Well, I want to thank you all for joining us here this morning, community members and members of the press and the folks here who were involved with this effort on 3rd Avenue and many others, downtown residents, business owners, people with lived experience, outreach workers, to really come here and recognize a model that is doing great work in the city of Seattle to finally start realizing all of our common shared interests of making sure that our neighbors who are living without shelter are able to get shelter and live with dignity and be well resourced and be set up to be successful and that our business owners are put in a position where they no longer have to tolerate on a daily basis the presence of encampments that we know have had a detrimental effect to the quality of life for the folks living in those encampments as well as folks in the broader community here in the City of Seattle.
And we're just here to recognize that it took this team to do it.
It took us working together as a city and a county, working together with the Just Care Program, which we're here to talk about, and also the City's Hope Team that collaborated and placed 14 people into shelter, the Seattle Parks Department, the Downtown Seattle Association, the Chamber of Commerce.
All of us coming together, instead of fighting and instead of bickering, we're able to resolve this chronic situation on 3rd Avenue that throughout this pandemic has been a staple of downtown's reputation.
And we're here today to say that this model is gonna bring downtown back for business, that this model is gonna give dignity and agency to our neighbors who are experiencing homelessness and give them the resources that they need that we expect for our family members, that we expect for our community members to be successful and to live with the dignity that folks like me who live in a house take for granted.
And we're here today to showcase some of those stories and to showcase the people who really brought this to bear.
You know, I could talk all day at this podium.
I won't, because Joseph says I only have two minutes.
But, you know, Nicole Alexander.
Nicole, where's Nicole?
Here.
Nicole Alexander, Sherry Kirby, Dom, Lisa Dugard over here, and Jesse Binet.
These are the heroes that helped bring this together.
They helped bring this together by centering that we need to lead with engagement.
We need to lead with compassion.
And that's what we did here to the benefit of this venue that we're sitting in here too.
It's the same interest for Rick Yoder.
Where's Rick?
Rick Yoder right here with the Triple Door and with Wild Ginger Seattle Institutions.
Rick's same interest was the same interest of the folks who were living on this encampment in 3rd Avenue.
And by centering everybody's common interest, that's how we're ultimately going to overcome our six-year crisis of homelessness and the state of emergency on homelessness that we've been experiencing throughout this pandemic at a magnitude that we haven't seen before.
So with that, I want to turn it over so you can hear more and ask questions later.
I want to hold your questions till the end of the presentation.
We have a lot of people to get through, but they've got a great story to tell.
And first, I want to introduce Dr. Catherine Beckett from the University of Washington, who's been doing some of the great analytic work on the Just Care program and showing how this is the approach, this is the model that can help bring the relief that we know that we need here in Seattle.
So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Beckett.
Dr. Beckett, please.
Thank you, Council Member.
Good morning.
My name is Catherine Beckett.
I'm on the faculty at the University of Washington in the Department of Law, Societies, and Justice, and also Sociology.
And I'm delighted to announce on behalf of myself and the other five co-authors of the report that we've now completed an evaluation that examines the development and impact of the first six months of Just Care's operations.
Just Care is unique in a lot of ways, in part because it very intentionally engages and serves people who are experiencing unsheltered homelessness.
And it's also unique because it's extremely holistic.
It's simultaneously a Housing First initiative, a health access program, and also a public safety initiative.
And thanks to the work of both program staff and DOMS teams, it's able to do that without reliance on the police or the criminal legal system, which has very liberating effects for the people who are involved.
So it really is a win-win.
Based on our interviews with community stakeholders and with Just Care participants, we found that this is having extraordinarily positive effects for all the affected parties and has the potential to be transformative if sustained throughout the region.
So we can say so much more based on our data and our findings, and I'm happy to answer any questions that people have.
Thank you so much.
Good morning, my name is Nicole Alexander and I am the co-lead entry and care manager.
What this means is that you'll find me daily in encampments building relationships with somebody's mother, brother, and favorite auntie.
The Just Care approach is a client-centered and trauma-informed approach.
We work to build trust and understanding with our folks so that we can focus services and be responsive to individual needs.
We work with the chronically unsheltered adult who have unsupported mental health disabilities and problematic drug use.
Aligning services and bringing folks inside is the first step to breaking homelessness.
It is where our client's journey starts a new chapter.
As clients come inside, the community will utilize the streets, parks, and public areas again.
As the pandemic ends and our city opens, we need to look at humans as humans.
and treat them with care and compassion, not just sweep them down the street.
Our approach is an all community need and it does not push or punish marginalized folks for being unhoused.
Thank you.
Here and then Mario.
Good morning, my name is Mario Miller and I'm a client representing Coley.
Um, I just like to tell you today that, uh, I'm an example of, you know, things to come.
Okay.
I'm example of things to come.
And, uh, what Coalita is trying to do is trying to, you know, better, you know, I'm saying a person towards, you know, getting yourself together, you know, getting up off the streets, you know what I'm saying?
And trying to, uh, Just get in tune back into life and the trials and tribulations and struggles that goes on with life.
I mean, it's not easy.
We tend to try to, from day to day, just tap into what life is about, what life has to give.
And with that, I'm gonna say have a good day.
And then Lily Nguyen.
Good morning, everyone.
My name is Lily Nguyen.
I work for Asian Counseling and Referral Service, ACRS.
Sorry.
And I am the program coordinator for a hotel that our behavioral health team and I work closely with unsheltered folks.
Just Care is a humane response to assist unsheltered folk who are mostly BIPOC and LGBTQ with chronic mental health and substance use disorder.
Just Cares model encompasses compassion, kindness, and respect.
For many months, we've enrolled clients into the hotel, and I got to meet and build strong rapport relationships with each of them.
I see them every single day, and I witness engagement level increase drastically.
I see motivation for substance use treatment and improvement with mental health.
Clients are job searching and getting back into the workforce.
They're applying for ID replacements with so much barriers and some are reconnecting with family that has been lost in contact for years.
We are seeing change in impact because of the environment they're in now.
An environment they can feel safe in, stabilize and grow as they work toward their goals.
How can anyone expect change in an environment where there's always SPD involved, someone getting into an ambulance just worrying about survival needs met day by day?
With Just Care, people are moving beyond survival and contributing back to the society.
Many clients have told me that they would have never been able to do what they needed to do without Just Care.
Just Care works in rapid, real time.
We will not look away at our unhoused neighbors.
Thank you.
All right.
I'm Dominic Davis, the CEO and co-founder of an organization called WDC Community Safety Teams.
We are partnering with Just Cares.
We've been collaborating with them.
We love the model.
It humanizes the people that we walk by every day that's sitting in these encampments, that are out here on these corners asking for change, and we just walk by them.
It's time for us to keep doing something for them now.
Like, let's humanize them.
Let's put them in a space where they can be successful, get the services they need, have some compassion, some empathy, and some love for them, and build them up so that they can walk down a different path and see some light at the end of the tunnel.
Right now, can you imagine having to live out here every day?
Can you imagine having to beg for food and having to go get services and navigate services every day?
I can't imagine that.
So I don't want to have to imagine that, and I don't think other people should have to.
So this is what this is all about, being able to serve our community.
WDC has a team of people from the communities, from the streets, from the systems that the people that are being served, the participants that are being served through Just Cares.
We walk alongside with them.
They understand them.
They know them.
They come from those communities and they've been through training and we've been able to hire them, put them in a place where they're making a really good living wage, serving the community, serving the people that they know.
We don't have to call 911. We don't need to call the police.
We're dealing with our issues inside the facilities that we're bringing safety to.
We're keeping the community safe, we're keeping the participants safe, we're keeping the employees safe on both ends.
So at the end of the day, this is a model that needs to be replicated, it needs to be built up, it needs to expand.
So that we can bring more people from the communities that normally wouldn't get a living wage like they're getting, right?
So we can change the economic structures and economic statuses of some of these families.
And at the same time, help people get better case management, get the services they need, so we can put them in a position to be successful also.
So WDC, Willard Davis, conglomerates, community safety teams, that's what we do.
That's what we're all about with Just Cares.
The programs that we are working with and collaborating with are powerful.
And it's time for us to expand it, grow it.
I mean, yeah, we threw some money at it.
We need to throw a lot more money, a lot more resources at it, so we can get more people off the streets and give them more opportunities to be successful.
Thank you.
All right.
Sorry, I can't read the next person here.
SJ?
You too.
You too.
The other day, an elderly lady showed up on our steps.
She wanted us to call the police to go into the encampment to get her things.
She wanted me to talk in a low voice because she knew people were looking at her.
After talking to it a low voice, after giving her food, after giving her coffee, she was able to come back.
When she came back, she had a plan that what she wanted to do was get an ambulance, even though she knew she might be admitted.
She left in a King County Medic One with her head held high, with no incident.
Just care.
Just care is just that.
What we do, what Coley does, is what we do every single day.
We accept the individual as a person, and we don't focus primarily on their problems or on their issues.
We focus on the whole thing, right?
Just to behave morally, right?
To behave morally and connect on a moral, realistic level.
Care, to provide.
right, to provide for health, wealth, and the maintenance of it.
We do this every single day at the facility that I work at.
I'm S.J. Purser.
I'm with COLEAD.
I am an overnight shift lead, and I do not believe in incarceration over care, right?
Incarceration, any kind of alternative to jail, is strictly meant for retribution for an offense.
And it does not help anything.
What offense are people taking?
What offense have people made simply because they're homeless?
At COLEAD, we don't believe in that.
Just Care, we don't believe in that.
What we believe is treating the entire person.
And welcome to the movement.
Thank you.
Well, good morning, everyone, and thank you so much for the opportunity to be here.
Thank you, Councilmember Lewis.
I want to thank the mayor and all the city, the departments who do this work, and I want to thank all the Just Care partners for your incredible work that you've been doing.
You know, the thing that I hear most from my members as we reopen and recover is that we need downtown to be welcoming, to be clean, to be safe, to be refreshed.
People have choices about where to spend their money.
They have choices where they want to go eat, where they want to recreate, to take a vacation, and downtown Seattle needs to be a competitive choice, especially as people are venturing out from the pandemic for the first time.
It also needs to stay a competitive choice for employees during this time when many employers are finalizing their back-to-work plans.
The way Seattle helps people living unsheltered get inside is a significant part of the equation for many of those employers and their employees.
I know from my time in government that programs like Just Care, person-centered, meeting people where they are, the right kind of outreach which has been mentioned, offering people what they need, and providing a safer, more stable place to be, these programs work.
And you've just heard some data and examples, and here's another one.
Just Care is partnering with business owners, so a pawn shop on 2nd Avenue and Washington in Pioneer Square.
The program brought individuals from several camps inside, worked in partnership with those business owners, and some of the folks that got involved, one of those individuals is now with CoLead.
And that's just a perfect example of what we're seeing in the kind of partnerships that we can have between business and some of our service providers.
As we recover, too frequently we've seen negative community interactions between those in our community who are living unsheltered and those in our community who are trying to reopen their businesses and storefronts and attract customers.
And situations like that are not okay for anyone involved.
And we need successful interventions like Just Care to address homelessness in a way that allows business owners to reopen their doors and doesn't result in shuffling people from one street corner to the next one.
We're celebrating success today and I'm really excited about that.
And we're also recognizing that there is much more to be done.
We need to see plans like this, this kind of urgency and these kind of effective solutions across the city.
So thank you again Councilmember Lewis and happy to take questions afterwards.
Good morning.
Rick Yoder here.
I'm the owner and founder of Wild Ginger and the Triple Door.
I wanted to thank the entire community.
I mean, this is a real focus on leadership that we saw here.
Councilmember Lewis, Deputy Mayor Washington, the Just Cares people, they all came together on a common goal.
Let's help the people on the streets.
Let's help them find some security and some way in their life.
And this is what we're going to need to bring back the city of Seattle because safety is number one.
So I really appreciate everybody's efforts, the neighborhood and all the people involved here to try to help us reopen our business so we can bring our employees back to work so we can pay our taxes to support all these vital and needed programs.
Thank you.
Good morning, I'm Lou Bond with the Melbourne Tower at 3rd and Pike, small 10-story terracotta office building.
I just also want to echo what Rick Yoder just said and Rachel, thank you so much Council Member Lewis.
He's been working hard tirelessly for a year trying to support this Just Cares program.
Tierra Dearborn came out last summer with a crew, helped us early on with some folks that were in distress and suffering, help them find housing, and that is the first step, is getting them off the streets and into housing.
I honestly, I pray, and I really appreciate all of the co-lead and all of everyone that's come together to make this happen, but I pray that we really do help them all the way through for real treatment, that they really can come back.
Willie, I applaud you and what you're doing and what's going on.
That's what we need, and I really appreciate everybody here trying to make that happen, because these are our brothers and sisters.
These are our kids.
These might even be our parents that are suffering with either mental illness or drug addiction.
And we need to come up with a permanent solution so they can re-engage back into our community.
And I really applaud that.
We need more money put towards this.
We need to be able to take care of the entire city this way so we can get back into business.
Walgreens is struggling you know having to hire off-duty police to be there Ross the same way it's unsustainable our neighborhood the same way we can't continue to do that but to be able to reach out to co-lead and outreach and and other folks to be able to bring in help that's what we need more of and and there's not enough of them they need more help so we need to be able to help fund this thank you so much all right
Good morning, my name is Chris Park, I am the, I'm with the Downtown Seattle Association Metropolitan Improvement District Outreach Team.
I just want to take a moment to say thank you to Just Cares for their collaboration and outreaching this particular area of downtown.
I manage a homeless outreach team of seven outreach case managers and one housing and employment specialist in a 285 block area of downtown that includes this area.
It is my hope that as we go forward, that the mayor's office, city council, King County, social service providers, and others in the business community would continue to invest in programs like Just Cares that are innovative, that are practicing evidence-based practices, that are best for our neighbors who are experiencing homelessness.
The important thing is to treat individuals holistically and also restore dignity to them as they go through this struggle and this crisis.
I would hope that as we continue going forward, the business community and all social service providers will continue to collaborate and do what's best for our city, but more importantly, for our neighbors experiencing homelessness.
Thank you.
Well, thank you.
Thank you, everyone, for sticking to your allotted times.
That was great.
See, they're all professionals.
You know, I do want to just really briefly recognize as well, you know, Cherry Kirby Michael right here.
Like none of this would have been possible without their work up here on 3rd Avenue.
Take a bow.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
You know, it's really powerful to see that array of speakers and the coalition that can be built around this when you really center problem solving.
And that this gathering right here today, this is the beginning of what needs to be a new era in Seattle of a politics of collaboration instead of conflict.
And that's where we're starting here today.
Thank you for joining us.
And now we'll answer some questions.
I'm sure there's some questions.
You know, when I came in a year and a half ago to the city council, I told myself that the way I was going to lead was to try to forge coalitions like this.
And you know, in the era of COVID, you know, it takes a while.
But I think a big part of it, I mean, I'm going to be honest, It was that Just Care started doing work in Pioneer Square.
They started doing work on Second Avenue Extension.
And then the folks here took note of those visible results.
And success breeds more success.
And now we're here really ready to lean in with a broad coalition into a new model.
And I'm excited that we are.
What do you need to get?
What funding?
So you have what you've done here.
What else do you need?
How much?
Well, this week the mayor is going to be signing the American Recovery Act.
That's going to have some funds in it for a Just Care-like program that we're going to be funding through a joint process with King County.
So that's on the horizon.
Budget's coming up in the fall.
I'd frankly like to see Just Care as a permanent leg of our public safety and human services system.
Something that's not temporary in the COVID era, but something that's a permanent way of how we're going to do business.
So what are the boundaries of the area we're focused on in this presentation?
Do we have a rough count of how many people are living unsheltered in this local area?
Yeah for that I think I'd like to to maybe bring in um uh potentially no not Dr. Beckett yeah well we we don't have so so we we don't have a great estimate in terms of exactly how many folks are in the downtown core but we know from the one night count in 2020 that we have approximately 3,700 folks who are living without shelter So I mean that's the best number that we can provide right now.
It's another reason that we need to have a county-wide by name list so we could have more granular data.
But right now we estimate about 3,700 people citywide and we know there's quite a few folks in the downtown core who are experiencing homelessness.
Are we talking about the downtown core or are we more specifically focused
Right, so Just Care's mission from their inception has been the Chinatown International District, Pioneer Square, and then parts of the periphery here of downtown.
When we do this joint investment through the American Recovery Act, it's the priority of the mayor, the county executive, and the city council that downtown be included as part of that new service area.
Yeah, it's hopeful.
You know, I mean, if we went back in time three weeks to 3rd Avenue, you wouldn't recognize it as the same street.
And, you know, yeah, exactly right.
And part of part of us convening here today, too, is, you know, it's the summer.
There's no better place to be in the summer than on the waterfront at Pike Place Market, shopping in the downtown Seattle core.
And look, you know, we're coming back.
Downtown is coming back.
This is a great place to be.
And 3rd Avenue is part of that process.
And we're just ready to get back to it.
I couldn't be more excited.
Yeah.
Well, what you're seeing here is an exercise in the right sizing of first response.
There are certain things the police just can't do and that the police just can't respond to.
The police cannot be mental health counselors.
The police cannot put folks into supportive shelters.
The team here can.
And I think what we're seeing is that a very large percentage of our neighbors downtown who are experiencing homelessness and who are experiencing a lot of those barriers, the traditional carceral state, it hasn't been responding to their needs.
But this team here is, right?
And it's really a bifurcation of like, look, the police have their role in their job.
But this team here, they're ready to take on that caseload that we have not had successful interventions before with traditional police.
I would probably ask one of your colleagues to repeat something they've already said, but please, what is it that sets the Just Care model specifically apart from other attempts over 10, 15, 16 years to address homelessness?
Is it the jobs component?
Is it something else?
I'm a little unclear on that.
Yeah, does someone want to jump in on that with Jesse?
Yeah, Jesse and Nicole.
Here we go.
All right.
I'll let Nicole speak to the outreach component and I'll speak to the model of care.
So for us, the Just Care component is completely different than what was done in the past because we actually go in.
I go in for weeks at a time to actually meet people.
I'm there every single day.
I build a relationship with you.
I want to know what's going on.
I could meet you one time and you could be having a really hard day.
You could be in the street and there could be a crisis call.
I don't want to judge you off of what that is.
I want to get to know you.
I want to know where you're at mentally.
I want to know where you're at with your substance use.
I want to know every part of what's driving you right now and why you're here.
And then we build services around that.
But it's not what I think you need.
It's a collaboration.
So I'm going to ask you what you need.
And then I'm going to also bring to the table what I have as services.
And another part that we have is that we have the services.
So when I go out and I'm on a site, I have the services for that neighborhood.
I'm not bidding for one shelter bed.
I'm not possibly having something available.
What I have, I know my team knows we are there for you and we're gonna work with you to really build what you need.
I'm Nicole Alexander.
I'm the co lead entry and care manager.
Hi Jesse been a deputy director at the Public Defender Association and overseeing our co lead project and one of the key differences is that we have temporary lodging for people to come into immediately and they get to come in with their whole person exactly where they're at.
We are a harm reduction program.
The minute they get there, folks like SJ, Carlo, and Ramon here greet them with open arms and welcome them in.
They're given clothing, toiletries, all basic needs met, and they get to chill out and rest.
It's a big difference to come inside after you've been living outside for a long time.
And then we work with them.
We have a healthcare provider that comes out to our temporary lodging sites.
all kinds of behavioral health and health care supports, and we work with folks quickly to access resources, all the resources one might need to meet basic needs, get access to housing and other health care supports.
And most importantly, we create community around people, with people that have experiences similar to them and look like them.
So it's a very responsive and culturally humble approach.
Thank you.
No, it's a temporary, the co-lead model that both the co-lead program and the ACRS Just Care program is a temporary lodging approach, six to nine months, and we're accessing every single permanent supportive housing and permanent housing option we can uncover.
No rock goes unturned.
We're navigating homelessness housing, affordable housing, and other market rate housing for folks with low income.
have covered the gamut of what we've been able to do during the pandemic, and I'm really excited for more resources to come.
The housing authorities are getting new subsidies now, and there's more resources coming with the ARPA funds, and we're hoping to get access to those and help our folks get a pathway to ongoing stability and permanent housing.
Depends on what you made by bringing to scale.
A lot of new resources are coming with CARES Act money and ARPA funds.
Probably not, but I think we have good plans to get there.
And there's good efforts by the county, the Health Through Housing Initiative, and other efforts that are coming online.
And we hope to be part of all of those.
And I think over time, yes, there will be enough capacity.
Can anyone speak to the collaboration between the business community and Just Hair and how much of a difference that makes?
Yeah, that sounds like a Rachel Smith question.
Happy to, yes, thanks for the question.
And I come most recently from serving as Deputy County Executive and Chief of Staff for King County Executive Dow Constantine.
So I have worked with a lot of the folks here in a lot of different capacities.
And so I think what you are seeing from the business community is our desire to get real outcomes, to have real crisp and solid plans that get real outcomes for our community.
And we're seeing that with Just Care.
you're going to be hearing more and more from us in these kinds of partnerships and certainly you know DSA which you know is a great partner of the chamber as well does this very work in community so I think you will you will see more and more of the business community showing up to support programs like this with all of the resources that we have.
Thank you.
All right we've got time for one more question.
Can you comment on the increase in homelessness here in Seattle, what you called our neighbors, as opposed to possibly the transportation of homeless from other communities to here and that growth in, if you will, the services that you described, fantastic, but the attraction or magnetism from the homeless to Seattle as a whole?
Yeah, I mean my response to that is, according to Danny Westney, we're sending all of our homeless folks to Port Angeles according to the Seattle Times in the last couple days.
I mean this is a common comment that comes up, right?
I mean my other question would be, Why isn't every homeless person in downtown Seattle going to New York where there's a right to shelter law?
Why aren't they going to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts where there's a right to shelter law?
The idea that if we don't care for, provide for, assist our homeless neighbors and they'll just leave is completely false.
Like there's been cities that have been beaten on homeless folks for years and they still have a homeless population.
It's not going to make them go away.
Nor is that a humane way or a Just a way in the regard that we owe our fellow human beings a way to approach this work.
The other thing that I would say is our homelessness crisis in Seattle is bad, but it's not unique.
We share a similar crisis to Los Angeles, to San Francisco, to Portland, Oregon.
You could go to other cities and you could experience a similar, and all of those cities, They think that their homeless population is coming from here.
We think it's coming from there.
The reality is folks are here and we need a helpful resolution to deal with it.
And my evidence is what's happening up on Third Avenue.
That this is a model that can work.
This is a model that can get the job done.
And this is what we're going to lean into.
I think that was our last question.
Yeah.