Seattle City Council Select Committee on Homelessness & Housing Affordability 6/24/19

for being here.

This is our Select Committee on Homelessness and Housing Affordability.

Today is June 24th.

The time is 1030 a.m.

I am Sally Bagshaw.

I am one of the co-chairs of this committee.

I am joined by Councilmember Juarez, Councilmember O'Brien, Council President Harrell, Councilmember Pacheco.

Thank you and Councilmember Sawant.

Thank you all for getting here and being on time so we can get moving.

We first need to do the approval of the agenda, and if there's no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

And we have two items on this committee agenda today, the Regional Homelessness Governance Committee Report by Tess Colby.

Thank you, Tess, from the mayor's office for being here.

I want to thank you for your leadership on this.

Jeff Sims from our Council Central staff.

You've done a great report, which is in your packet of material.

Also, Melinda Giavengo, one of our pals in this community, head of youth care, will be talking about our youth homelessness.

And also Lamont Green from All Home.

Thank you, Lamont, for being here.

I think Dusty Olson, will you be part of this?

Very good.

And Zachary DeWolf, I expect that you will be up at the table.

So we're very happy to have you all.

So we're going to have public comment.

I see that we've got...

Seven people signed up.

I'm going to call your names as always.

Everybody on this list I recognize.

I appreciate you being here.

Eliana, you're first, followed by Kate, Gregory, and Bruce.

I think you're all talking about regional planning.

I'm going to ask you for the next two and three people to be up at the microphone so that we can just move right on through this.

So, Eliana, good to see you again, please.

Good to see you.

Hello, my name is Eliana Skatonis.

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

Last month, I appeared before this committee as part of a panel extolling the many benefits of tiny house villages, and I want to reiterate that I passionately support this model and believe it to be one of our best harm reduction tools for addressing the homelessness crisis.

However, I am here today to share with you a letter from members of five different CACs calling on you to remedy a serious lack of appropriate oversight and accountability for this program and to address the current crisis.

I urge you to read it and respond to us promptly.

We expect city-funded human service contractors to be held accountable by HSD, and we're disappointed that this is not happening.

For example, Lehigh is not being held accountable for lack of a functional grievance policy or failure to appropriately address serious allegations of case manager misconduct or incompetence.

When Lehigh refused to engage in mediation with Nicholsville, despite public commitments to do so, as documented in the October minutes of the Northlake CAC, and instead abruptly terminated their partnership, HSD allowed this to proceed despite residents' outcries and clear determination to remain Nicholsville communities.

When CAC members have raised our concerns to HSD, to the mayor, and to you, the council, we have not seen meaningful action taken to address these concerns.

This is deeply troubling and disappointing.

We have seen the life-changing and life-saving benefits of the tiny house model and wish to see it strengthened and expanded.

However, unless the systemic issues are uncovered and remedied, we risk causing harm to our most vulnerable neighbors and providing pretexts to those who wish to shut down these much-needed shelters.

We know you have all been strong supporters of the tiny house village model, and we call on you to take the necessary actions to address the troubling issues we have uncovered.

One of these actions is a formal performance audit to increase accountability and success.

Another is to direct HSD and Lehigh to come to the table with Nicholsville for professionally mediated negotiations to find a just resolution to the current crisis.

And I'm available after this committee meeting or at any other time to answer any questions you might have.

Thank you.

Thank you much, Eliana.

Kate, Bruce, and then Alan, and I think it's Martel.

Hi, council members.

I'm asking your support for a coordinated regional solution with budget authority to provide focused by name services that are equitable throughout the region.

Thank you.

Thank you, Kate.

Bruce, you're right there.

Thank you.

Alan, would you please come up to the next microphone and then John Trevena after that.

Good morning, council members.

My name is Bruce Gogol.

I live at Occupy Dussello Village.

Occupied Othello Village, or OOV for all you city folks, has continued to be mismanaged by HSD and Lehigh, whom have displayed unbelievable incompetency.

To date, HSD has not sent any specialized people to OOV to discuss residents' concerns.

The question that needs to be answered is, what exactly are specialized people?

What are they specialized in?

HSD and Lehigh have lied to the city council in order to cover up their mismanagement of OOV and failure to help the people they are supposed to be serving.

Together they have failed not only us but have deceived you council members.

To date HSD has not responded to a summary of complaints sent to HSD on April 8th.

HSD has sent Jackie St. Louis and Lisa Gustavuson.

Are these the specialized people Jason Johnson speaks about?

Specialized in what?

OOV residents would appreciate some clarity on exactly what they do.

So far, complaints have gone unanswered.

They show little interest in hearing them.

When hearing a complaint at a recent meeting about strangers in the camp, Lisa responded, how is that different than allowing Scott Morrow to be at camp?

This was their response to a complaint, condescending, inappropriate banter from a city employee.

OOV residents complained about safety issues, and this is the best HSD can offer.

Instead of asking HSD where is the specialized people, council members, you should be asking HSD if they know what specialized means.

The city contract with Lehigh for OOV is $439,000 for 2019. It doesn't take a whole lot of basic math to figure out that at $800 per day, Lehigh security, there is not enough money in the budget for OOV.

Of course, Lehigh could shift money from here to there to make up for the difference, but at what cost to OOV residents, or taxpayers for that matter?

The contract between HSD and Lehigh is very clear on where the money is spent.

How are we to know that Lehigh obligations are being fulfilled.

Goodwill vouchers were not received by residents last year or this year.

A few here and there does not add up to the amount of money Lehigh has received from the city.

In the past, case management was non-existent.

At some of the villages, yet those contracts revealed that Lehigh was reimbursed for services rendered.

It would be prudent for council members and the City of Seattle to insist on an in-depth audit of HSD and Lehigh.

Thank you very much.

I yield my time to Bruce.

Okay, just a moment, Alan, John, and then Chris, in that order.

Thank you, Bruce.

Thank you, your time is up.

Thank you.

Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't understand.

So you are Alan, and all right, Bruce, go ahead.

Thanks, Ellen.

The spreadsheet that Lehigh has provided does not provide an insight on actual dollars being spent.

A generalization of money spent is just that and does not clearly justify every dollar.

There's a reason why Lehigh refused to reveal expenditures to Nickelsville.

There is a reason HSD does not respond to complaints about OOV being neglected by Lehigh during the construction of a Lehigh village last year.

Just recently at the OOV CAC meeting, that reason became a little clearer.

Sean Neal, the contract monitor for the contract between HSD and Lehigh, revealed at the meeting that he personally was writing the contract with Lehigh's involvement last December.

Last December was when Sharon Lee decided to use the MOU meetings to assassinate the character of Nickelsville.

She had no interest in coming to a solution to an MOU that was 95% complete.

She was already writing a contract without Nickelsville.

So without Nickel Spill, life in the village has spiraled down into the corporate abyss of Lehigh.

Rats have invaded our village.

They are everywhere.

Food is left out, spoiling in trays.

Lehigh security refuses to do what Nickelodeons did for free.

Our kitchen is disgusting.

Water is often drawn from a rubber water hose, which I personally have become ill from.

Cameras have been installed, invading our privacy.

So far, three that I know of.

Residents have reported to me that security has secretly recorded residents' conversations in the security posts.

Lehigh removed our donation coordinator just to replace him with someone who was granted a host because that was promised to him.

Now he's moved into a new house, and his old house was turned into an office for the site manager.

This donation coordinator has also approached residents with a scheme to sell donations.

Case management is a lawsuit waiting to happen, and I will keep you posted on that.

I have filed a complaint with Lehigh per their own procedure, but they have not responded in the timely manner that they said they would.

My complaint concerns ethic violations, abuse from this case manager, and worst of all, a crime, illegally recording residents with a phone and playing back to other residents.

I've been vocal about Lehigh and HSD, mismanaged my OOV.

I've been told I will not receive housing through Lehigh.

I've spoken truth and I feel I've done everything in my power to get someone to hear my voice and the voice of all residents.

I urge you, council members, to insist.

Thank you, Bruce.

John Trevena, then Chris, then Peggy.

I'm John Trevena from Nicholsville, North Lake.

We're grateful Lehigh hasn't taken over our village yet, because we've seen what happened out that low, and we don't want surveillance cameras and alarms on our gates and whatnot.

We have a mostly amiable relationship with our Lehigh case manager.

But our donations haven't all been coming in, and sometimes they're late, and garbage is accruing.

It would be great if we could get some of that taken away.

So we just want to request that if each of you would make a written request to HSD, Lehigh, and Nicholsville to sit down and mediate this out.

Because it's kind of like being in purgatory.

So thank you.

Thank you, John.

Chris, then Peggy.

And Peggy, can you get, approach the microphone please, so we're close.

Hello, my name is Chris.

I live at Nicholsville, Northlake.

Thank you all for meeting, especially the ones who have taken the time to meet in the past.

Right before our particular situation in Nicholsville happened, we met with Councilperson Sawant, who advised us that Our fight isn't with Lehigh.

And what we really need to do is try to do the best to make things work.

And that sounded like good advice to me.

And I believe it's what we're still doing.

I think Bruce speaks very well.

I hope that he left a copy of that letter for people to read, because I'm not sure everyone heard it when he was saying it.

And there's some hard truths in there.

But they're true, and I think he's got a lot to say.

It's not the first time that we've been here.

We want to work with Lehigh.

I don't think it's going well, and I haven't seen any improvements.

I hear that our model, our original efforts weren't good enough.

There can't be mediation because this man can't be here, because the way that things are happening, we have to change.

I looked.

With an open mind, I looked and I can't find it.

What did we do?

What did he do?

What did anybody do?

What are you doing better?

I'm not seeing it.

I'm not seeing it.

I wish we could have mediation.

I wish we could stay democratic.

I would love to work with anybody and everybody to make things better and to succeed for all of us.

I urge for mediation.

If I thought that Lehigh was better and that they needed to replace somebody, I would be here advocating for that.

I'm not.

I really wish that things were the way they were before.

The Lehigh takeover is not working.

Othello is a sad, sad place to go to.

And it's homeless people.

Thank you, Chris.

Thank you.

Peggy.

And will you state your name, please?

Good morning, members of the Seattle City Council.

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

Nicholsville pioneered tiny house villages in Seattle a decade ago, having to fight Mayor Nichols, Tim Burgess, and others almost every step of the way.

In 2015, the city adopted a sanctioned encampment ordinance.

Thousands of homeless people worked toward this end.

Creating and maintaining self-managed and empowering shelters and encampments has been a stunning achievement.

It's a respected model for cities and countries around the world.

Nicholsville recognizes the good work that Lehigh has done with affordable and transitional housing and urban rest stops.

At the same time, Lehigh's idea of what constitutes a democratic organization differs significantly from ours.

To be fair, a system or structure that starts with on-site managers holding sway over every decision made by residents and continuing up the chain to Lehigh's upper management having veto power over everything is not democratic.

or self-managed.

At best, it's totemism.

We know most of you recognize the value of empowering self-managed encampments.

We know that many of you agree that Nicholsville should not be unilaterally incorporated into Lehigh.

but you aren't sure how you can help us.

In this chamber a month ago, copies of a petition asking for mediation between Lehigh, Nicholsville, and HSD were given to you and all of the parties.

Lehigh and HSD have ignored the petition because they have nothing to gain from mediation.

Over the last decade, and especially over the last three months, the overwhelming majority of people at Northlake, Tiny House Village, and Othello have shown they want Nicholsville's self-management and they want mediation between Lehigh, HSD, and their elected Nicholsville leaders.

Our ask is simple.

Please put your support for mediation between the three parties in writing and share it.

Thank you.

Thank you, Peggy, very much.

Anybody else in the audience?

All right, David, please.

I think it's more proof that we need.

David, wait a moment please.

We'll just take a breath.

Is there anybody else besides David who would like to speak?

Okay, so you'll be our last speaker and would you state your name please?

David Haynes.

I think the City Council still needs to recognize that you have to investigate the social welfare industry's six-figure salaries to keep hiring sometimes suspect, unqualified, inept employees who have more motivation to show up to City Council demanding salaries than anything else.

The thing is, We need an investigation on allhome.com for using tax dollars to hire out of city, out of state, New York startups who fill in the blanks with sometimes, I dare say, plagiarized data collecting that makes it seem like they're the authority.

Who were required to put allhome.com on the top of the chain when it comes to the authority oversight.

These people are just going through the federal welfare grant book and then putting it on their website.

If you're homeless, you call All Home, they're telling you to call 211. They don't do anything but change their name and play the politics of racial data collecting and oversight for a really suspect social welfare industry who's really trading the integrity and the forthright diligent efforts of their requirements to solve the homeless crisis that continues.

As a trade for reelection for certain colleagues on the city council, looking for operatives, activists and- politically connected six figure salaries who are helping them get reelected.

And they're not really making an effort to solve the homeless crisis.

But we shouldn't have New York showing up to invite city council to go do another big city donation nation cooperation visitation while they still have a homeless crisis that started because council withheld a whole bunch of money that Obama sent here.

to pay off landlords to create a new statistic to make it seem like they were solving the homeless crisis, keeping people in their run-down dilapidated housing that still is shaking down everybody because you guys haven't done anything to discipline the actual landlords running for these shady banks.

But we need an investigation of the whole social welfare industry and you guys can implement that instead of capitulating to the status quo that uses the homeless as a career for 20 years.

Okay.

Well, I'm going to move on to item number one.

Yes, hold on.

Chair Bakhshi, if I might just quickly take a minute.

Since this point came up a lot in the public comment, I just wanted to say one of the public commenters referred to a letter that's been circulating that is urging mediation between Lehigh and Nicholsville.

I just want to let you all know that my staff is making copies for you all, so you can go over it.

I've already signed it, but this is exactly what they are all referring to, which is, you know, that Lehigh and Nicholsville have both made tremendous contributions, and rather than lose all those contributions, that we urge mediation between the two parties, and I feel like that's the best way forward, and I hope you will all join me in that, and I'll make sure it's sent to you all.

Thank you.

Is that this letter that's been circulated?

No, it's in similar spirit.

So it doesn't matter which letter you support.

It's all calling for the same.

My office, the Transit Riders Union, Nickelsville, everybody's calling.

And the people who are on the board of the various Nickelsville, they're all calling for the same thing, which is third-party mediation for settling this issue.

Thank you.

A question about that, Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Swann, for some clarification.

I do find the letter somewhat impressive and moving.

describing the need for strong mediation and effective mediation.

So can you be a little more specific if you could be?

Are we planning, do we need resources for mediation?

Is mediation going to be scheduled?

Are you going to have a committee meeting requiring HSD to come to the table and talk about the process of mediation?

Maybe you could elaborate just a little bit because it sounds like there's a strong community behind this and it's been around for a couple of months now, at least these concerns.

Yes, I'm happy to address some of those things.

I don't think that it is going to work within the framework of HSD because that is precisely what has not worked for the community.

And there has not been any movement from HSD to address this problem.

And I feel like it is urgent to address this because we are in the throes of an unprecedented homelessness crisis.

But what our letter, and I'm sure the letter that Eliana circulated, I mean, it's the same in spirit, which is that we have a third party mediator that is mutually agreeable to Nicholsville and Lehigh carry out mediation, and it does not have to be under the aegis of the city council.

In fact, I would prefer that it's not, because I want the mediator's independence to be preserved.

And because it will be mutually agreed upon, it's a good starting point to resolve the problem.

If it's not mutually agreed upon, then it doesn't work.

Just to give you all an example, former council member Nick Lakata has been a name that has been proposed, and my understanding is that he has expressed willingness.

I might be mistaken about how much willingness.

how much availability he has.

And I don't want to comment on that without refreshing my memory correctly.

But that's just an example of, I think, mutually agreed upon mediators that we can come up with.

And that's far from the only example.

We can bring other examples as well.

So I understand you're describing who the mediator would be, then, a third party neutral.

Who would be the parties in the mediation?

The Lehigh and Nicholsville.

So Lee I and the residents of Nicholsville I see so so you're agreeing to a mediation process the issue being who the mediator would be and you want to make sure that they both so mutually selected the mediator and when might this occur.

It's not, I mean, if I had my way, it would have occurred a few weeks ago.

You're the chair of the committee.

You have your way.

Well, that's not the point.

The point is the community needs support from the other council members as well.

So you all have a duty as well to join me in this effort.

I'm just asking for the work program, Council Member.

I'm just trying to get a feel for this.

President Harrell.

Yes, please.

I think one of the nuances that might be helpful is that This letter is a letter to Nicholsville and Lehigh.

And as we heard in public comment, Nicholsville is seeking mediation.

And I've mentioned in previous committee meetings that some of us, myself included, have reached out to Lehigh and asked them to participate in mediation there.

They were previously uninterested.

So I think...

So we have the leverage there, right?

I think the point that Council Member Sawant is making is this isn't something that any individual can make happen.

It's that the parties have to both be willing to participate.

I think the willingness will be impacted by more council members speaking about this and saying that they are agreeing to it.

You don't have to sign on to the letter I just sent out because it's not even my letter.

This is a letter from community advocates that has been jointly drafted.

And so I think to make sure that Lehigh also agrees to come to the table, We should make sure that we have agreement on the council about that, and I think it's the most sensible course of action to do it.

Nicholsville, as you can see, has repeatedly urged that we do mediation.

So if I can be so bold, what is the Human Services Department's role in this?

And when you mediate something, there's going to be some kind of an outcome.

Well, I'll tell you something.

From my understanding, and you know, Nicholsville residents are in the best position to speak about this because they are at the receiving end of all of this.

It hasn't worked for them.

It's not that HSD has not done mediation.

There are fundamental issues with the way HSD has neglected these issues.

And again, the HSD is not a neutral party.

The HSD reports to the mayor's office and I don't think that is a correct starting point for Lehigh and Nicholsville to agree upon because the whole point is to have an independent mediator.

And I think that who the mediator would be is not the main issue here.

The main issue is can we have other council members also agreeing that this is the most sensible approach and let's go forward.

Because there's a whole, as you yourself noted, Council President Harrell, there is a big community of advocates who thinks that this is the sensible way forward.

Sure.

Thank you for that clarification, Chair, Council Member Schwantz.

So it seems to me we have three parties, obviously Lehigh, Nicholsville, and HSD.

It seems like HSD has some leverage in that they're funding much of what we're trying to do.

And if the allegations are true that HSD is not in compliance with the encampment ordinance or the director's rules suggesting the guidelines for the program, then even HSD may have some culpability here.

So I wasn't suggesting that HSD play the role as the mediator.

It just seems to me that there's a huge sense of urgency.

that a mediation process could be done in next week.

It's not that complex to get all the parties in a room.

And you could have shuttled negotiations.

They're all in one room, however you want to structure that.

But it seems to me that we need to act with a sense of urgency on this.

And I was just trying to get a date certain as when we could have a goal next week mediation and then put everything toward it and it's not next week the week after.

Yeah I mean look I would be happy to do that right away.

That is why we have brought this forward because there is a sense of urgency but as Council Member Herbold was saying we need both parties to agree And I think in that process, it does help if other council members also weigh in.

But I want to be careful how we address this because I do want us to keep in the forefront that both parties, Lehigh and Nichols, will have a very strong record of advocating for homeless issues and track record of having worked on it and results to show for it.

So we should make sure that that is not being lost in the process.

Very good.

Well, I appreciate all of this, and I also think that Human Services Department has a role to play here if they're going to be funding it.

Yeah, they do have a role to play, but the mediation, I think, should come from the outside, not through HSD.

I have not a problem with that.

It's unclear to me what issues what can be resolved without having the funding availability and whoever is responsible for making sure that they're operating.

And, you know, we all agree, and you and I, Council Member Swan, have often talked about the importance of the villages, and they need to be able to run in a way that's clean and safe and effective.

And if it's not, then we need to know how and why.

Absolutely.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Thank you very much.

I just want to also reiterate our support for the folks who have come every time we've had this meeting.

I know it's a lot to ask you to come and for the individuals who are living at Othello, the members of the Community Advisory Committee or the Community Advisory Council who've come and testified before.

I know this is I just want to appreciate their continued persistence to bring this issue forward even though it's something that hopefully would have been resolved by now.

I did have a chance to meet with the folks at Nicholsville and members of the community advisory council and want to reiterate my ongoing support for mediation.

We'll be happy to sign on to this letter, Councilmember Sawant.

Thank you for bringing this forward.

And also, I appreciate that the letter highlights the importance of both of the organizations and to the two Councilmembers who have spoken about the need for HSD to have an ongoing role in recognizing the responsibility of the city not to just offshore or offload responsibility for a solution onto someone else.

We as the funders should be stepping up as well.

And I agree that we're not in the best position to mediate, but needing to step into that role to make sure that this is not something that we're washing our hands of.

So happy to have this letter highlight the importance of both organizations and to see a resolution on the horizon is my goal as well.

So thank you again for continuing to come forward.

Part of what I really love about the model that we've heard so much about is the self-determination, self-direction that has been incorporated into the governance model.

And that self-determination is really critical as we move forward.

So I want to lift that up and let you know that I'll be signing on.

What I'm going to ask those who are going to be on item one to please come up to the table because it looks like we still have this ongoing for a moment but please come on up to the table.

So if the bottom line is that HSD and LHI are simply saying we don't want to mediate.

We want Nicholsville to go away.

We are not coming to a mediation table.

If that is the stance that is being said, and I don't know for a fact if that's the stance, but I'm getting anecdotally that that is the stance, then we need to daylight the issue and again plow through it.

Because Nicholsville has done, in my estimation, some really good work over the years.

I've worked with them on Having to establish some of these encampments and so so that it that posture by both Lehigh and HSD is unacceptable And so I if council members want wants additional council members to articulate that whatever that looks like that's fine But let's get the show on the road with this mediation because a non-response is unacceptable.

And even if the mediation doesn't turn out to be successful, I'm confident regional minds can differ sometimes, but they can come to agreement, let's do it and move forward.

Simple as that.

All right.

I'm glad to hear you articulate that Council President Harrell.

Just very quickly, I don't think the stance of Lehi is that absolutely not.

I think we can bring them to the table.

I have every confidence in that and I think today's discussion does help, so I appreciate it.

And if other council members are also willing to sign on to the letter, please let my office know and I think that will really help things move forward.

And on that basis, I can actually, my office can actually work with the people here and others who are not here today to actually carve out even a timetable, proposals for who the mediators could be and then bring everyone to the table.

Okay.

Member Warris, do you have something you want to add to this about mediation in general?

Okay.

All right.

Thank you very much.

All right.

We'll have more conversations about this.

We'll understand the issues better.

I would like to see, frankly, if we're going to do this, an issue statement so I understand pros and cons on both sides before we dive into mediation.

With that said, let's go on to item number one.

So, Tess, if you'd like to introduce yourself.

Jeff, thank you.

Good morning.

Thank you, President Harrell.

Thank you, Committee Chair Bagshan, members of the City Council.

I'm Tess Colby with the Mayor's Office.

And this is one of a regular series of updates that we've been, the Mayor's Office has been providing around regional governance.

We did prepare a memo for you, so I'm not going to walk you through that memo again, but I do want to highlight three specific things that I want to bring to your attention that really are going to be where the meat of decisions are going to be made.

So the first is the governance structure, and by that what I mean is the actual board, the composition of the board, how it will be constituted and who it will comprise.

And this is a subject that has begun to be talked about in the council client group.

The National Innovation Service, which you know Mark Jones is leading up that work, has been holding a number of workshops in the community to try to get community feedback on what a governance structure would look like, and in particular what the governing board will look like.

So that information has been compiled, recommendations have been made, and we're going to bring those back to the client group at the July 11 meeting for conversation and reflection.

Yeah.

This is just a brief question because, first of all, thank you, Tess.

We had an opportunity, Councillor Muscat and I sit on the regional policy committee.

So we had a briefing on the county side unifying our homelessness crisis response from Leo, Leo Flohr.

So we got a briefing about the interlocal agreement and we got a briefing about the charter and how that would morph its way into a PDA.

I was reading your memo and so, and I, Correct me if I'm wrong, because you kept using the Corporation for Supportive Housing, CSH, throughout the memo.

Can you just briefly tell me who they are?

Because I couldn't find it in your memo, and then you kept referring to CSH.

So I just briefly, so we can know who all the parties are, because we have the county on one side, You have the city on one side, and then on the city side, the client group is Councilmember Mosqueda, O'Brien, and Bagshaw.

And so I just kind of, if you can just lay that narrative out quickly so I understand.

Thank you.

So CSH is a consulting firm.

They've been engaged by philanthropic partners, specifically the Rakes Foundation, Ballmer Foundation, and the Gates Foundation, to prepare a regional action plan.

The Corporation for Supportive Housing is a nonprofit that's been around for well over 20 years.

Their primary focus has been around supportive housing, thus the name, and in particular they've provided They've provided input to an advocacy around the need for supportive housing.

They also have a lending arm, so they are also providing pre-development loans and acquisition loans for folks who want to build supportive housing.

They are headquartered, well, they used to be headquartered in Chicago.

I think they're now headquartered in New York, but they've got offices all across the country.

And there isn't a formal office in Seattle, but they have staff in Seattle who are working on this.

So CSH is, as I said, they've been contracted to prepare the regional action plan.

And the Regional Action Plan is really sort of what it sounds like.

It is a plan that will be, that will cover the entire region of King County.

It won't be, it's not intended to be a strategic plan for just the authority, but it will actually provide guidance and strategic objectives, generally speaking, for the system that will be created to address homelessness.

And is it Debbie Thiel?

Debbie Thiel.

And is Anna Olivia, does she work with CHS?

Yes.

Could you just tell I think Council Member Juarez and the rest of us about those two?

Sure.

Because I have met with, I mean briefly with Anna, but I had a long meeting with Debbie about six months ago and I was extremely impressed by what they do.

Oh, good.

Yeah, so Anna Leva is now a special advisor with CSH.

She has a long history of working around the issue of homelessness.

Most recently, she was the director of the Special Needs, I can't remember what the full acronym is, but anyway, the division in HUD that is the division in HUD that addresses homelessness.

And she was there for, I don't know, four or five years really working.

She was one of the architects of the current work that HUD is doing around addressing homelessness from a systems perspective and no longer really thinking of it as a program by program, addressing it only by program by program.

So we're really lucky to have her on this project.

She's recently done quite a bit of work with Los Angeles and in Houston, helping them again with their regional approach to homelessness.

Debbie Thiel also has a long history.

She's been a Seattle resident for a very long time.

Some of you may recognize her name from several jobs ago when she was with the Office of Housing.

She's also worked for King County Housing Authority, and she's been with CSH now for many years.

She's the Western Regional Director.

So the two of them are taking the lead on preparing this regional action plan.

Thank you.

Good.

Do you have another question, Councilmember Juarez?

Just, and thank you again, Tess.

Just to clarify, one of the things that we heard in the county's briefing back in June, which I apologize for asking a dumb question, but I want to get our terminology correct.

We learned that there were some outlined cities or cities within King County that were passing legislation or ordinances that would prohibit The term they used was low barrier housing, and what we're talking about is supportive housing.

Similar to when some of the outlying cities were passing laws to prohibit safe injection sites, and the court upheld that that was a public health matter and not a voter issue.

Therefore, they were not in the position to put that on a ballot, so to speak.

So are we talking about the same terms here for supportive housing and low barrier housing?

No, so what I had understood was there was a question around whether or not the sound cities, any of the sound cities were passing legislation to basically prohibit low barrier shelters.

And I'm not aware of that.

I've actually checked in with my colleagues at HSD to see if they've heard anything.

And so far we can't find an example of a city that is actually passing an ordinance or legislation against low barrier shelter.

So low barrier shelter is, of course, the notion that you don't need to have passed any particular criteria to get into the shelter.

It's typically a type of shelter that is behavior-based.

So as long as, you know, your behavior is good within the shelter, you are welcome to stay in the shelter without any kind of preconditions.

Council Member Juarez, when we talk about permanent supportive housing, you can think about this as kind of the continuum, shelter being the front door to the system and housing being the back door, the outflow.

Permanent supportive housing is, again, kind of what it sounds like.

It is housing.

It is permanent.

There is no end date.

There's no required exit date.

And what makes it unique is that it is accompanied by supportive services that are really tailored to meet the needs of the residents.

So that supportive service is available to residents.

It's typically client-driven in terms of how they access those services.

And it's available for as long as they live in the housing and for as long as they need it.

You're welcome.

You know, it's like Plymouth Housing is an example of an organization that really focuses on that.

So individuals who come in We're providing healthy services for them, but they also aren't necessarily people that are going to be able to live on their own.

We'd like that, and for some that's the case, but for the other many hundreds that Paul Ambrose and his crew provide housing for, they're going to be with us for a while.

Permanent supportive housing is typically reserved, if you will, for folks who are chronically homeless and that have a disability that makes it really difficult for them to gain housing and retain housing on their own without those services.

So yes, Plymouth is a really good example.

DESC has a number of really good programs in this as well.

Thank you.

Okay, please proceed.

Oh, Council Member Mosqueda.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I just wanted to also follow up on Council Member Juarez's point.

There are no dumb questions because this is all a moving target and we're still trying to put together the pieces ourselves.

I think we're learning from NIS, from the executive team, having conversations.

Soon with the county to make sure that everybody's on the same page So I did I did ask the chair to put your memo up here because I believe we received it this morning It's dated today, so I haven't had a chance to look at it and perhaps You could walk us through some more details just because I think we haven't all had a chance to digest it I'm speaking for myself sure and when you get you've only gone through correct the first bullet is that correct are you gonna go through the

Oh, I wasn't planning on going through, but I'm more than happy to.

I just wanted to be cognizant of your time, and there's another panel coming up, so.

Madam Chair, would you prefer for us to ask questions just about it in summary?

I think so, Council Member Mosqueda, and I want to thank you for getting this prepared for us on Friday.

I think, you know, everybody is dealing with schedules in the office and not, so if there are some specific things that you would like to focus on, please do, and, you know, our time is yours at this point.

Because this is one of the most important things that's going on in our area.

Great.

So again, one of the things that's immediately going to be coming forward to the client group is this issue of governance, the board in particular, how it gets composed and how it will get constituted.

And by that, what I mean is what sectors need to be represented on the board and what their skills, their knowledge, their representation needs to be.

what the Constitution needs to look like in terms of folks with lived experience, folks, people of color.

So there's a number of considerations and these workshops that NIS has been conducting really have been around trying to gather that information so that a recommended, initially recommended board structure can be brought forward.

And so that will be, as I said, coming to the client group soon.

The other item, there's two other issues really that are of supreme importance in terms of getting us to the interlocal agreement and to the charter.

The second one is the budget that will, the initial operating budget that will go to the authority.

That will actually, of course, be part of our annual budget process.

But to get to that, there is needed to be conversations with the city and the county on the programs that are going to transition over to the authority.

And so there's been sort of broad agreement that emergency services programs, that's sort of everything from outreach to emergency shelter and transitional housing, that those in one form or another need to transfer over to the authority.

And there's been some discussion also around permanent housing, which in our system is rapid rehousing and permanent supportive housing.

And so the conversations have been about, are there any components, any pieces of those activities that are better suited to remain with the county or the city, or should everything go over?

And we're reaching agreement on that, which is good.

You can imagine when we start actually talking about dollars and cents, it gets more like a negotiation.

Thank you.

Can I just interrupt just a moment to ask Council Member Herbold?

Thank you.

Two-part question.

One question and one statement.

The decision around which programs are going to migrate over to this regional authority, is it correct that that is going to be defined in the interlocal agreement?

No, what will be defined, the actual, well, I mean, it could be, but the actual programs are not right now conceived as being part of the interlocal agreement.

What the interlocal agreement will do is it will establish a minimum, a base of what the county and the city will invest for operations.

So at what point does, I know the interlocal agreement is something that eventually is coming to council.

At what point does council get to hear what you've negotiated?

You said you're getting close on negotiating which programs are going to migrate over to the regional authority.

I'd certainly like us to have an opportunity to hear what getting close looks like and give some input to that.

And then secondly, I just want to clarify my understanding that the governance entity will make decisions make funding decisions.

And so I think it's just really important for folks to realize that the recommendations thus far is that no elected officials will be on this governance board.

And so it's just important for us all to know that that likely means that that entity will be making decisions about how to use city funds.

So to your first question about when these decisions about what's in and what's out will come to council, that information will go first through the client group and then be part of the early conversation with the council about the ILA and the charter.

and the actual formation of the authority.

So all of that will be a portion of that.

It also will go through the council in your budgeting process.

So that will also become clear in the budget process.

But we're not obviously going to wait until the last minute and say, here's the budget and here's what we decided.

It'll be part of that early conversation to get to an ordinance that would approve the ILA.

So that's the answer to that question.

And then the second is the authority making funding decisions.

Indeed, the vision is that the authority will issue the RFPs, the request for proposal, and then from that make awards.

of who's going to get contracts, much in the same way the county does, NHSD does.

The purpose of forming this authority is to actually transfer those duties to this authority.

That said, it will not be without influence, input from both of the councils.

Again, as part of your budgeting process, you will be budgeting in the same way you do now, which is identifying those fundings going to specific types of interventions.

So those dollars will transfer over to the authorities in the manner that they've been budgeted locally.

So whatever the council's process is, and the county council's process is, and of course following our process, The long-term goal is that the authority will perform, and so I am doing my very best to be an incredible optimist.

So the goal is that the authority will perform in a way that the council will begin to feel more comfortable with them.

And as that evolves and develops, then there may be interest in giving the authority more leeway and more independent authority.

But I anticipate in the first few years that it'll be closely tied to what the budget tells.

Great.

Madam Chair, could I add to that?

Sure, absolutely.

To Council Member Herbold's questions, and specifically about whether or not what programs would be included or not included in the interlocal agreement, that's a matter that hasn't been resolved at this point.

We would be engaging with our law department for advice on that and how we need to proceed going forward.

So at this time, that might not be envisioned, but as we engage and further develop the process, that might become something that is necessary and we'd be certainly doing our diligence to determine what needs to be included in the ILA versus not included.

And then to your second question about where we're at in that process, there are some places where what the county does and what the city does are not perfectly congruent.

And when we include our capital dollars for housing and permanent supportive housing in particular are not handled exactly the same.

And so the executives have been looking at those processes and where they can match, where they would have difficulty matching, things like that.

So those are items that are still being explored and examined in detail so that something can be brought to the council.

And at this time, the plan is to present that interlocal agreement to the select committee for consideration before then moving to the full council.

But certainly, the council would have the opportunity to review all of that beforehand.

Good.

And I'd also just like to add that I've appreciated the fact that we're now doing meetings every couple of weeks so that we can stay on top of that.

And you've also been very forthright and forthcoming about the workers who might be identified.

We don't know yet, but of course the goals are to make sure that those who are employees of this organization will know that they're going to have the benefits and the insurance and that they do with the city and the county now.

Again, don't know what that looks like yet, but it's certainly something that's at the top of our list to make sure that the employees are involved and engaged as we're going forward.

I'd like you also, if you don't mind, to talk a little bit about the conference calls and outreach that you've made to Portland and Los Angeles.

And I know this issue about should council members be on the board or not be on the board is one that people have talked about.

But I felt that we've gotten good information from both LA and Portland on their model.

Do you have a, could you just summarize that?

I could do, I think, a quick summary of that.

Yeah, so LA and Multnomah County, Portland, Beaverton are the two models across the country that look the most like what we're trying to achieve with regional governance.

LA is the longest standing entity.

Their regional governance entity is the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority.

And they are funded by the city of Los Angeles and the county of Los Angeles.

They are the two primary entities, the founders of that authority.

Their governing board does not include any elected officials.

The exec, the county exec and the mayor appoint the members of that board.

It's a member, it's a board of 10 members.

And they do that in part because they want to have some distance, some boundaries, if you will, between the responsibilities of being an elected official and the need for the authority to act independently, particularly when asking for resources.

We anticipate that the authority will pull together a budget of its own, submit that budget, and this is how L.A.

does it, submits the budget to, they submit to L.A., our authority will submit to us, and then our city council will consider that through its budgeting process.

This first year it won't look like that, but years going forward it will.

And that distance, if you will, in oversight, Los Angeles has found to be very useful.

Multnomah is a slightly different situation.

So the county, Multnomah County, Portland, and Beaverton have come together, and they have spun off a non-profit organization, but essentially the functions of the dollars and the staffing all moved into the county.

And that entity then stands as, apart from the county, but fairly closely held, in part because there are elected officials from those three jurisdictions.

They find that that works well, but again, it is just a different model, particularly because of the role that the county as the sort of lead entity among the three jurisdictions plays.

Okay, let's proceed.

Okay, so Council Member Bagshaw, you alluded to the third big issue, which really is the human resources and labor relations piece of this.

And we are just getting started with our Seattle Human Resources Department, the HSD Human Resources, as well as our labor partners in this work.

And indeed, the predominant questions there to be answered are, What FTEs will need to be transitioned over to the new authority?

And how will staff either transition, will transition to that new authority if they want to?

And so again, this is not a mandatory, you're in this position now, you need to be over in this new authority.

Part of this is the fact that the organizational chart for the new authority will look quite different from what the county's human services department looks like and the city's human services department looks like.

So there have been, we are still very much at the early phase of this, but there's been questions about whether or not, because those positions in the new authority will be so different, whether folks should apply for the position that they would like to be in.

If you're a contracts manager in HSD, you might want to move into an equity position or to a planning and policy position in the new authority.

So that's the one big issue, and obviously that has significant budget impact implications.

The second is indeed benefits and pension.

So we've done some work with law, and law has actually engaged an outside firm to help us be sure that we know what we're talking about when we say this.

But it appears as though it's completely likely that city employees will be able to carry SIRS over into the new authority.

There are questions about benefits.

My understanding is when this kind of transition has happened in the past, what the new entity has tried to do is mirror the benefits that the public sector employees have.

We, the city, the county, can't just transfer their, we can't legally transfer our benefits, but we can make sure that the benefits are comparable.

So those are really the two kind of main issues.

And again, all of this will continue to come back to the select committee before we move forward with an ordinance.

Great.

And I have just a quick comment, and that is, We, within our group, have not yet met with our county council counterparts, but I'm looking forward to that because clearly we have very mutual interests, which brings me back to the point I was going to ask you.

Sometimes we get so focused on the details about this that we forget to take a step back and remind people why are we doing this.

And what was it, 2016 when Barb Poppe issued her report and we had focused strategies, people were talking about the disconnect between the work the city was doing and the work the county does.

Even though we're trying to do the same good things and all home, that we oftentimes, we just aren't using our resources as wisely as we could.

So I think that's what got this started, but if you'd like to comment on why the regional plan.

And even the work that we did last year with one table, I know people were like, oh, we want so much more out of this.

Well, this is part of the so much more.

So if you would just remind us, why are we doing it?

Yeah, thank you.

I mean, I think that that is exactly why we're doing it.

So in 2016, there were two reports.

One was Focus Strategies, one was Barb Poppe's report, and both of them came to very similar conclusions, which was that despite all of the good intentions of the investments of both the city and the county, They were disjointed.

They were focused on programs and not focused on system outcomes.

And they weren't really achieving the outcomes that we as a jurisdiction really want to achieve.

And the recommendation there was that there be bold leadership in thinking about how to address that disconnect.

So one table came together and I know in March 2018 the exec and the mayor came together and signed an MOU that said we really want to pursue and understand what regional governance would look like.

Future Labs came in, did that, did their initial research, and yielded a conclusion very similar to Focus Strategies and Barb Poppe, which was for us to be successful, for us to be able to provide services that are truly customer-oriented, that are customer-centered, that are truly equitable and address the racial disproportionality among folks who are experiencing homelessness, and that move homelessness investments and homelessness forward in a systematic way, there needed to be one regional governance.

And so at the end of that reporting process from Future Labs, again, the executive and the mayor came together, accepted that report and kind of launched the work around achieving regional governance.

And thank you, and you hit upon something that is my personal pet peeve is that when the systems aren't working, we're spending money.

We're not helping the people who are needing the assistance.

We're not supporting them in a way that's going to help them be better, having the housing they need if it's housing first.

getting the support they need, whether it's a permanent supportive housing.

And this is a real systems approach that we're trying to be as effective as we can for each individual.

It's helping us get to that person-centered approach.

Thank you.

As it relates to the conversation that we're going to be having with the county about system changes to align our outcomes and reporting, I just want to uplift some outcomes from a previous discussion in these chambers before this committee from some panelists that we had at the table and would like to know how best to sort of integrate this input that we've received about HSDs, outcomes-based reporting, results-based accounting, how that might be modified and, negotiated with the county so that we have, again, this shared system of outcomes.

The three main things that I heard as my takeaway when we heard from the panel presentations is that Outcomes, the successful outcomes are being attributed only to the last program that touched the client, whereas the client may have received the services of many programs, and those many programs don't get any credit for their interventions with that client.

Secondly, there's concern about the way we collect data and report successful outcomes that it might inadvertently lead to sort of creaming, working only with the clients who are most likely to result in successful outcomes.

And so the recommendation is that metrics of success should be informed by unique barriers that people experiencing homelessness So different organizations are working with different demographics and populations of people, some of whom might have greater struggles in being successful in their outcomes.

And then secondly, the other piece that folks feel need to be considered in outcomes is the availability of housing alternatives so that if an organization isn't performing well at a particular time when there isn't a lot of availability, that should be taken into consideration along with those reporting of outcomes.

And then thirdly, a request that we take into consideration that some of the organizations that we're funding and we're measuring for their success actually have some earmarked services associated with the navigation team that then, because there are earmarked beds and resources, they are going to be more successful in referring people to those services.

And if they're being measured against other organizations that don't have those earmarked services, those other organizations might not be measured as favorably.

And so I'm just wondering, is, again, the ILA the place where we are going to be able to come together with the county on identifying what these performance metrics are?

Yeah, excellent question.

So, again, the ILA as it's currently envisioned would not be the place to do that kind of negotiation around specific metrics.

But I will say that the Regional Action Plan is the place where the system-wide goals will be addressed.

I'm not sure that it will go down to the level of individual program outcomes.

What you're describing are really the performance-based metrics in the contracting that the city is doing.

I will say that, from what I understand, the way we do performance-based contracting and the way the county does it is different.

And so there will definitely be some negotiations around how they do their contracting, how we do ours, and understanding both how we combine that, but also how we make sure that those individual contract level performance metrics are feeding up into the larger system and the larger goals of the system.

And so if what we want is to end up with a sort of universal goal of making homelessness rare, making homelessness brief, and making it non-recurring, then really we need to make sure that we've got sort of underlying, if we think of that as the umbrella, we want the underlying pillars to be specific metrics that feed up and make that possible.

And that's all gonna be part of the conversation with the county and the community around what those metrics look like.

And could you talk a little bit more, I know that Allison Isengura and others that are leaders in this provider community have been involved in conversations.

Can you talk about how they are involved now and your vision for the future?

So the providers have been involved on a couple different levels.

There are some specific work groups that the providers have been, various different providers have been participating in.

Some around organizational stand-up, some around governance, and others around equity.

So that's been a platform.

I will say, and this is not surprising, most of the providers have been most interested in the regional action plan for exactly the reason that Councilmember Herbold just mentioned, which is that plan is really where the goals and objectives and metrics are going to be fleshed out, and that's what's going to have the most impact on the way they do business going forward.

Thank you.

All right, Council Member Mosqueda.

Thank you very much.

Tess, thank you for reporting this out.

I again want to underscore that I feel like this is being done in real time as we are continuing to have conversations about what this could look like.

I appreciate your memo.

outlining some of the areas where there's some broad agreement.

I want to sort of underscore two points that have been brought up just for our council colleagues' knowledge.

There's two pieces that I've kind of been taking a claim in the ground around as we have conversations about what this could potentially look like and would love your feedback and thoughts before a final proposal is brought forward from the executive team.

One is regarding funding.

We know that we cannot currently serve the 35 to 4,500 people who are currently living outside in our region with existing funds.

And the data continues to back that up.

Again, the Chamber of Commerce's report last year showed that we have an ongoing analysis right now that's looking at revenue sources that I think is coming forward in the next month.

Is that right?

An analysis looking at current funding and where that's all going.

that I again think will underscore that we simply do not have the resources we need.

So one of the things that I'm continuing to advocate for that I've heard from community members is that we do want this body to have revenue generating authority.

What we know from the conversations in is that they've been largely successful at both stemming the large increases in the number of homeless folks, and as you heard from Chapman Simple, Christine Chapman Simple, who came in January of this year, they've actually seen a decrease in the number of people living outside in Los Angeles.

largely because of their large investments that they put on the ballot and actually created funding.

So we know we need some funding in order to address the crisis of homelessness and lack of affordable housing in our city.

So one way to do that, besides going to the ballot, would be to create a revenue-generating authority.

I'm not saying that that would have to be year one, but I think it should be a goal of ours to make sure that there is sufficient resources to match the policy needs that this body will be asked to implement and pursue.

So that's a big issue I'd love to continue to hear your feedback on.

Well, having the entity be a PDA, a public development authority, I think gives it some ability to raise revenue.

Well, there's a difference between issuing debt and generating revenue.

And so issuing debt, I think, is a good first step.

But I think the ability in the future to potentially- A taxing authority.

But you actually have to pay it back.

And then the other issue, and your feedback ongoing would be helpful on whether or not folks feel one way or the other on that.

The second issue is I am still torn about whether or not it is good practice for us to have a body that has no elected officials on it, similar to, I think, what we heard in Los Angeles.

They don't have any elected officials on their body.

But the body in Oregon does have elected officials on it.

I think that the big question for us is going to be who is ultimately responsible for making these decisions.

I know none of us up here want to wash our hands or.

be in a position to say it's not our responsibility and shrug our shoulders when this ultimately falls on us, especially if we're the ones who have ultimate revenue generating ability and authorized budgets for this body in the future.

So I am still debating internally whether or not that's something that is a desire to have elected officials on this body and also want to learn from both Oregon and California.

And would love to continue to get feedback from you all and members of the community So I'll just put that out there.

Those are my two sticking points that I'm not yet.

Thank you.

Thank you council president Just tested you look at the model in Oregon as well before you came up with that recommendation So did so and there are there other models out there?

There's some camps with electeds and some camps without or they're just pretty much to that.

We're looking at can you give me a little bit?

Yeah, quite frankly, those are the two that look the most like us.

Where there's other regional collaboration, it's typically through the continuum of care.

So that is a body that has a fairly narrow focus on mostly just the McKinney-Vento dollars.

So I would like us to be able to move on here to our other panel.

But I do want to say this is an interesting question and I know that other council members have raised the point too about what their involvement is.

So I'd like us to talk and think about how this committee can be involved.

So I don't know what that looks like yet.

I'm not reaching a conclusion.

But clearly there is great interest among the council members to be in one way or another participating in these decisions so it isn't just a delegation of responsibility.

Great.

Do you have anything else, or Jeff, the two of you that you would like?

I'm sorry, I have one more question.

Okay, and it looks like Council Member Pacheco does as well.

In the memo here, as it relates to the regional action plan, it says the regional action plan is not an implementation plan for the authority.

It's a plan designed to create momentum and accountability for meeting the community's goals towards ending homelessness.

I'm having a hard time conceptualizing how those are two different things.

Yeah, perfect question.

So I think what I'm trying to say here is that it is not narrowly focused on just the authority.

So oftentimes we think about entities having strategic plans and then work plans that follow on to those.

and they're usually guiding documents for just that entity, just that authority.

And in this case, the regional action plan is being created and conceived of as a plan that the whole community owns.

So there will certainly be portions of this that will fall under the jurisdiction and the accountability of the authority, but there may be other pieces also where we're going to rely on outside advocates to help move that work forward or our housing development community.

So it's, yeah.

Okay, Council Member Pacheco.

Just really briefly, because it gets to the question about elected officials serving on the board.

Can you elaborate quickly on avoid conflicts of interest within that bullet point?

Yeah, so when we went to law and asked about the question of the composition of the board, and in particular elected officials, they came back and let us know that there's a state's attorney, excuse me, attorney general ruling or sort of decision that is not actually in law per se, but it has been stated a couple of occasions.

that there's this concept of incompatible seats.

And the concept goes that if you have an elected official on two different bodies, and one body is subordinate to the other body, so in this case, the authority will be subordinate to the city council because the city council will be will have the authority to basically budget and transfer dollars, that it is incompatible, it creates a conflict of interest, and that elected official would need to basically give up one or the other of the seats.

So that is basically the information that we've been going on when we've raised the concern about conflict of interest.

Yeah, to add to that, so it's the incompatible office doctrine.

It's a doctrine that the Attorney General's office has interpreted or pulled out from some opinions in some actual court cases, but it is not something that's in law.

And furthermore, there's examples we can think of.

the regional health board, things like that, where the state legislature has given specific authority that was to, in our case, Seattle and King County, to have elected officials on that.

And that's why it would likely be necessary in order for elected officials to be on it.

Though there's cases of that precedent, and we've worked with to kind of get a sense of how difficult that might be.

All right.

No further questions.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for the great work you're doing on this.

I appreciate both of you very much.

OK.

Our next panel.

If I can invite all of you up.

Thank you for waiting for us.

And I look forward to hearing more about the youth and young adult homelessness update.

Very good.

All right, thank you all.

And if you would like to introduce yourselves for the record, and we'll just start with you, Jeff.

Hi, Jeff Sims on Council Central staff.

Thanks.

I'm Dusty Olson with the Human Services Department.

Melinda Javingo with Youth Care.

Lamont Green with All Home King County.

My name is Louise Castro.

I'm with All Homes Youth Action Board.

Great.

Thank you very much.

All right, who's kicking this off?

I think I am.

All right.

written testimony for a change, which you will all be grateful for, I'm sure.

Good morning, Councilmembers.

My name is Melinda Givingo.

I'm the CEO of Youth Care.

We were founded in 1974, and Youth Care was one of the first shelters to serve runaway and homeless youth on the West Coast.

Since then, we have expanded to 14 sites and serve over 1,500 young people every year.

As you'll hear in the next presentation, the number of unaccompanied young people experiencing homelessness in King County dropped from around 1,500 in 2018 to 1,100 in 2019, which amounts to a 28% reduction.

And most notable was a decrease in unaccompanied minors experiencing homelessness, which dropped by over half.

And these numbers are certainly promising and a cause to be hopeful.

And thank you for the opportunity to speak today about some of the reasons why I believe we're seeing so much success.

Number one, targeted funding that's proportionate to the need.

If you look at the two populations that experience the largest decreases in homelessness, it's young people and veterans.

These are also the two populations that have benefited exclusively from targeted investments.

In the past three years, the statewide office of homeless youth almost tripled the number of shelter beds for minors in King County.

And the King County Youth Homelessness Demonstration Project, as well as Best Starts for Kids from the county, have infused additional resources for youth and young adults, services and support.

Last year, McKinsey and Company debunked the very false narrative that we have in this city about there's enough funding to end homelessness, if we just spend it correctly.

No one seemed to listen to those findings, so I'll say it again.

Chronic underfunding perpetuates homelessness in our community.

When we right-size our funding to fit the scale of the problem, we see results, which is why I get to be here today.

Number two, Tailored interventions that address the issue both upstream and downstream make a difference.

Now, many of you have heard me say over and over again I'm a one-trick pony, and that's true again today.

I know what works for young people and young adults experiencing homelessness.

I say this over and over again because youth and young adults have unique developmental needs which are validated by neuroscience.

For young people, the pathways into homelessness and the solutions out of it are not the same as they are for adults.

For example, we know that many of our systems of care, foster care, juvenile detention, mental health facilities, and homeless shelters become pipelines into homelessness.

That's why the state passed the Senate Bill 6560, which tasked Washington with ending the practice of discharging young people from their systems of care into homelessness by 2021. And that's why our state office of homeless youth has focused not just on helping young people who are experiencing homelessness, but preventing them from experiencing homelessness in the first place.

As a result, we now have case managers who work inside of detention facilities so that when young people exit detention, they have an actual place to go.

We have case managers embedded inside of the alternative Seattle Interagency Academy schools so they can help students and their families who are experiencing housing instability or who are at high risk for homelessness.

And we have family reconciliation counselors who work inside of our under-18 shelters helping to reconcile those families' conflict so youth don't enter the foster care system or simply exit the shelters back into homelessness.

I do want to note that almost half of the young people in this year's count reported psychiatric or emotional conditions, and over a third report drug and alcohol abuse.

There were also alarming rates of young people who reported a developmental disability.

Moving forward, we need to think about how better to partner with both our DD system and our behavioral health systems so that we can stop the flow of young people exiting from those systems onto our streets and into homelessness.

So tackling this problem upstream by addressing some of the drivers into homelessness is the first part.

The second part, and I really want to underscore this part, is that youth care is laser focused on reconnecting young people to education and employment pathways.

This is another difference between adults and young people because young people are at the onset of their careers and lack employment skills and experience.

The number one risk of homelessness, a 346% higher risk, is the lack of a diploma or high school education or GED.

When we talk about ending youth homelessness, we cannot focus only on shelter and housing.

Education and employment must be a key part of our strategy so that young people can have the skills to maintain their housing long term.

For this reason, YouthCare operates four GED and high school diploma programs and seven employment training programs.

And thanks to the city's support, our most rigorous pre-apprenticeship program, YouthBuild, has a 90% success rate of young people transitioning into either post-secondary employment or the construction trades upon graduation.

And I want you to know that those are good paying jobs.

One of my clients is making more than I do right now.

As you know, Youth Care will be expanding our employment and education services in the coming years with a new building on the corner of Broadway and Pine.

Young people will be able to focus on skill development and educational attainment with the goal of entering the workforce or going across the street to pursue a degree from Seattle Central.

I want to thank this council for including the capital funding for the building in last year's budget, and I hope that you'll be a supporter of us in years to come as we fund the employment services that make that building truly transformative.

And I'm going to wrap up here, I promise.

I know that I was asked to come here today and talk about success and progress.

And while I don't want to end on a negative note, there are two additional things that I want to acknowledge while I have this platform.

One, all of the research on youth development shows that the number one most effective way to help young people move forward is through relationships with stable, caring, and trusting adults.

And let me emphasize the word stable.

Because as you know, our workforce is not stable.

So I hope that you all attend the next council hearing on July 11th about the annual inflation adjustment to stabilize our human service workforce.

And two, and this is the last and most important point, I am pleased to see a reduction this year in youth homelessness.

But if we look at the data closely, we actually see a different picture.

In 2018, 41% of young people experiencing homelessness were white and 23% were black.

In 2019, the percentages decreased by 3% for white youth and increased by 11% for black youth.

Latinx youth and Native youth also saw increases in 2019, each rising 4%.

The overall prevalence of youth homelessness has declined, but disproportionality has risen.

If progress means homelessness is going down for white youth and up for youth of color, then this is not a success.

It is a failure.

We know how to reach young people sleeping under the bridge.

But we also know that homelessness presents differently for LGBTQ youth and youth of color.

And the onus is on all of us to examine our systems, our definitions of homelessness, and our services so that they are truly accessible, equitable, and culturally responsive.

Thank you again for the opportunity to speak today.

We have an incredible opportunity to build upon this work based on the lessons we have learned that young people have unique developmental needs.

But homelessness is also experienced differently and at higher rates for different populations of youth.

Young people are resilient and hopeful.

And if we create equitable opportunities for young people to succeed, we can prevent chronic adult homelessness.

So I'm excited to partner with you and with the county and with all of our community partners to improve and build on these successes, and most important, sustain them over time.

Thank you.

Melinda, thank you so very much.

You have always been an inspiration to me, and I'm so grateful to all you have done.

I have a number of questions, but I would like the panel to continue and I'll circle back.

Good.

Good morning Madam Chair and thank you all council members for inviting us to be here today to brief you on youth homelessness.

Melinda spoke so wonderfully on the current issue that a lot of what we have may be a bit redundant but we will present nonetheless and I am also so very happy to be here with our founding Youth Action Board member that will be co-presenting with us to get with me.

Thank you Dr. Green.

Oh, that's a very slow-moving one.

OK.

I think this is yours.

So I'm sure that you'll see.

that if one in every five youth and young adults experiencing homelessness become financially independent adults, then the net value of expenditures that would be avoided over their lifetimes is an estimated 61.2 million.

And, of course, you all know that addressing youth and young adult homelessness lessens their likelihood of becoming homeless once again whenever they grow up into adulthood.

Boy, howdy.

All right, so if y'all want to put on your imagination caps, you will see the Count Us In data from our point in time count from last year.

So the PIT numbers are always an underestimation.

So because we, of course, cannot get everybody, no matter how hard we try, but they do show us the trends.

over the years.

And so we saw our first decrease in overall homelessness in seven years, which is a 28% decrease according to our point in time count.

And we saw our 52% decrease in homelessness of unaccompanied minors for the second year in a row.

Yes, I'm sorry.

County numbers.

We're trying to address some of the technical problems.

There should be a graphic that shows some of these factors.

Okay, great.

Excuse me for a second.

Council President Harrell has a question.

I just I know these are counting numbers and I was trying to peek ahead to see I'm not asking for a lot of specifics, but if you notice trends whether in Seattle proper or Outside of Seattle in certain more rural areas of the county what trends we're seeing if you have any information there I'd be sort of curious to know Yeah, I think on this next slide actually talks about some of those trends that we're seeing when compared to the general homeless population Are you thinking adult population have more recent eviction?

I?

They also have higher rates of being on probation and parole than the general homeless population, and also higher rates, as Melinda mentioned, of having PTSD and other emotional support needs as well.

Thank you for that.

And what I was trying to get at was Seattle as opposed to outside of Seattle.

Are we doing better in Seattle or worse in Seattle or the other?

Just trending in terms of where they are.

Yeah, we don't have that analysis broken out here by geographic areas throughout King County, but that's something that we could provide.

It's actually in the report, Councilmember Harrell, for sure, and I think that there was a...

What's it say?

I haven't, you know, it's going down all over across the board.

But there have been a huge amount of resources put into under 18 services, which I think is really an important thing to note.

But we can certainly get those to you.

Thank you.

In regards to your question about trends within the city limits the numbers are trending overall In the same way that they are for the county down consistently almost almost exactly the same percentages And then when you break that out by population, it's very consistent as well That's that was I was just trying to get a trend.

I wasn't trying to look for specific numbers I was just trying to I don't look at the data and some of the other cities outside of Seattle very much It's just sort of wondering where we That's very helpful, Dusty.

I think the point, Melinda, that you brought up right towards the end of your presentation is that even though the numbers are down, the disproportionality is up, which presents us with some new challenges that we've got to focus on and be honest about.

I would agree with you Councilmember Baggio.

I mean, I think that one of the things that we know in with working with young people is that young people of color present and LGBTQ present differently.

They're not necessarily the kids who are quote-unquote chronic under a bridge.

And so how do we reach those young people?

Ensure that they can get services before they go so far down the pipeline that that it's hard to get them back into care.

Thank you.

Councilmember Morris.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I just have a quick question because, and I could be absolutely wrong on this, but it seems like a weird coincidence.

On this slide where you have the Native American, you have it at 10% and then 1% of general population, that's the same, is this just for youth?

Because this is the same statistic that we use for adults.

It's the same exact statistics that Native Americans experience homelessness 10%.

This is across the board.

And we make up less than 1% of the population.

So you're saying this is the exact same for youth, Native American youth?

That's correct, Council Member Juarez.

This is for unaccompanied youth and young adults.

Oh.

Only.

Okay.

I think it's important to understand the methodology that is used to look at racial demographics in the point-in-time count.

When we're doing the count, it's a visual count.

The racial demographics come from the survey.

That's true across the board.

And so they're generalized for the percent of the population that does the survey.

They're generalized to the overall count percentage.

So, they are going to be fairly consistent, and they are going to fluctuate significantly year to year based on who completes the survey in that particular year, and then we extrapolate that to the entire population.

So, the racial demographic breakdowns are not an exact science in any way, shape, or form, and that's why you're likely to get sort of generalized numbers like that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Please continue.

Right.

So let's see.

I know we've had some technical difficulties, but let's see if this will continue on here.

And so, like we mentioned earlier, we're seeing this decrease and we're attributing this to the targeted investments.

Philanthropy has been a huge partner in this work.

Our providers are doing amazing work and businesses and foundations and also additional funding from HUD, YHDP funding, Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program.

But now I'm going to contrast this a bit and we're going to look at data from our Homelessness Management Information System because we know that the point in time count is Typically an undercount, but it gives us a sense of trends.

But here, we're going to pivot now to our Homelessness Management Information System data.

And before we get into the numbers, we're going to look at these in three aspects.

First is the system entries and inflow, and those are newly homeless episodes.

But they also include those that have been previously housed and returned to the system or inactive.

And then the second column are those that are active in the system, and that includes unsheltered, emergency shelter, transitional housing, and searching for housing, such as in our rapid rehousing programs.

And these also include those that are on our coordinated entry prioritized list.

And then we'll look at system exits, which is outflow.

And this are those who have been permanently housed and also those that are temporarily housed, unsheltered exits, deceased, inactive, or unknown destination.

And so here, when we look at these numbers and we look at inflow, and this is the 2018 analysis, we have approximately 2,860 coming into the system.

In 2017, it was 2,800.

So this hasn't changed very much.

And you can see from this that 84% are newly homeless.

There's approximately 11% that are previously inactive.

and about 5% that were previously housed.

And so that 5% is basically the returns to homelessness.

So we've only had about a 5% return to homelessness.

When we look at the outflow, those leaving the system, you can see here that this 2018 number is approximately 2,889.

In 2017, this was 2,300.

So the system is doing better at housing unaccompanied youth and young adults.

However, when we look at the outflow breakout, you can see that 33% went to a permanent housing solution, approximately 8% were temporarily housed, 4% unsheltered, and here we have 46% that's unknown.

And I know that this is a large unknown number.

We suspect that these are folks who have self-resolved or that left the program and we don't know where they went.

And so we have some future data quality improvements that we'll be focusing on to get a better, clearer picture on those unknowns.

But please remember that does include a portion that have self-resolved.

And so in our current, our 2018 active number is approximately 1,511.

In 2017, this was 2050. So when we look at our point in time count numbers, which is not an exact methodology, it helps us to understand trends, and we contrast it with our homelessness management information system data, we can see that there are some improvements.

Inflow is still high, but the system is doing better at housing youth and adults more quickly.

Any questions on this before we move on to the next slide?

I don't think so.

Thank you.

Solid.

So given that information, given that only a third of youth were confirmed having found housing on their own, we want to solve that, of course.

So we are launching the End Youth Homelessness Now campaign.

And the goal of this campaign is to reach functional zero by July 2021. And functional zero would mean that the need either, well, that the resources either meet or exceed the need for housing.

And so this is going to be youth-driven.

So we are going to center customer voice and make sure that the people experiencing homelessness are the ones who have input in how the systems are reformed and how the programs are implemented.

So as I said, nothing about us about us.

So that is the difference between this program as opposed to other models that we've had in the past.

And we really want to make sure that everything is racially equitable and that everything has a stark lens, like, whenever it comes to, like, queer communities and other marginalized groups that have fallen in the gaps.

And that's, yeah, just really need housing, of course, because we just really want to do away with all the disproportionality that we've seen in the point-in-time count.

And the Any Youth Homelessness Now campaign came from the Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program, which was a HUD-implemented program to try and make all of our models reformed, centering youth voice.

And Seattle was one of the 10 first-round cities of the YHGP.

And one component of the program was the Youth Action Board, which I was brought onto.

And it was composed of youth and young adults with lived experience.

And I joined when I was, I believe, 18. So that really helped me get a foot in the door whenever it came to policy reform and realizing that this isn't just on me as an individual and that the system is broken and that we really need to do whatever we can to reform it and fix it.

So this is something that I'm very hopeful about.

Nice.

And so the, I think we have a slide here that may be missing.

We have lots of technical difficulties today.

So before we get into this slide, there's a slide that's supposed to talk about the different YHDP funded programs.

And so the 5.4 million that we received from HUD and our community developed a coordinated community plan and the End Youth Homelessness Now campaign really allows us to live out that community plan.

And so there were four programs that our community developed, innovations to help us understand so that we can better, more quickly achieve this goal of reaching functional zero.

And the first is the bridge housing program.

And that's called the new HUD joint component.

And so there are two transitional housing programs is Youth Care Home of Hope and United Indian Tribes of All Nations.

And those two transitional housing programs were turned into crisis housing.

which were our launch pads into our rapid rehousing.

And then we have our youth engagement team that's doing phenomenal work.

Legal counsel for youth and children, therapeutic health services, and Accelerator Y and Friends of Youth are the providers there.

And this is a multidisciplinary team.

It has not only a legal advocate, but it has a therapist, housing navigators, peer navigators, and case managers that works with minors from various systems, whether that's schools, juvenile justice system, child welfare, and behavioral health system.

And then our next YHCP funded program is the Behavioral Health Crisis Response.

And we basically added an additional staff member to our crisis outreach response system for young adults that provides that crisis mental health services to work with our different providers more upstream.

And Accelerator Y is the provider here.

And then our last YHCP program is the Youth and Young Adult Navigation Diversion Program.

That is basically like the youth engagement team, but serves young adults, 18 to 24. Therapeutic health services and accelerator wire the providers here.

And again, this offers wraparound approaches to divert youth and young adults from the homelessness system.

Madam Chair?

Quick question.

Thank you for your presentation, first of all.

Just quickly, because I'm kind of a nerd.

When did you guys sign the MOU?

on your last slide, the all home King County City of Seattle HSD signed in a memorandum of understanding.

The MOU was signed, I believe the last signature was in February.

Of this year?

Yes.

Okay, thank you.

Please go ahead and continue.

All right, I think we're missing some slides here.

I am so sorry about this, these technical difficulties.

And so with this work of the campaign, and basically like what's going on with the Consolidated Homeless Authority, we're wanting to shift from a patchwork of programs to a highly responsive system of excellence by creating flexible operating structures.

We're also wanting to create a place to manage effectively and efficiently all youth investment so that we can have a systems lens to this work.

Additionally, we want to operationalize racial equity throughout the system.

And one of the, I think, the most exciting parts of this work is that our youth action board, that we have moved beyond community engagement with those with lived experience to partnership.

Youth and young adults with lived experience of homelessness are currently experiencing homelessness.

are helping to design solutions, helping to evaluate and implement those solutions.

And it's giving us a better understanding of what works.

And also to bring what works to scale.

And so here on this slide, looking at some of our progress to date, as we mentioned, the MOU was signed, which allowed for us to form this Functional Zero Action Team.

City, county, and all home staff working on youth and young adult issues were basically, for the most part, working in silos.

We collaborated, but we were very much in silos.

And so city, county, and all home staff working on this issue are now coming together in a Functional Zero Action Team, much like a command center style, used to drive reductions in veterans' homelessness.

And our youth engagement team and our young adult navigation diversion teams have served, and now the number is nearly 200 youth and young adults since they launched in October 2018. Go ahead.

So here is our timeline for the End Youth Homelessness Now campaign.

So the initial funding gap remedied.

So got that.

And we've got the staff hired now, and we have our space acquired, and our campaign launch happens tomorrow.

And our goal is to achieve functional zero.

And I love functional zero because it's not, like we know that we can't make it so that nobody ever becomes homeless ever again.

That's a little bit out of reach for now, but we are not the first city to reach functional zero, and we absolutely won't be the last.

But as Seattle has a history of doing, we do.

plan to reach it and set a spectacular example for all other cities in the nation.

I'm grateful for all the work that you are doing in this realm.

And I want to come back.

Melinda, I had a couple of questions I wanted to ask you.

Can you talk a little bit more about YouthBuild?

Having been there, I've been so impressed with the cohort.

And is it expanding?

I know that for a period of time it started off at 30 kids and then

We continue to look for ongoing funding for it.

We'll be applying for the federal grant and hopefully be able to get city support, but we need to find a more sustainable long-term fund stream for it.

our outcomes have just been over the top in the last four or five cohorts, and they're working closely with labor.

So these young people go to school, get leadership training, and we're actually building some of the tiny houses in conjunction with Lehigh as well, so that they actually get hands-on training, and they're being placed in the apprenticeship programs upon exit.

Well I just want to put a major gold star on your crown on that.

I just think it is one of the most impressive things I've seen.

First I went down and saw them as they were beginning and that commitment and they had to show up and they had to show up on time and they learned the soft skills but then the team, the teamwork.

And then I came back the night that they graduated.

It was one of the most moving experiences for them, for me, for the families.

And to know that these young people were going to have jobs, like you said, where they are not just family wage jobs, but really getting their feet on the ground.

So thank you for doing that.

Second question is, when is Broadway and Pine opening up?

I know you and I talked about this a year and a half ago, a couple of years ago when we got the money.

Yeah, well, we are still, the land purchase should close in August, I believe, and then we'll start on the remodel, redesign phase of that with capital housing.

So I'm hoping 2021 is my goal, but I also have to raise a boat ton of money.

So looking at each of you, yeah.

I hope it helps.

Very good.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

Go ahead.

Just sort of a practical question.

And again, thank you for all this work that all of you are doing.

It's very meaningful and particularly dealing with our youth.

It's so tragic.

I'm trying to better understand the demographic of the youth that's experiencing homelessness.

Is it, particularly I'll use Seattle Public Schools, Mr. DeWolf, as an example.

When children are doing the best they could in their homelessness, my guess would be that they're not proud that they're homeless, that it's a stigma, they don't want other people to know for whatever reason, but perhaps some are saying, they're saying, I'm doing the best I can, I am homeless.

Can you talk a little bit about how do you really get to those kids that are homeless and deal with the stigma that I'm assuming is associated with that?

Does that skew the numbers and is that a big barrier to us getting this kind of work?

I mean, believe it or not, I was young once and sort of concerned about image when I was in school, as a lot of kids are.

So maybe you could talk a little bit about that obstacle that I'm assuming takes place.

Yeah.

So SIGMA is definitely a very, very real and very prevalent thing.

A lot of us didn't actually know that we were homeless.

whenever we have been going through it.

One of the big things that I know a lot of my peers have benefited from was having school staff, so like social workers, be educated with the McKinney-Vento program and know what signs to look for and how to provide support to their homeless students.

And we're trying something called the Geelong Model, which originated in Geelong, Australia.

It's actually called the Upstream Model now, since they started doing it in Canada.

And that would be having housing navigators and having more trained staff in the schools to be able to spot homelessness and really reach out to the students and try to make sure that they have the support that they need before they really enter the homelessness system.

So that's something that we're trying to launch.

I think it's really important Councilmember Harrell.

I mean, I think you're right to get into those schools and find young people before we There are lots of issues and lots of barriers for young people receiving services including not meeting a definition that of chronic homeless and being on the streets and literally under the bridge and so I The young people we need to reach most and most quickly are the young people that are in school, are hanging on, couch surfing all over in safe and unsafe places so that we can get them stabilized before they fall completely into street-based homelessness.

So I guess what I'm asking is, like in our, I'll just use the Seattle Public Schools, is there a sign out that says if you're experiencing homelessness or you're housing insecure, come talk to this council.

I mean, are we actively looking for opportunities for a safe place for a person to go as opposed to spotting it or just relying on them coming forward?

Because this is something, I mean, we could fund.

I mean, I'm just curious about how it works.

Yeah, so I personally believe that there needs to be more outreach because I didn't know that I was homeless.

I was living on a couch in an unsafe environment.

I would wake up with money ants on me.

But because I was living with family and because I had a roof over my head every night, I had no idea that that would be qualified as homelessness.

It was through the school counselor just reaching out to all the students and having them have one-on-one meetings with her that she was able to listen more to my story and refer me to the social worker about getting resources.

Very good.

We have a youth commission, too, that has kids from all over the schools.

I'm wondering if they could help us with this body of work, too.

Really good idea.

Because they're right there in the school.

And when I interviewed several of them for their appointments, almost all of them were passionate about children, youth experiencing homelessness in their schools, so maybe they could put some structure around this as well.

I will also add that the Department of Early Education and Learning and HSD are partnering to utilize the funding that was set aside for youth homelessness in the education levy.

that recently passed to design a program really to address exactly what Melinda just said, which is the population of youth that don't meet the definition of homelessness for the homeless service system, but being able to stopgap that services for youth and families in the school system.

that are experiencing highly unstable housing but aren't eligible to be referred into the homeless system and to work with school personnel to identify those youth and families and get them services before they fall into the homeless system.

I would add that most of the Seattle public schools are what they call safe places.

So they have the yellow placard that says safe place.

And that is a direct line to getting services or at least to get you hooked up with an emergency counselor or into a shelter, something like that, if something comes up.

So we try to get out into local businesses.

and into places where young people are, all the rec centers, all the libraries.

But those kind of programs which are visible and a young person can identify with them without having to say, hi, I'm homeless.

They can just call a number and get some counseling and support on where to go to get some help.

So I want to just again thank you for coming.

I ran into two young people last, well I guess it's been almost last summer now.

One was from Spokane and one was from Bremerton.

Both of whom were, I am guessing, you know, 18, 19. Both of whom told me that they'd been tossed out of their homes.

And that they came to Seattle because they felt like they could find people that would be understanding, both of whom ended up in youth care.

Want to say thank you and just how meaningful that was to me.

And both of them said, you know, when I asked, you know, what are your needs at this point?

They said, we want a job.

They weren't looking for handouts.

They weren't looking for, you know, just a place to crash for tonight.

They said, we need a job.

And I asked, what do you want to do?

And they said, we have no skills.

So I said, you know, go talk to Melinda.

She can help.

Anything else?

Good.

Well, thank you all for coming.

And thank you, my colleagues, for hanging in.

I know that at 12.38 on a Monday means that you have a short period of time until we get started again.

And thank you for your work.

And thank you for participating in this as a youth involvement.

Very good.

All right.

So if we have no more questions, this meeting's adjourned.

Actually, very quickly.

This is on the issue that came up earlier for Leah Nicholsville.

Just wanted to share, actually this was circulated to all your offices on May 24th.

And as you can see, there are about 100 committee members.

In addition to me, yes.

So if you all can let my office know as soon as possible, we can make some progress and I'm happy to work with you on it.

Great.

Because what I wanted is to have a mediation plan and identify the issues that they can work on.

Yes.

What happened?

We can do all that.

Okay, great.

All right, thank you everybody for coming.