Select Committee on Homelessness Strategies & Investments 5/6/21

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Great.

OK, thank you so much.

Today is May 6th of 2020. The special meeting of the Seattle City Council's Select Committee on Homelessness Strategies and Investments will come to order.

It's 2.02 p.m.

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

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council President Gonzalez?

Council Member Juarez?

Council Member Morales?

Here.

Council Member Mosqueda?

Present.

Council Member Peterson?

Here.

Council Member Sawant?

Present.

Council Member Strauss?

Present.

Chair Lewis?

Present.

Chair, there are six members present.

Council Member Herbal did contact me, and she is excused from this meeting.

Council President Gonzalez and Council Member Juarez indicated they will be here, but they're running a little behind.

Sound Transit meeting is running a little bit over, so we expect to see them shortly.

Moving on 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.

well, we have a packed agenda today to go over a review of the hope team, which the Seattle city council reconstituted as the former navigation team into a new model of outreach in the hope team and looking forward to a report and update on the activities of that team.

We're also going to get an update from Seattle Public Utilities on the council's action to fund several street sinks under the leadership of Councilmember Morales in the budget in the fall.

Councilmember Morales and I both serve on the Board of Health.

The need has never been greater to make sure that there's more access to running water.

for everybody that lives in the city of Seattle to observe or to have access to the basic hygiene facilities.

So I will look forward to those conversations.

And without any more lead into that preview, I want to pivot now to the public comment so we can hear from folks here before we get into the crux of the meeting.

I'll moderate the public comment period in the following manner.

The public comment period for this meeting is 20 minutes.

Each speaker will be given two minutes to speak.

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

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

The public comment link is also listed on today's council agenda for this committee.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Once you have completed your public comment, we ask that you please disconnect from the line.

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

So with that, I will now pivot here to the list and recognize our first speaker.

The first speaker who is present is listed first name and last name Red.

So Red, Red, you are recognized for two minutes to be followed by Andrew Constantino.

Hello and good afternoon Council.

I wanted to speak to you about the HOPE team which is the new navigation team like you shared at the start of this meeting.

I wanted to get to the point.

Multiple houseless raids aka sweeps are scheduled this month May.

Scheduled all over the city.

Three happened today.

Raids happening during a global pandemic.

Think about that for a moment.

Raids aren't just cruel and inhumane.

It's violent and racist to have a raid scheduled on May 13th 2021 in the CID.

It's racist to name the 8th and King encampment as Pioneer Square especially given the demographic makeup of the residents in the CID.

It's erasure.

This camp has Vietnamese elders.

Some have PTSD from war traumas.

Some are sex workers.

Many are disabled and lack resources to access shelter care vaccinations and aid.

The city allocated one point four million dollars to our CID community with the goal to make the community safer.

The city also vowed to stand against racial violence happening against the Asian community.

Yet these healthless groups these continuing acts of violence ordered by the city keep happening with seemingly no end in sight.

That's not safety.

House of Sweeps goes against the city and council members' morals and values.

I implore you to work with grassroots orgs doing the work on the ground because the sweeps is not the answer.

The HOPE team holds hotel vouchers and other accesses.

Why are you allowing them to gatekeep access to care?

Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Red.

The next speaker is Andrew Constantino.

Hi, my name is Andrew Constantino, Assistant Program Manager for Lehigh's Tiny House Villages.

I receive countless calls and emails from people in need, desperately trying to get into a tiny house.

It's heartbreaking to know that many may have to spend another night on the street when they are asking for help.

When I have visited folks at encampments, such as those that we see in our park, alongside our friends who do outreach at REACH, the campers are eager and willing to take shelter if it means a tiny help.

Many homeless folks who are lucky enough to get a referral to stay at a village tell us of loved ones, family members, and friends still outside who they want to help get the same opportunity.

Neighbors reach out to us concerned about individuals who are unsheltered and ask how they could help get them into a village.

The truth is that on most days the current villages are at capacity and new openings are filled within hours.

The need is so great and there is no shortage of goodwill in Seattle.

Let's build more villages until we have to never again say no to those asking for our help.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Andrew.

Next is Chloe Gale, followed by Catherine Dawson.

Hi, this is Chloe Gale.

Thanks for having me, council members, this afternoon.

As you know, the REACH staff are out daily helping people outside survive and bringing people inside to places where they're loved and their needs are met.

It's a privilege for us to be trusted by the people living outside, and we really appreciate working in partnership with so many skilled other outreach agencies.

We want our community response to be humane and led through an equity lens.

Today for your presentation, I look forward to hearing from your presenters, but we have a number of questions raised about how to build our system out in a more equitable way that really meets the needs of our folks outside.

One question we have is, As an increasing number of sites are being prioritized by the city for clearing, we want to know how are those sites being prioritized?

What is their model for selecting them?

And what are the criteria that they're using?

Secondarily, is there an equity lens being implemented when making these decisions?

And finally, what are the opportunities for outreach members to give feedback about needed timelines and resources for the people who are living at these sites?

We've not really seen a strong opportunity where the needs of the people living there are actually brought to bear in terms of how sites are determined and what's going to happen at those sites.

My second line of questioning for today is how is the city tracking individual data about who is getting referrals inside to make sure that we're reaching our race and equity benchmarks, our high COVID prioritization population, and making sure that people's needs are being met so that they'll get ongoing care and they'll get moved into the housing that they need.

We haven't seen clear data about referrals, who's coming in.

And finally, when people don't get referrals inside, what is happening to the people who are being displaced?

Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Chloe, and those questions are noted.

Next is Catherine Dawson, followed by Hattie Rhodes and Kelly Craig.

Hi, my name is Catherine Dawson.

I'm a renter in District 3. To start off, I'd just like to echo Red's comments, as I know of their deep involvement in mutual aid and commitment to supporting unhoused neighbors.

They spoke to this better than I'll be able to.

I'd also like to urge the committee and council to take action to stop the ongoing violent sweeps Those sweeps are destructive, they're destabilizing, they're traumatizing.

Currently, there are ongoing and upcoming sweeps planned throughout the city and throughout my district at the Amy E. Tennis Center, Broadway Hill and Park, Ape and King, and the council should take immediate action to stop.

Housing is a human right, and we have thousands of unhoused people in Seattle who have to fight to survive, and they shouldn't have to also fight the police who are, in theory, serve the city.

Their belongings get thrown out, they have to move, they're not always given referrals to services.

It's an absolutely inhumane system that can't be done equitably.

Also, I support programs that will directly provide resources, services, and housing to meet the needs of people who are unhoused.

Many people have spoken over the last few days about the values of tiny home villages and safe lots for people living in cars.

As many callers said, I guess, two days ago, the ARPA funding should be used to directly support people who are unhoused and create more free and affordable social and sustainable housing for all.

I want to again thank my council representative for continually fighting to expand affordable housing.

Thank you.

Next speaker is Kelly Craig.

Or sorry, next speaker is Hattie Rhodes, rather.

I'm sorry.

I apologize.

Hello.

My name is Hattie Rhodes.

I am currently a resident of District 3, so I want to take this opportunity to thank Council Member Sawant for her longstanding support of the Tiny House Village model.

Right now, I am the site manager for Georgetown Tiny House Village.

I am here today to implore you all to support Council Member Lewis's It Takes a Village proposal for nine new villages.

This shelter model allows people a safe place to regain their dignity and stability.

and it gives them a hope for a future.

Not only have I seen this happen again and again since I started working here, this is also my own personal experience having been homeless myself.

I would not be able to help others now without the support I found in the villages.

I would not have had the courage to become housed again without the village's support staff.

I just want everyone to have the same opportunity that I was given.

Another way to support the people in the villages is to use the ARPA to prioritize permanent housing solutions, such as Lehigh buying the clay apartments and turning them into low-income housing.

Affordable and supportive housing is the long-term solution, and the villages are the short-term solution.

We can fund both and make it so that our city is welcoming and can be for everyone.

Thank you.

I yield the rest of my time.

Next speaker is Kelly Craig.

Hi, my name is Kelly Craig.

I'm with REACH, and I'm here and thankful for the opportunity to talk about the HOPE team encampment clearings.

In the interest of understanding the full impact of site-based clearings on people living unsheltered, I am wondering how the city is gathering data to measure how many people are being displaced who are not accessing shelter, housing, and other needed care, who is being left out, What are the reasons?

Are these clearings fully abiding by the city's own principles around racial equity and human rights?

How is the city gathering data and individual stories that highlight the barriers people are facing, the system gap and the resource limitations and the harmful impact on our most vulnerable community members?

How can we work together to minimize the harm?

Simply providing more time for outreach teams to connect and provide meaningful support and resources that lead to opportunities and better quality of life for each person living outside would be a start.

Thank you very much.

The next speaker is Teresa Homan.

Hello.

Hello.

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

I wish to start by thanking council members Lewis, Herbold, Peterson, Morales and Sawant for your continued support of our program.

I want to acknowledge too that you have a difficult job in figuring out the best ways to invest what is a finite amount of money in Seattle's future.

Like you, my heart breaks when I see the tents springing up all over Seattle, under bridges, along residential streets, in our parks.

It feels like there are unhoused people everywhere.

So I'm here to ask you to support Lehigh's It Takes a Village proposal to build nine new tiny house villages to help address homelessness and the spread of the coronavirus.

As you know, Our villages are a form of non-congregate shelter, which allows for social distancing and keeps their villagers safe and healthy.

Tiny houses are cost-effective, we can build them quickly, and we can safely shelter people as they wait for housing.

They're humane, they honor the autonomy and dignity of each villager, and they have the highest rates of exit to permanent housing when compared to other shelter programs.

We shelter singles, couples, and families.

And at Lehigh, we train our teams to do this work with love and respect.

Preserving the dignity of every villager is important.

Please help us build more tiny house villages so that we can provide peace of mind for even more people who are currently unhoused.

Thank you.

I yield my time.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Andrew Gillen, followed by George Skrola, and then Josh Castle.

Andrew, you might have to hit star six.

We might have to wait for Andrew to get back this.

Oh, sorry, did I just hear you?

This is Sam Longford with the Seattle Indian Health Board.

I think you may have mine and Andrew's numbers swapped as we're in the same office building.

Okay, why don't you go ahead, we'll just take you.

Sorry, would you repeat that?

I apologize.

I said, why don't you just go ahead and we'll take you out of order.

Okay, yeah, so I'm the Homelessness Investments Program Manager here at the Seattle Indian Health Board.

I'll just kind of address that we perform weekly outreach and we try to provide culturally attuned services for our homeless relatives that are in the area, especially targeting those at the 8th and King encampments.

And we find that the HSD contracts continue to be reactive to the housing and homelessness issue in Seattle, but the service providers are being kind of used to be the new navigation team for these sites and not being allowed to provide outreach to our Native relatives, which are not necessarily in these quote-unquote high-priority sites targeted by the HOPE team, and that limits us the ability to get our native relatives into shelters, tiny homes, or any sort of housing access just because they're not in these sites that are targeted under the criteria of the HOPE team, which is whether it is on a park or infringes on city infrastructure.

And none of these criteria consider the safety of the campers.

And yeah, I yield the rest of my time.

Thank you.

Next up we have George Scarola and then Josh Castle.

George, you might have to hit star six.

George, we can't hear you if you're trying to talk.

And you're showing up as muted here on the screen.

There I am.

OK.

I'm George Scarola.

I'm working with Lehigh to build more tiny house villages.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis, for your leadership on It Takes a Village.

proposal to build 12 new tiny house villages.

This is the kind of bold strategy the city needs.

I am urging the committee today to support using ARPA funds to build nine new tiny house villages this year.

That's in addition to the three new tiny house villages already funded and already under development.

Thank you Councilmember Peterson for your support for Rosie's tiny house village in the U District.

You'll be pleased to know we are weeks away from breaking ground.

Thank you, Council Member Sawant, for being a longtime champion of tiny house villages.

Building and opening nine more tiny house villages this year would cost about $9.5 million.

Once open, they would help more than 500 people every year leave the streets, access the services they need, and move to stable housing.

Finally, the federal government is committed to affordable housing.

Let's not waste this momentum.

Please use ARPA funds to build nine more tiny house villages and help 500 people immediately.

This is our moment.

Begin addressing the crisis of homelessness at the scale it deserves.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker is Josh Castle, followed by Karen Salinas, and then followed by, I believe, Andrew Gillen, using Sam Wallington's place.

So Josh, go ahead.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chair Lewis, Vice Chair Herbold, and members of the committee.

Myself and others are testifying today to urge the Council to address this dual crisis of homelessness and the pandemic with the urgency they deserve by prioritizing many more tiny house villages, safe car and RV lots to help people get immediately inside in a safe space and on a path to permanent housing.

We are asking the Council to support the development and operation of nine new tiny house villages with $9.5 million in federal ARPA funding to get 500 people immediately inside and protected from exposure to COVID-19.

At least two of these villages should go to serve people who are living in their vehicles.

Tiny houses are non-congregate shelter that allow residents privacy, dignity, and social distancing as residents do not have to share air or space with others.

Tiny house villages serve as a stepping stone from homelessness to housing.

On-site case managers can work with residents to help them obtain permanent or long-term housing, employment, health care, treatment, recovery from trauma, and more.

Often people show up at our villages after being swept with nothing after having their valuables, IDs, documentation, medication, clothes, and other items taken by the suite.

Case managers help residents eliminate housing barriers and become housing ready by getting their ID and documentation and navigating the huge challenge of finding affordable housing that will work for them.

It is through the talent of the lifelong and Lehigh case managers and the quality of living in a tiny house village that has contributed to villages having the highest rate of access to long-term housing of all forms of shelter.

We urgently need more of these this year.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis and your staff for your leadership on It Takes a Village that will help us get to nine more villages.

Please support this.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson, for your sponsorship and support of Rosie's Village and the U District.

You and your staff have been wonderful.

We're happy to share that we're close to breaking ground.

Thank you to Council Member Sawant and your colleagues on the Council for your early and long-time leadership in support of tiny house villages.

And thank you to my Council Member Juarez for all your support of villages in the village program and prioritizing a village in District 5 where one doesn't currently exist to serve our unsheltered neighbors there.

Thank you so much for your time.

And then Karen Salinas is the next speaker.

Hello everyone.

I would like to highlight the toll that the sweeps have taken on our clients and staff.

I'm working with REACH.

As you all know sweeps make it difficult for us to maintain engagement and care with our clients by completely removing them from the area they've gotten used to.

The approach currently ramping up to clear the sites has also had a huge impact on our staff morale and values resulting in burnout frustration and despondency to this kind of work which in turn further harms our clients and their progression out of homelessness.

It diminishes the trust we have built with the community members who have come to know us as allies to the unhoused community and has put our outreach workers at a certain level of risk for public eye and complaints because the public doesn't know who else to talk to, and they're the ones being visibly seen.

We need sufficient and appropriate placements for folks prior to them being moved, flexibility in being able to respond to sweeps based on our clinical judgment, ability to have direct feedback loops to inform the deciding parties on what is not working, and access to low-barrier shelter options that honor client autonomy and independence.

My questions for consideration today are, how is the city listening to the needs of the people living within the encampment, and how is the city responding to frustrated residents who want to support the unhoused community but oppose the city's methods?

Thank you.

I yield my time.

Thank you.

Next speaker is Amy Dillon, followed by Cynda Stanger and Brenda Frazier.

Seattle Indian Health Board.

Good afternoon.

My name is Andrew Guillen.

I am the Grants and Contracts Director at Seattle Indian Health Board.

I am commenting on changes to HSD outreach and engagement programming today.

Since January 2021 Seattle Indian Health Board has been working in good faith while outreach and engagement contracts were being finalized to provide contract services based on the previous two years of homelessness investments programming.

In April we were surprised by significant changes to reporting and programmatic requirements within the contract and by the lack of communication from HSD around these contract changes.

The additional contract requirements will place burdens on our providers while taking away from time spent providing direct service to our community members of American Indians and Alaskan Natives that are currently experiencing homelessness.

For over 50 years Seattle Indian Health Board has built a strong relationship with the community that we serve.

Contract changes would limit our ability to work directly with this community and instead prioritize city identified targeted encampments.

This is not an effective way to target and reduce significant homelessness disparities and disproportionalities among American Indians and Alaskan Natives in the city of Seattle.

We do not support coordinated sweeps of encampments.

We know that they are trauma inducing and result in continued erosion of trust amongst our community members.

What providers need is equitable low-barrier access and referring unsheltered community members to safe housing opportunities.

American Indians and Alaskan Natives in the City of Seattle need solutions to long-term and permanent housing options.

We do not believe that changes to the 2021 homelessness investments outreach and engagement contracts further this goal.

Thank you.

I yield the rest of my time.

Cynda, you might be muted.

Try pressing start.

There you go.

Okay.

There we go.

Hello and thank you for this opportunity.

My name is Cynda Stanger and I'm a West Seattle faith leader and member of the CAC for Camp Second Chance.

I led teams building tiny houses at the camp and know firsthand how successful this program is.

Our experience opened many eyes and hearts as to the plight of people experiencing homelessness.

The rest and safety that they receive in the village is life-changing.

and allows them to regroup and work with case managers to move forward in their lives.

It's profound, it's powerful, and results in the highest exit rate to long-term housing.

So, I'm asking you to rapidly expand tiny health villages.

The target is nine, using ARPA funds to support CM Lewis' It Takes a Village proposal and to get over 500 people off the streets and into safe shelter.

Use these funds to create two villages for people living in their vehicles.

This allows more people to have the opportunity to transform their lives and be protected from COVID.

I thank you, CM Pedersen, for your support of Rosie's Village, and my CM Herbold, for your long-term vision and support for Camp Second Chance.

And all good Council people, thank you.

I yield my time.

Thank you.

Next speaker is Brenda Frazier, followed by Sherry Dalrymple.

Hi my name is Brenda Fraser.

I am the Reach Outreach Supervisor.

I am interested or I guess I have some comments.

We right now are being asked to we are being asked to be at sites date of removal.

And I think part of that is being required to be at sites while they're being cleaned is harmful to our relationships with our clients, that we have worked, you know, hard to develop relationship and build rapport.

And I'm also, this is kind of like a chief question, but I also would like more time when it comes to getting notified regarding um, removals due to, um, the outreach team having time to go to the site, develop plans, plans with people, um, you know, and make appropriate shelter and hotel referrals, you know, when they're available.

Um, so that is, I guess, a request.

Um, the other thing is, hotel and shelter recommendation and lack of transparency and feedback.

Currently, we are making recommendations via text thread and we've received no feedback on who the potential hotel or shelter is going to.

There's a lack of transparency and who is getting into these limited options.

We have asked several times for this information and have not received it.

Also, a new COVID tier system was set up for prioritizing vulnerable populations to get into hotels.

Initially, it appeared to be working as it was set up to do so.

Then there was an increase in high-priority sites.

In order to clear sites, all folks were being offered hotel first instead of shelter, ultimately skipping the more vulnerable tier recommendations, resulting in having a higher number of healthy young folks getting into limited limited number of hotels and shelter resources.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Sherry Dalrymple, who is not present.

So we'll move on to Quanhua Liu and then Nicole Pho.

Hello?

Yes.

Can I speak now?

Yes, we can hear you.

Go ahead, please.

Thank you.

Okay.

Hi, good afternoon, city council members.

Thank you for hosting this tiny house program.

And I believe this is the first step.

The city should have done long time ago to address housing problems.

And I also want to be just direct and frank.

especially to you City Councilor Andrew Lewis.

I noticed that you work with We Heart Seattle slash Andrea Flores.

They are actually a very harmful group and I hope you will never work with them because their goal is not to address housing problems.

They only care about the aesthetics of the city.

And also, as well as there has been about like eight, nine sweeps this coming week and sweeping, like I want to reiterate Brad and all the previous speakers, treatment for in a pandemic.

And right now City Hall Park is very crowded.

So this is all I'm going to say.

So I'll give my time.

Thank you.

Have a good afternoon.

Bye.

Next speaker is Nicole Poa followed by Laura Lowe Bernstein.

Hi, my name is Nicole Poa.

I am a resident of Council District 7. I'm also a Veterans Housing Case Manager with Sound Health and I am echoing the previous speaker and others.

I'm calling on the city council to take immediate action to stop the sweeps of the Seattle encampments that are scheduled for the rest of this month and that have already occurred this morning.

Sweeps are inhumane.

They go against the CDC COVID guidelines.

They are senseless violence.

They traumatize unhoused residents and they uproot their communities and they do nothing to address the root causes of homelessness.

The city and the whole team claim to offer shelter and hotel options, but there are many barriers for these unhoused people to access them.

And I implore once again for the council to stop the sweeps and I yield the rest of my time.

Thank you.

Next up, Laurel O. Bernstein, followed by Jewel Craft and then Listo Bair.

Hi, this is Laura.

I'm a renter in District 7, and I saw that there are eight areas of need in District 7 on Twitter.

Real Change News had posted for potential coasts for placement for street sinks.

And so I just wanted to call and mention that street sinks would be really important and needed, and they've been needed.

And we should move forward with that.

And they've done an amazing amount of work to find those hosts.

And we need to move quickly on that as well as many public bathrooms and signage so that people know where those bathrooms are.

You know, we talk a lot about like recovery and businesses and tourism and all of that kind of stuff.

And if we do that without increasing our public bathrooms, we're really hurting everybody in our city.

And then please stop the sweeps.

Sweeps like everyone said here are traumatic harmful disrupt mutual aid disrupt people's lives re-traumatize people help people even be more reticent about trusting government and trusting people that are trying to help them.

And it's just a really bad cycle and they should they should stop.

And thank you so much.

Next, Joelle Craft, followed by Listo Bair.

Hello, my name is Joelle Craft.

I am a long resident of Washington State, born and raised here.

I live in West Seattle, although I lived all over Washington State.

And I am currently homeless.

I have been for a couple of years.

However, that hasn't stopped me from doing all of my community work that I've been doing for a while, as in I am on the legislative, um, uh, leadership council for Washington can, plus I do mutual aid and I just got off of zoom meeting with the housing justice group.

And I am here to talk mainly about hope and how.

It really isn't giving hope for people because any sweeps that are happening are destructive.

No matter what, if two days, but while you're at hanging at your home two days, uh, you get an eviction notice and you have two days to get all of your stuff out and find a new place, by the way, and you have $20 to your name.

And if you don't, they take everything and destroy it.

Your ID, as others have said, everything you own.

And those of us who are doing any mutual aid are scrambling and stressing because it's traumatic for all of us.

It's traumatic when that happens.

And doing these sweeps doesn't do anything for anybody except destruction.

And we know that these resources that supposedly they always say, well, there's resources for everybody and that's why we can do these sweeps.

There's not.

And we all know it.

And although I am so grateful to have council members who are sitting up there right now, well, in your, obviously in your homes safely, that have been working tirelessly for our houseless people since they basically got there, and there are others who's been fighting against it.

We need to come together.

We are in a pandemic.

If we truly are a nation and a state and a city that cares about all of its constituents, then we have to treat everyone as a constituent.

That means those of us that are at the bottom of the barrel and living on the streets.

I'm asking all of you to put Money and all that aside, and remember that we are, this is Seattle, we are the state that leads, the city that leads everything, and we need to lead when it comes to our houseless.

And it was a long time ago that you declared an emergency, a state or a city of emergency regarding houselessness, and we need you to act as if it's an emergency.

Please make sure that this is not becoming something where all of our most vulnerable people, especially our BIPOC community and those that are the most marginalized in our city are not being, again, pushed to the ground.

I thank you so much for hearing me and for hearing everyone out today.

I'm grateful for everyone who's already testified.

I yield the rest of my time.

Thank you.

Next up is Listo Bear and then David Haynes.

Hello, my name is Lee Stowe.

I am a resident of District 2, and I'm speaking to you all today to strongly urge you to please stop these raids on our houseless community.

They are violent.

We're displacing people that have nothing, and we're working tirelessly to build community and trust with them.

And like others have said, these raids are just causing destruction and trauma to everyone involved.

There are already over 12,000 residents living outside and the HOPE slide deck reflects that there's less than 300 available beds or houses for shelter and tiny homes.

We cannot be displacing all these folks without having a place for them to go.

It's senseless violence and it doesn't help anyone.

It's not humane, and it's not a solution.

Housing is a human right, and we have to work to provide access to all these vulnerable residents.

My question is, how will you provide low barrier shelter, aid, and mental health access for the traumas inflicted from these raids on top of the trauma and violence that these folks are already facing?

Thank you, and I yield my time.

Next up is David Haynes, followed by Naomi C. Hi, thank you, city council.

We need investments in 21st century, first world quality, non congregate motel rooms, shelters, kitchens, homes, and commercial buildings.

connected to qualified service providers, including community service officers at authorized encampments 24-7 and motels needed to save homeless overrun by offending predators and crack and meth heroin sex criminals exempted from jail.

Right now, we really need a redevelopment of whatever motels the city council wants to use.

And you could have the Army Corps of Engineers and some carpenters union qualified step up and robustly redevelop with their equipment and logistical delivery of the materials that some of the money could be used for.

to robustly build out a bunch more rooms that are qualified for non-congregate, that would go higher level without any accommodation of parking lots getting in the way of more floor space.

It would enhance the alleviation of the oppression of the homeless crisis that presently is being used by certain non-profits and I hate to say it, Democrats, that want to get a re-election apparatus, always asking for a raise while never being held accountable for being, like for example, Lehigh owns Urban Rest Stop in Ballard and they're always closed on weekends and they close twice early each weekday after four hours for an hour and then by 12 30 they're telling you no more service and they keep telling us to call city council and ask for more money and they're the same ones that want nine million dollars for a slum village.

We need Like 21st century redevelopment with qualified developers and workers to alleviate the oppression.

Solve the homeless crisis with this money, please.

We can start the whole like 21st century first world quality build on the whole nation from here.

Next speaker is Naomi C.

All right, can you hear me?

All good?

Yes, go ahead.

Okay, thank you.

Good afternoon, my name is Naomi See with the Low Income Housing Institute.

I'm asking today for you to fund and support the operation and production of low-income housing.

This production is inextricable from shelter investment because providing long-term housing options and stabilizing households in this housing allows us to free up shelter capacity and reduce the rate of return back into homelessness.

This is what brings us to functional zero.

Fortunately, we have a unique opportunity at this moment.

Despite the immense challenges of COVID-19, the pandemic has presented us an opportunity to quickly acquire market-rate buildings for low-income housing.

Lehigh recently did this successfully at the Clay Apartment.

The acquisition made it possible to deliver units at a significantly reduced per-unit cost within five months instead of five years.

Since then, there have been dozens of opportunities to acquire buildings.

With this said, we propose using ARPA funds and additional funds from the state and city to build upon the success and acquire new buildings that are being sold at below market value for immediate conversion into permanent housing.

Additionally, we'd like to advocate for an allocation of ARPA funds to close the supportive housing, supportive service funding currently in our permanent housing and permanent supportive housing.

As you know, this housing is essential for keeping people housed.

Seattle has an opportunity to fundamentally change the way we deliver housing and services and set a precedent for adequately funding permanent supportive housing that serves the highest need individuals who are often trapped in the shelter system.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

That does lead us to the end of our public comment.

We can go back and try Sherry Dalrymple one more time.

They're still listed as not present, as well as George Newsom.

And they're still not present.

So we will close the public comment session.

Moving forward to items of business, item one, we'll now move on to the Street Sync presentation.

And Mr. Clerk, will you join us at the virtual table and please read item one into the record?

Briefing on Seattle's Street Sync program.

There we go.

Nice and efficient.

So we're joined by presenters, Director Mami Hara, General Manager of the Seattle, well, General Manager rather than the Director of Seattle Public Utilities, Director Andrea Smentia of the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods.

And if there's additional SPU staff, could folks please introduce themselves and indicate their title, please?

It looks like we don't have any additional presenters.

Okay.

Well, before we begin the presentation, let's just do a broader round of introductions for the previously named presenters.

So I'll turn it over first to General Manager Hara.

Hello.

Good afternoon.

As Council Member Lewis said, I am Mami Hara.

I appreciate the opportunity to speak today on the Council's Street Sync Directive, and I'm here with Andres Mantilla, the Director of the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods.

And today, I'll provide a brief background of the City Council Directive, some of the issues that we've worked to address, and the current project status.

I just want you to know that this work is a priority for Seattle Public Utilities, and we are very pleased to be here to speak with you about it.

And I'll pass it over to Andres.

Thank you, Mami.

Andres Mantilla, Director of the Department of Neighborhoods.

It's a pleasure to come speak to you today, an opportunity to address the council.

Like Mami said, this is a priority for our two departments.

You learned today how we've actively engaged and participated in our outreach and engagement and in conversations with grant and contract staff in this work.

And a little bit later, I'm going to share an overall timeline of what that looks like, as well as more about what DON's engagement efforts have been.

So thank you.

Thank you.

May we go to the next slide, please?

Thank you.

As you know, with a council member, Morales' leadership, council added $100,000 for a publicly accessible street sync program in Seattle Public Utilities 2021 budget.

The Council Budget Action's goal is to increase access to hygiene and hand-washing facilities for all residents in need of services.

The Council Budget Action asked SPU to develop a grant program for funding distribution and to provide technical assistance to potential applicants.

We investigated this opportunity to address the hygiene needs of those who are experiencing homelessness, and we saw an opportunity to build on the council budget action and add an additional mutual aid community-led innovation challenge.

This additional component did not impact the overall timeline for implementation, though.

To be successful in this, Seattle Public Utilities augmented the $100,000 from the council budget action with $50,000 to address food rescue and materials reuse and management as supply drives, such as supply drives of reused goods and other kinds of rescue of materials that you may have seen.

through mutual aid efforts.

We hope this work provides a future pathway to other innovative ideas as we seek to translate this community-based idea into action and to learn from it as much as we can.

Let me go to the next slide, please.

Hold on just one moment.

So Council Member Muscatia, do you have a question right now on this slide?

I do, Mr. Chair.

Okay, go ahead, please.

I have a question about the slide and the preference that was just given.

With all due respects to both departments, the request in the budget was not to evaluate what additional programs or services should be investigated.

Six months ago, we put funding in for a specific type of handwashing facility.

Six months ago, the funding was allocated.

So the question now is why, you know, appreciate the commitment to wanting to see handwashing facilities, but it wasn't a question of what type of innovative strategies can we couple this with.

It was how fast can we get these dollars out to do very low cost, already proven handwashing techniques.

And so I'd like to ask at the front of this meeting, where are the handwashing facilities and why is it taking so long?

Would it be possible to respond to your questions through the presentation?

Because we do aim to do that, but it does take a little bit of detail just in terms of what the timeline is and what were the considerations at play.

Would that work for you?

Mr. Chair, I'm happy to come back to these questions if they don't get answered.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Muscata.

I think that question speaks for all of us on the committee, too, so I'm sure that we will revisit that.

And I appreciate you queuing that up early in the conversation.

Okay, please proceed, General Manager.

Okay.

We wanted to bring up the specific language of the Council budget action that's guided our work.

I'll be just for context.

The key items included, as Council Member Mosqueda mentioned, a focus on hand hygiene as the priority, and also a request to just develop a grant program to distribute funds, and also a desire to provide technical assistance and to distribute sinks evenly through the city.

And I'm going to ask Andres to add to that.

Yeah, thanks.

Um, you know, as we, as both of our departments looked at this, this council.

Language, you know, we did just share the, the, the premise around getting the money out the door as quickly as we could.

And we, so therefore we didn't go through the normal request for proposal process.

Or even really a standard grant application and later I'm going to talk about about why, but, you know, as as as several of the council members as that we spoke with.

You know, we, we really crafted a condensed application using kind of conversations with community very few questions without any format requirements.

And so.

You know, we also looked from our end beyond kind of what our normal grant process would be and use the equitable grant making curriculum.

and continuum that several community groups use.

And so, using the language that we see here really responded to, hey, we wanna get this money out the door quickly.

We want it to be through a grant program.

How can we lower the barriers in order to do that?

And so we feel that we have done that and we'll see in the next couple of slides in terms of how we're proposing that we move forward here.

So that's what I'll add, Molly.

Okay, thank you.

May we go to the next slide?

You know, I won't belabor this particular issue since it is not of interest or of great interest, but you know, the resulting effort of the grant program, you know, the Seattle Water and Waste Innovation Program was designed was inspired by the council directive and by the acts of mutual aid that we've seen since the start of the pandemic.

And the examples that were inspiring were grocery deliveries, pop-up food pantries that are often sourced from food recovery, and local growers, and things like people helping each other with rent and sometimes direct cash aid.

And just for the context of folks who are watching, mutual aid is defined by a local Seattle University professor, Dean Spade, as a system of pulling together resources and providing supplies, food, and organizing powers in response to a crisis.

So we will not belabor this component of it.

And I do want to stress that it did not add to the timeframe.

to add this component.

Andres, can we go to the next slide, please?

Yeah, so this is just what I was referencing earlier.

We really took the language and the authorizing language around putting a grant program that really had low barriers, so we didn't go through the traditional kind of RFP process.

And, in fact, as many of your offices know, and the conversations worked with a good collaboration with your staff and central staff as well to really kind of identify some of these, how we could reduce some of those barriers.

And so, you know, we had to balance that with some of the competitive procurement laws that gives all community organizations the chance to participate, but we were very intentional in making sure that the format was as low barrier as we could using some of the lessons that we had learned through some of our other grant programs.

Next slide.

And so, you know, I don't have to spend too much time here, but 1 of the programs that we looked at.

As you all know, is our neighborhood matching fund, which, you know, just quickly has funded over 5000, more than 5000 funded programs and and using some of those conversations around, like, hey.

Don't make this a pretty complex RFP where we have to do a lot of documentation.

We really want to make sure that.

These funds are out the door as soon as possible and so.

You know, in retrospect, as we look through this, and when the money was allocated, you know, I do think that we have moved at a fairly quick pace, given the fact that we had to develop this program and working with community.

Another example of a community grace based grant program that.

that we referenced was Seattle Public Utilities Waste-Free Grant Program, and the program has operated in some form since 2008, and the current iteration began in 2018. And since then, we've worked with over 25 organizations and awarded $325,000 in funds.

And one example project is the Refugee Artisan Initiative.

They employ immigrant and refugee women to upcycle textile waste into quality household products and that are sold locally, including in metropolitan market stores.

They've also made and sold or donated 70,000 reusable masks from upcycled textile waste during COVID with support from our grants.

And so we're going to go to talk about the project milestones and Andres is going to cover that.

Find the mute button there.

So just to give you a sense in context of how we've gone through this process, as you know, in early fall last year with the budget was passed.

SPU and in consultation with us, we're providing ongoing feedback about.

Some of the potential challenges in implementing a street sync program, but council passed this funding SPU and D.

O. N.

have been working together to implement the program.

It's starting back last year.

Providing some guidance, as I mentioned on some sink proposals and potential challenges in November, the CBA passed by city council.

Initial conversation with community organizations, including the clean hands initiative and others around those that were interested in this work.

The consultant team worked with, or the city team worked with experts on issues like gray water, accessibility and other concerns.

But we also continued conversations with community organizations, positive conversations to make sure that they understood some of the challenges.

And we heard their feedback as to why maybe some of these challenges could be overcome or how they would want to address that.

And then really in March, and several of us have met with your offices, as you know, On developing what a grant structure would look like, and I talked a little bit about making sure that the application was really low barrier.

Really making sure that we're consulting with city experts.

And then releasing application in on March 31st.

And as you see, applications are open.

We continue to conduct based outreach through.

The partnership and that we had with providing also technical assistance to the applicants.

And, you know, applicants are going to, or applications are going to be due here in May.

We're going to have a priority, and SPU will, of contracting as soon as possible with the first distribution of funds coming in June.

And then the end of the initial program in January.

So we anticipate several applications, which are actually due tomorrow at midnight.

Great.

And as we've covered, there's a total of $150,000 in funding, and $100,000 of general fund dollars are being spent for the water and hand hygiene work.

You can go to the next slide, please.

So in this area of hand hygiene solutions, as many People know people experiencing homelessness may lack access to options to keep their hands clean and to prevent the spread of disease.

And there are a range of solutions that, you know, we have found that a range of solutions helps to get as much coverage as possible for as many people as possible.

And that includes sanitation kits that don't require water, but also include sinks with running water.

Can we go to the next slide, please?

So I'd like to just spend a little time talking about some of the public health and regulatory requirements and goals that have gone into developing the StreetSync grant program.

This slide, this very text-heavy slide, shows just some of those issues.

Public health is a primary consideration.

And I know it seems a little counterintuitive, but when you're trying to get StreetSyncs out quickly spend time to try to have to look at public health considerations.

But for example, a recent outbreak of Shigella and Cryptosporidium among the unsheltered populations in Seattle highlights the potential for disease spread via not just unwashed hands, but contaminated water, food, and surfaces, and also the importance of separating water for different purposes to avoid cross-contamination.

And safety and accessibility are also key considerations, not only because of ADA guidelines or American Disabilities Act guidelines, but also because we know that people experiencing homelessness have higher rates of disability than the general population.

And, you know, some of the requirements that we need to conform to are that the sinks should be close to a level sidewalk or on level firm ground and have easily reachable and operable parts.

And the faucet has to be operable with just one hand and not require more than five pounds of force or tight grasping.

You know, it means that it's, that somebody has to be able to get to the sink very easily and be able to access everything that works easily.

And that means that, you know, that the design actually has to reflect all of those criteria.

And there are many more criteria in the ADA requirements.

It also means that maintenance is very important when you're thinking about safety.

These will need to be relatively easy to clean and will require daily or even much more frequent use for them to be successful.

And additional considerations include reliability and durability and also acceptance in siting.

Some of the codes that we need, since this program is now being administered on the public side, it means that we need to absolutely conform to a ton of different regulations and guidelines.

And they include the Seattle Plumbing Code, Washington Department of Health guidelines, as I said before, the Americans with Disabilities Act, And there are a lot of concerns around not just the water source and making sure that that water source is continuous, that it's reliable, and that it is adequate.

That's the incoming water.

It's also about what happens with the outgoing water.

And how does it discharge in a way that avoids human contact in a way that might spread further disease than, you know, as we have seen with the Crypto and Shigella outbreaks.

It also, you know, durability, we have found through the hygiene program, you know, and, you know, a lot of other folks' experiences with public sinks is that they have to be very, the sinks have to be really durable.

you know, and kind of resilient against lots and lots of different kinds of things that can happen to them.

And they also need to not present a hazard in any way, tripping hazard or any other hazard.

And, you know, I've already mentioned maintenance.

So I'll go on to

Well, I have a couple of clarifying questions here, and it looks like council member stated does as well before.

I think this is a helpful slide.

I appreciate you, including it.

Can I ask.

And then I'll turn over to Council Member Mosqueda.

On the slide of these things we have to consider, which of these things are legal issues that are beyond the power of the city to rectify?

I mean, that would be like ADA compliance very clearly, but maybe there's some other things.

So that's my first question.

Second question, to what extent can the council, through emergency legislation or code revisions, create exceptions for temporary hygiene facilities in things like the Seattle plumbing code, for example, or to what extent would that be preempted by state law?

So that's my second question.

And then my third question is, how many of these things are highly desirable, but could be waived by either yourself or someone in the executive department?

So that would be a question, for example, about I would imagine things like the freeze protection, which is a seasonal concern, you know, that won't be relevant during the summer, but certainly would be relevant in the late fall and the winter.

So could you maybe just answer as to those three questions as we kind of sift through the considerations in the chart to know like what we got to overcome and what's within our power to sort of you know, bend the rules a little bit here, given that we're in a hygiene emergency.

Sure.

We can give you pretty quickly, you know, a good analysis of, you know, each of those levels of governance and, you know, which ones are obligatory and which are just, you know, desirable.

But for the general question about what do we need to waive You know, at this point, I'm not sure if it's necessary in order to deliver on the program since the time frame is that we would be granting by the end of the month and contracting in the beginning of June.

So it might be that you would be looking to waive requirements, you know, or find some way to get around them if the submissions do not conform.

Right, so that might be something that we want to discuss.

And so we can provide you with that background information very quickly.

Sure, I'd appreciate that.

I mean, the subtext of my question was that, you know, I've read, you know, like Natalie Graham's coverage in the press, for example, in The Stranger, that some of the things in this chart have led to the clean hands collective potentially not being able to stand up their sinks, which of course was the council's intent here.

So I am just curious to the extent of how much of this is written in stone versus how much of this is permissible.

And I guess I'm flagging that also for central staff and for the law department if they're watching too, but I look forward to those answers CEO Hara and appreciate your responsiveness to that.

So we got a whole bunch of questions.

If they pertain to this chart, I'll certainly start calling on folks.

So Council Member Mosqueda, followed by Council Member Morales, followed by Council Member Peters.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I'll keep it brief.

Your questions were exactly the same as my question.

I want to point out that we obviously all have a shared goal of making sure that our facilities and our buildings, our structures are ADA compliant.

There's no doubt there.

But look what we've done in the last year.

for restaurants and outdoor dining.

I know for a fact that not every one of those outdoor facilities that I've been to are probably ADA compliant, but we're working towards a goal of making sure that our city is able to sustain, that folks are safe and able to have a place to go.

Hand-washing is paramount here, and I think that it would have been incredibly important to look at what those options were to waive some things that were nice to have.

I think it would have been imperative to have worked towards setting up these sinks with the goal of creating more ADA accessible compliant situations because no sink is far worse than having a sink that doesn't maybe meet your gray water situation in one or two places.

People didn't have sinks for the last six months since they've been funded, so I'm just underscoring Council Member Lewis's important point here.

We are in a pandemic still.

If there is to be rolling either epidemics that crop out of COVID or future efforts, we cannot have this type of delay again.

And again, I want to go back to the frustration that I think I'm expressing, that there was a specific strategy that was funded legislatively, the legislative branch asked for a specific approach, and now we are here six months later talking about a different sort of strategy.

And I think that a little bit more creativity is needed in the moment of a pandemic.

when washing hands is the number one thing that the CDC recommends in addition to masks and social distancing that could have saved lives.

Do you want to respond to council member Skater before we move on to the next council member?

It was I didn't perceive that as a question, so You know, I share that concern.

The issue about no sync versus no sync is better than, or having a sync is better than a flawed sync, I guess is the logic, is that a lot of the innovations that we've seen with these kinds of syncs elsewhere is that they are generally privately run on private land through private dollars and you know and I am you know all for innovation and all for, you know, trying to get these out as quickly as possible.

In those situations, it was very easy for folks to waive any kind of consideration of ADA or plumbing codes or, you know, any kind of health, public health guidance or requirements.

And so, you know, that is, you know, I think that's something that we have seen, you know, that's happened positively here in Seattle and elsewhere around the country.

For a grant program that has to be administered by a public entity, you know, there are a lot of requirements that we need to adhere to as a public entity.

And so, you know, there is that dissonance and I am, you know, I understand the incredible frustration of that dissonance of like, you know, it's like, let's just put a sink out there versus, you know, wanting to make sure that it is done in a way that does not cause injury, you know, or harm to folks as well, you know, other kinds of harm to folks.

Thank you.

Council Member Morales.

Thank you.

So I want to start by thanking SPU for meeting with us today.

You know, my office has been meeting with staff from SPU and from D.O.N. for the last several months, and I think that we've made a lot of progress in trying to work through some of these things.

And, you know, D.O.N.' 's building a framework for smaller groups to receive funding, which I think is really important and appreciated.

And I just want to express that I share the frustration because we know that design criteria, ADA criteria, maintenance issues, none of this is new information.

Complying with regulations is what we do as a city, particularly utility departments.

I understand there's a dissonance, and I also worry that there's a lot of hand-wringing over what are really standard utility issues that we should have anticipated and could have worked through quicker.

So I'm hoping that we can get this process moving, that the next time we try to do something that is innovative and has the potential to have an acute public health impact, that we don't tarry, as they say.

I also want to say I'm glad to hear that there's an interest in supporting mutual aid.

Building power in community and increasing access to resources is something I'm trying to do with participatory budgeting.

So I'm glad that the executive department is interested in sharing those goals.

But this work was intended to be out the door months ago, and we're entering the fourth wave now, I think, of COVID.

So I'll just end by saying again, my goal, my hope is that we see a large citywide network of sinks with running water, like the ones that were developed by the Clean Hands Collective, and that our office fought really hard for in the budget cycle, and hope to see those come online as quickly as possible.

Thank you.

Council Member Peterson.

Thank you, Chair Lewis.

Thank you, General Manager Hara.

And wanted to, in looking at this, this slide is very helpful because I know it takes time to do it right the first time.

And there are other safety considerations and legal and liability considerations that you have when you're running a publicly owned utility.

And I know that this has been brought on and put on your plate when you're trying to run the $1 billion utility at the same time.

And so I appreciate your work on this.

And one of the things I would find helpful, and I think we might be getting into this later, but how other cities are doing it and whether there are anything we can learn from other cities.

That's coming up later in this presentation, I believe.

Yes, we do have a spare slide in case council wanted to discuss any other initiatives that are happening in other places.

And so we looked into a number of different programs.

And this is what I referenced before, is that we found that The programs that were analogous to the program that Council is most interested in in terms of, you know, kind of light, easily deployable component with, you know, sinks made of easily obtainable components connected to private sources of water on private property found, as I said before, that that they were invariably – for this type, invariably placed on private land, run by private volunteer organizations using private water, where they were taking on all of the work and risk privately.

But they were some pretty phenomenal partnerships that had been developed between faith-based and community organizations acting as hosts with you know, all kinds of folks who wanted to support them through fundraising, you know, crowdsourcing and other types of fundraising, and that people were very eager to volunteer.

And just to follow up on that, were there, with these other cities, were there issues found where there were maintenance issues or things breaking or gray water that was dumped into the waterways or, I mean, Or did it go smoothly and we can model off of these?

Actually, I don't know about all of the problems.

I heard about some of the good things.

But may I call on one of our staff people to answer that question, if that's OK, if Catherine Morrison is available?

Hi, this is Catherine with SPU.

And in looking at other efforts, we found similar challenges, particularly with gray water and how to dispose of it safely.

And so in the bottom, the bottom, you see a picture.

This is from Atlanta.

These are the love sinks.

And these are successful.

They're not ADA compliant.

They don't hold a ton of water.

but they are easy to move.

And so they don't hold a ton of water, but volunteers are emptying that out a couple times a day and replacing it with clean water.

But we did not find a model that overcame all the barriers that we've discussed today.

As you can see, all three models there are not ADA compliant and have other concerns with gray water in particular.

Thank you.

All right, and Council Member Ramos, is that an old hand or a new hand that's up?

All right, that's an old hand.

I'll lower it.

All right.

Okay, thanks for indulging those additional questions.

Let's keep going through the presentation.

Okay, thank you.

We could go to the next slide, please.

So I'll just very briefly describe the second area of the grant program, the waste prevention solutions.

This element addresses – hopes to address food waste and other materials reuse, and Seattle has increasingly prioritized waste prevention and reuse as a key strategy to reducing the impacts of, you know, all kinds of materials on the environment and human health.

And so we're seeking applications to help minimize illegal dumping, trash and litter.

And, you know, it's it's no, I think, surprise that it is an issue, you know, that's that's accelerated during the pandemic.

And, you know, it's also been an issue that, you know, people not having access to sufficient food during the pandemic, you know, particularly houseless folks.

And so, you know, we were aiming to try to, you know, bring this element in, you know, in the spirit of of abetting those who are volunteering anyway, and to see if there were other kinds of activities that would help to complement the other SINC work, which we consider to also be a mutual aid effort.

I'm just going to quickly go over the SPU and DON partnership, which many of you know is central to the work that the Department of Neighborhoods is doing over the last couple of years, which is combining with our more operational infrastructure departments to augment and partner with their outreach and engagement.

In this case, in the grant development, and as Council Member Morales mentioned, bringing things like smaller grants that are more accessible and readily able to be implemented by smaller nonprofits, lowering the barriers for accessing opportunities.

really pairing the grant cycle with not just an application, but really with ongoing technical assistance that maybe more mirrors something that we would see as part of like Neighborhood Matching Fund or the new Healthy Food Fund.

And then finally, I would say that really bringing all of the resources and relationships of Department of Neighborhoods through all of our staff, our community engagement coordinators, our community liaisons, and so forth, to bear in this relationship.

And so our hope is that we can continue to do more things like this that are community-centered in this way and community-initiated, and not just with SPU, with our other departments as well.

Thank you.

Thanks for the presentation.

You know, really appreciate it.

And Council Member Peterson, I appreciate you indulging this committee and letting us take this presentation here, knowing that typically SPU reports to your committee.

You know, I just want to say we, you know, I'll open it up for questions in a second if other council members have questions and some of this has sort of been echoed already.

But I mean, I'll just candidly say that it is a little frustrating given, sitting on the Board of Health, hearing the presentations from Board of Health on a regular basis on the horrific hygiene situation in so many communities of unhoused folks in the city that could be extremely easily prevented with access to running water.

and just being in a position where it feels like there's a lot of hurdles here for us to accomplish the goal collectively as a council, as an SPU to get these stood up.

I think that chart earlier in the presentation was extremely helpful in sort of centering it and sort of where I wanna leave it and the crux of the questions that I asked earlier was I want us to look outside of those barriers as being determinative and a path that leads to less desirable and less efficacious hygiene policies to comply squarely with all of those regulations.

I'd rather look for a way that we can work as an SPU and a council to respond to this the same way that we've responded to streeteries for restaurants.

the same way that we've responded to having these meetings remotely.

I mean, we are making all sorts of temporary adaptations to how work is typically done to respond to the unique constraints of this global pandemic.

And that gives us a lot more flexibility, which we've seen.

I mean, we have put moratoriums and suspensions on evictions for several months.

We have capped emergency delivery fees.

We've assessed hazard pay for workers.

All things held up in court.

Because it's a pandemic and we have special emergency powers.

So I would just like to, I mean, I'm looking right now at the Seattle Clean Hands Collective Street Sync website.

Build at the top, the street sink makes hand washing easy and accessible for anyone anywhere.

Seems like there could be a way to adapt that to meet, you know, with some innovation working together to adapt and meet the ADA requirements.

Definitely have to do some troubleshooting around the gray water issue.

It doesn't seem completely insolvable.

The city for years has had rain garden programs where people can install rain garden drainage ditches in neighborhoods, I believe through a Department of Neighborhood program.

So it just seems like there's a lot of nexuses here with existing scope of work that the city does in some places.

It seems like there could be ways that maybe we can work together to find more flexibility to accommodate innovative designs.

I'm sure this council would indulge requests to waive temporarily any regulation required to get it done.

And I just want to leave us with that in us joining you in having a problem solving oriented approach to this.

And I appreciate this presentation and breaking it down.

And I think we know what some of the clear next steps are.

But with that, I'll open it up for questions if colleagues want to add anything before we close this out with our guests today.

Okay, seeing no questions, if there's any closing remarks from the panelists, I'll open it back up before we move on to the next agenda item.

I'm sorry, Mr. Chair.

Oh, Council Member Miscady.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry to interrupt you, Director Hara.

I did have one more question.

So initially we had $100,000 that were available part of that was because we did hear some concerns during the budget deliberations about the gray water issues and accessibility.

So we added additional funds so that technical assistance could be provided to the organization.

Um, and, uh, with the hope that those would be expedited, I guess my question now is even if we're looking at 150,000, if we were talking about dividing that over a series of small organizations, um, I'm concerned about, uh, sort of the, the economy of scale, how, how, How are these organizations supposed to stand up these sinks without a larger grant of, you know, $50,000 to $60,000 was the original request?

What are you anticipating in terms of the number total?

And how much are those organizations going to be receiving?

I don't know the full answer because we don't have the applications yet.

It is possible that one respondent could get the full $100,000 allocated to the sync component of the program.

And the variables that will influence that have to do with this issue of flexibility that has been stressed.

If there are respondents that are non-compliant with the requirements, but council is interested in trying to find some other way.

then we'll have to do that work apace before a decision is made.

And so we're here to work with you on that.

It may be that you might be interested in dividing that 100,000 in some way in order to find out what is most efficacious through comparison.

So we're available to talk about this at any time.

Other, you know, any questions about technical aspects or, you know, aspects of the grant program itself, Kate Morrison, who was just on the call, is also available, and her contact information is on this slide.

Okay, thank you for that answer.

That makes me hopeful, especially because I want to make sure we're not giving, you know, $5,000 to $10,000 to organizations and asking them to work with a small amount of funding.

In terms of what's most efficacious, I hope I used that word correctly, In terms of efficacy, I think just speaking for myself, the biggest priority that I have is recognizing organizations that are ready to go right now versus doing a comparison.

So for whatever that's worth, I'm sure you've heard that through our comments already here today.

But the speed at which we need to get these things stood up cannot be underscored further.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Okay, Council Member Morales, do you have a closing question as the- Well, just a closing statement off of Council Member Mosqueda's comment, which is that the original budget was intended to be able to provide 63 hand sinks based on the clean hand collective model.

And with the understanding that the point of this is to get as many sinks out as possible throughout the city in every district so that folks across the city have easy access to hand washing facilities.

So I just wanna reiterate that because the point isn't to build super sinks and only be able to afford five of them.

The point is to get sinks out throughout the city so that folks have access to running water.

Okay, so I think that's a good comment to close it out on.

And again, all of us appreciate Council Member Morales' innovation in bringing this forward in the last budget cycle.

Definitely one of the things I enjoyed working on in a small supporting role back in the fall.

So I appreciate this discussion.

Any closing remarks now from General Manager Haro or Director Montilla?

Okay, thank you.

Just thank you for the opportunity to brief you on this program today.

Thank you so much, and we will be in contact on the next steps.

Okay, item two on the agenda.

We'll now move on to the second item.

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

A briefing and discussion of Seattle's Homelessness Outreach and Provider Ecosystem, or HOPE, team.

Thank you.

Will the presenters please join our virtual table and introduce themselves?

Since we have quite a few, could you introduce yourself and then pass it on to the next person in your cohort?

I've always admired when the inter-government relations people do that when they come here.

It's an efficient way to do it.

So why don't we start with Director Howell and do the introductions.

Great.

Thank you, Helen Howell.

And I'm serving as interim director of the Human Services Department.

And I'll pass that on to Tess Colby.

Hi, good afternoon.

I'm Tess Colby, and I am the interim deputy director in HSD.

And I will pass it off to Tara.

Good afternoon, Tara Beck, interim director of the HOPE team.

And I'll pass to Diana.

Good afternoon, Diana Salzer, Director of Homeless Strategies and Investments.

Thank you.

Okay, now that we're all here, why don't we jump into this presentation?

You know, I certainly have some general comments and questions.

Council Member Morales has already signed up to kick us off when we get to the end of the presentation.

So why don't we just jump into it?

Great.

Good afternoon again, Helen Howell, Interim Director of HSD.

Thank you for this opportunity for HSD to provide an overview of our recent work to serve people living unsheltered in Seattle.

You will hear from department subject matter experts today from the HOPE team and HSD's Homeless Strategy and Investment Division to update council and the public on progress in standing up new shelter resources.

HSD has been at the forefront in trying to maintain safe services for people experiencing homelessness, starting with last spring's de-intensification of our shelter system, the standing up of a tiny house village in the Central District, and an enhanced shelter in North Seattle, in addition to implementing public health COVID-19 safety protocols across all city-funded shelters.

So far in 2021, despite the challenges presented by COVID-19 and the very real capacity issues facing our community partners, the Human Services Department has opened over 250 shelter spaces since February in partnership with our service providers.

The HOPE team is already making referrals to these shelter resources, getting over 200 people into hotels since March.

You've met the other representatives from HSD.

So I think with that, I will turn it over to Tess Colby.

She's going to serve as the facilitator of today's presentation.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Director Howell.

Good afternoon.

Again, I have transitioned into a new role with the Human Services Department, and I'm excited about this move, and I'm looking forward to working with you in this new capacity.

Today, we are sharing the progress made so far towards two important commitments in the 2021 budget.

The creation of the HOPE Team, an HSD-led team that coordinates outreach by city contracted providers to unsheltered people across the city.

And the expansion of our shelter system, including new tiny house villages and hotel-based enhanced shelter, with a goal of moving people from encampments through shelter and into housing.

We'll start with the HOPE team, which has significantly redesigned HSD's response to unsheltered homelessness in the following key ways.

HOPE's primary focus is to coordinate outreach in partnership with contracted providers to support people living unsheltered across the city.

As part of that coordination, HOPE manages the referral process into city-funded shelter resources.

HSD no longer leads trash or debris mitigation or encampment removals.

Encampments in rights-of-way, parks, and sidewalks are now prioritized by the departments that own or are responsible for the impacted property.

HOPE does support their work by coordinating outreach to their prioritized locations.

Hope also works with the contracted outreach providers to collect and report data.

Data collection and analysis continues to be a critical component of the city's response to unsheltered homelessness.

The ongoing collection means we can continue to measure success and to track trends.

It also helps us to better understand and respond to the needs of people experiencing homelessness and to understand who's accessing shelter, who's accessing services.

And it supports transparency and accountability, allowing us to respond to requests from council offices, the mayor's office, the media, and the public.

So now I'll turn it over to Tara Beck, our interim director of the HOPE team, to provide an overview of their work.

Thank you, Tess.

The HOPE team has several important functions.

As Tess said, the first is to coordinate efforts by outreach and shelter providers, as well as city departments.

We direct outreach to respond to areas of concern and individuals in need, and we make shelter referrals based on recommendations from outreach providers, to city funded shelters.

We provide onsite support for outreach providers at high priority sites, which are determined by city departments that own or manage public property.

And we partner with departments on encampment litter and debris mitigation efforts through the Clean Cities Initiative.

And as Tess said, the HOPE team does not schedule or lead encampment removal operations.

When we think about how the HOPE team manages the shelter referral process for the set-aside shelter beds, we think about the starting point as being the outreach provider working with an unsheltered person to assess their needs.

The HOPE team provides real-time shelter vacancy reports for those set-aside beds.

And then the HOPE team receives shelter recommendations from outreach providers for available shelter resources.

And finally, the HOPE team connects those recommendations to open beds when a service match is made.

And when a service match is made, that's when a recommendation is now called a referral.

When making referrals, a person's vulnerabilities are a driving factor.

And HOPE team also prioritizes recommendations that come from city department identified high priority sites.

And this diagram illustrates the referral process that I just described.

You'll notice first outreach engaging with an individual to identify their needs, completing a shelter assessment and service match.

Outreach then relays the match recommendation to the HOPE team.

The HOPE team turns recommendations into referrals, again, based on highest vulnerabilities and recommendations from high priority sites.

And when that referral is made, the HOPE team, shares that information back to the outreach provider that made the recommendation, as well as the shelter provider that will be receiving the person for intake.

And finally, on the slide, you'll notice when an individual moves into an enhanced shelter or tiny home village, they're connected to wraparound services with the goal of helping them exit to permanent housing.

Can we go back for just a second, just for some clarifying questions?

I want to try to hold questions to the end, including my own, but unless this is addressed later in the presentation, could we dive down a little bit into kind of the definitions here of rapid rehousing, permanent supportive housing, housing and diversion?

just in sort of constituting what those resources are and maybe also how many resources the HOPE team has to offer those sorts of things right now.

Yeah, absolutely.

I'm happy to kick that off.

And Diana, in case I need a little bit of your expertise, I'll ask you to stand by.

So first off, to do that kind of quick primer of the difference between diversion, rapid rehousing, and permanent supportive housing.

So diversion really is a very effective intervention that helps people who are experiencing homelessness rapidly return back to a safe housing solution.

The goal of that really is to help folks not have to go into shelter, but to assist them with briefcase management and some financial support if that's needed to really come up with a quick solution for their homelessness experience.

Rapid rehousing is, again, another intervention that is nationally recognized as a best practice.

It provides some case management accompanied by rent support for folks to move back into housing.

Typically, in many cases, it's market rate housing, but in a lot of cases, we're able to support folks to get into an affordable housing project, for example.

And the goal really with the Rapid Rehousing Program is to provide both the financial assistance and the case management to help folks stabilize in that housing.

We have found both in Seattle and King County, as well as nationally, that roughly 85% of the folks who go through Rapid Rehousing do not return to the homeless system.

And then finally, permanent supportive housing, which is site-based housing, whether it is a single site, and sometimes in some jurisdictions and cases, it's scattered site, is, if you will, the highest rung of housing in that it is permanent housing.

Folks move in, and there's no expectation that folks have to move out at any point.

And it comes with wraparound support services that are tailored to the needs of the individuals.

Typically, permanent supportive housing serves a very highly vulnerable, often chronic population, folks who have been homeless for an extremely long period of time.

So Council Member Lewis, does that get at the question about those three interventions?

Yes, thank you.

Good, good.

And I'm sorry, can you, it turns out I cannot talk and chew gum at the same time.

Can you remind me what your second question was?

It was more of a going to sort of how much of those resources the HOPE team has access to, but if that'll be addressed later, we can bookmark that for now.

I think for now, I was mostly just concerned about the making sure we had a baseline of definitions.

So you answered that question, so I think we can move forward.

Terrific.

Thank you very much.

So we are going to transition, and your question is extremely well-timed, because we are going to transition over to the presentation by Sorry.

Actually, or rather, sorry, Deputy Director Colby, before we move on, we actually noted this in the agenda as an additional agenda item.

So I want to make sure that we read it into the record.

But before we do that, I think I want to take the opportunity of the presentation break to open up to hope team related questions.

And I know that Council Member Morales has some.

I have some and I promise Council Member Morales she can go first.

So I'm gonna turn it over to her to get it started.

And then if anyone else wants to raise your hand and I'll put you in the queue again for HOPE team related questions.

Thank you.

I do have a lot of questions about the HOPE program.

So thank you.

I want to start by first giving a huge shout out again to my staff member, Devin Silvernail, who's been really instrumental in supporting the Street Sinks and the HOPE program work.

And I do want to start by addressing the public commenters who called in today to demand that the City Council stop the sweeps.

First, I want to thank you for engaging with City Hall.

Your advocacy is very important and I hope and I'm sure that all of that will continue.

And I want to make it really clear that City Council has done everything we can to stop encampment removals.

And I want to say to the commenters directly, your anger is righteous.

but it needs to be directed to the mayor.

We can fund new programs as a council, we can fund new shelter, we can fight to limit or stop the sweeps, but at the end of the day, we can't force the mayor or the departments to follow what we've asked for.

And so I know this council is extraordinarily frustrated that the things we've been trying to do get stymied.

My staff and my colleagues have spent months bringing service providers to the table to get the navigation team changed into something that is more humane, to fund something that was supposed to be different, the HOPE program.

only to hear that the same problems are persisting.

And even though apparently those problems are now spread across several departments, this is really a testament to the power that the executive has and how little regard this particular executive has for our unhoused neighbors and for our provider communities.

I know we have lots of questions about how they are being treated, and we'll get to those in a minute.

But I do want to say to colleagues in the executive branch, I think this council has been very clear during the summer and fall that we wanted encampment removals to be an absolute last resort.

We've heard from several members of the public today, some of whom are outreach providers themselves, that sweeps are ramping back up and we've had just eight in this week.

Publicola reported yesterday that non-congregate options, that those are almost at capacity.

They specifically cited Lehigh Director Sharon Lee, who said that of the 139 spaces at the Executive Pacific Hotel, 109 are full.

We are still in a pandemic.

The CDC is still recommending non-congregate options.

And we need to understand better why we are even considering encampment removals when people have no place to go.

We worked really hard as a council to fund tiny homes, hotel rooms, and other forms of non-congregate shelter.

frankly, met resistance at every turn.

And it seems to me that that is what needs to be a priority, getting those shelter units and hotel and housing units available before we even think about asking unhoused people to trust us in getting them into services and shelter.

We need to build trust again with providers and with unhoused people to get them help, not to be pushing people around the city.

So Thank you for indulging me.

I feel like all of that really had to be said, and I know I'm not the only council member who feels that way, and I'm certainly not the only community member who feels that way.

So I do have some very basic questions up front, and I will have a few more questions later.

I'd like to ask first, who directly engages with encampment residents and who doesn't?

And what does that engagement look like?

So I'd like to understand better what kind of onsite support is provided, for example, what kind of transportation support?

What does that mean when somebody is engaging and providing that kind of assistance?

I'm happy to start the answer to that question.

So who engages with people in encampments on the site are outreach providers?

So outreach providers work directly with folks that are experiencing homelessness on sites and in the streets.

The HOPE team provides support at the request of our outreach providers in helping them to do their work.

So some of that support can include helping with real-time shelter referrals.

It can include helping to make transportation arrangements for folks that are unsheltered and in encampments.

and sometimes connecting the outreach providers with translation services.

So simple answer, I think, to your very important question.

So in the budget, we had eight positions that were funded.

Can you talk about what responsibilities each of the different roles in the HOPE program?

Thank you.

We actually received that question from your central staff and have provided that information back to them.

I can say generally who we have in the HOPE team are folks that are system navigators, Tara, obviously, data, some folks that are working on data.

But I'd be happy to walk you through that longer list and more detailed list that we've provided to central staff.

I can get that list from them and we'll share that with my colleagues.

Chair, I have lots of questions, but maybe I'll just get to the second one and then be quiet for a minute.

The only other person in the queue currently is Council Member Peterson.

So maybe if you want to do one more question and then we could show it to Alex for a few and then go back to you.

Thank you.

So it's my understanding that referrals are arranged with providers through a group text-based system that has a limited number of slots and that there may be more outreach workers than there are slots available.

During the budget, council expressed support for the city to act as a facilitator for referrals by providing direct access to the tools that the HOPE team can use.

Can you tell me if that's been considered?

And can you tell me any other work that's been done to kind of cut down the barriers for outreach providers to work more directly with shelter providers?

Thank you.

The role that hope plays in shelter referrals is a really critical one.

I mean, as we all know that there is scarce availability of vacancies in shelters.

It's a very scarce very precious resource and by shelters.

I'm including hotel based shelters as well as as well as villages.

So we have, as you noted, multiple agencies in the field, all working with different clients, all competing for those same scarce resources.

So one agency has to manage those recommendations in order to ensure that the clients that our outreach provider partners are working with are matched appropriately to the shelters based on acuity of need and services provided in those shelters.

And that really is a key function of the team, excuse me, the HOPE team, is really to address that sort of equity of access, if you will.

If I might add also, the challenges with the existing text thread for shelter recommendations has been well known.

And that's something that the HOPE team has worked with providers on.

We meet with them weekly and have other meetings as well with director level staff as well as direct service staff.

We are currently looking at three different options to replace the text thread and are getting ready to finalize those decisions.

The recommendations of which tools to use to replace that have been given to us in partnership with, by outreach providers to us.

And so we're working with our data analyst on which of those will probably be the best in terms of protecting information of the clients that shared and give us the best access for providers.

So we can follow up with you on the decision that's made and how that rolls out in the coming weeks.

All right, with that, let's go to Council Member Peterson for his question, and then Council Member Morales, if you still have questions, we'll certainly pivot back to you.

Council Member Peterson.

Thank you, Chair Lewis.

I know everyone's eager for the most effective solutions to bring people inside and end the suffering on our streets and in our parks.

And it's okay to disagree in areas of policy.

I just want to implore my colleagues just strive to treat our city government colleagues with respect and, and to not question their intentions.

I feel that people are working hard in a difficult environment during a pandemic and, um, you know, we want to encourage them to do their best and.

I want to thank our human services department for being here and the nonprofits in the field for the work they're doing to get positive results.

And also when we refer to the city council, it doesn't always include all nine of us.

Sometimes it's a majority, but not necessarily all of us.

And there are disagreements in policy and I'm hoping we get the best results here.

And I just want to take the temperature down and treat our colleagues with respect here.

Thank you.

And Council Member Mosqueda, do you have a question?

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I wanted to emphasize that I really support Council Member Morales' line of questioning, and I will be deferring to Council Member Morales for her future questions as well, because they are very much in line with the questions that I had, in addition to her opening comments.

which I found respectful.

I found very much appropriate for the situation that we're in.

A year into a pandemic where the CDC has continued to say that we should not be sweeping people if we do not have alternative non-congregate shelter options available.

We have a sense of urgency to address this.

I found the comments to also be illuminating for members who are present here today and also hopefully members of the public.

about the important roles that the legislative and executive branches have to addressing these crises.

And in an effort to make sure that we are being transparent about what the legislative branch has funded and what our expectations are, I believe the council member Morales' line of questionings are absolutely respectful in order and very much needed for setting the context to why this hearing is so important.

Mr. Chair, I appreciate your time in setting up this meeting today.

and the presenters as well, but I think that all of us are here to get to those solutions, and asking these pointed questions is part of that.

Thank you very much, council members, and I'll again defer my time and questions to Council Member Morales.

Thank you.

Council Member Swann, you're recognized.

Thank you, Council Member Lewis.

Sorry, I'm not able to turn my camera on because of my connection.

Just one second.

I really appreciate council members speaking in opposition to the sweeps of homeless community encampments.

We know and as people in public comment today and before have said the sweeps don't actually help people in any way.

In fact, they cause additional problems.

And I think a lot of the people have said correctly actually not only does it increase the demoralization and the trauma and the sense of desperation and isolation as a homeless community person when you go, when you are subjected to a sweep, but also materially you end up losing your belongings, your resources and they've been proven over and over again to be completely inhumane and ineffective.

And, you know, we've seen these issues intensify actually during the pandemic year, when the calendars in park, when calendars in park was swept, most of the community members had nowhere to go.

And then they moved to the, to Miller Park, for example.

And we've seen the kind of, community members are not even getting access to dining houses.

I know this point is going to come up in the next agenda item but I thought it belonged here as well.

I will make some of the justify not yet spending the, not actually using the funding that our people's budget movement won last November for new tiny house villages.

And this was many organizations that really fought for this, you know, Real Change, Nickelsville, Share Wheel, Socialist Alternative, you know, many of the organizations that were involved in the Amazon tax struggle, many of them were also involved in fighting for and winning funding for new tiny house villages and it's extremely It's extremely troubling, although I'm not surprised in any way, but it's extremely troubling to hear, as community members are pointing out, correctly, that many sweeps are scheduled for May, for the month of May, for this month, and this is the exact opposite of how the mayor should be using public resources.

I mean, these are not her personal resources, these are public resources, and the public has spoken loud and clear.

And so I do believe a lot of this responsibility lies at the doorstep of the mayor's office.

I don't agree, though, that the city council is all on the same page and that all council members have done everything that can be done to stop the sweeps.

I mean, just to give you a concrete example, last budget, my office, through the People's Budget Movement, alongside the People's Budget Movement, proposed a proviso that would have prohibited the use of funds to carry out sweeps, but the majority of the council did not support it.

So I think there's no question that the mayor's office bears responsibility for this.

And as I said, I cannot understand why it's taking so long to set up tiny house villages.

And I'll say a little bit more about that.

But I don't think the city council has exhausted its political leadership.

I think there's a lot more to be done.

And there is a political strategy to force the mayor to do the right thing.

And that will involve actually for elected representatives to fight alongside community members who are themselves fighting courageously.

And I thank them for that.

But what we're going to see later in the presentation is that there are two new villages plus expanding an existing tiny house village.

And to be honest with you all, we have been hearing about the mayor's agreement to expand the interbay village for the past two years.

And while it's positive that it's being expanded, it certainly should not be considered news.

I mean, that's not accurate.

Last October, Lehigh announced that they had identified locations for six new villages in addition to the expansions.

So why wasn't the RFP for these new villages issued in December of last year as soon as the budget was adopted?

Why is it only being, issued now and also I would point out that an RFP is not even should not be needed because the former mayor Murray's declared state of civil emergency is still in effect as far as I know and it gives the mayor the authority to find homeless services funds sorry fund homeless services immediately without an RFP but over but regardless of whether an RFP is issued or not my general point is that it's simply not acceptable for over a third of a year to have gone by with people suffering in our streets, sidewalks, and parks, without these tiny house villages being established.

And I know that staff will, the HSD staff will talk about SEPA review and so on and so forth.

And we should obviously make note of that, but I don't believe that those technical guidelines of restrictions or delays will really fully explain in any way the political delays in my view that are coming from the mayor's office.

So I would also maybe on this point, when we come to those slides, appreciate central staff weighing in on that as well.

And once again, I wanted to thank all the community members who have really spoken so clearly against these inhumane and ineffective sweeps.

Thank you.

Okay, Council Member Morales, we can circle back to you at this point if you have a few more questions before we go to the next agenda item.

Thank you.

Yeah, so I have a question about, just to prep you, I have a question about the HOPE team itself and then I have a couple questions about the providers and the contracting that's happening.

So, The, you know, as you began this presentation, you mentioned that high priority sites are determined by departments.

And we have heard from providers that there is this sort of infrastructure based system to prioritize.

And so I'm interested in, you know, how this approach of prioritization differs from what the navigation team was doing.

And just trying to understand how providers are integrated into the process of determining areas or populations that need engagement.

If the focus really is not on people, but on parks and, you know, whatever the departments are determining should be the priorities instead.

Great.

Sorry, just taking a couple notes here.

All right, so first I just want to go back to a comment that I made earlier, which as you noted, Council Member Morales, the HSD is no longer determining location where encampments need to be addressed or removed.

That lies firmly now with the departments that own the property or have responsibility for those public spaces.

The general criteria that they use in determining what their high priority sites are, have to do with safety, hazardous situations to either individuals who are outside in encampments and or to other members of the public, for example, in construction sites, blockages such as ADA blockages, as well as ensuring access to public spaces for all of our community members.

So you asked about the role that outreach providers play in either determining these sites or in supporting people that are living in encampments in priority sites.

There are, our HOPE team meets with providers on a weekly basis.

They meet to be able to talk through issues that have arisen, but they also meet to talk about scheduling outreach for high priority areas to ensure that they have an opportunity to be on site.

and to work with folks in encampments in those priority sites to work with them around service needs and shelter needs.

Outreach does inform that engagement timeline, so that is a really important role that they play.

And in terms of communication and processes, part of the reason that we have those weekly meetings is so that we can continue to improve the process that we have working with them.

Can I continue?

Yes, Council Member Ross.

Thank you.

So we have heard from service providers about that since January, their city-funded outreach These folks have been working in good faith on their HSD contracts with the presumption that there would possibly be some minor changes to their contracts.

But that when the contracts were disseminated in the spring, those providers were surprised to find some really dramatic changes.

to their required delivery care systems.

To my knowledge, REACH, the Seattle Indian Health Board, United Indians, Chief Seattle Club, Mother Nation, several organizations have expressed concern about the contract language that was proposed through the HOPE program.

So can you tell me how HSD plans on reimbursing these providers for services they've already provided in the first quarter if they decide not to continue with the contract?

And can you tell me what process HSD will provide for contract negotiations?

Yes.

So I'd like to start with your question about what that process of contract negotiations has looked like.

As you know, this is a brand new model for HSD.

We are still doing a lot of learning about what it means to shift into this new role of coordinating, collaborating with outreach providers.

in this way.

We also are cognizant that we have an obligation both to the council and to the public to be able to report out on the activities, but most importantly, on the outcomes of this work that we are asking our outreach providers to do.

So much of the work we've been doing during this contract negotiation has been around data.

We absolutely know that data is hard to collect.

We know that it is complex.

We have experience in collecting that data, know just how hard it is, which is why we are collaborating with our outreach partners, working together on it, so that we can provide the information to you, to the mayor, to public, to media, that everybody expects from the program.

In terms of reimbursement, I would like to be able to get back to you on that question.

It's a good one, and I want to make sure that we get you the technical response that you're asking for.

Okay, and my last question.

So we continue to focus with these contracts on outreach to unhoused individuals, and that is certainly important, but we know that service providers and everybody seems to understand that the way we're really going to solve this problem is to make sure that there's housing available.

So will the proposed changes that are being considered fix the service providers' access to housing referrals, including shelters like the Executive Inn and Tiny Houses that are managed by the Navigation Center?

And will the city be putting any energy into long-term permanent housing options so that we can actually find places for folks to go and stop doing the front end outreach, stop putting so much energy on that without putting more energy into the actual solution here?

Thank you so much for that question.

Housing is very, very dear to my heart.

And so I will go ahead and answer that question first.

Absolutely.

We are continuing to invest in permanent housing, both through permanent supportive housing, through affordable housing for folks at the very lowest income levels, as well as I described earlier through the rapid rehousing program that is attached to our hotel-based shelters to help people exit to permanent housing.

100% agree, housing is what ends homelessness.

Your question about the referral process, again, I want to reiterate that we have a system that has on any given day fairly limited numbers of shelter openings.

This is a testament to our ability to highly utilize our shelter system.

And again, with so many outreach providers in the community working so effectively with folks experiencing homelessness, we feel strongly that there needs to be a central point of the final referral into the shelters to make sure that there is, as I described earlier, an equitable distribution of that resource.

I will say that one of the questions that came up during the public testimony was around needing data to identify questions around racial equity, social justice related to the work that the HOPE team is coordinating and the outreach teams are implementing, and we couldn't agree more.

So this is a great example of why we do need data from the field, from the folks who are engaging directly with people that are in crisis, so that we actually can report back on what the equity outcomes are of the work that we're coordinating and participating in.

Thank you, Director Colby.

I want to thank you for answering these questions and for recognizing that they are driven by a deep frustration with our lack of ability to move forward on some of these issues, these really pressing issues, and are not, in fact, driven by any personal animosity toward any of you.

I know you're all working really hard and appreciate what you're doing.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

I, and Council Member Rouse, thank you for that line of questioning.

Jeff Sims from central staff wanted to make a clarification.

So I'm going to let Jeff chime in here.

Well, thank you, Mr. Chair.

For the record, Jeff Sims, Council Central staff.

This goes back to a question from Council Member Morales about the positions on the HOOQ team and their specific functions.

I have inquired about that, but to my knowledge, and I actually spent some time going through my emails to see if I had a response.

When I previously asked about this, I was told that that would be covered during this committee meeting.

So I think there was probably some miscommunication at some point.

I'm hoping to dive into that as well as the specific functions of the position, since I'm not able to look at anything in writing.

So if I may, I misspoke.

And Jeff, my sincerest apologies.

We will get that to you.

We actually responded to council member, to Chair Lewis's office.

So we'll make sure that you get that as well, Jeff.

My bad.

Yeah, and Jeff, I did actually get that information this morning, I think, so I can forward that along as well.

OK, well, I have a few additional questions that I want to ask while we're still on this that just relates.

I understand that the HOPE team does not necessarily post the removals that happens with the, you know, department that is managing the particular area where there is an encampment.

But I wanted to ask, because my understanding is the other day, the HOPE team worked with Just Care in doing outreach around the Perla in Piner Square.

And I just wanted to ask about that engagement, because there was no removal posted, the outreach workers you know, engaged, you know, centering, engaging with the folks that were living there.

People were offered, you know, resources and housing and access to that kind of a placement.

And the pergola is clear now because people were offered a place to go.

They left.

There was no need to do a posting and everything that goes along with a posting.

So, I guess I just wanted to ask a general broad question based on the success of that collaboration between the HOPE team and Just Care.

Potentially exploring how going forward we could use that alternative form instead of using a post and then remove model, instead having a well-resourced engagement model that that results in people getting where they need to go, it results in the, you know, in this case, the pergola being cleared of folks that were camping there, and just maybe expanding on if there's scope for more cooperation like that between Just Care and the HOPE team going forward, because I was pleased to hear that there was some coordination there, and just wonder if someone could jump on that and maybe expand a little bit.

Chair Lewis, I can give you a general statement that the HOPE team has worked with Just Care on a number of occasions where they've engaged folks that are in encampments.

I confess to you, I do not know the specifics of the collaboration that you're describing, and I will work with Tara and her team to get back to you with more information on that.

Okay, appreciate it.

It just seems like it offers a good precedent, because I have heard concerns, particularly from a lot of property owners in Pioneer Square, of a perception, right?

Because, I mean, we talk a lot about the impact that a lot of these removal operations have in the place where on the folks that are actually living there, right?

But I've also started getting complaints for the first time as well from property ownership managers that removals in other parts of the city are leading to people being displaced into the center of the city.

And, you know, I'm not raising that to highlight, you know, their need above the people that are living there.

I guess I'm just highlighting that as a new concern that I'm hearing that of in the cases when there are folks that are displaced from removals, you know, they're going somewhere.

Those people aren't just disappearing.

And so I wonder, is there anywhere in how the HOPE team operates currently or in the future of tracking and planning for displacement from posted removals, or at least assessing the impact of the displacement?

you know, not just on the impact to the individuals, but the anticipated impact to other neighbors and the broader community as well.

Because it seems to be a matter of growing concern when I talk to community members, business owners, as well as people who are service providers and advocates and mutual aid workers.

That is a terrific example of the kind of analysis of data that we really want to do, which is why we are engaging so closely with our outreach partners who are in the field, who are working with folks who are experiencing homelessness, to gather sufficient data so that we can begin to do that kind of nuanced analysis.

So I'm so glad you brought that up.

All right, well, you can definitely expect my office to follow up on that because it's, I think we might as well just leave it at that for now, but it's also not a new, it's not a new issue.

So going forward, definitely expect that it's something that this committee is gonna wanna address.

So with that, I think unless there's any final questions from folks, Council Member Mosqueda.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

One second.

Sorry about that.

Sorry about that.

I'm here with the kiddo.

I actually want to extrapolate a little bit more on that question you just asked, because it's not like we need data to prove that when you post a sign of removal, people move throughout the city.

That is part of the reason the CDC guidance says don't put those signs up during a pandemic.

So I want to ask three specific questions that have in some ways been asked already, but to try to hear a little bit more of a finite timeline.

Will you not hope, and so we've heard from outreach workers that they have sufficiently engaged with everyone there on places to move people to because the initial removals that we've heard about we need more time.

And ideally, not even having those posts when a sign goes up and when a removal happens, so that people have a clear understanding among the community partners, because it's definitely not enough time.

I apologize, Council Member Mosqueda, you cut in and out.

Shall I answer that first question?

I'm going to go ahead and do it.

So just as a kind of a quick reminder, we don't do the posting.

And we don't, again, don't identify which are the sites that need to be posted.

We do, however, work very closely with the outreach providers on scheduling out outreach.

I think maybe an example of this would be helpful.

And I'd like to ask Tara if she might be able to give a little bit of an example from Miller Park.

in terms of how that engagement in advance of what was ultimately removal worked.

Thank you.

Yeah, Miller Park was a really good success story of collaboration between HOPE and our outreach providers.

Miller Park was designated high priority by SPR on March 31st.

But we were fortunate that we were working with outreach providers and outreach was on the ground there.

And really, they've been on the ground there for a long time, but there were some coordinated efforts happening well in advance of the 31st of March.

pre-outreach, prior to that parks removal, we had 46 referrals to shelter that were made by our outreach partners.

That's significant.

And the majority of those referrals were into the Executive Hotel Pacific, which again is non-congregate, which is a priority during COVID.

We had really strong partnership between REACH, Urban League, and the HOPE team.

We had, You know, as I said, 46 referrals to shelter out of Miller Park, and we are aware of six individuals that did not want to accept shelter and voluntarily relocated to a place of their choosing.

And so that's the kind of work that we are hoping to replicate.

The HOPE team brings recommendations to the property holding departments about length of outreach.

And again, no, we do not schedule and we do not, we're not the final deciders on that, but we definitely elevate for that consideration.

Did you have more there that got cut off at the end?

Yeah, I'm sorry if I got cut off at the end.

I mean, but saying we don't do it, the public sees we as the city.

If HSD doesn't do it, it's still a city posting that's going up.

So I'm asking about a citywide policy that can be more thoughtful and give a longer lead way for organizations on the ground level to actually do the work and to make sure that we have time so that that bottleneck that we're hearing about where people are not getting into the hotels that they want because of the bottleneck, is addressed.

We know that people want to get inside.

They don't want to return to congregate shelters where they understand the dangers during COVID.

So I think the answer needs to not be, well, it doesn't happen in our department.

The answer needs to be, we need a citywide revamped policy about how long we're allowing or giving community partners to do the actual work.

And ideally not having the posting at all, because that posting is causing harm right now, much harder to find folks, much harder to get folks into the housing and health services that they need if they've been scattered throughout the city because of fear of those posts.

Thank you, council member.

I absolutely understand what you are asking for.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

Okay, Council Member Gonzales, do you have a question?

Council President, I should say, Gonzales.

Okay, I answer to many things.

Thank you so much.

A couple of questions.

The first one is around the phrase high priority.

And I've heard you all use the phrase high priority, and I understand that it's now being identified, that sort of identifier, the person who triggers whether or not a publicly owned piece of property is considered a high priority is now determined by the impacted department.

What I haven't quite heard yet is how we're defining high priority, you know, sort of how does that happen?

What, if I'm an employee or, you know, the director or the superintendent of the Seattle Parks and Recreation Department, how do I know what falls into high priority?

How do I designate a publicly owned piece of property as a high priority area for focus of resources?

Good question.

So I'm going to kind of go back to what I indicated earlier, which is the individual departments make that decision.

And generally speaking, they use, as I said before, criteria related to safety, to hazards, to access as their guiding posts.

But frankly, we would need to have the parks, SDOT, City Light, other property owning departments answer the question about what specific process they go through individually to identify their sites as being high priority.

So if I take your answer to its logical conclusion, that means that each department does it differently?

Or is that standard?

I can't answer whether each one does it differently.

Again, there's standard criteria, but the actual discernment process, I truly don't know.

It isn't that I can't answer.

It is that I truly do not know what the nuanced process is that each one goes through.

I will say that there's a weekly meeting where all of the property owning departments come together and they talk about their priority sites.

And they do that in a way that allows for scheduling that then informs the work that the HOPE team does around engaging providers to do outreach.

Okay.

So what I'm hearing you say then is that HSD and the HOPE team does not play a role in the department's determination as to which publicly owned site goes from status quo to high priority.

That is correct.

OK.

And if you know the answer to this question, say you do, and if you don't, that's fine.

In terms of setting aside the nuanced process of how something becomes a high priority, does HSD or the HOPE team have any understanding of what the broad criteria is that leads to the definition of a high priority area.

Oh yes, so absolutely.

So the broad criteria is hazards to people or to city infrastructure.

So there's that safety issue again.

It is whether or not an encampment might be impeding a city construction or maintenance project.

Again, also sort of hazard to infrastructure in that sense.

Whether or not there is an ADA blockage whether there's an insignificant blockage or obstruction to public spaces like parks, such that all community members are not able to access them.

So those are the four high-level key criteria that's used.

Thank you, I appreciate that.

And is that coming from the MDARs, the multidisciplinary administrative rules, or is that coming from somewhere else?

So it is reflective of what's in the MDARs, but the MDARs don't mandate this kind of criteria, but it is all, all the work that's being done around both identifying and addressing encampments is all consistent with the MDARs.

Okay.

Thank you, I appreciate that.

The second question I have is slightly related, but maybe not, but I wanna just get a better understanding of what role, if any, does the HOPE team play in communicating to residents in the surrounding neighborhood about what's happening with regard to a site that is publicly owned that currently has people camping at or living within.

So the HOPE team does not have that direct relationship with community members, with neighborhoods or the businesses.

However, we are lucky to be partnering with agencies like the Urban League, like REACH, that have very strong relationships with communities in particular.

And in particular, REACH has designated folk that are working in specific communities, University District, for example, Capitol Hill is another example.

And they do a lot of that work in community with neighbors and businesses around the question of unsheltered homelessness.

Yeah, and I think what you're referring to are some of the things that I was really proud to be able to sponsor and support, which is the the homelessness outreach liaison that is generally housed within pre-existing relationships between REACH and other homeless outreach providers and BIAs and other commercial neighborhood districts.

My question's a little different than that, because I understand how that program functions, and I think it's very well received and welcomed in those neighborhoods.

My question is really more about for those neighborhoods that don't have the BIAs or the organized neighborhood districts, right?

So if I'm just living in a condo in any part of town and it happens to be gratefully located to a park, but unfortunately now there's a growing number of people living in that park, but I'm not in a business district, I'm in a residential area.

Who from the city is communicating with me about what I can expect to occur with regard to a growing number of individuals experiencing homelessness on publicly owned property near my residence?

So for folks who have concerns about encampments or the impacts of homelessness Of course, we ask that people express those concerns through the Find It Fix It app that allows us to have a clear understanding of where those concerns are and as is possible, respond to them.

So I'm going to put on my old hat for just a second.

In the mayor's office, we received a lot of communication from folks that are concerned for the welfare of folks who are outside, but also for safety and health in their own communities.

And so community members obviously have the ability to contact city government through all of the various channels.

both in the mayor's office and HSD, we are very responsive to folks that want to reach out and learn more about what the city is doing and learn more about, for example, how the Find It Fix It app can work.

Yeah, and I appreciate that.

And I think I think what the gap is and what my concern is that I'm hearing from constituents as a citywide representative is that they feel like when they use the Find It Fix It, when they email one of us, whether you're in department land or in the council member office or the mayor's office, it just kind of feels like their email goes into a black hole somewhere.

Nobody gets back to them.

Or if they do, it's a warm response.

And I get it.

I'm not disparaging the approach at all.

I'm just expressing and communicating some of the frustrations that I'm hearing from constituents about feeling like they just want to understand what is going to happen.

I took the time as a resident in this city to flag a humanitarian concern that is happening in my neighborhood that is also creating impacts of livability for me, not just for those that are experiencing homelessness.

And I'm flagging that and I feel like nobody is responding, at least not with, either nobody is responding or we're not, we're giving people sort of a pro forma response as opposed to informing them of what kind of outreach is happening, what kind of outreach has happened, and what they can expect to occur.

And I think folks across our city, they just want to know what they can expect from city government in terms of how we are going to shepherd our limited resources.

And sometimes the answer is difficult.

Sometimes the answer is that location isn't a high priority for the following reasons.

So we're not actually gonna go out and do anything related to that site.

Other times, There are situations where you say, look, it is a high priority area.

We are focusing on accessing people to services.

It is going to take us time.

We are not going to resolve this in the next two days.

And I just don't know who with the city is doing that body of work to help our constituents, both housed and unhoused, truly understand that this is a priority and that we're working on it.

And this isn't something we can fix overnight.

But I guess I just want to get a sense of whether there's anybody doing that function, either at HSD or within the HOPE team or anywhere else.

And if not, if we think that it would be important to identify strategies to be able to have that level of deep liaisoning to make sure that we are effectively and meaningfully communicating to our constituents what we're what is actually occurring in their neighborhood when they take the time to express deep and profound concern about what they're seeing as significant unmet needs and things getting, you know, going from bad to worse in some situations.

And the folks I talk to, they just don't want to see anybody get hurt, either house people or unhoused people.

They just, they want to be helpful and they're having a hard time figuring out how to do that it doesn't seem like we're responding.

And I'm using the we because we're a city, we're city family.

And so I just wanna get a sense from you all about whether you think there's an opportunity to sort of open up those channels of communication to be more effective in how we're communicating with folks who are expressing concerns to us every day, all day, as it relates to those who are experiencing unsheltered homelessness.

And I think you've done a fantastic job of expressing the complexity behind your question.

And it's an important question.

I will say we don't have an easy answer for that.

I would love to be able to follow up with you and have a longer conversation and maybe do some brainstorming around this.

It is a citywide problem.

It hits departments pretty much all across the spectrum.

And I suspect that we are all being as responsive as we possibly can.

And we'd be happy to talk to you more about what that might look like.

I appreciate that.

I would welcome that conversation.

I think other colleagues would also appreciate just figuring out a way for us to provide a better service.

to folks and getting in a better place in terms of having more standard sets of information that we feel we can rely on and that is going to be helpful to people to understand what is happening.

So I appreciate the offer to engage in conversation and would welcome that opportunity.

Thank you, Council President, for that line of questioning.

Since it's kind of getting along here and I want to be respectful of people's time, I want to call this third agenda item.

We kind of bled over into it a little in the previous discussion, so hopefully the questioning here will be brief and we can close out just slightly after five.

I appreciate everyone's patience here.

Mr. Clerk, will you please read item three into the agenda?

briefing and discussion of Seattle's 2021 shelter investments.

Thank you.

So HSD folks, go ahead and continue the presentation, please.

Great, thank you very much.

So in addition to all of the work that our HOPE team is doing, we are still of course focused on standing up new shelter resources that were funded in the 2021 budget.

So this year so far, we've opened two temporary hotel shelters and we have already added more enhanced shelter.

So this summer, we are also planning to issue an RFP to seek interest and responses from providers that would be interested in further expanding tiny house villages in whatever form that might take.

Our provider partners continue to do incredible work to help people who are sheltered during the pandemic.

They've adapted their models and they are still opening new programs.

However, I'd be remiss if I don't call attention for us all to the fact that capacity, provider capacity, isn't infinite and in fact it is fairly strained at this point.

The single biggest barrier to opening new programs across the city is not the commitment of the department or the city family at large to addressing unsheltered homelessness, it is provider capacity to take on more work.

Staffing, particularly hiring new staff, is a challenge across all programs.

And so a quick example, Shelter opened a new women's shelter recently.

They are committed to making that shelter, to turning that shelter into an enhanced 24-7 model.

And the only reason they've not been able to do that, the only reason they're delayed is because they are having such a challenging time finding appropriate staff, hiring appropriate staff to be able to operate at that model.

So we are regularly in conversation with our providers talking about this issue, brainstorming, and also continuing to remind them that there are opportunities for additional work.

So I will hand this now off to Diana Salazar, who is our Homeless Strategies and Investment Director.

And she can walk through the progress updates on hotels and shelters and villages.

Thank you, Deputy Director Colby.

Good afternoon, council members.

As Tess mentioned, in March, we opened up two hotel-based enhanced shelters to serve people who are living unsheltered.

And as Tara alluded earlier, it is a partnership between the HOTE team and the outreach providers to refer individuals into these hotels.

The two hotels I'll briefly speak of is the Executive Hotel Pacific, which is operated by our partnership with the Low Income Housing Institute, Lehigh.

As you see here on the screen, this PowerPoint was transmitted a few days ago.

So the information, I will update it.

We actually are serving now 133 clients, which is a total of 109 rooms.

out of the 139, and in the Kings Inn, operated by our partners of Chief Seattle Club, we now are at 68 clients as of May 4th.

Both sites have rapid rehousing available for folks as they exit.

Next slide, please.

So the city is opening three tiny house villages this summer.

These villages will support around 120 new units to shelter people living unsheltered and are available via HOPE referrals.

Lehigh is the operating partner for these villages and we appreciate Lehigh and the Council Members offices for their support of these three villages that we're launching.

All three villages will have behavioral health, case management, housing navigation to end a person's experience with homelessness.

The three villages I will speak of are the first being Rosie's Tiny House Villages, which is expected to serve 39 units, which is a partnership with Sound Transit, and we anticipate it opening this June.

The second village is Friendship Heights, which we expect to have 50 units in partnership with Lehigh and a religious sponsor of Epic Light Church, and we anticipate that to open by late, excuse me, by June or July.

And the third Tiny House Village is Inner Bay Tiny House, which is an expansion of 29 units.

And we are thankful for the continued partnership of the Port of Seattle.

And that is expected to open in summer 2021. Next slide, please.

And as Deputy Director Colby alluded earlier, we have been funded in the 2021 budget cycle to fund 125 new enhanced shelter beds.

We have partnered with First Presidetarian Church to open up a shelter and it is being operated by wheel.

It is a new low barrier shelter for women and we are currently offering 60 spaces.

And this program offers onsite case management, housing navigation, showers, dining area, nurse station, case management and storage.

Thank you.

Thanks, Diana.

I appreciate it.

So I'm going to wrap us up with a quick description of what our pipeline looks like moving forward.

For context, just to reiterate what we've been doing so far, during the first quarter of the year, HSD staff supported an increase of almost 400 new enhanced shelter spaces.

So what's important about that is that increase in spaces actually has increased our overall percentage of enhanced shelters within our system to 89% it's up that's up from 73% at the end of 2020. Then I bring that up because I think it's important for us to remember that even as we're looking forward, we are still engaging presently in this new growth.

As with all enhanced shelter and villages, the new beds that we have stood up and that we will stand up have wraparound services, including behavioral health supports and housing navigation to support people as they are moving into permanent housing.

So what we're doing in addition to that, even as we stand up those first two hotels, we are considering siting and operating options for a third hotel.

This summer, Diana's team will be releasing an RFP to seek provider interest in standing up and operating new villages.

Again, in whatever format those villages take.

And we are also continuing to explore opportunities, both siting and provider capacity to increase our enhanced shelter beds.

So we are committed to delivering on the full, excuse me, on the full program that was funded through this 2021 budget.

So with that, I will say, excuse me, sorry.

With that, I'll say thank you for the opportunity to present today.

And happy to take more questions.

Thank you, Deputy Director.

I have a few to kick us off, and then I see Council Member Mosqueda has a hand up there.

So the first thing I want to do is I do want to address the provider capacity issue, because I know that is a big issue.

Like you guys, I talk to providers on a regular basis and they relay back that that's a problem.

One corollary though that's expressed, and I don't want to say which provider, but it's been several, is that to a certain extent, the resource conversation is related to the amount of money we put out for RFPs for programmatic expansion.

And some of the feedback I get is, if the city can commit, and I think this council is committed to it and willing to affirm our commitment to it, to ongoing streams for operations for some of these shelter options, providers would be able to respond to an RFP, staff up and scale up, knowing that that'll be there.

So there is a, What I've been led to believe from some of these providers is there is a little bit of kind of chicken and the egg with this, where just getting that RFP out into the field can have an impact that will help them be able to staff up to rise to that challenge.

And I'm just throwing that out there, given that, and it was sort of answered on the last slide, because I am excited about working with the department on getting these RFPs out for more tiny house villages, as we heard in public comment.

for that third hotel.

But it seems like one of the bottlenecks in our control in the capacity conversation is getting those RFPs out.

and getting it out into that space where the providers can then respond and write on them.

And then when they're admitted, they can accordingly adjust their staffing to meet the challenge.

So I guess I just wanted to throw that out there here to see if the council sends additional resources through the American Recovery Act as the first thing.

what's the turnaround and how fast we can get those RFPs out there so people can start responding to them to meet the scale of the crisis.

The second question would be, and this is more speculative right now, but just for the sake of understanding the implications of this discussion, it's possible next year that the department is gonna have to stand up 2,000 units within a year if there's a charter amendment that creates that mandate.

how are we going to position these capacity conversations to respond to that mandate, which is if we want to fundamentally solve this issue we're facing, we need to have a response of that scale.

I think the council's committed to sending those kinds of resources over.

But if we could get in an exchange right now about what you guys need to effectually implement that, we're willing to do whatever it takes to be an effective partner there to help you get that accomplished.

So there's a lot in there, but Tess, I'll let you maybe moderate out the answers to that, and then I'll recognize Council Member Mosqueda.

Thank you.

We would welcome the opportunity to continue conversations with you about potential solutions for what we too are hearing are significant constraints that the providers are experiencing.

I will say, full disclosure, I'm not in a position to talk about ways in which that the amendment could or could not be implemented.

But we share your concern and are happy to continue in dialogue with you about that.

Well, Deputy Director, maybe why don't we talk about it in the abstract and just say, for the sake of argument, what would it take to stand up 2000 units of housing in a year?

That's a great question.

And to be honest with you, at this point, I'm not, I just, I don't feel like I'm in a position to actually have an abstract conversation about that.

So I'm going to politely request that we be able to think about this and enter into conversation with you about that.

All right, fair enough.

I mean, we have some time to think about it, but we might have to be thinking about it pretty quick and in short order.

Council Member Mosqueda, do you have some questions?

Yes, thank you.

So first I want to note that I think, let me see if I can get through this.

I've got the kiddo here.

I think it's really a challenge to hear that there's a weekly meeting.

Let me try and grab her real quick.

Come here, bubby.

Look at this.

Let me see.

Look at this.

Okay, sorry about that.

I'll come back, Mr. Chair, if there's anybody else in the queue.

Okay, Council Member Musqueda, I appreciate that.

Are there any other questions on this section here from other members of the committee?

Mr. Chair, I can try one more time.

Okay, go ahead.

Okay, I think it's a real challenge to hear that there's a weekly meeting.

that brings together folks to look at where there's obstructions or hazards, but doesn't actually lead with the lens of where do we have areas where we need to house folks.

So I want to put that out there as something that I heard from the conversations in LA.

The multi-agency approach to try to bring people together was really something that they found to identify how to put people in housing first was the reason for bringing organizations across across the departments together.

I see that Tess has a hard stop coming up soon, so I'll just put this other item out there.

I just want to build off the chair's last comment.

Two years ago, three years ago, I was personally slammed pretty hard by the mayor's office, both in the press and with accusations that we were trying to steal funding from outreach dollars for homelessness that were supposed to be going to the navigation team at the time because we were trying to offer a cost of living increase that hadn't been offered in 10 years.

It is no secret that the organizations prior to COVID had a capacity concern, and it's because we're paying folks who have master's degrees in chemical dependency disorders $33,000 a year through the contracts that we're offering.

Flash forward to this year, the tested and proven, Jump just cares model wasn't allowed to be sort of awarded the grants because it was a sort of a smear campaign on the amount that it costs.

It costs money to retain people.

It costs money to hire folks and make sure that there's not high turnover.

And so I don't think we need to do any brainstorming with these organizations.

We need to offer the RFPs, as the chair was saying, that truly reflects the cost of doing the type of outreach work that they do.

It is intense work.

It requires relationships and it requires skills.

And we need to have RFPs that recognize that.

I'd be very interested in following up to hear how the funding that we allocated in 2021 budget, plus the 12 million that the chair championed earlier this year, plus the funding that we have offered through supplemental budgets are being used to increase now funding, not in the summer, not in the fall, but now so that we can address this capacity issue.

Is there anything that's happening right now to address the underpayment of wages for our human service providers?

Thank you so much.

And thanks for dealing with the background.

Thank you.

And I think we'll make that our last question, too.

OK, Tess, handing it back over to you.

Oh, I have nothing more to offer other than Council Member Mosqueda.

We, of course, would be happy to follow up with you on that information.

So thank you.

Well, but Tessa, I mean, the question was, so do you have to check in with everyone on the current efforts to address the capacity issue?

Because if that's, if that's so that's perfectly fine, especially given the late hour, but I could, I guess the, the, the question of council member skate, I think is a good one.

I mean, are there efforts going on to address that, um, that issue of, uh, Of the ongoing capacity and retention issues service providers are facing.

And if it's just a yes and.

Yeah, we'll pivot to the details later.

That's fine, but I think it is a question that warrants a response in the committee here.

I apologize.

I understood the council member to be asking for follow up on that.

So I misunderstood.

So yes, I mean, again, we are in constant conversation with the providers.

And we are also talking with the mayor's office as well as the execs, King County execs office around joint solutions that we might be looking at.

Of course, we've got the new regional authority that has been stood up.

And so we're adding them to this conversation as well.

It is complex and we'd be happy to follow up on anything else you would like us to talk about with regard to this.

I don't have any more concrete details for you at the moment.

All right, well, we're going to have another meeting later this month, and we can maybe fill in some of the blanks here on some of the things that, due to time constraint, we had to leave on the cutting room floor.

So we'll work closely on setting that up, especially given the late hour here.

I appreciate everybody joining us from HSD, even though there are, plainly, there are a lot of mutual frustrations in dealing with the crisis of homelessness.

There's a lot of disagreement in some areas between the executive and the council, but I think all of us appreciate and greatly respect the hard work everyone's doing in the department, especially given due to the hiring freeze and the transfer to the new authority, how short staffed the department is in this area currently.

And I just want to say, I appreciate you spending the afternoon with us and answering our questions and we'll be in touch on the next meeting to keep working through this together.

So thank you.

Thank you very much.

We appreciate the opportunity to present our work.

Okay, well, with that, that is our last agenda item.

So is there anything for the good of the order here before we adjourn?

Nope.

Very good, thank you.

Yeah, no one wanted to be that unpopular person that holds us for another 10 minutes.

Okay, well, hearing nothing further, this committee is adjourned.

Thank you for your patience, everybody.