Seattle City Council Committee on Public Assets & Homelessness 1/19/22

Although we have quorum plus, let us get started with the meeting.

So I'm gonna call this meeting to order.

It is January 19th, 2020. This is the first meeting of the year, the Seattle City Council's Public Assets and Homelessness Committee.

It is 2.01 p.m.

I'm Andrew Lewis, chair of this committee.

And will the clerk please call the roll?

Council Member Herbold.

Here.

Council President Juarez.

Here.

Council Member Morales.

Here.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Chair Lewis.

Present.

Chair, there are four council members present.

Thank you, Mr. Clerk.

I will just add Councilmember Mosqueda did contact my office this afternoon letting me know that she would be about an hour late due to a previously scheduled conflict.

I also just want to announce for the viewing public that Councilmember Peterson is attending the committee as a guest today and will be here as well.

So moving forward now to approval of the agenda.

If there is no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

Chair's report.

I just have a quick overview here of what we're going to be doing today.

We are going to be hearing a presentation, as was alluded to in the committee meeting this morning, from the Regional Homelessness Authority, the Human Services Department, and the Office of the Mayor.

regarding the current approach towards the city's involvement in our regional homelessness response.

And I'm really looking forward to that.

I know councilmembers have had the opportunity to engage through the regional homelessness authority governing board, which councilmember Kerbold and I serve on, as well as through the regional policy committee with similar presentations from the regional homelessness authority.

I'll add, in recent weeks, last week in particular, I'll add that last week the governing committee unanimously along with Councilmember Herbold and my vote for the Regional Homelessness Authority approved the 2022 budget so that the CEO of the authority, Mark Jones, and their leadership team can move forward with implementation of the programmatic things that we want to see.

with our partners at King County, the provider community, and other stakeholders to realize significant progress in 2022 on our homelessness crisis.

And we look forward to hearing more about that and the ongoing role of the mayor's office under the leadership now of Mayor Harrell, as well as the ongoing involvement of the Human Services Department in the transition to this new regional model.

So that'll be a great discussion.

I am pleased to announce that Mayor Harrell himself is going to be joining to give some remarks at the top of the presentation from the mayoral panel, and really looking forward to hearing from Mayor Harrell, and it'll be great to have him here at the virtual table in this committee.

Second item on the agenda, we're going to have our first hearing on some legislation being requested from the Seattle Public Library, one of the public entities that falls under the jurisdiction of this committee.

And that is going to be the first hearing on Council Bill 120258, which is going to be legislation accepting some sites in the Georgetown neighborhood at five 5910 Corson Avenue South and 933 South Doris Street.

And it'll be good to hear from the Seattle Public Library and a presentation they prepared for the committee.

So with that, I will move on to the public comment.

And I will moderate this public comment period.

The public comment period is going to be for the next 20 minutes, but I believe we only have two folks signed up.

Is that still the case, Mr. Clerk?

There are two public comment registrants only.

OK, great.

So for the two folks that are signed up, If you're familiar with our meetings procedure, I'm going to call on each of you by name and in the order in which you registered.

For folks who are watching, if you would still like to register in the next few minutes to speak, you can do so at Seattle.gov slash council.

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

Once I call your name, the staff will unmute you, and you'll get a prompt if you have been unmuted, and that's going to be your cue to begin speaking.

And the speaking time is going to be for one minute today.

So please begin speaking by stating your name and the item you are addressing.

As a reminder, public comment should relate to an item on today's agenda, which I just overviewed in my chair's report.

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

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

And if speakers do not end their comment at the end of the allotted time, the speaker's microphone will be muted so we can move on to the next speaker.

Once you've completed your public comment, we ask you please disconnect from the line.

And if you plan to continue following the meeting, please do so via Seattle Channel or the listing options listed on the agenda.

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

Please remember to press star six after you hear the prompt if you've been unmuted.

And our first speaker today is George Scarola.

George, take it away.

You have one minute.

Chair Lewis, I'm George Scarola with Lehigh.

We thought it might be helpful to hear a frontline report from one agency.

Lehigh's contract with Executive Hotel Pacific ends on January 31st.

This morning there are 82 guests still at the hotel.

Staff members are meeting with hotel guests daily with the goal of helping every single person move to low-income housing, permanent supporting housing, or a tiny house village.

Good news is that we have purchased Wilson Apartments and opened with 57 units and 34 units, studios at 10th Avenue East for homeless young adults.

Other people are planning on going to Hobson Place, Harvard Walks, but those units aren't open, so we're gonna have to do some hotel, temporary hotel rooms for those folks.

No surprise, the demand for tiny house villages far outstrips the supply.

We want the council to know that Lehigh has capacity to stand up more tiny house villages.

It's important to note we are not seeing the spread of Omicron in our 10 tiny house villages.

Lehigh stands ready to do more.

Please call on us.

Thank you.

Thank you, George.

The next speaker will be David Haynes.

And Mr. Haynes, you are recognized for one minute.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is David Haynes.

I live in the worst neighborhood in all of King County, Pioneer Square.

I'm calling because there is a need for an independent oversight of the homeless response.

I say this because King County Regional Authority and the government oversight are not being informed about the ongoing crisis within the homeless suffering from service providers.

I'm talking about a lack of running water at one of the tiny villages run by Lehigh in or near Ballard.

and the fact the service provider, Lehigh, forced every homeless person to sign a confidentiality agreement guaranteeing they will never speak out about the horrible conditions such as crap coming out of the water pipes.

If you speak out in Lehigh, you get kicked out.

all while treated like a subhuman, forced to share toilet paper with dirty-handed people who leave entire rolls of toilet paper on the dirty, never properly cleaned floor, ruining entire rolls of toilet paper, causing unnecessary stress and hardship, while council never keeps non-profits honest in their efforts, allowing a padding of costs like it's another status quo decade for Sharon Lee's Lehigh smorgasbord of in-app disservice

Okay, Mr. Clerk, we'll now move on to items of business.

Will you please read item one into the record?

And will our presenters please unmute and turn on their video?

Item one, Mayor's Office homelessness presentation.

Thank you so much, Mr. Clerk.

Clerk, we are joined now by a panel, and I'll turn it over for introductions.

And I'm very excited that we're being joined this afternoon by Mayor Harrell.

I do just want to say to members of the committee, while Mayor Harrell used to be a member of this council, his presence does not count towards quorum, so you can't leave.

So with that, Mr. Mayor, I'm going to hand it over to you for introductory remarks.

And we look forward to having a discussion here with the panel and appreciate you taking the time to visit with us today.

So I'll turn it over to you.

Thank you very much, Councilmember Lewis.

And I've been dying to have the opportunity to be on this side of the testimony after 12 years of being on the other side.

So thank you for inviting me to your forum.

And I wanna begin my remarks by thanking this council, particularly these members on the Public Assets and Homelessness Committee, but all nine of you for working, I think in this extraordinarily difficult conditions which continue.

And I have a great appreciation for that.

And we have two former council members in the administration, Um, former council member Tim Burgess and myself, and we know all too well how council members who are primarily responsible for policy lawmaking and the budget.

I mean, those are our primary functions in addition to all the other advocacy and the work that you do, but how often many of you are blamed for either the action or inaction of the executive and the departments.

And so what I'm pledging to all of you, and I hope I impressed upon you that we will model transparency and collaboration, that you will have information on a real-time basis.

I truly believe that the public, that's what they want to see.

They understand we may have differences in our approaches, but I think they want to see our machine known as the City of Seattle attack these problems.

And quite candidly, this committee, this work that you're doing in homelessness is probably the most critical issues of the hour.

One of my approaches will be very aggressively, if you look at the state's budget this year, which is about a $62 billion supplemental budget, that if, as proposed by the governor, we have about $334 million in rapid capital housing, there's about $100 million in the housing trust fund, about another $50 million in behavioral health services, and about another $50 million in the outreach and remediation Our goal as the city of Seattle, and what I'm putting resources in, is to make sure that we, that Seattle, of course, you know, is the largest economic driver in this state, that they understand, the legislatures understand that we need those resources.

And so we're putting in an inordinate amount of time there.

I think many of you know, I was in D.C.

a few weeks ago, and I got a chance to meet with President Biden and Secretary of Housing Marsha Fudge.

and tried to impress upon them with everything that I had amongst just a handful of mayors, that even if the Build Back Better plan is currently proposed, which is, you may recall, is about 1.75 trillion, it's getting bounced around a lot, and it may not come out in its current proposal, but there's close to 23, 24 billion in housing choice vouchers.

There's another 15 billion for the National Housing Trust Fund.

doing everything possible, putting resource behind to make sure that whatever comes out of DC, that again, they recognize the struggles that we have in Seattle.

And my pitch to the secretary was Marsha Fudge, who I had gotten to know fairly well during my last trip, was there, I asked them about their images of Seattle and they know, you know, the large high-tech companies and they know Starbucks and companies like that.

But I am trying to press upon them that, We have our issues of extreme poverty and extreme wealth in a city.

And if we figure out how we can fight gentrification and fight through anti-poverty strategies, if we could figure this out in Seattle, then we can take this message to the rest of the country.

And so quite candidly, based on our federal lobbyists, Leslie Polner and a bunch of other folks there, that is resonating.

They understand that Seattle is just not a I don't know what image they have of Seattle.

It rains all the time.

Whatever the images they had, I was really trying to extract that information.

And I'm very, very optimistic, both from a state and federal standpoint, that we will be able to garner a lot of resources here that will help us do our jobs.

So I got to tell you, I want to thank all of you for doing the work.

You know, I was down on the second floor last week.

I'll continue to come down there.

I want to meet with all of you, talk to all of you.

superstars uh in your districts or whether you're at large or not just to do your job i believe in you i believe that we're just trying to set solve the same problems you know when i was on and i i'm probably going i went over my two minutes so thanks for being you didn't say i just had two minutes tear loss so um you may recall those you know i've worked i looked at the the lineup of the council and nearly all of you i've worked with in some capacity before um in some capacity And many of you may recall that I used to say when the council will take their hits, I would say, look, I will defend the city council, both its IQ, its commitment, its ability to work, its wherewithal.

I said to any city, any council in this country, I believe that the city does its best to elect good, strong leaders.

We may disagree on certain things, but I don't attack your integrity or your intent.

So I look forward to having a whole new I don't look in the rear view mirror and talk about past administrations.

Moving forward, I want to be your partner.

I want my departments to see you as a partner and not as an impediment.

And we're going to have a lot of joy together trying to solve these critical issues.

We have to do it in a sustainable way.

And I just wanted to sort of do a table set going into 2022 and thank all of you for the great work you're doing.

Mayor Harrell, thank you so much for those remarks.

And it's just such a great way to start this meeting and start this discussion based on this work over the last two years, which during COVID has been incredibly frustrating.

And just to echo and acknowledge one of the initial things that you said, and I think it centers the frustration that a lot of us, especially those of us representing districts, and that's all of us currently present here in this committee, and you yourself as a former council member, is all of our districts are hurting on this topic that we're discussing around homelessness and the homelessness response, and more so ever during COVID.

And a lot of us do have the scars of trying to work through those problems and being in a position where, as you acknowledged earlier, the council has been blamed, vilified, attacked, in many cases unjustly for things that fall outside of our purview.

And your acknowledgement of that today is extremely powerful and validating toward building the trust for the institutions to come together and do this work as one team.

And I just wanted to speak to that and my heartfelt appreciation for that.

And I know that all of us on here have been doing really hard work to make progress on these issues in the last two years and having a partner who's gonna really center and work with us on that and pool as one team is something we are incredibly excited about.

So thank you so much for your words, and we look forward to working on this topic and others with you and your administration throughout this year and beyond.

Appreciate your response, Council Member Lewis.

Appreciate it very much.

I'm gonna let Deputy Mayor Washington lead the discussion, my boss, and I'm gonna bow out for a little while.

So thank you very much for having me.

Thank you.

Deputy Mayor Washington, take it away.

Thank you, Mayor Harold, and thank you, Committee Chair Lewis.

The goal for me today is to answer some of the questions that you all submitted.

I think Council Member Lewis polled folks and took all the questions that you had and sent it to myself.

Director Kim is here from HSD, and I know that Director Dones will be here shortly.

And so my apologies for looking this way, but the answers are here.

and my screen is here, so I'm going to try to go back and forth.

Before I start, I want to just acknowledge that the regional authority is fully operational and has assumed oversight of the city's homelessness service contracts.

They are also the lead on strategic planning, performance management, and community engagement related to addressing homelessness in our region.

allowing a true regional response to take place that centers equity and the voices of people with lived experience require us all to shift power that we have historically held over to the regional housing authority who are guided by and accountable to the lived experience coalition implementation board and governing committee.

What this does not mean is that we leave behind our accountability to taxpayers and community members of Seattle as we are charged with ensuring that we are effectively deploying public resources.

And so I think a few of you have had an incident where you've asked a question and it may feel like we're punting to Mark's organization.

And what I wanna say is we will work with you to get you what you need in partnership with Director Dones.

And so the first question that I received was what lessons were learned from winter response?

And so we'll spend a couple minutes talking about lessons learned.

I will pass it to Director Kim in a minute, but it will be specific to our winter response for supporting people experiencing homelessness and won't cover the extent of the notable efforts that were led by other city departments through the winter storm.

Most of you know, winter response activation began in December and stretched into January, and it took an incredible amount of staff time.

and mobilization in a time where we were being hit by Omicron and people were calling out sick and we were short staff both in the city and at community organizations.

Before passing it off to Director Kim, I really want to thank the staff, NHSD and the Homeless Strategy and Investments team who worked really hard to respond during the winter storm at the same time they were trying to transition all of the work over to the Regional Housing Authority.

So for that, I will pass it over to Director Kim, and then Mark will answer the same question from their perspective later on in the committee meeting.

Director Kim.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

And for the record, I'm Tanya Kim, Acting Director of the Seattle Human Services Department, or HSD.

And for the viewing audience, HSD provides direct services And invest in community based organizations and programs that serve communities by connecting people with resources and solutions during times of need.

And I really appreciate the mayor's office, Deputy Mayor Washington and of course Council Chair for allowing HSD to speak and being able to recap some of the highlights of what we learned just weeks ago through our mobilization of the emergency severe weather response.

And so I wanted to highlight a couple key items.

One is just the tremendous collaboration that occurred across various departments with strong leadership from our Office of Emergency Management.

The scope of the services provided during the past weather event truly was possible because of the collaboration.

Several departments and emergency response partners supported the city's need, specifically to supplement the capacity constraints across the shelter system related to COVID-19.

Also further constrained by winter holiday staffing absences.

And so just in plain terms, you've heard this, this is not new, but our providers, as well as some of our own staff providing the direct services, just, you know, we're stretched thin for all those reasons, COVID of a couple years, people being out sick.

people who were off when the situation arose.

And so we really had to rally and we did things a little bit differently this past winter and learned some valuable lessons.

Some key highlights.

include, as I had mentioned, the collaboration.

That collaboration, in particular, also during this transition, included our work with the King County Regional Homelessness Authority, or KCRHA, and both mayor administrations.

And so really have to hand it to the outgoing mayor as well as the incoming mayor for that cross-collaboration to make sure that this is seamless during that period of time.

Over the course of the activation, six shelters were opened, specifically in response, representing 379 beds of nightly capacity, and that was at their peak.

So we didn't start with all six, and so when at our peak, when all six were activated, we had the 379 beds.

Through the efforts of our provider partners who really are the stars, incredible providers who, you know, at some that were prepared and had the contracts and others who just stepped up, we were able to provide 2,116 total overnight stays.

So again, that was 2,116 And 16 total overnight stays and that was in the period of December 25th through January 2nd.

The lessons learned, there were many.

One is our ability to offer surge staffing.

And so we had an executive order that really incentivized not only our city employees, but also our provider employees to ensure equity.

And through that offering, there were 171 city staff who opted in to be redeployed as needed.

We didn't redeploy all 171, but it does go to show that in the case that we needed to, that there were folks who had opted in and we worked closely with departments to identify who was then approved and where people could go and what they were able to do, including driving or simply staffing the Winter Shelter Warming Center.

And with that, there was the additional incentive pay, as I had mentioned, for employees as well as our providers.

We also really understand the need to continue to refine our plans to improve accessibility.

Accessibility was very much top of mind for the winter shelters, and that does include everything from transportation, geographic diversity, which I know is very important to all of our council members, and to reduce the barriers for someone to utilize a shelter or warming center, things like we've heard some offered food and, you know, some light hospitality, whereas others did not for the warming centers, for example.

And some, there was some ask for the need to accommodate additional pets that, you know, those are things that we continue to work out.

and challenges around being able to offer storage was significant.

And I saw that firsthand with somebody who didn't want to leave their belongings behind.

And that made sense in many ways since the storage was a big deal too.

We are, one of the lessons learned, too, is we've heard loud and clear people are looking for the 24-7 access, but in some cases that wasn't readily available.

And so looking at those warming centers and seeing how we could potentially increase the usage rates if the warming centers are the option, as opposed to multiple 24-7 locations being available.

And transportation was another major item.

So we did the best that we could, but definitely planning in advance around transportation to get folks to where they need, not only from the warming centers in some cases to the shelters, but also from the shelters to additional shelter options after the severe weather.

occurrence was definitely a gap that we were trying to fill.

And so coordinating that in particular during the icy or slippery times was of a particular need.

And for those who could also be appropriate for wheelchair access and other needs.

There are many lessons learned as we continue to collaborate with KCRHA and have some planning sessions.

But those are just some highlights coming out of the storm.

And hopefully we won't have another one.

We're ready.

Thank you.

Interim Director Kim.

Any questions from the council members about winter weather?

Council Member Gribble.

Really appreciate the overview, Director Kim, on the lessons learned.

I would like a little bit of clarification as it relates to the West Seattle winter weather response shelter.

I heard you say that there wasn't a need to redeploy everybody that signed up in the city family to be redeployed.

And that surprised me because when we were struggling to clarify whether or not the West Seattle shelter was going to be open or not, we were told that the issue was a staffing issue and that they weren't going to advertise being open until they secured staff.

And we went to, not to our city family who had volunteered to be redeployed, but to the faith communities in the Church Council and Westside Interfaith Network are the folks who got the volunteers necessary to staff the winter response shelter in West Seattle.

And I'm just wondering why that is if we had bodies of city workers who were ready to go.

That's a great question.

It really was a matter of timing.

And so by the time I had a conversation with that organization, their ask of me was to support their utilities and not of staffing because they had at that time had secured the volunteers.

Then we were able to offer the redeployment option.

And so that wasn't something we planned in advance.

We developed that because we had heard from various providers.

We're at risk of not even being able to offer the basic services because people are calling out sick.

We don't have enough staff.

And so we then stood up the opt-in option.

And so we didn't pre-plan that.

And so when I had the conversation again with the West Seattle organization, their ask was to help offset the cost of utilities, which we were happy to provide.

I do remember the issue of your good work on the offset of utilities, but what I was told in real time when I was dealing with getting inquiries from constituents for why the shelter wasn't being publicly noticed as being open is that Lisa Gustafson over at King County regional housing authority reported to HSD that they were recommending that it not be listed as available until they knew for sure that they had the staff resources to staff the shelter.

And then they went and got volunteers from Westside Interfaith Network and the church council.

So HSD was, as I understand it, aware of the staffing needs.

And rather than redeploy our own staff, there was this delay, this lag, while the regional authority was working with the faith network to get volunteers.

a lesson learned, I guess.

Yeah, thank you for that.

I think one thing that you raise just in general is our ability to work with our community partners more broadly who step into these volunteer spaces.

And also, you're calling out something really important, which is also the handoff and our collaboration with KCRHA.

And so we We're able to finally all get on the same page and make sure that we're offering what they needed to continue to operate as a volunteer organization that we really support.

And so when we have that direct conversation, by the time HSD made that phone call, which I was, I made the phone call, it was really about, okay, we could do this, we've got the people, what we really need is help with the utilities.

And so again, I think it's the timing But it goes to show how do we work with our partners?

And I know that Mark and I have been talking a lot about this in advance of severe weather response and offer that technical assistance and having really a clear understanding of the capacity and what that even entails around communications and mapping and all of that.

Because I think people are doing excellent work, but we want to make sure that we're fully supporting organizations to do their best and not be overwhelmed.

And so that is a lesson learned for all of us.

Thank you so much.

Any other questions from committee members?

I want to ask a quick question about the weather response relating to the staffing of sort of similar piggybacking on Councilmember Herbold's remarks.

Because I understand, and Director Kim, this might have applied to you as well, I'm not sure, but that staffing had gotten to such a point where, you know, I know I know that director Jones or CEO Jones at one point took a shift themselves at a shelter to make sure it could be operational, which I really appreciate director Jones stepping in like that.

You know, to guarantee the efficacy of the response or, you know, where a gap was needed.

And I thought I heard that you had been in a position to do the same.

because we have a lot of city employees that I know would probably be interested in potential opportunities to serve.

Because I know in other respects, I think with snow removal or other things, folks have kind of been given overtime from other departments to pitch in.

I believe I saw that somewhere.

If maybe there could be some kind of training where city employees and other kind of work groups might be qualified to take a staffing shift at a shelter or something like that for some kind of pre-approved overtime opportunity.

And if that might be something we could explore, because my understanding is these sheltering assets, I mean, it's something stood up temporarily for a week.

So it's not like we're expecting anybody to be a case manager or a mental health counselor or a substance addiction counselor.

But we do need people to kind of be present, to have eyes on the shelter, to help run the shelter, to maybe distribute basic hygiene or towels, services, kind of basic supplies like that, which it seems like we could potentially cover through some kind of training and have some kind of auxiliary workforce that could be deployed to staff some of these assets.

Just throwing that out there as a potential idea, I just wonder what some of your initial responses to that might be.

I think that You're right, you summarized it really well.

There's a lot of opportunity here of what we learned.

There is something about, and I can't wait for Mark to have airtime because I know that we're also talking about how do we really empower the community and our community-based providers to really fill the space.

So then that way, city employees, it's kind of a last resort.

How do we ensure that they're trained and fully staffed and getting those wages that they're asking for.

And so, but if the city surge is needed in the future, we, training and all those other things, absolutely, we can prepare for.

I think just as a reminder to the group, though, I don't wanna oversimplify the situation, because it was a confluence of multiple things happening where we had planned for the shelter closure because the emergency order was ending, it was getting warmer, but what we had was an outbreak.

And that unique circumstance required unique care for the customers, those who are experiencing homelessness, to not just, you know, leave.

We needed to make sure that they were well, that they were being taken care of and they were able to quarantine.

appropriately.

And so that's where I saw Mark step into that role and become that provider and organize and coordinate and where we made that phone call the night before we needed to step into that.

That's where I said that I would join in the effort.

It wasn't that it wasn't for the lack of staff who could have supported in some way.

It was the unique circumstances and the realization that we had an outbreak.

And so I'll speak for myself.

I didn't want to make a phone call that night or at six o'clock in the morning to have one of my staff deployed.

I could go out and take care of this myself in partnership with Mark and the HOPE team and the provider that was there.

So we weren't fulfilling that role at all of the shelters we always had.

a culturally responsive, very skilled provider who could offer those shelter needs.

But we were filling in a specific gap about addressing the COVID, a transition of where folks would go after the shelter was closing.

And so it was a unique confluence of circumstances.

Yeah, I really appreciate that additional context.

But, you know, it does just seem like going forward, you know, I don't know.

I don't know how unique some of these fact patterns are going to be right.

Like, every time there is a response like this, because.

You know, we're beginning year three of this pandemic, and we have this new, you know, very problematic variant right now that coincided with the snowstorm.

And you know, I mean, we could get another snowstorm in February.

You know, I know that we don't want to, obviously, but you know, unfortunately, it's one of those things we don't have any say in when a snowstorm comes along, right?

And it's like, so I don't know that at least for this season, And then looking forward, right, like we're going to have to be planning around.

The potential of like a heat dome or extreme weather on the other side in the summer kind of event which which involves similar mobilization.

So and could potentially have similar vulnerability if it coincides with an outbreak.

So you know, I guess that just, you know, it's good that we sort of have this.

You know, we now have this data of that confluence and the problem is solved so we can prepare for potentially something like that happening again this winter or happening in the summer when we're in a position for smoke or extreme heat related.

Deputy Mayor Washington, did you have something to add to that?

It looks like you're

I was just going to note, I want to make sure that Director Kim, one of the comments, Council Member Lewis, was when we started to look at providing additional pay to city staff, it actually was a member of HSD's change team and an elder in this work who said to us, We can't do that without acknowledging our community providers and offering them the same pay as we are going to offer city staff.

And they're actually, at that moment, it highlighted something that I think Director Kim was trying to state, is that the community is willing to step in and sometimes more suitable Culturally, the folks that people, our neighbors in shelters know.

We just have not, and I wanna give credit to HSD for this, we've never thought about offering incentive pay for folks to step up to the plate.

And so I saw both.

I saw a great community response and a staffing response.

And Council Member Lewis, I think what you're saying is let's have those folks on our staff ready in the rare case we need to utilize them if there aren't enough community members that can staff it.

And I think Director Kim and I totally agree.

Let's not wait until the storm comes to prepare.

Let's get ready for it now.

Yeah, it just also seems, I mean, to build on that, and totally, I mean, I totally agree with you.

Adding in the fact that, you know, we do have a robust training portal, you know, we have a city family of, you know, well over 10,000 city employees who have some related trainings and the gaps could be filled in with some kind of training.

Structured around these extreme weather mitigation shelters and maybe that's an asset to look at that could be activated as that that last line of defense.

To avoid sort of the worst of the worst occurring.

I do have one last question.

This is sort of my third conversation.

making sure that people are able to get to some of these shelters.

And also in some cases, a barrier that a lot of folks, or at least there was a lot of reporting on, is folks were sort of put in this, what they saw as kind of a Hobson's choice of, You know, certainly wanting to get inside, because it was incredibly cold and snowy, but worried that if they left without all the stuff in their campsite, it wouldn't be there if they ever ultimately got back, or that someone might steal something while they were gone.

I don't know if that's a good way to put it.

I'm wondering if there are ways to maybe co-plan around storage of people's stuff as well as transportation and just the logistics involved in that.

I wonder if there are sort of plans between the authority and HSD to assess those hurdles where there was some

That is definitely in the planning to do list.

Absolutely.

And I believe that storage has been an ongoing matter that we've been exploring.

But absolutely, that's, that's important to mitigate, not the same, but to mitigate.

We did have folks a provider's health one, as well as the HOPE team and others offering some tools for folks who didn't want to leave.

And so we were able to offer some food and some warming items as well.

But that's not the same.

Absolutely.

Council Member Herbold.

I do want to return to the theme of members of our wonderful city family who signed up to be redeployed, but we were not able to use them within the context of our efforts to encourage the library to open their facilities for warming centers during the day.

And my recollection is we did have libraries open up as cooling centers in the summertime, and we did not have the same problem.

And maybe It's because, in that instance, they didn't have a staffing crisis, and so they could open up as cooling centers with their existing staff.

But I did find it troubling to learn that the library, as I understand it, was unwilling to have our city staff come in and join them.

to staff the libraries so that they could be open as warming centers during the day and was wondering if you could speak to that as well.

Thanks.

Director Kim, I'm not in the know of whether or not the libraries declined a request.

What I can say, Councilmember Herbold, is I now have libraries underneath me.

Thank you to Mayor Harreld, who really focused my portfolio.

So I actually can ask that question directly and find out why, if in fact that happened, and then connect them with Director Kim and Mark to make sure that we can have that settled before any other issue comes up because I've been meeting with community members all week and libraries has come up multiple times as a missed resource in multiple cases.

So I will find that out.

Oh, I'm sorry.

No, I'm sorry.

So I heard that Mark is going to be on at 3. They have a hard stop at 3.30.

And so my question to you, Chair Lewis, is I have two questions left that you all had for me.

One was about Executive Pacific and one was about storage capacity increase.

Which one would you like me to start with in the event that we may run out of time?

Let's do Executive Pacific.

And I will stay on during Director Doan's time and in the case that there are questions for me as well.

Great, thank you.

So the question was, what will happen to people currently sheltered at Executive Pacific, and how will funds that would have supported an extension be used?

Out of the gate, I want all of you to know that we stand aligned with you in ensuring that not one person currently housed in the Executive Pacific Hotel exits back to the streets.

So that's just a non-starter.

We cannot have that happen.

As George Scarola said in public testimony, there are currently 82 households remaining in the hotel.

which is currently in the process of ramping down and will close on January 31st.

This has always been the anticipated timeline for this program to end.

And there recently was a request made to KCRHA from Lehigh to extend the lease at the hotel, which KCRHA explored and did not approve the extension due to the significant increase in cost and requirements to extend until September.

So executive-specific required a minimum nine-month commitment and nearly a 30% increase in cost in order to extend the lease.

And so that would go up to $550,000 a month from $435,000 a month.

Also, if the extension were to have been granted, the KCRHA exception was set that Lehigh would have to serve a new cohort of people during that time and not the existing cohort for a longer period of time.

So to address this in mid-October, staff from HSD, KCRHA, Coordinated Entry for All, and Catholic Community Services begin weekly case conferencing with the Lehigh team to identify housing solutions for all the clients in the emergency housing program.

The technical assistance remains, and I'm happy to keep you updated as we move closer to the end date.

But from what I've been told, most of the individuals that are part of the remaining 82 have a housing plan in place.

And as Mr. Skrula said, if someone has a housing plan that's 20 days away from January 31st, we're just going to have to find a temporary solution for them, whether it be another hotel or motel, to house them until their permanent housing solution opens.

So that is the update on the Executive Pacific.

Happy to take questions.

Questions from the committee on the Executive Pacific.

I am interested in having a committee hearing to dive in generally to the work that we did on this rapid rehousing concept over the course of 2021 and to have at that time a little bit more of a I'd rather reserve sort of bigger questions that might go to.

the overall outcomes of the program and kind of ultimately how this plan to wind down worked out in more of a, like an after action report kind of hearing sometime in February.

So with that context, I'll do one more call for some potential questions.

So Deputy Mayor, it looks like we may be able to get through your storage update too.

I would just say that We do have Seattle Public Libraries on here that has a presentation, but I think you said Mark is going to join in three.

Yep.

Yeah, I think it'd be best.

We should just jump into the storage update and then maybe by then Mark will

actually my apologies council member there's a camp second chance question which i can hit really quick and then woodland so the question around uh camp second chance i think was about how quickly we can get uh it stood up i'm going to reserve the question for the um contract amendment and program side for Mark to answer and they're prepared to do so.

But I did check in with SPU and they let me know that they have two hygiene shower trailers that they own because they purchased them earlier in the pandemic and they're ready to deploy them.

And they also have contracts in place already for portable toilets.

So it sounds like to me that as soon as the units are stood up, they can have these things installed fairly quickly.

That's really great news on Camp Second Chance.

I do have one question related to that.

These are hygiene assets that are going to be plugged in with running water, just to confirm.

I am familiar with the SPU trailer product.

But there's been some kind of issues with the site in terms of where to run like the water hookups historically.

And has that been, I mean, it sounds like SPU is confident they can install those assets from the report, which is great.

But do we have any indication on whether that's been resolved?

I will ask, they did not mention that, which is leading me to believe that it's resolved, but I will make a formal ask and let you know.

Great, appreciate that.

And so you still have one last thing on your list, the storage, unless there's questions about Camp Second Chance before we move on from there.

I don't know if you have a comment on that.

just as a little bit of context for the public on camp second chance, that is one of the things that we approved in the budget at the governing committee last Thursday.

so that kind of triggers some work on the city side as we just discussed with Seattle public utilities and then there's going to be some related updates maybe when KCRJ comes here for their report.

Yeah, I just wanna underscore, I think this is the point that you were trying to make, Chair Lewis, is that there are two separate investments in Camp Second Chance, and one is related to the provision of hygiene services, as well as some funding provided to Lehigh, because they had a plan, provided that they had the resources to run the line.

But then secondly, there was the investment to expand the size of Camp Second Chance to allow for about 20 additional tiny houses.

So I appreciate the sort of bifurcation of the investments and expectations associated with those separate investments.

You're absolutely right.

I have 20 new units and expand and enhance supportive services as well.

So we're excited about the 20 new units.

So last, so Chair Lewis, there's two more.

It was Woodland Park and then increased shelter, which we can bump the increased shelter capacity to when Mark comes on because a lot of it sits in their camp.

But the question was, why is Woodland Park our highest priority?

And I just want to state that the mayor has expressed that Woodland Park is a top priority, which is very different than saying it's the highest priority.

As you all know, during COVID, the CDC instructed all jurisdictions to refrain from moving encampments to reduce the spread of the virus.

And as a result, we saw some of the largest encampments in city history, which staff and providers spent the last six months of 2020, some in partnership with council members that are on this call, working tirelessly to ensure that as many campers as possible were brought inside and the public spaces restored.

We used a highly collaborative method at sites like Broadview Thompson, Ballard Commons, and City Hall Park.

And because this collaborative method has proved to be highly successful, we're bringing it into this year.

Woodland Park is a top priority for several reasons.

One is we have a high level of community buy-in and support, so the community is really standing up to say we want to help in any way we can in a supportive way.

Outreach efforts were already underway, led by REACH and the scofflaw mitigation for RV residents at the park.

And last but not least, we know that to address a camp of this size, it will take a tremendous amount of outreach effort, case management, and shelter resources.

This is not a site that can be addressed in 30 days.

And therefore, we wanted to start as early as possible.

So that is, I hope that answers the question of why it's a top priority for us.

Thank you.

Are there any questions for Deputy Mayor Washington on the Woodland Park situation?

Okay, seeing none, I think we can move on to the next agenda item.

or rather than the next bullet of this agenda item.

Go ahead, Deputy Mayor Washington.

Thank you.

So that's all I had.

The other question was about increase in shelter capacity and it's on Mark's list as well.

So I will wait until Mark answers that and we'll join them in the response because it's going to take both of us to We're the funder, KCRHA has the funding to give to the providers to stand up the shelter.

What I will say before Mark gets on the phone, what I see as the shelter resources included in the 2022 budget is 2.4 million in ongoing funding to support 120 units of non-congregate emergency shelter, 830K in one-time funding and 150K in ongoing funding to expand Camp Second Chance by 20 units.

and $1.175 million in one-time funding, $225K in ongoing funding to create and operate safe parking lots.

So all of the funding has been transitioned to the Regional Housing Authority, and I look forward to hearing from Director Doans on their timeline to stand up the shelter that was added in the 2022 budget.

Great, thank you.

So Deputy Mayor Washington, given that we do not yet have the authority with us, I don't want to waste the committee's time.

And we do have, I believe Tom Fay from Seattle Public Libraries is on here.

Mr. Fay, are you on the line or are you away from your computer currently?

He's not coming off mute, so I guess he is away.

But here's what I would like to do, Mr. Clerk, just to make sure.

And I hope Mark is here at 3 as indicated.

Oh, there's Tom.

OK, great.

So what I would like to do with the committee's indulgence is maybe we could move forward and start the presentation on the second agenda item.

And I'll have the clerk read it into the record.

and if everyone on agenda item one could just stay handy and maybe go on mute, get a cup of coffee, we can reconvene this conversation when Mark gets here.

So Mr. Clerk, would you please read agenda item two into the record?

Item two, council bill 120258, an ordinance accepting the deed to certain real property located at 5910 Corson Ave and 933 South Doris Street, Seattle for general municipal purposes.

Thank you, Mr. Clerk.

And we are joined here at virtual table by a delegation of folks from Seattle Public Library.

And I'm happy to turn it over to them.

Can you all please start by introducing yourselves and stating your name and title of Seattle Public Libraries?

Thank you, Chair Lewis.

My name is Tom Fay.

I'm the Interim Chief Librarian for the Seattle Public Libraries.

Hello, good afternoon.

My name is Alex Yoon, and I'm the Director of Administrative Service at the library.

And hello, I'm Jay Donahue.

I'm the Capital Finance Manager at the Seattle Public Library.

And, you know, of course, Just when we queued this up and you introduced yourself, Mark Jones arrived in the committee.

So Mark, do you need a moment to get situated before you start?

Or are you ready to jump into it?

Happy to begin whenever you're ready, Chair.

I believe if I could get Nigel promoted so that he can run slides, that would be great.

Great.

Okay.

Sorry, Seattle Public Library team for queuing you up.

But thanks for being ready to jump in so we didn't have a lag in the middle of the committee.

But we will notify you when this KCRHA presentation is over and get you back in the queue there.

So thanks for your flexibility.

Apologies.

All right.

So going back to agenda item one, we're now joined by the King County Regional Homelessness Authority team.

And Mark, why don't you go ahead and kick it off and introduce your team and then we can jump into the presentation.

Sure, thanks to all for inviting us and thank you for being flexible with my schedule and also that I'm a little under the weather.

I'm happy to be here and to present.

I just also remembered that Jacob is running the slides.

So thank you, Jacob.

And I think that is it and I can get going.

Oh, sorry.

Mark Dunn, CEO of King County Regional Homeless Authority, for the record.

Oh, and actually, Mark, I'm sorry.

The clerk just reminded me that you guys are actually your own separate agenda item, which is agenda item three.

So I just ask that the clerk read that into the record and we'll go forward with it here.

Jacob?

Item three, King County Regional Homelessness Authority update on homelessness investments in winter response.

Great.

Got it.

Got to do that for the minutes.

Okay, we are ready for the presentation.

Please take it away.

Thank you.

If we could go back, thank you.

So just to start off, so for those of you who haven't been following along in the public, and I know that most of the council members have been deeply involved and I'm grateful for that, but just a little recap.

I was hired in now March of last year, began in April.

And so our first year was more like nine months.

And we were very focused on organizational development and ramp up during that time.

As you can see on the slide, we expanded from one person who was me. to 32 and are still growing.

I heard from our chief administrative officer this morning that we have five people starting this week.

So we are consistently focused on ramping up the capacity necessary to administer the funds that you all have transferred over to us and to make sure that the system and the providers have the support that they need in order to do the good work that they do, which I know that Director Kim and Deputy Mayor Washington were speaking to just now, even in response to severe weather.

Our grants and contracts management system is up and running.

As of January 1st, we are the organization agency responsible for all of the billing, I will say, as one quick note, and happy to take any questions on this, we have extended the timeline for providers to sign their contracts with us in response to the COVID surge.

They will be able to bill for January and invoice against the work that they are doing.

But after several discussions with the provider community over the last couple weeks, they're quite tapped.

And so we're trying to relieve as much administrative burden as possible.

Our first budget cycle, 66% of our funding came from the city of Seattle and 34% from King County for about a 162.4 million budget.

There is some additional federal dollars and I hope to see some other sorts of private investment flow into that pot over the course of the year to be able to ramp up some of the work that we do.

And for our sub-regional planning activities, we've been working with the county and every city in King County and nearly 200 organizations to map out the services gaps and partnership opportunities that fit for each of our seven unique sub-regions, of which Seattle Metro is one.

And I want to lift up the work of Alexis Mercedes-Rink, who leads that team.

and Sparrow Carlson, who is actually the Seattle Subregional Planning Manager, both of whom have done exceptional work to really position us strongly to understand the needs of our community experiencing homelessness, but also the provider folks who support them every day.

Next slide, please.

So what is next?

I think you all know I'm a little obsessed with having the right information to make the right decisions.

So we are very focused on understanding the number of people who need our help and very focused on understanding the needs of those people.

As I believe you are all aware, in partnership with King County DCHS.

A report came out that showed that there were 45,000 people who experienced homelessness in King County in 2019. In 2020 that number dropped to around 40,000.

We as a policy priority will be indexing against the 45,000 number in part because we believe that the decline was more about people having fewer places to show up to be seen basically as a result of the pandemic.

And so we'll continue to operate on, I'm sorry, my dog is being very noisy right now.

Continue to use that number as the baseline for what we think we need the resources to accomplish and where to go from here.

Do you want to lift up that is more than three times the last point in time count number and and continue to hold that you know our community needs to really strive towards better data collection and more granular data collection in order to really address our crisis.

Um, we will be executing, um, if, uh, you know, the surge hopefully, um, peters out as the models predict.

Um, we will be executing, uh, qualitative research, um, and a rough unsheltered count in March.

Um, the qualitative research component is something that I'm, I'm very excited about.

Um, in partnership with the Lived Experience Coalition and others, we really want to learn What are unsheltered neighbors who do not utilize our services are are not seeing right and what could we do to better support them.

And we'll also be driving towards a by name list so taking.

those 45,000 folks who've been identified and turning them into real people, right?

Where a system can actually understand not just that there is a number, but that each of those folks has a name, a life, and needs, and that we need to be responsive to those.

And that we're gonna complete our system redesign and rebid for 2023 over the course of the first two quarters of this year.

Again, a little bit of wiggle room there.

in terms of relationship to the surge and just our ability to safely and successfully engage the community.

Next slide, please.

Speaking to the committee's request for an update on severe weather, and I know that Deputy Mayor Washington and Director Kim have also spoken about this, but from our perspective, I will just say it was frankly, more successful than I hoped, given that we were transitioning in the middle of the severe weather incident.

And I want to give a particular shout out to Director Kim, who was just an incredible ally and very supportive and collaborative throughout the incident and is just a tremendous leader.

Um, we worked extensively with the Seattle office of emergency management also shut out there.

Um, the, the director over there is super sharp and really effective at making sure that we all came together that we had our coordinating calls, made sure that the authority was wired into those coordinating calls and had all the information that we needed in order to make sure that.

Again, our providers who are running the severe weather shelters had the supplies and support that they needed to be successful.

The regional response was managed by the authority in collaboration with cities and providers.

We had daily coordination calls for our north, south, and east county subregions.

Next slide, please.

This shows sort of where things were over the course of the incident.

So the red dots or tabs represent severe weather shelters.

The dark blue represent places that expanded capacity in response to the incident.

The dark green represent King County libraries that were open for the most days during the incident and served as de facto warming centers for folks.

And then the orange are known warming centers that that folks were able to access over the course of the incident.

Next slide.

It was a 12-day event, lasting from December 23rd to January 3rd.

We in Seattle, as you know, had six overnight shelters, capacity about 374, and utilization ranged between approximately 65 and 77 percent.

I'm happy to talk about some of the theories around that utilization, as I'm sure Director Kim or Deputy Mayor Washington could as well.

Regionally, we had 27 sites, 19 operators at a capacity around 260, and usage at around 80%.

In South King, we had 12 overnight shelters, East King, seven overnight, two safe parking programs using hotels, and two cities offering hotel vouchers.

North King, we had three overnight shelters, one city offering hotel vouchers, and in Soqualmie Valley, we had one overnight shelter.

I'll also add, that some of the limitations on this data are that we do not know how many people regionally were vouchered into hotels.

And so there is some number of people who were assisted over the course of the incident that we cannot see in this data.

Next slide.

This is just a quick graph regionally of severe weather shelter-bred availability over time against unit occupancy.

So you can see that, you know, from a trend line, right, the occupancy trended, again, about, you know, 20 points below percentage-wise below the available units until the tail end when we begin to ramp down some of those severe weather shelters.

Next slide.

Some of the challenges which I believe the committee has discussed a little bit with Director Kim and Deputy Mayor Washington, more transportation, as we know, You know, it was more than the cold, right?

It was the snow and the ice.

And so it made it incredibly difficult for transit operators to function, which made it very difficult for folks experiencing unsheltered homelessness to get to some of the facilities that were open.

And there's definitely a lesson learned there.

I mentioned to both the Implementation Board and the Governing Committee and the Regional Policy Committee in a similar update that we had done some work via King County Office of Emergency Management, I believe, to access some Lyft vouchers, but they were capped at, I believe, about $30 a ride.

And so then during the incident, the surge pricing kicked in on the lifts and the rides were $130, right?

And the way the vouchers are structured by the company, you can only use one voucher for person.

So we couldn't even stack them knowing that their ride was gonna be more expensive.

And so certainly there's just a lot to be done around anticipating the transit needs of folks and really leaning in there.

Staffing, you know, anyone who's heard me talk in the last six months knows, like, our system is experiencing a staffing crisis.

That was true over the incident, the same way it is today.

The solution is we need to rebuild our workforce pipeline, and the solution to that is we need to pay people more.

And I look forward to working with this committee and appropriators across the region and at the state and federal level in order to make sure that we're able to do that.

Food and meal access also came up.

You know, one of the things that I think I heard from a number of folks who are experiencing homelessness and from our lived experience coalition colleagues is that, you know, when the food wasn't great, particularly during the day hours of the warming centers, right, like it's a disincentive to then stay there, right, because you're going to go find food that makes sense for you.

And so we really want to make sure that we're providing good meals for folks and COVID mitigation.

I believe, again, this was part of the conversation you had with Director Kim, but it was a significant challenge and remains a significant challenge system-wide.

Ultimately, from a public health perspective, I need to be very clear for the sake of the public, the correct decision was to open the severe weather shelters, knowing that COVID mitigation was going to be difficult.

The cold was lethal.

would have, and I believe in some cases did cause death.

And, you know, COVID, COVID was more of a toss up.

And that was the unfortunate math.

But I want to be really clear that running that math is in and of itself, a form of failure.

and that what we need to have is a system that has the non-congregate capacity every day to support the people who are experiencing homelessness and some overflow capacity for when we have incidents like these.

Next slide.

Our next steps are to debrief with our subregions.

Those processes have begun.

Here in Seattle, that process is really led by the Office of Emergency Management.

Again, grateful to Curry and her team for the work that they do to identify strategies to address those challenges like staffing and transportation and to develop emergency management protocols and emergency funds for future severe weather events.

Lift up for the governing committee at our meeting last week that in the future, I believe that it will be necessary to seek the creation of some form of emergency fund that I could seek permission to access and be granted that permission by the implementation board and the governing committee to respond when an incident hits a certain scope or scale, which certainly I believe, you know, a.

you know, a severe weather incident during an infectious disease outbreak easily meets the standards that I think we would set around accessing funds like that.

Next slide.

That is it.

I believe, you know, just one more thing, if you'll allow me, Mr. Chair, is I do want to note that some of our severe weather response was modified in flight by our partnerships with people with lived experience.

And I think that's just I'm really grateful for that.

And I think it's an important thing to lift up.

We partnered with the lived experience coalition and with Some of our folks who support folks who are living in vehicles to identify harm reduction strategies to keep people alive and fed and warm when they were needing to shelter in place for whatever reason and not transition into one of these severe weather shelters.

and grateful to the folks from the lived experience coalition and you know Bill Kerlin Hackett and other folks in the vehicle residency space who lifted up those needs very bright and clear in a way that allowed us to move quickly to respond.

I want to build on that work moving forward acknowledging that the occupancy rates we see in the severe weather shelters tells us something about how many people are going to use them against how many people we need to support over the course of an incident.

And so we'll be working internally with my team and then also with our lived experience colleagues and others to develop more robust strategies for the next incident and the incident after that and beyond.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for that presentation.

Why don't we take a pause here for questions directly related to the snow response presentation.

Are there any colleagues who would like to ask questions on this topic?

Okay, seeing none.

Director Jones, are there other topics that you want to cover in your remarks before we open it up to broader questions regarding the authority and moving forward together on the budget that we approved last Thursday?

And I want to give you an opportunity to expand a little first, and then I'm happy to open it up.

I do want to state, too, for the record, Council Member Mosqueda has joined the meeting and is here now as well.

So Mark, I'll hand it back over to you.

Thank you, chair.

And the only thing I would say is, you know, our team is really excited to get to work right like we've been planning and planning and planning.

And, you know, it's day 19 of us actually being the organization.

actually being the authority vested with the budget, vested with the actual policy levers and tools.

And there's a hum in the air around the virtual office, so to speak, as people really get to lean in to the work they signed up to do.

And so grateful for the budget support from the city of Seattle to continue to do that work.

And, you know, I want to lift up something that actually Councilmember Mosqueda said when she came in and spoke to our implementation board, which is just that the budget cycle is not how that's supposed to work.

And I just want everyone to hear that.

So that like everyone, you know, I know that Councilmember Muscata and Councilmember Lewis and I have had the opportunity to have this conversation, but like the way that that budget cycle worked was very, like, I came on board, did a bunch of rapid assessments, And then, you know, try to say like, hey, I think we're going to need these things, right?

And really appreciative of the partnership that got us to where we are and looking forward to being able to have the conversation over the course of the spring and summer so that when we get to budget, it's not like, you know, a Hail Mary pass at the end there, but a thoughtful community-wide conversation about how we can be successful.

That's all.

Yeah, well, there will be plenty more budget processes in the future.

So we'll have the opportunity to do it all again in short order, I'm sure.

So I have a couple of quick questions to start, and then I want to open it up to colleagues.

And we can move on to our patient friends at Seattle Public Libraries for the last agenda item.

The first thing, as we covered a little in the earlier presentation, with the mayor's office and human services department was regarding now that we have the approved budget for these city investments, a timeline for us to effectively deploy those assets.

And I know that we have a shared interest in doing that with speed and efficacy.

So for the first, I'm going to go to Mark.

I have a question.

We have heard some concern in the provider community and a number of Councilmembers and myself.

Around the timeline on the 5.8% cost of living adjustment that the Council passed for the folks who are doing this work.

I know this is a shared commitment.

So I wonder if we could start by talking about that 5.8% and plans to get that deployed and in the hands of the folks that are out there doing this.

And then the second question would be around the programmatic expansion of we have a lot of work to do to make sure that we have the shelter and housing capacity that we funded in the budget and the progress in standing that up so we can continue the process of offering folks who are living in encampments in the city and particularly, you know, relevant to this people can be safe and sustained.

So I'll throw those two questions out first, and then I'll open it up more to other folks.

So with that, I'll hand it back over to you.

Sure.

So on the provider pay, my understanding is that that increase was being reviewed by CBO and has been approved and so can be implemented.

And so as soon as it shows up, just I need a contractual vehicle that says I have money and then I can spend it.

And I believe that Director Kim, who is I believe still here and could speak to this if I'm wrong, but I believe that Director Kim has approved that on her end.

And so we are in the final stages there to being able to implement and to be able to distribute that to providers.

It should not take much time.

Again, I'll lift up that we have offered providers, they don't have to take it, I want to be really clear, but we have offered them grace with the execution of their contracts, right, for FY22.

And so as soon as they execute what is in those, what we're calling project service agreements, will go into effect, including the increase in pay.

And thank you for noting that I talk about provider pay every time I talk.

And I will just add, I am appreciative of all efforts by this council to ensure that our providers get more money.

And I see Director Kim has joined me.

Yeah, I'm Tanya Kim, Acting Director of the Human Services Department for the record, since I'm not a part of this panel.

But yeah, just wanted to confirm that as Mark had mentioned, we have MSA, a Master Service Agreement amendment coming their way because of additional ads and other consolidation of some funds.

And so that's happening as we speak.

We're working on that right now, but it's coming and we'll get it out as soon as possible.

And we're, just so people can have clear optics into the collaboration here, we, because at this point, I think Director Kim and I talk maybe every day.

So we are moving with the, like, we are moving on the assumption that it is coming, not like waiting for something to materialize.

We just can't execute a document that says here is new money until we have executed a document saying we have it because of the law.

I appreciate that.

Are there any other comments on the pay increase before we pivot to shelter capacity?

I appreciate that summary.

It sounds like by the next committee meeting when we have an update there will be progress.

All right, seeing none, why don't we pivot to the shelter capacity?

We had a conversation earlier with Deputy Mayor Washington about the Camp Second Chance expansion, and the Seattle city is ready on its end with SPU to do long overdue work on getting You know, I mean like utilities in the camp second chance.

So, so maybe the, the first part here maybe an update on on like kind of how we're looking to.

to do components of the camp second chance expansion that are going to live with the authority.

And then obviously some of the other shelter ads around high-acuity sheltering assets and other things that we put into the budget in the fall.

Any update there in terms of timeline or how that work is getting put together to take those things from paper to reality.

Yeah, on Camp Second Chance specifically, because it's an existing site, and it is levelly funded already in our FY22 work, and as was discussed at the implementation board and the governing committee and approved at both, Directed fund utilization right for camps like a chance was in line with a thing We think is operationally sound and so we will get it out the door with all due haste.

I believe And I can confirm this in writing for the committee afterwards, but my understanding per Peter Lynn our chief program officer is that all of the the level funding agreements, right, have left the authority already.

And so for this expansion money, we may need to circle back and add it, but that shouldn't take any time.

So that should be something that we can, January 19th, that should be done by the next time that we talk to each other.

There's no bid, there's no thing we have to do.

Great.

Is there a follow-up, Council Member Herbold, on that?

Go ahead, Council Member Herbold.

I hope I'm wrong, but I think there may be a thing that needs doing, which is a look at the footprint that Camp Second Chance is on now versus the surrounding land that they are not on, that is owned by FAS, and just making sure that we have agreement on the expansion footprint.

So maybe that's already done, but that would be something.

So because it because it's city land, that would be something that that I think Deputy Mayor Washington and Director Kim could speak to more fluently.

And I want to be really clear about my lane here, which is I didn't mean you.

OK, great to be done.

Not necessary for you.

That was a great call out.

Councilmember Herbold, I will put that on my to do list to make sure that we are able to do the thing.

I appreciate that.

I have had some initial, very initial conversations with Fire Chief Scoggins about my interest in this area.

And he has willingness to talk because the joint training facility is on that land.

And I think everybody agrees that there's plenty of space, but I do think that a conversation needs to be had.

Thank you.

And we are in the process, again, with Director Kim's skillful leadership of executing what will be the arrangement by which the authority interacts with city-owned land.

And part of it is I largely stay away from it until until I'm funding something on it.

So happy to be part of whatever part of the conversation I need to be, but we will get the money to the provider via contract mechanism as soon as possible.

Excellent.

Yeah, there's always one more detail that Councilmember Herbold notices.

That's a staple of the committee.

So that's great.

Why don't we go forward then to some of the other things like the joint high-acuity sheltering concept that King County and the city are investing in and how that planning is looking at this stage.

And then at that point, I don't have any additional questions.

And I'm happy to open it up to more folks and close out the presentation.

So I'll turn it back over to you, Mark.

Sure.

So Director Flora is another person that I talk to about daily.

And sorry for the record, Director Leo Flora, who is the director of DCHS.

And we are continuing to, I also apologize, I keep doing this because there's something in my eye and I'm trying not to like rub my eye while I'm presenting to you all, but that's what's happening.

Um, the, we are continuing to have a conversation about scoping the site and making sure that we are being really clear about.

frankly, making sure that that we are making it a supportive campus and not just dumping a bunch of stuff.

Right.

And so and that is in relationship to the physical assets and all of the work that the county has indicated that they will take on in order to, you know, you know, build up the.

Sorry, I'm blanking on a word like sewage lines.

Sorry.

And other, other operational needs in order to turn stuff on.

We are having conversation more on the service provision side in relationship to the Soto space that's already there and then looking at like, you know, which building we think that a.

some form of supportive space for folks with more behavioral health difficulties to go in.

And the planning level that we're in now is actually quite programmatic.

So we're talking about what is the length of stay?

What is the staffing model?

We're in that sort of weedy space.

My understanding process-wise, and again, I don't want to speak for my colleagues at the county, but I believe the vehicle by which the site securement and expansion happens needs to be processed by their council.

And I am not aware of that having happened yet.

And so we will get into site like actually citing things and ramping up on things once that has been legislatively approved across the street, so to speak.

But at the department level, we are are in the program planning phase.

OK, any additional comments on that?

I appreciate the conversation here today.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

And thank you, director Jones for your note as well about the presentation we provided to the implementation committee.

And I appreciate you noting the ongoing conversations with King County, as we talked about in the implementation board.

And then this morning, we also happened to discuss in relation to the implementation of the Seattle Rescue Plan, the ways in which Seattle is trying to make sure that we're being both good partners with the Regional Homelessness Authority in the long term, but especially in the initial creation of the RHA and taking very seriously our role.

I want to use this as an opportunity, again, to sort of dispel any misunderstandings that are out there about Seattle not doing its part or treating this as business as usual when Seattle, and I'm going to use the percentages of 68%, I think our percentage is 68% of the $170 million budget that our AJ has, Seattle's contributing that.

And as I noted to the implementation board, I'm not saying that to brag, but I am saying that to really note the ways in which we've taken this role very seriously, both in our budget and in our policy commitments.

And I do hope that that funding diversifies in the future and that we continue to see additional buy-in or pay-in to supporting this system.

but we very much have taken this seriously and I think that the comments specific to the High-acuity shelter and the ongoing discussions that you're having there just again to dispel any misunderstandings or misinformation that's out there Really appreciate both director floor and director Jones's roles in coordinating to make sure that this is Evolving into a site that can have multiple services on one location, and when we were in the midst of the budget and we asked King County, how quickly can we work with you to meet the intent, the vision of what was outlined to us initially?

with, I'm gonna just use your term, the Hail Mary kind of vision of what we wanted to accomplish for the high acuity shelter.

We as a city were asked to contribute 5 million to match their 5 million and we did exactly that.

So we have not shortchanged that effort and I think that that's a high area of interest for all council members to see that high acuity shelter come to fruition and all the other amenities that you're able to put on site.

So just using this as an opportunity again to say thank you for the partnership and hopefully correct some of the narrative out there.

about the way in which Seattle and especially our last budget is looking to support RHA.

And I know that Director Jones and I will continue to have conversations as the budget chair about provisos or elements that are added to the budget as we did last year's budget.

So every word of the two provisos specifically that I can remember that we added in the budget for 2022 were workshopped together.

And that's an important partnership role as well.

And Director Jones, I know you're CEO Jones.

I always just say director Jones because it has a nice ring to it.

If you could also maybe share for us, sorry Mr. Chair, I believe I'm jumping in inappropriately because I'm dovetailing on the last question that you asked about the high acuity shelter.

But at some point,

That's fine.

Go ahead councilmember.

Thank you.

Just very briefly at some point Could you um, tell us more about what you think the process will be for this year given that you're going to start your budget conversations in april And the ways in which we as a council maybe through mr chair's committee here can get regular updates and be part of the conversation and you know have a reciprocal feedback, um before we get to those budget processes so that we can stay in tune and up-to-date on how those conversations are going and what that what that role for the council looks like

Sure.

And also, thank you for the well wishes on my health.

And for the record, I came down with COVID.

And I'm mostly fine.

I seem to have a headache that won't go away.

And so maybe I'm just like a person who has a headache now.

But I'm happy to be here today.

You know, so I am leaning on our history council member.

I think you know that my preference is for like broad community engagement and how a thing is done, right?

Like that's what democracy is supposed to be.

And so our budget process, we're really looking at as being connected really deeply to what the system rebid is, right?

So that like, when we are asking the provider community and the lived experience community and the whole community, right, to be part of this work that is ending homelessness, that that should be a community conversation.

And that community conversation about what the work is should then yield the budget.

And so that's the process that we are, our fingers crossed, all things COVID sort of working in our favor, looking to begin really in earnest and in February, hopefully not too far into February.

And that it would in many ways entail very similar methodology to how we design the authority, but frankly more robust.

So a lot of community workshops, a lot of community listening, a lot of connecting with people who are unsheltered and saying, what can we do better here, right?

In keeping with our commitment to be regional, the part that I really want to be clear about doing better is going more places, right, and really making sure that we are hearing from everybody.

And the updates, you know, that you all would receive on that process along the way would be, this is what we're hearing.

This is what we think, you know, the request might turn into if what we hear stays consistent, right?

And similarly, you know, again, in Candor, as we work to design the authority, I understand all of the regional elected as stakeholders who we also engage and ask like what's the work right like what does success look like, how do we know that that is happening.

And so look forward to being able to have some of those conversations with you in committee, in other venues, come to one of the community forums that we hopefully are able to set up in a COVID safe way.

That I think is how our team is imagining that process unfolding over the spring and then yielding a budget ask that is in relationship sort of concept to dollar, right?

with the way forward.

I also think in candor that it is the only way that a true transformation happens, right, is that we all say this is where we're going, this is why we're headed there, and this is what it's going to mean to succeed or fail.

And so, you know, to me and to our team, it's just really critical that this be you know, that we live into the, I think, the highest value placed in, or highest hope, I should say, placed in this agency, that it doesn't become a place for fiats and, you know, just, well, this is what we decided, but actually becomes the nexus point for the conversation we need to have to end homelessness.

So that's my hope for that process.

And then, you know, very open, of course, to like, you know, and again, going back to how we set up the authority, right?

I think we met with members of the then Committee on Homelessness, I want to say monthly or every other week, maybe at some point.

And happy to do that, to make sure that you all are getting the insight into how those conversations are unfolding.

And again, no Hail Mary pass at the end, and it's like, why is this what's being asked for, right?

But that it is very clear why we're positioning what we're positioning.

Thank you for that.

I'm CEO Jones, and I know Council Member Herbold has a question, and then I'll open it up if there's anyone else that wants to get in the queue, do the little hand raise thing.

So Council Member Herbold, to you.

Thank you.

I have a question that I think we could maybe use some tag team partnership in answering, both from the city and from you, CEO Dunn's.

And it's to follow up on a question that I asked, I think, in a governing committee meeting around my interest in preserving the outreach contracts geographic focus.

When they transferred over from the city to the regional authority, there is some intentionality around having the geographic focus in different parts of the city.

And that was, you know, that's something that came through our budget process.

And you at that time, CEO Jones expressed a willingness and told me I could expect that that geographic focus would be preserved.

I wanna just check in on the outreach contract side with you and then on the HOPE team side with Deputy Mayor Washington about how best I can access those services and help my constituents access those services.

Right now, for the outreach contracts, I would just tell you what I've been doing, and you let me know, CEO Dunn, that that's the right way to keep doing it.

We have relationships with our designated reach workers in District 1, and we reach out to them when we are notified by a member of the public, or we observe ourselves, folks who are living unsheltered, and a person will go out and do an assessment and try to connect people with services.

It feels like a little bit of a funny way to deal with it because I'm not in a position where I can manage the amount of work that I am sending one of these wonderful people that are dedicated to District 1. So putting that out there.

On the HOPE team side, Deputy Mayor Washington, you know, People contact the city about a location that they are wondering whether or not it should be assessed for HOPE team engagement and assessed as to whether or not it should be considered a high-priority location or not.

I try to do everything I can to manage people's expectations and make sure that people understand the sheer number of locations of people who are living outside together in community to maintain a level of safety.

and community and explain that the city has a process of identifying what the high priority locations are with an assessment of the risks to the people living unsheltered as well as impacts to the community.

And that we have to do that assessment also with an assessment of whether or not we have locations for people to go.

The problem is when I share that information with people and give them the only method that I have for them to notify the city, which is the Community Service Bureau information, people don't ever hear back from anybody.

about, yes, we've gone out and we've done this assessment, and sorry, you are 167 on a list of 200 places that we, so I just, it's very difficult for me to manage people's expectations in a way that is helpful for all of us, and also gives people a really good sense of the sheer largeness and demand on our system.

What a timely question.

So I will start.

Isn't it really timely?

It's so good.

One of the things that I would say, because I just had an aha moment, is the two times that I've worked, been asked to work on homelessness, both of those times I was brought into a process in the middle or in this last situation towards the end, where habits have been formed, structures have been built, opinions were solidified.

And so I was, maintaining most of the time and never until Mayor Harold came in to office have I ever been able to start at the beginning with a focus mandate on homelessness and housing.

and the freedom to be transparent and in partnership with both council and community at the level that Mayor Harreld is committed to.

So what I've done, because I've been asking myself those same questions, Council Member Herbold, for eight years, and never been in charge of any one thing.

And so starting at the beginning of an administration with a group of people who want, who are also curious and open to solutions makes a world of difference.

So I brought together all the city departments, the directors and their number twos, two meetings, very long.

Mark Jones was present and started from the beginning.

How does your department know there's a problem?

Whether it is a car, an RV, a tent or something, and then how do you loop back?

how do you determine which one you do first?

Like all the questions that you just asked and you will not be surprised to hear each department does it differently.

Each department has a different spreadsheet.

The income generating departments have very sophisticated databases and oftentimes are more able to close the loop with constituents and the human servicing side of the house does not.

They just have hundreds and hundreds of emails, which, as you know, monitoring this level of an issue with emails does not yield high customer service.

So that's one.

So we are really clear.

Two, we have a mandate from the mayor to build a system.

And so a system that really demonstrates or models One Seattle.

And so we can respond to people.

It is heartbreaking to me.

I have hundreds of emails a day, and it just breaks my heart.

And there should be one place where people go.

They call a place, or they send an email to a place, preferably both.

They talk to somebody, and they hear a clear answer as to, We hear you.

And then someone has to prioritize it.

And that's where Mark and Director Kim and a large group of people have been working for two months now.

They have a planning meeting tomorrow because Mark and Donna and Parks and the whole team are working collectively with outreach to say, how do we prioritize what's one, two, and three?

And where do we focus our resources?

I'm super excited.

I actually think for one, like in a long time, I can see that we can get our hands around this because there are willing participants in city council, in the mayor's office, with Mark, the outreach providers are excited to be brought in at the front end and asked for their opinion.

And It feels very hopeful.

So I'll say that, and we gotta move fast.

We don't have six months.

People need customer service.

And when I say customer service, I consider our unsheltered neighbors customers as well.

That gets to access to the things they need.

And so I'm just very hopeful.

So I'll pass it over to CEO Dones.

Thank you for that, Council Member Mosqueda.

I call them Director Dones as well.

I don't care if we if you call me mark even in this formal setting I think that's fine.

So, so, um, I will say, um, I'm also really excited and I, I. I'm very grateful that Deputy Mayor Washington is in the position that she's in, that she has done the work that she has done, which I just want to lift up for the public, has been an outreach worker, has worked with gang-involved young people, has done the administrative work at HSD, and is now deputy mayor.

And in the same way that Director Kim has been a provider for many years.

And having that, I have done these things, is game-changing for the reality check that is often necessary in the conversation that I frequently am the one who has to bring to be like, well, that's just not how that works.

And so really grateful for their leadership.

I will say the thing that left out to me, first and foremost, Council Member Herbold, is one, we have to be able to tell people clearly Well, we're on the cue this is in relationship to the resources that we have.

And to Deputy Mayor Washington's point, it was in, I want to say October, that we began to convene a group that the Deputy Mayor is describing, saying, we got to get this right, and we got to get it right fast.

So when we get the keys, we have to be able to then begin to implement something that makes sense.

And I have really high faith that our community is smart enough and passionate enough and cares enough about our unsheltered neighbors that if we as administrators are able to say to them, this is why this is, they actually can get that and be okay with it, right?

It is the fact that it feels like Kafka That is not okay right that like it is this abysmal experience for both our unsheltered neighbors and our house neighbors to try to interact with the service streams we deploy here.

And so that is the thing that I think the Deputy Mayor and I are super aligned on fixing and fixing fast.

And so you have my personal commitment that like, and it's a thing that on our side of the authority, I project manage personally, like that is one of my projects.

So like, so when you wanna know how it's going, like feel free to call me, text me, call me back here to explain what's happening, right?

I am more than happy to speak about it.

The other thing that in terms of like accessing the existing resource pool as it stands is our approach to that while we're in this flux moment has been to lean way in.

So like, so rather than, you know, I think the response of saying, thanks for your call, CM Herbold, like, please direct that to Chloe Gale, right?

Like, what we're doing is saying, can we come to the meeting with you and Chloe Gale, right?

Like, so like, you know, for example, there was a conversation that another council member called about an encampment, like, Deputy Mayor Washington and I went, right?

And we're like, what's going on?

Tell us what is happening.

The REACH staff were there.

I'm meeting with them again on Friday to talk about the strategies for the encampment and how the authority resources can be positioned to support what strategy they want to use, right?

So we are in the interim space.

using our capacity to be physically present, so to speak, in the conversation, and to make sure that the resourcing that the providers are receiving is in alignment with what they are feeling is the right thing to do, et cetera, et cetera.

And then we also can serve as the um people closing loop right like who can report back to you or report back to constituents right i think everybody knows that i've been super clear like i'll go wherever like i've done some rotary club conversations because i think that's a good idea when again we have this level of kafka nonsense so like if you are experiencing um or hearing from your constituents that they need to know why a thing is the way it is I'm more than happy, and my team is more than happy, to go and talk to people about what is the current state, what we're trying to do, listen to the concerns they have, and if there are specific things that they want to say, like, but this encampment, we need to have a, like, not a high-level conversation about, but a tactical conversation about, we're happy to support that as well.

we will follow up on that request, Mark.

Thank you for putting that forward.

Operational follow-up?

Yes, Councilmember Herold and then Councilmember Mesquite.

I just want to get real nitty-gritty here.

So currently, I'm not going to name the individual, but we have a person who does work in District 1. And when we get a constituent contacting us about a location where there's anything from one tent to a dozen tents, we contact this person, give them the location, and are told that they will go out and engage with the folks who are living unsheltered at that location.

would it be useful to start copying?

Because again, the reason why I'm a little bit uncomfortable with this is I feel like I'm referring a lot of stuff to this one person.

And I think, you know, given that you are managing the contracts, I think it might be useful for somebody else to be doing an assessment of whether or not we are saddling this one outreach worker with too much work.

I'm positive we are, and feel free to CC me.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you so much.

No worries.

Council Member Mosqueda?

Thank you so much.

I guess my question is similar to Councilmember Herbold.

What do we do?

when folks either call us or we also see an area in need of assistance, I'm not quite sure I understand what the process should be.

And perhaps it should also be clear to members of the community who want to provide assistance to folks as well.

So can you remind me, maybe there's gonna be a follow-up email that says here's the two or three people that you should contact, or if there's a place that we should be referring people, happy to also have that information shared if that's, a public resource as well.

I'll send a follow-up email, but I would say we're in process of moving from what is now, which is there is no one place.

People are just emailing everybody.

You, me, Mark, they just want help.

They're just emailing folks.

And what we are trying to stand up very quickly is a one place, Council Member Mosqueda, where I can say to all of you and the general public, if you see something, because the Find It Fix It app was designed for some of it, but it's not working because FAS staff work really hard.

They get an email and they just send the request to the appropriate department.

And then it falls into that department's process, but there's no loop back to close.

And so we're working fast to create one place where people will get notice and acknowledgement of their email.

And then there will be some kind of loop closed, basic customer service.

I think we're talking about basic customer service.

So in the interim, I will send you with Mark, we'll work together on where to send things in the interim, knowing that it's clunky, but we are, actively trying to get to a very organized way to deal with these requests.

Right.

And the only thing that I would lift up in response is just to really drill down on that, like, because we are transitioning from, we are actively in that process of transition, what we are, and Deputy Mayor, correct me if I'm wrong, but this is what I see in all the meetings, we're just doing it ourselves.

Like, again, like we are just going to the things that the community needs us to be at, so that they can, they, they can see that we're there right and that there is some follow up and that we take personal responsibility for what that follow up is.

I think again to the, the, and I heard something in your question Councilmember Mosqueda that like, I think is, is very much connected to what Deputy Mayor Washington was connected because I think like the panoply of issues that people reach out about are not all authority things and they're not all you know like so.

So there's this question of like, you know, is it is it for Donna at Parks and, you know, more of the Clean Cities team?

Because the question is about trash mitigation.

Is it for, you know, the RV remediation team?

Is it like who is it for is one of the like key barriers to success right now.

And the triaging mechanism doesn't isn't It's just not there, if we're being totally candid.

It's not there the way it needs to be.

And I don't feel like I'm on a limb, because I'm pretty sure you just said that, Deputy Mayor.

And so we are in acknowledgment of that problem and clear about it needing to be fixed, not in a year, but this quarter.

and mayor Harrell convened asked me to convene all the directors yesterday and basically said to them this is one Seattle we are going to address this this issue as a team and I've asked my staff to streamline this process so that we can provide the highest customer service to the folks in our community and so it was also helpful to have that direction from the mayor.

It is one of his, it is one of his top priorities and so we have no choice but to do it.

Thank you so much for that discussion.

And thank you Councilmember Horvold for queuing that up because this right here, this service delivery discussion we just had, is the number one frustration that our office receives.

I would say that my office and my staff and me personally probably spend about two-thirds of our work time trying to coordinate tactical interventions for encampment-related issues.

So being in a position where that's easier to navigate, easier to queue up, looking forward to this, this committee is going to be a big partner in helping with everything you guys need to get this work accomplished.

And I really appreciate the shared priority there.

And Deputy Mayor Washington, we are all extremely excited for you to be able to build something from the ground up that works.

So thank you so much for that update.

Councilmember Mosqueda, one more question on this, and then I do want to close off this conversation and go to our Seattle Public Library's presentation, so I'll let you close it out, Councilmember Mosqueda.

Thank you and just feel like we should say again and reiterate to folks who are watching this, when we're talking about a place to call, I believe both from the RHA, the executive and the legislative branch here, we're all talking about services.

So these are, you know, it could be hygiene services, it could be case management, housing connection, it could also be helping to make sure that folks have health and safety needs met.

So the full array, and I'm seeing nods from folks in the Zoom here, So people understand why that number is important and not just assume that it's for one type of service only.

We very much want to make sure that everybody is getting their needs met.

And then I just have to ask, because we talked about it this morning, and I know that this is an area that comes as a carryover from our conversations from the previous budget as well.

We are thankful that the Seattle Rescue Plan dollars are being handed over to RHA.

We got an update from Julie Dingley this morning in our budget committee about that.

Is there any additional details you can share with us about the creation of the RV safe lot and services that Council Member Herbold also added to and was a priority of mine, in addition to the tiny house village dollars that are passed through from the state legislature?

Yes, so two-part answer.

One, which is more tagging on to your comment, which is just to be clear for the public and for everyone watching, right?

Like, I took this job because I believe that we can house people.

I don't believe that we can shuffle people around endlessly.

That's not a solution, right?

And so the conversation that we are having is about supports.

It is not about you can't be here.

And I want to make that very clear from my perspective, from my agency's perspective.

That's the work we all signed up to do.

And that is the work we intend to do in collaboration with Deputy Mayor Washington.

So thank you for that clarity, because I don't want that to be misconstrued as like, you know, the authority wants a sweeps hotline, not what we're here to do.

So on the ARPA dollars, I'm sorry, the American Rescue Act Plan dollars, American Rescue Plan Act dollars, and the THVs, so the state legislature money, I can speak to first, and that's the easiest to dispense with, it won't be activated and transitioned to us until a site is secured.

So we anticipate utilizing it up, you know, once a appropriate site is secured, and then it becomes eligible for transfer.

That's my understanding per Interim Director Dingley and our mutual budget teams.

The timeline to that transfer is in relationship to the successful closing of the NOFA that the authority is running right now.

I don't anticipate that there should be any significant issues there.

I'm wracking my memory right now.

I don't anticipate that there should be any significant issues.

I know I had some conversation with our chief program officer Peter Lynn about, you know, potential language that was not clear in the NOFA and making sure that potential bidders knew what was true and what was not true.

My hope is that that doesn't radically shift the timeline.

As with any NOFA, language clarifications can't just be communicated to who asks.

They do have to be posted, and everyone has to have an opportunity to see whatever the change was.

But we are, or I should say I am, because I don't want to speak for Peter.

I am confident in Peter's ability to make sure that that moves with all due haste.

And then the safe parking stuff, which, sorry, I get jazzed about the safe parking stuff because it's enough money to really do safe parking, so thank you.

So on the safe parking stuff, we're talking sites.

So I think, you know, in candor, obviously thinking about whether or not some of the investments around Soto can be a potential home for some of that work.

I'm also trying to look at some of our investments countywide and how we might marry some things that are operant and could provide a combination of safe parking and other service supports.

And which sites have, frankly, the parking capacity to do that.

But my hope is that, and we have, of course, our vehicle residency working group.

And that is, you know, been a core component of our launch work.

And so my hope is that we should be in a place to get that NOFA and our sort of broad new NOFAs out the door and like the.

I hope second week of February, that might be a tight turnaround time given just where we are with staffing.

But that's my desire because, you know, again, in candor, right, like, as I think as we all know, our system is facing contractions of beds and spaces as we pivot away from congregate models and work to better serve.

And so the need to move quickly is not lost on our team.

It is very straightforwardly where we are in our staffing ramp up that might cause some of the hitches, but we're moving as quick as we can.

Thank you so much.

And I think that's a good place for us to end at this point.

I would say that going forward, this committee is scheduled to meet twice a month.

And we may not always have a homelessness update, but we would, of course, always like to get updates from the authority and mayor's office on kind of those high-level items, right?

Just kind of check-ins every meeting.

And I think going forward, just sort of as expectation setting here, I mean, I'm speaking mostly for myself here, but I think I'm partially speaking for my colleagues that, you know, I mean, just laying it out right in terms of what the next step is.

And as long as we're moving forward and as long as we're meeting our goals and as long as we can communicate that as part of this philosophy of having a unified city government working on this together, a unified region under your leadership, Mark, we are fine with communicating that as long as progress is being made.

I think part of our frustration over the last two years has been having committee meetings where the council was appropriating money for things, it wasn't always clear how things were moving along and what the next goal was.

And I think as long as we're just transparency and have routine public check-ins here, this council's gonna continue to be very supportive of this work and look forward to doing what we can to assist to move that forward and knock those hurdles down if it's within our power as they come up.

also continuing to think of us as a resource to complete this work, be it signaling problem spots that constituents are sending us or also shoring up regulation waivers or funding that needs to be moved around to support certain priorities.

We share the urgency with the administration and appreciate earlier in this meeting Mayor Harrell's remarks about his sense of urgency on this and just think that this was a really good beginning session to this.

And we're in the middle now of week three of the Herald Administration, and a lot of stuff is coming together.

And hopefully in two weeks when we can meet again, we can talk a little bit more about some more of this work.

I do want to acknowledge that it's been great to start off with a two-mayor meeting.

Thank you Mayor Herbig for joining us and congratulations on your role as a part of the authority and appreciate you coming by.

So with that, I think we can move on, Mr. Clerk, to the patient Seattle Public Library's team.

I want to thank Director Kim and CEO Dones and Deputy Mayor Washington and Mayor Harrell for their presentation.

And now we can pivot to our final agenda item, which is returning to agenda item number two.

And we did introduce that panel earlier.

I will turn it over to you, Tom.

Thank you, Chair Lewis.

My name is Tom Pham, Interim Chief Librarian of the Seattle Public Library.

Hi, I'm Alex Jeon, Director of the Administrative Service at Seattle Public Library.

And I'm Jay Donahue.

I'm the Capital Finance Manager for the Seattle Public Library.

Thank you.

We have before you an item that we hope is fairly brief after I know a longer meeting on a very important topic.

What we have before you is a property swap transaction that occurred back in March of 2021. Our board of trustees reviewed and approved this swap at that time.

And Alex will walk through a quick presentation of what this meant for the library.

Great.

Thank you, Tom.

And I hope that everyone can see the presentation.

Just quick to give you the the property that we have acquired is really used for.

It is called our maintenance and operations center.

And we wanted to just give you a quick in terms of how we use the facility.

It is really the warehouse and storage space for all of our maintenance related work.

for our 26 branch libraries as well as central library building.

This facility is really used to house our building maintenance workshops.

So this is where a lot of our, the fixes and repairs and buildups related with our facility is being done.

We store the spaces utilized for storing our grounds work, landscape, custodial, and also building maintenance equipments and supplies there, as well as really housing our fleet services for our delivery vans as well as mobile service vans.

We also house our library furniture and supplies there as well.

So just quick history is that back in 2019, we actually had a small storage unit at Queen Anne as well as a couple of other rental places where we would be housing all these different supplies and equipments.

And we finally landed a space which is property at 5510 4th Avenue.

as our new maintenance and operations center and acquired this property back in 2019. And in late 2020, we were approached by Georgetown Community Development Group.

really with the proposal to do a property swap.

So they actually brought to us the property at 5910 Corson Avenue where it has a warehouse space that we can utilize and be able to really consider.

And oops, sorry about that.

With the help of our legal team, as well as FAS, we were able to complete the property swap on March 31st.

And, you know, one other thing that we also want to make sure is that we're financially on the revenue and the property exchange that this was really purely net zero property exchange on our end.

So with that, did a little quick comparison in terms of why we have decided to move forward on the property swap.

The previous property at 5510 on the 4th Avenue, it has a total square footage of about 17,000.

Of that, about 5,500 is office space.

And 10,000 was really the square footage that we can use for our warehouse.

really the storing of the equipment, supplies, and really a lot of warehouse needs.

And a quick purchase, the purchase price of that was about 5.83 back in 2019, and we have spent about $600,000, actually about $800,000 in terms of improvement.

One other thing that it was attractive for the Georgetown community group was the fact that this property is a multi-family residential zone.

So that, you know, I think they really approached us in hopes that they could build affordable housing.

Compared to the new property that they have proposed to us is that it does have a bigger square footage space.

it has almost like 20,000 square feet and of that 8,000 square feet were pure warehouse space so definitely we had much better use of those warehouse space for for our specific needs and the the property was on sale for 6.9 million and this or I'm sorry, 6.8 million.

And this does include a parcel adjacent to the property that really has about 5,000 square feet of parking lot.

What we felt was that this property was much more versatile in terms of our need and particularly the use of the warehouse.

And the fact that we are not incurring any additional cost really led us to complete the property swap.

So this is really the map of the current place that we're asking the council to accept in terms of the deed.

This property is right here, the whole area, as well as the adjacent on the Doris Street.

So any questions in terms of our property swap and the acceptance of our deed?

Thank you very much for that presentation.

Alex, are there any questions from council members?

I know this falls in council member Morales' district, if council member Morales has any questions.

Okay, seeing none.

So this was previously, this was approved by the library board before coming here before the council.

Can you walk through that process a little bit for the committee members and the public in terms of the role of the library board in these acquisition decisions and, and, um, uh, and then the role here today for us as a council, uh, to, to ratify that.

But I think it's good to, um, to know what considerations were in front of the library board, um, uh, to inform our decision as well.

Absolutely.

Yes.

The board of trustees has full fiduciary and policy setting authority for the library.

And back in probably late January or February as this formed up and solidified, the board was informed of that.

They reviewed this as a possibility.

Obviously, the chief librarian at the time, Marcellus Turner, had presented it to them along with Alex that this opportunity could provide us more flexibility in operations for our maintenance and operations center.

And with that, they authorized the chief librarian to pursue this option.

We further then worked with city law and FAS to broker this deal to make sure that it was a clear and clean zero sum property swap.

At that point, once that was all conditions were met, the board of trustees I believe Councilmember Morales is on the line.

Yeah, sorry, I'm having some real issues today and I can't actually see what you were posting.

Can you just talk a little bit about whether there are any issues around zoning for the swap-in uses?

Well, maybe I'll start there and then I may have another question for you.

There were no zoning issues for the library in the swap.

That was advantageous to us in that sense.

There was nothing that hurt us in that.

As far as the Georgetown Community Development Group, their interest, I believe, was in the fact that the building we previously had was zoned for multifamily or residential and that was where their interest was at.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Morales.

Are there any other questions for our Seattle Public Library panel?

Okay, seeing no questions, I do want to bring this matter to a vote today, given the urgency the library has in ratifying this swap.

So not hearing kind of any concerns and in consideration of the thorough presentation, I think I'll move forward to that, to moving the bill at this point.

I move council bill 120258 to bring it before the council.

Is there a second for that?

Second.

Okay, so the bill is now before the committee.

Are there any comments on the legislation in front of the committee?

Seeing none, I'll call for a vote on the ordinance.

Mr. Clerk, will you please read the roll on recommending to the full council passage of Council Bill 120258?

Council Member Herbold?

Yes.

Council President Juarez?

Aye.

Council Member Morales?

Yes.

Council Member Mosqueda?

Aye.

Chair Lewis?

Yes.

Chair, there are five in favor, none opposed.

Thank you, Mr. Clerk.

The bill will be on the next council agenda that council president decides to include it on.

So given that, there is no further business on this agenda item.

And that was agenda item two heard out of order.

So at that point, we are on to if there's anything for the good of the order for adjournment, not seeing any matters for the good of the order.

And so if that is the case, this committee is adjourned.

Thank you, everybody.

Thank you.

Thank you.

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