Seattle City Council Select Budget Committee Session I - 10/27/22

Welcome to the Seattle City Council Select Budget Committee meeting.

Today is Thursday, October 27, 2022. The time is 9.30 a.m.

I'm Teresa Mosqueda, chair of the Select Budget Committee.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Strauss?

Present.

Councilmember Herbold?

Council President Juarez?

Present.

Councilmember Lewis?

Present.

Councilmember Morales?

Here.

Council Member Nelson.

Present.

Council Member Peterson.

Present.

Council Member Sawant.

Present.

And Chair Mosqueda.

Present.

Eight present.

Thank you so much.

And if any of our additional colleagues join us this morning, we'll make sure to announce them.

We do anticipate having a full agenda here today.

There are four departments that we will cover throughout today's discussion.

That includes the Community Safety and Communications Center, the Human Services Department, the Department of Transportation, and the Seattle Police Department.

colleagues, there are a number of walk on amendments that were circulated before 5 PM the day before today's proceedings.

So I will go ahead and make the motion to include those.

And I'm going to pause after I read those because I want to make sure that we have the full list of walk on amendments as a courtesy to our colleagues.

I'm going to amend the agenda in the following way to include walk on HSD walk on one to add 3.5 million to HSD to make abortions free in Seattle from councilmembers to want.

HSD walk on two to add 60 million in 2023 and 3.6 million in 2024 for HSD for startup costs and ongoing operations for three tiny home villages from councilmembers to want.

SPD walk on one to reduce proposed funding for a gunshot reduction system by a million dollars.

for 2023 and again in 2024 from council member so what and.

There is one additional.

S dot walk on amendment, I'll just say S dot walk on one from council member Strauss council member stress I don't have the title in front of me if you'd like to say that very Thank you for the record for noting that.

So colleagues, I move to adopt the agenda.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you so much.

It's been moved and seconded to adopt the agenda with the noted four walk-on amendments that I read into the record.

Before we consider the amendment, I just want to confirm with central staff that there's no additional walk-on amendments that I perhaps don't have on my script here.

I'm not aware of any additional walk-on amendments for discussion today.

Wonderful, thanks so much.

Is there any additional comments or questions?

Hearing none, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on the adoption of the amendment to the agenda?

Councilmember Strauss?

Yes.

Councilmember Herbold?

Yes.

Councilmember Juarez?

Council President Juarez.

Council Member Lewis.

Yes.

Council Member Morales.

Yes.

Council Member Nelson.

Aye.

Council Member Peterson.

Aye.

Council Member Sawant.

Yes.

Chair Mosqueda.

Aye.

Eight in favor, none opposed.

I'm sorry, did you call me?

Council President, please go ahead.

I'm sorry, did you call me?

I did.

Council President Juarez.

Oh, I didn't hear you.

Something happened in my computer.

Okay.

Well, I'm here.

So yes.

Thank you.

Nine in favor.

None opposed.

Thank you, colleagues.

And now we need to consider the motion to adopt the amended agenda.

And I will also note for the record, all council members are present.

Good morning, everyone.

We now have nine in attendance.

In front of us is the amended agenda.

Is there any additional comments before we call the roll on the amended agenda?

Hearing none, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll on the adoption of the amended agenda?

Nine in favor, none opposed.

Okay, wonderful.

Each of those added amendments will be considered at the end of the department that we are going to walk through today.

And we will consider the ones that were first submitted on time and published on the agenda as well.

Those items I think are all included for the deliberations throughout today.

Again, we will aim to end by 5pm.

It's going to be a long day.

So why don't we go ahead and jump right into it.

Madam Clerk, could you please read item number one into the record?

agenda item one, community safety and communication center for briefing and discussion.

Wonderful.

Thanks, Madam Clerk.

I'm going to turn this over to Anne Gorman.

Good morning, Anne.

Good morning, Chair Mosqueda and council members.

Anne Gorman, Council Central staff.

The first item I have today is CSCC 1A1 It is sponsored by Council Member Herbold, co-sponsored by Council Members Lewis and Strauss.

This item would add $498,000 general fund in 2023 and $652,000 general fund in 2024 to the CSCC, and it would add four FTE 911 emergency communications dispatch to.

These would be call taker positions at the CSCC, and new staff would answer the 911 emergency line and gather information from callers to support dispatch.

The anticipated impact of this position add would be a shorter average wait time for a call taker to answer, which would also enhance the CSCC's current ability to meet call answering standards.

Thank you.

Please go ahead, Council Member Herbold.

Thank you so much, and thank you, Anne, for that description.

This proposal adds ongoing funding for four positions to support answering the 911 emergency line as background.

Last year, the council added 26 FTE positions, 13 of which were funded.

Unfortunately, because of high turnover, CSCC wasn't able to hire to fill those positions because they are working to fill their existing complement of positions from the turnover.

The budget ad last year was based on a 2016 report, which stated that the dispatch center should be staffed with 169 FTEs.

We currently have 39. The chronic understaffing has led to mandatory overtime at CSCC, which the proposed budget assumes to be at least 12 hours per employee per week.

The CSCC did report during our budget meetings that they will be fully staffed by the end of the year.

They've done a fantastic job this year with hiring, having brought on several new staffers to over 90% staffing as shown in their department presentation two weeks ago.

We unfortunately learned that the proposed budget that CSCC has been warned by King County of potential fines for not meeting the NENA call answering standards.

Given that CSCC is part of our city's public safety response system, it's imperative that they are adequately staffed.

Adding these four positions towards the 30 that the 2016 report said we needed, these four positions is an important start.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Are there any questions?

Okay.

Councilmember Herbold, I'm not seeing any questions at this time.

Thank you for putting this forward.

There's a lot of emphasis on response times.

Well, we can't respond if people aren't able to answer the phone.

So I appreciate your interest in moving this forward.

And let's move on to item number two, CSCC 002.

I'm sorry.

Again, I apologize, Madam Chair.

My computer isn't me, but it's freezing and it just goes out.

I'm not sure what's going on.

Did I miss, I missed all of what Council Member, she was frozen, what Council Member Herbold was saying.

Okay.

So, I mean, I can, I don't want to take you offline on that.

I just want to make sure I'm the only one experiencing computer problems.

Council President, I think you might be, and we cannot see you either, so.

Oh, I'm here, girl.

I'm right here.

Oh, there you are.

Hey.

And looking amazing as well.

But, you know, yeah, I can hear you and see you well.

Okay, I'm going to try the laptop.

Yeah.

I'm going to switch over to the TV, but I'm listening, so if something happens, that's what happened, okay?

Okay, but also just remember there's a slight delay on that TV, too, so.

Okay, so we're on two now.

Yeah, we're on 002. Thank you.

Sorry.

Please go ahead, Anne.

Thank you.

CSCC 2A1 is also sponsored by Councilmember Herbold and co-sponsored by Councilmember Strauss and Lewis.

Can we have the next slide?

Thank you.

This item would add 2.6 million general fund in 2024 to implement proposals that expands the city's 911 emergency response and impose a proviso.

Context for this council budget action is an ongoing partnership between the legislative and executive branches to develop proposals that would expand the city's 911 emergency response.

These branches established a work group earlier this year and agreed on a set of guiding principles and some weeks ago work group members brought forward a set of four proposals for consideration.

CSCC 2A1 would include funding for two of the four proposals and funding additive to a total of $1.9 million general fund that the proposed budget holds in reserve in 2023 for expanded emergency response.

Projects are an expansion of the duties of Seattle Police Department community service officers and the dual dispatch of sworn officers and civilian staff to 911 calls with a mental and behavioral health nexus.

Work group members have prepared high level costings for each of these proposals and council will be kept apprised as timelines and details come more into focus over the next few months.

This council budget action would also impose a proviso on the reserves in the 2023 proposed budget so that they may only be spent to advance the implementation of expanded 911 response.

Thank you.

Council Member Herbold, please go ahead.

Thanks so much.

I was remiss last time, but I can do so here because I have the same sponsors.

Thank you.

co sponsors, Lewis and Strauss for signing on to this proposal and again thank you and for describing it.

Councilmember Lewis and I sponsored a measure to shift $1.2 million originally budgeted for triage one to finance general for use for triage 9-1-1 alternative.

Council members, I just want to make sure that folks know to mute.

Council President, your audio is coming through.

I don't know if you can hear us okay.

Sorry about any technical issues you're having.

Okay, thanks so much.

Go ahead, Council Member Herbold.

Sure.

So the background on this, This is 2.6 million of general fund.

There is some sort of history to the size of that pot.

It started when Council Member Lewis and I proposed a measure to shift 1.2 million originally budgeted for triage one to finance general to be used for 911 alternatives.

The mayor's proposed budget adds another 700,000 for a total of 1.9 million in 2023. After pricing out some of the priority alternatives, We have added funds.

We are proposing to add funds to that 1.9 million, but we're also adding a proviso to specify that funding is appropriated for the expansion of community service officer duties and dual dispatch of sworn officers and civilian staff to augment current response to calls with the mental or behavioral health nexus.

Those are two of the four work items that the mayor's team together with council central staff have been working on developing.

Spending is anticipated for expansion of the community service officers, not until 2024. And that will continue to be informed by the police department's risk management demand analysis.

There's a slide in the SPD section later on about that.

And then it anticipates the need for 2.6 million in additional funding in 2024. So the proposal, that's among the four that don't need funding at this point.

One is changes needed to support direct dispatch of fire department health one units to a larger set of call types that they are already doing direct dispatch for health one for some call types.

And we're looking at exploring for a larger that does not need funding at this point.

And then further, there is an intelligent reporting system that has a lot of different capabilities to basically replace the online reporting system.

We're not including this right now because SPD was supposedly engaged in a in-language project for its online reporting, and I'm looking to find out sort of where that project is now.

the one that they've already committed to do back in 2021 before looking at sort of more of a bot approach, which is what this proposal is.

So that's the rundown sort of of the four different options and the two that are proposed to move forward in this budget.

There is, again, a proviso on some of the dollars, and those are the dollars that are proposed to be spent in 2023, and those are the funds that we really want to make sure are used for the top priorities.

Thanks.

Wonderful.

Council members, are there questions here?

Councilmember Herbold, Vice Chair, this is a pretty meaty set of policy options in front of us, so I might want to follow up with you afterwards about the interaction between folks within CSCC and then the other departments like our CSOs that are housed within SPD.

I just want to make sure that I fully understand the scope of the proposal here.

Is there anything that you might comment on, Council Vice Chair, about moving forward here?

Are we accepting the RMD analysis rather than the Nick Jr. one?

I know you've done a lot of work on the Nick Jr. report and I I along with you and others have expressed concern about not moving forward with the Nick Jr. report and instead this alternative analysis.

So I'm wondering if you could comment on that.

Are we seeing a prioritization or an acceptance of the RMD analysis in this proposal?

Yeah.

Our focus in committee on the RMD analysis, I thought was, and I take some responsibility for setting the tone, it was unnecessarily negative and really focused too much on, I think, on the reversals.

And really, the headline of that RMD analysis is that it actually supports the Nick Jr. analysis.

The result is that the RMD analysis is determining that a very similar number of calls can be diverted as was in proposed in the Nick Jr. report.

So that's sort of the headline that is missing in my criticism of how they got to those percentages in the RMD analysis.

But that aside, that's a long-term body of work.

And the development of these pilots, particularly the dual response pilot, is in no way dependent on the RMD analysis.

There may be some linkages on expansion of CSO duties to RMD, but I've not done a very good job of explaining this, but the RMD analysis is trying to determine the risk for an alternate response across all coral types.

And it will be a live system that will allow for diverting from police across all call types in real time.

The pilot we're developing on the dual dispatch is not dependent on that analysis, because what it is doing instead is it is identifying a couple of different types of calls and taking them all out of the system, as opposed to the RMD analysis will support sort of, again, this live in real time ability to divert calls across many, many different call types.

And that is more of a long-term body of work, whereas the dual-response pilot is more short-term.

And again, it's not dependent on the RMD analysis.

It is happening separately.

Thank you for that initial response.

Council Member Lewis, please go ahead.

Thank you chair Mosqueda.

I don't just to jump in on those last comments.

I don't think this work needs to be in a place where we're kind of reconciling similarities and discrepancies between the Nick Jr. report and the RMD analysis.

I think that this is moving to a more practical stage where we're building a service and a policy that can be informed by those processes.

But I don't think that either of those reports are gatekeeping further progress.

I don't think that the other cities that have done this work you know, spent so much time on the...

pedantic differences between, you know, this report or that report.

I think they rolled up their sleeves to respond to the crisis in the street.

And that is hopefully what this amendment will do.

And I'm happy to introduce this with Council Member Herbold to finally get a dual dispatch pilot, better late than never.

We are, you know, two to three years behind pure cities on this, but making significant progress.

And the component of this, recommendation that is the dual dispatch is really the beginning of doing some things differently on public safety that all of us in the city can be proud of and that is responsive to what we hear from constituents, which is we want faster and more responsive response times.

We want to make sure the appropriate responder arrives and resolves a situation.

And this amendment gets us closer to being able to do that work so I don't think that we need to slow down or spend more time reconciling.

Nick jr with the RMD I think as chair her bold indicated chair of public safety her bold indicated.

We can look at the areas where those reports are similar that identifies a similar grouping of about 12% of total calls that would be amenable to a pilot, and hopefully that's this dual response pilot that can finally start figuring out ways to deal with that.

slice of calls.

And we have to start somewhere.

And this is a good way to get rolling on this, this is similar to how other alternative response systems and other cities have started with a pilot that's about this size in terms of the funding outlay.

So I'm optimistic that we can get this done and I want to thank our executive partners through the group that we've established to work through these implementation issues and I want to thank them for their partnership in agreeing to proactively work with us to get this stood up and get some much needed relief out on the streets of the city.

So thank you.

Excellent.

Council Member Herbold, anything else you'd like to add before we move on?

Okay, she's giving the thumbs up for folks watching on TVW.

Thank you very much.

And I look forward to learning more about the proposal here.

I know a concept like this has been being pushed for the last three plus years, I'm sure before 2020 as well.

So I look forward to learning more about the details of the proposal here.

All right, let's move on to HSD.

This has a number of amendments.

How exciting.

Okay.

So at this point, Madam Clerk, could you please read item number two into the record?

Agenda item two, Human Services Department for briefing and discussion.

Good morning, Amy.

Good morning, Council Member.

My name is Amy Gore, and I'm with Council Central staff.

The next council budget action for your consideration is HSD 1A1.

The prime sponsor is Chair Mosqueda and the co-sponsors are Council Member Herbold and Council Member Morales.

This budget action would add 7.1 million in ongoing general funds to the Human Services Department for an inflationary increase for service provider contracts.

As you know, council passed legislation in 2019 to require the HSD increase their contracts each year commensurate with the Consumer Price Index for urban wage earners, which is called CPI-W.

Based on this methodology, contracts for 2023 should be increased by 7.6 over their 2022 levels.

This would cost $15.1 million in 2023. The proposed budget includes a 4% increase of $7.9 million for contract inflation.

Therefore, this CBA would add $7.1 million in ongoing general funds so that HSD contracts would be inflated at the full 7.6% rate.

The intention of this funding is to allow organizations to address increased costs and particularly to provide annual wage adjustments for staff.

These organizations report that they are having trouble recruiting and retaining staff due to low wages, which is exacerbated during this time of significant inflationary pressure.

With that, I will turn it over to the sponsor.

Okay, I don't see the sponsor but I do see a hand from Councilmember Lewis, I'm gonna go ahead.

Okay.

So let me say a few comments and then I'll turn it over to some colleagues here.

Um, I am.

really thankful for this Council's past commitments to making sure that we codified in statute an inflationary adjustment for human service providers.

This is something that was not done easily and it took over 10 years to codify in statute that inflationary adjustment that we have in law that Amy referred to.

I want to thank the extremely large coalition of organizations and human service providers, the Human Service Coalition and the Seattle-King County Coalition on Homelessness who've continued to bring to this council year over year ways for us to address the underpayment and the need for us to at least keep up with the cost of inflation.

I want to thank the co-sponsors on this amendment, Council Members Herbold and Council Member Morales, and I will also note, as you see in the agenda, Council Member Herbold and I have companion amendments for 2023 and 2024. I believe we must have just flipped a coin to decide who got to sponsor each one because we knew we wanted to make sure that this was a primary piece of what the Council considered in our upcoming balanced budget.

This has been a partnership with the colleagues over the last few years, and I want to thank the staff as well.

Sajja Parikh in my office, Christina Kostovas, who is in Council Member Herbold's office, and I'm sure is watching this remotely.

I want to thank the providers who have not only come and told, provided public testimony, but have had to tell their stories over and over again about being eligible for the same programs that they are qualifying their clients for.

sleeping in cars themselves when they're trying to help their clients find housing, struggling to put food on the table for their kiddos as they help to make sure that vulnerable residents get signed up for human services and food assistance programs.

This is not right.

Thank you to those folks who had to tell their story over and over again, and to help us understand that keeping up with the cost of inflation is imperative in these times in order to ensure housing security, food security, and overall investments in where our values align as a city.

Due to the historic underfunding for these human service providers, many of these workers are extremely underpaid.

In 2017, along with my council colleagues, we continued to address not only the inflationary adjustment needs, but working with colleagues like Council Member Herbold helped to push forward an analysis to say that this is not right.

It must be corrected.

We wouldn't stand for this within our own city family, and we shouldn't accept this for contracted workers as well.

There's many reasons that we contract out, including, as we talked about yesterday, the importance of having community partners with trust in the community, community partners who have specialized expertise and are able to provide services directly on the ground to communities that they know and trust.

There is an important role for these contracted out workers, But we also need to be investing in them, just as if they were city family as well.

We have not made up for the historic underpayment and so having an inflationary adjustment that matches the inflation that we see in the community right now is the bare minimum that we can be doing for these workers.

This is really, I think, a proud moment for us to be able to say that we led we led to make sure that there was an inflationary adjustment year over year, we knew that this would be incredibly incredibly important to keep up with inflation so that their wages didn't continue to fall further behind.

And again, we are looking forward to the work of Councilmembers Herbold, Morales, former Councilmember O'Brien, and so many others who are continuing to push on the wage equity needs within the industry so that we can truly respond to that base wage concern.

But until that base wage concern is addressed, we at least have to keep up with the cost of inflation.

I really look forward to helping to write this in our upcoming budget and make sure that the folks who are providing the critical services to our most vulnerable community have stability in their industry as well.

When we see organizations with 60 to 70% turnover rate, we do not have the people to serve the most vulnerable people in our community, the most pressing crises that we see every day on the way to work or daycare.

or church, the folks that you see struggling out there need to have a stable workforce to ensure that people can get into places of care, and then again get the services that they need, and that relies on us investing in a human service provider wage adjustment.

and that we keep that commitment in this year's budget and in the upcoming budgets to follow the law.

I look forward to working with you to make sure that these workers don't fall further behind.

And again, I think that in order for us to serve the most vulnerable people, the people serving them need to be invested in.

And I look forward to more discussions about this and the complimentary amendment from Council Member Herbold as well.

I see some hands, Council Member Lewis and then Council Member Sawant.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I think that this amendment is the most important amendment of the entire budget cycle, so I appreciate you bringing this amendment forward.

I would happily add my name.

None of the things that we're trying to do around homelessness are possible without this amendment, to be completely candid.

Without the stability that this amendment can provide, without the work that this amendment does to shore up our current system, let alone expanding a system of care and assistance to people experiencing homelessness.

Without this amendment.

feel like I'm on pretty firm ground predicting that we will see more turnover, more instability, and more service gaps in our existing infrastructure, let alone an expanded one.

So for those reasons, I co-sponsor this.

And I know that we're going to be talking about lots of different proposals that all of us are going to be affixing ourselves to as co sponsors or co signatories.

I want to just flag that in terms of triaging my own personal goals as a council member.

This amendment being reconciled and the budget sits higher than any of the other priorities I'm making during this budget season.

And I'm happy to say that on the record.

So do please add me and hope to see this in our final package.

Thank you very much Council Member Lewis.

Council Member Lewis adding his name as a co-sponsor to HSD 001. Council Member Sawant.

I would like to be listed as a co-sponsor of this budget amendment.

My office in fact sent a similar budget amendment to all council offices as council members know.

Mayor Harrell's proposal to cut the inflation adjustment for human services providers is totally unacceptable as dozens of community members in public comment have testified.

Inflation is real for workers, especially for those workers whose Salaries have chronically stagnated and lost more and more ground over the years, such as has been true for human service workers.

The cost of rent, food, gas, and other necessities is going up and wages have simply not kept up.

And so that effectively makes it a wage cut in real terms.

And this is happening to workers across Seattle and across the country.

Grocery workers in our city have had their wages effectively cut when the majority of this council and the mayor, with the mayor's support, voted to end hazard pay.

Public school teachers in the city have effectively had their wages cut because Seattle Public Schools uses a very convenient formula, convenient for the administration, that is a convenient formula to use to calculate inflation cost of living adjustments that does not actually keep up with the rising cost of living, And now Mayor Harrell has proposed to cap human services inflation adjustment at no more than 4%, regardless of how extreme inflation actually is right now.

And we need to be clear, even if he had not proposed this cut, the current law uses another strange formula for inflation that does not fully capture rising costs.

Simply comparing inflation to prices one year ago, the inflation adjustment should have been almost 10%, not 7.6%, and certainly not 4%.

Finally, this budget amendment, like others that require millions of dollars, highlights the question of how all of this can be paid for without robbing working people of the fulfilling of one of their needs in order to fulfill another of their needs.

Council members will remember that Tuesday, my office walked on a budget amendment that would increase the big business tax rate of the Amazon tax to raise an additional $95 million to prevent all of the cuts like this one, but there are many others.

No other council member has voiced support for this yet, but we need to be clear, budget amendments like this one to restore the inflation adjustment for human services are easily possible if there is the political will.

So please add me as a co-sponsor, thank you.

Thank you very much, Council Member Szilagyi, adding her name as a co-sponsor.

Council Member Nelson.

Thank you very much.

So I completely understand the desire to maintain the policy of SMC.

I think it was cited 3-20-60.

But for the viewer's information, that was passed in 2019 when inflation was a lot, where the CPIW increase every year was significantly less.

And if I'm reading the two amendments in combination, yours and Council Member Herbold's, it looks like we're planning on a 13% increase in inflation between now and the end of 2024. So there's a lot of, is that, anyway, I'll move on and then you can correct me.

And the world has changed since 2019 with the pandemic and all the other expenses we've taken on.

I understand that, and I have a couple of questions.

You're talking about city family and wage parity, et cetera, but what is the ballpark or average inflationary adjustment for city workers, both represented and unrepresented?

And I know that that depends on negotiations, but there is an amount in the, In, you know, on, on the budget for increased labor costs so does anybody know that the average percent is it.

I'm just concerned that.

That it could be that once we, you know, this is designed to raise the base because social service workers are underpaid, I agree.

But then do we, are we going to get in a situation where every year, our own city employees feel as though they're not getting the increase that is equal.

Maybe we can get that information to you later.

But the second question I have is this legislation required a report in May, and I've asked for it.

I haven't, and I've been told it does not exist.

So is that the case?

It has not been written.

There was going to be a report due May of this year to report back on the impacts, benefits of the increase as it was implemented from 2020.

That is correct, Council Member.

There was a report that was intended to be produced by HSD in order to kind of demonstrate the impact of this funding.

However, during COVID, some of the non-essential sort of activities that they were planning on doing were set aside to focus on COVID response.

And then there was staffing changes.

And so that work was not actually done Um, there is a slide proposed that will be, um, talked about later on in this particular meeting that would, um, revisit that study and ask them to go ahead and produce that this year with some additional work.

And I'll, um, let that, um, be discussed then, but, um, you are correct that there is a inflationary increase for, um, for workers in the city.

And I believe that it is approximately.

4% right now, but that is negotiated with the unions.

It is not necessarily tied to CPI W in the same way that this one is.

Okay.

Thank you, yeah.

And thank you very much for that.

I look forward to that report.

I don't know if the, we haven't heard the slide and I have not read all the materials, but I do think it's important that we track if there are any, what if any accountability measures there are in our contracts, whether or not they are tied at all to annual adjustments, because I do think that to build To maintain and build public trust, we have to show that we are spending our money wisely, and that's one way to do it.

So thank you very much for that information, and we'll follow up later on the report.

Thanks.

Thank you.

I'm not seeing any additional comments.

Let's go ahead and move on.

We have Council Member Lewis and Council Member Salwant adding their names as co-sponsors.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Oh, Council President.

Hello.

I see you.

Hi.

I apologize.

I was trying to switch computers and then I got back on.

I'm guessing that I apologize.

I really do.

We usually are much more organized.

We're still on your budget request of the 7.1.

That's correct and council president, we are on item number 1 within.

So I see you.

I can only kind of see the top of your head so far, but I can see you.

So you are recognized.

There we go.

If you'd like to comment on the HSD inflationary adjustment, one of the two.

Yes.

Okay.

So let me just add this and I want to just, I apologize.

I was switching computers and it doesn't matter.

I'm here now.

So just a little background here.

I want to thank you council budget, Madam chair, because We had some discussions about the inflationary piece and also had an opportunity to talk to a few of my colleagues about how this amendment would look.

Two things, I would like to be a co-sponsor and also just, you've said it all very eloquently, council member or budget chair, on us working with our third party providers who provide these services.

And I just wanna end on this note, Professions that are normally labeled caring professions or nurturing professions are often the most overlooked and underpaid.

And I know that there's an issue here between what is the actual city employee that has a union that can contract for a salary.

And then what is a third party provider, which is not as you said, as you characterize a part of the city family, but they are.

because they carry out the services that government should do, a good government should do, an essential government service, essential government function.

And so it is a policy decision at this point for me.

I understand the budgetary concerns and I understand how maintaining and looking to a third party provider and ensuring this inflationary status, but I think we should cross that road when we get to it.

But I think it should go, we should really take pride in having a policy position that caring professions are valued.

Because if we, I've been on council, I don't know how many years now, five or six, but at least council member Herb has been here longer.

If we've watched not just the trend and just history, we have never, not just value, but provided the funding and the salary that the individuals who do these caring professions deserve.

So I will leave it at that, thank you.

Thank you, Council President.

I'm really thankful that you added those comments.

I think that's a good note to end on as we transition to the next item here.

Council Members Lewis and Sawant and Council President Juarez adding their name as co-sponsors.

Thank you so much.

Let's move on.

The next council budget action is HSD 2A1.

The prime sponsor is Councilmember Herbold, excuse me, and the co-sponsors are Budget Chair Mosqueda and Councilmember Lewis.

As we just discussed, HSD 1A1 would fund the 2023 HSD contract inflation.

This council budget action, HSD 2A1, would add 5.6 million of ongoing general fund to HSD for service provider contract inflation in 2024. The Office of Economic and Revenue Forecast has estimated that the CPIW Inflationary increase for 2024 will be 6.7%.

The proposed budget includes a 4.0% increase or 7.6 million.

This CBA would add 5.5 million in ongoing general fund so that HSD contracts would be inflated at the full 6.7% rate.

I just want to make one quick note that this amount is based on current ongoing contracts at HSD as council members may add new ongoing funding to HSD in the 2023 budget.

this amendment will need to be recalculated to reflect the inflation of new investments into 2024. So thank you.

Thank you.

And to continue with this topic, Council Vice, excuse me, Vice Chair, Herbal.

Thank you so much, Madam Chair.

So this And the previous CBA would normally be one CBA covering both years, but Madam Chair and I both felt so strongly about this when we, as she mentioned, decided to split the years so we could prime sponsor on one of these each.

This fulfills the obligation under the 2019 ordinance to make sure that not only for, under Council Member Mosqueda, Madam Chair's, amendment, not only are we providing the inflationary adjustment for 2023, but with this amendment, we are adding it for 2024 as well.

To respond to the idea that 2019 was a different time and inflation was lower, that's precisely the point of the ordinance.

That's why it's tied to a percentage that we know that is unnamed, but that we know fluctuates from year to year.

That's why there's not a particular percentage named in the ordinance, but a concept, a concept that again fluctuates from year to year.

And that's why former council member Harrell, now mayor, actually included, moved, and the council supported an amendment that specified that this was an ordinance that was supposed to be in place both in times of economic growth as well as economic hardship.

And the reason for all of that is because This workforce is already underpaid as President Juarez very, very eloquently explained about how our culture and our economy treats people who do care work.

And it's so important that these folks' wages do not lose their earning power.

while we depend on them so much to do mission critical, mission critical for the city, mission critical for people's lives and safety, the work that we ask them to do.

So again, the forecast for inflation in 2024 is 6.7, so the dollar amount here is based on that projection.

We have heard from the King County RHA, their assessment of the vacancies at the five largest homeless service providers in King County.

They collectively have 300 vacancies in these five organizations.

It's obvious how much this hinders their ability to carry out their mission, implement council priorities.

And RHA notes that the low wages paid to direct service staff is believed to be one of the most substantial reasons for those vacancies.

bigger picture issues associated with wages not keeping up with the cost of living, is that the work of social service provision comes down to people helping people.

It's incredibly hard work.

It can be trauma-inducing work.

And staff have been on the front lines of public health risks for the last two years.

And the ability of the safety net to function completely and utterly depends on staff.

Without a work system, the whole system falls apart.

Without a workforce, the whole system falls apart.

The majority of social service providers are women, often women of color, and anything less than this city, including an inflationary increase in the agency's contracts will have a disproportionate impact on women and people of color.

people working to help others should not themselves be struggling to pay rent and even falling further below a living wage.

And so this budget action combined with the previous action prime sponsored by Madam Chair, I think is just this council saying that we remain committed to the policy that we have set in order to ensure that that these wages are again, keeping up with the cost of living, it is still not addressing the larger issue of of pay equity for these types of jobs as compared to other other jobs, not in the nonprofit sector that use the similar type of of skills and education and capacity abilities.

So, and that's another sort of bigger picture issue that we need to address, but we'll never be able to address that issue if we're not staying true to the commitment established in policy in 2019 under the leadership of Madam Chair Mosqueda.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Vice Chair.

Very well said.

I appreciate your comments there.

Council Member Sawant, please go ahead.

Please add me as a co-sponsor to this amendment.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Sawant.

Council Member Sawant adding her name to this amendment.

I'm not seeing any additional hands on this.

I just want to again thank the co-sponsors that you have on your, well, one of those is me, but Council Member Lewis as well for his earlier comments and Council President Juarez.

I'll just echo, I think, what all of the folks who've spoken have already said.

It's just, it's no secret that wage inequity across the industries is problematic, but industries that especially have been provided by work that has been provided by women and people of color, immigrants and refugees, members of the LGBTQ community.

These are the folks that are chronically underpaid and really excited that we are showing a strong commitment here today to continue to make sure that we're investing in this workforce from an equity perspective, but also from the stability perspective in terms of making sure that this most pressing crisis in our city gets the workforce stability it deserves so that people can get the care and housing they need.

Council Member Nelson, did you have something on this one?

Yeah, just to note for the record that I am not at all suggesting that this work is not important.

I don't think that anybody was saying I was, but I want people to know that I recognize that this is extremely crucial and tends to be fairly gendered work as well.

So I get that aspect as well.

My comments on accountability measures were around the fact that with city employees, it's easier to track outcomes.

And so that is why I mentioned the accountability measures in contracting.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Okay, I think we're ready to move on.

Next council budget action for discussion is HSD 12A1.

The prime sponsor is Council Member Strauss and the co-sponsors are Council Member Herbold and Council Member Morales.

This council budget action would add 1.7 million of one-time general fund dollars to HSD in 2023 for an emergency food fund.

The funding would be distributed by the Seattle Food Committee to its members and would support additional staffing costs and increased purchase of food for clients.

As you know, many.

Amy, I'm sorry to interrupt the wrong CBA.

Yes.

Yeah.

Nope.

You know, I'm sorry.

Because I was skipping over everybody else's and only going through mine.

That was absolutely my fault.

We're on.

It just the.

I think we skipped ahead.

We're on HSD 4, and I think we are inviting Karina Bull to describe this amendment, and Amy will describe the other amendment later in the process.

Is that accurate?

Yeah, that sounds right.

Sometimes the amendment numbers skip around a little bit, but yes, number 3 within HSD on our amendment list, it's listed as 004. Thank you for flagging that, Council Member Morales.

Good morning, Karina.

Good morning Council Members, Corina Bull with Council Central Staff.

The next budget action is HSD 4A1.

It is sponsored by Council Member Morales and co-sponsored by Council Members Herbold and Strauss.

This Council budget action would add $500,000 in ongoing general funds to the Human Services Department to fund abortion access and an abortion care awareness campaign.

Half of the funds added in this proposal would be used to invest in an organization that funds abortion access and provides travel support.

Council has identified the Northwest Abortion Access Fund for this funding, and the organization funds abortion access by sending vouchers directly to clinics and coordinating the payment and logistics of transportation and lodging for patients who are traveling for care.

As background, The mayor's proposed budget includes $250,000 for the Northwest Abortion Access Fund through a contract with the King County Public Health.

And this proposal would double the city's investment to support an estimated influx of patients, estimated at 385% of out-of-state patients seeking abortion care in Seattle following the recent Supreme Court Dobbs decision that overturned the constitutional right to an abortion.

The other half of the funds in this proposal would support an abortion care education and awareness campaign to avoid the trouble of confusion and uncertainty about reproductive rights following the Supreme Court Dobbs decision.

And last, the council has identified the King County's public health contract for this work.

Great, thanks.

Council Member Morales, please go ahead.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Karina.

I do want to thank Council Member Herbold for her continued partnership on the issue of abortion access and support.

We responded to the changing landscape after the Dobbs decision.

I do want to thank Christina Katsubas in her office as well, who's been really amazing at helping our office and my chief of staff, Alexis Chirla, in getting this work done.

This past summer Council Member Herbold and I attended the National Local Progress Conference.

Our staff connected there with the National Institute for Reproductive Health, and we learned that Seattle received only three out of five stars in our local reproductive index of a top US city.

So after that conference, we continued to meet with them and learned that beyond the exploration of accessible abortion laws, of which we already have many in this state, the largest support for abortion sanctuary states really needs to be in providing funding for the kinds of funds that we're discussing here, the Northwest Abortion Access Fund.

And so the CBA is responsive to that.

do want to appreciate the executives proposed budget that does include $250,000.

And we would seek to do double that and make sure that we are providing access knowing that we are already seeing an incredible increase in people coming from outside of Washington to seek care here.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

I would like to be listed as a cosponsor of this amendment.

As councilmembers know, my office, my organization, social

And this would, and I will be speaking to that amendment later on in this section, but I just wanted to remind everyone that if council members supported, in addition to this amendment, the amendment I'm bringing forward as well, that would follow up on the very important and historic legislation that was passed in July when the city council unanimously voted on the legislation from my office to, make Seattle an abortion sanctuary for those fleeing persecution from states where abortion now has been criminalized in the wake of the Dobbs decision and the ongoing right-wing attacks on the human rights of women, pregnant people, and LGBTQ people.

And this would declare that abortions, not this amendment, but the amendment I'm bringing forward would declare that abortions would be free for anyone who needed them.

In reality, socialists support single-payer universal healthcare and making access to abortion publicly funded is one small part of that.

This budget amendment, which I am supporting and want to be listed as co-sponsor, I just want to clarify, does not make abortion free in Seattle.

It's not a single-payer system.

Instead, it provides funding to nonprofits to help those who cannot afford that reproductive healthcare, which is important, but won't be sufficient.

As long as healthcare, including reproductive healthcare, is in the control of for-profit healthcare systems, I'm happy to support this budget amendment and I also urge all councilmembers to support the upcoming budget amendment from my office later on this agenda.

Thank you.

Good morning Council Members.

Eric McConaghy, Council Central Staff.

This next item is HSD 7A1.

It is sponsored by Council Member Strauss, co-sponsored by Council Member Busqueda and Council Member Juarez.

Excuse me, Council President Juarez.

I should have said Chair Busqueda.

We'll get it right.

Warming up here, this council budget action would add $5 million in general fund in 2023, a one-time add to HSD to support capital improvements at licensed childcare facilities in the city of Seattle to increase, stabilize, or recover capacity.

And with that, I'll just pass it along to the council member.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

Please go ahead.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Eric.

Great summary there.

As we all, colleagues, as we all know, Seattle has long faced a child care crisis that has put my massive financial strain on working families.

Last year, the city of Seattle provided $5 million for child care providers hoping to renovate their buildings and expand their capacity.

The city, when we put out the $5 million, we received $18 million in applications.

clearly demonstrating the level of unmet need.

Last year's funding added over 300 new spots for kiddos in child care, and so I am proposing another round of $5 million for child care facility grants to make child care more accessible, affordable, and closer to home so folks don't have to drive out of their way and wait years in line just for a spot at child care.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Eric.

Thank you, Councilmember Strauss.

Any additional comments or questions?

All right, Councilmember, I'm not seeing any.

Thanks for your work on this, and I'm excited to be a co-sponsor with you.

Let's keep moving.

Hello, this next item is HSD10A1.

This is sponsored by Councilmember Sawant and co-sponsored by Councilmembers Morales and Peterson.

This council budget action would add $200,000 to general fund in 2023 in the same amount in 2024 to the Human Services Department to support a program that provides free fresh produce to people in the Central District community, such as Clean Greens Farm and Market.

The council added one time dollars of $100,000 in last year's budget, or I should say the budget that we're in now, the 2022 adopted budget.

And that funding expires with the end of 2022. And with that, I'll pass it along.

Thank you, Council Member Sawant.

Thank you to Eric McConaughey for the synopsis of this budget amendment.

As he said, it would add $200,000 each year of next year and the year after that to continue funding and expanding the local produce programs in the central area like Clean Greens.

Clean Greens volunteers grow vegetables at local farms and directly distribute that fresh organic local produce free of charge in Seattle's central area from a stand in the parking lot of the New Hope Missionary Baptist Church.

This year, they are funded by the $100,000 grant from the city that was won by the People's Budget campaign last year, which Eric mentioned.

However, that funding does not continue in the mayor's proposed budget for 2023. This amendment would restore that funding and increase it to 200,000 so that it will allow Clean Greens to hire staff to increase capacity and add youth programming on the farm.

Clean Greens reports that they receive far, far more requests for produce than they are currently able to fulfill, which shows a proven need to expand the program.

I'll just end by saying that I have personally seen the work they do.

The greens and the other vegetables are wonderfully fresh, and it is gratifying to know that these vegetables are reaching the neighbors who need them the most.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm not seeing any additional hands, Council Member.

Okay, let's go ahead and move on to the next one.

We're on HSD 11. I'm just looking for a central staff member.

Hi, Allie.

Hi.

I'm just going to jump in here, in case any of my other colleagues are intending to present this one.

Otherwise, I will just go for it.

HSD 11A1 would add $40,000 in 23 and 24 to HSD for senior meals and activities serving Vietnamese seniors.

Council has identified the Vietnamese Seniors Association for this funding.

This would add funding on top of the $15,000 included in the base budget.

This is sponsored by Council Member Sawant and co-sponsored by Council Member Nelson and Morales.

Thank you so much.

Council Member Sawant, please go ahead.

Thank you, Ali.

As Ali said, it will add $400,000 to the HST budget to fund the senior meal and activity programming of the Vietnamese Senior Association through their fiscal sponsor, the Asian Counseling and Referral Service.

This program is important because the meals are important.

But it is also crucial for providing community building activities for seniors who are at risk of being very isolated.

And I know just from having talked to many of the seniors personally, how much the meals are important, but also the community activities are also a lifeline for them.

Last month my office attended the Moon Festival organized by the Vietnamese Senior Association and we've done so for many years and we saw how these funds are bringing the community together.

The council passed budget amendments to fund this work for the past several years.

Just a small technical note, I believe city council central staff have been attempting to get an answer from the human services department about whether this funding is included in the mayor's proposed budget or in this year or not.

And Ali correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe we've not heard an answer because it is included in a larger grant to ACRS.

I believe it's not something you can simply look it up, but once we get that answer, this budget action may need to be adjusted accordingly during balancing.

Yes, Council Member Swan, I would just confirm that we are still waiting for confirmation of that.

Our assumption is that it should be in the base as ongoing funding, but we're waiting for confirmation, and so we will update you and your colleagues if we hear otherwise or get confirmation that it is in the budget.

Any additional comments or questions, Council Member Swan?

No.

Okay, thanks.

Not seeing any additional hands at this moment.

Thank you very much.

I think we are ready to move on to item number 12, HSD 12.

All right, great.

Amy Gore again with Council Central staff.

And again, I apologize for skipping ahead to this one.

This is Council Budget Action, HSD 12A1.

The prime sponsor is Council Member Strauss and the co-sponsors are Council Members Herbold and Morales.

This council budget action would add 1.7 million of one-time general fund dollars to HSD in 2023 for an emergency food fund.

As I mentioned, the funding would be distributed by the Seattle Food Committee and would support additional staffing costs and increased purchase of food for clients.

As you know, many food banks are dealing with several challenges, including a reduction of volunteers during the pandemic that needed to be replaced with staff, increased demand for their services due to the remaining economic impacts of COVID, and the increased cost of buying food for clients during times of significant inflation.

The 2022 adopted budget includes 19.1 million for food and nutrition programs, and this would increase that to 20.8 million.

With that, I will turn it over to Council Member Strauss.

Thank you very much, Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, Chair.

My apologies right there for a moment.

As detailed in a recent KUW article, economic conditions are bringing more visitors to food banks while food costs are increasing.

One-time federal funds have expired, and donations to food banks have slowed down.

For example, in 2019, the Ballard Food Bank had 39,488 household visits and deliveries.

This nearly doubled with 79,497 household visits and deliveries in 2021. To meet this increased need and ensure families and individuals could access healthy and culturally appropriate food, the food bank had to increase its purchasing budget 300%.

The amendment before us today would keep food and nutrition programs funding intact as food banks expect more people will need their services to make ends meet and be food secure.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Straus.

Apologies to Councilmember Morales.

I know that you are a co-sponsor as well.

We will update our slides here for any social media purposes.

But I really appreciate the new format as well from our communications team and Joseph Pija.

But Councilmember Straus, co-sponsor along, excuse me, Councilmember Straus, prime sponsor, along with Councilmembers Morales and Herbold as co-sponsors.

Okay, let's continue.

The next council budget action is HSD 13A1.

The prime sponsor is Council Member Swann and the co-sponsors are Council President Juarez and Council Member Morales.

This council budget action would add 4.8 million in ongoing general fund dollars for food and nutrition programs, specifically three investments.

First, it would add 1.7 million ongoing funds to HSD for the emergency food fund that we just discussed.

As we just discussed, HSD 12A1 would add one-time funds for this purpose in 2023. So if both CBAs are included in the adopted budget, it would be a total of $3.4 million in 2023 and $1.7 million per year after that.

Second, it would fund $3 million for meal programs, which include things like congregate meal programs and meal delivery services.

that would maintain funding received during the pandemic and sustain existing service levels.

Finally, it would add $100,000 for a hybrid meal program for seniors.

The 2022 adopted budget included $200,000 in one-time fundings for a hybrid meal program.

And that means that it is a combination of both onsite meals and meals that can be delivered, which was a new kind of, way of service delivery that was developed during the pandemic.

But the proposed budget adds $100,000 ongoing funding for this purpose.

And so this CBA would add an additional 100,000 to bring funding to 2022 levels.

Thank you so much, Council Member Sawant.

Please go ahead.

Thank you to Amigur for the description.

This budget amendment was brought to our attention by the Seattle Human Services Coalition.

not only has their budget been effectively cut in Mayor Harrell's budget proposal by the absence of inflation adjustment, but there are also a series of cuts to human services because the money for those services initially came from federal funds through the American Rescue Plan under the COVID coverage.

If you read the city budget as some sort of technical document, those federal funds count as one-time funding because the dollars were one time, but if you read the budget as a human being, the human needs that those services met were certainly not one-time needs.

This budget amendment would backfill those funds that were cut so that these human services can be maintained over the next year.

And again, these are like many other needs that the community faces and all of those needs could be easily funded if the council were willing to increase big business taxes.

I would say this is, in my view, an extremely important amendment in itself.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Sala.

I'm not seeing any additional hands on this one.

OK, let's continue on.

HSD 20.

Good morning, Council Members, Asha Venkatraman with your Council Central staff.

The next item is HSD 20A1.

It would add $273,500 of general fund in 2023 and the same amount in 2024 to HSD for a dedicated phone line for crisis prevention and intervention services for first responders.

In previous years, the council has funded Crisis Connections One Call, which is a dedicated 24-7, 365 days a year phone line for first responders to call for them to consult with a behavioral health expert prior to or when arriving at the scene of an emergency event to provide those first responders with support and information about how to deal with that crisis.

if it is in fact a behavioral health crisis, looking at current and past mental health treatment for an individual, what case management information might look like, and in general, helps first responders to move efficiently through calls and divert potential law enforcement calls where armed response is not necessary.

The prime sponsor here is Councilmember Strauss with co-sponsors Councilmembers Herbold and Lewis, and I will turn it over to Councilmember Strauss.

Sounds good.

Councilmember Strauss.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Asha.

Wonderful summary here.

As you mentioned, OneCall is a dedicated 24-7, 365 phone line answered by behavioral health clinicians that provide crisis prevention and intervention services to help our first responders, police, fire, medical, emergency medical professionals in Seattle and King County to get the support and guidance they need in the moment to best support the people that they are serving.

In partnership with departments such as the Seattle Fire Department and Public Health Seattle King County, the program was launched with the recognition that one, jail and emergency departments are often not the best response for individuals in crisis, and two, first responders need support to navigate the growing number of mental health and or substance abuse calls that they are dispatched to.

One call has proven to be a highly valuable tool for first responders in de-escalation of crisis, bringing the right and most appropriate resources to support those people in crisis, because if jail is not the right place, we still need a place for them to go.

And this allows bringing up first responders to move on to the next call more quickly, as well as being a law enforcement diversion tactic.

Thank you, Chair.

And thank you, Asha, for your summary.

Excellent.

Thank you, Councilmember.

I'm not seeing any additional comments on this one or hand.

So, oh, excuse me.

I do see one.

Councilmember Nelson, please go ahead.

Thank you for bringing this forward, Councilmember Strauss.

Is this compatible with existing technology, I know, or future existing, because I know that SPD was talking about, I can't remember the name of the technology that they are going to be putting in place to improve the situation around the Z code thing.

As far as my understanding is, it is compatible, and maybe Asha can share more information there.

I'm not sure, but I'm sure I can follow up.

Okay, thanks.

Okay, thank you so much.

Thanks for the follow-up there.

I'm not seeing any additional hands.

I think we can go ahead and move on to number 21.

HSD 21A1 would add $200,000 of general fund in 2023 for therapeutic services for survivors of commercial sexual exploitation, domestic violence, and sexual assault, and also impose a proviso.

In previous years, the council has funded the SHE Clinic, which is the Safe, Healthy, Empowered Clinic, a partnership between Aurora Commons and the Harborview Medical Center.

It opened in 2018 to provide support to survivors of commercial sexual exploitation.

And Aurora Commons spends about $200,000 a year supporting 400 women.

And so the addition of these funds would also be under Proviso, and the Proviso would release the funds upon seeing the results of the RFP that HSD issued earlier this year for gender-based violence survivor services.

excuse me, the 2022 Gender-Based Violence Survivors Services Request for Proposals, which is anticipated to come out later this year.

The prime sponsor is Council President Juarez, and it's co-sponsored by Council Members Nelson and Mosqueda.

I'll turn it over to Council President Juarez.

Thank you, Council President.

Please go ahead.

Thank you, Asha.

I don't want to, she did obviously a great job as usual.

I don't want to go ahead and read the whole budget action description.

So I would just add a few items.

I know that, let me just start with the list of services.

This is just basic and then I want to just add some personal notes in our relationship with Aurora Commons and sex trafficking and all the abuses that we see up on Aurora and the services that are desperately needed.

Aurora Commons has five categories of services with over a dozen services that include enrolling people in insurance at the University of Washington Medicine, family planning and contraceptive services that wound care and abscess drainage, labs and imaging, foot washing, medication management for chronic medical conditions such as hypertension and diabetes and more.

Vaccines, They do the sexually transmitted infection testings.

They do HIV and viral hepatitis screenings and hepatitis C treatment and HIV pre-exposure and referrals.

They do many referrals for detox treatment and housing, the integrated treatment of the whole patient, including those with opiate use and disorder and prenatal care.

As you all know, what we see with this type of gender-based violence, prostitution, sex trafficking, We could go on and on with the list.

And I want to thank this council and prior councils that have always funded and helped, helped a Royal commons and everyone across the city are dealing with these type of these type of issues in our society.

The human condition is difficult and we don't always have the money and the services, but thank God there are nonprofits out there that do do these things.

So I know sometimes in budget, we get a little bugged down with paper and facts and figures.

but this is the type of budget action that has real life changing consequences that we've seen and we've seen the success.

I like to promote organizations where there are deliverables, there are measurements for success, but beyond the dryness of that, just seeing that lives have been changed.

And I know we say this a lot about meeting people where they're at, but when you really do meet someone where they're at and they're ready to leave this life and not be abused and used, it's transforming.

So we've had over a seven-year relationship with Aurora Commons.

We continue to work with organizations like Aurora Commons and other nonprofits to look at gender-based violence and sex trafficking, prostitution, violence, and all the spinoff crimes that happen from that.

I know this is an unlikely thank you, but I do want to thank Interim Chief Diaz for our weekly conversations about what's going on on Aurora, the sex trafficking, prostitution, the violence, and the individuals that profit and pay for these services and what the operational actions they've been doing behind the scenes and what the outcomes have been.

And also the city attorney's office and having more punishment on the, if you will, the John side of it.

And again, it's not a victimless crime.

And we all know the people that are used to make this money or women and children and young girls, and it's not going to end.

So again, I want to thank Councilmember Nelson.

And I want to thank you, Madam Chair, for being a wonderful supporter and paying attention to this issue.

And one thing that I want to thank all the city of Seattle for is we've never gone this down this path of being judge judgmental or as we would say in any country, we don't throw our people away.

These are our relatives, our brothers, our sisters.

And so I'm hoping that some of my colleagues will join me in this support of this budget action.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Council President Wilson.

Council Member Lewis, please go ahead.

Thank you so much, Madam Chair, and thank you, Council President, for bringing this measure forward.

I would like to be added as a co-signatory.

Thank you very much.

Council Member Lewis, adding his name to number 21 HSD.

Council Member Herbal.

Thank you.

Likewise, myself, I would appreciate the opportunity to lend my support to Madam President's budget action and I thank her for bringing this forward.

Thank you very much.

Council Member Herbal, adding her name as a co-sponsor.

Okay.

Colleagues, thank you so much.

Councilmembers Lewis and Herbold, adding their names as co-sponsors to HSD 21.

Let's move on to number 22. CBA HSD 22A1 would add $1.5 million of general fund in 2023 to HSD for mobile advocacy services with flexible financial assistance for survivors of gender-based violence.

sponsored by Council Member Strauss and co-sponsored by Council Members Herbold and Nelson.

Just for viewing, mobile advocacy allows survivors of gender-based violence to determine when and where to access services, which can help protect survivors' both safety and confidentiality.

And flexible financial assistance, similarly, are funds that are available to advocates and survivors to be used for needs that are specifically identified by survivors.

And I will turn it over to Council Member Strass.

Council Member Strass, please go ahead.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Asha.

Again, this council budget action will increase funding for community-based, gender-based violence, mobile, flexible advocacy services with priority given to addressing new or pre-existing gaps in services for survivors facing disproportionate challenges and marginalizations.

Said another way, this is a way for a mobile team to address gaps in gender-based violence situations.

So if there's not a brick and mortar location or if an incident occurs where a person has trouble getting to a brick and mortar location, this is a mobile team that is able to help them through a trying time.

This funding would be used to help community-based gender-based violence programs stabilize and increase their capacity to provide survivor-driven advocacy with flexible financial assistance and able to do so on a mobile basis.

The funding can be used for any program needs including staffing and or flexible funds to support survivors, increase existing contracts and or award funds to new organizations for the service.

This level of funding will allow approximately 10 advocates who can provide advocacy and flexible financial assistance to approximately 800 to 1000 survivors a year.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you very much.

Council Member Strauss, I'm not seeing any additional hands just checking Council President, did you?

Okay, wonderful.

Council Member Nelson, please go ahead.

Thank you so much for bringing this forward Councilmember Strauss, I feel really strongly about, about responding robustly vigorously to gender based violence because I see it as a as a precursor to a lot of other issues that we are struggling with addressing.

So joblessness, homelessness, childhood trauma that can repeat cycles of violence.

And so I really do think that providing support for helping people that are in the situation in a way that meets them where they are is very, very important because it in a way prevents a lot of the other issues that I just mentioned.

So thanks very much for bringing this forward.

Thank you Council Member Nelson.

I think we are good to go ahead on to the next one.

Number 30. Jumping to number 30.

I'm Amy Gorrigan and the next council budget action for discussion is HSD 30E1.

The prime sponsor is Council Member Morales and the co-sponsors are Council Members Peterson and Lewis.

This CBA would add $9.4 million in ongoing general fund dollars to HSD to maintain homelessness services.

As we've discussed over the past several weeks, the 2022 adopted budget included significant amounts of one-time funding, particularly for council's highest priority items like homelessness.

Therefore, the expiration of these funds will be most impactful in these areas.

The King County Regional Homelessness Authority specifically, their funding would decrease from 118 million in 2022 to a proposed 87.7 million in 2023 due in part to expiration of one-time funding.

The authority has identified 9.4 million of expiring funds that have been supporting organizations providing emergency shelter, rapid rehousing, diversion, and outreach services if not replaced, would result in a reduction of services.

The CBA replaces the expiring funding with ongoing general fund dollars to maintain 2022 funding levels.

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you very much, Amy.

Um, I don't really even know where to start with this one.

It is so clear.

We've, we've all been in community meetings, listening to our neighbors frustration with our response to homelessness.

We simply can't afford to reduce investment in the services that can actually help get folks off the street and into stability.

We know that there are no easy solutions to this challenge.

We've all been hearing people say, you know, homeless folks just need to get a job, they just need to get off drugs, just throw them in jail, just move them to somebody else's neighborhood.

These are not real solutions.

Yesterday, I proposed a green building apprenticeship program.

The intent of that was to really focus on homeless youth to help support them getting into employment Councilmember Nelson is advocating for investment in substance use disorder treatment.

We need all of this, because the truth is that each homeless person is in that situation for unique reasons, and each needs the kind of individual connection that comes with services and support, so that social service providers can identify the right path for that individual.

So there are three things that I just wanted to highlight as reasons why we need this.

So it prevents loss of service.

Thousands of people are sleeping outside, so we can't afford to reduce essential services.

And these funds would, as Amy said, offset the loss of one-time federal funding.

It would also provide stability for our nonprofit partners.

The homeless service sector is certainly feeling the effects of the pandemic, as we all are, and working with vulnerable populations, this kind of a reduction in funding really impacts the staff, who for the last two years have been on the front lines of trying to support people in the face of It's an overlapping crises.

This, if, if we don't do this, the affected programs would lose an average of 40% of their total operating budgets.

There's almost two dozen programs, plus all the people that they serve.

who would be at risk.

So I just wanted to highlight two groups.

There are, as I said, almost two dozen.

One is New Horizon Ministries, which recently completed a major renovation to shift from congregate to non-congregate setting.

The Nest and Cedar Street shelters are consolidating in order to better serve the needs of a growing young adult homeless population.

The intention of consolidating that shelter was to ensure that all shelter participants had a private place to rest to leave their items and have access to services to support them on their path to housing and to stability.

The budget cut would impact services to youth and young adults supported by the New Horizons downtown core and adjacent areas.

They are one of the only youth and young adult programs in the city that offers a community for these young people and wraparound services, including a shelter, a day center, case management and housing navigation support.

Just one other example, the Salvation Army, their Pike Street shelter is one of the few women identified shelters in the city that is specific for folks who are living unsheltered.

This is one of a small number that specializes, that offers specialized services for women experiencing domestic violence or interpersonal violence.

as a component of the programming that is set up for them.

There are many others, but I think we all know that this is a crisis and this is one way for us to begin or continue to support KCRHA and the very critical work that they provide to our neighbors.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

I see a few hands.

Council Member Strauss, please go ahead.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you Council Member Morales for bringing this forward.

Last year I said council must craft a budget that provides two parallel solutions to homelessness.

First, a budget that provides enhanced shelter and services to address the immediate crisis.

And second, empower the King County Regional Homeless Authority to provide long-term solutions on a regional level.

Understanding that these funds would backfill the one-time federal dollars, Asha, or I'm sorry, maybe it was Amy that was reporting on this.

Can you provide me an understanding of what programs are at risk without this funding?

I know that you talked about outreach and diversion, but are there specific programs that would be losing funding?

Sure, let me pull that up just really quickly.

Excuse me.

So it would be 3.5 million that have been going to COVID mitigation and shelters and day centers.

And so some of that would be for like de-intensification, but it also included things like staff, additional staffing to cover people being out sick more frequently.

The funding includes 3.9 million for rapid rehousing programs, 1 million for diversion programs, $675,000 for outreach and $421,000 for emergency shelter.

Okay, thank you.

And the shelters and day centers, are there specific programs or are there specific partners that would be losing this funding or is it just generalized?

It was specific partners.

For example, I know one of them is the God's Little Acre.

What is it called?

Yeah, God's Little Acre.

Let's see, hold on.

I can provide a list, Council Member Strauss.

I have a list of the specific programs, some of them anyway, if that would be helpful, I can send that on.

Yes, and it includes, just very quickly, Youth Care, YWCA, the Lake City Partners, Urban League, Catholic Community Services, Things like New Horizon Ministries, Compass, Salvation Army, DESC, Roots, and Africatown, I believe, are the list.

And I also will circulate a list for everybody.

Thanks, Amy.

That's helpful.

I mean, just hearing especially about youth care and Roots who are addressing youth homelessness.

I know youth care historically has had their clientele has been about a third kids coming out of foster care system.

I know that their day centers and overnight shelters are able to work with the juvenile justice system to provide a meaningful transfer out of juvenile justice into a pathway and into the rest of their lives.

And we know that historically youth programs in particular have been measured in the same way that adult programs have been measured, even though they have to operate in a really different way and we know that when we're addressing, if we don't help the youth who are on the verge or brink of homelessness, that that creates even worse adult homelessness in their lives.

And so, you know, I do support this amendment with the recognition that we need King County Regional Homelessness Authority to provide long-term solutions on a regional level and funding the programs, Amy, that you just shared.

Seattle cannot continue to fill this gap forever, though.

Seattle has historically borne the burden of the regional crisis.

And with the regional authority, we're seeing that burden smoothed out to the entire region, which is good.

However, at this point, you know, Maybe I'm going out, maybe I'm saying the quiet part out loud, but it seems like the regional authority should have its own authority to raise its own revenue because Seattle cannot continue to fill their gap and bear their burden.

Thank you, Amy.

Thank you, Council Member Morales for bringing this forward.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you for emphasizing the importance of stable revenue for a regional approach.

Council Member Salwan, please go ahead.

Please add me as a good sponsor to this amendment.

Thank you.

Thank you customer someone adding her name to HST 30 Councilmember someone Councilmember herbal.

Yes, I guess I have a couple questions I, I'm inclined to want to support this, I just want to understand a couple of sort of baseline assumptions here.

just reading plainly what it says, but I guess I just want a little bit more explanation, that the mayor's proposed budget includes a reduction for the baseline funding for King County RHA, is that?

I'm misreading that sentence.

A decrease from a total of, oh, no, that's Seattle's funding, yeah.

So go ahead, Amy, I'm sorry.

Yeah, there's approximately $45 million that was in the 2022 adopted budget, that was both carry forward from 2021 as well as one-time funding.

And so that funding is not included in the 2023 proposed budget.

However, there is about $14 million of new ongoing funding that is provided in the mayor's proposed budget.

So the net change is essentially like a reduction of about $30 million overall in the KCRHA contract.

If I could say that, the same information, just slightly different in terms of how I'm understanding it, right, the 40 plus million dollars, this is largely the one time investments from ARPA.

I know there's a few other sources, Clifford Plans, maybe a few others, but these are federal dollars that we knew were going to be one time only.

And if you look at the mayor's proposed budget, a $14 million increase in general fund contributions, bringing our city's own resources to a higher level than before.

But yes, the one-time funds that were largely passed through are no longer available.

So we're trying to increase our contribution from our general fund, recognizing though that the bottom line still reflects that the federal money that was one time in nature is no longer available.

Thank you.

The other question I had is, I remember looking at the time, and I don't remember if I found the answer.

What is the county's proposed contribution to King County RHA for 2023-2024?

I think, Amy, you're trying to respond, but you're on mute.

Let me grab that for you and circle back to it just one second.

I have it in a spreadsheet, just not right in front of me.

I appreciate that.

Looking at the governing board's actions from over the summer, we approved a budget, but the understanding is not only would Seattle look at ways at increasing funds made available in 2022, but that other jurisdictions would as well.

And I'm also interested to see how King County is dealing with this particular issue of providing funding for services that were funded in 2022 with one-time dollars.

I've tried to explain to providers who've approached me, many of them having received ARPA funding, that part of our partnership is recognizing that we are not able to backfill all of those and that we should not characterize those things as cuts.

Because we were really clear during budget, during the biennial adjustments, each of the times that we were working on implementing those one-time funding opportunities, that it was not something that was going to be able to be sustained at that level without new revenue.

Again, interested to know how the county is dealing with the issue of providing funding for services through RHA that were supported in 2022 with one-time funding and also the total level of funding that they're providing and whether or not any of the other partners to RHA are considering in their budgets funding for RHA because as it stands currently, it is only the city of Seattle and King County.

Thank you.

I will just add very quickly that the county contribution is more in the 60 million range.

And I'm sorry, I'll get that exact number to you, the difference between 2022 and 2023. I will also add that the 2023 proposed budget for KCRHA does include an increase of other funding partners.

For example, they did receive funding from the state this year, as well as I think some other maybe philanthropic funding partners.

So I'll break all of that down for you, but I do think that the 2023 budget in particular has new resources that go beyond just the city and the county.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much and I believe the.

County final budget is the same day of our final budget vote so if there's any ongoing deliberations that you're able to let us know about as well in terms of amendments from the county that would be helpful.

Yeah, I have a weekly meeting with the staff for King County and so we are meeting I think on tomorrow morning and I'll learn a little bit more about any proposed budget amendments that are coming from the county council and can let you know that.

Okay, excellent.

Thanks.

Great.

Well, great discussion.

Thank you so much.

And we will continue on it looks like.

I don't see any additional hands.

Okay, let's go on to HSD.

Oh, excuse me.

Did you have something else?

Okay, HSD number 31.

Great.

The next council budget action is HSD 31. A one.

The prime sponsor is Council Member Morales, and the co-sponsors are Council Member Herbold and Council Member Lewis.

This council budget action would add $220,000 of ongoing funding, so therefore in 2023 and 2024, to the Human Services Department to increase outreach in the Chinatown International District neighborhood in support of the neighborhood safety model.

This funding would go to a contracted service provider for two positions that would be dedicated to outreach staff specializing in behavioral health support.

Currently REACH is providing one staff position dedicated to this effort.

So this funding would increase from total staff from one to three, and these funds would be contracted through the King County Regional Homelessness Authority.

Thanks Council Member Morales.

Thank you.

Thanks very much, Amy.

So as Amy said, this funding comes in partnership with Friends of Little Saigon, the CIDBIA, residents and business neighbors in the CID.

Colleagues, I've been talking about this since I think maybe late spring.

All this year, my office has been working with folks convening mutual aid stakeholders, residents businesses.

We've also had our local and state and federal officials as part of these bi weekly conversations about how to address the issues in the CID.

The community developed what they're calling a neighborhood safety plan.

And this is a request directly from them to include funding for two additional positions.

We sent some information out last night or maybe it was this morning to kind of describe a little bit what the plan is.

But they are basically asking for, you know, their part would be to create some neighborhood liaison positions that can serve in culturally appropriate language and understanding as a link to the outreach workers.

But there is a request for two FTEs likely to contract with REACH to provide services to folks who are experiencing homelessness in the CID.

Thank you.

Any additional comments or questions?

I am not seeing any council member.

Let's go ahead and move on to number 33.

Excuse me, 32. Great.

Yes, the next council budget action for discussion is HSD 32A1.

The prime sponsor is Council Member Lewis and the co-sponsors are Council Member Morales and Council Member Strauss.

This action would add a total of $2.8 million general fund dollars in 2023, and that would include $276,000 in one-time funds and $2.5 million in ongoing funds to the Human Services Department to support existing tiny home villages in enhanced shelter.

The 2023 proposed budget includes an increase of about $5.2 million for tiny home villages.

However, that funding is for new villages.

This CBA would provide one time and ongoing funds for existing tiny home villages and like say one emergency shelter.

And that would, the one time funding would be for capital projects at nine existing tiny home villages.

And that would go towards repair and replacement of units, refurbishment of common areas, and improvements to hygiene facilities.

The 2.5 million ongoing would support operating costs.

particularly additional staffing for case managers, security, and behavioral health support.

I want to mention that the behavioral health staffing was part of one-time funding in 2022 of $880,000.

And that has been supporting eight behavioral health specialists at tiny home villages.

And this funding would replace that with ongoing funds.

With that, I will turn it over to Council Member Lewis.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis.

Thank you, Amy, for that overview.

I don't have too much to add to what Amy stated except to maybe just underline the importance of this investment and our overall system to responding effectively and efficiently to our homelessness crisis and to the crisis of warehousing our homeless neighbors in tents instead of giving them a safe and warm place where they can move on, ultimately to full housing.

All of us have at least one tiny house village in our district.

We know that these tiny house villages are well managed, they're safe.

Residents of these tiny house villages move on at a very high rate to permanent housing.

That is due in no small part to the support services that are made available for substance addiction, for behavioral mental health, for housing and job placements.

And this support helps us to maintain those services, which as Amy indicated, is particularly for some of the behavioral mental health services were supported with one time federal money, and that critical resource can't go away as it increases the functionality and capacity of tiny house villages to accept higher acuity individuals who otherwise might not be a good fit for being in those communities.

It provides one-time money for exigent capital needs to make sure that we can shore up the facilities that make these tiny house villages desirable places to shelter while people wait for housing.

And with that, I don't have anything additional to add just that, you know, none of these things that we talked about in terms of new techniques to do outreach, new ways to organize outreach.

None of those things work unless people have a place to go.

The bottom line is people need to have a place to go.

I'm totally flexible on having a large and diverse portfolio of those places.

It's evident that tiny house villages are a significant part of that strategy.

as evidenced by the overwhelming number of people experiencing homelessness who report to outreach workers that they would like to go to one and the high utilization rate of this particular form of enhanced shelter.

So this is not a proposal to add new tiny house villages.

This is a proposal to reinforce and enhance the services and the facilities at current ones.

And it's a critical investment.

Excellent.

Thank you very much Council Member Lewis.

Council Member Sawant.

Please add me as a co-sponsor to this amendment.

Just note my office also sent the same budget amendment to Council Members as well and I'm happy to support this one.

Thank you.

Council Member Sawant.

Council Member Sawant adding her name to HSD number 32. Okay, let's move on.

The next council budget action is HSD 33 A1.

Next slide, please, Patty.

The prime sponsor is Council Member Sawant and the co-sponsors are Council Members Peterson and Herbold.

This council budget action would add 5 million one-time general fund dollars to the Human Services Department in 2023 to support the purchase of a hotel to be used for non-congregate shelter.

It would it would increase non-concrete shelter by 72 units.

The total proposed development cost is 18.2 million, with the remainder intended to be coming from the state rapid housing acquisition funding.

The project would require ongoing operation costs of 2.0 million per year, which are not included in the CBA.

Thank you.

Council Member Salam.

Thank you, and thank you to Amy Gore for that description.

This budget amendment would partially fund, as Amy pointed out, an excellent project proposed by the Public Defenders Association and the Low Income Housing Institute, which is Lehigh.

Lehigh would like to purchase the Comfort Inn located in North Seattle to convert into an enhanced shelter resource for the Just Care COLE program.

Lehigh would own and operate the site, and the Public Defenders Association would provide services on site.

Last year, the city funded a similar proposal from Lehigh to purchase an old hotel, use it for enhanced shelter, and ultimately convert it into affordable housing.

This is far better than to simply lease property because owning the hotel means it can be used for transitional and affordable housing in perpetuity.

Lehigh reports that they have a purchase and sale agreement for the property and are only waiting to be funded.

As Amy pointed out, the numbers, the total purchase price.

And so Lehigh is also seeking funding from other sources, including the Regional Homelessness Authority.

So as pointed out, this budget amendment would fund one third of the purchase cost.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Salat.

Council Member Lewis, please go ahead.

Thank you so much, Madam Chair, I appreciate council members want bringing this forward.

I've brought forward, similar amendments over the past couple of budget cycles involving the same hotel and a variety of different partnerships.

I think that this is a very essential investment.

I'm hopeful this time we can be successful.

I would like to humbly request that I add my name to this and hopefully we can get some traction to finally be able to use the space to get people a dignified place to live that isn't a tent.

So thank you so much.

Thank you so much.

Council Member Lewis adding his name to HSD 33. Council Member Lewis.

Council President Juarez, please go ahead.

Thank you.

This is more of a side note and I want to thank customers to want for bringing this forward.

We've always been a big supporter of Lehigh and tiny houses and supportive housing.

We have much compliment and a good relationship with the work of Lehigh on the rural corridor, including Friendship Heights and the lakefront community house currently in operation.

We've done some other work with Lehigh doing from temporary or encampments.

and then having them turn into brick and mortar.

So I just want to add on a cautionary note, and this is for everybody who represents, well, actually for all of council, but particularly those in districts.

I think that, I would hope that more of our districts would be more welcoming to providing space and opportunity for low-income housing, tiny house villages, permanent supportive care, all the things that we work on.

Because while I am supportive, my concern in the last four or five years is I don't wanna see, and I'll just speak to my district, District 5. I'm always concerned when everybody wants to put everything on Lake City Way and Aurora.

And I understand that's where services are, I get that.

But that's kind of, that's a conventional wisdom that probably shouldn't be conventional anymore.

I think other neighborhoods should shoulder and be more welcoming And again, this gets back to something Madam Chair you've discussed and we've all discussed about single family zoning.

I believe it's a relic of the past.

I think a relic of redlining.

And I think neighborhoods, other places in the city should be shouldering and more welcoming to these type of structures, whether they're temporary or permanent.

because homelessness affects not only the city, but the county and the state as we know.

And so I wanna end on the note of, I would ask, I'm sure this will get sliced a hundred different ways, but I would ask that other neighborhoods would be more welcoming and work more closely with these organizations in placing these type of homeless shelters or structures in their neighborhoods.

and that I don't think single family zoning should be completely off limits and held to a higher standard where no one can touch it.

But, and then what we find, and we've seen this, I've seen this and I've dealt with this in Indian country.

I've dealt with this with urban led Indian organizations.

We can't keep building places for people to live in unhealthy neighborhoods.

If I were to build it and I'm working with some, not some indigenous led organizations now, and my caution to them as well as some tribes is, and also with some of the sex trafficking nonprofit groups, I don't want to keep putting people in those same places where those same vices are.

I think everyone, if we're going to have low income housing and do these two services, that it should be near a community center and transportation, but it also should have the good stuff.

It should have community centers and libraries and walk sheds.

And so again, I'm hoping that when I'm gone, that the conversation will continue about more neighborhoods being more welcoming, about not just homelessness, but opening it up to renters and other types of structures, and not just make single family zoning or particular neighborhoods the holy grail that can't be touched.

So I'll leave it at that, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Council President.

What is that?

You know, I agree with you, so I will keep going here on the list.

Council member Herbold.

Please go ahead.

Thank you.

I just want to, um.

Inquire with the sponsor.

Um the.

CBI I agreed to co sponsor was described as a proviso on my willingness to sponsor was really dependent on it being a proviso.

I understand that sometimes confusion happens in the effort, the scramble to collect sponsors, but would just like to understand from the sponsor why that approach was not considered, or if it was considered why it wasn't It didn't make the final version of this, or alternately, if central staff have information about that, that would be helpful.

Thank you.

We'll call on the prime sponsor and then see if central staff have anything to add.

Council Member Sala, please go ahead.

I want to respond to President Juarez's points, but yeah, but on this, I am not sure what happened.

Council Member Herbold, if there was any confusion, It was certainly not intentional.

My office never said proviso and that was not what was sent to council members, but I'm happy to resolve that offline if you would like that.

But just to clarify, we never said that and we never intended to say that, but yeah, but sometimes confusion happens nonetheless.

On the point that Council President Juarez raised, Yeah, absolutely.

I agree that this is in fact a region wide crisis.

And if there's anybody who has the most responsibility to address this crisis, it is the wealthier community members and big business.

And so I agree that, in fact, there has been a real as the homelessness problem explodes, which it is, it's just magnifying in proportion because of the overall crisis about with rent, with salaries stagnating, with job losses that happened during COVID.

And of course, the problem predates COVID, it's just now gotten exacerbated.

With all of that, addressing homelessness requires a far bigger kind of policy program that unfortunately has not been supported by establishment politicians.

And so I most certainly agree that it should not be relegated to just neighborhoods that don't have that kind of influence in, you know, political influence that wealthier neighborhoods have.

And in fact, my office is, you know, is extremely supportive of providing these services in District 3 also.

And in fact, we helped find a location for tiny house villages in District 3. To clarify on this particular amendment, we're proposing this building because Lehigh has the purchase and sale agreement already done.

It's not like we advocated for that location.

It's a concrete opportunity that they've already identified.

Also, I say that in order to do this equitably in all neighborhoods, which as I said, I wholeheartedly agree with, It not only would require elected officials to have the courage to overcome the political backlash that everybody, you know, we all get.

If you go against wealthy people, you get the backlash.

I know that probably better than anyone else.

Then you have to overcome that.

But also it's the cost of doing those services, you know, providing those services, the cost of land, cost of buildings in those neighborhoods is higher.

So if you want that equitable distribution, then you've got to advocate for more funding.

And that more funding can only come through expanding progressive revenue.

So elected officials cannot, on the one hand, be an obstacle to increasing the progressive revenues and then say that, oh, well, it should be equitably done.

I absolutely agree it should be done.

But that is what it will require to be done.

Just one last thing.

Sorry, Chair Mosqueda.

I was just realizing on Council Member Horvath's point, it could turn into a proviso during the balancing.

That sort of thing has happened in the past budget process.

So perhaps that is where the confusion comes from.

I'm not sure.

But anyway, as I said, I'm very happy to talk with you offline.

Thank you.

Thanks so much.

I do want to make sure, though, that at this point, with the language that's there, co-sponsors feel comfortable with the amendment they've signed on to.

It's not too late to pull your name off as an official co-sponsor.

It's obviously in front of us for the purposes of discussion.

That's the point of the co-sponsorship, to get it out there and published early so it doesn't affect our deliberations one way or the other.

So I just want to make sure to let council members know they do have the chance to rescind at this point if they want, and perhaps add support for a later item or reconfigured item.

Amy, did you have something to add on that?

I was just going to add to clarify that the budget amendment was submitted as a $5 million ad without a proviso.

I'm happy to revise that or reflect whatever the council members decide on, but that was how it was submitted, so I'm not sure the history of how that was discussed.

Thank you.

Thanks, Amy Council member herbal.

Thank you.

Um, when I when I say that, uh, my preference included a proviso.

It was not the idea of a proviso on added funds.

I was under the impression that the sponsor was looking to see whether or not Office of Housing had funds already in its budget that we're going unused that we could provide so for this purpose.

I was I have you know, some very large price tag budget priorities that are my top priorities.

The inflationary increase for our providers, the lead funding and the district one fire department infrastructure projects.

And so I just was I was not comfortable signing on to something so large that was an ad.

but I was very comfortable with finding existing dollars within a departmental budget that we could earmark for this purpose.

So that's where I'm at right now.

And I think in the course of this discussion, this item received an additional sponsor.

So maybe no harm, no foul if I take my name off for now.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

We will correct that for the record.

That's no problem.

Council Member Lewis, did you have something to add?

Yes, thank you, Madam Chair.

Similar to Council Member Herbold, I guess I don't want to remove my name from co-sponsoring.

I'm happy to co-sponsor as it stands.

But as far as this is an exercise where Madam Chair is gathering feedback on constructing a balancing package, I would like to voice my approval for the, I just wanted to take an opportunity to put that on but would support the path being advocated by Councilmember Herbold and hope that is duly considered by central staff and the chair.

Thank you so much.

Allie, I see you have your hand.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair Mosqueda.

I just note that this proposal is to fund a non-congregate shelter, and so Office of Housing Funds are not a good fit, so I have provisory funds in their existing budget I don't think would work for the way this proposal is currently crafted.

We'll certainly work with the Chair and all of you to identify other options, and I'm not aware of any funds in HSD's budget that would be available for this use, so I just want to set expectations now about what is possible on this specific proposal.

Thank you for that reminder.

Okay, Council Member Herbold, please go ahead.

I'm just wondering what are the structural limitations for OH funds being used to purchase a non-congregate shelter, which I mean the difference between what this non-congregate shelter that is a form of hotel and permanent supportive housing.

I think it's like a very, very narrow distinction of what the difference is.

And I'm just trying to understand what are the structural limitations that would not make that possible.

In some cases, it would depend on the fund source, it is also just not the line of business that the office of housing, it is I mean offer you know contracted for operating a shelter, I think, is is a little bit different than.

some of the permanent supportive housing providers and that sort of thing.

So in some cases, it just, you know, is there money that could be shifted that in other cases, there's like restrictions within, like the city's policies that have not allowed, you know, have restricted the use of the housing funds for specific types of permanent housing, like jumpstart housing funds are specifically for permanent housing.

So it would be a shift in policy.

So it's not to say it's impossible, and that there couldn't be maybe certain funds that are currently appropriated or proposed for OH's budget that could be shifted to the Human Services Department if there aren't state or federal restrictions on them, but it may require a local change in policy on the use of certain funds.

Because I just want to clarify, this is only for the purchase.

This does not contribute to operating funds.

As I understand it to be described, I should say.

We can get some additional information on the limitations regarding acquisitions specifically from OH, that's no problem.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes, I just want to clarify, too, to that line of questioning, Council Member Herbold, my office has been working on potentially trying to acquire this hotel for several years now, and the issue that has come up As Allie was indicating, there's certain funds like housing levy money or some other things that probably could not be spent on this.

But I would really like us to look at in this budget process, since we're plugging so many different sources of money into Office of Housing more than I believe we've done historically from a diversified set of funding sources, that maybe some of that money could be programmable for an opportunity like this.

If that requires tweaking some kind of discretionary policy, I would hope that we could have a policy that is basically something like living in a hotel is better than living in a tent as a policy, and somehow structure the distribution of our money to make sure that we can take advantage of opportunities that come along, even if they're not completely perfect based on what we've historically done.

So I know some of these, there will be legal reasons why we can't spend certain sources of office of housing money, but there's almost certainly things that are within discretionary policy where something like this could be accommodated if we wanted to.

And I would just hope that we could figure out how to be creative to get more people off the street and not get mired down in bureaucracy.

So I just wanted to put that on the record.

Okay, thank you.

I think that's an old hand.

So I'm going to move on.

Okay.

All right.

Great.

Thank you so much.

Thanks for the discussion, colleagues.

Let's continue on.

The next council budget action is HSD 34. A one, the prime sponsors Councilmember Strauss and the co sponsors are Councilmember Peterson and Council President Juarez.

This council budget action would add 120,000 ongoing general funds, so both in 2023 and 2024, to expand the program for vehicle resident outreach, parking offense mitigation, and flexible financial assistance for vehicle residents.

The 2022 adopted budget included $100,000 of ongoing general fund for this program.

The CBA would add $120,000 so that it would bring the total to $220,000 per year moving forward.

With that, I'll hand it over to Council Member Strauss.

Thank you.

Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Amy.

As many of us know, vehicle residency outreach is intended to get people who are experiencing homelessness living in cars and RVs connected to the services that they need.

Over 30% of people experiencing homelessness in Seattle are living in vehicles, and it's the fastest growing segment of unhoused US population nationally.

point in time snapshot here in Seattle last month, there were about 273 vehicles at verified encampments throughout the city.

For vehicle residents, a car or RV is often their last remaining piece of personal property that represents their home, privacy, storage, and transportation all in one material object.

People living in their cars often have specific and complex needs.

That means outreach and services needed to bring someone inside often needs to be different than for addressing somebody living in a tent.

From the conversation that we just had about the non-congregate shelter and the comfort inn, I want to say that I agree with Council President's comments that it's not one part.

And I think that the Chinatown International District made this loud and clear as well that it's not one part of our city that needs to bear the responsibility for a region wide crisis.

That said, the benefit of a comfort in or a place like that is that it has non congregate shelter connected to a place that people's cars or RVs could be parked for a period of time so that people are able to transition out of living in their cars and RVs into shelter, not having to give up their last piece of personal property at that very moment of moving inside and have the ability to then be okay with letting that piece of property go because they know that they are stabilized and on a track to have permanent housing.

All of this said is the missing gap yet, I mean, all of this said, and currently the city only has one team specifically focused on vehicle residency for the entire city.

Chair Mosqueda and I worked to save this team from being removed from the budget in years past.

And since then, the team has changed from being a volunteer outreach team to a professional outreach team.

And now it's time to expand that team to address the level of vehicle residency we have in our city.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you very much, Councilmember.

Are there any additional comments on this item?

All right, Councilmember Strauss, I'm not seeing any additional comments.

Let's go on to number 35.

All right, so the next council budget action is HSD 35A1.

The prime sponsor is the Budget Chair, Councilmember Mosqueda.

This council budget action would make changes to the proposed expansion of the Unified Care Team, which is the multi-department effort to provide outreach and services to people living outside, as well as providing cleaning, maintenance, and services throughout the city's public spaces.

Currently, the Human Services Department provides support to the Unified Care Team in three primary ways.

First, HSD assesses site condition and maintains what is called the By Name List, which includes information on individuals living at encampments, and then uses this list to coordinate appropriate outreach to individuals.

HSD also consolidates information on shelter and housing availability, which is used by outreach providers for referrals.

And they track referrals that are made to shelter and housing.

Finally, HSD coordinates with other city departments to provide services and cleaning at encampment sites.

These activities are intended to be done at encampment sites, regardless of whether the site is scheduled for removal.

Currently, HSD has six funded positions for this work, including four system navigators and two positions providing data support and program coordination.

In order to expand these services and reorganize into geographically based teams, the mayor's budget would add eight new positions at HSD, including six new system navigators, bringing the total up to 10, and two data support and program coordinator positions, bringing the total to four.

So overall, this would increase staffing at HSD from six positions to 14 positions.

This CBA, HSD 35, would shift some of the responsibilities for encampment outreach and support to the King County Regional Homelessness Authority and would shift resources to the authority for this work.

Under this proposal, staff from HSD would still perform assessments of the physical conditions of encampment sites and coordinate city staff to respond to the site needs.

However, KCRHA would be responsible for the initial survey of the individuals at the site to determine their needs, develop a personalized care plan, and would coordinate outreach to those individuals.

The authority would also take on responsibility for maintaining data on available shelter and housing and would be responsible for tracking referrals.

To support the shift in responsibilities, this CBA would reduce the number of new system navigators at HSD from six to one.

This would bring the total number of system navigators at HSD to five.

That would be one system navigator for each of the geographic teams.

The funding for the other proposed new system navigator positions, which is $811,000, along with an additional $400,000, would be appropriated to King County Regional Homelessness Authority to support their expanded responsibilities in terms of outreach, data support, and program coordination.

So in total, $1.2 million would go to KCRHA to support their work.

And under this proposal, HSD would still receive three new positions, one system navigator, a data support position, and a program coordinator, and they would receive an increase of $437,000 to fund these positions and their support of the Unified Care Team.

With that, I will turn it over to Council Member Mosqueda.

Thank you very much, Amy.

I appreciate all the work that you put into this amendment.

Colleagues, I mentioned yesterday and the day before that I had asked central staff to work with me on a series of omnibus amendments that makes a number of changes as we recognize there were some significant policy shifts that were included in the proposed budget.

This was one of those policy changes, and we have been spending quite a bit of time talking with both the administration I'm really excited to bring this proposal forward for your consideration and wanted to air it here for the purposes of transparency as we head into deliberating what would potentially be in the chair's proposed balancing package.

The short amendment here, the title that I would love to continue to refer this to is Solutions Beyond Removals.

This is the theme that Deputy Mayor Washington and her team use when talking about the concepts behind the five geographic regions.

And I think that that concept is something that everyone wants to see.

We've been meeting with the Mayor's Administration and I want to sincerely thank Deputy Mayor Washington and her team meeting with the Regional Homelessness Authority and want to thank Mark and their team, especially Jeff Sims.

and some of our key community partners who provide outreach on the ground to folks who are in need of not only shelter and housing, but ongoing services when it's not tied to removals as well.

This solutions beyond removals amendment helps to meet people's needs year round by serving the hygiene and service needs of individuals, and also looks at what the land needs in terms of cleanliness and support for our entire community and all of our city's residents.

This maintains the five geographically focused regions across our city, and it creates two distinct roles for our city and our partners at the Regional Homelessness Authority and their outreach contractor partners.

It moves funding to the Regional Homelessness Authority for enhanced outreach and allows for the Regional Homeless Authority to manage certain lists to help provide services to individual personalized needs, as well as make sure that we're looking at the list of available beds and units and resources more broadly across our city.

Our city department's role, as it's defined in the proposal here, would maintain the FTEs needed for focusing on the land, cleaning, sanitation, hygiene, location site maintenance, All of the physical needs on the site could help be coordinated amongst departments of the city to improve outcomes for people, residents both housed and unhoused for solutions beyond removals.

And as you heard from Amy, the focus through the Regional Homelessness Authority and their outreach contractor partners would be people focused.

Geographically based outreach staff focused on crisis response, homeless response, placement of people, connecting people to the diversified portfolio of available beds in real time.

can help improve outcomes and solutions beyond removals.

Colleagues, I just wanted to spend a few more seconds lifting up the importance of the work that has been jointly crafted here with the executive and legislative and regional homelessness authority branches and our outreach community partners as well.

The summary here is that it can help place people in disabled housing and shelter to meet their needs when appropriate beds are available.

It's expanding the number of homeless outreach workers on the ground who have relationships with encampment residents who can use their relationships to enhance communication, enhance harm reduction strategies, and provide data for stronger matches between an individual's need and available housing and shelter.

It expands cleaning, sanitation, and trash removal services.

focusing on maintaining safe and healthy environments for everyone, and responding to neighborhood and site needs, and provides the much agreed upon approach to geographically focused neighborhood solutions and human level support for helping those individuals on sites and get stabilized.

This builds upon some of the approaches that we've included in the past years and I want to thank Council Member Morales for the re-envisioned HOPE team and my council colleagues, many of whom asked for geographically focused support.

including Councilmember Strauss and really championed by Council President Juarez as well.

And we want to see these five geographic regions be established.

But we also wanted to make sure that the outreach, the direct people interaction was really being done by those trusted community providers through the Regional Homelessness Authority who have been praised for their work and the partnership for helping define the appropriate and stable housing for folks in the long-term and connecting to people's needs year-round, not tied to removals.

I wanted to lift up the four letters that you received in your inbox.

One from Deputy Mayor Washington who wrote, regarding your proposed amendment, we will not offer any objection.

If this is the path your colleagues choose to pursue, the transfer functions would be entirely contingent on the RHA's agreement to terms that are amenable to both parties, and it's always great to work with you and your team.

I'm available if you have any further questions.

And she wrote, supporting the praise for the collaboration between our office RHA and their office and community partners.

RHA wrote similarly, RHA stands with this amendment that would help equip RHA with the staff necessary to manage shelter and referrals and vacancy responding, so lists for shelter referrals and the list of available beds that are vacant.

In addition, the budget action provides additional funding to expand geographically-based homeless outreach services.

Both of these changes are supported by KCRHA, helps to expand the number of homelessness outreach workers who are providing ongoing relationships with encampments residents and allow for better communication and increased harm reduction strategies.

Similarly, moving these functions to KCRHA helps improve connecting individuals with shelter and outreach, and this aligns with the commitment to identifying and building deeply connected activities that everyone will benefit from.

I ad lib there at the end, but you have the letter in your inbox.

And finally, from our community partners, Chloe Gale from REACH wrote, evergreen treatment services and REACH program are writing in support of this amendment in coordination to to coordinate and conduct solutions beyond removals.

Through this partnership that is being outlined here, it builds on the partnership that Reach has had in the past and their firsthand experience of knowing what neighbors and partners need and want to create solutions for the homelessness community to be able to not just get displaced, but also be able to have ongoing housing and service needs met.

Our staff are proud to step forward and partner with neighborhood stakeholders in the work they currently do and specifically support the amendment proposal to move to the person-centered agreement and referral funds to the King County Regional Homelessness Authority.

And finally, Allison Eisinger from the Seattle Coalition on Homelessness Rights.

I write to thank you for your work to develop this proposal and offer the strong support of the coalition to support this reasonable regional approach to assisting people without homes in our city, to working towards cleaner and more useful diversion rules, division of roles and services between and among city employees and to support King County Regional Homelessness Authority as the agency responsible for crisis response services and systems and to connect the skilled providers working through RHA with those individuals in need.

Again, I want to thank you colleagues for your consideration of this amendment.

We wanted to share it early for the purposes of discussion and transparency as this will be what we're working towards building into the balance package because it accomplishes the three goals that I believe we heard in our earlier discussions about where there is alignment with what is being desired out a outreach that effectively connects people with housing, shelter and services that meet their needs, not tied to specific removal.

So year round B resources to scale up our hygiene, cleaning, sanitation and trash removal services to be able to maintain safe and healthy community environments for everyone.

and finally see the geographically based support across the city so we can provide care and support that helps to stabilize our community.

This amendment looks to stabilize individuals and sites to connect people to shelter and care and to reduce negative impacts related to unsheltered homelessness for all.

Thanks again to the strong partnership with the executive branch and RHA and our community partners for your thoughtful collaboration on this proposal.

Council Member Lewis, please go ahead.

Thank you, Councilmember Mosqueda.

I want to start off by saying that I do like the approach that's envisioned by this amendment.

I like that it reconciles the role of the city with the role envisioned for the KCRHA.

I like that it commits to a regional strategy.

I like that in a lot of ways, it follows the cadence of the Just Care approach to doing this work, which we've seen to be the best practice locally in resolving these encampment locations over the last couple of years.

So I would like to figure out a way to move forward and lean into the things that have made that approach successful.

For those reasons, I want to tentatively add myself as an additional co-sponsor to this today.

and that's having consulted with a lot of the same stakeholders who you've been working with to reconcile a lot of these budget line items who confirm their interest.

But I do want to flag a couple of things that I would like feedback from the executive on throughout the pendency of our budget process because I do in the correspondence that we have available in our packets, I have some questions about how this is all reconciled because I don't want us to create a budget that leads to executive side finger pointing on the inability to resolve encampment-based issues over the course of the next year because it's not clear who's responsible or who has authority or who has accountability.

Particularly looking at Deputy Mayor Washington's email, which you just read into the record, where they indicate they won't object if this is the path we choose.

I'm kind of curious to hear a little bit more about their enthusiasm for this new approach.

And how effectively some of the resources that are staying in HSD are going to be used to make this an effective partnership.

I'm also curious about the component of Deputy Mayor Washington's email which indicates this transfer of function would be entirely contingent on the KCRHA agreeing to terms that are amenable to both parties.

So I lead that to believe terms that would be agreeable to the mayor's office and to KCRHA.

And I'm curious to know what those terms would be and to the extent that those terms from the mayor's office perspective are reflected in this proposal to make this workable on their part.

In reading Jeff Simms' email supporting the amendment, I guess my starting point would be requesting a response from the executive on the terms and division of labor as indicated in the Jeff Sims email, if those are terms that are agreeable to the mayor's office or not, and if not, what is required to make it workable.

And then once all of that is reconciled, We still as a council need to come up with some performance metrics that are auditable and third-party verifiable to measure the progress of this system in generating the outcome in the real world that we as a council want to structure an executive response to respond to and identify which parties and which agencies we are going to hold accountable for producing those results.

Just to put a couple of the metrics I would like to assess the system under and so it looks like under this would be our assessment and evaluation of how the KCRHA can administer these services.

I would like, and this is maybe a message for central staff, and it's something I alluded to when we had the presentation last week with Deputy Mayor Washington.

I would like Council actions to indicate that we want to gather data and assess the performance of this team on at least the following metrics.

One is the number of encampments and the size of encampments in the city of Seattle.

As a general policy, this Council wants to reduce the number of encampments by getting people inside.

We want people to live in housing and short of housing to live in well-resourced enhanced shelter like tiny homes and hotels for a term of weeks to months before being placed into housing.

But we don't want people to be warehoused in tents on the streets of the city.

And that's a universally held value.

on this council.

And so the first metric would be how many encampments are there and what is the size and nature of those encampments.

And I believe that's data that's already collected by making that data updated more frequently and making it more publicly available.

The average length to resolve an encampment location would be the second metric.

And then the deviation for that average length of time to the expectation of the best practice for the length of time to remove the encampment so we can measure whether or not.

we are keeping to our deadlines, keeping to our schedules for the kind of tempo to make sure that people have an option to live in a place that isn't a tent encampment.

And then similarly, having an assessment on what the reason and some reflection from the department that can be verified by a third party like the auditor or by an external consultant.

about why there's a deviation in the amount of time.

I suspect it would be because there's an insufficient amount of suitable housing placements and enhanced shelter available, but there might be other reasons that a third party evaluator could determine.

And that would also mean tracking shelter utilization rate.

I mean, as it stands right now we have a very high enhanced shelter utilization rate and I think that'll continue to be confirmed by the data.

But if we're in a position where this team is having trouble getting people into enhanced shelter.

And at the same time, we have a high vacancy rate in shelter.

That would be something the council would want to know.

I don't anticipate that'll be the case.

I anticipate it'll continue to show that our enhanced shelter is very highly utilized because there's very high demand and people want to get out of encampments and go to places like hotel-based shelters and tiny house villages.

But cannot due to the constrained supply of those locations, but we need to track that information and have that available as well.

And then similarly, on the other side of that the supply and availability of suitable housing for shelter to housing and street to housing placements.

and making sure that we're tracking that and having a third party evaluator assess strategies to increase the amount of housing placements, decommodified housing placements, subsidized housing placements, lower cost market rate housing placements and permanent supportive housing that are suitable for strategies to move people from street to housing.

That's another metric we need to require whatever entity holds this to report back on.

And then as I indicated earlier, to have all of these performance metrics to be evaluated by a third party, which could be the city auditor, could be the county auditor in partnership potentially, if we are gonna elevate the strategy entirely to the regional authority.

So that we can assess whether this is going to be working or not as a way to organize this work.

So, I'm just putting that that all out there that I think we need to reconcile a little bit here, because what I really don't want to happen is six months from now.

council colleagues are trying to work on projects to organize resources to get really concerning encampment locations resolved but the mayor's office says it's the KCRHA, the KCRHA says it's the mayor's office and it's not clear who to hold accountable because we didn't reconcile these problems in the budget.

So You know, I think that this is good that that all the parties are engaging and are open to this approach.

I do think this is the right approach to organize this work, but we need to make sure that when we're finished putting what we would prefer, or as Deputy Mayor Washington refers into the email, what we choose to pursue, that what we choose to pursue translates from paper to reality in the way that we're envisioning by working with our executive authorities.

to be able to to do the job that poll after poll.

And, you know, I mean, frankly, town hall after town hall shows the public that the public is interested in as the top priority is a system to effectively, compassionately, handle the situation within Kamen's in the city.

And I think that if properly implemented, this could get us there, but we need to make sure that we've reconciled the potential implementation challenges between these two authorities and everyone's on the same page.

And that we have metrics that are clearly established so that whoever's responsible for this knows how to be responsive to what the council is trying to see.

So that was a long answer on this, but I give tremendous credit to you Chair Mosqueda for effectively reconciling this since our hearings last week and look forward to supporting closing all of the gaps to make sure that we have something workable going forward.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis, adding his name as a co-sponsor, Council Member Lewis.

Before we go on to another Council Member, I do want to ask central staff to speak to the proviso language that's included, again, in partnership with Deputy Mayor Washington and the Regional Homelessness Authority, recognize that there's work to do to codify the approach, and that's, I think, what is referenced in in the supportive letters that we've received.

And we also are noting in the amendment as drafted that as that memorandum of understanding or contract update that is going to be developed between the executive and the regional homelessness authority, that that should not delay the deployment of the funds that we are now going to be moving over to enhance the outreach through the regional homelessness authorities outreach contractors.

So their process is underway for getting those RFPs out the door for 2023 outreach and connection activities.

So we want these funds to be part of that discussion and we also don't want to sequence in such that there's a missed opportunity to include the funding that is currently going to be part of the later this year deliberations for an RFP.

I'll also note that I think the supportive letter that we received from Deputy Mayor Washington is really that.

It's a supportive letter recognizing that there's work to be done between both parties still supportive of this approach.

And I think that the language that was used reflects the fact that we are separate but co-equal branches of government and that they appreciate that the decision is up to us and our next four weeks process, but that we have also been overtly interested in making sure that it is actionable and that there is desired, that the language is workable for both the executive, the Regional Homelessness Authority, and our outreach partners.

So I do want to emphasize that this was done in deep collaboration and the PROVISA language that I'm hoping that Amy will walk us through also has direct input from the mayor's office as we thought about how some of these components that you just outlined would be further flushed out in the upcoming months.

Amy, do you mind?

Sure.

I think as you probably know, earlier this year, HSD and King County Regional Homelessness Authority sat down and talked about the different responsibilities of responding to encampments and came up with a division of labor.

And this proposal does shift that division of labor a little bit.

And so while everybody is at the table talking about it, I think there are still some details to be worked out.

And therefore, this CBA includes a proviso, which would state that the $1.2 million going to the King County Regional Homelessness Authority would not be appropriate or would not be spent until HSD and the authority come up with an agreement that outlines and memorializes the specific, and I think it says memorizes, I'll change that in the CBA, but memorializes the specific role that KCRHA and their contracted partners would provide as part of the geographically based outreach services.

And it states that that could either be done through the master services agreement between the two parties, which happens every year, or through a separate MOU.

And that would really be the place that the intention is that some of that operational detail gets completely ironed out before the beginning of January.

That would be the intention.

And central staff was so great to remind me and all of the parties as well good to remind me, you know, we can only accomplish so much and a budget action and a budget amendment action.

And there's only so much level of policy that we can get into so recognizing that those discussions much better as I think everybody recognizes and the chair of homelessness has described.

There's many more details that will be worked out, but we wanted to codify in this amendment as well that there is a next step, but everybody's at the table in agreement with how that would move forward in terms of the process to codify the services between the RHA and the city.

Okay, Amy, did I get anything else?

Okay, I'm seeing nods.

Okay, we have a few hands.

I'm going to say Council Member Nelson, please go ahead.

Thank you.

I feel like I read that letter from Deputy Mayor Washington and it sounded more like a little bit of resignation, like if you're gonna go down this road, then support, but I'm not gonna try to speak for them.

I think I need spelled out for me how this reduction of city staff and transfer to RHA, who would subcontract, who would contract with REACH to do this work, how would that change the nature of the work being done?

And, you know, this one is called the mayor's one is, as you noted, called solutions beyond homelessness, and it seems as though what you're describing your amendment will do is the same as what the mayor's proposal would do which is they're both trying to get people into housing, so that's what I'm trying to wrap my mind around a couple more questions.

Why is REACH doing this work better than city staff doing it?

Or RHA's peer navigators who are employees of RHA?

So how, and as the chair said, how will this be enhanced outreach?

Especially if it's done by the people that are doing this work right now.

And so I guess I liked the mayor's slightly new model, and its emphasis on better coordination between the city and RHA and the outreach providers, and also the geographic focus in the by name list.

I understand there will still be a geographic focus.

I'm still trying to figure out how that might be changed with REACH doing this work, probably than city staff.

But in general, I don't see, as we're talking about this, that the goals are different.

And so why not just...

What are the benefits of of moving those employees over and subcontracting with a nonprofit.

I think there's a number of things that might be.

might deserve some clarification.

Number one, when we look at the examples at Woodland Park, for example, that got a lot of a lot of praise and a lot of appreciation from folks across the city.

And I know Councilmember Strauss has commented on that a few times.

The folks who were doing the direct outreach with people on the ground were outreach reach providers.

those are the folks who were there for multiple weeks, making sure that people have the connections.

As an outreach contractors with the Regional Homelessness Authority, they're having the discussions with people on what type of housing they need and making sure that there was appropriate housing placement.

In simple terms, what this amendment accomplishes is making sure that that existing outreach contractor has additional support through the Regional Homelessness Authority's funds, and that what we do is maintain a focus on supporting outreach partners who are already out there who have relationships and community and have a model that is helping to get people into housing placement.

There is a real need as well and I agree with the Deputy Mayors and their team for a five geographic regional approach and for having people who can help conduct needs assessments on the land on what's needed across departments.

And what we are doing is taking that approach and applying the five FTEs to the behind the scenes conductors.

Conductors was the word that we kept coming back to because they are conducting the needs between departments and making sure hygiene services are there that If it's the right department whether it's parks or Seattle Public Utilities, or another department they're going out and providing assistance on the land, and then simultaneously that we maintain the relationship with individuals and the outreach providers so that we're not duplicating or creating a parallel system.

of outreach strategies.

What we have seen here is that there's this bifurcation of roles is something that not only supports the vision of having more coordinated strategies for a geographical region, but allows for the city staff to be those conductors behind the scene while the outreach contractors that we currently have get additional support to provide that direct in-person assistance.

I look forward to additional conversations and that I know we will probably have with the executive on the proposal that we're talking about, but it's also with folks like reach and the Polish on a homelessness and original homelessness authority to help explain why it's, I think, supported effort here to make sure that we're not.

duplicating systems but that we are complementing the already trusted and proven strategies of using key partners like reach.

I think it's also a benefit to the city that we are working towards a system where RHA will take on more of the responsibility for the individualized personalized needs tools for building out an enhanced list of shelter beds.

We wanna support them as well if they're willing to take on that work.

So what we're adding is additional FTEs to RHA to help provide that service that the city has also been trying to work towards.

So it's a win-win.

And I wanna make sure that we get to other council members who have their hands up.

that there is there's disagreement about the approach that it's good to get some clarification from the providers as well as as the mayor's office as well.

This isn't just a follow up.

This is not a disagreement.

Are we no longer going to be contracting with reach then for um for outreach?

Right.

So that's where I think there's a misunderstanding.

The outreach contract goes through R.

H. A. So this is actually enhancing the reach contract through R.

H. A.

and central staff, feel free to chime in or correct me if needed.

Well, I would say that this council budget ad would add 1.2 million to funding for King County Regional Homelessness Authority for outreach, data support and program coordination.

How they choose to provide those services in terms of who they contract with, how many positions they might keep in-house or what exactly the division of labor will be for that 1.2 million, that would be up to the Regional Homelessness Authority and their contracted partners to figure out exactly how to use that money to fulfill the responsibilities that are outlined in the CBA.

Yeah, that's important clarification because we, as a legislative branch, do not specify which contractor.

And it is also up to RHA through their outreach process.

But that is a large portion of who their outreach contractors go to right now.

Okay, Council Member Herbold, please go ahead.

So I'm not seeing, and I'm sorry I don't have it open on my computer, but I do have a couple of questions about the yet to be defined issues.

It's not clear to me that we are seeking an answer, although it might be in this list, I just don't see it.

But in addition to seeking an answer to the question, well, it's the responsibility to do site assessments, it looks like is HSD is charged with.

What I don't see is who makes the decision that an encampment removal is the preferred strategy for dealing with the outcomes of that site assessment.

So they do a site assessment, and there is a location that the executive, for instance, feels is maybe interfering with the ability of somebody to walk on a sidewalk, for instance, and they feel that the effort should be focused on engaging with the folks at that location, seeing if there are alternatives, seeing if there are ways to perhaps get people to relocate, but there comes a time because of that site assessment that there's a question of whether or not that encampment location can stay.

And I just don't I don't understand who makes that decision in this scheme.

And then secondly, I have been asking since April what the executives prioritization, decision-making matrix is for those decisions.

And there was a scoring system that was publicly released by Publicola, but then the executive said, oh, that's not the scoring system we're using.

So we really, that's another element that I don't understand how decisions will be made by whom.

And then lastly, I just want to I know King County RHA is super laser focused on partnership for zero in downtown neighborhoods.

And I just want to make sure that this model does not sort of get subsumed?

I understand there's, you know, there's reference to the geographically based outreach, but how can we be certain that this model does not become subsumed in the work of the Partnership for Zero focused on downtown and is truly geographically based throughout the five geographically identified areas in the city?

Okay, thanks.

I can defer to Amy or I can jump in.

Amy, do you want to

I will say one on the decision matrix matrix.

You're right, we have requested that and I will circle back on that as well.

I think that my understanding is that the decision about an encampment removal would still be the responsibility of the city.

I think one of the questions that is outstanding is what you alluded to Councilmember Herbold about what is the amount of time that is required to do the outreach and referrals prior to an encampment removal.

And I think that is one of the items that has been flagged for continued discussion between the Homelessness Authority and the city as they sort of restructure for this approach.

That's right.

I also would say, you know, there was some contemplation of putting a timeline into a CBA and really I think, again, central staff was helpful to note the limitations of the CBA and not being able to put that type of policy that's still being discussed between the two entities into this amendment.

That is still something that they are very much discussing in addition to the prioritization strategies.

Those discussions are ongoing.

On the last question about the five regional areas, I will give you my assumption as part of the conversations that we had.

My belief is that because we are ensuring that each of the five geographic regions have one individual, five FTEs, one for each of those geographic regions, and that that is being housed at HSD through RHA's enhanced outreach contract.

They will then have the ability to build into their outreach contract the focus within those five geographic regions.

So this is being put forward, if I remember the phrase correctly, this is being put forward at just the right time to help influence how those RFP details are finalized before it goes out for contract.

So folks know this outreach contract is really going to be focused in five geographic regions, a conductor, if you will, in each of the regions behind the scenes at HSD.

contracts specific for those regions and the outreach touch points through our community partners via the outreach contracts.

And I'm going to turn to Allie to see if she had any clarification on any of those points.

Thank you.

I just wanted to provide some getting some feedback from the executive kind of in in real time on sort of slight enhancements to this amendment if it moves forward.

And one of the things that they have flagged is on the duties responsibilities for the authority would be to provide to coordinate regularly with the city's unified care team, including providing data around resolution efforts and timelines.

So they're noting that that coordination work on timelines for resolving and encampment location will need to be part of it.

And then I think ultimately a lot of this is going to be dependent on a successful execution of an agreement between HSD and the mayor's office and the authority on how this will all be operationalized.

But I think it is based on an assumption that the authority will take on and embrace the plan proposed by the mayor's office to provide this geographic based approach to some of this and thus the additional resources going to the authority to enhance their outreach funding.

Thank you.

Okay, Council Member Strauss, please go ahead.

Thank you, Chair.

I will say that I am just coming up to speed on this proposal.

And I'm interested to know more.

because REACH and the professional outreach that REACH provides are the people I trust the most and rely on in our city.

And I absolutely think that they need to be in decision-making positions no matter what, when it comes to this work.

They are absolutely the people I trust and rely on.

I'll tell you that this conversation is giving me pause and I'd like to know more.

It's giving me pause because the Regional Homelessness Authority has and needs to be focused on partnership for Xero.

What stands out to me from Deputy Mayor Washington's email that I think is the crux of this is, and I'll quote from that email, quote, this transfer of function would be entirely contingent on King County Regional Homelessness Authority agreeing to terms that are amenable to both parties, end quote.

This is what's just really critically important to me.

I can share with you that I've been running an industrial district outreach meeting for six months or so, and we've been requesting participation from the Regional Homelessness Authority for six months, and it was only today that they were able to join us.

So focusing on the positive, I'm absolutely very happy that they are participating now it has been challenging to make these requests time and time again.

And, you know, that's because the King County Regional Homelessness Authority has been focused on fixing broken systems, making the regional plan and setting up Partnership for Zero, which is exactly what they should be doing.

So if the Regional Homelessness Authority can do this, great, amazing, let's do that.

My concern is that they have been focused on fixing the broken systems and building Partnership for Zero, which is what they need to be doing.

And I don't want to distract or add to their plate when such important work is going.

So I guess my question here is, if we go down this path, what is the clawback method?

Or if we find that the transfer of function is not, that there's not agreed upon terms that are amenable to both parties.

So, I think Chair Mosqueda, your point was well taken and central to this, which is we can make budget decisions, but that doesn't necessarily there's time between making budget decisions and implementation of those desires.

So that's where I'm just, what's the pathway forward on this and what are our options along that path?

Alex, please go ahead.

Thank you.

Council Member, the proviso included in the amendment would essentially require that there's a successful agreement before the funds are released to the authority.

If that We didn't happen and I think the mayor's office might suggest a friendly amendment to put a date certain on that of when that agreement needs to be reached, then the council would have an opportunity to make a different decision which would be to keep the funds in HSD if that was the chosen path and add those positions back.

But as Deputy Mayor Washington discussed in the presentation during the budget hearings, you know, this wasn't five geographic based outreach strategies that were all going to be ready to launch on January 1. So I do think there is a little time to sort out and what we have seen is that the parties coming to the table and trying to work out how this will work.

So I think there is a little time to sort out those details.

and if necessary, the council would take up supplemental budget legislation early in 2023 to rethink how these funds are allocated if that agreement doesn't come to fruition.

Thanks, Alex.

That's really helpful.

I would just say, also, thank you, Council Member Chair Mosqueda, for bringing this forward, because even if the regional authority isn't ready this year to take on this work, this is absolutely the direction we need to be going.

ironing out these wrinkles is exactly what we should be doing.

So thank you for your leadership.

Thank you so much.

Council Member Lewis, please go ahead.

Given the advanced hour, I'll take my comments offline, Council Chair, but I think it's clear we need to do a lot more work with the different executive entities to reconcile some of the loose points here.

You know, I hesitate to suggest it, but maybe this topic area would warrant some kind of special dedicated hearing with those entities present to comment on the path forward and have a public session on it, given the public interest in the issue and given how important it is.

And given our interest as a legislative body and having a workable system that responds to what our constituents wanna see and not something that has ambiguity and might lead to the work not getting done.

So I'll just put those suggestions out there and I'm happy to talk more offline.

Okay, thank you.

Council Member Herbold.

Thank you.

The statement that Deputy Director Panucci made that this budget action would be contingent upon reaching an agreement between King County RHA and the city is, I find to be very reassuring.

So if there is not an agreement, the status quo as proposed by the mayor, I think would stand.

Is that what we're saying?

It would require further council action to lift the proviso and reappropriate the funds to stay within HSD's, sorry, homelessness programs, if that was the case.

So if there was no, no agreement, then it would come back to council and council would have the opportunity to lift and provide.

So, okay.

I'm very comfortable with that approach and just wanna add my name as a co-sponsor to signal that I think that puts in the appropriate safeguards that will reinforce continued collaboration on this effort.

So thank you.

Thank you very much, Councilmember Herbold.

Councilmember Herbold adding her name as a co-sponsor to HSD 35. Okay, colleagues, I think we should move on.

I just want to summarize.

This is a simple proposal to really try to make sure that we are aligning the regional desire to make sure that there's five regional geographic regions that we can focus on.

with the right number of folks behind the scenes as requested by the mayor's office, as well as the right folks out in the field that we know have been so positively received by neighbors and residents, both housed and unhoused.

And I think that the level of detail that you see here is as far as we really have been able to go, because some of this stuff is not appropriate for amendment to a budget bill.

It is absolutely appropriate for us to be able to have the answers to those once there's final deliberations and negotiations between the mayor's office and the Regional Homelessness Authority.

Absolutely.

But I don't want us to get into a position of assuming how much we can add into a CBA.

Over the last two weeks, I've had a lot of conversations with central staff and have really had a affirmation on how much we can get into.

And I think that there's a level of negotiation that the mayor's office and RHA still want to have amongst each other as well.

So I just want to flag that the level of detail and the information that we're providing in the proviso is every word of this has been reviewed by both parties to make sure that we are on the right path forward.

There's still more work to be done.

And we're going to continue to try to make sure that we are appropriately structuring a system that invests in the regional needs across our city, both within the city family and also through the regional homelessness partners.

And I'm going to turn it over to Council President Juarez for some final comments before we move on.

I will be brief.

Um, I was just going to say thank you very much.

Can you add me a co-sponsor?

And as you know, I have always been a big advocate for being district focused.

I applaud that we focused on downtown, but what I've seen in the last six or seven years is If we don't get beyond downtown and start working with district representatives that know what goes on in their districts and where the encampments are, we usually don't get that attention until there's a death, there's a fire, there's a crime, and we just can't do that anymore.

I know every district person here can probably rattle off 10 hotspots in their district.

Also, along I-5 and WSDOT, when we have to deal with WSDOT, and cleaning there.

And that is a, it's a nightmare.

So for me, having that flexibility and that district focus and parity, where we just don't have to wait to rise to the top of the list when somebody gets killed, raped, or there's a fire, would be really nice.

So I'll leave it at that.

And please listen to the co-sponsor.

Thank you.

Really appreciate it.

Thank you, Council President Juarez.

Council President Juarez, Council Members Herbold and Lewis also co-sponsors on HSD 35. Let's move on.

Hello, Anne.

Thank you, Amy.

Thanks for all your work on this, Amy Gore.

Hello again, Chair Mosqueda and Council Members and Gorman Council Central staff.

I will be presenting the next five Council Budget Actions in the Human Services Department.

HSD 36A1 is sponsored by Council Member Strauss and co-sponsored by Council Members Herbold and Lewis.

It would add $568,000 general fund in 2023 and $631,000 general fund in 2024, ongoing, to provide additional funding to the Downtown Emergency Service Center, DESC, which contracts with HSD to provide behavioral health mobile intervention services.

Of these amounts, $500,000 would be incremental to the current contract with DESC.

In the 2022 adopted budget, council added 2.5 million to HSD for DESC's mobile crisis team for a total of 3.5 million, and the 2023-2024 proposed budget reduced this total to 1.7 million.

This council budget action would restore 2023 funding by HSD to 2.2 million.

Also included here is a one-time ad of 68,000 general fund in 2023. HSD's contract with the mobile crisis team was mistakenly not inflated in 2022 or 2023, and this CBA would correct that error.

Thanks, Council Member Strauss.

Thank you, Chairman Mosqueda.

And just a final point on that last item, I really appreciate your leadership on that.

This is a complex conversation, especially to have during budget, and I'm just very impressed with your leadership there.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Speaking to this amendment, I will be brief.

This amendment seeks to fund the full continuum of behavioral health, mobile crisis, and intervention services pre, during, and post a crisis event.

The goal is to prevent, respond to, interrupt, and break out of the cycle of behavioral health crisis without the involvement of police.

We have heard directly from provider organizations that these funds are needed and were not supplanted by state resources.

For example, the behavioral health response team works with participants for up to two weeks post-crisis with intensive case management and can follow participants for up to 90 days.

57% of the funds are from King County.

The city provides 16% of the funding and the state provides 27. However, state funds are one time and currently set to expire in June 2023. Without the city's investments, these programs will experience revenue stability issues.

Also, another way of saying that will have revenue decreases and service decreases.

This amendment also corrects an HSD accounting oversight that did not give the mobile crisis team the 2022 inflationary adjustment other human service providers have received.

We don't correct this error now.

The future inflationary adjustments will compound this error and the mobile crisis teams level of service will need to be reduced.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Strauss.

Any additional comments?

I'm not seeing any.

Let's go ahead and move on to number 37.

HSD 37A1 is sponsored by Council Member Nelson and co-sponsored by Council Member Peterson and Council President Juarez.

This council budget action would add $2 million general fund in 2023 to support HSD's development of a Request for Proposal, or RFP, process that would make addiction treatment available to people living in Seattle.

The RFP would award funding to one or more treatment facilities and the facilities would make funds available to people seeking treatment.

The facilities would submit regular reports to HSD regarding people who sought and or received treatment and HSD would develop a means to evaluate the impacts of treatment on those people.

Treatment provided via this funding would be consistent with the guidance of the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the American Society of Addiction Medicine.

Thank you and Councilmember Nelson.

Hi, go ahead.

It's caught my eye this morning, one in public Cola reporting that overdoses now account for 71% of accidental deaths among people living in sheltered.

and that the number of overdoses from fentanyl has gone from three in 2015 to 385 so far this year.

And the other was in the Times about a West Coast drug bust, which turned up two kilograms of fentanyl, 4.5 kilograms of heroin, 10 pounds of methamphetamine and 67 firearms.

So we just have to face the fact that substance use disorder plays a significant role in our homelessness and public safety crises.

And the harm reduction strategies offered through the city's contracts with public health and homelessness service providers prevent overdoses and provide stability for folks that are in the throes of addiction, and they also reduce the associated harms with substance use disorder.

And this is very important.

They meet people where they're at.

Very important.

Right now, as far as I've been able to ascertain, we've got nothing to offer someone in active addiction who wants to recover from a substance use disorder if that's where they're at.

And I'm convinced that we're not going to make rapid enough progress on our homelessness crisis until we do so, until we provide kind of treatment.

So my proposal will fund evidence-based full spectrum addiction treatment endorsed by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and conforming to the American Society for Addiction Medicine levels of care as listed in the CBA assessment, etc.

And that can also be combined with contingency management, naltrexone, which is a medication that can reduce cravings for alcohol and opioids, sober housing, whatever.

The ASAM levels of care are also referred to as the ASAM patient placement criteria.

This is the universal definition of medically necessary addiction treatment that's used by the Washington State Department of Health, the insurance commissioner and providers.

So the way that this would work is pretty simple.

Referrals would be made by case managers, peer navigators, members of the unified care team, whoever has contact with folks that that need help.

And and then the the contracted provider would invoice the city for the services rendered.

So that's basically how I'm thinking about it.

And the reporting that Anne mentioned, of course, is part of this, but for any kind of treatment to be effective, it has to be, well, it has to be friction-free, no hassle.

I mean, it has to be immediate when people want it, no Medicaid necessary, insurance card not necessary, just make it easy for people to get into treatment when they want it.

And that's what I'm aiming for.

And then once they're there, they can have services that are right for them.

So I just want to make clear as I finish talking here that this is not political.

This is not ideological issue.

This is humanitarian.

It's not either or.

And what I'm really trying to do is simply put another option on the table.

And I just welcome your comments and your consideration.

So thank you very much.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold.

Thank you.

I'm just I'm trying to understand the thinking here with asking the Human Services Department to do this, this RFP.

Usually we have a MOA with King County Public Health.

And usually when we want to fund behavioral health services above the services that King County is by charter required to provide to all residents in King County, right?

King County is responsible for those behavioral health services.

When we want to buy something that they aren't already providing, the city usually funds, provides, it goes through HSD, but we ask either the health department, or there's another department at King County that I'm forgetting that deals with behavioral health work, both services and facilities.

They run the programming because they are, by state law, it's the state and the county that are responsible for behavioral health services.

And so I totally acknowledge that we have on occasion wanted to buy more of those services But the Human Services Department doesn't do that.

The Human Services Department contracts with King County Public Health to do that.

So I'm just trying to understand what the thinking is in having HSD take on a new a new area that both King County and in Washington state are.

Chartered by state law to to be responsible for, and just as a An example, right?

The council funded additional behavioral health services in last year's budget, and we contracted with King County to provide those services.

And we also, at that same time, passed a resolution that accompanied that funding that called on King County and the state of Washington to more fully identify resources to meet the need.

We have heard that King County Executive Constantine has recently announced the intent to do a behavioral health levy I'm hoping that that will more robustly fund programs like the one you're proposing to fund here, Council Member Nelson.

But I'm not suggesting that we wait until the passage of that levy or anything like that.

I'm more interested in why you're proposing that HSD do this RFP rather than contracting with King County to do what they're charged to do.

Thanks.

Well, King County is not making available this kind of treatment that I'm talking about right now.

It's conceivable that they could.

However, I'm interested in.

cutting out layers of bureaucracy and making sure that we can define the treatment that is missing, that there is a gap in what is provided through public health, through our contract with public health.

So, for example, remember I asked, where is substance abuse treatment in our budget?

receive an answer to question 89 in the Q&A.

Public health, our contracts provide, we've got $829,000 through public health, and that is for the downtown Bupe and New Methadone Clinic.

Very important, but there is no residential if people want it.

And same thing with King County.

I have scoured the we've got a let's see a.

We've got a four hundred thousand four million dollar contract Excuse me, this is this is actually public health.

This is addressing homelessness contract is there might be a bit of substance use disorder treatment, but that is medication management.

We do have a King County.

Contract, however, this is this is the community human services division, and they make referrals to other providers.

And I I looked at the whole description of what they're doing, and it's very difficult to find any mention or meet any.

There is no.

There is no. facility on the list that's on their website or in the language that I'm seeing here that will offer the broad spectrum, the assessment by a clinician, the medically supervised withdrawal and detoxification, the inpatient or the intensive outreach.

So I'm suggesting that if this existed, I'm sure that we would be doing it, but I'm only putting this forward because It is not offered through our county partners.

And when you say that that they do that, they're the contractors for public health.

That's that is true.

They do.

They work with Medicaid patients.

They're able to refer people with Medicaid to different facilities.

But again, if you don't have Medicaid, it's a real hassle to get onto Medicaid.

You need Social Security card, et cetera.

And it's not.

right away, so I'm I'm looking at something that is is much quicker.

And we do contract with Evergreen Treatment Services and that is behavioral health as well.

They've got a a clinic on airport way.

So it seems as though we do have some, you know, we do have some providers that we work with.

Their contract, I believe, is held by the county.

However,

I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna ask Council Member Herbold, I see you off mute, do you have anything else that you'd like to add?

I did, I just wanted to, because I appreciate Council Member Nelson's focus on King County Public Health, because that was the King County entity that I could remember.

There is also what's referred to as BEHRD, that's the Behavioral Health and Recovery Division, and that's in another county department that's in Department of Community and Human Services.

And they will be funding for similar things in the 2023 state budget per the Substance Use Recovery Services Advisory Committee recommendations.

So just wanting to flag that there are a lot of people, Council Member Nelson, who are seeing this gap.

I just wanna, given we have limited resources, I'm just hoping that we could find a way to support the two governments, King County and the state government who have chartered responsibility in this area, even if that means providing funding for them to do the work that we identify.

Thank you.

Okay.

One last thing.

One thing that I wanted to say is that we're Nelson.

Oh, I'm sorry.

I want to fly for the good of the order.

We have 10 minutes left, and I was going to try and get through the next five amendments in that time so that we could wrap up HSD.

I'm just going to ask Council Member Lewis to go ahead and ask your question, and then we can maybe wrap this item.

Yeah, it's sort of in the same vein of what Council Member Herbold was getting at.

I'm on the website for King County's prevention, intervention, treatment, aftercare, their PETA continuum of care, where it looks like they are investing in similar, services, but I wanted to kind of get a distinction between the proposed amendment and maybe it goes to sort of access or a nature of facility.

So I wanted to give the sponsor and central staff an opportunity to clarify, but on the intervention part of the linked website, It indicates that there are two King County detox facilities, one in Seattle, the Sedronar in Seattle and Recovery Place Seattle at Beacon Hill that King County is funding where people can go for three to five days to detox.

And I'm just curious if this, if this complements that same service or how this is envisioned to interact with the King County continuum of care that they've established?

And maybe that's for the sponsor or central staff, I don't know.

Yeah, I'm happy to respond to that.

The website that you're citing does say that it is harm reduction.

So we do have to think about if people are interested in long-term care, long-term recovery, supports for that.

But I will note that three to five days of detox is great, but that's not going to do much if you don't have behavioral therapies.

If you don't, if you, if your healthcare needs aren't being met, you know, try detoxing and then going back into the same situation without having a more foundational set of, um, I don't know, supports, let's just say, to really recover.

So fundamentally different.

I'm talking about what most people think of when they think about rehab, you know?

It's a few weeks, you go in there and you learn different ways of thinking about your life.

So I would say, you know, to this idea that, well, we have all this already, then I'm not seeing it.

And when you say limited resources, this is 2 million.

We're talking about, don't get me started on the millions of dollars that we're talking about spending on the manifestations of substance abuse disorder.

So it's time that we start addressing a root cause of what we're trying to make policy and budget around here and try something that might be a little bit new.

It's a different model, but we have to provide people with the full spectrum of options for their very specific needs.

Okay.

Thank you so much for outlining the proposal.

I'm going to go ahead and move us on.

Thanks, I see Council Member Lewis with your hand still up, but I hope that we can get some follow-up.

Well, no, just as a brief follow-up.

I mean, I understand Council Member Nelson's point.

It doesn't look like King County offers inpatient as part of their continuum.

But I don't think anyone's saying that this isn't a good thing to invest in, Council Member Nelson.

I think it's just a matter of And it indicates here HSD might have to create a new FTE to run this program.

And if it's possible to run.

these services through the existing public health infrastructure.

I think that members are just indicating that would be preferable to having HSD create a potentially redundant way to deliver the service, but I'm happy to leave it at that and pass it back over to Madam Chair.

Thank you so much, and I do want to lift up as well what customer herbal noted the importance of the new initiative that's also been announced from the executive and the facilities the five facilities that are being created throughout an initiative the mobile medical units that are being supported and importantly to our conversation yesterday the workforce needed within those facilities and.

industry to stabilize those services.

So lots of shared interest in addressing this.

I appreciate that.

I'm going to move us on and look forward, perhaps, to any of our friends at King County or any of the other service providers who'd like to provide greater information about what is currently being provided, recognizing we all need to do more, but there is an existing system.

We'd love to hear more about how the existing system plus the expansion at King County compares to what's being proposed.

All right, let's move on.

I don't know if we're gonna make it, but we have five minutes, so let's go right up to the clock on this next one, and that will keep us rolling.

Council Member Herbold is up next with number 38. Please go ahead.

Is Anne on the line?

Yes, I'm here.

Hi, Anne.

Hi.

HSD 38A1 is, yes, sponsored by Council Member Herbold and co-sponsored by Council Member Morales and Council Member Lewis.

This council budget action would provide funding to the Public Defenders Association, or PDA, which operates the Let Everyone Advance with Dignity Lead and Co-Lead programs.

The funding proposed here is $7.8 million general fund in 2023 and $8.1 million general fund in 2024 ongoing.

The city has provided support for the LEAD program for several years, and CoLEAD is a newer program that the PDA developed in response to COVID-19 restrictions.

The council adopted Resolution 31916 in 2019, which expressed its intent that by 2023, the LEAD program should operate at scale with funding from a variety of sources to accept all qualifying referrals citywide.

To date, city funding of LEED has not been sufficient to support its operation to scale.

The 2022 proposed budget did not include adequate funding for LEED at its current capacity level, and council added funding sufficient to support current operations and to make an incremental capacity increase.

But because the additional funding was released quite late this year, the PDA used it instead to fill a troublesome resource gap in the co-LEED program.

The 2023-2024 proposed budget, again, did not include funding to support these programs at their current capacity level.

This Council budget action would not only provide that support, but would include additional funding for the expansion of LEED consistent with Resolution 31916. And just to note that Central Staff, HSD, and the City Budget Office are currently working to develop a common understanding of the funding that's required to maintain the programs at their current capacity so we can isolate the increment that would solely support late expansion.

Thank you, Anne.

Please go ahead, Council Member Herbold.

Thank you.

I really appreciate that description.

And one point of clarification I want to make before I go into my short remarks Um, it is true that, um, uh, the additional funds that the council provided, um, uh, were used, uh, for, uh, for co-lead.

Um, but that was, that was on, um, the executive's request to solve a budget problem for co-lead.

And it was, um, only possible, um, because, um, it was not possible to use those funds for lead.

because they were made available so late in the year.

So just want to include that as sort of a baseline so that people understand that LEED did this on the request of the city.

to solve a problem that existed with COLEAD.

And we thank them for their willingness to do that because it was a really critical period of time in COLEAD's transition.

So specifically transitioning from hotel rooms to another facility earlier this year or last year.

Just wanting to level set that I think everybody understands at this point that the funding provided in or proposed in the 2023 mayor's budget, it was due to a misunderstanding and that everybody at this point understands that the proposed budget falls nearly 8 million short of what it costs to maintain the 2022 baseline lead diversion options and to maintain the proportion of just care that was meant to be integrated into the city's public safety portfolio.

The gap is a result of, again, a now resolved misunderstanding about the cost model.

And I wanna thank here, HSD, Deputy Mayor Washington, Council Member Lewis, and our staff and central staff for meeting last week to help resolve this.

I wanna lift up the words of a public commenter last week, or actually earlier this week, specifically Don Blakeney of the University District Partnership who said, Seattle neighborhoods are broadly supportive of the idea that we cannot arrest our way out of the profound issues on our streets related to drug use, poverty, and mental illness.

So broad support.

Thank you.

Arresting folks is not the solution.

And as Anne mentioned, the council passed resolution 31916 in 2019, committing us to bring weight to scale And this is a nation leading model.

And we can only scale the resources for these situations.

And only in doing so, can we look at alternatives that are not arrest in jail as the only plan.

Thanks.

Thank you, Council Member.

I'm gonna go to Council Member Juarez, just in case it's a brief comment about co-sponsorship.

No, it's not a...

No, it's not.

Okay.

She has some questions teed up.

So all right.

All right.

So here's what I'm gonna do.

I'm gonna recess.

Okay, the council member has outlined the amendment.

We will come back to this slide.

HSD is 38. And we will take Council Member Lewis and then the council president.

Can I make it?

Can I make a suggestion, Madam Chair?

Yes, of course, Council President.

Actually, and I don't want to make if it's not appropriate I understand, I don't want to make Council central staff work over their lunch hour, because I had some basic questions and I was just thinking if they wanted to, if I could put them out there that maybe they would be prepared to just answer them because there's some basic budget questions.

Why don't you go ahead and throw them out?

And Council Member Nelson, I'm gonna put you in the queue for when we come back as well.

So I'm gonna...

Yeah, and then that way I'll just cut time and we'll just get right to it.

Then I may not even raise my hand when we come back.

Basically, I wanted to know what has been the budget history since LEED's inception.

Since I've been on council, we've increased their budget every budget cycle.

And second was, when we keep, I keep hearing LEAD should operate at scale by 2023. I don't know what that number is, what that amount is.

Okay.

Thanks for those two questions.

I saw some nods from the prime sponsor as well.

So we will come back to this topic, HSD038 to be continued with council members Lewis, possibly Juarez and Nelson in the queue.

Okay.

Colleagues, 102. We'll see you back at 2.02 p.m.

Have a great full hour lunch.

We really appreciate your work.