Select Committee on Homelessness Strategies & Investments 7/28/21

All right, folks, the July 28th, 2020 special meeting of the Seattle City Council's Select Committee on Homelessness Strategies and Investments will come to order.

It is 2.02 p.m.

I'm Andrew Lewis, chair of the Seattle City Council's Select Committee on Homelessness Strategies and Investments.

Will the committee clerk please call the roll?

Council President Gonzalez?

Here.

Council Member Herbold?

Here.

Council Member Juarez.

Here.

Council Member Morales.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Present.

Council Member Peterson.

Present.

Council Member Sawant.

Present.

Council Member Strauss.

Present.

Council Member Lewis.

Present.

Chair, there are eight members present.

Very good.

OK, well, next on the agenda is approval of the agenda.

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

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

Chair's report, well, we have only a couple of agenda items.

but one very meaty one today that I anticipate will take up a lot of the committee's time and business, and of course, that being the report from the Human Services Department and the King County Regional Homelessness Authority briefing on shelter investments and rapid rehousing.

Certainly, this is something that is first and foremost on the city policy agenda and something that represents a large commitment in terms of the budget priorities designated by this Council in the 2021 budget as well as in the supplemental American recovery plan that earlier this summer the Council and the that we put forward to increase these investments.

This is going to be a good update as we are a little over halfway through the year to discuss how things are going so far, where some tweaks would be appropriate, and how bottlenecks can be surmounted by working together to tackle them head on.

So I look forward to that discussion.

The first item on the agenda will be a discussion regarding a new fund to be created to accept private donations as a component of our strategy in setting up additional homeless shelter assets in the city of Seattle.

So I look forward to taking action on that bill today.

We did have a hearing on the general concept of the initial draft of that bill in the hearing, in the committee meeting in June.

So with that, I'm going to move forward on the agenda to public comment, and I will moderate the public comment period.

and the following manner.

Public comment period for this meeting is going to be 20 minutes.

Each speaker will be given two minutes to speak.

I will call on each speaker by name and in the order in which they registered on the council's website.

If you have not yet registered to speak but would like to, you can sign up before the end of public comment by going to the council's website at seattle.gov slash council.

The public comment link is also listed on today's agenda.

Once I call the speaker's name, Staff will unmute the appropriate microphone, and an automatic prompt if you've been unmuted will be the speaker's cue that it is their turn to speak, and then the speaker must press star six to begin speaking.

Please begin speaking by stating your name and the item that you are addressing.

As a reminder, public comment should relate to an item on today's agenda or within the committee's purview.

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

Once you hear the chime, we ask that you begin to wrap up your public comment.

If speakers do not end their comments at the end of the allotted time provided, the speaker's microphone will be muted to allow us to call on the next speaker.

Once you have completed your public comment, we ask that you please disconnect from the line, and if you plan to continue following this meeting, please do so via Seattle Channel or the listening options listed on the agenda.

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

That's, well, sorry, son, did you just try to jump in there for a sec?

No, sir.

Oh, sorry.

I thought I heard someone trying to get in there.

But in any event, the first speaker on the list is just listed by their first name, BJ.

So BJ is recognized for two minutes, press star six to unmute if you are muted.

Hello, my name is BJ Last.

I'm a Ballard resident and small business owner.

I'm calling to ask Seattle Parks and Recreation to reopen all the bathroom and shower facilities immediately.

This committee has been working for months to roll out a new street sink program to increase access to running water and soap for hygiene, which is absolutely great.

We need more public hygiene and bathroom city throughout the city.

But at the same time, Seattle Parks and Recreation Superintendent Aguirre has kept many of parks existing bathroom and shower facilities closed decreasing people's access to running water soap and bathrooms.

A really easy way to increase access to soap and running water is to reopen the existing facilities.

In the months since Washington State has reopened Seattle Parks has shamefully decided to spend its budget and personnel on sweeps instead of reopening bathrooms and showers.

Seattle Parks is prioritizing denying some people access to public spaces over providing basic essential services for everyone.

Seattle Parks has opened some of its facilities demonstrating there's no public health reason for not reopening all of them.

Some of the bathroom facilities have been open for months at this point.

Keeping these facilities closed denies the people of Seattle both sheltered and unsheltered access to basic essential services.

Thank you.

I yield my time.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Hattie Rhodes.

And Hattie, you are recognized for two minutes.

Hello, city council members.

My name is Hattie Rhodes.

I am the special project manager for Georgetown Training House Village.

I wanted to speak today about my job.

I have one of the most rewarding jobs in this city.

People that often feel ignored or forgotten, dismissed and shamed come into the training house villages.

And my job is to make sure that they are safe, but it's so much more than that.

I get to watch people go from struggling to survive every day to starting to care about themselves and their fellow villagers.

For many of the people I work with, the tiny house is the best accommodation they've had in years.

I get to watch people blossom as they realize they too matter and they can dream of a future.

I get to celebrate with them as they work with the case management on site to get them permanent housing.

I get to speak with neighbors and business owners about the village.

Working with the Georgetown neighborhood has been exceptionally rewarding as they have been so welcoming to their neighbors in the village.

But there's more work that does need to be done.

Every day I see the need for more tiny house villages.

I receive calls from people who are in distress asking how they too can get into a tiny house village.

This is where you can come in.

Please help me give hope to those who are still struggling by opening more of the tiny house villages.

In these hot days of summer it can be hard to remember that winter is right around the corner.

But the goal should be to not have people sleeping in the streets when it becomes cold and wet again.

HSD just needs to release the RFP and we can get to work on three to six more villages.

Andrew Lewis has had excellent leadership on It Takes a Village.

and I really appreciate his work on that.

I hope that everyone can continue to support it.

Thank you.

I yield the rest of my time.

Thank you, Hattie.

Next speaker is Teresa Barker.

Hello.

My name is Teresa Barker.

I'm a little nervous, but I'm just going to go ahead and do my public comment.

As you know, I'm part of a community of neighbors on all sides of Verbena Park who've been working with the city on homelessness for the past four years.

Two weeks ago, we had a camper in Ravenna Park who tried to get help from neighbors in the middle of the night.

He was being assaulted for his paychecks by multiple individuals with clubs and air spray.

The neighbors emailed me because they didn't know who he was.

And then afterward, they just wanted to know how to get him into shelter.

And this is an example of the need for personal safety and assistance that is everywhere in the city.

And it's an example of neighbors' desire to help.

And so we're really supportive, our community, of funding the solution.

But there seems to be a struggle with delay and with the scale and the scope of it.

So I'm here today to say that it does seem that Just Care is a program that would solve the problem of homelessness sustainably with voluntary relocation.

that's culturally sensitive and that is implemented directly by outreach services and the public defender's office with the involvement of the city.

I wanted to say today, speaking to item two, that we need Just Care.

We feel based on what we know that Just Care is a program that could benefit every neighborhood, every sidewalk, and every park.

And I wanted to echo the need for more tiny house villages, more shelter, and more housing, honestly, and just more outreach with compassion and respect.

We're actually working with Lehigh.

We're working with, speaking with our university district reach person and just trying to be part of the solution.

And I'll yield the rest of my time.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker is Teresa Holman.

Teresa Holman.

Oh, sorry.

Can you hear me now?

Yes, please.

Go ahead.

Thank you.

My apologies.

My name is Teresa Homan, and I am the Tiny House Village Program Manager with Lehigh.

I've worked with our population for over 12 years with different Seattle housing organizations and can attest to the fact that clients who come through Tiny House Villages are set up for success in permanent housing because they've had a chance now to adjust once again to living within walls, within a structure of rules, and within communities.

I think the model is brilliant, as villagers often report sleeping soundly for the first time in a long time, without the threat of rape, without the threat of robbery or assault, or rats getting inside their tent.

They're cost-effective, they're immediate, and people in encampments want to move into them as they wait for permanent housing.

When testifying, I often wonder if I should talk about the client who aged out of the foster system, who still has the cigarette burn marks on his arm, or the client who fights with people we can't see, or maybe the client who's always angry at us and everyone at the world.

We work hard to create healing environments where villagers are loved and supported and encouraged to live their best lives.

We encourage them to dream up their future, what their housing looks like, what their relationships look like, and what they want to be doing with their time.

We talk to them about the things they love to do, and then we brainstorm about how that might translate into meaningful work.

And when a client has moved on, we're so happy to welcome that next person so that they can start their healing journey.

We thank you for your support, and we ask that you continue to fund the development of Tiny House Soldiers They truly change lives.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker is Lamont Green.

Lamont, you might need to- Oh, go ahead.

Go ahead, Lamont.

Yes.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis.

And it's really great to be here.

My name is Lamont Green, and I'm with the Lived Experience Coalition.

And really what we want to talk about today is rapid rehousing policies.

In many communities, there is a lack of permanent supportive housing, and we know that, and we experienced that here.

And that leaves many highly vulnerable clients languishing in homelessness for a long time.

Rapid rehousing is more widely available, and these clients, including chronically homeless clients, should be prioritized for this intervention.

if permanent supportive housing and other long-term housing options are not available at this time.

But contrary to popular belief in our homelessness system and with providers, rapid rehousing is not seen as an adequate intervention for folks that are experiencing chronic homelessness.

But rapid rehousing is an effective intervention.

And many communities across our nation have been using rapid rehousing to house our chronically homeless population.

because there's just not enough permanent supportive housing, and there's not enough affordable housing, and it's really unfair to have our most vulnerable languishing on the streets.

And so, Rapid Rehousing works for people with no income, with disabilities, chronically homeless, and poor rental history.

And what happens is participants can receive Rapid Rehousing subsidies for up to two years per HUD, and it's a great option as bridge housing for vulnerable unsheltered clients.

The goal would be to get our vulnerable clients rapidly rehoused and off the streets and in a rapid rehousing program and proactively work to get them in supportive housing.

And this is true, and this really aligns with our housing first and harm reduction approach.

And please note that our folks experiencing homelessness would not lose their chronically homelessness status while in rapid rehousing.

And participants could be transferred from a rapid rehousing program two permanent supportive housing or another permanent option.

So I just really wanted to highlight today on behalf of the lived experience coalition our community partners that that we need to have a community-wide playbook and we need to shift the narrative that rapid rehousing is a viable intervention for folks that are vulnerable and chronically homeless.

I'm sorry, your time has expired.

It appears we're not automatically cutting people off when time expires, which is good, but sorry, I just wanted to just politely mention that, but really appreciate what you're bringing up and that'll be addressed in the committee today.

So thank you for calling in.

Next speaker is Harold Odom.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis.

But I would just like to thank Council Member Lisa Herbold for bringing this up to the Olympic Experience Coalition.

My name is Harold Odom from the Olympic Experience Coalition.

And some time ago we were asked about rapid rehousing.

Rapid rehousing we need to take a deep dive into.

Lamont has just talked about a few of the things that rapid rehousing has good and bad with it.

But we need to stay on the track that HUD has put us on and stay on the track that's the most successful for service providers.

That is, wraparound services, housing.

Let's just say not wraparound housing, but anything to do with housing.

You have a robust team.

And we believe in what Mark Jones is going to present later in a peer navigator.

A peer navigator is someone who has been through the system, fought the system, and has been successful.

No matter how many times they've gone up and down, they're now successful.

And they might want a career in the social service committee, I know, Social Service Brigade.

But you know what?

They want to start off on the ground first, because I've known more people who write contracts for people and services to get people off the street that have never done outreach.

More people who write contracts and services for people to get to housing, but has never done anything to get anybody into housing.

Peer navigators are the way to go, and we believe in them.

We believe that we should have many of them, not under agencies, but under government.

Because government can control the training and control non-partisan way of doing things.

We know who we are on the street.

That great gap in age and race has to be stopped.

Many people are on the street hurting and dying.

You have the will and you have the power to make it stop.

That's it.

Is that my time?

Sorry, Harold, that ding was the 10-minute warning, I'm sorry, or the 10-second warning, rather.

Sorry about that, but thanks for calling in today.

Next speaker is Lila B. Hi, can you hear me?

Yes.

Good afternoon, Council.

I'm Lila in District 4. I'm calling today to condemn the violent sweeps and displacement of people experiencing homelessness that are being conducted by City of Seattle.

As COVID cases are rising I'd like to remind you that even the CDC recommends against sweeps without adequate shelter options.

Even if this committee is working on increasing shelter space that does not help the hundreds of people facing displacement in the next two months or the people most at risk to imminent hazardous air from wildfire smoke future heat waves and freezing temperatures.

In addition to the sweeps that don't post notices and the food garden dug up by parks last week, which the city spent tens of thousands of dollars to destroy, the city has many sweeps planned that you should not only be hyper aware of, but be doing everything in your positional and personal power to stop.

Between now and September 2nd, there are at least 18 sweeps, including two this week, one of which is today, seven next week, three the week after that, and two a week for the next three weeks after that, as well as the sweeps that happen without notice on top of these.

This schedule represents hundreds of people that the city is about to displace as we enter a fourth wave of the pandemic.

And during the time of year, we regularly have hazardous air quality due to wildfire smoke.

Mayor Durkin had extended the eviction moratorium early this year, but apparently the city is free to evict whomever it wants, however much more it costs than actually supporting people.

What are each of you doing to protect the people whose homes you're about to destroy?

These sweeps risk people's lives and you are complicit or actively participating in risking their lives by letting these sweeps happen.

Please stop the sweeps.

Thank you.

Next speaker is Jonathan Hemphill.

Jonathan, you might have to hit star six.

Hello, hello, hello.

Hey, Jonathan, we can hear you.

Go ahead.

Awesome.

Hello, my name is Jonathan Denfield.

I'm also with the Lived Experience Coalition of Washington State.

It's good to be here and giving public comment and testimony.

I like to speak and follow up with my colleagues on the rapid rehousing and really getting to delve into the components of what we'd like to see.

And essentially, what it all comes down to is that we need our rapid rehousing model that encompasses extensive wraparound services and that includes health care and obtaining paperwork, job training and assistance with court and also child care and also community ensuring that folks are regrounded and their community and their spaces and whatever that looks like as they define it.

And essentially we believe that this is absolutely needed because we understand that when you're down, when you're down, uh...

so deep like in having absolute poverty but almost right it's a uphill battle to actually get up off your feet again and make a way and it's not just enough to put people in housing because you know let their friends they don't have a support network or even any money to go for transportation rather than they can go and and make a point to take care of the health care they can even make a point that to get out mister about a document obtain a job like ID and et cetera, right?

And that then compounds upon itself and exacerbates the issue.

And so you pretty much, we want to make sure that when we do the services that we're setting our folks up for success, and also really to highlight the fact that this must be more than a 90 days, right?

We understand that a lot of service providers and a lot of community-based organizations that do this type of work, like, from what we understand, like, It can't be done in a 60 to 90, on a 60 to 90 day model, that it must be something that is continuous, that allows for a proper relationship during a rapporteur.

I guess I'm out of time, but I will say that we needed to have at least 12 to 24 months.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker is Stephanie Anderson.

And Stephanie, you may have to hit star six.

Okay, it doesn't sound like we're hearing from Stephanie right now, so we'll bookmark her and come back.

So we'll go on to Aiden.

Oh, go ahead, Stephanie.

Go ahead, please.

I'm from Ballard, and I'm calling specifically about the Ballard Commons.

And I would just like to know when you guys, when it's going to be cleaned up because it just, it just seems like it's not.

And I'm, I'm kind of out of ideas.

I'm not a politician.

I'm just a person.

Um, but I feel like I don't want finger pointing.

I don't want, Oh, it's the mayor's fault or the city council's fault.

I want to know what the plan is to take care of it because it's, it's just so awful down there.

And I, I don't want anyone who's, you know, homeless to not have a place to go, but I feel like, I kind of feel like because Ballard is being passive about it, that nothing's happening.

Because I walk a lot, and I talk to the business owners, and every time I ask them, what do you think about this?

What do you think about the fact that we can't use the spray park, and this place is overrun and full of trash?

They all shrug their shoulders and say, oh, well, I don't really think about it, or oh, well, it's not my problem.

And I wonder if that isn't why it isn't being cleaned up.

I wonder if we need like a field trip.

Maybe we need the mayor and the city council and the city leaders to come see it every day and understand that it hasn't gotten better.

It's not changing.

And I just don't know what it's gonna take.

I talked to a police officer who was assigned there yesterday and he said, you know, it's so sad and it's so wrong.

And there's like, You know there's all sorts of drug deals going on and I know that some people are mentally ill and I'm very sympathetic to that but this is just so wrong and it's been going on so long and I just can't believe that there's there doesn't seem to be anything that's going to change until maybe someone gets killed or raped or something happens to affect change.

And I just I don't know if it's just because Seattle's passive but I'm so frustrated by the inaction of the city leaders, and I just don't know what to do anymore.

Thank you for your time.

Next speaker is Aiden Carroll.

Hi, this is Aiden in Green Lake.

I wasn't able to call in this morning when a number of my neighbors were asking to put cars back on Green Lake Way because I was at the 8th and Pike in Camden Sweep, just watching the tragedy and trying to carry the boxes around.

But I would say, again, we need more car-free zones, not less.

But if that is going to happen, please do not displace the vehicle residents at Green Lake Way and Aurora.

I want to agree with all the previous commenters, except possibly the last one the problem is real but the solution are about housing and the city is not being passive, it's being aggressive in the wrong ways.

As Kabir Segar alluded to, there are enormous number of hoops coming up, Lake City tomorrow.

It's dozens and dozens of people who are going to be displaced with no plan.

And finally, I wanna really echo the call to reopen the bathrooms showers because the committee this committee has been working for months to roll out that the new street sinks and access water and so forth which is wonderful but Seattle Parks and Rec Superintendent Jesus Aguirre has kept many of our existing bathrooms and shower facilities closed and that doesn't just affect homeless people it affects those of us who are bike around and sometimes need to go to the bathroom in public and public restrooms are an essential part of a city.

We need to reopen the existing buildings that we already have built.

Parks is spending money on sweeps instead of on bathrooms and showers and it's denying access to public space to those who don't have homes nearby.

Some of these facilities are open and there's no public health reason for not reopening all of them.

Please do not continue to deny people of Seattle both unsheltered and sheltered access to basic essential services.

And please fund housing.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker is Kirk McLean, who is currently listed as not present.

Kirk, we'll hold your place.

We'll come back to you later.

But just wanted to note, currently listed as not present.

So our next speaker is Paige Spicer, followed by John Grant.

Paige.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

OK.

Good afternoon, council.

My name is Paige, and I am a lifelong resident of King County, calling in to condemn the sweeps Instead of investing in resources for your unhoused constituents, the city has poured tens of thousands of dollars into sweeping encampments.

Every time this happens, our taxpayer dollars are wasted on ruining lives instead of repairing the harm the city has caused.

Experts have condemned the sweeps and clearly stated that they do nothing to improve the community.

People are displaced with no support and nowhere to go, and experts have stated that these sweeps set your unhoused constituents back years.

They are violent, inhumane, and a tragic example of the heartlessness of the so-called leaders in our city.

When the police show up for these sweeps, they claim to store belongings, but instead brutalized unhoused people while throwing away what very few belongings they have to their name.

SPD has thrown away someone's mother's ashes, a wheelchair, an oxygen tank.

They have absolutely no regard for human life or decency.

During the heat wave, the city swept encampments while offering no support for heat exhaustion.

When the smoke hit, the city did nothing to provide relief for their unhoused constituents.

The city has done no planning for impending smoke season and seems poised to once again let its people die instead of investing in the success of every constituent.

Instead, this task has fallen to a handful of community members who aren't willing to sit by and watch our neighbours suffer and perish.

Housing is a human right and the only action the city should be taking is stopping the sweeps and providing resources for our unhoused neighbours.

We need housing, health care, access to food and water, education, jobs, resources that make a difference.

Until permanent housing is secured for all of your constituents, y'all shouldn't be able to sleep at night.

I yield my time.

Next speaker is John Grant, followed by Marlee Summers.

Good morning, Committee Chair Lewis and committee members.

My name is John Grant.

I'm with the Low Income Housing Institute.

I want to thank Councilmember Lewis and this committee for its diligent work to develop innovative solutions to our city's homelessness crisis.

Our organization operates over a dozen tiny house villages in the greater Puget Sound region, most of which here in Seattle.

Our village program has a much higher success rate of placing homeless folks into permanent housing compared to standard congregate shelter settings.

Program participants can socially distance themselves, unlike regular shelter, which is a critical feature as the Delta variant spreads in our community.

Tiny houses are not permanent solutions.

They are an emergency response that is scalable, that saves people's lives.

Even more incredible is the amount of goodwill the program brings out in the community.

More and more people approach our organization asking for a village in their neighborhood.

When we launch a new village, the public can see with their own eyes and get a tangible sense that the city is being responsive to the homelessness crisis.

This is crucially important as the public continues to grow impatient as homelessness gets worse.

We have hundreds of volunteers at the ready, dozens of already constructed tiny houses ready to go, and have laid the groundwork in the community by forming community advisory committees composed of local businesses, faith leaders, and community members.

We have three sites that we are ready to immediately launch in Seattle, as well as three more villages by winter.

We have been patiently waiting for the Human Services Department to release the Tiny Houses RFP so we can begin the work.

There are no delays on the provider side.

We must act quickly to get these villages online, as it can take up to six weeks to complete the development of a village, and winter is just around the corner.

We are asking this committee to encourage the Human Services Department to release the RFP so we can move forward and launch these new villages that have been budgeted and planned for some time.

Thank you so much.

Next speaker is Marley Summers, followed by Lauren Simmons.

Marley?

Hello?

Hey, we can hear you.

Go ahead.

Hello?

Yes.

Yay.

Thank you.

Hi.

Hi, City Council.

Good afternoon.

I'm Marley.

I live in Greenwood.

I'm an educator.

and a frequent parks user in my personal and my professional life.

I do wanna go on public comment and say that like as someone who grew up dreaming of working in parks and rec and really working in public spaces, I've been like incredibly disheartened and really distraught at the way that parks is using their budget to perform sweeps, which dehumanize our community members and yeah, get rid of a lot of the way that they have lives and just live and there's no permanent solution to help with the homelessness problem and the unhousing of our neighbors in Seattle.

And I'd like to say please invest more resources in that.

And also, as a frequent parks user, I really hope that we can reopen all our bathroom and shower facilities immediately.

I think that this is a quick solution.

I know that you all have been working on the new street sink program, which is really great.

But For some reason, Parks and Rec superintendent has kept a lot of the existing facilities closed.

And I think that we've seen some of them open.

So it's not a public health issue.

And I don't know why we're spending our budget on sweeps instead of reopening bathrooms and showers.

It's a basic service.

It's not limited to our unhoused or unsheltered neighbors.

It's really for everyone.

And I don't know.

I really just urge you to open all of them immediately.

All right.

I yield the rest of my time.

Thank you.

Next speaker is Lauren Simmons, followed by Chris Lopez.

Good afternoon.

Can you all hear me?

Yes.

My name is Lauren Simons, and I'm the executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness of Washington State.

We're the state chapter of the largest grassroots mental health organization in the country.

We all know that the stressors such as the impacts of economic instability institutional racism and a global pandemic we are living with are deeply impacting people across our communities and manifesting in behavioral health challenges and crises.

And we also know that COVID-19 has increased disparities that harm people experiencing homelessness.

People in our Seattle communities are hurting.

One in five people experiencing homelessness have a serious mental health condition.

and this basic need of housing isn't met, people cycle in and out of homelessness shelters, as well as jails and hospitals, which are two of the most expensive settings to receive care.

As we look at systematically addressing this issue, we need to remember that each person experiencing homelessness has their own individual experiences, often including trauma.

So each person has different needs and should be involved in determining their direction forward.

We cannot effectively address homelessness without also addressing people's behavioral health needs and doing so in a trauma informed way.

Fortunately we have the opportunity to implement proven practices that work for and support people experiencing homelessness with behavioral health conditions.

City Council has access to funding that could be deployed across different kinds of housing options with different kinds of pathways to services and stability offering choice and multiple paths to housing support to access housing and support is a proven practice that will be more effective for each person for a city rather than a blanketed approach that's not yet supported by evidence.

For example, large-scale expansion of tiny houses without an evaluation of outcomes does not make sense.

While tiny houses may work for some, they are a one-size-fits-all approach.

We believe that the council should carefully consider outcomes for people experiencing homelessness and explore other options in tiny homes such as low-barrier models Thank you very much.

We'll submit it in writing.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker is Chris Lopez, followed by Jarvis Capuchin.

Chris?

Good afternoon, Council.

My name is Chris Lopez.

I am with the Lived Experience Coalition.

I want to thank my colleagues on speaking on many aspects of rapid rehousing, and that's what I want to speak about.

But my focus will be more on proper training of service providers, which I think is very important.

I've been doing this work since about 2006, and I would say the best training and most education around this that I've received was not only just from my own lived experience, but from shadowing and having more of like mentors.

Because when you're out in the field doing wraparound services, there's so many different variables.

And some of these things you can't learn in a textbook, some of these things college can't teach you, you know, some of these things, even come from with experience that we can't teach in these classrooms.

So part of what I've seen throughout Seattle and the county is, you know, retention is hard for service providers.

You know, the pay is very low.

It's not equitable with the community.

It's very challenging work.

And secondhand trauma is such a real thing, especially when you have clients that may pass away.

Sometimes you are their last next of kin.

And those are things you can't train.

You know those are things that you just have to learn kind of on the job.

And it's good to have a mentor to help process that.

And lastly what I would like to say is I say this as not part of the LEC but I say this as a citizen of Seattle that has been in the community for four generations that I have seen so many different projects and buzzwords and projects come through the city.

and then they go.

I just really hope that you guys really dig in deep and do the right thing with integrity and look at really what is the cause of a lot of people who are out there.

And that is like not proper access to mental health care, not proper access to even physical health care.

But I finished with my time.

Thank you.

Next speaker is Jarvis Capuchin followed by Alana.

Jarvis.

Hello, can you hear me?

Yes, go ahead.

Good afternoon, Council.

My name is Jarvis Kapusha, and I live here at the Nicholsville Central District.

First, I'd like to thank you, Chairman Lewis, for visiting us and meeting with us here at our Nicholsville site.

You're the first council member to visit us since we had moved to this location, and hopefully one of many.

And it's the first in-person meeting we've had in a long time with any council members.

So thank you for coming to visit.

It is encouraging to hear your support for our democratically run Tiny House Village.

What's less encouraging, however, is it's more than halfway through the year, and we still have yet to have a meaningful commitment nor communication from the Human Services Department.

Although they continue to pay for the utilities at our North Lake location, the residents here at the Central District still continue to pay for their utilities, even though the funding has already been appropriated.

And as you may know, that is detrimental to people moving forward with their lives.

We're doing great.

We're very little, and we'd like to be able to do more.

And we're eager to get started on a new village.

We know that as money has been appropriated, and we know that the need is tremendous, and we'd like to be able to do more.

And we would like your help with the Human Services Department to get that funding released so we can do what we know how to do.

Again, thank you, council members, and I yield my time.

Next speaker is Alana.

Just listed this Alana, no last name.

Hello, my name is Alana and I'm calling in to remind you all what we're asking for right now isn't that much.

We're in a crisis, an emergency and people are living outside and people are dying because they're living outside.

And what we're asking is that you don't sweep people who have gotten a tent together.

You don't kick people when they're down.

You give them access to bathrooms.

That's what we're asking here.

This isn't radical.

This is just very very bare minimum.

And the fact that the bar is set so low frankly in this city is incredibly incredibly upsetting.

That's all.

It's not radical.

Just give just let if you're not going to help people just let people live.

Thank you.

And we do not have any more public speakers present.

So Kirk McLean, Andrew Constantino, Trevon Fields, and Jody Lover, do please send your written comments to us at the council.

Definitely appreciate your engagement.

Sorry that we weren't able to get to your comment when you were present.

So with that, I will close out the public comment.

and we will move forward with the agenda.

Items of business, item one.

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

Council Bill 120109, an ordinance relating to city finances, creating a fund for depositing donations, gifts, and grants related to the City of Seattle's response to homelessness and provision of human services.

Briefing, discussion, and possible vote.

Thank you, Mr. Clerk.

We heard this bill last month during committee.

After consultation with the city budget office, I'm bringing forward a substitute bill that incorporates a small number of technical changes that do not impact the overall policy.

So I would like to move that substitute to get it in front of us, and then we can parse that out.

So I move to amend Council Bill 120109 by substituting version 2 for version 1. Is there a second?

second.

Second being heard, I'll call the question on the vote.

So Mr. Clerk, will you please read the roll on substituting version two for version one?

President Gonzalez?

Aye.

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council Member Juarez?

Council Member Juarez?

Sorry, I'm here, aye.

Council Member Morales.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Aye.

Council Member Peterson.

Yes.

Council Member Sawant.

Yes.

Council Member Strauss.

Yes.

Council Member Lewis.

Yes.

Chair, there are eight in favor, none opposed.

Very good.

So that substitute bill being in front of us, I will briefly speak to the substitute and then open it up for additional comments from my colleagues.

So colleagues, as I've said a number of times, I do not personally believe that private philanthropy is capable of solving our homelessness crisis in and of itself, only sustained regional efforts at scaling and building permanent supportive housing, workforce housing, and structurally well-supported social housing is gonna be capable of surmounting the massive state of emergency that we see on a daily basis on our streets of our neighbors living unsheltered.

That conceded, a number of potential partners have approached my office, have approached the city about an interest in supporting through non-profit and private partnerships, certain initiatives like tiny house villages or certain hotelling operations.

that would be worth considering through a dedicated fund where we can match public resources with generous donations from partners who want to be part of the solution in moving forward.

And providing a way to accommodate that I think is an important public policy goal with the stipulations that this is not going to be ultimately a substitute for efforts to scale through progressive revenue and big commitments on social housing, you know, what we ultimately need to do.

So with that said, I think that this substitute before us gives us an opportunity to create a fund that can give assurances to potential partners that we have to make sure that the money is put into that fund will go toward these kinds of public-private partnerships that are going to accountably result in the creation of tiny house villages or other kinds of response resources.

it gives us an ability to make sure those funds are in a lock I think I will leave my comments at that for now.

I have appreciated engagement over the course of the past month with Councilmember Morales' office to discuss some potential ways to make sure that those investments are safeguarded and don't lead to a I think we are in a good place I want to thank councilmember Morales for her leadership and the concerns that she raised at the last committee meeting which I think were very important things that we had to discuss between the last meeting and this one.

Council Member Peterson.

Thank you, Chair Lewis.

I was just looking through the track changes of the substitute and it's changing the homelessness and human services fund to, it takes a village fund.

I just wanted to confirm that the intent is not to enable these dollars to fund just tiny home villages, but other interventions that the council might consider appropriate.

That's a good question, Councilmember Peterson.

Sorry.

So that was a CBO change that was recommended because the name that was originally constituted was very similar to another fund that is in CBO.

And they were concerned that there could be accounting errors where money would be accidentally deposited in the other homelessness fund.

And to avoid that, they wanted a very, very distinct name.

But the, The bill does state that the funding can be accepted for just about any of our different homelessness response projects, including hoteling and enhanced shelter and a whole bunch of other things.

Thank you.

Yeah, thanks for raising that.

I had actually forgotten that, that we had to do that name change.

So thank you.

Sorry.

And Jeff, did you have something to add to that too?

I don't have a raised hand function.

I just want to clarify that section 2 not only encompasses homelessness programs, but also the ability to utilize these funds for a range of other programs that would more traditionally be called human services, things that serve youth or the elderly, things like that as well.

Great.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Just two clarifying questions as well.

Can you speak to why we are changing the legislation from FAS to HSD in item number four that was summarized in the email that your team sent around, changes that the department had listed in section four from the Department of Finance and Administrative Services to the Director of Human Services Department?

Yeah, I'll let Jeff cover that first, and then I'm happy to jump in after Jeff.

Sure, I should actually take responsibility for that as a drafting error.

This was modeled after a bill creating the COVID donation fund.

And that section, you'll note that it also refers to the director of finance.

It was clarified for me that some of those pieces should be directed to the department that will actually implement the programs and have oversight over the spending, whereas other pieces should go to the director of finance.

And so those tweaks were made to make sure that all of the functions are sent to the correct finance or accounting department.

and I don't have anything to add to that.

Council Member Mosqueda, your next question.

Thank you so much.

That's very helpful.

Just clarification on how the funds get spent.

It lists the possible use of funds in the legislation, but does the council need to approve how the funds get distributed or for what purpose, or does that direction go directly to the administrative roles?

And does council have any more role that we have to provide in determining where those dollars go?

Yeah, I'll go to Jeff first on that and jump in after.

Yeah, thank you.

Mr. Chair.

Yes, both receiving funds or accepting donations that were donated to this fund would have to be those would have to be accepted through appropriation just in the same way that the council currently has to do a grant acceptance ordinance.

And in addition, to expend funds and appropriation when needs be made, similar to what is done with the supplemental bill that the council will be discussing shortly.

And that's actually for some of the changes in section five, some of the pieces that initially were considered for reporting here would actually be more appropriately placed with an appropriations bill.

What's the planning behind this?

What's the community engagement?

That's the nature behind some of the changes in section five as well.

I would add to that councilmember Muscata that was a critical consideration in talking about this over the course of the last month that the council retaining that ultimate power is a really big quality control component of this.

we would still have our power with the power of the purse to gatekeep whether we would want to accept money and whether we would be approving whatever the plan is to use the money.

So it was very important to make sure that that was going to be the case with this.

Thank you so much.

OK, I do want to just take a brief moment.

Has Council Member Herbold been able to rejoin us yet?

I know she's experiencing technical difficulties with her computer.

Not yet, still working on that, Council Member.

Okay, thank you so much.

Okay, are there any other questions here on this bill?

I don't think Council Member Herbold would mind us moving on the bill without her present.

So I think that in the interest of time to get to the next presentation, I think I am going to just move the bill with that unfortunate caveat that technical difficulties.

So just for the general public, I don't know what Council Member Herbold's vote would have been on this, but I just want to make the comment that she is not currently present due to technical difficulties.

So don't read anything into it when she does not respond during the roll call.

So with that, I would entertain a motion to move passage of the bill.

Or actually, I will move passage of the bill.

And I would ask for a second, rather.

Sorry.

Second.

Thank you.

Mr. Clerk, will you please call the roll on the passage of Council Bill 120109?

Council President Gonzalez?

Aye.

Council Member Herbold?

Council Member Juarez?

Aye.

Council Member Morales?

Council Member Mosqueda?

Aye.

Council Member Peterson?

Aye.

Council Member Sawant?

Yes.

Council Member Strauss?

Yes.

Council Member Lewis?

Yes.

Chair, there are seven in favor, none opposed.

Thank you, Mr. Clerk.

We will move now to our second item of business.

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

Human Services Department and King County Regional Homelessness Authority briefing on shelter investments and rapid rehousing program.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

At the table, we have Tess Colby from the Human Services Department and Mark Jones, the new, boy, I don't know if we can still call you new, but let's try this out for size.

The CEO of the King County Regional Homelessness Authority, who is well established and in that position.

and they have a presentation for us.

But first, I have asked Jeff Sims of Council Central staff to provide a brief presentation to get us up to speed laying out the council's investments in shelter in the 2021 adopted budget, as well as the supplemental packages that have come down due to federal aid that was not available at the time of drafting the 2021 budget.

I think that this will be an important grounding presentation since we've sort of talked a lot about what all the council has put out there.

As potential shelter additions, I think it'd be helpful for the public and for the council just to briefly take stock of what has all been funded.

before we pivot into the conversation about how we solve for realizing all of those investments tangibly out in the community.

So why don't we start with that, Jeff, and then we will move on to the presentation from our regional partners in HSD and have a discussion on how we can all move forward here in the second half of the year.

So Jeff, I will turn it over to you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

For the record, Jeff Sims, City Council Central staff.

Mr. Clerk, are you going to be sharing the screen?

Thank you.

You can go right away to the next slide, please.

As the chair covered, we'll be just going reminding council members because in some cases it's been many months since these investments were brought before you.

All of these items on the first slide, with the exception of the $9 million for shelter, that is third from the bottom, were part of the adopted budget that the council adopted last November.

The first three, the funding source that's listed, it is still part of the adopted budget, but there's a specific pointing to the addition that council members sponsored and made to the proposed budget to add those funds.

All three of the first ones are related to tiny home villages, and all three of them provided ongoing funding for those investments.

The next few lines, almost all, deal with the items that were in the proposed budget.

You can see they are noted as being proposed budget.

And all of those are funded with emergency solutions grant COVID funds that was part of the stimulus package that was passed under the Trump administration last spring, so March and March through June of and eventually those funds came to the city.

They are available until September 30th of 2022. And you can see in the last column where these investments have been stood up.

So the hotel room surges are going to be spoken to later.

So I won't go into detail on those.

The enhanced shelter, one of the shelter that was existing has been converted to being a 24 hour operations.

So that's the 60 beds.

being discussed there.

And then you'll see that rapid rehousing, the next to last line, that is actually a surge, again, with ESG money, ESG COVID money, that has been awarded and fully encumbered.

By nature, that program wouldn't have fully expended all of its funds, but it is operational, and that will also be covered by the executive shortly.

And then last but not least, you can see that there was two ordinances, one that initially provided funds this last March, and then it was amended by the council just recently in June to provide $12 million in additional funding for shelter.

$3 million of that was actually directed to the Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion Program, which over the last year has in many ways operated as co-lead, which has utilized the access to hotels to support people that require diversion services.

And so that's why that is fully noted there, or noted there in the notes, but only listed as $9 million.

If there's not any questions about the totals or the items listed here, I'll move to the next slide, but I'll pause for questions.

Jeff, I have a few questions just to make sure we have the clear bottom line here.

I also want to take advantage of this opportunity, holding the floor to announce that Council Member Kerbold has rejoined the meeting.

Good to have you back, Council Member Kerbold.

Good to see you here.

So just a clarification, can you, and maybe we can ask HSD this later, but I'll ask you first, what's the nature of the 230 rapid rehousing units in terms of counting as a battery unit added?

Are those, like separate rooms Catholic Community Services has has hung on to or are they are those 230 units that are out in the market somewhere that that we have like a subsidy that is supporting folks for for you know the 12 months of support in that program?

It would be the latter of what you said.

So rapid rehousing is typically a model where an individual or a householder is assisted in locating a rental unit that's appropriate for their placement.

In King County, we utilize the housing connector for nearly all, if not all, of identifying landlords and units that are available.

And then in this case, it's Catholic Community Services and the Chief Seattle Club that actually have the contracts to provide the rental support during the period that the household is enrolled, as well as the services that will correlate with being enrolled in the program.

So a household theoretically would move out of, in this case, one of the hotels that are listed above, into a rental unit that's a market-based rental unit, but the rent would be covered for some period of time.

And that actually, the 230 that you see listed there is based off of the formulation approach to make an estimate of how much money to put in there.

So assumed 230 households, you assumed a certain amount of time.

So typically more than 12 months of support was used here.

And then a certain amount of average rent, you get the total of almost $9 million that was put into the program.

But even if every single household that was going to be served had been put in today, all of those funds wouldn't obviously be expended because their rental support for some number of months.

Does that answer all your questions?

No, that does answer my questions.

Just as a quick follow-up, those are being counted here as a better unit added in the sense that, theoretically, if all 230 rapid rehousing slots were being utilized, that would allow giving folks who came from that initial hotel those hotel slots.

So you could have a scenario, for example, where You could have 230 people at the rapid rehousing voucher support, but then you could also have all 220 hotel rooms full, because as people go to rapid rehousing, new person comes in the hotel.

Is that your understanding of how it's working?

That is correct, yes.

Because the hotel sheltering programs are time-limited, they're all one-time funding, I don't know the degree, and the executive can speak to this, to how much there will be backfilling, like at what point in time.

I would assume that if a household was placed in a hotel, immediately succeeded in moving with rapid rehousing into a longer-term apartment unit, and only a month or two had elapsed, then obviously backfilling that room and providing the shelter would make sense.

But if it's month 11 and a half of that 12-month intervention, I doubt that there would be a backfilling of the shelter bed in the hotel.

Rapid rehousing is something that the city has supported for quite some time now.

And typically, you would have people that are either unsheltered or in shelter moving out of those places.

And because in the case of the shelter beds, that shelter bed was permanently funded, so to speak, you would obviously backfill for that household that had been placed.

Right.

I guess I'm just trying to nail down the extent to which we are double counting if we count rapid rehousing and the hotels in our total units added.

Right.

Because if we if we are serving a universe of nine hundred and five folks.

be like, I want to know if it if it might make more sense to like subtract those 230 rapid rehousing spots from the rest.

I mean, that's what I'm just trying to get it just for understanding the chart.

I don't have perfect information there.

What I can say is that the rapid rehousing surge has purposefully been established as an exit strategy from the hotel rooms.

So looking at the fourth line where 300 people would be placed into some type of a hotel sheltering situation, some number of those units will empty out or vacate through the use of a rapid rehousing subsidy.

So you would have some double counting at that point.

There's also individuals or households who wouldn't be an appropriate placement for rapid rehousing.

And so as the city is opening maybe a permanently affordable housing unit or a permanent supportive housing unit, you might see a situation where they are moved into that rather than going through rapid rehousing.

So I can't speak to the places that I don't have data on where individuals have gone to and can't say exactly what the level of overlap is.

It's not zero.

I doubt that it's 300.

All right, and then just one last question to clarify on the TBD and the non-congregate shelter category.

Based on some of these other categories, if it's a mix of like hoteling and tiny houses or however that investment decides to get, I guess my question would be what could we potentially expect when that is

That's a good question.

It's difficult to answer.

I understand that part of the presentation that HSD is going to make in a moment is to share that some of that $9 million is going to be used to, as you'll see, if you look at the fourth line, We assumed 300 units, only 220 have been stood up for hotel sheltering.

A third hotel, so to speak, was going to be acquired.

And that the non-congregate line that you're looking at, the four or five, the sixth line, or it's TBD, that those funds are being utilized to make that possible.

If that's the case, hotel sheltering can, can range anywhere from the, I think we can get down to like $60,000 if you counted both the rental of the actual units from a hotel and the services and made that an annualized number, all the way to something in the range of like $104,000.

That all varies based on the model, who's operating it, the type of people being served, things like that.

So that'd be a relatively expensive intervention.

There's also the possibility that it could be used for other kinds of it's non-congruent shelters.

So tiny home villages have a lower capital cost, so to speak.

We assume $600,000 to create a 40-unit village.

So it's much less.

I think that's around $20,000.

I don't have, I'm not.

I'm not that good at mental math.

I think that's in 20,000, but maybe somebody has a calculator handy.

And so that would be a lower cost to get it started up.

And then we do assume between 20 and 20, maybe 23,000 on the high end, but usually we assume about $20,000 per unit to operate it for a year.

So depending on what the mix would be, you could have a pretty wide variance in terms of how many units could get supported with that $9 million.

I think we are good to go.

Great.

Thank you.

Any questions from colleagues on this slide for Jeff before we look at the next slide of our subsequent investments?

So this next slide is delineated primarily because all of these funds are from the American Rescue Plan Act from the Biden administration this last late winter spring.

The funds were eventually came to and were adopted by the council and ordinance were accepted on June 21st.

So it would be unrealistic to expect pretty much all of these to be in operation at this point.

And I thought that was therefore important to delineate the two lumps of funding that we're talking about.

All of these funds, almost $45 million worth, are one-time funds as well.

And because the council's already, because council members just recently saw this breakdown, I won't go into detail about each of the units here.

I'm just happy to address any questions, but it would be, we'd be remiss not in highlighting that these investments are also forthcoming to to serve people experiencing homelessness.

Any questions on this chart?

OK, great.

This one certainly looks more familiar, given that we just did this.

OK, with that, now that we're all kind of up to speed on everything shelter that the council has funded, which is great, I think in total, what's the total, Jeff?

Does it add up to like, like 1,600 something?

Like if you add both of those together, you're muted, Jeff.

Apologies.

Yeah, the total, as you saw, there was, I noted, there was multiple lines that were to be determined, and there's some level for overlap, things like that.

Yeah, but you are a little bit over 1,600 units.

It's 1,665, and it's about, it's nearly $90 million.

Oh, that's almost 2,000.

That's interesting.

Good thing we might have a mandate to do that in the future because apparently we aren't.

But anyway, Teresa, your question.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I just lost the slide, I'm sorry, on my end over here.

But I just wanted to double check, Jeff, thanks for the walkthrough on this.

And Mr. Chair, thank you for the, I assume, request to maybe see all of this information in one place.

We have really been trying to work since last year's budget and earlier budget actions this year, including deployment of federal dollars to address this most pressing crisis in our city.

So I appreciate seeing this all in one place.

Jeff, can you remind us though, does this include the Seattle rescue plan dollars that we also allocated because I thought that might be additive.

But Seattle Rescue Plan dollars, I'm assuming you're referring to the ARPA package.

So that is what this, the second slide, sorry that it's, I understand, I probably, in retrospect, I probably should have labeled it as such.

I labeled it American Rescue Plan Act.

As you know, those are funds that came to the council, but then as it was presented, I believe that the colloquial name, at least for the bill, was to call it the Seattle Rescue Plan.

You are correct.

Sorry, I was actually stuck on the previous slide, so.

We're good.

Thank you so much.

Any other questions before we move on to the presentation from HSD and our regional partners?

Okay, great.

Well, moving on.

Okay, so we have Interim Deputy Director Tess Colby, and we have King County Regional Homelessness Authority CEO Mark Dones.

Welcome to both of you.

Okay, there they are.

Okay, great.

Excellent.

So turn it over to you guys to make introductory remarks and then get into the nuts and bolts here of how we're standing up these shelter investments and the transition, of course, to eventually, Mark, we're going to have to hand all this stuff over to you.

So let's hop on into it.

Great.

I think there's a slide.

There we go.

Thank you, Kevin.

All right.

Well, thank you and good afternoon, everybody.

Thank you, Chair Lewis and council members for having us here today.

As mentioned, I am Tess Colby, Interim Deputy Director, and I had the pleasure of working with HSD's homelessness programs.

And I'm so glad that Mark is able to join us today as well.

I will give a few slides worth of presentation and then we'll turn it over to Mark for their presentation and updates.

All right.

Today we are here to talk about the Homeless Strategies and Investment Division.

As you know, HSE, HSE, HSI, as a division is going to sunset at the end of this year.

And the investments in homeless services that we manage will be under the purview of the King County Regional Homelessness Authority in 2022. In this presentation, I'm going to cover some of the division's accomplishments so far in 2021, our priorities for the remainder of the year, and updates on some cornerstone projects, including the hotel-based enhanced shelter and the opening of some new safe spaces.

Mark, as I noticed, is joining us in the discussion about how the collaboration with the authority, about how we are collaborating with the authority in preparation for the sunsetting of our division.

So we'll start with the 2021 accomplishments.

Today's presentation is mostly forward-facing, but I certainly want to acknowledge the hard work that my colleagues in HSI have been doing over the last, now, seven months.

In 2021, HSI has opened and reactivated 350 new safe spaces for people living unsheltered.

We have coordinated crisis response services for both winter weather and severe heat and are in the throes of planning our response for the potential of smoke dangers in the city as well.

We've helped transition people from COVID-19 deintensification shelters to housing and other shelter.

And we've coordinated with the parks department and community members to expand Center of the Community Center Operations and Day Center Operations in Lake City.

So I want to start as we move into talking about the division priorities through the end of the year, I really want to start by acknowledging and thanking the HSI staff.

They are, as you know, a highly skilled, dedicated, and committed group of people and take very seriously their commitment to implementing programs that help people move off the street and into stable housing.

Even as the division is sunsetting, they remain laser focused on the work ahead and supporting the authority as they start to take on this critical work.

So again, I want to thank them for their public service, for everything that they've done through the pandemic to keep people safe, and all that they will continue to do through the end of the year.

So as you can see from the slide, for the remainder of the year, HSI priorities are to complete current projects that are in process, to collaborate with KCRHA on projects that further the authority's strategic framework for its homelessness response, and to transition to KCRHA the budget for projects that cannot be completed this year.

HSI work in progress includes the management and closure of our current 2021 contracts, the standup of new safe spaces, and ongoing technical assistance and project management of hotel-based enhanced shelter.

We're also concentrating on implementing $2 million in diversion funded through the 2021 ESG and ARPA.

We are partnering with Building Changes and United Way who are leaders in diversion prep programming to plan for this investment.

And we are collaborating with King County on implementing their upcoming contract with Just Care for hotel sheltering and enhanced outreach.

This contract will fund 150 hotel spaces of which about 130 are presently serving Just Care clients.

And we will match the county's investment of $7.5 million with our own investment of $7.5 million from CityARPA funds.

So now I'll provide a detailed update on two of those projects, the hotel-based enhanced shelter at Kings Inn and Executive Hotel Pacific, and the standup of an estimated 400 new safe spaces, which are in the pipeline for 2021. The city currently supports two temporary hotel-based enhanced shelter programs, both of which opened in March.

The Kings Inn is operated by Chief Seattle Club and serves 68 clients.

Chief Seattle Club is the rapid rehousing provider, and we are working closely with them to help them ramp up that program.

HSI is supporting the Chief Seattle Club with technical assistance, and CSE has hired more staff in order to increase their program capacity.

Presently, there are no rapid rehousing enrollees or any moves to housing through rapid rehousing, although there have been two exits to housing from the program so far.

The Executive Hotel Pacific is operated by Lehigh and serves 160 clients.

And that program, Catholic Community Services, is the rapid rehousing provider.

And there are 82 rapid rehousing enrollees and 16 households that have moved to housing through the rapid rehousing program.

There are an estimated 400 new safe spaces in the pipeline to open in the remainder of 2021. we're expanding the number of available enhanced shelter beds across the system.

So we'll start with Cairo.

The city is partnering with Africatown Community Land Trust to open a new enhanced shelter in the Cairo building in the Central District.

It will provide approximately 125 non-congregate beds.

So this partnership with Africatown as a service provider is new for them and for us, and we're super excited about it.

We've talked before about the fact that provider capacity is spread quite thin.

So this is really a great opportunity to expand our relationship with a new provider and a strong example of our commitment to You know, think out of the box in terms of really making sure we can continue to provide the services in the communities that are needed.

We, in partnership with them, are working towards an October opening for this shelter.

We're also going to reopen the Queen Anne Shelter in Uptown.

HSD is working with, excuse me, Seattle Indian Center to reactivate 40 shelter beds at the Queen Anne Shelter.

That shelter was previously used by DESC.

During the COVID response, we used it for a range of temporary projects, including supporting routes during their construction phase.

Sleeping spaces will be reconfigured in the shelter to meet CDC social distancing guidelines with privacy screens and six feet of spacing between beds.

We're targeting August for that opening, but there are repairs to the space that may necessitate a September opening.

Jan and Peter's Place is a partnership with the Compass Housing Alliance to expand their shelter with another 30 beds.

It's located in the International District.

For that project, we are estimating an October opening.

However, we're still in the planning phase and we need to continue to work closely with the agency, with the Department of Construction Inspection and FIRE to ensure implementation and final program plan and scope.

As you know, we're also very actively working on opening three tiny house villages, which will support approximately 120 units and serve up to 145 individuals experiencing homelessness.

All these villages will be operated by Lehigh, the Low Income Housing Institute.

Friendship Heights is located in District 5 in North Seattle.

That village will have 50 units and will be opening in mid-October after the demolition of the existing structure on the property.

Lehigh has already identified and entered into a memorandum of understanding with a religious sponsor for that community.

Rosie's Village is located in District 4 in the University District.

There are planned to be 36 units in that village.

Here's another example of a new partnership for us.

This is a new partnership with Sound Transit, and it is the first time we've negotiated a lease with them to site and operate a tiny home village.

It's a learning experience for all of us.

But I am happy to say that we have received the last set of edits from Sound Transit on the lease.

And it looks like we're in the home stretch with that critical piece in place.

We are expecting a mid to late September opening, and that allows for approximately six weeks of standup of the village itself.

Depending upon how that goes, it might eke over into early October.

One thing to note here, and you'll hear me say this again with Interbay, is that because of the site size, which is above 18,000 square feet, we do have to seek legislative approval to sign the lease.

We'll be transmitting that legislation to council for your consideration and approval.

Then the existing Interbay Village in District 7, is expanding to add 34 units.

This is a continuing partnership with the Port of Seattle, which has hosted this village since November 2017. Big shout out to the Port for their ongoing partnership in expanding this program.

we expect that village also to open in October.

And again, like Rosie's Village, the site is well over 18,000 square feet.

And so that will also take legislative approval to allow us to allow the city to enter into the lease agreement.

And then finally, with all of this work going forward through 2021, the city is partnering with King County on a Just Care scattered site hotel program.

So we are investing $5.5 million into Just Care.

It's a partnership with King County that will help us to expand services of their existing program that currently focuses on town expanded even further into downtown.

The program will support 89 beds there in a PDA, or excuse me, Public Defender Association leased hotel rooms, and will operate between August and June 22nd.

Just to get some clarifications on that slide real quick.

These are just clarifying questions.

So first off, the 89 Just Care units, those are units that are unconnected to the joint procurement with King County that we funded in the Seattle recovery plan, correct?

Yes, from the $7.5 million, they are disconnected from that, yes.

Great.

So that's like 89 more city-funded units.

Just wanted to confirm that.

And then there's also going to be units that are related to whatever we can do jointly with King County that'll be additive to that, which is, that's great.

I do want to flag here or maybe see if we can get an update.

I know we were hoping potentially to get the inner bay legislation ready for council consideration today.

I know it's taking a little longer than that.

I just want to put my cards on the table that I would like to to approve legislation related to both of those villages before the Council leaves for recess.

And I just wanted to ask if that timeline might be possible.

That would also require the indulgence of Council President to move it through full Council.

But I think to make sure we keep these deadlines, I would like to be able to act on it, move it, introduction, referral, pass, just referring to full Council, those.

lease approvals before we depart at the end of August.

I just wanted to flag if you think that might be possible and if we could maybe try to work together to make that happen.

Absolutely.

We're happy to work with your office to determine the appropriate timeline.

I don't want to put Council President on the spot, but we'll coordinate on that.

I think it's just a matter of You know, it's been a long time coming on these villages, and just anything we can do to speed it along, we are happy to assist.

Council Member Peterson, you have a question on that?

I just want to support what you're saying, Chair Lewis.

The Rosie's Village, the October opening date is way too far in the future.

I'd like to see that opening much sooner.

I'd like to encourage our city attorney's office to be as flexible as possible when reviewing these issues.

I know this is a new lease with Sound Transit.

Really appreciate Sound Transit making that space available.

I think we all need to treat it with the urgency of the homelessness crisis warrants and just hope the city attorney's office will be as flexible as possible when they're negotiating these things and not just treat it like any old project, that this is we are in the middle of a crisis and we need to move quickly and also appreciate the human services department working on this and I know this will require a a sublease where you're turning around and then leasing it to Lehigh.

I'm hoping we're not just doing an assembly line approach, but that you're dual tracking things and that sublease is ready to go soon.

If we do have to take that through council then to approve the lease between the city and Sound Transit, that HSD is ready to flip a switch and go straight to Lehigh and lease it.

Because I understand those tiny homes are actually built, sitting in a factory, waiting.

to be put out on the site right now.

So I am eager to have this done as soon as possible.

So thank you, Chair Lewis, for your efforts to push this along as well.

Thank you so much for those comments, Council Member Peters.

And Tess, do you want to respond briefly to that before we move on to the next slide?

Sorry, I wanted this just to be technical questions at this point.

But I do want to give you an opportunity to respond to my statements and Council Member Peterson's before we move to the next slide.

Sure.

Absolutely.

Again, we are more than happy to work with both of your offices on timeline.

The October is really, for Rosie's Village, that's really an outside date and it has much less to do at this stage, much less to do with the lease with Sound Transit and much more to do with just making sure that there's plenty of time to appropriately stand up There's quite a bit that goes into site development for these villages, and we know that they average around six weeks to go from beginning to opening.

And so we will also be collaborating with Lehigh to make sure that that is facilitated in whatever ways the city can help to do that.

I will just note, and this is a technicality, but I'll just note that we have a service.

How we interact with Lehigh and all of these villages is through a service agreement, not a sublease.

So Council Member Peterson, that should not pose any kind of delay because our service agreements are all handled in-house.

Great.

OK.

Thank you for those clarifications, Tess, and also for central staff and FAS and all the folks working on that legislation.

Let's keep pushing ahead on that to try to get that bottleneck done sooner rather than later.

All right.

Tess, I'll turn it back over to you.

Thank you.

Great, thank you.

So as I mentioned a couple times during the presentation, HSD is actively collaborating with the authority on programs and initiatives that are critical component to their strategies, but that are not going to be able to be completed this year.

I will also note that the authority and the HSI staff are working very closely on a number of other really critical pieces to the authority being able to stand up fully its operations.

including providing support around our contracts and talking with them about other critical services that the city provides and what it's going to look like for the authority to partner with the city on that work.

But I'm going to keep us focused on a topic at hand, which is to talk about the projects and the ARPA funded projects in particular that we are working with them on.

The council has committed $6.7 million in ARPA funds towards rapid rehousing services.

We are working with KCRHA and the Seattle Housing Authority to use a portion of those rapid rehousing funds in a new way.

So you may know that the city and the county both have been allocated new federal emergency housing vouchers.

We call them EHVs, but I'll try not to use that.

And those are tenant-based vouchers that HUD has made available specifically in response to the pandemic crisis and the fallout from that.

We are working with the authority to use a portion of those rapid rehousing funds as support services for those vouchers.

Housing vouchers aren't typically accompanied by support services, which makes them a difficult fit for persons who need support, stabilizing and housing, particularly those folks who have a high acuity of service need.

HUD has prioritized the use of these vouchers for persons experiencing homelessness.

So we collectively really need to be creative for that to be successful.

In their role as the continuum of care, the authority has entered into a memorandum of agreement with the housing authority to allow them, the KCRHA, to manage and distribute the vouchers allocated to the city of Seattle.

And KCRHA, also in their role as the continuum of care, will also establish and manage the coordinated entry system process for those vouchers, as that is required by HUD for the distribution of the vouchers.

Really, in looking at how to make this program successful, we share and support wholeheartedly the authority's priority to use the vouchers to help people move from street to housing and to help shelters, including villages, improve their exits to permanent housing by making vouchers available to longer-term stayers in particular.

Additionally, The successful pairing of services with the vouchers will help throughput in our most valuable housing resource, which is, of course, permanent supportive housing.

Following a move on model, the vouchers will create a pathway for people who want to move on from PSH with, again, a critical resource to help them stabilize and succeed in that new housing.

The second approach with the rapid rehousing funds is to take the traditional rapid rehousing program and broaden the scope of our current pilot and the manner in which those resources have historically been used.

So through our pilot, and the pilot is the rapid rehousing pilot that I'm referring to is the connection of rapid rehousing funds to our hotel-based enhanced shelters.

That use of rapid rehousing is designed to provide greater flexibility to really extend services and rental support to households that are enrolled in the program and allow for services and support much longer than the standard six to 12 months.

The additional ARPA resources will help us identify other venues to distribute those resources.

So at the moment, we are very focused on making sure that the hotel-based enhanced shelters have a variety of options for permanent housing exits, including rapid rehousing.

And really, as we come to understand how the rapid rehousing funds are being used in shelter and have an assurance that all of the guests in those shelters will be able to identify an appropriate exit to permanent housing, we will start to really look at other venues where rapid rehousing could be used, such as among enhanced shelters and villages, where, again, the goal would be to create throughput in those temporary spaces to ensure that we have safe spaces for folks who are sleeping outside to access.

So with that, I am happy to hand the presentation over to Mark for their portion.

So Tess, thank you so much.

Before we pivot to Mark, Council Member Strauss has a question regarding slide seven.

I missed Council Member Strauss earlier.

I'm very sorry about that.

So before we do the pivot to Mark, I'll let Council Member Strauss ask his questions here, and then we'll move on to Mark's portion.

Thank you, Chair Lewis.

Thank you, Tess, for being with us today.

I know how hard you are personally working to see these projects stood up, and I know from working with you, your work is what led to CEO Jones and the Regional Authority on Homelessness being stood up, so I appreciate that.

I do have questions that are similar to what Councilmember Peterson was asking, and I'd like to provide an opportunity for you to share with the viewing public some of what goes into getting these programs funded because it's from, and correct me if I'm wrong here, it's my understanding that the funds for all of these shelter units were passed in last fall's 2021 budget.

Is that, I'm seeing you nodding yes.

And so what I am, what I'm having frustration with, not at you personally, frustration with our process here is that we are nearly a year later and these units are not stood up.

We knew that we would be funding these units in the budget process last year.

We have found the sites.

We need more than 400 units.

We need 4,000 units.

And granted, you've got 350 units set up to up into today for 2021, an additional 400, bringing us to about 750 for the year.

This is important work in the right direction, especially when we pair it with Dallas Health for Housing and the work of CEO Dones.

I get, can you share, because I needed these 400 units set up in January.

Can you help me and the general public understand what is taking, why the long timeline?

Yeah, it's a really great question.

So it is quite complicated to estimate the time that it's going to take to stand up any shelter.

It can be affected by any number of issues, any number of steps from identifying the appropriate site to figuring out whether or not there is the need for SIPA, going through that process.

Um, there are sometimes, uh, demolitions on the property that need to take, uh, to occur.

Um, there's obviously, we're seeing from, uh, our experience with Rosie's Place, uh, sometimes lease, uh, negotiations can, uh, take, uh, time.

So it is, uh, it isn't, uh, a How do I want to say that there's no one way that these projects get stood up either whether it's a village or whether it's an enhanced shelter.

There's just, there's no reliable single blueprint that makes everything exactly the same.

I completely understand the frustration and I hope that you can appreciate as well that we are 100% focused on getting all of these units stood up.

It's not an excuse, but you all have heard me say before that we are working with a skeleton crew, and our providers are also very stretched.

And so, again, the timing on this is something that we are also concerned about.

and are 100% committed to getting these stood up as quickly as possible.

Council Member Mosqueda, do you have a question at this time as well?

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Just an overall comment.

Last time we had the chance to meet as well, the comments were made about providers being stretched thin.

Subsequent to that meeting, I had a conversation with a handful of providers.

And again, it was reiterated that the I think it is important to note that the capacity issue can be addressed if we can deploy these dollars that counsel has already authorized.

It is a matter of getting these dollars into the community partners hands so they can scale up their team.

Again, I don't think it is a justifiable reason to have a capacity issues of our providers when they are quite literally begging for these dollars that we have already authorized.

So again, I think it's a matter of getting these dollars out the door so that they can scale up.

I completely understand, and I'm going to lean a little bit into Mark, who I know is going to address those concerns as well.

Yeah, Mark, thank you for your patience.

We'll, we'll turn it over to you now.

And then I'm sure there'll be more questions.

I definitely have a line of questioning along what council member misguided just said.

So, I think that was good foreshadowing on council member escape as part, but we will turn it over to you first.

I just want to say.

before your presentation, have really, really enjoyed working with you.

I'm really glad to see you in this position.

And that's why in the introduction today, I didn't want to say our new Regional Homelessness Authority CEO.

I think you are now the Homelessness Authority CEO, and it's well-established and being well-received.

And it's been good to work with you on this.

And I'm glad to have you here for your first time, I think, in this committee.

And we'll hand it over to you.

Thank you Councilmember I appreciate that.

I will unfortunately cling to new as long as I can have been role for a three months and a couple weeks and I think it's just important for everyone to really keep that front and center when asking me about timelines.

But I will thank you, Tess.

For the record, Mark Jones, CEO of the King County Regional Homelessness Authority, they, them, theirs pronouns, and Council Member Musqueda, I will touch briefly on some of the workforce issues that you asked Interim Director Colby about.

I have a slightly different vantage point in terms of we're beginning to look at it regionally.

And there are some things that I think we are conflating in our conversation right now that the providers have keyed me in on on pulling apart and having more nuanced discussion about and I will bring those forward in a moment.

So I want to give you all a snapshot of where we are and make sure that the public and the providers all have a clear sense of sort of what the authority is up to, where we are in ramp up, and what the expectations that I have and that our team has about where we're going to head in the near term.

I think the most important thing and the thing that everyone needs to hear very clearly that I've said in every meeting that I will reiterate here, is that we will assume control of the contracts in the entire system that includes city, current city contracts and current county contracts beginning in January of 22. Because of the delays in my starting, a CEO process, such a process even really beginning, is because there was a pandemic.

I just think it's really important to say that over and over again, right?

That that was not people not doing their jobs, that was people having to pivot their work into keeping people alive.

And we're very grateful to the city and county teams for the work that they did in that time.

We will not have the time or capacity to issue an RFP for those 22 contracts.

And so our internal assumption and what we've communicated is that we will level fund and make very few changes to contract terms other than who reports go to, who provides technical assistance, who does the policy troubleshooting.

Those are really the only changes we anticipate in 22. In 22, once we are staffed, which I suspect will hit the capacity to do this probably, I hope, mid-January with the appropriate pipelines.

we will begin a collaborative RFP development process with the whole community, and that is regionally, right?

So that'll be in all of our subregions, of which Seattle Metro is one, working to understand what are the gaps, what are the opportunities, and really where are we gonna put our energy in terms of being transformational with our work.

Our expectation is that that RFP will drop likely in May or June for turnaround for September, October awards moving into the 23 system.

I believe that the 23 system will be very different from the 22 system and from the current system.

However, by the time that we get to that RFP, I also expect that there will not be surprises because we'll have gone through a really robust process to arrive at what we're bidding and why we're bidding it, how we're going to measure success, et cetera.

will be parallel to work that we're going to have to do around promulgating metrics, putting together our budget, and all the work that you all will be deeply involved in, both as community stakeholders and some of you as governing committee members.

I suspect that inside that conversation, we will have an opportunity to really work closely, and this is in our legislation, which is great, but to really work closely with people experiencing homelessness and frontline staff to really dig into, like, what isn't working in Canada, right?

Like, what do we do that isn't working?

Where are the real opportunities to redeploy resources in a way that is going to accelerate people's movement into permanency?

As you heard from lived experience members today, right, there are a lot of thoughts around RAPID and extending that subsidy.

I think our team agrees with that, certainly for folks who are having more complex needs.

But it's things like that, right, that we expect to bubble up and seek pathways to implementation around during that RFP development process in early 2022. Simultaneously, we are working on what we are referring to as our catalytic portfolio and these are three things that we have identified as being important enough to pursue separate and apart from our budget cycle and separate and apart from a 22 RFP.

And in this space, we're really pursuing public-private partnership and looking to be able to move these buckets of work forward as quickly as possible.

And I will speak briefly to them and then speak briefly to Council Member Musqueda's point, and then I am done.

But the three things that we're focused on are peer navigation.

I believe you heard, again, the Lived Experience Coalition speak to that.

We've heard over and over again from people experiencing homelessness.

And the data is clear.

I want to be really clear that this is also about 30 plus years of data across multiple systems that peer support makes a significant difference in the course and outcome of complex system navigation, particularly when that involves any kind of substance or behavioral health difficulty, right?

And so we really want to lean into that and we want to lean into it quickly.

We believe that there is also a workforce to do that, both with the LEC and other folks, right, frankly, who are in probably outreach jobs right now, but are not being asked to use that lived experience as part of their work, right.

And we really think that there's a real opportunity here to enhance the experience and outcomes of the system, frankly, even before we manage to do the systems integration work that is ultimately necessary, right?

But that systems integration work is four to five years out from completion, and people need to feel the difference in our system and to experience better outcomes right now.

And so we really think that pure navigation is a path.

way to doing that.

And we also feel like it's a way to engage members of the community.

And I think, again, you heard this from lived experience members who may be looking for an opportunity, right, may have stabilized inside a housing opportunity, right, and are looking for an opportunity to re-engage and to be part of the sort of social services or human services response system because of their experience with it.

The next thing that we're really focused on is data quality and a by name list.

So I believe, if I harken back to my time with some of you in 2018, data is a thing that we talk about a lot.

And the ability to get answers, the ability to believe those answers, and be really able to hang a hat on saying that a thing is happening or not.

And part of the difficulty in getting some of that information has always been fragmentation.

And part of it has also been the ability of this system to frankly collect granular high quality data.

And so we're really focused on bringing that capacity up and scaling it across the region.

I also wanna be really clear that when I say by name list, I don't just mean a list of names.

That is not the information we need.

We need to know who you are, where you are, what your needs are, and if we're doing anything about them.

And if we're not, right, we need to begin to identify the gaps.

I fundamentally believe that it is the data quality and this sort of by name list bucket that is going to help us really wrap our arms around what is the delta in resourcing in the system versus what we would need in order to truly end homelessness in the region.

And I think that we all want to know that and understand that and be able to, again, really hang a hat on why it is the right number.

And I think that the listening again to public comment, I think that the folks want us to have that accountability and I think data can get us there.

I also want to be clear that there's a relationship between pure navigation and data quality in terms of our thinking, which is to say that one of the difficulties that we have heard from folks experiencing homelessness over and over and over again with regard to how we do our data collection is that it's largely situated inside intake protocols, and that it is often very invasive, very repetitive, and that it happens when you don't have a relationship with someone, right?

So you walk in a door and someone immediately starts asking you a whole host of really, really intense and invasive questions, and you don't know them, right?

One of the things that we heard over the course of the system audit in 2018 and throughout all of 2019 and are now hearing again, is that there's a need for us to think about phased intake, meaning, right, that you ask a question in direct relationship to when you need that information in order to activate a specific support, and that that information gathering be situated inside a relationship, right, so that rather than going from outreach worker to outreach worker to case manager to case manager to housing stabilization coordinator, et cetera, That you have a single person who you work with for the course of your engagement with our system, who is really helping you to understand okay well now is the time for this information right and can and can help be a hub for it.

I also think, and I neglected to mention this when I was talking about peer navigation, and I want to be clear that in that model, what we are imagining is really that you would have a person, right, who is your person from wherever you enter the system to permanency, right?

That it really is about that relationship and really is about providing people with that singular touchpoint.

And the last thing that we're really focused on is something that we're calling bridge housing, which is we've identified that in the system, I think, and we experience this daily in our conversations and how we can't get the system to perform the way that we would like, is that there's a significant gap between our, literal gap, between our shelter resources and our permanency resources.

So the permanency resources, right, may be vouchers, may be rapid, may be just general zero to 30% AMI affordable, supportive housing, permanent supportive housing, and then we have shelter.

We don't really have a whole lot of stuff in between, other than for a couple of really essentially special subpopulations.

What we've identified is that what that means is that at an administrative level, even if we did not intend, even if we never said it aloud, what we're essentially saying to people is while you're on the waiting list for this thing, your options of where you can wait are shelter or outside.

And that can't work.

And so what we need to do is expand our capacity in the middle, in the bridge.

And so what we're really looking at is what does that look like?

We're working with, again, people with lived experience and with providers to articulate a program model there to understand how much it might cost.

But again, I think that this is an opportunity for us to pull from other systems that have actually already begun to operate this and in some cases have operated these kinds of models for 30 or 40 years.

We've been looking a lot at disability housing, at recovery housing, medical respite, adult family home models, all of which are housing models.

And I want to be really clear, they're housing models that are non-time limited in most instances, where people are able to stay while they are navigating an exit of a crisis or a life situation.

But there's a door that is theirs, a space that is theirs, And their stability is the primary focus.

We also know that these programs can be titrated with regard to their service connection around the acuity of who lives there.

And that there's a lot of flexibility with regard to having models with folks who don't need a lot of support to models with folks who need quite a bit.

But that the success, right, is possible leveraging those kinds of model types.

So that is our catalytic portfolio.

Speaking briefly to what Councilmember Mosqueda raised, which is really important, we have started to hear from providers that there are significant shortages Um, but we want to we want to be clear that those shortages are in 3 main buckets.

And this is this is what providers have said to me, right?

That it's workforce stabilization, meaning there are people, right?

There are incredibly high turnover rates right now as people burn out.

and leave, and that the compensation that we are able to generate inside the system is not enough in order for folks to stay.

And I think this is really, really important, and it's something that we're going to be working with providers on over the next several months to identify what is the true cost of a program if folks are being paid a living wage or even better, closer to area median income or AMI.

Preliminary analysis with just three providers indicated that we would need an additional about $20 million a year.

In order for us, just for those three to boost the entirety of their staffs into the that earning range.

The second thing that we're hearing is that there is a workforce development issue right the pipeline is is gone.

And so we're hearing from providers, again, around the region that even where they have budget to hire folks, right, that no one is applying.

And so we need to figure out, again, working with folks, how do we develop those kinds of pipelines and ensure that we are, you know, skilling people into those positions.

And then the third thing is sort of technical capacity, right?

And so folks have identified that they are in need of, you know, additional training and support around trauma-informed care, around how to create supportive environments, etc.

That for them, again, in our conversations, they identified as being related to some of this staff turnover.

And we're hopeful that the authority could help provide some of those trainings, frankly, as a way of reducing the impact on their budgets.

So I just wanted to, you know, none of that is definitive.

It's all in our preliminary analysis.

I think that it's, and I will just say, by way of closing, for me, this is really critical.

Because as I think you know, we know from the statistics, a lot of the sort of frontline staff and staff that support the system are people of color and also majority women.

And so when we talk about the importance of ensuring that they are compensated appropriately, it's both a labor issue and a racial justice issue.

And I think we need to be working with providers to ensure that that is possible.

And that's one of the stances that you'll see the authority take.

in our conversations with you as we work on budget.

I obviously can't speak to any of the particulars with regard to HSD and disbursement of existing funds, but I just wanted to speak to some of what we're hearing about labor and workforce issues with providers broadly.

So thanks for your time.

I really appreciate the opportunity to speak with you all today.

I'm really looking forward to partnering with those of you who I've worked with previously again and partnering with those of you who I'm just getting to know moving forward.

I think, you know, I hope that what you find in me and in our team is that we are passionate, we are dedicated to being accountable to people with lived experience, And that we are always trying to collaborate towards the best solution and always willing to have the tough conversation.

So thank you again for your time and looking forward to answering your questions.

Mark, thank you so much for that presentation and I think that's helpful for queuing up.

this discussion now about this, you know, the investments from earlier in the presentation and this transition and getting a good idea of your long-term strategic vision and how it fits into the 2022 calendar and then the 2023 rebidding.

So thank you so much for sharing all of that with us today.

I certainly have some questions I want to go through, but I want to start by offering an opportunity to other members of the committee to ask questions of Interim Deputy Director Colby and CEO Downs.

So I'm going to open it up first here.

Councilmember Strauss.

I'm happy to go first unless there's other colleagues that would prefer.

You have the floor.

Go for it.

Here we are.

Thank you.

CEO Dones, great to see you.

Tess, great to see you shortly again.

My question really is here for CEO Dones.

You know, the city of Seattle just had the Seattle Rescue Plan.

We were able to receive those one-time city or federal dollars to our city with more tranches in the works.

My question to you is, if you were to receive one-time funding, how would you use it and what would you spend it on so that that can inform our work moving forward?

I love this question.

So I think when I see one time funding, I think about system flow through like first and foremost, I think about move on money.

Every time I see one time funding, I think about essentially two, three things.

Can I build with it?

Can I acquire with it?

Or can I get people out of stuff with it?

I think those are the three things to focus on with one-time dollars.

I think that there are points in our system currently that are, I don't want to use violent language, but our choke points are the throttles.

Folks are not able to get out of them with speed.

And so, and some of that is as simple as, you know, I'm thinking about folks who I interact with quite frequently, particularly in family shelters, or to some degree in THVs, who are employed, ready to go, right?

But like, do not have access to the things that they will need, right, in order to get into housing, like a deposit, right, like maybe the first three months, like some of that kind of stuff.

And so large infusions of one-time money can support move-on strategies in those spaces, in addition to the traditional move-on strategies that we've always attached to things like permanent supportive housing where, and this again is the same thing, where we see people who are in permanent supportive housing for quite a long time are stable, no longer need that depth of service, but do not have access to the economics in order to move on to the next thing.

So that's one thing that I think one-time dollars can always be used for.

And then the other two, right?

Like build, acquire, you know, like I think I've always been really clear that housing, it would be great to have housing, right?

And so what can we build?

What can we buy that people can just move into, right?

That we can develop rapid lease up strategies around.

I think it's important that those things be permanent.

And so the hotel, excuse me, the hotel motel strategies have been really important and successful.

I think that we are probably reaching an economic cliff on those kinds of strategies.

And so I think that when our team talks about bridge housing, and one of the reasons why we're pulling from the recovery housing space and the adult family home space, is that we think that there is a more viable pathway to acquisition inside the single and multifamily home sector, or space, I should say.

Also a tight market, as we all know.

I think reading any article in The Times of the last, I think, four months.

But I think it's a path.

Yeah, thank you, uh, Councilmember Strauss for that really important bridge question here on the bridging between the systems and what to do with our one time money.

Uh, are there any other questions from members of the committee?

Yes, Councilmember Musqueda.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I know you have a series of questions as well.

I will try to limit mine to just three questions.

Number one, thank you again, Mark.

It is good to see you.

And as I mentioned to you when we had the chance to meet, I'm glad that you changed your mind about not coming over here.

You said the entire time that's not going to be me running it.

So we knew that you had the chops since you were around.

But one of the things that you and I chatted about is my concern about being able to hit the ground running with a team of experts.

staff that understand community partnerships and have the relationships and also are equipped to get money out the door ASAP.

I think part of the conversation that we had was about the skilled team within HSI, within HSD's department.

to try to ensure that folks have the ability to hit the ground running as fast as possible.

Were you able to, I think that the, can you tell me about the posting?

Was the posting available to those folks who are currently in these positions?

I believe it went up yesterday, I saw the announcement.

So can you tell me if we were able to try to encourage those who are currently within the city family to apply and move over to the new department?

Yeah, my understanding, and the city should speak to this, my understanding is that most of the folks who are currently within HSI have already accepted other positions.

That doesn't mean I wouldn't love to have them.

And so whenever we post, we send it out to everybody, including members at HSI leadership to distribute, et cetera.

So I think for us, it's active recruitment.

We would love to have any member of the current HSI team join our team.

They are deeply qualified to do this work, as we know.

And so we would welcome them.

I don't know.

I apologize.

Tess, is there anything you would add there?

No, I think you as well.

I'm going to say no.

And then I'm going to add something.

So, yes, and I think you described it really perfectly.

So we do have a number of staff who have accepted lateral transfers within the department.

We have a number of staff who are out of class from other departments that are able to go back to their originating departments.

And there have been meetings with Mark and their team.

I think HSI staff are very aware of the work that the authority is going to be doing, their vision, and know that the positions have been posted.

So as Mark described, it is always an individual decision about what one's career trajectory is going to be.

I don't have a crystal ball.

I would be surprised if some of HSI staff don't apply, but again, I don't have that crystal ball.

Council Member Gonzalez.

Thank you.

I just wanted to add a little bit of texture to this particular conversation and just make sure that we have the context that I think is important as we continue to have conversations about staff transition, which is what I think comes from this question is really getting at the heart of.

And I would say that I had an opportunity to connect with Mark and with Deputy Mayor Washington and other folks of the mayor's office staff related to this particular issue as a member of the community.

of the King County Regional Homelessness Authorities Governing Committee.

That's a mouthful.

And just as a reminder for for you, colleagues, I know some of you are new to the council and so weren't here when we authorized the ordinance that allowed the mayor to enter into the interlocal agreement creating the King County Regional Homelessness Authority.

That ordinance is ordinance 126021. And in that ordinance, the council, in large part in response to concerns from HSI staff about transition and a lack of certainty in that transition, of their work and their jobs.

The council inserted section four to that ordinance, which required that the Human Services Department and the Seattle Department of Human Resources provide a report for council approval on the plan for transitioning staff positions from the Human Services Department.

to the King County Regional Homeless Authority before that transition was effectuated.

So that report has not been done, it has not been completed, and on Monday I requested that that report be completed Um, and I am waiting to hear back from Deputy Mayor Washington and, um, and Adrian from the mayor's office around when we can expect to receive a response to that particular portion of, um, of the, uh, of the ordinance.

And in particular, the section was intended to elicit information related to positions related to the description of those positions that were going to be created at the authority.

an explanation of the effects of transitioning for employees, such as pension plan eligibility, salary, and other benefits, but also a description of any incentive packages, reemployment supports, or hiring preference that were going to be offered to employees to incentivize accepting a position at the authority.

or transferring to a different work unit or in some instances retiring.

So I continue to be concerned that that report and that work wasn't done in advance and now we are seeing that there are job postings being posted on the authority side before we've had an opportunity to see compliance on the city side with the ordinance that authorized our entry into the interlocal agreement.

So Just wanna give folks a heads up that I am digging into this body of work and I'm working with both Mark and others in the mayor's and folks in the mayor's office on how to sort of thread the needle there to hopefully get us in a place where we feel like we are complying with our own goals as it relates to transition of these bodies of work.

And if I can pop in, Council Member Gonzalez, the fault lies completely with me.

And I apologize very much.

Quite frankly, the ordinance was passed quite some time ago, and I did not tickle myself for 2021 to prepare that.

So my apologies.

We are absolutely working on that report and should have it back to the deputy mayor, hopefully by the end of this week, if not early next week.

I will say that all of our staff, all of the HSI staff were assisted by human resources.

There is a program within the city called Project Hire that helps employees to do resume work around interviewing skills, all of those sort of soft skills that are needed to be competitive and successful in future employment opportunities.

We 100% agree that there is an opportunity for our staff to apply for positions with the authority.

We have a great talent and commitment.

And I personally think the authority would be lucky to be able to employ some of the HSI staff, although I am shooting myself in the foot because I would love for folks to stay on as well.

But as I noted, the majority of the HSI staff do have other employment opportunities within the city.

And so we feel as though there's a lot of ample opportunity for folks to consider the authority.

One nuance or technical correction that I might make, if you'll indulge me, there is no transition of staff or staff positions.

The only thing that the city is providing the authority is budget authority.

And in that budget authority, the full budget authority, the vast majority of it is, of course, the budget associated with contracts.

But then, of course, there's admin budget.

That is the funding that the authority will be using to develop its staffing model and to staff the authority.

I will also notice, and we will re-include this in the report, that despite my shortfall, Mark was proactive in making sure that the Governing Committee had their staffing plan.

So again, I sincerely apologize for the delay completely on me, and you will get that report.

And thank you, Tess, for those clarifications.

OK, colleagues, I am going to go through a few of my questions.

I think some of them are fairly brief.

Just to get some clarification on a few things from public comment and then a few other pending investments we didn't cover here but that are under the American Recovery Plan that I think it would be good to address before the committee ends.

So first, just to dive down a little into the rapid rehousing component of the current hotelling surge program.

I think that first off, and I think this was covered test in your presentation.

But to cover how many total folks are currently enrolled in those rapid rehousing slots, and does the department anticipate maximizing that rapid rehousing resource between now and the end of the year?

It just is the first question on rapid rehousing.

Sure.

So the total number of folks that are currently enrolled is 82 through the Executive Hotel Pacific.

As I noticed, or as I mentioned, Chief Seattle Club is the rapid rehousing provider for the Kings Inn, and we are working closely with them around the program and helping them work with clients to identify opportunities.

Councilmember Lewis, I have completely blanked on the second half of your question.

I'm embarrassed, and I'm so sorry.

No, what do you anticipate the demand being for the rest of the year?

So if there's 82 currently, my understanding from Jeff's presentation earlier is there's 230 spots.

So does the department anticipate being able to max out those rapid rehousing spots here at the halfway mark of the year?

Yeah, again, apologies for that.

Yeah, yes, yes, we do not.

So you may know that the funding for rapid rehousing ESG actually goes into 2022 we have every intention of making sure that all of those spots are utilized.

With the hotels in particular, we, as I said, are working not just with the Chief Seattle Club on rapid rehousing, but we know that CSC has a new affordable housing project coming online, Al-Al, and that that will serve as a resource as well for clients that are currently in Kings Inn.

And with 82 already enrolled in rapid rehousing, that's about half of the clients that we currently have with the Executive Hotel Pacific.

So that's that bodes well for the progress that they're making.

As we get a better feel for how the rapid rehousing slots are going to be utilized through the hotel-based shelters, we are also looking at opportunities to make sure that those resources are available to shelters and to villages again to try to increase that concept of throughput so that we are creating spaces in highly desirable shelters by using rapid rehousing to help folks that are long-stayers get into housing.

And this might be more of a question for Mark given I don't know if we would be considering an investment like this, but in terms of the feedback from our friends over at the lived experience coalition who have been doing a lot of engagement with the housing program, gave a lot of feedback around the length and the amount of time of the subsidy and wanting to explore expanding that to a two-year subsidy.

whether in the wrap-up of the HSD program we're doing this year, if there might be some assessment looking at whether that extended amount of coverage would have been beneficial.

Fully acknowledging that that's going to be an expensive add if we determine that we want to go that way.

But I would sort of like to see maybe an assessment as to what the impact of our, the effectiveness of our rapid rehousing program would be if we extended that coverage period.

Just to throw into this question too.

potentially extending the rapid rehousing enrollment now that Just Care is gonna be one of our hoteling partners to the Just Care pool of folks as well, if that's something that's operationally being planned by HSD.

So there's a lot there in that question, probably for both Mark and Tess, but I'll let Mark go first since it's been a while since we've talked to Mark and then pivot back over to Tess.

Thank you, Councilmember.

I can say without an assessment that it would be nice to house people for longer.

That data is in.

I think that we concur with our lived experience colleagues.

I will say that there is work already underway to extend the rapid rehousing subsidy that we are in partnership with HSI around using ARPA dollars to extend that to be a year and instead of the traditional rapid timeframe.

I'll also say just for the good of the order that the city has long had a different rapid protocol than the nation, and has always tried to extend that class but this this latest work to pull it out all the way to a year I think is is quite substantive.

What we are hearing from our lived experience colleagues, right, is like 18 to 24 months would be ideal, right?

And so in subsequent budget conversations, if we can aim for that number, I think that would be great.

Again, I think that like what we're looking always at is What is the optimal support package that's going to allow people time to stabilize and then reattach to community, natural supports, and the other things that they need, you know, potentially including workforce.

Although I think I always feel obligated to say the majority of people experiencing homelessness are already working.

Like that, we should say that every time we talk.

I will also say that there is the opportunity right now to, because of the emergency housing vouchers, to be thoughtful about which resource, which folks get attached to, right?

So the EHV timeline is 10 years of support.

And so I think it's really important just to have that as part of the conversation.

We received a lot of EHV vouchers because of the way the calculation for disbursement operates at the federal level.

And so as we look to deploy that resource, we will be trying to match people to the right thing always, right?

So that if there's any concern that a year of subsidy is not enough, that we would then look to route that person towards an emergency housing voucher instead.

Thank you for that clarification.

And Tess, for sort of the HSD side of clarifying, you know, well, I guess two, actually two HSD clarifications.

So the first is, since just care will essentially be the third hotel for for lack of a better term, and that being announced today, which is great.

Will that mean that just care will have access to the rapid rehousing program like the executive Pacific and then the next question would be.

Is HSD going to then be extending new shelter offers as people move out of the Executive Pacific and the Just Care Hotels to allow new people to come in to the shelters to make sure that we're continuing to offer folks on the street a place to go?

Yeah, two good questions.

So to the Just Care question, yes.

We had talked to when the PDA and HSI were originally talking about sort of the traditional third hotel where the city would have leased the property.

We just weren't able to come to an agreement that actually worked for the Just Care program.

And so we're happy that we're being able to invest in that model in a slightly different way.

But during that initial conversation, the folks at Just Care, the folks at the PDA, indicated definitely an interest in rapid rehousing.

And so, yes, we will work with them, because we know that that is a time-limited program as well, as the funding will go through June of 2022. And we want to help them avoid a cliff at the end of that.

And then in terms of the turnover in the hotels, creating opportunities for folks to move into the hotels, yes, and we need to be mindful of the ability that the providers, Lehigh and Chief Seattle Club, will have to make sure that folks do have a successful exit to permanent housing.

The challenge with one-time funding and the challenge with standing up new programs with just one time funding is that we recognize that that creates a cliff and we need to do everything we can to work with providers and provide them the resources to help to avoid that cliff.

So this is a conversation with the providers to really sort of hit that sweet spot, if you will, in terms of filling turnover units.

Council Member Herbold, do you have a question?

Yeah, I do.

Thank you.

And I'm sorry if this has been addressed already.

I had some additional technical difficulties.

So I know we're dealing with this question of throughput in a lot of different places.

And I thought I heard that part of the idea of creating more capacity in permanent supportive housing is to pair rapid rehousing with A head vouchers in the idea that people would move out of permit supportive housing using the head vouchers and the rapid rehousing pairing.

It in the best creating more spaces in permits for housing.

Did I did I hear that correctly.

That's correct, Council Member.

So it's called a move on strategy, which is a practice developed by Corporation for Supportive Housing and a number of other permanent supportive housing developers, providers and TA providers that where over time, long, long periods of time, I want to be clear, we're not talking about like a couple years, people stabilize and need fewer supports and may be able to transition into more community-based settings, et cetera, but do not have the economic wherewithal to do so.

And so by attaching another long-term subsidy, but one that does not have the service component wired into it, we create capacity in the permanent supportive housing stock for people who do have very complex needs to then move in.

And so do we have data that demonstrates that even after several years that people can and do move out of permanent supportive housing.

I mean, one of my favorite quotes, my favorite stats that I use all the time to talk about why we need to double our investment in permanent supportive housing is that 97% of people who get into permanent supportive housing stay in it.

And so I'm just wondering, what are we basing this theory that people will move out of permanent supportive housing, because it's my understanding that the population and the needs associated with those folks is not just about stabilization.

It's about needs that many of these people will have for the long term.

Yeah, I think that's a great question I will be clear I can't speak to the local data yet because I don't directly oversee it will soon and then I can answer that question in more detail.

But I will say that the national data is clear that there is a possibility of turnover in the permanent supportive housing space.

it's again I want to be really clear we're not talking about 50 percent right like we are talking about a subset of people who stabilize and activate typically natural or community supports right where they could leave supportive housing permanent supportive housing right but that there is there's still a need for economic support and and that's what's missing right from their ability to exit.

And I'm assuming that these this new rapid rehousing would would not be term limited the way the current program is, because then you're saying not only can these folks move out of permanent supportive housing, but they can once in, once they have a HUD voucher that subsidizes their housing, and they're also gonna get the rapid rehousing voucher on top of that, that one day they won't need that rapid rehousing voucher either.

So if it's term limited, if it's not, then that's not a problem.

Yeah, so we're not talking about applying the rapid rehousing voucher, the rapid rehousing dollars to folks.

We're talking about using emergency housing vouchers, which are tenured.

And frankly, our expectation is that they will become permanent.

I think that is what we have received as sort of telegraphed from HUD is that like, we should look at this as a resource that is likely to become stable in our resource pool, right?

But I will be super clear, we would not support using anything less than a 10-year voucher, right?

Like at this point, for anyone who is exiting a permanent supportive housing space.

Thank you.

Very helpful.

Appreciate that.

No problem.

Thank you for that line of questioning.

I want to just go through my checklist a little bit more here because I know it's already 430 and that's longer than I anticipated going.

There's a few more things I want clarification on before we part ways this afternoon.

First, as was stated in the public comment, Jacob Thorpe and I had the opportunity to go visit the new Nicholsville village in the central district.

It was good to meet with those folks and just hear about their transition to that new location.

One of the things I was surprised to hear about where I think we could assist as a city family fairly expeditiously is that that Encampment is being charged for utilities currently and that that is apparently a big hardship on the campers at that location or the villagers, I should say sorry at that location.

I did want to flag because the the council has appropriated that $800,000 budget item for support for resident managed villages.

It seems like we should hopefully be able to build a consensus on during the time of COVID giving relief on the utilities for that location.

And I just wonder if we could work together on figuring out a way to solve for that and potentially looking at that $800,000.

as a way to solve for at least this utility issue going forward.

So I just wanted to pose that to Tess real quick here, since that was an issue that was raised that seems somewhat exigent.

Yeah, great.

Thanks for the question.

So HSD has absolutely met with Cher and with Nicholsville to talk more about the self-managed encampments.

So the city asks for a master service agreement or fiscal sponsor in order to invest our funds.

And we have discussed with both of those groups and talked to them about getting prepared to take on an MSA.

There are a couple of different ways that we've identified for ShareWheel over the years to subcontract, excuse me, to work with us.

They have a subcontract with Catholic Community Service for their fiscal agent.

That certainly could be expanded if CCS were interested in that.

Um, we have shared the MSA, the Master Service Agreement, uh, information with SHARE and Nicholsville and are encouraging them, uh, to consider pursuing that option.

Um, I will say that HSD has been paying directly for some of the Northlake operating costs, the utilities, waste removal, um, and while that's not ideal, uh, this definitely has kept people on that site during the pandemic.

All right, well, let's continue to work on that going forward and figure out a way to solve for some of those issues with Nicholsville.

Thanks for that answer and also going into a little of the history and using the fiscal agent and how we've managed that relationship in the past.

questions.

Before we get off tiny house villages, my last question today and then I will turn it over because I know Councilmember Musqueda and maybe Councilmember Herbold have some final questions and those will be the final questions.

This is my last one that I want to ask.

There are three additional We have a timeline now on the three general fund 2021 villages that look to be opening in October.

I would like an update from HSD on implementing the additional three villages.

We did hear from one provider today, and you know, Lehigh is not the only provider who could do this work, but we did hear from Lehigh saying they have capacity, making the claim in the public comment that they have the capacity.

If there were an RFP, they could apply to set up villages.

So it doesn't seem like it would be provider capacity that would be a delay on being able to have a successful bid.

I just wanted to throw it out there, because as Councilmember Peterson said earlier, the tiny houses to support several additional villages are completed.

It's just a matter of securing the site, securing the provider, getting it contracted, getting it on the ground.

So I did just wanna ask for those additional three villages, what can the council expect in terms of action from HSD or the regional authority to follow up on that funding?

And the funding I should add from our state partners who put $2 million in time.

Yeah, I'm happy to kick that off and then Mark, Kathy, for your perspective on this as well.

So indeed, there is funding.

It is one-time funding, which means that those are dollars that we can use to stand up the villages.

And what unfortunately we don't have at this time is a commitment of the operating funds.

For us to be able to put out a request for proposals, we really need to have a full commitment of funding.

We typically look at a minimum of three years of operating funds before we actually will put an RFP out.

That's not just sort of good stewardship of public dollars, but it's also an assurance for those providers that are going to put their energy into replying to the RFP that, in fact, there is a project there, there's a there there, so to speak, and that they can then put their energy into planning for the long haul with those projects.

That's critical to the kind of proposal that they put forward and to our ability to evaluate that as well.

On the state's $2 million, indeed, those funds definitely exist.

They also have a full funding requirement before we can pull those dollars down.

They are a reimbursement grant.

And the state's requirements are that there be a site control of a property, either through a long-term lease or through purchase.

But more importantly, that all the project funding is identified and committed.

So those are immediately for us some of the constraining factors.

But Mark, I would love for you to add the authority's perspective as these funds and projects will come under your roof soon.

Well, and Tess, actually, before, I want to just clarify, but then I do certainly want to hear from Mark, but I disagree with the contention that these villages aren't fully funded.

I could certainly bring in the budget chair to clarify on that, but I think that we did fund for capital and operations for the pendency of 2021. Since we haven't written the 2022 budget yet, you know, we don't have the operating money to go into the future, but we wouldn't have funded the operations if we didn't, for 2021, if we didn't intend to also operate those villages for 2022. So I do just want to say, I don't understand how these next three villages are differently situated from the other three in terms of being considered fully funded.

I mean, I consider them fully funded.

I don't want to speak for Council Member Esqueda, but I'm sure she does, and I'm going to turn it over to her in a second because she has a question.

But I just wanted to throw that out there that I don't know what you need to see from the council for us to demonstrate that we are willing to sustain those additional three villages in the future years, but we're happy to do, I would imagine we would be happy to consider a process to make that clear.

And I don't want to speak for all my colleagues, but I think we would probably have five votes.

I would hate for that to be a reason we don't build those three villages.

Um, so I just want to ask for that clarification.

Yeah.

So the council absolutely allocated funding for three villages.

Those are the three villages that we are working on and, uh, great foresight and making sure that there was ongoing operating funds.

Those operating funds are for those three villages that were currently standing up.

Um, uh, and at this point, and I understand the council's commitment to villages at this point, we do not have budget authority in 2021 or 2022 for new villages or ongoing funding for new villages.

And I will confess that I may not fully understand all the nuances of the budgeting process, but those ongoing dollars, I'm assuming, would be potentially part of the 2022 budget.

and likely to be approved in November.

And at that point, we would consider those villages or the RFP to seek new villages or alternative non-congregate shelter fully funded.

Well, we'll pivot to Mark here, but I do just want to do a call out if Jeff Sims or Ali Panucci are listening, if you could maybe get in here to clarify this, because I don't know if that's actually the case test.

I think that that they are fully funded, but the assumption was if they were operational, they'd only be operational for a month.

So they're funded, you know, at a low for two months.

Councilmember Mosqueda's is miming.

So they are fully funded, but with the assumption they'd only be open for two months.

And then for 2022, we would fully fund them for the whole year of 2022. But I'll wait for Jeff or Allie to appear.

And in the meantime, I will turn that over to Mark.

Thank you, Council Member.

I would be...

I'm also interested in being and I don't know if we'll have time today and in this session so perhaps it's a meeting and then coming back to clarify for the public but I, it would be helpful for me also to understand what.

Councilmember Mosqueda is referencing in terms of two months and sort of what you all are thinking with regard to the budget cycle, because I will say that in our team's analysis, we also came to the conclusion that this was one-time funding.

And in the preparation, I will be just very candid, in the preparation of my inaugural budget, my board will not move forward with something that is one-time funding as programs stand up.

And in order for my budget to be activated, it has to go through first my board and then the governing committee for approval, right?

And I in candor believe that this would be a non-starter as it is currently structured.

And so would, you know, welcome the opportunity to have that conversation but I also will say that, again in candor, I would like to think about two things.

If we're using one-time dollars, can we use them to generate flow through?

One of my board chairs lives in a tiny home.

He spoke earlier, right?

I think we could do some really incredible things with one-time money to attach it to the villages to get people into other housing.

And then I think the other thing that I would sort of raise is that the kind of program expansion that we're discussing today, I would want to understand much more deeply with regard to outcomes and expectations before we talked about the scaling that is under discussion.

And that's just, that is in candor where I am at as a system administrator, right?

I do not think that I understand at the level that I need to or that my chief program officer needs to what the outcomes that we're after are in terms of exit and permanency.

And so those are my thoughts at this point with regard to this conversation in terms of its transition to us in 22.

So thank you for that, Mark.

And we're now joined by central staff.

Just to clarify, we have Jeff.

I think Ali was going to be joining us, too, potentially.

But Jeff, I don't know if you were following the discussion earlier, but we're discussing whether or not the three American Recovery Act villages are fully funded in capital and operations for 2021. And I think there's been a little bit of a dispute because, you know, at least the capital is is is one time money, but our understanding as a council.

is that there is operations money, assuming that under the most generous of timelines, they could be operational for two months this year.

And there's a dispute on whether that constitutes full funding.

But I just wanted to turn it over to you guys, since you're the budget writers here.

What you described, Councilmember, or Mr. Chair, is correct.

We did provide $400,000 of American Recovery Act funds, or Seattle Rescue Plan funds, in the package that was adopted by the council and signed by the mayor.

And that could provide, you could mix and match how, like if a village opened in October and some in December, you could mix and match how long services could be provided for those units.

I'm not clear, and I wasn't able to respond early because my internet was cutting out, so I was following on my phone.

I might have missed a sentence or two here or there.

But what it sounded like, Tess, you were saying, was that looking for fully funding for future years as well.

You made a statement about three years of funding.

At this point, the council has not provided ongoing funding for the villages, so I'm not familiar with the terms and conditions of the state funds, so I can't speak to that test would be better equipped to do so, but if that's the level of requirement, I would say that we have not provided.

a full year of funding in 2022, or funding that we have denoted as being ongoing funds in a budget action, so that wouldn't have been met.

But we definitely would have provided funds for three villages to, if it was feasible to open them, to operate for some period of time in 2021.

Jeff, just to clarify, though, on that, does that mean that we've provided three years worth of operational funding for the other three villages from the 2021 budget.

I didn't realize that we had to fund that deeply into the future to sustain any of these shelter investments.

I would actually disagree with that we've ever done that.

Our budgets at most are funded on a biennium basis.

We'd never have had a three-year budget to my knowledge.

And often we're doing our annual budget appropriations.

So I think it'd be inaccurate to say that we have secured funding that'd be committing future councils to funding decisions.

I don't know.

Our city attorneys could probably weigh in and tell us that we can't do that.

I am not positive.

I think it would be inaccurate to say that we have secured in advance three years of funding for any of our villages to open.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and I appreciate Ali Panucci and Jeff Sims also being on the line.

I would also appreciate additional technical response from the central staff's perspective too, but I think as the good chair has noted, we have never provided more than one year's worth of funding.

We operate in a one-year calendar year budget.

I would very much like to move to a true biennial budget, but we don't actually have a true biennial budget that the council passes.

We've never allocated funding in future years.

We cannot commit future councils to funding that they then have to authorize.

This is not up for debate.

This is not up for discussion.

The council passed a budget bill and it was signed by the mayor.

The direction from the legislative branch with the signature from the executive was that we were going to stand up not just the three tiny houses that we supported in last year's budget, plus others, but the creation of over three with the $2 million that we have pulled from the state's appropriation to support tiny homes during this crisis.

We have provided the sufficient funding based on conversations that we had with the executive and departments about how much it would cost to operate.

And we know, as Jeff Sims has just summarized, that when you average it out, we expect there to be around two months of operational tiny homes created at at least three new villages this year.

This leverages the $2 million from the state.

It puts forward the funding that the city has already authorized.

And again, I want to underscore, this is a bill that was signed by the mayor.

This is not a time for debating or discussing what additional policies we should be layering on, which I am all in for.

You've seen this council provide, as Jeff summarized, $45 million to address this most pressing crisis.

We are going to continue to add funding to this, but this is truly a question of when are we going to get the tiny homes that the legislative branch has authorized and the executive has signed?

This is not a discussion point.

I would like an answer for when that's going to be stood up.

So I am going to need to defer to a conversation that I must have with CBO.

My understanding is that the three villages that currently exist have were allocated with one time funding for stand up and ongoing funding for operations.

And we do not have a similar sort of ongoing operating funding source for any new villages.

But I am going to fully defer to my colleagues at CBO to make sure that I am not overstepping in what I'm saying.

Jeff, do you have a follow-up on that?

And then I want to do just a few remarks to close this out.

I don't want us to get bogged down here and stay till well into you know, happy hour time.

So Jeff, go ahead.

We don't have to get CBO on the line to answer that question.

So to make sure it's clear, I'll refer to the villages.

So the one in the U District, Rosie's Village, the one in Friendship Heights and the expansion of Interbay.

Those were funded in the 2021 adopted budget test was correct.

We provided $600,000 in one time funding to stand up those villages and $800,000 to operate those villages for 12 months, presuming a January 1st open date.

Obviously that hasn't been achieved.

And then as discussed, and we're getting there, the additional three villages that could be supported with capital funding from the state, we provided one-time dollars that were in the Seattle Rescue Plan to operate those villages through the end of 2021. It sounds like the nuance in conversation here that might be getting getting conflated or confused is that if I understand Tess correctly she's saying that they would only look for that they the interpretation of the the agreement from the state is that we have to have provided something that is considered ongoing funding.

I think that where we're at with this,

We have to do a little bit of work here to just finesse what the exact issues are because, I mean, I firmly believe that the council did fully fund those villages in every respect of funding them.

That just shows that we have every intent of doing ongoing funding.

I think it would be absurd to conclude that we want to spend millions of dollars to stand up to free villages and only operate them for two months and then stand them down, which I guess would be the alternative interpretation.

But if we have to do something to signal to the state that's not the intention, that's fine.

I think that we should resolve this offline.

I don't think we're going to.

I will say, I think I speak for the committee, that we want to see an action-oriented plan from our partners on standing up those three villages.

I think that, Mark, we should continue to have a conversation, because I think your points are well taken about where this all fits into the overall strategy that you're forming going forward in collaboration with all of us.

But I think all of this has to be tempered, and I'd be remiss if I didn't mention it here, with the horrifying reality of what's going on in the streets of the city right now.

uh...

we have thousands of people that have nowhere that they can go they're being subjected to you know there's been fire starting in encampments that have killed folks that are living unsheltered uh...

people have been killed by gun violence in in uh...

some of the encampments around the city these things never happen in the tiny house villages so i'm just stating that in terms of uh...

the the urgency of the moment I think it is important to note that even if it is only going to be for like a year or two and then we phase down the village system as some of the great things that we are going to be planning together get stood up, I think speaking for the Council when we put these tiny house have a short-term plan, will we also build to the more long-term planning aspects?

And I realize a lot of that probably still falls within the city, family, and HSD before the transition to the Regional Homelessness Authority.

But I do want to turn it back over to you, Mark, to give a few more comments on that.

But I want that to close out after we hear from Mark this discussion on the three American Recovery Act villages.

I think we we have a little bit of work to do here in clarifying some things in the run-up to our next hearing to get some action on that before the end of the year.

So Mark, thanks for your patience.

Turn it back over to you.

Thank you, Councilmember.

I appreciate that.

I would ask to be included in those conversations.

I do understand, you know, that the before I was working here, before I was here, council asked for a thing.

I'm not going to speak to history.

I'm truly looking forward at how does this integrate with the architecture that we are trying to stand up regionally and what does that look like?

Again, I would really encourage us to take a look at the opportunity with one-time funds to rapidly accelerate people's movement into housing.

Again, including people who are currently living in tiny home villages.

And I think that if we look at it from an operancy perspective of flow through, you can achieve, I think, some of the same numbers you're looking to hit by, again, executing a thoughtful move on strategy using that money, which we could, if I'm correct, if I'm correct, because it is ARPA money, if we turned it into vouchers and attached it to THVs, we could annualize it out to 24 or maybe 25, right?

And so there is a significant opportunity there that I would just really push us to consider as the utilization of one-time funding because I do have concerns about the incorporation of the villages into my budget uh, for my board approval without clarity around what the ongoing operating, uh, where it's going to come from.

And again, like, I, I hear, uh, clearly what, uh, Council Member Mosqueda is saying around, you know, the, the expectation, the law that has been signed, um, and the, the, uh, way that the council has done its appropriating historically, right?

Not arguing.

just asking to have that conversation about how we can best support the folks who, I think we're all in agreement about what we're trying to get done.

And so I would just love to have a conversation about some potential strategies that might get us there, again, with a focus on the tiny home villages.

And when you say boardmark, are you referring to the governing board or implementation board?

No, so my budget goes through a two step process, the implementation board has to approve it, and then it goes to the governing committee, the governing committee has approval or veto power over the budget, but per the legislation can only send it back down.

or approve it to move forward for consideration by the relevant appropriating bodies.

And so in order for the budget to even get to you, council member, my board has to say yes to it.

And I do not see, and again, I'm just being very honest, I do not see the likelihood that they will allow a budget to move forward in our inaugural budget that has any voids around how we will pay for things over the long haul.

Yeah, no, I appreciate that.

That's an interesting dynamic between the governing committee and the implementation board, sort of like a House of Commons, House of Lords, veto gate system.

In any event, I mean, I would just say to close it out, I mean, you know, this council has two seats on that governing committee.

You know, I mean, we're, You know, so, I mean, we're sort of talking.

A little bit here about how council priorities might get get put into.

I mean, like, I just want to say we're, we're 1 of the voices in that process.

Right?

So, like, when.

When you're talking about what you anticipate getting from your boards, I mean.

You know, I mean, this discussion will be relevant for that, too.

And I think that there is support, frankly, on those boards for tiny house villages.

So this is a conversation we'll continue to have.

And, you know, I appreciate your points around investing in throughput from those systems.

But I think my questions have been sufficiently answered on these American Recovery Act villages.

So I think that we'll bookmark that there.

I appreciate that.

I know it's 5 o'clock.

On this test I'm trying to

would be sufficient so that we can start standing these up this year?

That's a question.

Yeah, so I checked in with the state on what the drawdown requirements are, and they were pretty clear that what they're looking for is an executed lease for the site where the dollars are going to go to, as well as evidence of full funding.

Now, I did not ask whether or not a statement of a letter of intent on the funding would work, but I will say the other pretty big sticking point on this is having the site identified and under control.

Okay, I do want to underscore the importance of moving as fast as we can, given the COVID variant and the fact that, as the chair has said, the council has fully committed to the funding needed to stand this up this year, and we'll be having conversations about 2022 beginning in just about six weeks.

So whatever we need to do to get those $2 million from the state down so we can stand it up.

ASAP would be great.

And then I'll leave this, my last few questions, for another day.

But we have a letter that has come in.

We have, sorry, statements that have come in from business and from folks at Real Change, folks who've been supporting safe lots.

King County allocated funding for safe lots as well.

A letter from Nucor June 2nd support state support for standing up safe lots because of the increased numbers of RVs and folks we know living outside for the safety of individuals out there.

What is the status of getting safe lots stood up and are we doing that in partnership with King County for folks who need a safe place to stay?

So just quickly to that question about RVs, we are working with the authority on developing a plan that is absolutely on the radar of the authority.

We know that King County is also doing this.

They're also looking at the ability to stand up a safe lot.

There's a lot of opportunity to use those funds to the benefit of folks who are residing in vehicles, especially RVs.

And Mark, if you briefly want to give a quick picture of your vision, that would be grand.

Yeah, we, the authority has a priority on vehicular residency broadly.

We understand it to be a population that we just don't know enough about.

And so, truly last week I was, I started having lunch with people who are living in vehicles and talking to people about like, what do you need?

And what are we not doing?

I think that like the safe parking work that King County is doing, we applaud.

I think that there's a need for program design and program standup that's actually very robust.

that we will be looking to do some of the preliminary work around as quickly as possible to bring both our governing bodies and then ultimately you all a set of things that we think you could fund to support people.

I will say that I think that the, you know, I would appreciate on this a little bit of grace with regard to, I just don't think we know enough for me to stand here and tell you like the fullness of what we need.

But thank you very much, Mark.

And again, I appreciate that the regional authority is still just getting stood up.

The question mark of when things will be operational in 2022 or 2023 is what you're working on.

This is the city council who has been working with the mayor on crafting the Seattle Rescue Plan that again was passed into law.

And so test the 2021 dollars from the Fed is what we're talking about right now.

I'm not talking about some future program that's going to be developed that will be even better and more efficient with our community partners and county partners.

I'm talking about how are we doing with getting these dollars that the city council has already authorized and has been signed by the mayor into creating a safe lot right now so that people can move in 2021 to a safer place.

That's not a question for the regional authority.

I understand.

And the reason that Mark stepped in, not just because I asked them to, but is because this is a partnership in terms of using these dollars.

Precisely what Mark is saying is the issue that we have faced with RVs from the very get-go when we have talked about some sort of appropriate and successful project.

So I recognize that standing up a safe lot is the intent of those dollars.

To use those dollars, we feel very much as Mark feels that we would need to have a plan.

We have done a landscape survey across the country.

There are very few if any programs that have any sort of long standing track record around serving folks in RVs.

It is a unique population and We share the authority's concern about making sure that we are doing this correctly.

We are doing this with input from those folks who are occupying RVs.

And for that reason, we feel that it's important to make sure that we are in partnership with the authority on this work.

Okay, well, thank you, everybody.

I think that's a good thing to leave it on and close out this discussion.

I think we've got a little bit of work here to do to clarify some things going into wrapping up some council business here before recess on making sure we're we are making progress on all of these investments, but do really appreciate some of the really big tangible news that we got here today around the securing of the Just Care hotels, the tangible timelines around a lot of new enhanced shelter investments that are coming up really soon, that I do not believe the council that we have been aware of until today on that concrete plan, which is great.

So looking forward to seeing all of that get out into the community in the coming weeks.

So Tess, thank you so much for coming to the committee.

And Mark, thank you.

Very good to see you.

We will be in touch here as we continue to work out the transition and really appreciate your leadership during this period.

moving to this new regional way of tackling this huge problem.

So thank you so much.

With that, I will move on to good of the order.

Presumably, everyone's good with just adjourning.

Looks to be the case.

All right, folks.

Thank you so much for a good committee meeting.

Everyone have a good evening.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.