Seattle City Council Select Committee on Homelessness & Housing Affordability 7/22/19

Good morning, everyone.

Today is July 22nd, 2019, and the Select Committee on Homelessness and Housing Affordability will come to order.

It is 10.50 a.m.

I'm Teresa Mosqueda, Chair of the Committee and joined by Co-Chair Councilmember Shama Sawant.

We'll soon be joined by Co-Chair Councilmember Sally Bagshaw, and also joined by Council President Bruce Harreld, Councilmember Gonzalez, and Councilmember Herbold.

Thank you all for being here today.

We do have three big items on today's agenda.

First is a briefing on the Human Services Department for performance metrics update.

The second is an update on the navigation team expansion.

And the third is going to be a more robust in-depth update on the regional governance work group.

We wanted to make sure that there was plenty of time for this.

I know in the past it's received a short allocation of time and we wanted to give a chance to get into the details in terms of how those discussions are going so far and make sure all the council members have a chance to ask any questions at this point before we get into late summer and fall.

We are We are going to take public comment today, but it will be at the end of the agenda because we know we also want to hear feedback from the public on those three agenda items.

And I appreciate you all signing up.

I do have one full sheet in front of me and look forward to seeing the other ones if there's folks who've signed up as well.

We'll get you all in before we leave here today.

At last, I would say the last three public meetings we have had robust public testimony on the need to make sure that we're protecting the ability for those who created small tiny home villages to have a self-determination and really make sure that we're investing in all of our tiny home villages and listen to the concerns that have come up.

around governance, and we appreciate Council Member Sawant bringing forward a letter that many of us signed on to recently.

And while we will hear public comment on this later, I'm sure that this issue will come up.

So we'd love to have you provide a brief update, Council Member Sawant.

Thank you, Council Member Mosqueda.

Yes, as you said correctly, We had begun a mediation process with the support of many community members and organizations and residents of Nicholsville and all the independent members who are part of the various Nicholsville boards.

And a draft of that letter was first sent around on May 26th, and since then we've had a very important select committee.

The last select committee, as you all, our community members probably know, but if you don't, then this is an important update.

We had a discussion here on the dais and all council members agreed that this is a productive, this is the productive approach to take on, which is bring together the two parties, Nicholsville and Lehigh, into a mediation presided over by a mutually agreed upon mediator.

And also, I just wanted to remind everyone that that mediation letter has been signed not only by the council, which is very important, but also by over 100, I believe, at this point, community members or organizations, depending on who the entities are.

And we are trying to continue to have those discussions privately with Nicholsville and Lehigh folks so that we can bring this to fruition.

And I really, really hope that we will be able to do it in the near future.

And with that said, we also want to acknowledge that we welcome your public comment, if it's on this topic or any topic, and we will make sure to get to that before the end of the meeting.

Thank you, Council Member Swan, and welcome, Co-Chair Bagshaw.

Thank you for being here.

So, Farideh, if we could, let's read into the agenda item number one.

Agenda item number one, Human Services Department's Homelessness Performance Metrics for briefing and discussion.

Thank you so much.

And joining us at the table is Council Central Staff Jeff Sims.

Thank you for being here.

In the audience, we have Tess Colby from the Mayor's Office and Jason Johnson who are here if we have questions, but I understand won't be joining us at the table for this topic.

So thank you Jeff for being here.

If we could get the presentation put up on the screen.

This is an issue that has come to us for the last four, well I would say actually six to eight months.

We've been talking about the need to have a robust data set that we can all look to to see how we're doing in terms of sheltering those who are currently experiencing homelessness, preventing those from experiencing more homelessness, helping to divert individuals from falling out of their house situation and into the streets.

and to really show what we're doing with our investment in some of our most valuable partners being those human service providers on the ground.

We have an opportunity, I think, to highlight some of the work that we've done in a way that expresses to our public the most important role that we have as public servants is to make sure that the public dollar is being put to the best public use.

and to build trust and to be transparent in how we're investing those public dollars.

Since basically December and I would say maybe November during the budget deliberations, we've been wanting to showcase to the public where these dollars have gone and to show constituents that we're making progress.

We've seen some of the Rates decline in terms of the number of people experiencing homelessness outside, at least according to the point in time count, which we also know is an undercount.

We've seen incredibly important statistics to remember in terms of how many shelter beds we have open a night, presented at various points.

I know we did this during the budget deliberation process earlier this year, and more recently via email.

I've been inquiring about how many enhanced shelter beds we have open a night on average.

The latest statistic that we saw was five enhanced shelter beds and one tiny house village bed open on average a night in the city.

When we have a regional crisis that has about 5,500 people who are sleeping outside unsheltered, and only five or six enhanced shelter beds open a night, it helps us underscore the urgency of creating affordable housing now and opening additional enhanced shelter beds.

There's a lot of reasons people don't want to go to mat on the floor shelters.

We've heard time and time again to line up at 6 in the morning and or to leave at 6 in the morning and then have to line up at 6 p.m.

doesn't create a sense of stability.

We've heard time and time again that the more enhanced shelter beds are open, the more families can stay together, people can be with pets, Items can be put into lockers, people can have showers, and really importantly, access to case management, health counseling, and true holistic services.

That's the importance of this type of data.

When we see where the gaps are, we can help fill those gaps.

When we know what we've been doing well, we can help direct funding to what's been successful in our city.

And we really appreciate the conversation that we've had with a number of the providers and community.

I would say a lot of people who have said to us, yes, we're reporting time and time again on what we were being asked to report on to the city, but sometimes we're not being asked to report on some of the things that we know work really well, specifically around diversion.

There's a lot of people who've said we would love to provide more statistics on who we're helping to prevent from becoming homeless.

And also, they would love to help us have metrics and indicators on why it's so important to keep your same case manager.

We've heard from direct service providers that without the ability to have a case manager on site or the same case manager, We end up losing people or cycling back into homelessness and we're not able to provide them with the robust services.

So this type of data is important.

We've seen this from previous administrations like even Governor Locke's administration when they did the Blue Ribbon Commission and every department had a set of metrics that they reported on, I believe, monthly.

Here we are.

We've been asking for eight months for a similar set of metrics, and I know, Jeff, you're going to walk us through what we currently have in terms of metrics that are being reported.

Reported from the All Home Dashboard provided by the providers to HSD, and the metrics, this is just a few of them, suggested by provider organizations themselves.

So I really look forward to hearing more about, and Jeff, I know you're sort of filling in for central staff, but my intent is to make sure that we're working in coordination with the mayor's office to get this set of robust metrics.

I'm looking at an email that is dated April 20th from the executive's office where there was an acknowledgment that we are working to, I think, on a joint strategy to make sure that there is a dashboard, a shared interest in making sure that a dashboard is created and a commitment here in writing that we would have updates in May and June.

We are now mid-July and we don't have this folks from the executive's office sitting at the table so what I'm hoping with our council co-chairs here is that we can continue to work on getting this item put in front of us.

And we know that there is work being done by each department to come up with a set of metrics that would not just specifically focus on homelessness, but that is something that would be used for various departments.

That's a good first start.

So we look forward to hearing more about how those specific metrics as they relate to services to homelessness will be provided to the, not just the council, but to the general public and I would say the media so that we have a better understanding of where we're doing well.

what issues we can report on, how we're incorporating the provider feedback in terms of new metrics that would come forward.

And Jeff, I will turn it over to you to walk us through what we currently know, what we currently have in hand as it relates to a potential dashboard for performance data on how we're serving those who are homeless and potentially those who we're preventing from becoming homeless, and then open it up to my colleagues for questions.

Try again.

Is that working now?

Great.

Thank you so much.

For the record, Jeff Sims from Council Central staff.

Council member, as you noted, the last time that this committee discussed this topic was at our April 22nd meeting.

And at that time, and also in conversations over email and with the executive, we were looking, we learned about efforts underway both by the mayor's office and HSD to put together dashboards and ways of visualizing and better communicating to the public the progress being made with our investments on homelessness and how they're continually being improved.

Since that time, let me first highlight that during that meeting there was also a panel of providers that provided input on additional metrics on top of what HSD is currently putting together and measures a part of their contracts that highlighted areas that the providers would like to see also measured or also incorporated into their contracts as measures that they should be held accountable to.

The handout that you have on screen right now, if you look at the green box where it says metrics suggested by providers, that is a high level summary of what some of those are.

And I'll walk through each of these boxes in a moment.

Also, since the meeting of this select committee, All Home, which is the continuum of care for King County and Seattle, has since released its point in time count and simultaneously updated its online dashboards, which is an area that it is able then to pull not quite in real time, but very current data then.

on what is metrics about our services and the population experiencing homelessness that was updated, as I said, since this committee last discussed this topic.

And that is the orange box that you see on your handout and the data points that they have now.

And then we also have been receiving and the April 9th meeting of the Human Services Equitable Development and Renters' Rights Committee was the last time that we had presented the blue box.

Those are metrics that HSD regularly provides to the council.

Those metrics are manually pulled.

They didn't have an automated system making presentation of those data points automatic or something that could be posted online in real time.

But those are metrics that we regularly receive.

So quickly to go through those, you can see that the online dashboard that All Home currently has has four main areas.

First, it looks at the population of households that are experiencing homelessness and being served.

There's a variety of ways that that's broken down, sometimes by population, like veterans or youth or families, but also looking at race and ethnicity and some other metrics.

The second area they largely look at is who they're serving, again with demographic breakdowns, but also they have a graphic that looks at where people are coming from, whether it was a recent stay in a shelter, if they had recently been experiencing homelessness, it's their first time, and where they exit to.

So if it was permanent housing, or we lost track of them, or they exited back into homelessness.

The third main category, as I would put it, of what is presented by All Home is individual performance.

So if you went to the All Home website, you could actually go to a screen that has every single one of our, for example, shelter providers.

You could hover over that box and you'd see a variety of metrics posted for that individual provider according to the type of intervention it is.

And that's what's listed there is the type of metrics that are reported for each provider.

Finally, they've added or, well, online that they have metrics that are specific to rapid rehousing.

When you go to their page that looks exactly at rapid rehousing, there's certain metrics that are unique to that intervention that we're really focused on that they also have online and maintain.

As I mentioned, the blue box, which I know this council is very familiar with because they get presented on a regular basis, are presentations that HSD regularly comes and provides to us, and it's data that's provided.

That includes our exits to permanent housing by program type, so permanent supportive housing or, sorry, that'd be a bad example.

enhanced shelters or our outreach providers making references to a shelter, things like that.

The number of households that are served, where those individuals go to, and then also some race and ethnicity goals.

The last data that we had received on that looked at the totality of 2018, and I know there's some discussions to get the first quarter or second quarter updates from HSD for 2019. And then, as I mentioned, there were a variety of places that providers, when we last met, highlighted additional metrics that they would suggest we include, such as considering the vulnerability of clients that are served, perhaps not as a public-facing dashboard, but at least looking at the type of performance that they're required to meet.

So if you have a program that's really serving, the hardest to serve, recognizing that.

Looking at the type of services that a person experiencing homelessness asks for and how often we are responding to that.

Focusing on mental health and substance abuse services, which we know are very important in responding to the needs of this population.

A variety of metrics, I only put two in the boxes here, but on progress towards housing.

So not just placement in a permanent housing, but also perhaps retention in a substance abuse treatment program or returning to family reunification, something like that.

And then, of course, some way of accounting for when there are a limited number of beds in shelters, enhanced shelters in tiny house villages that might have impacted the ability to place someone into an intervention like that.

So that's a high-level overview, and I'll defer to the council for any questions or clarifications you might have.

Thank you.

Council Member Baxhaw.

Thank you.

Co-chair Baxhaw.

Thank you for your good work on this.

Thank you to our Human Services Department.

I know this has been something you've been working on and to our police who are helping us as well.

I want to recognize something that we have underway and that is our Health One project, which is our low acuity work with our first responders.

And one of the things that I've heard from them multiple times is that as we're working with our crisis connections, that they need extra beds, they need places where they can refer folks, whether that's, you know, alternatives to Harborview.

So whether it is a more 24-7 shelter, whether it's the tiny homes or whether it's a mental health bed, this needs to be coordinated.

So I just want to underscore as we're doing this and working on the performance data on what is happening that we also in real time need to make sure that we've got spaces for people and for our first responders to take those people other than Harborview Hospital.

So this is looking both to the past and looking to the future.

And I just hope that we can recognize how important this is.

Other comments from council colleagues?

Council Member Herbold.

Thank you.

It would help me to understand the purpose of our efforts to collectively have a discussion around performance data on homelessness.

I appreciate knowing that there have been some suggestions by providers, but what is the path forward to update the performance data on homelessness?

When this committee last met and also in subsequent email conversations, we were told that there were two simultaneous pathways going on.

One was work with the Mayor's Innovation Advisory Council to find a way to take data that is NHMIS that we don't have a good automated way to pull that data out and put it into something that can be visualized and displayed.

And then also highlighted at that time were the updates that All Home would be making to its dashboard.

both of those with the ultimate goal of making it transparent to the public what work our programs are doing, the places that programs are succeeding and are showing their effectiveness and continuing to improve, and then also conveying the scale of the problem and the scale of the solutions that we're implementing.

But these are changes for All Home to make to its dashboard, is that correct?

What was presented at the time were discussions actually that were being undertaken by the executive, so HSD or the mayor's office, working with a group of advisors that can help to assist with some of those technical back of the house, so to speak, innovations.

So you could take what is currently a little more difficult to access, our HMIS data system that we actually have to manually pull a lot of that data for, for example, the information that's in the blue box has to be manually pulled and compiled and verified.

and then put it into some kind of an automated, online, easier to maintain format.

And that's the work that is underway that I believe it continues and has been delayed at this point.

So I think the ability to update this, the information that is provided to council that the public sees, that's a laudable exercise and it's necessary to improve transparency.

But I think as it relates specifically to performance-based contracting, we also have a conversation that we need to have about what outcomes we want agencies to report on because there's a lot of concern that the focus on exits to permanent housing don't consider a few things.

Like, for instance, multiple organizations will have an interaction with a client on that individual's road to stability.

And as I understand it, only the last organization who touches that client actually gets the credit, if you will, for the outcome.

So that's a concern.

There's a concern also that the approach that we're focusing on, and I'm not suggesting that we shouldn't have as an outcome access to housing, but if we are not looking at the fact that the Barb Poppe report recommended that we should be serving, we should be focusing our efforts on serving the most difficult to house, that there may be an inadvertent perverse incentive on the part of providers to assist the easiest to house in order for those outcomes.

And so, We also need outcomes designed to incentivize the outcomes for organizations serving our highest priority populations, which are those populations that are hardest to serve.

Absolutely.

And I do want to highlight that shortly we're going to have a presentation updating on the regional governance discussions.

And part of that conversation, Tess Colby from the mayor's office will be talking about the regional action plan.

And my understanding of that regional action plan is in many of the what you just highlighted will be discussed.

So a specific goal would be outlined with specific metrics behind it and how we get to those places.

And it might not necessarily say placement in permanent housing for a program that has a different goal that contributes to that path to permanent housing for an individual.

Thank you.

Council Member Sawant and then Council Member Gonzalez.

Thank you.

Thank you, co-chair.

So, I mean, one point I had was somewhat in line with what Council Member Herbold was saying, that the metrics, I guess one can say all metrics are not made equal in the sense that If our programs are working in such a way that there are individuals who are experiencing either chronic homelessness or experiencing repeated bouts of homelessness because the system is failing them in specific ways, then those metrics are more complex.

They are not simply, did you help somebody get into permanent housing?

And I agree with the concern that the people least served are not being caught in our study of metrics.

Along similar lines though, one concern I've had and I've, you know, I've talked about it before is that the human services department really does not present any meaningful metrics related to the sweeps.

And I've asked them multiple times about, you know, you know, how are you measuring your work on exits to permanent housing?

And the answer we've often heard in council is that, well, that's, you, I mean, they don't call it sweeps.

I call it sweeps because I think they are sweeps.

But the point being that the work of the navigation team cannot be, you know, those metrics don't apply because we don't actually turn them towards permanent housing.

We turn them towards other options.

Fair enough.

The point I think that should not be lost is if this is something that the city is spending millions of dollars on, then we do need a way of measuring its effectiveness.

Because so far, all we know is that it's actually not working.

And so if there's a way when as we look at performance data, which I really think it's a good idea and sort of have to have this sort of, you know, overview of where the data are coming from, who's proposing the metrics and so on, I think As long as the sweeps continue, we do need to insist on some meaningful metrics so that those dollars that are used in it are actually in service of the people who need them.

Great point.

I will also highlight that one of our agenda items today is to discuss the expansion of the navigation team.

We recently had at the June meeting of the Civil Rights Utilities Equitable Development and Arts Committee a presentation on the latest metrics related to the navigation team.

You're right that the performance, the metrics that are reported on there differ from all of our other There's not a discussion of placement into permanent housing.

They do report on referrals to shelter.

But we will be discussing the navigation team later at this committee meeting, as well as the additional FTEs that have been hired to support that team.

Yeah, just a quick follow-up.

Thank you, Good Chair Mosqueda.

Yeah, I appreciate that they will be there.

My concern is at least when I saw what they had submitted to the committee is the same presentation that they had submitted in a previous select committee.

And I feel like they're not answering the questions the council has asked them.

So something to be followed up on.

Thank you.

Thank you, co-chair.

Council Member Gonzalez.

Thank you, Chair.

So really quickly, I'm not sure I heard you, Jeff, say this, so I want to go back and I apologize if I'm making you repeat yourself, but I want to make sure that I understand the chart.

and what we're trying to communicate with this chart.

So in the red box is what All Home King County system does to publicly share information about the work that the county has been doing in the space of addressing the experience of homelessness.

Is that accurate?

That'd be correct.

It would include Seattle then because as our continuum of care, we would have all of our Seattle investments that are then entering data into HMIS would also be part of what All Home is capturing.

Right, because the City of Seattle is a member of the All Home King County effort.

But this online dashboard that is reflected on this chart within the red box, and I apologize to all our friends who might be colorblind and can't see red, but it's the box that says All Homes Online Dashboard.

I just want to make sure that that system and that dashboard production is owned by King County, not by HSD or the City of Seattle.

That's correct.

Okay.

So then when we move to the right side of this page, we see the blue chart on top, which is titled Data Provided to Council by HSD.

And then we have the green box that says Metrics Adjusted by Providers.

As it relates to the blue box, what I'm understanding is that this is data that HSD provides to the city council, but doesn't necessarily present it in the form of a dashboard similar to what we see on all homes website or their materials.

That's also correct.

These are presentations that are, the data is pulled manually and put together as a presentation for the council or the committee of the council.

And those are the metrics that are in that.

It is not put online.

It is not updated in real time.

There's no webpage that you can land on and locate that.

So we as policymakers sitting up here in our staff, including Council Central staff, get sort of this rich data, but it's up to us to figure out how to translate it, and it's up to us to figure out how to or if we communicate it in a particular way to the general public and taxpayers.

Is that accurate?

Yes, it would be.

The presentations are in committee, so there is a presentation by HSD, but just receiving the data and the updates, it would be up to the council to communicate that further.

Okay.

And then the stuff in the green box, metrics suggested by providers, are the various data points or suggestions that are listed in that box in the lower right-hand corner, is that captured in the data and reported in any way in the data that we see listed either in All Homes Online dashboard box or in the data provided to council by HSD box?

Generally speaking, I would say no.

Those are metrics that were suggested by providers to be either additive or as a replacement for some metrics.

And that's kind of the purpose of what I put together here is to highlight some of the areas where there's not overlap for the council members.

Okay, so the stuff in the green, the metrics suggested by providers, those are literally just suggestions.

We are not capturing that information anywhere currently, either us or All Home.

That's not 100 percent true.

For example, the vulnerability score of the client served would be captured.

I'm not aware of any location where that's currently presented or made public.

Data on services requested, you could say that there's some places where we capture, for example, what's sent to the council regarding the navigation team on a quarterly basis does talk about types of services requested.

and engaging with clients and the kind of outreach that they will accept.

But generally speaking, these are metrics that are not being captured for all programs system-wide or presented in a uniform and consistent way to the public.

That's very helpful.

And I think that what I was struggling with is trying to figure out what we were comparing, because I wanted to make sure that we were comparing apples to apples.

So it sounds like what this this chart is intended to communicate is that it appears that all-home King County has a more transparent, more consistent, standardized way of publicly sharing data related to performance of investments that the county has made in the space of homelessness, as opposed to the city who has some of those components, but not all of those components, and we appear to be reporting inconsistently.

I would say that's correct.

The county who owns our management of the HMIS data system, so in many ways they are the possessors of the database and HSD collaborates with the county to get that data.

Okay.

And that leads me to the last line of questioning or points I wanted to make, which it's helpful for me to get a better understanding and framing of what what we're seeing and evaluating in this single page presentation.

And that sort of helps frame for me some of the comments that Council Member Herbold was making a few moments ago.

And I think that her points are valid in terms of one of the purposes or a purpose of the work that we're trying to do here is is not just counting the widgets, but really getting a clear understanding of why we are creating performance measurements, and that doing the exercise of creating performance measurements is critical to accurately reflect our expected outcomes that are evidence-based and aligned with strategies that we have supported in the past that are shown to end the experience of homelessness for individuals.

And I think that's what I was hearing Council Member Herbold articulate is that there are lots of different purposes that we can use data for, and there's a lot of different purposes that we can come up with performance data and metrics for.

But one of those things has to always be centered in how are we developing performance measurements that will, again, accurately reflect our expectations of outcomes that are evidence-based and aligned with strategies that we know will help to end somebody's experience with homelessness and make it a short experience to the extent that it is an experience.

I agree with that, but I also agree that the additional purpose to that, which I think is exemplified by this chart, is that I have been, and I think members on this council have been, and certainly the public has been very frustrated with what I would consider to be inaccurate reporting by the executive and HSD of what we've already done in the space of investments of of homelessness services.

And so we have had, most recently in the last two years, multiple examples that we can point to that either overstate, understate what our outcomes have actually been in the space of our investments of homelessness.

And so I see this as also an attempt to really get on the same page as it relates to what data is being reported out to the general public.

So it's not a moving away completely from the widget construct, but it's making sure that if we are going to continue to count widgets, that that is being done in a consistent standardized way so that we can trust and have confidence in the data and the information that is being provided to us in the blue box when we do see it so that we have a high level of confidence as policy makers that that information is accurate because we have all had the experience up on this dais of it not being accurate and the ripple waves and the lack and the mistrust that engenders in the work that the city is doing in this space has been incredibly detrimental to our ongoing efforts to be serious about addressing this crisis around homelessness.

And so I just wanna make sure that my understanding of sort of how I've thread the needle there on that last point is an accurate intent of the co-chairs and the council and is supported by council central staff's analysis of what we see on this chart.

Thank you Councilmember Gonzalez.

I want to underscore my appreciation for your comments and all the council colleagues who've spoken on this.

This is precisely why we've been asking for eight months for a dashboard to be provided to this council.

We have seen robust data presented in multiple forms throughout the budget process and I would argue throughout last spring and summer as well as we talked about the need for additional investments and making sure that those investments were going to the evidence-based proven practices that we know to be successful because they've been generated and led by our community partners.

I want to thank you for articulating that point again and underscoring I think the full council's interest in this concept of a dashboard.

I'm also going to hand out some of the early preliminary thinking that we have shared with the executive that summarizes some of these points in a slightly different way.

What you can see here is information that we know to be already available, such as exits to permanent housing, length of stay in shelters, potential returns to homelessness, entries from homelessness, utilization rates.

But then we also talk about the ways in which we can better capture some of the ways in which we're serving those who are experiencing homelessness, looking at the number of enhanced shelter beds open, per night on average is something that I brought up repeatedly versus the number of mats on the floor that are open on an average night.

The number of people who've been moved from unsanctioned encampments is really important for us to understand and where they've been moved to.

Every time we hear about a sweep or we hear about people being moved out of unsanctioned encampments, the biggest question I have is how many of those people got access to enhanced shelter?

Because they're more likely to stay in enhanced shelter than if we were offering them mats on the ground.

Other items that we've talked about are in those last two categories.

These come directly from the human service providers.

For example, we talk a lot about the low acuity visits, how many folks are needing access to mental health treatment and maybe even just wound treatment.

It'd be interesting to see if we can capture that information.

Again, I mentioned at the very beginning, the ability to stay on your medical care or to stay with your case managers came directly from some of the providers.

The ability for kids to stay in the same school to create a consistency has been critical and been raised by some of the providers as well.

These are just some examples, but I think what you've heard from us, and I'm going to look at our friends from the executive's office, What you're hearing from the whole council is a desire to see this robust dashboard provided so that we're not in the impossible position of trying to cobble together the very important data points that we do see from the various reports that have come forward.

Either the reports during budget, the reports from all home, the reports on the quarterly, updates from the navigation team and just general HSD data are critical for us to have in hand and ideally in one place.

And the last thing I'll say on this is as we look to create a regional governance structure for serving those who are experiencing homelessness and preventing people from falling into homelessness, This type of baseline data is really important.

We will have a conversation later about what that regional structure looks like, but I think it's imperative for us as policymakers, those who have the responsibility of holding the purse strings for at least a portion, a large portion of what will come forward, to know where we're at and then to be able to measure where we've gone and where we need to continue to invest in.

This is about good governance and transparency and being, I think, fiscally wise with our dollars as we center those who've experienced homelessness in how we're evaluating our successes.

And not to be punitive to any of the providers, but to really lift up the work that the providers have done so we're making sure that the investment goes to the right places.

I know we have two other items on our agenda.

Seeing no other comments on this issue, I'm going to go ahead and say thank you, Jeff, for presenting us with that spreadsheet.

I think the message has been heard loud and clear that we would like to continue to work on a robust set of data and metrics so that we can evaluate how we're doing in one place, especially as we move forward with our regional governance effort.

And, Farideh, thank you so much for reading into the agenda item number two.

Item number two, navigation team expansion update for briefing and discussion.

And could we please be joined at the table by Deputy Mayor David Mosley, Michelle Finnegan, Department of Parks and Rec, Sina Ibener from the Seattle Police Department, Tess Colby from the Mayor's Office, Jason Johnson from HSD, Jeff Sims from Central Staff.

Thanks for hanging out here with us still.

Council colleagues, first I want to acknowledge Council Member O'Brien came in very early and I didn't get a chance to note you for the record.

Thank you for being here as well.

This is an item that has two attachments.

There's background on the expansion of the navigation team.

Memo provided by central staff, Jeff Sims.

Thank you, Jeff, for providing that memo for us.

and the Seattle Human Services Department Navigation Team Capacity Increase presentation dated June 2019 by HSD.

I don't think we're going to go through all of the details of the PowerPoint presentation again, but I do think that folks were going to highlight some key components if I'm not mistaken.

And before we get into the meat of this discussion, let's just do introductions real quick.

Tess, if you want to lead us off, and then I have some opening comments.

Tess Colby, Mayor's Office.

Jeff Sims, Council of Central Staff.

David Mosley, Mayor's Office.

Jason Johnson, Human Services Department.

Sina Abinger, SPD Navigation Team.

Michelle Finnegan, Seattle Parks and Recreation.

Great.

So why don't we go ahead and let you jump into your presentation, and I'll save some comments for later.

I know we're on a short timeline today and really want to get through all of these items.

Deputy Mayor Mosley, are you kicking us off here?

Sure.

I'd be happy to offer some initial comments.

We're very pleased to be here today to discuss the navigation team's work.

and the capacity increase that we've laid out this year.

The team, of course, has reported previously to the committee, and this is an opportunity to discuss the team's ongoing work to the full committee, and we thank you for inviting us to do that.

It is no understatement to say that the navigation team saves lives.

The people who make up the navigation team come to work every day to do some of the hardest things the city asks city staff to do.

They approach the work with compassion, patience, and care for the people they are trying to help.

I've seen this personally as I've gone out with the navigation team and as I've gone to villages and shelters.

I guess the most stark example of that was during the snowstorm.

when the navigation teams literally work 24 hours a day to bring people in to temporary shelters that we set up.

And the feedback we got from some of the people who were brought in by the navigation team to those temporary shelters is they didn't know if they would have made it.

And so the team saves lives.

Since Mayor Durkin took office, she has made investments that allow the team to add critically needed staff and resources, which we will be reviewing with you today.

Many departments, including the Human Services Department, Public Utilities, Park and Recreation, Police Department, contribute to this body of work.

Today's presentation highlights these increased efforts, which work in concert to both the unsheltered and the sheltered community.

I'd like to now call on Jason Johnson to provide the background information.

Great, thank you.

So the navigation team's mission is twofold, outreach, connecting people to services and shelter, and removing encampments that pose public health and safety risk.

The team has made thousands of contacts out in the field, building up a list that helps us match people to resources and shelter.

Hundreds of encampments have been removed from public property, addressing very real public health and safety concerns.

I want to acknowledge that many of the members of the navigation team are in the chamber today.

I just want to personally thank that team for their efforts, for getting out every day and engaging in a way that is not just compassionate but is resource minded and helps make those connections for folks that are living outdoors.

I really appreciate their work and honor their work and thank you for being here today.

When the team started in 2017, it was about 22 people.

Those 22 individuals represented multiple departments as well as Evergreen Treatment Services.

They were field coordinators, police officers, operation managers, contracted outreach workers.

In 2018, thanks to investments made by the mayor and council, the team added support functions and increased capacity through data analysis, administrative support, additional field coordinators, and in 2019, the addition of system navigators, which I'll discuss in more detail a little later.

So this is Q1 data.

We have presented this information at a previous committee, but I think it's important to highlight what the overall navigation team's data looks like.

We'll have data two coming soon and expect to present that back to council in the coming weeks or months.

The individuals engaged are unique people the team members talk to and interact with.

Contacts are number of conversations that have occurred.

Think of that as the volume of work that's being made in the field.

Individual people can be contacted multiple times or just once.

Referrals to shelter are duplicated.

These referrals to shelter represent 203 unique individuals.

The team has been focused on obstruction or hazard removals in quarter one to ensure that sidewalks and public spaces are safe and open to everyone.

72-hour cleanups have been focused toward larger, more complex removals like the Trolls Knoll.

Referral to shelter information.

We've included a breakdown of shelter referrals in Q1 report, and we'll do so again in Q2.

Enhanced shelter and tiny house villages remain the most attractive shelter resource for people living unsheltered.

And there are, on average, 17 beds available to the navigation team every day.

I'm sorry.

Can you clarify that number the last time we checked in on this?

And I double checked in on that two weeks ago.

Was that for last month's data, there was five enhanced shelter beds open and one tiny house village bed open on night per average.

Where are we now getting the 17 number?

And again, this is part of our desire to make sure that we're reporting consistently.

The last time I had the chance, the opportunity to chair this committee, I asked that question as well.

And at the time at the table, the number was given 40. And then we learned in retrospect that it was actually that six number.

So where is 17 coming from at this point?

17 is the total, is the average of beds available on any given day when the navigation team is deployed.

Those include.

Oh, okay.

I misunderstood you.

So it's not enhanced shelter beds.

It's total beds.

Not necessarily.

Okay.

Thank you for that clarification.

That's very helpful.

All right, with new investments, the navigation team was able to increase its capacity to further its mission.

System navigators are new to this body of work.

These are in-house outreach workers, and they are available at all of the cleanups, which include the hazard and obstruction work, and they are available to offer services to individuals living outdoors.

They're also available on weekends to connect with people and also are helping Seattle Public Utility with their RV work.

This is an overall increase in the team's outreach capacity and frees up reach from Evergreen Treatment Services to conduct outreach in advance at more locations.

We've also added more field coordinators, which allows the team to take on more specific concerns, such as removals and litter pickups, which help make Seattle cleaner and safer while leaving encampments in place.

There is also improved coordination with the Seattle Police Department.

This means when community police teams and bike patrol offers come across someone who's in need of help, there's more overlap with the navigation team.

This includes connecting people with services, storage of belongings, referrals to shelter, and cleaning up obstructions.

I'll also just state that weekend coverage is now possible due to this expansion.

Thanks to all of these efforts working in concert together, the team can make referrals to shelters on weekends, which is a new element to the outreach team.

The team can also clean up garbage and remove encampments on weekends.

So this is a expansion over the five-day, weekday services that were in place before.

Thank you, Interim Director.

Council Member Herbold has a quick question on the last slide, I believe.

Well, it's the last slide in conjunction with the one previous to it, the data slide on the first quarter 2019 report.

So, I just want to highlight that for referrals and contacts, this first quarter 2019 report shows significantly fewer referrals to shelter.

We have 222 referrals to shelter for the first quarter 2019, whereas the first part of, let's see, last year, we're looking at 432 referrals to shelter.

I'm sorry, no, that's a comparison of this last quarter to the previous quarter, and that's actually half the number of referrals to shelter from the first part of last year.

Similarly, numbers of contacts, we have 244 contacts for August 2018 to March 2019. It was about 1,800 contacts, now it's 1,564 contacts.

And similarly, it's less than half the number reported quarterly in 2018, which was more about 3,500 contacts per quarter.

Similarly, as we mentioned earlier, the number of removals who actually received 72 hours notice in that ongoing engagement of outreach has decreased.

And I don't know if there's a relationship there between the increase in obstruction removals that don't require outreach, and this pretty significant reduction in numbers of contacts and referrals.

It has been said, we had a briefing on these numbers in my committee.

Folks pointed to the fact that this is the period of time when the storm occurred, but from my understanding of what was happening during this storm, there was more engagement.

And, you know, people were working 24-7 on trying to reach people during that time and trying to make referrals to shelter.

So I am concerned that despite the fact that we have consistently responded to the mayor's request to expand the navigation team.

The numbers of people who are being engaged in the referrals to shelter seem to be shrinking in size.

Comments?

Yeah, I want to maybe go to the next slide where we talk about the expansion efforts and the numbers for the month of June.

So you'll see that the staff and improvements have been added since fall of last year, but with the addition of the system navigators, the navigation team is operating at a higher capacity across the board.

So, I'll specifically point to the data that's on screen.

You'll see that garbage and waste debris is up roughly 30 tons when compared to monthly average.

Site inspections used to do 25 a month on average.

In June, there were 165 that were conducted.

The 72-hour removals doubled in June when compared to monthly averages.

Obstructions and hazards are up.

Litter pickups are up as well with the team doing more litter pickups in June than the rest of the year combined.

reducing hazards in encampments and in surrounding community.

So I think this, you know, we've only had the expansion in place for one month, during the month of June.

I want to come back and show, you know, full Q2 data, but I think that what we're seeing in June with the full team operating the way we intend, we're seeing a much larger increase in production and keeping spaces clean, but also in being able to engage with folks.

Interim Director Johnson, thank you for this presentation.

I want to go back to the question that Councilmember Herbold asked though, and this is again precisely why I think a dashboard that looks month-to-month is important.

Thank you for the indicators you've included on this last slide, but when we say navigation team, the intent is to navigate them somewhere.

ideally into enhanced shelter.

And what we don't have in this sheet here, what we don't have in this table is where they've been navigated to.

I see the bullet points above that says that there's 20 total referrals to shelter.

Again, the type of shelter that we're talking about, whether that's enhanced or not on the floor, is important to know.

And the 22% referral rate is an indicator, but we don't have anything to compare it to.

When we look at the 222 referrals to shelter that Council Member Herbold commented back on for the quarter one 2019 report, that's an indicator, but then again, there's nothing to compare that to.

So ideally what we would have in this chart, and I believe based on the other data you've provided, it would be possible to pull, but it would be helpful to see what those numbers look like month after month, where those individuals have been referred to, whether it's met on the ground or enhanced shelter, and how those numbers compare month over month.

I anecdotally have heard the same thing that Deputy Mayor Mosley commented on, which is we saw an increase in the number of people referred to shelters.

Ideally, it'd be helpful to know, again, what type of shelters, but you would expect to see that increase in the month, I believe, of February.

That helps us understand where we're serving folks, how we're serving them, and where they're being navigated to.

So in this navigation team operation, can you comment on where people are being navigated to, and specifically to the question that Councilmember Herbold asked, are we seeing a decrease in the type of navigation to shelters that are coming from referrals from the navigation team?

Councilmember Herbold, did I capture your question correctly?

Yeah, so we met just last week to look at the data, and it seems like most of the engagement folks are complying, meaning they are moving themselves and their belongings out of the right-of-way and are not necessarily engaging in a services conversation with the system navigators.

So for the most part, when the navigation team is called to an obstruction or a hazard, most of the folks are complying right then and there and are not engaging in a discussion about services.

That said, we're prepared to have those engagements, we want to enter into that dialogue, and the navigation team is prepared to offer a wide array of services, but not everyone is interested in having that discussion.

I'm just concerned that we've hired system navigators and that navigation isn't occurring in those particular types of obstruction removals.

And that these are folks that we have focused to help people in those instances.

And because of the nature of that interaction, it's not happening.

Agreed.

This is the point in time where we have the chance to interact with folks.

We, I think, anticipated that the entire team would be involved in those conversations.

I know Councilmember Swann and Councilmember Gonzalez, I believe, were reaching for their microphones, if anybody else.

And then perhaps you can comment on that.

Just very quickly, just to reiterate the points that were already made by other council members, that we're really not seeing the kind of data we need to see.

And also, it's simply not good enough to say that the city is going to spend millions of dollars on a program that nobody can quantify the results of.

And that the best you can say, at least as far as what you're saying right now, is that the homeless community members complied with the navigation team's instructions to not be in the obstruction areas, which, credit to them, even though they're facing such a brutal experience, they are participating in that requirement.

That's not what the claim of the navigation team is.

I mean, so much money is being spent on the navigation team not to get human beings away from business obstructions or other obstructions.

It's the claim is being made that it's helping people.

And I don't, with all due respect, Deputy Mayor Mosley, I don't think you can use what the navigation team did during the snowstorms, which is absolutely critical, you know, bringing people into shelter during that time.

But I don't think you can, use that to then make generalized claims about the effectiveness of the navigation team.

It's about what is happening overall year after year.

And it's just, you know, I've reached a point where there's presentation after presentation in both my committee and in the select committee and also in Council Member Herbold's committee.

I've been at all these committees and we're simply not seeing the results and I just feel like numbers are being spun different ways and I'm not alone.

I see a lot of people nodding here.

We've had a lot of feedback from constituents through letters and phone calls that they just don't see what the navigation team is accomplishing.

I'm gonna ask Council Member Gonzalez to make her comment and then I believe it'd be helpful to hear a response to all three of those comments.

Council Member Gonzalez.

Sure.

I actually don't have a comment.

I have some questions.

If you want them to answer these questions first, I will commit my line of questioning to memory and circle back after they've had an opportunity to answer these specific questions or react to these comments.

So we welcome feedback from the comments that Councilmember Herbold, myself and Councilmember Swann have made just in terms of how we are actually helping to serve folks at the point in time which we're asking them to move out of the right way.

Having biked in repeatedly over the last few weeks and seen individuals sleeping by the railroad tracks down in Soto, I know how important it is for people to both get out of the right-of-way for their safety as well as the safety of the public.

So, yes, we agree that that's an important component.

But as we're serving, well, as we're meeting people in their current place, how are we serving them with getting them actually into the care that we've promised through this team?

Well, let me just say one thing that I'd like to call on SPD and Parks to talk about what they've been doing with the obstruction.

First of all, our mantra and our training for all of our bike and community officers has been, it's perfectly fine for you to stay here.

Your equipment that is obstructing the public right of way can't.

So that has been our absolute approach all the way through.

It's a public right of way.

You can stay here as long as you'd like.

Your tent that is obstructing a wheelchair, like my neighbor, can't stay here.

And secondly, I would just say that the officers, the bike patrol and community police officers, that have been engaged in this always have, when they are able to have a specific engagement with a person, have offered services, and the system navigators are always available to come to follow up on that referral.

Lieutenant, do you have any comments?

Good morning, Sina Avenger from the Seattle Police Department.

So when we were talking about arrest, our arrest, that is, that is the last resort.

That is not, never the first option on our arrest.

And like the Deputy Mayor had just stated, it's about the property and blocking the right-of-way access.

We want to move that property.

It's not about the person.

It's about the property.

So people can use the sidewalk for its intended purpose.

That's what we're looking at.

And on personal observations, I've gone on many on the weekend work as well.

We've called for the system navigators.

The navigation team does do a deeper outreach.

We're centered around the unhoused.

We do assertive outreach.

In that case, and I've been on scene where we've actually called system navigator, every scene that I've been on, that we have called for the system navigator to assist us.

And they've done excellent work.

Thank you very much.

And did you have something else to add?

Just thought I could share a little bit about our experience since the seven-day coverage and the system navigators came on board.

As you know, in addition to supporting the 72-hour notice cleans and the right-of-way work, we also remove obstructions or hazards on parks property.

And that could be anything from having campers take over dugouts in our play fields or restricting use of pea patches.

Recently, we had a great partnership with the SPD officers, the system navigators, and the bioclean contractors at Lower Woodland where those picnic shelters have been taken out of use.

right before the busy season where we also have not only family and community events, but we also host our special population summer camp there.

And the team came out.

It was one of our first experiences with the system navigators who already knew the campers by name, did engage with them very well, and shared a lot of insight with our staff in going forward with the activity that day.

We have had a good experience with them, and we have some of the hardest-working staff in the Parks Department here that do that small but mighty work.

So we appreciate their time and the partnership with these other agencies to get the public spaces back for public use.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Council Member Gonzalez, go ahead with your questions, and we'll see if there's any other comments.

Great.

Thank you, Chair.

I have just some additional questions and I'm in need of some clarification as it relates to the system navigators and the role that they play and when they play it.

So, if we can go to slide whatever because I don't, these are not numbered, that one.

Yes, so the first bullet point on there says, two new system navigators positions to conduct advance and day of outreach to encampments, including connections to services and shelters such as tiny house villages, enhanced shelters, and basic shelter.

I read that correctly, right?

That's what it says?

All right, so I, I want to emphasize that my understanding of how the system navigators work is related to doing advance and day of outreach to encampments that are going to be subject to a 72-hour notice of removal.

Is that accurate?

No, not always.

They are available to join when there's any kind of obstruction, hazard, it could be a same day, it can be a planned event, but they are not restricted to only a 72-hour large cleanup.

So when you say that they're not restricted to a 72-hour cleanup, that just means that there's nothing in the law or the policy that prohibits how they are used, which is to be distinguished from how they're actually used.

So we still have a contract partnership with the REACH team and still very much engage them on our planned 72 hour or more cleanup.

So there is an engagement, a prolonged days long engagement.

with that the REACH outreach team is used as a member of the navigation team when those sites are identified.

The navigation, the system navigators are an additional resource and often are on site the day of a clean.

But they can also be a resource to park staff or SPD or the utility staff when there is an obstruction to a public right of way and the individual needs to connect to services.

They can be.

They are.

Okay, because you keep saying they can be or there's no restrictions.

I'm trying to get a clear answer on whether they are in fact being utilized in the method that you have described as it relates to the uptick in the number of sweeps that are being deemed as obstructions in the right of way and therefore not entitled to or subject to the 72-hour notice.

Yeah, I think Parks SPD, you can speak to, you know, when you make those calls and how they respond.

That's not my question.

I didn't ask when you make the call.

I'm asking if you, in fact, utilize the system navigators in the way that you've just described as it relates to obstruction and people who have already been deemed to be in obstruction of a right of way.

Yes, and SPD and Parks make that call and they work in partnership with the system navigator.

So I was saying they're in the best position to speak to what that looks like on the ground.

Well, I want to get to the point that, you know, Interim Director Johnson, I heard you say that in the instances, and I think we need to be really careful here, there are two different categories of encampment cleanups that are occurring that fall under the auspices of the navigation team.

One are the things, are the encampments that are still subject to a 72-hour notice, and those are treated on a different track.

The others, the other track is the track that is not subject, is not subject to the 72-hour removal notice because agencies have determined under the MDARs that they are an obstruction to the right-of-way and impeding the intended use of those public spaces, whether it's a park or a sidewalk, whatever the case might be.

So I'm not engaging in a debate with you or any of you at the table about that particular component.

I am just honestly trying to get an understanding of how the system navigators are used in those two various tracks.

And so I heard you say a moment ago that you haven't really needed to use system navigators in the obstruction scenario because they're complying and or are not interested in engaging in services.

The question is directed to Interim Director Johnson, who made the comment that because in the instances of those individuals who are deemed to be obstructions and receive no notice, they are complying, i.e. they're voluntarily willing to move out of the space, there is no need to use system navigators, at least as it relates to in advance of the cleanup actually occurring.

And so I just want to make sure that I understand that that is what, in fact, is occurring.

What is occurring is that when SPD is engaging with someone who is causing an obstruction on public right of way, they immediately contact the system navigator.

That system navigator is made available to the individual.

And the system navigator is engaging with that individual to see what services that individual needs.

Sometimes those services are storage of belongings.

Sometimes those services are a variety of connections to different kind of services.

It's not always to shelter.

But the services that are offered also include shelter.

So we are very much engaging with and calling on our system navigators to be the ones to have that conversation with individuals, whether it's an obstruction, hazard, whether it's at a park or on a sidewalk.

And we are also including an engagement with the system navigator on the day of some larger planned 72-hour planes.

So walk me through these slides that you have in this presentation that communicate to me or the public the instances and the timing of when a system navigator is utilized.

in advance of the removal occurring.

Yeah, so ask your question once again.

So in this instance right here on that last page, which I think is what you've pulled up, it says system navigators, 91 total engagements, 83 unique individuals.

So that means that one of the 83 or some of the 83 were engaged more than one time, right?

Okay.

On the second point, it says that there were, out of those 83 unique individuals who received 91 total engagements, 20, there were 20 total referrals to shelter for 18 unique individuals.

So really only 18 individuals received referrals to some form of shelter.

So I am trying to understand at what point, are these, is this data under the system navigator's point, are those for individuals who were subjected to the 72 hour requirement for removals, or are these for individuals who were removed as a result of a determination that they were in an encampment that was presenting an obstruction consistent with the MDAR rules?

It's both.

Separate them out for me.

I would have to get back with you with that data.

But this is inclusive of both those activities, but specific to the system navigators.

Okay.

So by when do you think you can get that follow-up information to me?

Yeah.

It shouldn't be difficult to tease out.

Okay.

Well, setting aside difficulty, by when do you think you can get that information to me?

Probably by the end of the day.

Great.

I look forward to receiving that information.

I think it's really important for us to make sure that as we are receiving and publicly reporting this information that we're being really clear as to the work that system navigators are doing which have effectively replaced reach to get a really clear understanding of whether they are effectively navigating people through the system It's important for us to understand how many of these folks are engaging in the sort of obstruction context and how many of these folks are being engaged and what the outcomes are as it relates to those who are in the sort of 72-hour slower removal context.

I just think that's an important data point for us to understand.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you very much, Council Member Gonzalez.

Looking down the line for additional comments on this.

One last comment.

Just very quickly, because Interim Director Jason Johnson wasn't there when we discussed this before.

I think it was in Councilmember Herbold's committee about REACH and since Councilmember Gonzalez brought that up.

I just wanted to read a couple of extracts of the letter that REACH wrote to Mr. Johnson on January 16th of this year, in which they say that REACH has serious concerns about being the primary outreach team embedded in the navigation team.

And that the work of the navigation team is often not in alignment with our programs, meaning reaches values or generally accepted outreach best practices.

And we would like to have an outreach contact that is more similar to the other agencies contacted by the city for outreach services.

And then one of their concerns is that the navigation teamwork is focused on shelter referrals, many of which are not an appropriate fit for residents in the encampments.

Our staff, REACH's staff, have been told to prioritize shelter offers, even when they are rarely accepted, rather than developing longer-term alternative housing plans.

also increased, that navigation team has increased designation and enforcement of emphasis zones, obstructions, and hazards, and that REACH staff have experienced increased mistrust from clients as they see the REACH team associated with rapid encampment removal and more law enforcement.

We do not see a movement in the navigation team operations towards more trauma-informed, person-centered outreach as was discussed last year.

say that as part of our meeting proceedings today, because I don't believe that the Human Services Department or the navigation team as a whole have really responded to Reach's very significant concerns in any way whatsoever.

And I don't want them to be forgotten.

We need some responses, maybe not today, but soon.

What was the date on that letter, just so we all have?

The letter was dated January 16, 2019.

Thank you very much.

So I'm going to say thank you for providing this data.

I want to say first thank you to the incredible work of the folks at the Department of Parks and Recreation for all of their work.

We know that they're, yay!

There's folks in the audience and there's folks who are potentially watching, and please express our appreciation for their ongoing work.

At Parks, thank you to SPD for your words acknowledging that being without a house is not a crime and that you really are looking for ways to help make sure people are out of the right-of-way.

I appreciate that.

And for underscoring, I think maybe even clarifying that this council's not interested in tying the hands of anybody, but also that we recognize the right for people to be able to continue with their lives if they're not committing a crime and it is not a crime to be homeless.

Thank you for underscoring that point and for being here with us today.

Thank you to you both in advance.

Tess, I feel like we left you on the end there.

If you had anything else to say, I know you'll be at the next presentation.

But Interim Director Johnson and Deputy Mayor Mosley, appreciate you getting back to us on the specific data points on engagement as Council Member Gonzalez and others have commented on so that we can have better data on how we are connecting individuals whether they are within the 72-hour notice or not within the 72-hour notice to true systems navigators and looking at the outcome from those interactions.

And also, to my point earlier, to providing in this last slide here an actual example of where we are navigating folks to.

That will be very helpful as we look at month-over-month data and especially as we transition to our next topic, which is the regional governance effort.

Lastly, just to have two quick questions.

We have seen reports online of this see a tent, report a tent postings that are occurring across the city.

I do not believe that this was the intended use of the Find It Fix It app.

And I understand that this is not a poster that's been generated from the city of Seattle or the HSD department.

So just to reiterate and clarify for the record, The city, is it correct that the city is not paying for the use and printing of the see a tent, report a tent postings?

That is correct.

That's not a HSD document.

This is not an HSD document.

This is not a city initiative.

This is not the intent of the Find It Fix It app.

And when someone does use the app in this inappropriate way, what is our response to people who've tried to use the app in this inappropriate way?

Is it being captured in some way and are we doing anything with that data?

Yeah.

So the Find It Fix It app is FAS's, it's a FAS function.

But you can use the Find It Fix It app to report all sorts of things from pothole to litter.

But also if there, you know, is a, someone that you're concerned with who's sleeping outdoors, it is also a way to, get that on the navigation team's radar.

So it was through the Find It Fix It app that we can be alerted to someone who's in distress and needs a connection to services.

Is there a better way for us to notify folks of maybe the medical unit that Council Member Bagshaw and I talk a lot about, folks who might actually need medical services?

This does not feel like an appropriate use of the app and is there a better way for us to actually as a city not use the app in this inappropriate way?

Yeah, anyone with medical needs should call 9-1-1, not 3-1-1.

Thank you very much.

And the Find It Fix It app is not for medical emergencies.

I understand it's not for emergencies and for emergencies people should call 9-1-1.

Nevertheless, outside of that, I just don't think it's appropriate for the city to formally or informally sanction members of the public to call the finite fix or use the finite fix it app to report homeless community members.

That's just not appropriate because that it contains the implication that homeless people are the problem and that that needs to be fixed.

And I think that this, I think what needs to happen is the human services department and the mayor's office, the executive have to find a way to let it be known to the public that that is not how we look at homeless people.

That's not the city's point of view.

And that, and to Chair Mosqueda's point that there's another way that people can let the city know.

Thank you for clarifying that that is not how the city intended to use the Find It Fix It app, that this is not city-generated posters, and that we don't condone the use of the Find It Fix It app in this way.

And maybe we can follow up with you prior to the next meeting or before the end of the day on how we are doing a better job of informing folks of the rights that you just talked about.

I appreciate, again, you underscoring the difference between obstruction and trying to find a place for folks to live safely, and look forward to working with you on the multiple data requests we've talked about this morning.

Thank you so much.

And I think we're going to transition to item number three, if that sounds good.

Colleagues?

Okay, great.

Farideh, if you could read into the record item number three, that would be great.

And I know Tess, you are staying at the table with us.

Go ahead, Farideh.

Agenda Item 3, Regional Homelessness Governance Update for Briefing and Discussion.

Well, I want to say thank you to Jeff Sims for staying at the table with us for this entire presentation today, Tess Colby for staying at the table.

Welcome, Tracy Ratcliffe, and thank you again for staying, Interim Director Johnson.

I don't think we need to do official introductions because I just said your names.

Today we have included in this agenda item a central staff memo.

Perhaps we could get the memo online just for folks who want to see it in the audience.

the select committee proposed timeline, the proposed regroup of functions that would stay here at the city or potentially be moved to a regional authority, and the regional action plan overview that Tess is going to provide for us.

Do you want me to say a few opening comments before turning it over to you?

Looking at you, Tess, is that okay with you?

Yeah, absolutely.

Okay.

Well, I just want to say thank you to our council colleagues.

We've included this item in our agenda to make sure that we all feel comfortable with both the proposed timeline and the conversation as it's evolved so far and want to underscore that no decisions have been made.

As we've engaged with conversations with our colleagues who are at the King County Council and our colleagues at Sound Cities who are leaders, elected leaders in various other cities in the county, we've underscored repeatedly that no final decisions have been made yet about the creation of a Regional Governance Committee And as we've been meeting, there was just one meeting last month with some of our colleagues, both from King County and the Sound Cities, we've all underscored that we all need to feel comfortable with moving forward as a collective body.

So want to make sure people hear that today from me as both the presiding chair of this select committee and as an individual who's been participating on what we call the quote client group, recognizing there's no actual individuals who experience homelessness on that client group.

The client group is actually us as council colleagues, and there's a similarly named group at King County Council who has county colleagues on that group to get informed on the various conversations that are occurring between the two executive bodies and with the various researchers and entities who've been evaluating the possibility of creating a regional governance group similar to what we've seen in Los Angeles, similar to what we've seen in the county that includes Portland, Multnomah County.

I apologize to our friends from Oregon.

So we really appreciate the presentation here today and Tess for running through with us the various elements that are in motion.

It's been challenging, I think, to identify on paper a document that incorporates all of the moving parts and appreciate your continued work with us to try to make sure that we can visually see how this is all going to come together.

But there is a real commitment here.

I believe from our council and the colleagues that we've talked to in King County, no one wants to move the deck chairs around.

We want to see true transformational change and reductions in duplication, streamlining service, and most importantly, that we get those indicators right.

We will know we are successful when we continue to see fewer people who are sleeping homeless and not because we swept them out of sight, not because we swept poverty out of sight, but we've truly created shelters, enhanced shelters and housing for folks.

So that is our indicators of success and look forward to hearing from you.

Terrific.

Thank you very much for that introduction.

That was very helpful.

So indeed, my presentation this morning is about giving you a sense of the work that we've been doing to date, and more importantly, the work that we have ahead of us.

So, as Chair Mosqueda mentioned, we have a client group that has been meeting frequently.

In fact, the client group has been kind enough to agree to meet slightly more frequently as we go into what is really the last sprint to get to regional governance.

Let me start by talking about the work that we're doing about actually standing up the new regional authority.

In order to do that, and I've mentioned this at prior meetings, we need to, we the city and the county, need to enter into an interlocal agreement.

And in addition to that, the county will be passing a charter that actually does the legal work of standing up the entity.

Our law department is working with Pacifica Law Group because they have substantial experience in setting up these kinds of entities, public development authorities.

And in doing that, they are working first on the documents of drafting the documents, specifically the interlocal agreement, but also the charter.

I will say that the key aspects of the interlocal agreement will be an agreement with the county regarding the board structure.

And that really includes, the board structure includes the kind of experience and representation that they will bring to the board.

That governing board will, If you think of a non-profit, that governing board will be in the same vein as a board of directors for a non-profit, although the PDA is not a non-profit, in terms of providing policy guidance and fiduciary responsibility for the entity moving forward.

The other thing that we're looking at and considering is an advisory committee structure that would ensure that there's a broad array of voices, experience, perspectives that are represented in the overall governance structure.

The ILA has some specific information that it will contain.

One of them is the baseline number of FTEs or personnel that both the county and the city will transition to the authority.

And that baseline is likely to be based on a minimum number of people that are needed to staff basic administration functions such as HR and IT.

but also to manage the contracts that will be transferred.

To that end, in terms of the contracts that will be transferred and the administrative functions, the ILA will also note the budget that the county and the city will be committing to it.

And again, The initial commitment from both the county and the city really is, again, for sort of baseline administrative functions and the contracted programs as are currently considered to be transferred.

And I'll be talking about that in a second.

And then finally, these documents will identify where the authority will actually be located and what it'll take to stand it up.

So in preparation for providing this very specific information, HSD and the mayor's office has been working HR departments, both the city's HR department but also HSD's HR staff, as well as labor to develop communications plans for HSI staff and a transition plan to move personnel to the new authority.

We expect to have that completed or in a final, the plan itself in a final format towards the latter part of August.

A critical component of doing this work is developing new job descriptions and a basic skeleton of what the authority's organizational chart will look like.

So as part of their scope of work, NIS, the National Innovation Services, is preparing the first drafts of these for consideration.

Once we have job classifications, there will be a crosswalk between current, between our current HSD job descriptions and the new ones that are considered.

And that's really important work in terms of figuring out what the crossover will look like between those and existing job descriptions, those new ones and the existing.

HS, on the subject of contracts and programs, HSD and the county have come to an agreement about the programs that they think should be transitioned over to the new authority.

And I believe you have a copy of a memo that's dated July 11th.

that actually shows you individually all of the programs that are under consideration for transferring over.

The short answer to that question is basically all of the All of the crisis response programs will be transferred over with the exception of, well, so the crisis response programs will be transferred over, including everything from prevention to support services related to permanent supportive housing.

The main programs that won't be transferred are what are considered upstream prevention programs that are, in essence, anti-poverty programs.

Food banks, for example, are a good example of those kinds of upstream anti-poverty type programs.

We also are not considering sending over the navigation team.

However, the outreach function of that we are thinking about putting in the new authority.

And that's really because, as was discussed today, the outreach in advance of doing any kind of navigation work is extremely important.

And we feel like that should be part of an overall continuum of outreach services, which would actually be one of the responsibilities of the new authority, to ensure that there's good coordination among all of our outreach contractors.

Pause there just for a quick second.

Any questions from our colleagues?

Okay.

I have a few questions about that that I will be following up with you on.

Specifically as it relates to what would the role of a navigation team be with a potential joint governance structure that is intending to consolidate our services for those who are experiencing homelessness and preventing homelessness.

It seems like there's a direct nexus there.

So I think this is the first time I'm hearing that.

I'm happy to answer that and we'll let Interim Director Johnson jump in should I need assistance with that.

So we understand the navigation team to be critical in terms of the city's response to addressing homelessness and specifically helping folks who are living outside get access to shelter and other resources as has been described before you today.

The navigation team is a program that's unique to the city of Seattle.

We are not aware of other jurisdictions that are interested in, that have the resources for or that are interested in the same approach that we are taking.

So that's one of the reasons that we feel like it's important for the city to continue to run that program.

Additionally, the navigation team involves a number, it's an interdepartmental team.

And as a result of that, we really feel that it is appropriate to keep it within the city infrastructure.

Okay.

Thank you.

If we have other questions on that, we'll follow up with you.

And can I offer one reframe?

I think that at the beginning you said the executives have come to agreement on what will be transferred.

Is it accurate to say come to agreement on what would be proposed to the councils on what would be transferred?

Yes.

Okay.

Yes.

Absolutely.

And I'm sorry.

I thought I used that as a recommendation.

So they are making a recommendation.

The chart that's on the screen in front of you is part of that recommendation.

And in order to get to this recommendation, county staff and city staff needed to work together.

Thank you.

So the other piece of this work that has been discussed before this committee previously is the regional action plan.

And I just want to remind us all sort of what the regional action plan is.

And in fact, prior to this particular presentation today, Chair Mosqueda very appropriately noted that the regional action plan, one of its most important functions will be in establishing region-wide performance metrics and then being accountable to the achievement of those metrics.

So the plan is being developed by a non-profit named CSH.

And they are in advance of preparing this document and providing a draft to us, doing extensive outreach to stakeholders across the county.

This is a regional plan, as the name implies, that is addressing homelessness region-wide.

So CSH has really made a big effort to make sure that Part of the outreach is with providers and organization and government staff and the Sound Cities Association to reach really all perspectives.

The regional action plan will be a community plan.

So it won't, while it will be informing what the regional action, excuse me, the regional governance does, it is not the sole jurisdiction of that authority.

It's intended to provide action-oriented solutions and really taking into consideration the information that they've gained through the community engagement process, through data analysis, and also looking at the 10 goals that were brought to us early this year from the NIS report that they did last year.

It will lay out metrics and milestones and a methodology to track those.

It will note who is accountable, whether that is an agency, a provider, or in some cases, individuals that are accountable for meeting those metrics and meeting those specific established goals.

It will provide recommendations on sequencing of the achievement of those goals, and I'll talk about that in a second as well.

It's doing, so CSH is working internally to do a lot of cost estimates, so obviously a plan that doesn't have Accompanying budgets and cost estimates really doesn't get us very far down the road.

And so those project costs, projected costs for interventions will really serve as an underpinning for the budgets that the authority will seek, the budget authority they will seek from the city and the county and any other jurisdiction that becomes a member of or a part of the regional entity.

Can I ask a quick question on that budgeting point?

I think everybody is interested in success.

There's no question in our minds that providing services and having more housing is really the goals, two of the goals that we're trying to achieve.

How do we have some confidence that no matter how much money we budget, we're actually going to be able to move forward to accomplish these goals?

That's an excellent question.

I think the intent of the Regional Action Plan is really to provide us with short-term, medium-term, and long-term goals and the actual steps in order to take that and to meet those goals.

The first thing that the authority will be asked to do is essentially create a strategic plan of its own and annual work plans that will be informed by and be in alignment with the regional action plan so that those early goals will be about establishing plans and procedures for doing exactly what you have described, which is making sure that there is a clear and transparent process for tracking progress.

In the midterm, the goals could be, and again, this hasn't been decided, but the goals could be tracking, for example, reductions in the amount of time folks spend experiencing homelessness.

It could also be looking at ways in which we can reduce the number of people who are coming into homelessness and increase the number of people who are leaving to permanent housing.

The long-term goals, I think, are really the North Star.

And the long-term goals could be, for example, goals to achieve or make meaningful progress towards reducing homelessness among specific populations.

This is an approach that communities take all across the country.

It has many different names, but for example, there have been a number of campaigns, if you will, about reducing the number of folks who are youth or veterans or unsheltered, specific populations so that they can be targeted so that the progress towards achieving those goals can be tracked and tracked publicly.

What we expect of the new authority is that much in the same way that All Home has created dashboards that both provide system level analysis and metrics, but also dig down into the intervention level and program level, we would expect the authority to be able to do this.

and because it will be a regional authority to be able to carve out data as needed for the individual jurisdictions across the county.

Great.

Tess, thank you for that.

I know that we're all anxious to see that.

I also want to acknowledge what King County has done around familiar faces, and we are also doing some of that.

I think digging down and making sure that we know for each individual that we're touching, Are we making improvement?

Is that person just getting sort of shuffled around or are we saying that we're able to address the individual needs, that person-centered approach we all have been talking about?

Yeah, and that really is one of the reasons that we're excited about the authority.

As Mark Jones has previously described, and I'm happy to reiterate it as often as I can, the authority will have the responsibility for ensuring that client voice, that customer voice is at the center of all of the work that it does.

And there's both the need to make sure that those people who are experiencing homelessness and who have prior experience with homelessness are a part of the authority.

In addition, we know that there are populations who are disproportionately represented among homeless populations and making sure that we are taking an equity lens and that the authority in every step of the work that it does is looking at both the needs of customers and that disproportionality.

Meeting the needs of customers and having meaningful impact on disproportionality will be critical for the success of the authority.

Thank you, Council Member Bagshaw.

Council Member Harrell, any questions?

Okay.

I didn't mean to interrupt you.

Did you have more?

I was the one that interrupted, sorry.

No, you're both okay, because actually that was the extent of the update that I wanted to give today.

Okay.

Tracy and Jeff, thank you both very much for being at the high number of meetings that we've had, both internal to the city and with King County.

Are there any other comments from you on terms of framing, next steps?

If we could go to the timeframe that was also outlined.

in the memo, any additional comments from you, things that you'd like us to have on our radar?

So the only thing that's not showing up on that schedule is obviously the RAP needs to come back to the select committee for their consideration as well.

The client group will see a draft of that in August, I believe.

But I think we would expect that the select committee would also like to see a draft and final draft, particularly as they consider the ILA and the charter.

And I think we've talked enough about that so that we understand that that's planned.

It probably just needs to be updated on the schedule there.

Okay, that sounds very helpful.

Hand in hand.

Okay, so we will get that updated timeline to our council colleagues.

I know we've seen it.

a little bit more built out time frame presented in the client group.

So we'll share that with our council colleagues.

I would love to check in with our central staff, with the council colleagues here and not here today about the comment around potentially retaining the navigation team.

To me, I think it just raises a few more questions that I haven't had the chance to ask you about.

So I'll potentially follow up with you afterwards about what that looks like and additional questions about the rationale.

Any other comments?

Just one, thank you.

Obviously, you're doing so much work on this, and I really appreciate everybody at the table for just digging in.

And we, of course, are working on a fast-track schedule because, as we've all talked about, a number of us aren't going to be here next year.

And we would really like to see this move forward in 2019. Also, I just want to say thank you.

You've been a fantastic co-chair.

I appreciate working with you.

And also, Council Member Jeannie Cole-Wells and Rod Dembowski, Joe McDermott were with us last week when we got together from King County.

And Nancy Bacchus from Auburn has been a wonderful co-pilot through all of this.

And I just want to raise again that Sound Cities really wants to be involved.

They would like as much as possible to be on the front end.

and not here at the tail end, oh, by the way, this is it and here it is.

So if we can just reach out to sound cities as well as we're just keeping them informed of what's going on.

Thank you.

And thanks to Council Member Upthegrove too for being there.

Yeah, Council Member Upthegrove was there as well.

Thank you for that.

And thank you very much for that presentation.

I know there will probably be more questions as we get into the later part of the summer, and as we carry out the timeline that's been presented, I want to make sure that everybody feels well informed, including not just council colleagues, but the public.

Speaking of the public, we have the remainder of the time for public testimony.

Thank you all for waiting.

Thank you, Council Member.

No problem.

Really interested to hear your feedback on what you potentially heard today as well.

So we will go ahead and move into public comment.

And Farideh, if you could also give us a minute and a half on the timer, recognizing that we know folks have a lot to say and you may have written comments, so we're happy to accept those as well.

Thank you.

And thank you all for being here, and I apologize for that.

That's OK.

We will pass on notes, and I know that it's available online.

So the first three people to testify are Jerome Snell.

I'm sorry, Jerome.

Thank you.

Oh, no, it's OK.

You tell me how to correct it.

Thank you so much.

And then behind you will be Erin Goodman and then Janane Kulvacek.

Thank you for the writing it out for me.

I'm sure I need help with it still.

Welcome.

Good.

Thank you for waiting for us one second so that we can get you the full time.

And thank you Councilmember Herbold for sticking around.

We look forward to hearing from you.

A minute and a half.

You know what?

Go ahead.

Go ahead and go ahead and make it two.

We'll try and get through everybody.

Go ahead, sir.

Yes.

I just want to come here and share what I feel is the only solution to this homelessness problem.

And I've gotta just, this was timed for five minutes and two seconds, so I'm gonna try to get it all in real quick here.

All right, we'll take it in writing.

Let me move on.

So I've done my homework and I've gone around and I've talked to folks in these tent camps and homeless shelters and the little houses and all that.

and got their feedback, and I talked to doctors and chemical dependency specialists, police officers, and so on and so forth.

Let me move on here.

I just wanted to get right to it.

So Washington State owns 27 plus acres over on McNeil Island.

Is that correct?

Okay.

And there's also a correctional facility there as well.

We just need to do a little building.

And I represent our life.

Sorry, I'm jumping all over the place.

We would like to build a drug addiction center there.

And we would like to build a mental health center there.

as well as the Center for Alcoholism and Job Training Center.

We also like to build housing for 20,000 people.

And that's just green cots.

That's just the same thing they have here, but in the circular motion.

And the only difference is that we would have showers, we would have toilets, that kind of thing.

And we would like to have a brand new ferry designed just for this purpose, and that is to transport large amounts of people to the island.

Thank you, Jerome.

I'm going to have to cut you off there, but we will happily take your written material because I know you put a lot of work into it.

I'm so sorry, sir.

You owe me three minutes from last time.

Let me finish.

I am happy to let you conclude.

How about a minute?

How about a minute?

We really need to have you conclude.

Do you have one more summary statement?

Okay.

One more summary statement.

I won't go through the funding.

I'll just say this.

I would like to see Seattle and the state of Washington be the model for the nation in bringing back its lost brothers and sisters from drug addiction and bring them back to be productive citizens.

I would like to see them connect and reconnect with family members and friends and stuff through the treatment program that we would set up over at McNeil Island.

This is worth more than the riches that everybody is talking about here, okay?

Thank you, Jerome.

We're happy to take your summary statement.

Aaron Goodman, followed by Jeannie Kovacek, followed by Bruce Gorgel.

Thank you.

Aaron?

Okay.

Jeannie?

Did I say that wrong?

Bruce?

Hi, Bruce.

I'm happy to take your summary as well when you're done.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, council members.

My name is Bruce Gogle.

I'm the elected Nickelsville head of security at Othello Tiny House Village.

Othello was bum-rushed by Low Income Housing Institute paid security on April 8, 2019, and they have occupied us ever since.

We are on strike.

In a recent interview with My Northwest, radio reporter Carolyn Osario, Sharon Lee, director of the Low Income Housing Institute, described my testimony and the testimony of many other people from Nicholsville over the last three months as badgering.

Other Lehigh Management staff has told me that your response to our testimony was meaningless.

Lehigh Management at a recent camp meeting told residents that they would not negotiate with Nicholsville and in no way would they come to mediation.

The refusal to complete a MOU that is 95% finished is negligent considering the crisis in Seattle.

It's time to end the stranglehold Lehi has had, not only on Nicholsville, but you council members.

Sharon Lee is a coward who hides behind her organization's years of good work.

She's using past success to cover up her present failures.

HSD is responsible for allowing Lehigh to monopolize sanction encampments.

HSD, every step of the way, has violated the city ordinance, ignored the director's rule, and has allied with Lehigh, are guilty of many of the false allegations against Nicholsville.

It is HSD who are bullies and have targeted the truth.

It is they who have lied to the city council, the general public, and worst of all, themselves.

Last Friday, Lisa Gustavuson, an HSD staff person who worked under the sweep star Jackie St. Louis until he quit on Friday, told a share worker something very shocking.

HSD staff person Lisa Gustavuson told him that HSD was shutting down Northlake-Nicholsville and would shut down Othello, too, if we didn't fire our staff person.

For good measure, she told the share worker that HSD would never renew a contract with SHARE for indoor shelters if they didn't fire this specific staff person.

On Friday, Nickelsville & Writing offered another HSD staff person the opportunity to review all the bar paperwork at Nickelsville Othello, anytime and anyplace.

That is the same offer that Director Sharon Lee has ignored.

The reason is because it would disprove many of her allegations.

Transparency she seeks is within her grasp, yet she has chosen to ignore it.

It's time to end this disgrace and hold HSD and Lehigh accountable for their deception with audits and sanctions.

The truth will be revealed whether it's badgered or not.

Please insist on mediation between HSD, Lehigh, and Nickelville.

If they keep refusing, please expose both to sanctions.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Peggy Hotz, followed by Jess Mayuk, followed by Heather Staples.

And Peggy?

Jess?

OK.

Peggy?

Do we have Peggy?

Hi, Peggy.

I don't know which one is better for me.

That's great.

Can you hear me?

Good afternoon, council members.

My name is Peggy Hotz, and I'm a Nicholsville founder and a volunteer.

A month ago, we left these chambers excited and optimistic after your expressed support for mediation between Nicholsville, Lehigh, and HSD.

We scarcely had time to exit City Hall before Lehigh and HSD dismissed the council, saying they had no intention of mediating with Nicholsville.

A few days ago, we were told by a SHARE 2 worker who had met with HSD staffer Lisa Gustavuson that HSD is planning to close Nicholsville Othello unless we fire a particular staff person.

According to Gus Davison, Nicholsville North Lake, which is running splendidly, by the way, will also be closed.

How is this helping the homeless people who live there?

I will remind you, too, that when HSD closed Licton Springs, Gus Davison promised that everyone would get housing, and they did not, only about half of them.

Just yesterday, I spoke to a woman who's living with her partner at Othello Village, formerly from Licton Springs.

Wouldn't the adult thing to do be to sit down and talk face-to-face with us, with the mediator?

And since when does Lehigh, excuse me, does HSD get to dictate who the service providers choose to employ?

How arrogant, how shameful for a human services department staffer to threaten and bully the very people they're supposed to be helping and protecting.

Does HSD treat every service provider this way?

This is a rhetorical question because you know the answer.

Or only the two small grassroots organizations run by homeless people who speak truth to power.

Please take the steps necessary to stop this madness and get HSD and Lehigh to mediate with Nicholsville.

Thank you.

Thank you, Peggy.

And I'll follow up with you as well afterwards.

Heather Staples, Teresa Barker, and then Amy Heckenplane.

Hi there.

Hi.

I'm in between height.

The one works.

There you go.

Hi.

I'm Heather Staples.

I'm the managing director at Impact Hub Seattle.

And we're sort of on the forefront of operating a business and having a homeless community in front of our business.

And I'm here actually to speak in support of the NAV team because Unfortunately, our business was one of the first co-working spaces in Seattle, and now this is one of the most competitive communities for doing what we do.

Our staff has a whole lot of compassion and interaction with the communities around us.

We work closely with UGM.

We work closely with Chief Seattle Club.

But unfortunately, without the NAV team support, we were losing our customers to the point where we were failing.

And so I really appreciate the city supporting our company and supporting our ability to be a part of the Pioneer Square community.

And we have found the NAV team to be very supportive and respectful of the people that they interact with.

Thank you.

Thank you for being here and the work that you do at Impact Tech.

Theresa Barker, Amy Hogopine, and then Alianna Scott.

Iliana Scott-Torres

Hi there.

Hi.

Hello, Committee Chair Mosqueda and Council Member Herbold and other council members.

My name is Theresa Barker.

We've corresponded a little bit, and I'm a little nervous.

So I did want to speak today on the work of the NAB team in person and have a chance to share that.

So as you know, I'm a resident of North Seattle in the area of Urbana and Cowan Parks.

When I first heard about the city's NAB team, I was really skeptical.

The problem of homeless encampments actually seems insoluble to me, and I'm an engineer.

But over the last two years, our community on all sides of the park has worked with the city in this problem.

We've met twice with Rob, with our former council member, SPD Parks.

And at one of those meetings, the NAV team member came and spoke to us.

And what we learned in our neighborhood is that the NAB team approaches campers with compassion and a heartfelt desire to provide support and assistance.

They listen to their stories, they advocate for the unsheltered person, to find them sheltered, to connect them with services, and to build a relationship that leads to trust, which is what we're hearing is why so many times the services are turned down as a lack of trust due to trauma in these individuals' lives.

We really want them to move forward with their lives.

We have a neighborhood group that provides a hot meal once a week on the 65th Park and Ride that was modeled on the Rainier Valley meal.

And we are exquisitely aware at how vulnerable these individuals are in their tents.

There's no locks on tents.

They're at risk from health issues, from bad weather, from criminals who prey on them.

So in our community engagement group, we have approximately 150 residents on all sides of Ravenna Park and we support, our community does support the navigation team and we believe it should be expanded to provide more services.

We also need to say that safe enhanced shelters and a boatload of affordable housing is needed to replace what has been wiped out in the past decade.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Welcome.

Hi, it's Amy Hagopian.

Thank you, Amy Hagopian.

I live in the central area.

So I'm here today to notice the failures in Mayor Durkan's homeless strategy, which I appreciate that many of you did in today's meeting as well.

especially the newly accelerated sweeps and the extreme disarray in which the city's Department of Human Services finds itself, with frayed relationships across the city, staff who disrespect homeless people, key staff vacancies and staff resignations now on a weekly basis, most importantly, the loss of Tiffany Washington, who headed up Homeless Strategy.

Licton Springs tiny house village was swiped from the face of the earth this spring, as Peggy said, sending half its remaining residents to the streets.

Rumors are the city hopes to eliminate more villages.

Eleven years ago, Nicholsville organized Seattle's first democratically run encampment that sought to remain in a single place for more than 90 days.

Nicholsville understands homelessness is the result of the maldistribution of power and wealth.

Homeless people need to organize their own communities with their own rules and ways to enforce those rules.

I'm a public health faculty member at the UW.

My graduate students spent winter quarter this year interviewing almost everyone living in Nicholsville's four homeless encampments.

They found nearly two-thirds of camp residents identified strongly as Nickelodeons.

Nicholsville's accountability structures and processes build community cohesion.

They help individuals develop valuable skills.

They help them develop agency and personal growth.

I worry about this cozy relationship with Lehigh and HSD.

I think Lehigh views its best alternative to a negotiated agreement as continuing on with this relationship, edging Nicholsville's self-governance off the table.

This council has asked for mediation at its last meeting, and yet nothing has happened to advance that idea, and I recommend you insist.

Thank you very much.

Hi, Eliana.

Following you will be Kola Ludwig and then John Trinone, followed by Lisa Netsy.

Apologies for the mispronunciations.

My name is Eliana Skatonis.

I'm the chair of the Othello Village Community Advisory Committee.

I have a lot of comments on what happened today, but I have prepared things to say.

But if you could pass on my thanks to the other council members.

I have never felt so well represented by the council as I did with the questions that were asked today.

Thank you very much.

Last month, I shared with you a letter signed by 11 CAC members from five different CACs, which expressed our concerns about how HSD has fallen short of our hopes in their oversight of the villages and our urgent request that you take action to address this and to bring about mediation between HSD, Lehigh, and Nicholsville.

Your caring response that day was really amazing and meant a lot to me and more importantly to the residents whose voices have been too long ignored in these conversations.

So thank you.

I'm troubled that despite the conversations several of you have had with HSD and Lehigh, that the situation has worsened over this past month.

An HSD staff person has clearly stated that HSD intends to shut down Othello Village when the permits expire in September if residents continue to insist on maintaining their self-management system, and that they also intend to shut down the North Lake Village.

In this homelessness crisis, shutting down branches of the city's most effective harm reduction option is a shocking disappointment.

Lehigh has also chosen to publicly and privately scapegoat one Nicholsville staff person, erasing and disrespecting the voices and agency of the residents of North Lake and Othello Villages.

The picture they paint bears no resemblance to what I have observed.

And I am very troubled that an agency responsible for serving the needs of so many vulnerable neighbors in a number of contexts is refusing to recognize the dignity and autonomy of these brave, determined folks.

I believe the approach HSD has taken has encouraged these erasures and pressured service providers to ignore individual needs and voices in pursuit of tidy metrics and the appearance of progress.

I urge you to identify what steps you can take in finding some just resolutions.

We're eager to work with you on this, but need your leadership to move forward.

Thank you.

Hi, my name's Kolya.

I'm from Seattle, but I currently live in Los Angeles.

Pleased to address the remaining two council members who care to hear what Seattle thinks about this.

So I came to this meeting with a couple fundamental questions, none of which were really answered.

The first one, is the concern of the most marginalized people in Seattle more important than the desires of the most powerful people in Seattle?

The folks who profit from the gentrification that causes homelessness?

That question wasn't answered.

In fact, gentrification was never brought up.

What we saw today was a discussion of how to manage the fallout from gentrification.

So until everyone on the council is willing to make a personal sacrifice to challenge and limit the power of people who cause gentrification and profit from it, we won't address the issue of homelessness.

So my second question is, what is every council member willing to sacrifice in terms of social capital, potentially their political careers, to advocate for the folks in Seattle with the least social capital?

To that end, I actually propose a new metric for the online evidence-based dashboard.

Number of relationships you have lost or tarnished because you have upset powerful people while advocating for homeless people.

And you could operationalize that through number of angry emails you've received or loss of contacts, people no longer answer your calls, things like that.

Just something to think about as you go forward.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for your testimony.

John, followed by Lisa.

Hi, John.

Good morning, Councilmember.

Good morning.

My name is John Trevino.

I live in Nicholsville, North Lake, and I was here at the last meeting of the Select Committee on Homelessness in June.

Hey, Nicholsville, Northlake, we've managed to remain a self-governed village and do our own security, saving the city about $270,000 a year if you compare to what they're spending over at Othello.

So you guys have already heard about the HSD, the rumors going around about shutting down Northlake.

and the non-compliant Nicholsville Villages and so on addressed mediation earlier, which we appreciate.

But it just seems like HSD and Lehigh are going to run out the clock till the leases are up.

I don't know if this is possible, but could the city council vote to demand that HSD, Nicholsville, and Lehigh get together and do mediation instead of asking?

We have At least two people who are like gravely Like like have like life-threatening illness in our in our village for them to lose their houses would be you know It would be a disaster so anything the council can do to remove the impediments and static and freeze between these three Lehigh HSD and Nicholsville and get this done, you know, make our lives a lot happier.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for your testimony.

Hi, Lisa.

Thanks for waiting.

Hi, I'm Lisa Nitze, and I'm here to speak in favor of the mayor's navigation teams.

And thank you to Councilmember Muscata and Herbold for the opportunity to address you and also for your terrific questions on impact metrics, which are critical and having them match up.

I'm here representing Nitze Stegen, a real estate developer and property manager with a history in Soto and Pioneer Square.

We own and manage the Starbucks Center and restored Union Station and Merrill Place, restored the Cadillac Hotel, and we're founding members of the Soto BIA and the Alliance for Pioneer Square.

And we've always had a commitment to investing in neighborhoods and working collaboratively with neighbors on public-private partnerships and addressing issues facing the neighborhood in order to support safe, healthy, and thriving areas.

We, on June 14th, purchased property at 3rd and South Washington in Pioneer Square, an abandoned lot and building, and we're putting in 80 units of workforce housing and a retail entity there.

And we break ground this summer and open in 14 months, so as many as 160 residents will be coming and going starting a year from now in that area.

along with having a retail store operating in the first floor.

So I wanted to thank the mayor for stepping up the navigation teams, which have led to significant health and safety improvements in that area.

Accessible sidewalks with obstructions removed and accessible roadway for driving with obstructions removed.

and garbage cleanup, which I think are going to be very helpful to increasing the health and safety of that area.

We're looking forward to working with our neighbors to collectively and collaboratively address the needs of the area, along with the city, by taking a systems change approach that results in long-term health and stability and vibrancy and safety in the area for all.

And the ongoing work of the NAV team is essential to bringing this about.

Thank you.

Thank you for being here, and thank you for your testimony and waiting.

I want to thank everybody for staying and testifying, and if folks do have written comments or you want to send us something later, really appreciate you doing that.

I don't see anybody else running to the microphone.

Okay, sir.

We'll go ahead and have you, and then you'll be our last person to testify.

David Ains.

I just want to point out that the, Find It Fix It app is being promoted by the cops around the city to bypass the 9-11 calls, because being poor is not a crime, yet it's being treated like a crime.

And we need to address that.

But the thing is, is like, when the emphasis patrols are going through, which is also proof of the war on the poor, they don't seem to have outreach.

You know, they're really, it's like, And the city council, I believe, made a law that said if you're an individual, not three people in a tent encampment, you don't get the same notification or even a 24-hour notice.

So if you go to the store, to the bathroom, whatever, you come back, your stuff's gone.

There's no outreach there.

And I know that that deputy mayor said that when the infancy patrols come along and start scaring people away, he says, well, we can call the navigation for you, but that navigation is not going with those emphasis patrols.

A lot of times those people are like, that's it, I don't want nothing to do with it.

But the thing is, you can use the data to manipulate perceived success, but it doesn't address the subhuman shelters and services.

And anyway, that's the thing.

Thank you, David.

That's very helpful.

And if you could just pull the microphone a little closer to you, that one that's closest.

Okay, we got it for you.

I just want to say one quick message.

As you put together this new whole committee here in King County, please do not forget those with current lived experience.

Involve us, include us, not a PhD that was homeless 20 years ago, but people who are living here in Seattle now that have experience with the NAV teams and other teams as I have experience.

Include us and don't forget about that because sometimes a project or program or something comes on and it looks great, sounds great, but for someone who's living in their car and a car per comes around, it just doesn't work.

It's not going to work.

So include us.

Thank you very much.

Excellent point.

Thank you.

So that concludes our public testimony today.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold and all of our other council colleagues who were here.

Just public service announcement.

The next select committee meeting on homelessness and affordability will be on August 12th at 1030 following council briefing.

And thank you, Farideh, for chairing for us today and all your good work.

We will do some follow-up with the individuals here who've expressed concern about the mediation, as Council Member Sawant mentioned at the beginning.

She has taken lead on helping to coordinate folks, so we'll follow up with you on the report that she gave this morning.

And then also, all of the questions and good ideas that came up from the council discussion, we'll make sure to circulate that and provide it to the public as well.

With that, today's meeting is adjourned.

Thank you all so much.