myers Way also has, it appears to, is, well actually, on Myers Way, My understanding is that that's not actually a tiny village.

Is that accurate?

No, it is a tiny village.

It is a tiny village.

All of it is a tiny village?

They opened up about 40 new tiny houses a weekend before last.

And they already had some.

Got it, okay.

Yeah, I was just out there a couple weeks ago, and they're in transition.

They've built a number of the wooden structures.

There are still some tents on site.

They even have a sort of emergency kind of congregate tent for people who come in that night and don't yet have a place to stay.

But they are, for the most part, using the wooden structures that have been built by volunteers that people are living in.

And just a note about Myers Way, and then we'll move on, is that Myers Way is clean and sober.

So again, the case management allocation should match the population.

And so you're not going to need the same case management per resident ratio for Myers Way as you would need for a Licton.

And so we'd love to have maybe a tiny village briefing so that we can dig into each individual village, but just wanted to add that note.

On the concept of tiny tiny villages and other types of shelter spaces that we're creating so on the path to 500 shelter spaces It's a little unclear to me from both the presentation and the remarks today and the budget book and this is on page 167 of the budget book and carries over to top of page 168, I think.

So in some of the proposed changes, it talks about how, I know it's being called the Path to 500, but I think there's actually more than 500 shelter beds that are gonna be added in terms of capacity, and in the budget book it says 516. And so I'm trying to get a sense of how to evaluate how many beds are being, what kind of beds are being funded.

So in other words, are they enhanced?

Are they basic shelter beds?

Or are they tiny village spaces?

Sort of what is the combination there?

And then just really quickly, I am not great at math.

I'm gonna tell you this right now.

I am not good at math.

But according to my math, there's seven missing beds in the calculation on page 167. And I don't want to lose a single bed.

So it says that of the 516 new beds, 443 are expanded capacity and existing or new shelters.

73 are in new sanction encampments being developed in 2018 and 436 of the beds and tiny houses are enhanced with extended hours case management a meal service and other services So I think the 436 and the 73 add up to about 509 So I don't know if I've got the math wrong there or but either way I want to make sure that it's actually 516 one and then two Can you tell me how the breakdown in the 516 between enhanced basic tiny villages?

So we meet cross department every single week to go over path to 500. And so I asked for a breakdown and I was given one this morning.

Happy to share that with Alan Lee as well and get it to you all.

Thank you.

And so the 516 is a projection.

And so we are committed to bringing 500 online.

516 is a projection for two reasons.

The city hall shelter can go between 80 and 90 individuals depending, and I'm not FAS, but there are some space issues with how many people can fit in City Hall, and so FAS is comfortable with going between 80 and 90.

Is that both on the 4th Avenue side and the 5th Avenue side, or is that just the red doors?

The 5th Avenue side.

Okay.

There's another program in there that I don't want to get into details about, but again, can add more information later.

It's the YWCA's family program where they have contracts with hotels because if a family becomes homeless at night, there's not a shelter where you can send six people.

to go, and so they temporarily put them in one of the hotels that they have agreements with.

And then they quickly triage them the next day to get them to a permanent place.

We're trying to figure out how to represent that in a projection.

And you actually can't.

You can only represent it as an actual.

And so we don't know how many people are going to go through one hotel room.

in a year.

We're looking forward to learning that number, and so when we run actuals, it might be 538. So we have to figure out how do you count a hotel bed that's gonna take five or six families a year based on how many people need that service.

In terms of the enhanced versus basic, so we have a total of, out of the 500, 336 beds are enhanced, and 80 beds are basic.

And so that's the breakdown that I have in front of me.

Can I just correct one quick thing?

When you were counting on the budget page, I forget the page number, because mine's 167. Great.

So it's the first two numbers in those bullet points, the 443 and the 73 together, that gets you to 516.

And the 100 that's missing from the numbers that I just gave you are the counties.

What is it called?

Haddon Hall.

They haven't decided if it's going to be enhanced or basic.

So we can't say...

Give me a minute.

Harborview.

Harborview Hall.

Thank you.

They have not decided whether it's going to be enhanced or basic, so we can't put them in either bucket right now.

I'm sorry, what's the...

Okay, what's the 436 then?

Oh, sorry.

So the 436 is a subset that's describing that those are enhanced with extended hours case management.

That's a subset of that 500.

I am not tracking these numbers at all.

They are not adding.

I mean, I thought you just said the 443 and the 73 is 516. And now you're saying that 436 is a subset of that, which doesn't make sense.

It's describing the subset that is enhanced.

versus basic.

Just the enhanced.

436 is just the enhanced.

Yeah.

That makes sense to me.

But what you just said, I think I heard something different.

You said 336 of those beds and tiny houses are enhanced.

And then you said that you didn't include 100 because you can't yet define whether or not the Harborview Hall beds are enhanced.

But in this document on page 167, the last bullet, it does seem that Maybe for the purposes of a summary, you're making the assumption that they will be enhanced beds.

We are pushing very hardly and in partnership for them to be enhanced.

We need them to be enhanced.

I think we would all agree and we've sent multiple communications to that effect.

So if there is any indication that that's not going to be enhanced for that extra hundred to make sure that this math works, we would like to know.

And can I just double check on something as we're talking about Harborview Hall?

My understanding was that 100 was the bare minimum, that there is potential for doing 150 or so.

That's the problem because until you get the permitting done and all of kind of that we can only guess.

So I have not heard the 150 but.

And is the permitting, sorry this is a slight side note just I'm really clear on this, is the permitting still in the city's SCCI bucket to finalize?

Not for Harborview Hall.

Okay, we're seeing nods in the audience.

I would love to follow up with you.

Is there a project funded by the county?

However, the city does do the permitting.

This is what the issue that Council Member Bagshaw and myself raised earlier this spring.

If SDCI is at the point where we need to make a decision so that our math can add up, and in theory, enhance these numbers for our enhanced shelter beds, we would very much like to do that.

And I just want to send the message very loud and clear.

We are in October now.

The message that we sent, I think, was

May, June.

And last year.

And last year.

But I want to say thank you to Nathan Torgelson because he has moved us forward.

I think the glitch is around what the cost is for adding fire suppression.

And if we wanted to go up in floors two, three and more, what that cost looks like.

But I believe that.

That is correct.

It's not a permitting issue that's limiting, you know, or would be the determining factor between 100 and 150. The SDCI has done great work, expedited work to get this through, and I think that it is more of a funding discussion as well as a sort of use of those other floors in this old building that doesn't have elevators and that kind of thing.

Perfect timing because we're having that funding discussion right now.

Thank you so much for moving forward on that and thanks to SCCI for moving forward on any of the construction or compliance restraints that we heard earlier this year.

Just again emphasizing we would love to know that dollar amount that might be holding things up as we head into the winter months here.

And I do think that we've got to get our friends at King County to make a commitment here.

Thank you.

May I suggest that we move on with our slides?

Because the last few slides are still with our Human Services Department, and then we want to hear from Steve Walker.

Yep.

So next is transitional housing.

And just a few high points.

We see a slight increase in the rate of exits to permanent housing, 64% this year, compared to 57% at the same time last year.

And then in 2019, you see a slight budget dip, and that is because two of the youth programs are transitioning from transitional housing to what we're calling bridge housing, which is a new model that the system is incorporating where it's a mix of transitional and rapid rehousing.

And so we pulled them out of this traditional transitional housing bucket.

Okay, let's go.

Prevention is successful when people maintain housing and do not become homeless.

And again, to just reiterate what Jason said, this is homelessness prevention, not to be confused with general prevention, which we can come back and talk about at a different time.

What we see in our prevention programs is the rate went slightly down in 2018, and we believe that's because we have five programs and three new contracts in 2018. And those five programs are Mother Nations, Somali Youth and Family Clubs, Seattle Indian Health Board, United Indians of All Tribes, and Chief Seattle Clubs.

So just as an example, some of these agencies literally just started.

Database, they had to get the database, the staff, and they built a new program.

So we really want to wait until end of the year to see if we've ramped up.

But again, most programs are given a year to ramp up before they start being evaluated rigorously.

And so that's what we believe the standard for rapid rehousing is 90%.

We're at 89%.

We feel good about this project area.

Okay, Council Member Johnson.

I noticed that the increase here from 17 to 18 has a lot to do with the $2 million pilot program for SHA, but I'm also hearing that we couldn't spend all of that money in 2018. Does the 4.4 million base include rollover money or is it just standalone 4.4 million and then any rollover would be on top of that?

Yeah, Director Noble mentioned in his opening remarks that the $2 million for that pilot is fully captured in the 2018 budget.

The rollover amount at this point is unknown and therefore not captured in the 2019. Great.

Council Member Herbold.

Thank you.

So in the prevention bucket, is that all rapid rehousing dollars?

So rapid rehousing is a different program.

OK, so what can you just describe what a prevention program looks like?

Prevention program is someone maintaining their housing and not becoming homeless.

So I'm getting ready to be evicted from my house.

I have an eviction notice.

I contact an agency and they work with me to maintain my housing, which could look like anything from I just had a really bad month.

I need rent to I don't have a job that pays me a livable wage and I'm living paycheck to paycheck.

And typically rent assistance.

typically rent-a-sense students.

And this is something that I think we talked about earlier as it relates to rent assistance.

There are some recommendations in the report that the Seattle Women's Commission did earlier as it relates to, I understand that it's important to fund organizations that are providing culturally relevant services to different communities, but we need some sort of collaboration or cooperation between programs because the feeling, at least from the report authors, is that people really need some sort of a one-stop-shop opportunity as it relates specifically to rent assistance because it happens so quickly.

And the reality is that your landlord is not under any requirement to accept rent from you after three days, even if you have the total amount.

So it's the ability of a person with an eviction notice to get these funds quickly and know where to go is really critical, I think, to these programs working.

Madam Chair?

I agree.

Council Member Wallace.

Thank you.

Thank you, Tiffany.

You're amazing.

I really enjoy working with you, and you too.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean that to be sarcastic.

On the homelessness prevention, I know you talk about it's one of the programs is eviction prevention and we work a lot with the eviction prevention piece.

So two things, what other services are inside of the title prevention besides eviction prevention?

Is it paying light bills?

Is it paying incoming moving costs?

What other services or money that okay, that's why I was saying it goes from someone could say I don't have a livable I don't make a livable wage and so while they may not need rental assistance now They know that if they don't get some kind of case management and support to scale up, that they will eventually be evicted.

And so it's the spectrum of what will it take to keep you in your house, even to, it might mean move you to another unit that's more affordable.

Does it include supplementing rent from either state or federal programs?

Three months, no more than three months worth.

Okay, and then how do, again, and I, How do we measure, I know you put 4.4 million in there, how do we measure the prevention, its success?

So you kind of gave us a menu of, okay, we have eviction prevention, we pay bills, we try to move people in other places, you have up to three months to keep people in place.

So how do you measure that success?

So I've reworded it, I've created my own definition.

So you see exits to permanent housing.

So if I were to say that in Tiffany language, it would say, To date, we have prevented 366 households from becoming homeless.

I should let you know that I have been receiving texts from United Indian, Seattle Indian Health Board, Chief Seattle, and the other groups that you mentioned, Mother Nation, and they asked me to thank you for all of your hard work.

They are very, very proud of the work that you've done and how quickly you have responded to the Native American community.

So I appreciate that.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you, please continue.

Thank you for those comments, Council Member Juarez.

Anytime.

So next is Seattle Rental Housing Assistant Pilot, and the reason we pulled this out is because it's a pilot.

It best aligns with the program area prevention, so in the budget system, we have to put it in a category, and we put it there, but it differs in the fact that it's a pilot, and it's successful when people maintain housing until they receive their housing choice voucher.

So the big difference here is that in the traditional prevention, we just said three months maximum.

In this prevention program, the person will receive assistance until they get their voucher.

And so the time limit, someone can receive services for a year if it takes a year for them to get their Section 8 voucher.

And so quickly to date, 322 households have been contacted and 72 were enrolled in services through July.

The partners that are running this program are Seattle Housing Authority, Solid Ground, Neighborhood House, the YWCA, and Muslim Housing Services.

The program is keeping people housed who would otherwise become homeless, and like I said, they're enrolled until they receive their SHA voucher.

So we expect to see some kind of housing exits in the Q3 reports.

And then some challenges include, and this is from the service providers, high rent and missing or inaccurate contact information.

So can you talk about individuals enrolling or being part of both programs.

And I think Councilmember Herbold made a very good point, is that if you find yourself evicted and you've got three days to cough up the full rent or whatever you may be asked for, that's going to be really a struggle for people who are already struggling.

So how do they, what and how do we work with both, across both?

And then can you talk about how we're dealing with Solid Ground and SHA and KCSA, King County Housing Authority as well.

So the answer to your question is these folks, these 322 are actually in a good place because it says they've been assessed and have entered the program.

So if they were to get an eviction notice, they could get a check within that three day period.

And if for some reason it doesn't work out, our job is to find them somewhere else to live.

We cannot let these folks become homeless while they're waiting for a voucher that keeps them homeless.

And so they're enrolled, which means they can call at any time.

That's the point.

So some of the folks we contacted, they're like, we're fine.

But we've said, can we enroll you and enter you in our database?

And at any time between now and when you get your voucher, if you become at risk, please contact us and we will provide you services to keep you housed.

So again, channeling Council Member Mosqueda, that we hear all the time that somebody's got a voucher, but they can't find a place.

Yeah.

Yes.

For the housing conversation.

That's a systems.

I mean, that's a larger systems issue.

And then your second question was about how the...

Oh, just how are we coordinating?

Again, I keep coming back to banging the drum about a system coordination.

How are we dealing with solid ground and neighborhood house, YWCA?

And after you answer, Council Member Herbold.

We have a weekly meeting with them all.

And we sit down weekly until the group decides biweekly.

But it really is to say, where are we at?

Because you can imagine, because the span of time someone can be in the program, and because it's a pilot, they have a lot of questions for us.

And so, right now, we meet weekly.

We made an agreement that we'll move that out when the group feels comfortable that they're clear enough on what...

on just the program logistics.

Great.

Council Member Herbold.

Thank you.

So from the slide, I learned that there were 322 houses contacted.

Are they assessed at that point?

So they're assessed when they're contacted.

And then of those 322, 72 were enrolled.

Now those 72 who were assessed and determined eligible aren't all necessarily receiving housing assistance funds, is that correct?

So it would be helpful to know of those households, well, what number of the 72 availed themselves of housing resources?

And if there's like sort of an average that people accept, that would be helpful.

And then finally, what portion of the 2 million has been spent down?

Great.

Thanks.

Madam Chair.

Did you need a question?

You just want them to come back to you on that, Council Member Herbold?

Okay.

Council Member Scalia and then Council Member Gonzalez.

Oh, no, no, no.

I don't have a question.

Okay.

You're just waving at me.

Okay, so just to be clear when we're sending out rental housing vouchers the maximum that an individual gets a voucher assistance is three months?

In our standard prevention program.

Are you talking about the standard or the pilot?

They're different.

Okay, so the standard prevention program is three months currently and your pilot is goes for?

Until they get their section 8 voucher.

Okay, and then we just said though that, and I believe it's here, the second bullet down on the right side, households are enrolled until they receive their Seattle Housing Assistance voucher, which is their Section 8 voucher.

But we're calling that a success, but we also acknowledge that many people are receiving their voucher and then they're not able to get into a home.

So that's what we are meeting weekly about, is to determine the handoff.

So our conversation with SHA is like, once you give them their voucher, what services do you have to offer them to follow them through the finish line?

And there's some nuances that, again, happy to come talk to you about that don't, that everybody's not completely satisfied with yet.

We want to make sure that we follow them through to what we consider to be permanent housing, which is they have a place.

Because if we do all of this, they get a voucher and they can't find a place and they're homeless, then that's not a success.

And so to be determined, we're trying to figure it out live with Seattle Housing Authority and the partners.

So my concern, I think it's pretty clear that we're counting a success when somebody gets the voucher from SHA and yet they're not getting into a home.

Noted.

Okay.

I don't think that that was an intentional thing.

We would not consider it a success if they got a voucher and then we just lost track of them.

Right.

So I will make that note.

Yeah, and then just I believe I've asked for this before but I'm interested in the other cities length of time with the rental assistance program.

I mentioned before that Los Angeles City gives two years for rental assistance and wondering how many other cities have a length of time that's significantly more than we're currently doing in our existing program, not the pilot.

So what I'll check, and just to separate, it's what's HUD's standard, and then are those other cities, because now I'm interested, supplementing with general fund to extend the standard because my gut tells me that the three months isn't arbitrary, that it's a standard that's given to us by HUD or a system standard.

So I'll answer both of those and send you the information.

Thank you.

Can I ask one more question?

On the previous slide, and I'm a fan of this program because I absolutely agree this is a prevention strategy.

We're going to be able to keep people housed in their own home, ideally, and not prevent the trauma that is created when an individual cycles out into the street.

So I'm a huge, huge proponent of this assistance program.

Would love to see it go longer, as you obviously can tell.

I'm just a little concerned though when I look at the numbers here Can you tell me more about what looks like double the amount of investments yet?

Not an increase in the amount of individuals served or a significant increase in the number of exits to permanent housing I understand that this is probably now incorporating your dollars that we we allocated from the sale of the comm shop, correct?

And so wondering when we're gonna see the kind of return on investment that we would hope for for doubling the amount.

I

We, so if you remove the money for the pilot, it's really...

The 4.4 is the amount minus the pilot money?

In 2018, it's 4.5.

So 4.5.

So we went from 3.1 to 4.5.

And the reason why we're not seeing the outcomes that we want to yet is because of the five programs that I stated that have started up this year.

So the Mother Nation, Somalia Youth Club.

we believe that they're lagging outcomes, number one, and two, just startup.

And so, we really don't want to hold them, like, accountable to the way that we hold prevention programs that have been receiving funding from us for years, because we had to let some of these agencies, they had nothing, and this year was the start of them building everything to have a prevention program.

Okay, that makes sense, thank you.

All right, please continue.

And for just checking time check with my colleagues, we have obviously gone much longer than we thought, but clearly we're deeply engaged in this.

Is everybody okay to continue probably till 1 o'clock?

Okay, thank you.

So next is housing.

And so you see about 24.9 million in housing.

And the first type of housing is rapid rehousing.

And rapid rehousing is successful when people live in their own housing without ongoing subsidy.

And so some high-level takeaways is we've seen an improved rate of exits to permanent housing in 2018 compared to the same time last year and an increased number of households served and exits to permanent housing.

The next program area is diversion.

Diversion is successful when one-time funding or services help people bypass the emergency shelter system and move directly into housing.

And the reason why this is important is because we know when they get into that middle bucket, that emergency shelter system, they tend to stay in there longer.

But if we can divert them from going there, they can some people just need sometimes just quick assistance to bypass that system.

The Q2 takeaways are we're serving more households, and we have an increased rate of exits to permanent housing, and we have partnered with King County and All Home and Building Changes to implement diversion coaching for agencies receiving funding.

And so the coaching is for the agencies, not for the individuals?

Correct, yes.

And then we have permanent supportive housing.

And this is successful when people remain housed in a permanent supportive unit or move to other permanent housing.

And so Q2 takeaways is that permanent supportive housing continues to be an effective program to help chronically homeless people find and maintain housing.

And just for clarity around definition, when we're talking about this, permanent supportive housing is like what Plymouth Housing and DESC, in some cases, offers.

And I know they just opened up another bunch of units up on that Jerry and 7th.

What else is in the pipeline for permanent?

Well, Madison and Boylston is in the pipeline.

Yeah, and I'll, let me churn on that and I'll give you a sense of what's coming online.

Okay, good, thanks.

Please go ahead.

We'll come back to Steve.

Yeah.

It's Steve's turn.

This is my slide.

You made it.

Well done.

Slide 14, well done.

Yeah, so this slide, real quickly, and I've scribbled all over it given So I'll just get a few comments out and then I'm happy to answer any questions.

But what this slide represents is a snapshot of 2018 and the capital investments.

So these are the dollars that build units that the cities invested.

In 2018, it was $100 million of which about $26 million was targeted units that will be serving a homeless population.

Could be permanent supportive housing, could be other serviced enriched housing that is targeting a homeless population.

And this is brick and mortar now.

This is the brick and mortar.

Just to be clear, these awards, this $100 million was technically awarded at the end of 2017. So when we make our announcements in December like we will this year.

But these are all deals, transactions that are closing on the real estate during 2018 and will get under construction.

The total unit count represented in this 25.8 million is 508 units of homeless housing.

want to be really clear that of that, 214 is the city coming in to existing buildings, two buildings, the Fry and the Morrison, two buildings you're familiar with, and coming in and doing some recapitalization, addressing some capital needs.

So those aren't new units, but 294 are new units.

of that 508, so I just broke that 508 down into two categories.

So we didn't get 508 new units.

Correct, we got 294 new units and 214 refurbished, upgraded units in existing buildings in the portfolio.

And just for Council Member Gonzalez, that does add up to 508. Thank you.

Go ahead.

Thank you, C.

Before we launch into 2000 and, thank you for the 18. Before we go to 2019, last week I asked you, and I'm going to ask again.

I asked you if you would provide to me the location of the new housing units from 2017. And so you provided is Jennifer works in your office Jeanette, okay I would appreciate it if you would have kind of broken it down, but that's okay I went through and did it myself and broke it down into districts in population and Employment or jobs, so I'm just gonna read this out And I'm gonna ask us again that we start looking at the districts because this is again is my concern so with the seven districts The district that got the most housing was District 7, over 4,000 units.

And District 3 was number 2 with 1,700 units.

District 4 was number 3 with 1,379 units.

District 6 was number 4 with 1,123 units.

District 2 came in at number 5 with 712 units.

District 1 came in at number 6. with 555 units and of course District 5 came in last with 478 units that added up to 10,147 units and then when I correlated that with the jobs that are being provided in those particular neighborhoods and some of them I understand it just like like Councilmember President Harrell, I understand that that's more industrial so you're not going to see a lot of housing units there.

So my concern is the bottom three, which are District 2, District 1, and District 5, when you look at like, I can understand with District 7, 4,147 units that provide well over 60,000 jobs.

Then you look at district five, I'm sorry, which was ranked number five, which is district two at the bottom three, over 54,000 jobs.

then of course last district 5 with 478 units but provides well over 50,000 jobs on the on the on the stats so I guess you can see what the glaring concern I have again I really think and I know people are tired of me saying this what we get this information I really think you need to break it down in districts and explain all Particularly in light that we know that the unsheltered are all over the city and we have more of a concentration in the north and then we ever have had before and in I I'm just I'm disappointed that in 2017 out of over 10,000 units only 478 and I don't even know if those were built or if those were as you said existing buildings you named a few I don't I'm guessing none of those were in d5 and And so I'm going to keep pushing on you, and particularly when we start getting the numbers in for 2018 and 19, that we have some kind of parity and equity about where those units are being built, because I'm not seeing them in my district, and I really have a problem with that.

So thank you for that.

Of the 10,000 units, these aren't 10,000 that the city's building.

These are 10,000 total units that...

So you're rolling your eyes over there over, Ms. Tracy.

Ruling my eyes I don't know where she got the data from and so I don't know if she's talking about the whole Portfolio of city funded units or if it was 10,000 units that were built last year.

I don't know How about this I'll tell you it came from Jeanette Blankenship from the question that I brought up last week new residential units by district 2017 based on data from council district detail permit report it was in the SharePoint site for council questions So that's where I got it from

Okay, so it sounds like it's total permitted units.

Okay.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you see what I'm getting at.

I wasn't clear if you were talking about city funded units versus all of the units being developed citywide by the private sector predominantly because that's who is doing the predominant amount of the development, so that's helpful.

Also, my other concern is, and so I just get a packet, so I'm not an economist, I'm a lawyer, but I'm also, like Council Member Gonzalez, I'm not good at math.

I did the best I could to pull up what I needed, but in order for me, again, to have an intelligent conversation about, we keep screaming that we're gonna have these 10,000 units and they're gonna be all over the city.

We've got to get back to the understanding that we are in districts, and we do have a need in those districts.

Some of those districts don't need as much housing as other districts do.

Like I was explaining on, you know, a particular district that's more industrial.

I get that.

But I'm not having it fleshed out for me, as Councilmember Gonzalez was saying earlier, as a policymaker, not just for the district that I represent, but citywide, in tackling this homeless issue and then also having intelligent discussions with the county because then we get beyond just Seattle.

So that's what I'm saying.

I'll leave it at that.

Chair Bagshot, may I?

Council Member Gonzalez.

Thank you.

So I appreciate Council Member Juarez's continued emphasis on making sure that we are investing limited dollars, the limited dollars that we do have in housing across the city.

And as a citywide representative, I oftentimes will refocus myself to make sure that I'm looking at the entire city, not just in one particular district over another and one of the things that I had an opportunity to just quickly review in Preparation for today is the Office of Housing's annual investments report from 2017 and in that particular report on page 12 13 14 2015 and it goes on, there are some maps that are attached there that don't necessarily have the district lines, so you have to kind of guess, sort of superimpose your memory of where the districts are drawn over these maps, but there is some information available to us in terms of how the Office of Housing, not the private market, but how the Office of Housing is investing its dollars across the city in rental housing investments and home ownership investments, but also in weatherization and home repair investments, which we know is a critical way to prevent people from losing their homes or becoming housing-instable.

And so I just wanted to remind folks that I think that report was delivered to Councilmember Mosqueda recently and goes into a little bit more granular detail around how the Office of Housing dollars in particular are being invested throughout the city and within certain geographic areas of the city that really is focused on affordable housing, not necessarily the market rate housing that is being produced which I think is reflected in the permit numbers that Councilmember Juarez was referencing.

So just wanted to provide that as an additional resource as we continue to evaluate that and I'm happy to shoot that your way, Councilmember Juarez and anybody else who wants to see a little bit more of the report.

What I do think would be helpful is to just get more layered perspective on terms of how those break out in the districts.

And for some reason, I thought that you all had that type of an interactive map on your website, but I couldn't quickly find it in my Google search right now.

So maybe if you could just resend us that link, that would be super helpful.

And part of the reason that I think it would be really helpful to get more background information is because out of this entire presentation, we only have one slide on affordable housing, so I'm a little disappointed about that.

And I think we need to spend a little bit more time through our ongoing budget process really thinking more clearly and really daylighting and bringing forth more information about how we as the City of Seattle are investing our dollars through the housing levy and any other resources to Build affordable housing so that we have the throughput that we really spent a lot of time talking about in the first Two hours here and that we continue to hear is a significant issue So I'd appreciate getting more of those details as a follow-up to this So the 294 new housing units that was 2018 is that correct?

Correct.

And how many new housing units do we anticipate funding in 2019 with 30 to $20 million less?

I am hopeful that, you know, the math that I do in my head averages out at about for every, you know, thinking about our leverage opportunities that we're investing, I use the $100,000 a unit.

So if we have $80 million, we're talking about 800 units.

So these are, in 2019, they're all going to be new units?

No, there'll be some reinvestment.

My question's about new units.

So we're going to be making our funding decisions in December.

And so some will be new units and some will be going back in and addressing capital needs in some of the existing portfolio.

But the math that I do, again, is dividing by the $100,000 of city investment in that unit.

accounting leverage, so 700 to 800 if we lock in that 70 to 80 million that we'll have available.

Now, the reason it's a range, and I hope it'll go up even from 80, is we can't tell you what new money that we might get in under an incentive zoning or under MHA between now and the end of the year.

I got a note that said we might get a new check by the end of the year that we We're hoping we would get by the end of the year and that will bump us up a little bit.

So it is in flux right now.

I understand that you're not announcing funding decisions right now and that you don't even know necessarily how much you have to work with.

I'm more interested in being able to compare the number of new units that we brought online last year with the number of new years we anticipate being able to bring on in 2019, considering that we might have as much as a $30 million smaller investment in 2019 and we have all acknowledged that the need is to do more in the housing area.

So I'm really concerned that we are going to be adding significantly fewer housing units to our stock as a result of 2019 investments.

If I'm not mistaken, this is a similar question that was asked during our budget presentation as a department, and I believe that we have provided or will be soon providing sort of our expectation over the last five years and projecting into next year units that will be coming online based on investments made two years prior to each of those units.

Thank you.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Thank you, Director Walker.

I'm a huge proponent of trying to make sure that you get the resources you need to address this underlying issue that we've been talking about all day.

I'm also quite frankly frustrated that, again, we have one slide that covers this issue and I would like to see that additional data if you've already provided it.

I apologize.

I haven't yet seen it I did have the chance to review the presentation from last week And this is still the number one issue that I don't think I have answers to yet I don't understand how we are going to be able to serve the number of people that we've talked about today unless we're able to transition them into housing and I know you agree, I know it's a shared principle across the agencies and the mayor's talked about it as well.

For me, I would like to underscore what Council Member Bagshaw and I think Gonzalez just said and make the formal request that we do have a chance to dive into the housing budget a little bit more and would love to follow up with you on that, Council Chair Bagshaw, because this to me is concerning if the public sees that it is a decrease year to year.

And I haven't yet had a chance to clearly hear what the actual possibility is if we can get additional dollars.

So the mapping of where we can see these investments, the need as outlined from the Office of Housing, I'd like to see what the total need is and the projects that are available to go online if they were funded so that we can have a better sense of what are we cutting, what are we not funding if we don't give you that full amount.

Does that make sense?

like to do with your permission is follow up with each of you to make sure that we're providing you with the information that you need to answer the questions that you have.

And again, I keep channeling Councilmember Mosqueda because I serve on her committee, but when we're looking at what we can do with this money, we know that $30 million converts to about 100 units in a brick and mortar these days.

100 units costs a lot of money to

I would say 30 million would translate to 300 units.

One of the myths that...

30 million of city money if you leverage it, but it costs us about $30 million to have something from start to finish to get up and ready to go, at least those are the numbers we've been throwing around lately.

But again, if we're coming back to what's it really going to take to get people off the streets, if our McKinsey report looks at up to $400 million kind of investment, I'm coming back to, man, the city is putting and the taxpayers of the city have are investing generously in a lot, but we're just scratching the surface of what we need.

So I keep beating this drum of let's not be timid here to say we're doing what we can.

And again, the city can do everything with partners, but we can't do it alone.

and acknowledging the fact, as you're going through here, that you're able to say, we've got 25.8 million, and we're going to be able to fund a certain number of units of people who are formerly homeless, but that doesn't get us where we want to go.

So I think that we should feel good about making that, acknowledging it, and at the end of the day, when we walk away from you, saying, you know, Things are good.

There's things we need more information about.

But in order for us to seriously address this problem that we're hearing from advocates, from people themselves who are homeless, from people who have lost their housing, from people who've been evicted, our public health, everybody is saying we need to have a system approach here that includes everybody if we're going to resolve this.

Sorry.

I think, no, I completely agree.

And I think the message has been well received.

So just to underscore, we can expect from you a list of the full list of housing opportunities that if were fully funded in 2019, we could start building.

So I know there's a list of about a dozen projects that you have underway.

Obviously, with 70 million, you're not going to be able to fund them all.

But if we could have the full list and the total cost associated with those and per council member Juarez is suggesting a visual of where those are at by district, that would be very helpful.

My second question is just technical in terms of the dollar amounts that we see allocated for 2018 and 2019. How much of these come from the housing levy and how much are general fund?

I'll answer the second question first.

None of them are funded through general fund.

They're all funded with housing levy dollars and our incentive zoning or MHA resources.

And some federal funds, some CDBG and HOME, but not a lot.

Do you mind if we get the breakdown of that?

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Those are easy things to provide.

And our fingers will remain crossed on the MHA dollars coming in, and hopefully we'll be able to see more of those in 2019. And I really appreciate, again, your office's work with us and Council Member Bagshaw on the land disposition policy.

In theory, I think that will also reduce the cost of building housing in the future.

So if there's any analysis that you've done on that as well, when you provide the numbers, that would be helpful.

Madam Chair.

Sure.

And then I want to come back to Tracy about CDBG and what we can use that for.

Go ahead.

If I could just close the loop on this series of thoughts.

I think what you're hearing pretty loud and clear from some of my colleagues, Director Walker, is that we understand the pressures that you're under with the notice of funding and the applications that come in don't always necessarily fall neatly into one category or another.

New housing or rehab of existing housing.

But I think what you're hearing from my colleagues is an emphasis on new production seems to be a priority for this council.

And we hope you'll take that into consideration as you have, I know, in previous budget cycles, but of increased importance this year as we contemplate what might be 70, 80, 90, $100 million that you'll be allocating as part of your decisions in December.

Absolutely.

Okay, Council Member Herbold.

Thank you.

Can you remind me what the fund source is in 2019 that we're using to pay off the 2018 housing bond?

I think it's a short-term rental fund tax.

Thank you.

So back to your CDBG, the Community Development Block Grant.

Yes.

My understanding is there's some restrictions on what that can be used for around housing.

Can you help us with that?

Or if not, can Julie?

She's nodding like...

That's something.

Sure.

We'll get back to you on specifics, but I can tell you broadly there are sort of two buckets of CDBG funding.

One is for services, and one's for more capital projects.

So there is a percentage cap on the services that's an annual cap that is typically exhausted by HSDs.

And I don't mean that in a pejorative way.

I mean used up.

Sorry.

Sorry.

It's been a long day.

Used up by HSD services.

So we can get back to you on the exact percentage.

Okay.

Split.

Did you have a question?

All right.

Go ahead, Steve.

And are you still going through your notes that you scribbled down?

Yeah.

I believe most of this has been covered.

The 2019, you know, we We've talked about leverage and what I can say about that is it is our priority within the levy to prioritize the most vulnerable, including the homeless.

And that is the case when we partner with the state and when we partner with the county and when we partner with the 9% tax credit program.

And so our ability to advance proposals that are serving that most vulnerable permanent supportive housing have great success as they go through other competitions.

It's upon us as a city to make sure that we are not only able to fund the construction of those units, but that we're able to support the operations and the services that the folks that we're trying to serve need.

So that's another stress point in our system.

I want to acknowledge and say thank you to our speaker, Frank Chopp.

He's been really a good advocate with us, a partner.

And as I've said many times, the Housing Trust Fund, that's great, but it's only $100 million, and that's spread statewide.

It's not $100 million coming to us.

So is there anything that we ought to be doing or could be doing that you would recommend, Steve, and everybody else at the table to help our colleagues at the state know that when we start talking about partnerships, and Councilmember Gonzalez raised this already, we have to be working beyond the city and beyond the county to a tri-county region and the state to say this is not Seattle's problem alone.

We need the help.

So can you talk a little bit about what Speaker Chopp may be doing and might be helpful?

I actually met with him yesterday, and what we know to be true is his efforts over several years now to break loose opportunities to develop on land that we can avail to affordable housing at low cost or no cost.

Every dollar we save on not spending on an acquisition is money we can spend on building units.

There's a lot of credit for advancing that and of course locally we've been picking up that charge as well and finding opportunities to not spend money on land costs, especially in Seattle where real estate is so expensive.

And then I think our whole legislative agenda.

that we have advanced as a city or are developing as a city to advance for this next legislative session is critical.

And part of that is supporting the housing trust fund that has a 30 year history now.

It has a high water mark of just over 200 million that we've not seen in almost ten years now.

And so I know advocacy is chasing that number again.

And then you factor in inflation, and so that number today is not what it was 10 years ago.

And then getting more creative around the potential of a third real estate excise tax is really the target that we have in mind one day, if not this year, hopefully someday soon, that we could advance as a state a further commitment to affordable housing through a third real estate excise tax.

Okay.

Good.

So are there any opportunities around federal grants that we're exploring right now?

I know that it almost seems ridiculous at this particular time in our lives, but is there anything there that we are exploring that we should know about?

No, I hearken back to our budget presentation where we are celebrating an increase in the 9% tax credit program.

Thank you to the work of our Senator Maria Cantwell.

But not a lot is coming out of DC in the form of new money.

We're still, as we have been for a number of years, we'll be playing defense to protect the resources that are available.

Good.

Colleagues, do you have anything else you'd like to ask Mr. Walker or anybody at the table?

Well, then I'm going to say thank you.

This has been, you know, three plus hours of very intense questions.

I stand corrected.

Please, access to services.

Just to round out and wrap up discussion about each of the budget program areas, there is a bucket we refer to as access to services.

This is work done in the community to make sure people are connected to the services they need.

So we just wanted to highlight that a good portion of this money supports healthcare for the homeless, healthcare for the homeless broadly.

are the very well-trained staff that help to staff the mobile medical van.

They are, you know, staff that are leaned on by outreach teams as well as hospitals and clinics throughout the city.

So this is a a group of very highly trained individuals that are on staff to respond to mostly the medical, but also mental health needs of people experiencing homelessness throughout our city.

There's also some sort of other programming that exists in this budget, such as the Seattle Public Library's case management.

as well as the childcare for homeless families and students programming.

So just wanted to, so that the math would work out, highlight some important additional programming in that access to services bucket.

So you mentioned the mobile health ban.

We pay for one, King County pays for another, is that correct?

And we're going for a third?

Oh, I don't know about the third van.

No, I think what I'm perhaps what I'm thinking about is the REACH van that they have a mobile.

Oh, yeah.

Sorry, separately.

So there's a mobile medical van.

It's a partnership between the city, county, and public health.

It's modeled after the success of a van that was implemented in South King County.

It is a full medical clinic.

It has a number of examination rooms, as well as a space where someone can talk to a counselor, and then a separate space where people can get signed up for benefits and access to services that they need.

So it's a, as if you were walking into a public health clinic at a fixed location, it's all on this van.

We purchased a van in 2016, I believe.

preceded my time with the city.

Sorry, I'll get back to you on that.

Yeah, I believe it's 2016 is when we purchased that van.

It's been operating now for some time.

It parks at areas where individuals are already congregating.

So these are meal programs, some of our sanctioned encampments, places where there is known to be a population of people experiencing homelessness, and also a population with medical need.

And so it's a great service.

Again, I had been to visit the van and be on the van several times, but a crew of us from the Human Services Department went just last week and met a doctor, nurse, counselor, outreach worker, as well as someone who both drives the van and helps to connect people to services.

So do you know offhand or could I ask Alan to get back to us what the annual cost is of operating that van?

We hear frequently that having neighborhoods like the van because it's not there 100% of the time.

Also that we could extend the hours, that there would be great need to extend the hours after four or five o'clock.

And I would be interested to see if that would be something that we could do.

If we couldn't do it for a whole second shift, would it be something that we could look at maybe another 20 or 30 hours a week?

Thank you.

Please.

Council Member Mosqueda, and then did you have a question?

Council Member Gonzalez.

Just very briefly, due to time, a simple yes or no will help.

My understanding is that there is no coordination team for disease outbreak.

We hear reports of increase in hep A.

We hear reports of individuals who now have confirmed HIV cases.

I don't believe that there is a disease investigation response and coordination team that looks at regular outbreaks, tracks, illnesses and tracks outbreaks across our encampments.

And I'm just wondering, is that accurate?

And if so, then maybe I could follow up with you and you, Madam Chair, about what that might look like to have a coordinated response team for disease outbreaks.

Yeah, I want to, I'm not going to say yes or no.

I'm curious just about definition a little bit.

I've worked very closely with Director Hayes at Public Health and believe that the services that she and her team provide are well coordinated.

But I just, if you're talking about something specific, I'd rather get back to you with that yes or no than make such a statement at the table today.

Sure.

Okay, good, thank you.

Council Member Gonzalez.

Thank you.

So just on that last point that Council Member Mosqueda made, I did notice that King County's Board of Health had a proposed guideline and recommendation.

And I know that both of you, I think all three of you at that end of the table sit on that body still, but there's a guideline and recommendation from September 13th, 2018 that talks about the issues related to how to respond to public health emergencies or disasters in the specific context of the unsheltered population.

So that might help you, Director Johnson, in formulating a response to how the city plays a role or doesn't in terms of that particular issue and question that was just asked by Council Member Mosqueda.

And I'm happy to share this with you after the meeting so you have it at the ready and you don't have to look for it.

Sure, yeah, and we've presented at the last two boards of health meetings both about our Emergency Operations Center and coordinated response to homelessness likewise to what services and engagement takes place inside of our encampment.

So definitely we'll be following up.

Yeah, it seems like in the last month, in September, there was a lot of action at the Seattle-King County Board of Health meetings around the particular issues related to the public health concerns related to that particular issue.

I want to shift because I have a different set of questions.

The slide, this last slide that we're looking at, the last bullet point talks about the Seattle Public Library's case management, child care for homeless families and student homelessness, and then indicates that it's $800,000.

It's a little unclear to me from this slide and the remarks that were just made about this slide where that money is coming from.

So what's the source of the funding for the $800,000?

Is there, you know, Contribution being made by the Seattle Public Libraries Foundation, for example, on the case management aspect, is it all general fund or are we relying on historic levy dollars that may or may not exist in 19 and 20?

I'd have to get back to you on the libraries piece, but on the deal piece, it is the increment is proposed in the levy.

part of the levy okay so I think then if that is the case then I think these numbers are not correct I don't think it's eight hundred thousand dollars I think it's more so I would ask that we double-check this math in terms of the investment for student homelessness and child care for homeless families in particular.

So my recollection having done that work in City Council here in Chambers is that those two numbers for those two program areas are potentially larger than what is currently reflected on this sheet.

We will absolutely get back to you with what built to those numbers, the background on that.

Yeah, great.

Thanks.

Good.

Anything else?

So as I started to say, thanks to my colleagues for hanging in here for three and a half hours.

And for those of you at the table, you got probably a whole lot more questions than you anticipated.

I appreciate all the follow-up, all the, just the honesty and directness of your answers.

And Council Member Gonzalez, you are my hero of the day for bringing the King County budget.

And seriously, we keep talking about a regional approach.

But looking at those numbers is critical.

And I want to go back to what we had talked about.

If we have a supply gap in our city of 60,000 homes and we know based upon all kinds of studies that affordable households for affordable homes for people earning 50% or less of AMI have halved in the last decade.

So it comes back to a recognition that we need a whole lot more and a lot more resources.

the city, the county, the tri-county, and the state effort area to really address this problem.

And I just want to underscore we are in this together.

This is not a finger-pointing exercise.

It is about the clarity that we need, the numbers, and then be able to stand shoulder to shoulder and say, Somehow, it's got to be beyond just the city of Seattle taxpayers that we're going to reach these solutions.

So I'm going to say thank you.

You have one hour and eight minutes to enjoy yourself.

We'll be back here at 2 o'clock to continue, and we'll start with the navigation team outreach.

Thank you.

Thanks.