Seattle City Council Select Budget Committee Session I

Good morning, everybody, and happy November 1st.

Thank you all for being here.

I'm Sally Bagshaw, Chair of the Budget Committee.

It's 9.33, and this is our third day of going through what we call Form Bs, formerly known as green sheets, which were recommendations made by those of us up here in the dais on ways we want to add to or change the mayor's budget.

So, we've already covered about 120 proposed budget action items in the past two days.

We have 77 more today, and I think this is going to be a major day because we're going to be focusing on human services and homelessness.

Those are both topics that all of us have been challenged and working toward trying to find a success and some strategies that are really going to make a difference for people who are going through that condition for themselves, and then also to help with mental health, behavioral health funding.

and providing additional monies for our providers that help us so much to really address the needs of people who are homeless.

So, in our previous sessions, central staff has been great about framing it and doing it Oh, Council Member Swank, great, I'm glad to see you.

I know you weren't feeling well, so I'm glad you're here.

So let's do a quick frame, then the idea is for us to be able to acknowledge what's important on the items that we are primary sponsors for, and then see if we can move forward.

I know that these are going to be topics that we all care about greatly, so again, if we can be succinct, we might be able to move on into some of the items from the afternoon session.

that are planned, and I'm not holding my breath on that, but it would be great to be able to move forward so that we're not here until 9 o'clock on Friday night.

Okay, with that, Council Central staff, thank you again for all you've done.

It's always wonderful working with you, and I just appreciate how much diligence and how much detail that you pay attention to.

So, with that, would you start?

Lisa, why don't you start down here with introductions?

Thank you.

Lisa Kay, Central Staff.

Amy Gore, Council Central Staff.

Jeff Sims, Central Staff.

Greg Doss, Central Staff.

Karina Bull, Central Staff.

Excellent.

Thank you all.

So do you want to just get started and I will begin to look at the various items?

Item number one on our agenda today is a statement of legislative intent requesting that HSD report on contracts with American Indian and Alaska Native organizations.

It is from Councilmember Juarez.

The report would be due on or before March 31st, 2020, and it is a formalization of a request made in Resolution 31900, which was passed by Council in September.

Thank you.

Councilmember Juarez.

Yes, thank you.

This slide is important because we've had this conversation more than once in the last two or three years.

I'm requesting this slide that we look at the contracts with American Indian and Alaskan Native organizations most recently because of the legislation we passed regarding missing murdered indigenous women and girls.

We have a long road ahead of us as a city to understand how to dismantle procedures.

We have a right to know that what is aiding that statistic.

We're also finding resources to aid victims and affected families on their path towards healing.

There's a need for a sustainable investment towards capacity building for organizations like the Seattle Indian Health Board, United Indians, Chief Seattle Club, Mother Nation, and more particularly, start leveraging our support with tribal governments that are located in King County, most notably the Snoqualmie Tribe as well as Cowlitz.

which has a clinic based in King County.

So, what I'm hoping to do with this slide is continue to drill down on the Native American populations, the organizations that serve them, and what HSD contracts are have contracts with these organizations, because when we look at something like, let's take the Seattle Indian Health Board, well, actually, all of King County, we have well over 6,000 patients in the King County alone.

So what I've learned is that over 72% of HSD's appropriations support contracts with community organizations that provide direct services.

I want to make sure that HSD is operating equitably for our American Indian and Alaska Native community.

I'm hoping my colleagues will join me in this effort.

Thank you.

Great.

Any other comments?

Those who would like to add their name as a sponsor to this, raise your hand.

Thank you.

And I also want to say thank you and acknowledge Council Members Juarez, Sawant, O'Brien, Gonzalez, and Pacheco are here with me now.

Thank you.

Okay, good.

Our second budget action is HSD-2-A-1.

It is from Council Member Sawant, and it adds $602,000 of general fund one time for a study on the value of human services work.

Thank you.

Council Member Sawant, and would you also tell me about $602,000?

Where did we get this number?

Yes, and this is, this item and also number three are being advocated for by the Seattle Human Services Coalition.

And the amount that we are, we have reflected here in the Form B is updated from the initial discussion in Form A to reflect a correction that I had raised verbally during the Form A discussions.

And that includes a study that would cost $500,000 and the $102,000 that remains is for provider staff to coordinate with the study.

And that's where the two comes from.

Human service workers are, as we know, chronically underpaid, often subsisting on poverty wages themselves.

You know, and it sort of puts them in the same category as the population that they're serving.

And in fact, many of them are sort of, it's like, it's a deeply unfortunate revolving door between the population they're serving and the service providers themselves.

They, and it's especially striking that they have poverty wages for grueling, often dangerous, and highly skilled work.

that not everybody is capable of doing.

This budget action would fund a study into the disparity between compensation for human service work in Seattle and the compensation for other jobs requiring similar levels of stress, education, expertise, exposure to difficulties and danger.

And obviously the most important thing is to actually raise the wages and not just do a study, but the study is intended, as advocates say, to use the results from what we find to build political support for addressing the chronically low wages.

Great.

Thank you.

Those that would like, or any comments, please.

I have some comments.

Okay.

And maybe some questions.

So I'm supportive of this effort.

You know, I think that it builds on the work that was done by Council Member Mosqueda over the last policy legislative session to provide an increase in the wages in the contracts that we have with our human services.

agencies that we rely on to do some of the critical, some of the most critical human services work in the city.

So I see this as building the next building block to that body of work.

So I appreciate Council Member Salant forwarding both of these through our budget process.

Just really quickly, when I spoke with the coalition members, I didn't have the, I didn't walk away with the impression that they, believe that they would be doing the work and so I don't know councilmember Salant if if that if you can give us a little bit more information about sort of who the organization would be comp wage analysis is pretty complex work and so I wasn't, when I had the conversations with members of the coalition, wasn't left with the impression that they wanted to have the dollars earmarked for them to be able to do the actual analysis.

So just wondering what you heard in that regard and whether there's an opportunity to make sure that we are requiring this work to be done and making sure that whomever does it is well equipped to be able to do it.

Yes, I didn't mean to suggest in any way that the money would go to the Human Service Coalition to do the study, as it needs trained economists who have experience doing that kind of analysis.

And so the $500,000 is for the coalition to hire a researcher who would have that expertise.

I don't believe we know who that is, but there are researchers and research organizations that have done this kind of studies for other cities, and that can be replicated here.

So I think there's, it sounds like there's still, you're amenable to continuing to have conversations around sort of ultimately who does the work, the importance is getting the funding so that the work can get done.

And I've looked at it a little bit into it myself, just from an economic standpoint, and I know that there are groups of researchers that have done similar studies in other cities, because Seattle is hardly the only city that is facing this.

So there is a body of expertise that Seattle can build on, and we don't have to reinvent the wheel, except that we have to apply it to the data that we have here.

Yeah, and I know that here at the City of Seattle, and for those of us who are members of the Labor Relations Policy Committee, we've all been privy to the conversations around the fact that even with our own municipal employees, in some instances it's been 20 to 30 years, since we last took a look at this issue as it relates to our own workforce.

So I just wonder if there's an opportunity to leverage resources in that context potentially or use some of that expertise to do this body of work.

So I'm pleased, again, pleased to hear that you're advancing this and excited that there's an opportunity for us to sort of figure out how to fine tune the proposal.

Should it be included in the chair's revised balancing package to make sure that whoever selected is going to be well suited to do the analysis?

Absolutely.

And I agree.

I think there is a dire need to actually extend it to other employees as well.

And it's been a long time coming.

And especially in the context of a looming recession, I feel like that's something we owe.

the City of Seattle workers as well.

Either of you know whether San Francisco has been working on this?

My understanding is that UC Berkeley has been doing a lot of economic analysis.

Do either of you know whether that's true or whether that's just an urban rumor?

I'm not familiar with that, but maybe Council Member Salon is.

Yes, UC Berkeley has been one of the centers doing it.

And I have no doubt that that will be one of the sort of places to look at, but I couldn't tell you confidently if that's where we'll go or not.

Okay, very good.

Thank you.

Can I just add one thing, which is that King County, as part of the veterans levy, has a little bit of resources for a wage survey for the folks that are funded through that levy.

And so if council members are amenable, it might be possible to build upon that work as well, so that we're not duplicating anything, but building upon that.

Great, thank you for bringing that forward.

Are they focusing just on veterans or is it broader?

It's the providers.

Veterans, human services, and seniors.

Veterans, seniors, and human services levy.

So it is collecting wage data for organizations that have been funded through that levy.

Great, well thank you.

The one caution I would put on there is that this is a little different because sometimes what we end up doing is comparing suppressed wages within a suppressed

industry.

So we know that human service work is already fundamentally underpaid.

So we get into a little bit of a race to the bottom when we're comparing one terrible wage to a less terrible wage.

And so I think the intent behind this study is to really do an appropriate valuation of the actual value of the human services work as opposed to getting into a comparison within the industry.

So I think that data will be helpful, Amy, so thank you for highlighting the fact that that is available and it's an opportunity, but it certainly is the starting point, I would say, of the analysis.

Very good.

Yeah, and I think what the coalition has noticed is that that study, while useful in addition to what you're saying, Katsumo Gonzalez, Also, it's going to be a subsection of what the Human Services Coalition is really looking for, which is a wage analysis right now, and not in comparison to other less bad wages, but more as an independent, objective market evaluation of those skills and services.

Thank you.

So, those who would like to add your name as a co-sponsor on this, raise your hand.

Get the count?

Thanks.

Okay, item three is another general fund request, $102,000 for equity organizing in human services.

And this is an ad of $102,000 of ongoing general funds to pilot a racial equity organizing project, and it's sponsored by Council Member Swat.

Thank you.

Council Member Swat.

Yeah, so it is a corollary to the discussion we already had, but the amount that we discussed in item number two was a one-time amount for a study of the value of human services work.

This is a proposal from the Human Services Commission for ongoing analysis of equity organizing in human services, because as you know, as they have pointed out, and as we know, human services do not exist in a vacuum.

People often end up becoming sort of vulnerable to situations that make them need human services because of many underlying oppressions, inequality, exploitation, often, especially for communities of color, it's on many fronts.

For LGBTQ people it's on many fronts and so this would fund an initiative by the Human Services Coalition to attempt to provide people who rely on the human services with organizing tools to advocate around that underlying oppression and There's no doubt that this kind of work, if we keep it ongoing, then it will also have positive effects on how much people end up needing human services.

Because if we are looking at the underlying causes, then it will help, actually help people not need the services as, quite as much as we, as they do.

Although keeping in mind that this is a modest effort, you know, this is not going to solve all the problems, but this is part of the whole.

Great.

Thank you.

Comments?

Those who'd like to add your name as a sponsor, raise your hand.

Thank you, good.

All right, let's go on to the next item.

The next item is CBA HSD-4-8-1, which would add $60,000 of general fund ongoing for statewide human service lobbying and advocacy.

There's currently $25,000 in the proposed budget for this line item, and this would bring the total to 85,000.

Great, Council Member O'Brien.

Thanks, colleagues.

This is something this council has funded each of the ten years that I've been here.

It goes typically to an organization like the Statewide Poverty Action Network, who has a vocal presence in Olympia.

Unlike our lobbying efforts with our own Office of International Relations, this relationship has helped leverage an organization that does work statewide.

to not directly lobby on Seattle's behalf, but essentially lobby on the interests that we share with a lot of other organizations.

Because we know that sometimes in Olympia, when Seattle shows up, that has a powerful voice.

Sometimes when Seattle shows up, it can have a negative effect.

It's nice to have allies like the Statewide Positive Poverty Action Network helping advance our cause.

And this money helps them do that work.

Very good.

Thank you.

Comments?

Those who'd like to add your name as a sponsor to this, raise your hand.

It's item number four.

You got the count, Lisa?

Thank you.

We'll go on to subsidizing transit passes for employees.

This is Council Member Herbold and she's asked me to speak to it, so please frame it up.

This is again Karina Bull from the Council Central staff.

This is a statement of legislative intent as you just mentioned.

It's requesting a report from Human Services Department on subsidizing transit passes for employees of their contracted service providers and it is building on information that was gathered from a statement of legislative intent from last year for SDOT and Human Services Department.

That's 35782. And in that report, there were some identifications of challenges and concerns.

So this is a follow-up opportunity to provide more time to study those issues.

Great.

And just to add on slightly, it is a SLI, and it's requesting a report from Human Services Department on subsidizing transit passes for employees of Human Service Department contracted service providers.

And Councilmember Herbold has a list of requests about the report, how many employee salaries would be contingent on funding through HSD contracts and what are the feasible methods and costs for providing transit benefits to those providers' employees, what benefit to the contracted services providers that already offer this to the employees.

In other words, it's an opportunity to help support the human service department contracted providers, employees, so that people just have a better opportunity to get into Seattle and do the work that they're hired to do.

Please.

This is something I also support.

It's very consistent with and anticipates some work that's happening in SDOT as we continue to increase accessibility through workplace to transit passes.

And one of the challenges we'll run into, we're anticipating, is as we, if we take steps to either incentivize or require employers to do this work, Because the human service contractors don't have very good alternative sources of revenue, if they're required to provide their employees transit passes, often their only choice would be to take that out of the wages of employees.

And that's not what we want to see.

And so understanding what this model looks like and having information so that as we move forward, we'll see some other actions when we get to SDOT later today, how this will impact these organizations I think is going to be critically important to be successful.

Very good.

Other comments?

Those who want to add your name to support this slide, raise your hand.

Okay.

Looks unanimously so.

Thank you.

Okay.

Item number six.

Item six on the agenda is council budget action HSD-10-A-1, which would add $30,000 of ongoing general fund to support transportation and activities for low-income seniors.

And there are actually two separate actions within this.

Of the $30,000, $10,000 would increase the funding available to subsidize bus passes and support senior activities and meals provided by a nonprofit community-based organization.

This would be added to approximately $26,000 in the budget for this purpose.

The remaining $20,000 would support a community-based organization, such as the Asian Counseling and Referral Services, to support bus tickets and fitness and wellness programs, which was part of the 2019 budget, but not the 2020 budget.

Thank you.

Council Member Swan?

Thank you, Amy.

And just to add to that, Many of us have seen the incredible advocacy work that the seniors have themselves done with the direction of the senior association led by dedicated community activists like Kim Lundgren and What's really important to remember about these seniors is they're all low income and they're active and vibrant in their community.

They're actually quite an inspiration to younger people in terms of how actively engaged they are in the democratic discussions.

And as Amy was saying, the funds that we have provided in the past have funded bus passes and for them to participate in cultural activities, which is we know through clinical and sociological studies that for, especially for our elders, it's really important for their physical well-being and mental well-being that they are connected with the larger community and allowing them the mobility, affordable mobility to be able to participate in cultural and community activities is such a key part of keeping them in good health.

And as Amy said, the $26,000 is consistent with last year for the VSA bus program.

The number of seniors they serve has dramatically risen.

I think precisely because of how successfully they have used the funds and how effective they are in their work, and so the budget amendment would include $10,000 to increase that service to cover the expanded need.

And then, as Amy was saying, the ACRS, which is a fiscal sponsor of the VSA, so the $14,000 would be allocated to them to do similar work for other senior programs that they support, because, you know, ACRS is an umbrella and they support various programs, and this budget amendment will, the $20,000 to restore and expand the services for these programs.

And we, in our office, talked to the ACRS, and they said that these health and wellness programming services go a very long way and will be appreciated, all their programs.

And by the way, thank you, Amy, for tracking down the amounts that we needed, because when we did the initial discussion, we weren't clear.

Thank you, and Council Member Sawant, thank you sincerely for the work in supporting our seniors.

Those who would, oh, Council Member Pacheco?

I just have a question for Council Member Harrell.

In your amendment yesterday for the TNC expenditures, did you envision potentially organizations like this being funded as a part of transportation needs for seniors?

You caught me multitasking.

I can answer the question.

Or maybe a central staff question.

Would programs like this be funded, potentially, in that million dollars?

My understanding is the Transportation Voucher Assistance Program would be designed more like the King County Metro Scrip Program, which is focused on rides through for hire vehicles rather than bus passes, particularly for folks who might not have access or the mobility to use the buses as easily.

Yeah.

Okay.

Other comments?

Those who want to add your name to this item, raise your hand.

This is to be co-sponsors.

Okay.

Very good.

Move on to item seven, please.

Okay.

Item seven is Council Budget Action 20-A-1, and it would impose a proviso on HSD's utility discount program funds.

It's from Council Member Mosqueda.

As you recall, the last time we spoke about the HSD budget, there's an additional $169,000 in the budget for two new FTE to support the utility discount program, particularly program intake and support positions.

Councilmember Mosqueda would like this action to impose a proviso on half of those funds so that HSD can bring those two new FTE on and those two new FTE could help establish the warm handoff and the dedicated service provider line and then have HSD come to council, demonstrate that they have enacted those program modifications, and then release the remainder of the funds.

Council Member O'Brien is speaking to this, I believe.

Wrong.

Council members want, okay.

Thank you.

So yes, as Amy was saying, this action would impose a proviso on the two new FTEs for the UDP in the 2020 proposed budget, beginning in July of 2020, to be lifted after the development of a dedicated service provider line and warm handoff process.

We have seen from the providers that they're reporting long wait times on the existing UDP customer service phone line and a dedicated line and what Council Member Mosqueda's office is calling a warm handoff would assist in the enrollment of new UDP customers.

Again, We don't need studies to tell us this, but we also have studies if we need to, which show that the population that needs to access the discount program is already vulnerable on many fronts.

We don't want to present more obstacles, and so studies show that the fewer obstacles there are in actually enrolling in these subsidy programs, the better the utilization rate is of these programs, and it's more efficient use of the service providers and customers' time.

So I don't have anything more to add other than thanking Council Member Skeda to do this.

In our Energy Committee, in the first years I was here, we really pushed for an opt-out kind of program, which makes a huge difference and has made a huge difference, which means that now people are actually enrolling in bigger numbers than they were before.

And so this would really help to make a difference again.

Comments?

Those who'd like to add your name as a co-sponsor, raise your hand.

Thank you.

Lisa, just look up at me when you've got the count, okay?

Thank you.

Okay, our next item is item number eight on the agenda, and it is Council Budget Action HSD-21-A-1, and it would add $30,000 of ongoing general fund for career development for transgender and gender nonconforming job seekers.

It's from Council Member Sawant, and I just wanted to add that I'm working with the exec to make sure which department this should go to.

It might be more appropriate for Office of Economic Development, but if you wanna keep speaking about it.

Thank you.

Council Member Swann.

Right, I agree with that and just to suggest that maybe, Chair, we do a Tier 1, Tier 2 on this because we are still waiting for some information and I'll explain in a second what I mean.

This is something that Matt McGregor, as many of you know, and other trans community members are advocating for and I feel that we would all strongly support this.

I strongly support this because we know that trans people have very high rates of unemployment and underemployment, specifically stemming out of discrimination.

And this program, if we fund it, would pay for up to 200 people to get job search support with a focus on the needs of trans people.

It's very, very modest, but it will make a difference because it's also a person that's talking to you and giving you help.

We have found, thanks to Amy's help, that there are similar programs that the city contracts with Ingersoll RAN for and we're trying to figure out, you know, what the funding is for existing programs of a similar nature and how much more funding.

I mean, one thing I'll say, of course, that, again, And especially given how modest this amount is and given the need in the trans community, I don't feel like if we allocated $30,000 more, it's somehow going to be wasted.

I have no doubt that Mac and others will put it to good use, but we are trying to figure out how this program sits in the context of the programs that are already being funded.

And I've also suggested that Mac McGregor and Inger Sol have a conversation.

amongst each other so that we figure that out.

So I'm happy to do the tier one, tier two.

What's your expectation?

Or we can just do straight up voting.

That's fine.

Okay.

Thank you for that.

I'm interested too if you'll get back to me, and obviously you will by tomorrow when we're together, but how much other resources are going into this work, either with Ingersoll or anyone else.

Any other comments?

Those who'd like to add their names to this as a co-sponsor, raise your hand.

Thank you.

Good.

The next item is Council Member Juarez, I believe, if you'll tee this one up for us.

Yes, the next item is Council Budget Action HSD-30-A-1, and it would add $150,000 of ongoing general fund for American Indian and Alaska Native youth development programs through sports.

Thank you.

Council Member Worth.

Thank you.

As you know, you've all heard through public comment, you had the opportunity to hear the outpouring of support for these type of non-profit organizations that heal our youth.

I know I've gone over this before in the encounters that our youth face, our American Indian, Alaska Native.

This is a Native-led organization that empowers our Native youth to live healthy lives by providing awareness, prevention, and character enrichment.

But to just be frank with you, this is really what this is about with Rise Above.

At its core, Rise Above embodies pretty much what we see in Indian country, the modern day principles of kinship.

And kinship is any program, any group, any organization, any activity, that brings our elders, our adults, our children together to do anything positive to affect their lives forever.

Kinship means that we heal each other, that we comfort each other, that we protect our children.

And it's organizations like this, and it's been the generosity of this council that I've seen in the last four years, that has given to non-profit organizations, not just for Alaska Native and Native American, but for other organizations as well.

When we see an organization and we see a program that's working, I think that we should continue to fund it and this would be one of those.

Thank you.

Very good.

Thank you.

I also would just like to add that I'm very impressed with Brad Myers and with Coach Lenny Wilkins and the board.

at what they're doing with the number of youth that they've reached out to and brought them in, not just on sports, but the sportsmanship and the educational building.

So thanks for bringing this forward.

Any other comments?

All right, those who would like to add your name as a sponsor to this, raise your hand.

Good.

Thank you.

The next one is item 10, and it's adding $186,300 general fund money for legal support for sexual violence survivors.

And I believe it's Council Member Swann.

Yes.

I don't have much to add to that.

It is $186,000 ongoing general fund to HSD for this purpose.

Council Member Swann.

Thank you.

Again, very quickly, this is something that the Human Services Coalition is advocating for.

Sexual violence survivors, we know, get caught in really complicated legal situations.

As the criminal justice system investigates and or prosecutes the assaults, we have the need to defend the survivor's privacy.

in the ongoing investigations defending survivors' workplace rights if the attack happens at work or if it happened at school for students.

So this would fund legal support that is single-mindedly focused on supporting the needs and wishes of the survivors.

Very good.

Thank you.

Any other comments?

Those who would like to add your name as a co-sponsor, raise your hand.

All right, thank you.

Let's move to the next item, which is item 11, adding $2 million in one-time funds to construct a health clinic with the ESC.

It happens to be mine, so I think, Jeff, are you kicking it off for me?

Sure, I'm happy to.

As you mentioned, this is put forward by Budgeter Bagshaw.

This is $2 million to construct a health clinic located within a permanent supportive housing facility.

And the inspiration for this comes from the Bill Hobson Comprehensive Clinic, which will be placed in a DESC facility.

That, obviously, $2 million is not sufficient for the entire project.

It's a $22 million project, and this would be a portion of that.

There are other funding coming from the state, the New Market Tax Credit, as well as private capital.

And the gist of this ad is not too dissimilar from the inclusion of money to support the creation of a health clinic in the Chief Seattle Club, which is in the 2020 proposed budget.

Great, thank you.

Colleagues, I ask for your support on this.

Daniel Malone came and spoke to me about it a few weeks ago.

I knew that they were raising money and it's down on Rainier and roughly Rainier and Plum.

I believe they've broken ground.

They've got most of the money to cover for the low-income housing and supportive housing that will be above.

but we're raising money here for the clinic.

It has great support from the University of Washington and Harborview Medical Center.

And this is the integrated work that we have been trying so hard to accomplish.

So I'm asking for your support on this.

Council Member Pacheco?

I just strongly support it.

Thank you.

All right.

Other comments?

Those who would like to add their name as a co-sponsor, please raise your hand.

Great.

Thank you.

Our next item, number 12, is CBA HSD 51A1.

This adds $55,000 in general one-time funds to HSD for educational programs that are targeted to the African-American diaspora on HIV, AIDS, and chronic disease funding.

The inspiration for this, or one such research agency that would support this, is the African-Americans Reach and Teach Health That's an organization that actually doesn't currently provide services in Seattle, but this ad would create that opportunity for them to be providing those services.

It was put forward by Council President Harrell.

Thank you.

Thanks, Jeff.

Briefly, you heard testimony during budget from Royal Alley Barnes, a former director and former council member, Tom Rasmussen.

many community members on the need for sort of a gap in both training and education and assistance to particularly people of African American descent who are living and dealing with HIV AIDS.

And this organization is doing some phenomenal work outside the city, and they want to desperately come within the city and do the work.

This modest investment of $55,000 gives them the opportunity to do that very focused work.

This one particular group, African Americans Reach and Teach Health.

is doing phenomenal work.

And so we think this sort of deficiency in an investment strategy within the city, particularly with people of African American descent, coping with HIV AIDS is incredibly needed.

And I hope you all will look at this very favorably.

And again, you heard some pretty, I thought, pretty passionate testimony in support of this from the community.

Very good.

Thank you.

Council Member Bryant.

Oh, I'm sorry.

I was already jumping to the next item.

Would anybody have some comments on this?

Did you hear a word I said?

I did.

Absolutely.

Everything.

Want me to repeat it back with Royal Alley Williams and others?

No.

Okay.

No other comments than those who would like to add your name as a co-sponsor.

Raise your hand.

Thank you.

Our next item, number 13, is HSD52A1.

It adds $500,000 from the general fund and one-time funding to HSD for a methamphetamine research pilot.

The gist of this is that this would look into the possibility of using methylphenidate as a medication-assisted treatment approach for individuals that have methamphetamine substance use disorder.

This was put forward by Councilmember O'Brien.

Thanks, Jeff.

Colleagues, we talked about this a bit before.

I'll just repeat for the public, for the opiate crisis that we're in, we do have some medically-assisted treatment, which means there are clinics we can send people to who want to work their way off.

And it's found to be a very powerful program to have that.

There is not a parallel for folks that are addicted to methamphetamines.

And we've seen a steadily increasing rise in the number of folks that are using methamphetamines on the streets of Seattle.

And without a medically-assisted treatment option, it really limits what our service providers can do to help the individuals who want to get stabilized and back into, you know, back into society.

There's a suggestion that using, through this process, that there may be some, we're hoping to find, a medically-assisted treatment that might work.

And what this $500,000 would do would be to fund a proposal.

This proposal's put forward by a doctor at University of Washington Medical Center who works with Evergreen Treatment Services to run a study.

It would be a controlled study where there'd be two populations.

One would be receiving a placebo, one would be receiving the actual treatment.

I think it's run over.

I can't remember.

It's about 20 weeks or 25 weeks something like that And all the you know, it's a relatively modest size study, but it would give us some evidence to see if these programs work Councillor make sure you've asked if this This is a good chunk of money, obviously, $500,000 could be scaled down.

And we can ask those questions.

I believe it's already a fairly modified study.

And to get some useful data on what works, you need to have some minimum population size.

And so I'll make sure to ask that question and see if there's a smaller study that could work or not.

I fear that without having, without Seattle, and frankly, you know, this is something that would benefit people around the country and around the world.

So maybe there's opportunities to help fund it elsewhere.

But with the continued rise of methamphetamines, we're going to need to find better treatment alternatives than we currently have.

And so it would be great to see us fund this first step.

But I also recognize the budget constraints.

Council Member O'Brien, do you know whether our Seattle King County Public Health Department is weighed in and whether just King County generally?

My understanding in reading the proposal is the folks working on this have been collaborating with all the players in this realm.

It's just a matter of finding the funding.

I don't know what opportunities there are for other funding, but it's happening.

Good.

Well, thank you for that.

I'll scratch the surface.

we aren't sitting here at the dais and see what I can learn from King County.

Because I know our King County prosecuting attorney, Dan Satterberg, has been very interested in trying to find some alternatives to methamphetamine.

Because we know that Suboxone works with opioid addiction.

We haven't had anything that's been truly successful.

We want to see these medically assisted treatment programs.

expand, make them available, because not everyone works for every individual, know more about this.

So we'll see what we can do, see what public health is doing.

And also, Caleb Bannagreen, is he the lead on this?

Dr. Caleb Bannagreen?

No, it's a different doctor, and I don't have her name.

I think it's a she.

I don't have her name.

I know the people in the audience that could tell you the name if you'd like to know it.

Well, we can pick up on that.

I have the report in that way of who would be and it's you know that the breakdown of the 500,000 is you know, it's it breaks it down to the number of pills that we would need to buy and the number of placebos we need to buy and you know, it's it's a very well thought out designed program.

It's just great.

I understand.

Councilmember Juarez.

I want to first of all thank Councilmember O'Brien for this.

Besides, we know that we have this methamphetamine issue.

It's been raging in not just obviously in King County, but I know for a fact in Indian country across the country.

And this is one of the issues where Yeah, I very seldom get on my soapbox, but I'm going to do it a little bit here.

This is where, when we look at putting money in for prevention services and when we invest upstream, that we don't have to look downstream and start investing even more for treatment.

I think, and so I want to thank you, Council Member O'Brien, for kind of being on both ends of that, understanding how we invest upstream for prevention services, but we also understand that when that doesn't work, that downstream we look at treatment services so we can protect and still care for those When I was growing up, one of the things that I was always told and taught by my Uncle Billy Frank is that we don't throw our people away wherever they are in the river.

So I wanna thank you for this.

Good, thank you for that.

Other comments?

Just really quickly.

Please.

So Council Member O'Brien, I noticed that this particular sheet adds the one-time funds and then there's a second sheet that is a proviso.

that looks like it might be the same or related, no?

I can speak to that in a minute.

It's really that the second sheet is related to funding we added last year to just opiate addiction and evergreen treatment services.

But the two are not connected.

They're not connected.

I mean, in terms of the funding revenue stream, not in terms of the actual.

Correct.

So in terms of the proposal that you're making, which I am supportive of, it's, from the way that I read it, it's primarily funding a study in this space.

Is it, and maybe this is a technicality, is it appropriate to call it a pilot per se?

Or is it, I mean, I'm sort of struggling with the phrasing of a pilot if really the dollars were being used to do a study in this space.

You know, I'm not the expert on distinguishing between those two terms.

My interpretation, and I'm looking at some of the documents here, is it is really a study, but I guess it could be considered a pilot.

I'm trying to find the number of individuals.

I think it's about 30 individuals, half of whom would get the actual drug and half would get a placebo.

The point and then at the end of 20 weeks, the study ends and they write the paper and give us the information and, you know, I imagine they'll hopefully find some aspects that seem to work with certain folks and some that needs to be further studied.

And so I think it's a little, in my mind at least, a pilot would maybe be a little longer term and more robust.

And it's really just trying to see, we have this concept, we want to see if we think it's positive and worth pursuing to the next step.

And I imagine before methadone became a major treatment opportunity, there were probably multiple steps along the way like this.

And I think this would be one of the first ones.

Council Member Bagshaw, the woman who's running it, is Dr. Judith, I'm not sure how to say her last name, Sui, I think, who's an MD and a master's in public health, so.

So anyways, Council Member Gonzalez, I can get some more information if you'd like on that.

But that could be.

I can provide a little more context if it's helpful.

So, and some of these details might have changed as the proposal has evolved.

I understand that it would be a research trial that would include 40 people, so half in the control group, half in the experimental group.

And the methylphenidate, which kind of like Ritalin, it's a common drug used for ADHD.

And so although I think it's only maybe $9,000, $10,000 here that would pay for the actual medication that would be administered, my understanding is that also some of these individuals could have that paid for through their regular insurance or Medicaid because it would be an off-label use of that prescription.

And that's how some of the actual medical medical therapy would be provided, and then the majority of the funding would focus on evaluating the effects.

So there's a lot of focus on the testing, urinary analysis, things like that, to look at the advocacy of the treatment.

Great.

Really helpful, and I'm looking at the same materials.

It's a three-page letter from the good doctor and folks over at the Public Defender Association that really sort of dig into the specific details of what those would fund.

And so I guess usually when we do pilot programs, we tend to want to see, you know, like a lot of details before we actually release the funds into a pilot project.

And so I was just curious as to the terminology, because I certainly don't want to you know, be inconsistent in how we apply that type of standard and also just wanted to be really conscientious and transparent with the public about what we're actually funding.

So it sounds like what we're doing is really just funding an experimental opportunity for public health experts in this space to do some testing of substance use disorders specific to methamphetamines as opposed to, you know, we're starting a small-scale project that then we intend to potentially no longer do in the future.

So, I just wanted to get a little bit of clarity around that terminology as we continue to forward and advance this proposal.

Okay, good.

Thank you.

Other comments?

Those who would like to add your name as a co-sponsor on this item, number 13, raise your hand.

Good.

Thank you.

Thank you for all the comments and the work and for all of the work from you who are in the audience today.

I appreciate this.

Okay, item 14 provides our own fundings.

Jeff before you start on 14, I got some information that came in on the preceding Item number 12 that was favorably received By the african-americans region teach help they are providing a lot of services and programs in Seattle already They sent me articles of the or my staff articles.

They're all watching the presentation see we thought just these lovely folks were the only ones watching and they I Wanted to clarify that so I wanted to get the record right for them Thank You council president that was perhaps maybe I misunderstood HSD might have might have been indicating that they don't currently fund it perhaps I misunderstood I'm gonna send me articles in the shell gay news on the programs offered in Seattle And so they verified it.

They didn't just say it they verified it with my staff.

So, thank you Great.

Thank you item 14, please

Sure, item 14 is imposing a proviso on funding for substance use disorder treatment programs.

And as Councilmember Gonzalez noted and Councilmember O'Brien noted, this is separate from what we just discussed.

There's currently, the gist here is that there's currently funding both in the 2019 adopted budget as well as the 2020 proposed budget in the amount of half a million dollars for substance use disorder treatment.

This proviso would clarify that that funding is intended to be ongoing so that King County Public Health could continue providing those services and it's done through the use for proviso to make sure that intention is clear.

Good.

Thank you.

Please.

When we allocated this money in the budget last year, it was in part because we knew that some of our providers were at capacity and simply could not take new customers oftentimes, and so we're trying to extend that capacity.

My understanding is that the funding that we allocated last year either just recently went out the door or is about to go out the door.

And so the funding that we allocated for the 2019 budget will likely cover the expansion for 2020 because of the delay in getting that contract out.

There's funding both in 2019 and 2020, and so I don't know the specifics of the drawdown rates.

Presumably there'd be some carryover, though the way that I understand these funds are being used is that there is always some amount of uncompensated care that's provided in this realm, and in a way that these funds will be able to offset that to ideally enable the provision of those services that would have gone uncompensated or unreimbursed otherwise, that more services can be provided.

Chair Bagshaw, this does not have an implication, I don't believe, on the budget in front of us.

What it does is just make it clear that this was intended to be an ongoing funding source, at least until we've turned the corner on some of the addiction crisis that's out there on the streets.

And so it signals to the budget office that when they come back a year from now with the 2021 budget, that this should be treated as a ongoing as opposed to a one-time funding.

All right, I understand.

Comments?

Those who would like to add your name as a co-sponsor, raise your hand, please.

Good, thank you.

All right, item number 15 is Harm Reduction Outreach Program.

I believe

Sure, it's adding $280,000 in general fund.

Before you dive in, it's Teresa Mosqueda who's speaking to this one.

Council Member Swann, okay, thank you.

It's added $280,000 in general fund to HSD for harm reduction and outreach programs for street-based sex workers and drug users.

As you mentioned, this is put forward by Council Member Mosqueda.

Very good.

Council Member Swann.

So these are the points that Council Member Skidder would like us to include in this discussion, that with the shutdown of websites like Backpage, many workers have been forced back into street-based work, where they're actually less safe, they have fewer advanced safety precautions in place, no ability to effectively pre-screen clients, and no way to ensure that they work in safe, secure locations.

Given the increased population of workers we're seeing return to street-based work and the greater likelihood of harm occurrence for these workers, the city must invest in public health approaches that use harm reduction tools.

And I would just mention, And I'm sure Council Member Skida would agree, this is the right way to go, not the way the police department is going, where they actually scandalously admitted and then doubled down on their policy of increased and more systematic arrests of sex workers, which is just not acceptable.

Anyway, so for the past six months, the People of Color Sex Worker Outreach Project, or POC SWAP, has been doing weekly direct service outreach to sex workers on Aurora Avenue.

This has consisted of providing harm reduction materials like safe sex supplies, including Plan B.

safe injection supplies, fentanyl test kits, hygiene products, food, safety items, and other resources at no cost to recipients.

This outreach is now called the Green Light Project, and I would also like to give a shout-out to Sheree Lascelles, who's been spearheading this.

And GLP, the Green Light Project, uses peer-based model to provide community support during the critical hours of 8 a.m.

to 2 p.m., sorry, 8 p.m.

to 2 a.m.

Friday nights, covering 85th Avenue through 130th Avenue.

They've also been doing cursory counts to ensure that workers are not going missing during those late hours and tracking any instances of violence workers encounter.

GLP has collected data on what percentage of street-based sex workers are actively using and then by means of that data moving people towards safer usage.

In addition, GLP has collected demographic data and anecdotes of the workers on Aurora which are essential to us being able to craft policy centered on lived experience and it also just humanizes the whole situation.

This request adds $280,000 to HSD to contract with a peer-based people of color, lead, sex worker, direct service organizations such as POC Swap to administer harm reduction materials for workers to ensure safety for the workers, their customers and our community at large.

And I will add that I, of course, enthusiastically support this.

Great.

Other comments?

Those who'd like to add your name as a co-sponsor, this is item 15. Raise your hand.

Thank you.

Item 16 is Council Member Sawantz.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Greg Doss, Council Central staff.

This budget action would add $4.72 million general fund to the Human Services Department for the Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion Program contract.

Consistent with the 2020 endorsed budget, the proposed budget maintains lead at current service levels.

This, as the Council has heard, is going to be a challenge for the program with its potential increase in clients.

And the council has heard a request from the program for $4.72 million to allow them to grow their budget so that they can do three things.

One is to serve 1,400 clients by the end of 2020. The second would be to bring the number of case managers from 19 to 73, which would sustain caseloads at fewer than 25 per case manager.

And the third would be to provide a modest increase in salaries for PDA and lead employees and create the administrative infrastructure necessary to support larger staff.

There are four lead proposals that are before the council today.

This one, 96A1, as well as 97A1 and 98A1, All fund lead at $4.72 million.

The last one, 99A1, is the exact same council budget action in the sense that all of the goals and outcomes that are anticipated and hoped for are all represented.

It only provides $3.5 million with the assumption that private sector funding will make up the difference to $4.72.

And Council Chair, as you know, that one is yours.

So it is Councilmember Sawant, Councilmember O'Brien and Councilmember Gonzalez that have the other three.

Very good.

So, I'm wondering if it makes some sense here, since we've got four, and there's no question that we support this, whether we can...

I don't know, I still have questions about it.

Yeah, and I appreciate that.

And I know they're coming.

Council members, how about if you kick this off, and let's just have a conversation up here, and then we can make some decisions on how we want to proceed.

Because I will tell you this, that it is my goal to have at least $3.5 million for a lead at the end of this conversation.

I'm going back.

Could I mention one more thing?

Speaking of Council Member Gonzalez's questions, she asked a question during the issue identification as to whether this money included funding for a second Seattle City Attorney prosecutor for the LEAD program.

It actually does not.

The vision there from the executive director is that it's either going to come as part of the case counseling ad that may come from the mayor's proposed budget, or it may come from additional private sector funding if that is secured.

Great.

Thank you very much.

So, Councilmember Sawant, if you'll kick this off, and then Councilmember Gonzales, O'Brien, and I, we can sort of fill in.

Certainly, and we have seen the tremendous effectiveness of LEAD, the LEAD program, the Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion program, and how other cities are actually looking to Seattle to replicate it.

Just a few points I will add is one just to remind us all of the really important points that not only the King County Public Defenders Association has made, but also Dan Satterberg has made an impassioned plea.

I mean, you know, I personally may not agree with everything on, with the prosecutor, but on this, strongly agree that we need to fully fund the LEAD program.

And I don't know that we should leave it to private sector funding because I think they're already have other private sector funds for the rest of the funds.

And I think 4.72 is what's left over in my view.

And, you know, Greg can correct me if I'm wrong about that.

Just two points I'll add to this in terms of some of the prior discussions.

One of the things that Deputy Chief I can't, what's his name?

Garth Green said, I just want to point out, which is completely inaccurate and quite problematic, was that his reluctance with LEAD is that, well, we can't have one size fits all.

And that was the whole point.

I mean, LEAD is not a one size fits all.

It is the kind of program that actually gives the kind of service that you need as an individual.

And that's the whole point of the existence of program.

So I think we should push back on some of those mythologies.

And also, after the successful deployment of the program in the downtown, Belltown area, We were able to collaborate with the Capitol Hill Community Council, the NAACP, and other organizations to bring, expand LEAD to the Central District and Capitol Hill.

And I think, you know, if we are going to be a data-based sort of, you know, we're going to have a data-based approach, and I think this definitely fits the bill.

Good.

Thank you.

Council Member Gonzalez.

OK, so the good news here is that it appears that at least as it relates to city council, there's broad support for the LEAD program and for its expansion.

So that's a good place for us to start this conversation from.

And really, the difference here is about $1.22 million between the proposals that Councilmember O'Brien, Sawant, and I are advancing, and Chair Bagshaw, your proposal.

So I think at the end of the day, it's really important for us to make a strong commitment to the LEAD program.

I recognize and have a lot of confidence in Lisa Dugard's ability to secure the private funding, but I still remain a little cautious about advancing only 3.5 million dollars at this stage in the budget process without having a clear sense of exactly what all of the particular details are related to that private funding.

So I just have a fair amount of anxiety about, you know, if she is successful in getting the bridge of $1.22 million, what will the terms and restrictions and conditions with those dollars be?

And will we be in a situation where we will once again have to rely on the executive fulfilling some of those restrictions and conditions?

in a way that may tie up some of those private dollars.

So, you know, we saw this chair bag shot with a lead database funding.

It took unnecessarily, it was just too long of a drawn out process in large part because because it's being sort of re-vetted and trying to be re-evaluated by the executive which resulted in incredible amounts of delay on a simple issue like database that, you know, it's sort of nonsensical to me to say I cannot expand LEAD because I don't have the data and then at the same time not fund the very tool necessary in order to collect the data to do set analysis.

I hope that we don't get into that circular analysis in the future, which is why I have been supportive of just funding the full 4.72.

There could be a scenario or a world in which we say, and this would be up to the chair and council central staff of sort of figuring out some sort of budget magic of how do we get no less than 3.5, but up to 4.72 as sort of a contingency plan.

I don't know how the math magic would work in a budget, for purposes of getting a balanced budget under that scenario.

But I do think we need to be very careful about relying too much on private funding that we don't have the details of yet.

Again, have full confidence that Ms. Dugard will be able to deliver on that, but we still don't have the details about it.

And so perhaps now is not the time for us in this part of our budget process to overly rely on that representation until we have more details.

That's my pitch.

Good.

It's a good pitch.

Council Member O'Brien.

I don't have a lot to add other than I already said, but I think this program is an amazing program and I think that we need to get those caseloads down.

We need to expand it citywide.

It's the, you know, this and housing are the two things that I feel like we absolutely have to be doing if we want to be solving the crisis right.

Good, well thank you for that and my pitch is that I am going to support this at the $3.5 million level right now and that is in concert hand in hand with Lisa Dugard and with Dan Satterberg because they do believe that there is private funding that will be available.

And knowing what we're trying to accomplish with additional housing and additional 24-7 either shelter or tiny homes, my goal here is to be working with the community but also with our judges, with Office of Housing, to get at least 100 more units that could be available for LEED clients, whether LEED refers them, whether Office Housing, whether our NAB team refers them, We know that if we can get people off the streets, we can get them stabilized.

And it is a request that I've heard from all of those, from LEAD, from the NAV team, from the judges to say, we need some housing that we can refer people to.

So that is my hope, between the 3.5 million and the 4.2, that we can do some things around the additional housing.

I also got a note from Lisa this morning, Lisa Dugard.

that the impact, the positive impact of 3.5 million to the city investment includes, and she's given me a long list of numbers, I'm not going to read those to you, but additional intensive case management, additional outreach contacts, and she's also, just as you were saying, Council Member Gonzales, she is committed to the accountability, the performance measurements, the transparency, and she has needed that $300,000 software program that we were able to accomplish thanks again to Dan Satterberg, who went to Microsoft and begged a $300,000 software donation.

We finally have it.

We thought we were going to have it last year, but we've got it.

It's now operational, or at least on its way to becoming operational.

But without that, they were not able to track the information that the mayor's office has asked for.

We're going to get that.

So I just really want to extend my thanks to all who have been involved with LEAD because we know that it is helping people with the case management.

That's the big thing we're doing here is adding a significant number of qualified and experienced case managers to individually help people on the street.

And it is an upstream effort focused on low-level crime and to get people the mental health services or the behavioral health services that they need.

And by the way, having talked with our muni court judges, they are very supportive of this.

They want to be able to have lead-like opportunities to refer people into whatever programs we're developing.

So I think this is one of the better things that we have done on the 10 years on the council.

We'll get the right people into the right programs, providing the supports they need.

And it comes back to what we've all been talking about, is that we need to reduce the number of people in jail.

People do not get better in jail.

This is our best opportunity.

And working with the courts, with the prosecuting attorney, city attorney, and with businesses.

And by the way, I'm just looking through my email this morning.

I've got a note from Don Blakeney at DSA saying that we all will be getting a letter today, a joint letter from BIAs.

Do you have it?

Okay, I have not read it yet.

GSBA, the public defenders, the LEAD program, our NAV team folks just saying this is really important to have this coordinated funding.

So when you get this community with their arms around this, I think it's a good step.

And as we've all said, this is just a down payment.

But this is a really good springboard for us to bring the community back together and say this is something that works.

We know what works, it needs, it's at capacity, now this will help us open the doors some more.

So, that's my pitch.

We can all vote on all four of them, but the fact of the matter is that I don't believe we're gonna have $4.7 million, but let's just see where this flies this weekend.

Lisa?

Madam Chair, would you, if you'd like to ask if the group has no objection, you could take one vote on 16, 17, and 18 together, and then take up 19. Thank you for that.

Council Member Pacheco.

So I just appreciate Lisa DeGuard's not just lead when expanding into District 4 this year, but also just her leadership.

I've had the opportunity to work with her very early on my career when I was at the Police Foundation and I've just always known her to be a very collaborative leader.

And also want to appreciate my gratitude to Chair Bagshaw, who also, she doesn't pat herself on the back, but worked with me to call Microsoft in terms of trying to help them nudge them in donating the software earlier this year.

So I will be voting with Chair Bagshaw, just so that, because I trust her that she'll help steward this through this process as she kind of goes and takes an overview of the entirety of the budget and her proposed package next week.

Thank you, Council Member Pacheco.

Council Member Juarez, you've been patient down there.

That's okay.

I know you don't see me way down here.

I just want to ask the central staff a question from our analysis just to make sure I have the facts correct.

So it appears that Budget Action 19 supports the same outcomes.

The number of case managers increased to 73, the caseload limited to 25, and the salary increases as the budget actions of 16, 17, and 18. Is that correct?

yes okay so um thank you for just yeah just come right out of the gate i love that i was expecting yeah i was expecting a little bit more there um just more on a personal note i want to thank council member sawant and council member gonzalez and councillor o'brien who've been just so passionate and confident and getting us information and have always never stopped fighting for this program and what it means to our community and I want to thank them for that.

It's been an honor to work with you and to continue to work with you.

I however will be supporting Councilmember Bagshaw and I'll tell you why.

If we're going to come to the same outcomes and we have a balance as Councilmember Gonzalez pointed out of 1.2 million And the difference in that amount, two things have struck me.

Council Member Bagshaw talking about the $3.5 million being a down payment and then using the $1.2 somewhere else for some of the other programs that some of my colleagues have brought up that we actually kind of look at.

That's how I'm looking at it.

That I want to support a $3.5 million increase relief of the success.

It's a down payment.

We're going to continue to move forward.

We'll have another budget session next year.

Hopefully some of us are here.

And so from that, I'm thinking, okay, we got like a $1.2 million there, and I'd like to see that investment.

I know, I want to thank Council Member Bagshaw.

I know that she's been in conversations with Ms. Dugard and Public Defender and Dan Satterberg.

And as Councilmember Gonzalez said, and Councilmember Bagshaw, I have every faith in the efforts of Ms. Dugard and the rest of us to also be picking up the phone in the private sector to pay their fair share and help us move this forward for a program that saves lives, that intervenes, that keeps us whole, and reminds us of what's important to this city.

So with that, I'll be supporting you, Councilmember Bagshaw.

Great, thank you.

Any other comments?

I think we know where this is going.

So, I am going to do what you suggested, Lisa, is to call the question on 16, 17, and 18. So, that is an add of 4.72 million for LEAD.

All those who would like to.

Sponsor.

Sponsor.

All those who would like to add your name as a sponsor to this 4.72, raise your hand.

Okay, those who would like to add your name to item number 19, which is 3.5 million to fund LEAD as co-sponsors, please raise your hand.

I'm not going to say anything funny.

It seems like an unfair question.

Thank you.

Okay, very good.

Thank you.

I like that about all of you.

Okay, so that takes us 15, 16, 17, 18, 19. And so we're going to move on to homelessness, which is item number 20. And is this back to you?

Yes, it is.

Item number 20 is HOM 1A1.

This adds $206,000, a little bit more than $206,000 in one-time funding to HSD for mental health outreach workers in the University District in Ballard.

This is in the 2019 adopted budget.

18 months of funding was provided by the council for the beginning of this pilot that provides two outreach workers, one in the University District and one in Ballard.

This funding only actually covers 60% of the cost for this pilot.

The other is matched by the business improvement areas.

And this proposal would, the gist of it is that it extends from ending halfway through the 2020 budget year, it extends it for two more years.

So this pilot would then end on June 30th of 2022.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

And who would like to speak to this?

Council Member Pacheco?

Colleagues, this amendment would extend an ongoing pilot that's providing partial funding for mental health outreach workers, or reach workers, from the evergreen treatment services in the U District and Ballard.

So for D4 and D6, the reach workers have begun making a real impact on the ground since they started working in the U District alone.

In the first eight months of the year, the worker has been able to connect with folks to food 69 times, to shelter on 16 occasions, administered the knowledge's own, The, oh boy.

Take your time.

The Naloxone kit, 20 times among so many other, outcome, Naloxone, thank you.

With the pilot program expiring at the end of June 2020, this budget would add, would fund a two year extension for both Ballard and the U District.

The city funding covers 60% of the contract costs with the BIA in each neighborhood covering the other 40%.

This is a crucial service that has been making a big impact in the neighborhoods.

It would be a shame if it was discontinued.

Great, thank you for that.

I would just like to add my support to it Councilmember Pacheco and having spoken to a number of the outreach workers and also our firefighters who have said having identified named people who are there and they get to know the folks who are repeatedly either coming into the firefighters through Medic One where they see them repeatedly, that this is really helpful to be able to have somebody that people know build the trust.

And since LEAD is supporting this too, I think it's a great idea and I'll be supporting it.

Other comments?

Okay.

All right, so this is, we're ready.

So all those who would like to add your name as a co-sponsor to item 20, raise your hand.

Excellent.

And the next item, 21, I have to say is one of my favorites.

I'll be speaking on behalf of Council Member Muscata-Jeff if you'd tee it up.

Sure, item 21 is HOM 2A1.

This adds $900,000 in general fund, including $350,000 in general fund that's one time to HSD to open a tiny home village.

The $350,000 that's one time is combined with the donation of tiny homes from Lehigh to start up a tiny home village.

And then within this amount, $550,000 would be ongoing to continue service to operate the program, which would be an ongoing investment.

Good, very good.

So on behalf of Councilmember Mesquita and myself, I almost cannot support this enough.

We have seen over the years that the tiny home villages started with people saying, oh, it'll never work to, as we have heard from public comment over and over again.

This is one of the options of choice where people can go in, have a community, that they have a door, their partners, possessions, pets, the concerns are addressed there.

And my hope is that with this, this can go hand in glove with what we were talking about with LEAD.

We know that people need places to go, and I would like to have at least 100 spaces.

Actually, I started off saying I wanted 700 places, and central staff laughed at me in terms of how much money we had, but at least getting 100 that could be and I don't want to say controlled by, but perhaps prioritized for people in the LEAD program that LEAD can refer, our municipal court judges can refer, and to pilot that and see how it's working, but getting people off the street and with the case management and the services that they need.

My particular Joy would be to see if we could multiply these but have them across the city in different areas so that people could remain in their Area their home neighborhoods, but at least for this year I want at least one set up and set up quickly and we know that This is not the most expensive option But we will come back.

I think another Agenda item here this this morning is is to do more of the 24-7 like what we've done with the West Wing.

But at least here, I want us to move forward with this and I ask for your support.

Other comments?

Chair Bagshot, I was just going to say that I completely support all of your remarks that you just made.

And I think that one of the most unfortunate things that came out of that Poppy report is her absolute expression without any nuance of disdain for tiny villages.

I think that was, that has hurt our city's efforts to really provide meaningful solutions of transition into housing stability.

And I have really appreciated the fact that as city leadership, we have in a lot of ways bucked that predisposition or ideology that she expressed in her report and really have committed to the tiny home village concept and it has proven to be one of our most successful interventions for purposes of both saving lives and connecting people to more permanent housing and stability, so really do appreciate the ongoing leadership and commitment in this space to make sure that we are supporting things that work for Seattle and that we stay committed to those evidence-based strategies as it relates to our particular population.

So thank you for your leadership.

Yeah, absolutely.

I appreciate the support.

Any other items?

Any comments?

All right.

Those who would like to add their names as co-sponsors to item number 21, please raise your hand.

Very good.

Item 22 is $10,800,000 of general fund to repurpose a lot.

So please, would you want to Jeff?

Item number 22, HOM 3A1 adds $10,800,000 and repurposes $1.2 million already provided in the proposed budget to HSD to expand tiny home villages and impose a proviso.

This is put forward by Council Member Sawant

It would, the gist here is that it would take funds that are already related to tiny home villages in the proposed budget and then supplement that with an additional $10.8 million to expand by up to 20 tiny home villages.

Great.

Council Member Sawant.

We have heard repeatedly from people who have experienced tiny home villages that that actually was the single most important lifeline for them to get their life back and to not only get into permanent housing, but also just to be able to exist with dignity and humanity during the period of homelessness that they were facing.

Unfortunately, none of my colleagues were here on October 17th evening when we, in chambers, we did a legally required public hearing on my bill to expand tiny house villages, the land use bill, which I'll talk about in a second.

But that testimony is extremely powerful.

I really urge you to watch it because it has direct testimonials from people who have been through this process, and they tell us what a critical component that was of putting their lives together.

It has allowed people to stay with their family members.

There are tiny house villages where families with three to five children have existed together, and I don't think you can put a price tag on a family's ability to stay together.

And there are many people who have been able to not be separated from their pets, which is another of the inhumane things that the city has subjected homeless individuals to.

And the other important testimonial, which relates to item number 33, that's from my office, which is that people have said repeatedly, and some of this shows up in the public hearing, that if the navigation team offered the homeless individuals a spot in a tiny house village, they would take it.

And so it sort of really puts a spotlight on why this so-called navigation team or sweeps are not working, because they're not offering what people need.

I should of course clarify this is not a replacement for permanent affordable housing, but this is not only something that allows people to live with dignity, something that allows them safety and privacy of a locked door.

Electricity, which disabled homeless individuals have repeatedly reminded us, having a power outlet is extremely important and ramps which all these tiny house villages are equipped with, a place to store your belongings, and more importantly, not only case management, which is a big component of why they have good transition to permanent housing, but a community where people can work together to run the encampment and resist the crushing isolation and demoralization from homelessness.

Low Income Housing Institute has informed us that they have a capacity to operate 10 additional villages.

So this budget amendment provides the funds to expand by 20, 10 to be operated by Lehigh, and 10 that could potentially be operated by other organizations, by faith groups, by Share, Wheel, and Nicholsville, and so on.

So this budget amendment would repurpose the money plan to move Georgetown and North Lake villages, allowing them to stay in their locations because it simply makes no sense whatsoever to use taxpayer funds to dismantle the one thing that's actually working for homeless people, which is the tiny house villages.

And to add to some of the statistics, you know, the transitions to permanent housing is almost 35%, and if you, these are reported from Lehigh, and if you count up permanent housing plus transition housing, movement to permanent or transition housing, the transitions are 56%.

So these are really strong numbers.

It's not perfect, but it's really an excellent work in progress.

And 43 faith leaders have written a very strong letter in support of expanding tiny house villages.

And then in connection with the North Lake and Georgetown, there's absolutely no need to dismantle these villages because we have a bill from my office to expand the land use code, make it flexible so that we can have tiny house villages in different zones throughout the city.

The other thing that the bill would do if passed is allow the tiny house villages to renew their permits every year without any limit.

Right now they can only renew their permit once, which means they can only exist for two years.

That artificial limitation is removed and I think it is our responsibility to remove that limitation because as long as homelessness is a crisis, we have to allow tiny house villages to exist.

And so it makes no sense to say you can only renew your permit once for something that's actually working.

And then the good news is that The appeal from Elizabeth Campbell, who we know also appealed the Fort Lawton affordable housing development.

Elizabeth Campbell had an appeal to the SEPA analysis of the land use bill from my office.

We have received good news that the hearing examiner has dismissed that appeal.

So the city council is now free to move that bill forward in addition to the budget ads that we're talking about.

Amazing.

I appreciate your objective and everything you're trying to do here.

What I know is that at this minute, we don't have $10.8 million, but everything that you said about tiny home villages, I agree with.

So what I'd like to do is do a two-tier on this one.

The first is tiered to vote for the $10.8 million, and then second is Essentially, how much money can I find in the budget?

So.

Could we do a vote on the intent?

Sure.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

And that is, that'll be tier two is the intention to support, I mean, frankly, everything that you said.

All right.

So.

No, we're just adding our name to, as co-sponsors.

So the first is to, please raise your hand if you would like to co-sponsor Council Member Sawant's item number 22. So this is just a 10 voting on the 10.8 million.

I'm going to do a second tier on the intention of seeing what we can get for more tiny home villages.

Okay all those in favor of the 10.8 please raise your hand.

Co-sponsoring.

Co-sponsors.

Thank you.

All right as a tier two those who are supporting as co-sponsors the intention of additional tiny home villages.

And please raise your hand.

Great, thank you for that.

And Council Member Sawant, thank you for leading us on this.

Item 23 is a report from HSD on sites.

And I believe this is Council Member Mosqueda's.

That's correct, yes.

This would be a slide request, a statement of legislative intent.

It requests a report from HSD on sites for a tiny home village.

I understand actually from clarifications from HSD that they rely on FAS for the analysis of sites, so this might be better redirected towards them, but the intention is still the same.

It relates back to the budget actions that we just spoke of, both Council Member Suwant and Council Member Mosqueda's, that would identify locations for new tiny home villages.

Great, Council Member Sawant?

It's okay, we can come back to you.

Okay, thank you.

So this is a request of HSD to conduct this search, and you just said, maybe I misunderstood you, but whether HSD is the right department to be doing this?

Yes, although HSD operates and holds the contracts for all of our tiny home villages, my understanding that they contacted us after introducing this and it clarified that they rely on FAS and its expertise to actually do assessments of sites for a lot of the technical pieces.

Right, and that makes sense to me too.

Any questions or comments on this one?

All right, those who would like to add their name as co-sponsors to this item, which is the request for sites identification of sites for tiny home villages, irrespective of which department does it.

Raise your hand.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Moving on to item 24, 1.5 million one-time funding to relocate building renovations for a youth homelessness shelter.

Item 24.

Yes, this is put forward by Councilmember Pacheco.

It adds $1.5 million for the relocation and building of renovations for a youth homeless shelter.

This is inspired by the Roots Young Adult Shelter.

Overall, the purchase price for the Roots Shelter is being displaced because of the redevelopment of the United Temple Methodist Church.

They've located a site that they could purchase for $4.1 million, but it would require about $2 million in renovations and other compliance type of adjustments for a total cost of $6.1 million.

The United Temple Methodist Church is already putting in $1.5 million towards that.

This would be a proposal for $1.5 million, and it's anticipated that another $3 million would likely be matched from other sources for a total of nearly the entire purchase amount and renovation amount.

Great.

Council Member Pacheco.

Colleagues, the Roots Young Adults Shelter has been providing beds for homeless young adults in the U District since 2000. The shelter is being displaced by the redevelopment of the United Temple Methodist Church, threatening the only homeless shelter for young adults in the area and the 45 beds they provide nightly.

After a long search, Roots has purchased a former fraternity house in the U District on 19th Avenue to serve as a new location.

In order to maintain and convert the new space to accommodate a shelter, Roots needs to pay a $4.1 million mortgage, fund approximately $1,088,000 in fire code requirements, and approximately $1 million in refurbishment, as well as cover the cost of longer operating and staffing hours.

I have worked closely with Representative Frank Chopp on this, and we are hopeful that the $1.5 million could be leveraged against funds from other levels of government, such as the state and county, in order to meet Roots' need.

The University Methodist Church, the shelter's current location, has already provided a million and a half, as has been stated earlier.

In addition to a line that's critically needed shelter to continue operations, I understand that the new location could also lead to an increase in the number of beds provided.

Great.

Thank you for that.

I can only add, Roots has been so important to the University District.

I'm delighted to see that we've figured some ways to leverage.

I support you in this.

Any further comments?

Those who would like to add your name as co-sponsors to this effort, raise your hand.

Very good.

Well done, Council Member Pacheco.

I appreciate your work.

The next one, item 25, is a homeless response in North Seattle.

I think this is Council Member Juarez, who is just walking through the door.

So if you'd tee us up.

I was there for you.

as well.

This is item number 25, CVA HOM 6A1.

It adds $254,422 to HSD for the homelessness response in North Seattle and also adds to FTE.

The gist of this is that it would expand two positions on the navigation team.

One system navigator, which is similar to an outreach worker, and one field coordinator, which is the type of staff at HSD that assess locations for risk of health and safety hazards.

to assess whether or not a location of an encampment needs to be removed.

This is presented by Councilmember Juarez.

Good.

Council Member Morales, good timing.

Thank you.

This budget action requests, as you've heard, additional support for homelessness outreach in North Seattle.

North Seattle has dozens of unsanctioned homeless encampments which include people needing food, housing, employment, medical care, mental health, and addiction treatment.

These encampments pose public health and safety issues both to the residents and to the surrounding community as well.

North Seattle also has a number of neighborhood nonprofits which deliver services but which do not have the resources for outreach.

This action would add a field coordinator and a systems navigator specifically assigned to the north end So that would be for all districts in the north to assess and conduct Outreach to residents of encampments with the goal of connecting people to appropriate resources including neighborhood based services organizations in housing, which I believe we have been quite successful.

I know that the navigation team has been controversial because of their duality.

I understand philosophically that some people don't agree, but what I can tell you, what works on the ground, does it work perfectly?

No. but does it work to the point where we can actually get people into housing?

What I have seen on the ground, yes.

These two positions would work together to reach out and link residents in need with neighborhood-based services and our citywide services as needed.

As you know, we have been relentless in promoting the type of services that we need in the North End.

Particularly, I've been obviously focused on District 5 and what social service organizations we rely on.

North Helpline, Mother Nation, Aurora Commons, God's Little Acre, our community group.

I could go on and on and on, but I guess my point in a nutshell is this.

The times that I have been on the ground, and it's been at least eight times now, where we have went out to encampments, sanctioned and unsanctioned, and faith-based, and worked with our navigation team it has been successful.

Has everyone taken every service?

No, but the majority of them have.

We worked hard and we've had success in getting people placed into transitional housing, rapid rehousing, working with Kelly Brown at North Helpline, working with the McDermott House, working with Sharon Lee.

So with all that said, I can say with confidence that these two individuals, hopefully these two FTEs, dedicated to the North End, not just District 5, that we would love their continued support and we certainly have the community support for it.

So I would hope that my colleagues would look at this from a geographical perspective that perhaps some of these issues philosophically don't work in your particular district or however you feel citywide.

But from my perspective as a district representative, I feel that this works is probably as good as it's going to get.

Thank you.

Comments?

I mean, I think we had a really long conversation about this.

I think it was a week ago, maybe a week and a half ago.

My position hasn't changed on this.

I do not believe that it is prudent or appropriate for us to be further expanding lead at this juncture given a lot of the questions that continue to exist around the theory of change.

I'm sorry.

What is this thing?

The nav team.

And again, I think there are more unanswered questions than answered questions as it relates to this.

Again, if the goal is to shuffle people across the city without meaningful connection to services, then the nav team is working.

And if the goal is to truly meaningfully connect people to services, then from my reading and understanding of the data that is available to us, then the NAB team is categorically failing with regard to that component of the purported body of work that this NAB team is supposed to be doing.

So again, I think expanding it under those circumstances is not prudent and And I think that we still have some work to do and the executive in particular has work to do to answer some unanswered questions as it relates to to that that particular component, and I look forward to and hope that that there will be some cooperation there which has not existed to date in order to answer some of those some of those important and critical questions.

Council Member Swanson, Council Member Warris.

I won't be supporting this, and I agree with the comments that Council Member Gonzalez just made.

Just to add to this, also, there's I mean, all the organizations, service providing organizations that you mentioned, Council Member Juarez, of course, I would strongly support all of them.

But that's not what this money is for.

This money is for the navigation team.

And really, there's no data whatsoever.

I mean, if we're going to say database approach, then this is one of the approaches that has little to no justification for its existence as the way it has existed.

As we know, Reach has also dissociated themselves from it.

speaking to it in a little bit more detail on item 33. But at the very least we should not be expanding something that hasn't worked.

Just really just to repeat something that I said a couple of weeks ago, we have not met any homeless people who said having being swept had helped me to find my bearings and find housing.

It's so I don't think we should do it.

And another thing I'll note in just in terms of the amount is that Roughly half the amount you would need to set up half an average-sized dining house village So it's just I don't think it's a well-directed use of funds Councilmember worth can President Harrell first please so I guess regional minds can differ and that's okay.

I actually support Councilmember waris is what she's trying to do and in that we are council members by district.

And I have to understand that she is closely connected and a leader in her district.

She's listening to constituents, trying to make the best investments she can believe are the most prudent investments for her district.

And she makes an argument that this is a need for her district.

And the NAV team, while yes, we have a lot of work to do, is a result of a lot of deliberation, a lot of thought, a lot of investment strategies throughout the years.

And while yes, subject to a lot of criticism and concern, we haven't completely pulled the plug on it, I should say.

So in deference to a council member arguing for a district, I would certainly support Council Member Juarez in this investment strategy.

Thank you.

Council Member Roth.

Thank you.

I want to thank Council Member Sawant and Council Member Gonzalez and Council Member Herbold, who's not here, because I wrote down their comments when this issue came up last week about the auditor's report and why further expand and the concern about the NAV team.

And I understand that.

I understand philosophically the duality.

the purpose, whether you say removal or whether you say sweeps.

But I'm not one to – I'm pretty fact-based about what I believe to be true and what I've seen.

Anecdotal information is important.

Is it data?

Is it science?

No.

But I can tell you for my responsibility and my relationship with the NAV team and their relationship with our social service organizations on the ground, are they 100% successful?

No.

But are they successful in the sense of that I can actually say that I've watched them put at least 18 people or 14 people into housing?

and other services, and have we watched them connect with services to prevent eviction, to get food, to get people medical care, into a tiny house?

Absolutely.

And with that, I understand the concerns and the issues that Councilmember Gonzalez, Councilmember Sawant, and Councilmember Herbold raised.

But again, I would just ask you to have some deference to me as a district representative who is physically on the ground, going out there.

I don't enjoy going out to 27 Tents.

I don't enjoy going out behind the Starbucks.

I don't enjoy going out behind Fitness 21 or Cory's Dry Cleaner or Quality Foods.

I mean, watching RVs get towed away at the QFC in North Seattle, but I've been there.

And I do it for a reason.

I don't enjoy going out to certain motels on Aurora, meeting with Elizabeth Dahl about certain people that need services, making sure that we're calling the NAV team for help.

And every time we have called, they have been there.

So maybe your relationship is different.

Mine has certainly been different.

Is it perfect?

No.

But with that, I'll leave it at that.

And I want to thank you.

Great, thank you.

Further comments?

Yeah, just a couple points to close out since this was brought up.

So one is, I think it's been characterized now two different ways in terms of what this budget action is intended to do.

It was first introduced by Council Member Juarez as being an investment for the entirety of the north end of the city, which is approximately And now it's being, and then it was characterized by Council President Harrell as just being specific to addressing District 5, and only District 5, and now I'm hearing Council Member Juarez saying that it's just district five.

So I don't think that that is, I'm a little confused as to where these purported dollars are intended to go, one.

And then two, on the district deference, I think that there is oftentimes an opportunity for us to get additional information from the district representatives, but as a citywide representative, I also represent the North end and there are at least two other council members on this dais that represent the north end as well that we haven't had an opportunity to hear from.

But from my perspective, again, I am not at this juncture.

Suggesting that we completely cut the funding for the navigation team across the city.

What I am saying is that I think that there are enough unanswered questions about the efficacy and the theory of change around the navigation team that gives me pause about supporting a proposal.

to expand upon the navigation team at this juncture.

There is nothing that prevents the navigation team as it currently exists from focusing on areas in the North End if the need is there in terms of the existing policies and protocols related to the navigation team.

So again, there is nothing that prevents the navigation team from addressing those concerns if they rise to the priority levels that are dictated by the current policies and procedures that apply to the navigation team.

So we have seen the heat maps.

We have seen the complaint numbers and the call logs.

They're completely within their right and discretion to to continue to follow their criteria to address the most significant public safety, public health concerns anywhere in the city, and that includes the North End.

And again, I think that in context of, in the context of this conversation, I think it's just really important for us to, at this juncture, having just so quickly expanded the NAV team, not doing it again, but instead making sure that it is a model that is both connecting people to services, meaningfully connecting people to services, not just sending out referrals to people that are not being followed through on, and that it is also addressing the public health and public safety concerns.

And right now, I think there are enough questions and unanswered questions to merit us taking a wait and see approach as opposed to doubling down and leaning into further expansion of LEAD at this juncture.

NAF team.

I don't know why I keep seeing LEAD.

I know, don't say that anymore.

Sorry, I don't mean it.

I just...

All right, further comments?

Those who would like to add their name as a co-sponsor to item number 25, raise your hand.

Thank you.

Moving on to Item 26, which is Vehicle Resident Outreach.

Councilmember O'Brien and Jeff, will you speed it up for us?

Item 26 is HOM 7A1.

It adds $200,000 general fund to HSD for vehicle resident and outreach and parking mitigation.

This is put forward by Council Member O'Brien.

This, essentially, the gist here is that it supports the Scott Faw Mitigation Program.

It's currently a volunteer and donation-driven program that's not receiving city funds, that works with individuals that, per the statutes codified in SMC 1135, where you have Penalties and associated with having four or more traffic violations.

They work with those individuals to address those circumstances and that's Actually, I'll turn it over to councilmember Brian.

Thanks Jeff.

That's great This team formed again.

This is a volunteer group When the city created its scofflaw program, so I don't remember the the 2011, 2012, somewhere in there, the city had created a new program.

The intent was to get folks that had significant number of parking tickets and were simply ignoring paying them to create a mechanism whereby we would impound and potentially tow the vehicle until we got paid.

The intent at the time was that that program would be, was intended to address folks that had the ability to pay, but were simply ignoring it.

But we knew that at the time, there was a chance that people who were living in vehicles, living in poverty, and were getting tickets because they really didn't have alternatives, may end up with their vehicle not just impounded, but towed, and that vehicle being their home.

And so the mitigation team came into place.

Well, there are a volunteer team.

They're working closely with parking enforcement officers, police departments, Seattle Municipal Courts, to try to prevent people that are living in vehicles from getting swept up into this program that is really designed for a different population.

And they've done amazing work.

As you can imagine, when they're working with individuals on trying to get relief for parking tickets they're getting, they've found a number of other challenges that these individuals have and are working on a host of ways to help those individuals living in vehicles.

And they've expanded that intent over time by simply just any private fundraising they do, which is minimal but helpful, and then the volunteer hours they put into it.

They're requesting support from the city to help them expand that program and really do some outreach, some targeted outreach to people living in vehicles.

We currently do not have, despite that being about half our unsheltered population, we don't have a lot of dollars that are targeted specifically to that universe.

Good.

Further comments?

Those who would like to add your name as co-sponsors to item number 26, raise your hand.

Very good, thank you.

Item 27

Item 27 is HOM 8A1.

It adds $157,967, including $33,510 in one-time funding to operate an overnight-only safe parking lot.

This would be similar to a program that is currently in the proposed budget, where there are small, safe parking lots being explored throughout the city.

In this case, it would focus on University Heights.

on it would begin with five parking spaces that would be available.

It would be on an only an overnight basis.

The budget action reads that the eventual goal would be to support 25 spaces with this funding.

HSD has, since this was first put forward, looked into the site and they suspect that 10 might be an ideal cap, at least initially.

Currently this, Currently, the current pilot that explores safe parking spaces only focuses on faith-based institutions.

So as currently structured, they would not be working with the University Heights.

And I also would note that there is a service agreement with the University Heights that would require, well, we may require revisiting if this were implemented.

Great.

Thank you, Jeff.

Council Member Pacheco.

Colleagues, this amendment would fund the startup and operation of an overnight only safe parking lot at the University High Center in District 4. It's also where the D4 office is. $33,510 in one-time funding would support initial setup and $1,100,024 457 and ongoing funding would support operations including the case managers, staff support, bathrooms, trash removal, utilities, and other operating costs.

The lot would start with 5 to 10 spaces and increase to 25 spaces.

This number of spaces is expected very conservatively to serve at least 45 people per year, assuming that some cars have multiple individuals and that folks are transitioning out of the safe lot after several months.

University Heights has been incredibly proactive in pursuing this plan and engaging with the surrounding community to build support.

Council Member Mosqueda and I have been helping to build that support.

Given how much talk there has been in recent years about expanding our safe parking lots around the city, I think that we should be jumping at the opportunity when an enthusiastic and willing partner from the community steps forward to host a lot.

And I'm proud to be championing this proposal.

Good.

Any further comments?

No other comments except for mine.

Thank you for this and thank you to University Heights.

We have been seeing all over, at least the West Coast, various organizations trying to resolve these issues about car camping, helping people get out of cars and into something better, this is at least a first step to give them what they need for hygiene services and safety.

So I'm with you on this with the recognition that this is not the end goal, but it is a step to help people move along the way.

All right.

Those who would like to add your name as a co-sponsor to Council Member Pacheco's recommendation, raise your hand.

Good.

Thank you.

Item 28 now.

Council Member Morris, we're back to you.

Is this Brian?

Item 28 is HOM 9A1.

It's adding $58,148 to HSD for women's hygiene products at our emergency shelters.

This is put forward by Councilmember Juarez.

The estimated number of women in our either tiny home villages, enhanced shelters, or basic shelters is approximately 1,600 women of menstruation age, and this would provide those products for free to the residents of those facilities.

Very good.

Council Member Wuerth.

Thank you.

I don't have much more to add except that we are looking at a cost of about $58,000.

I'm aware that Council Member Herboldt will be proposing a substitute to include diapers, which I fully support.

And I actually have the notes in front of me.

I'm not sure, Chair, how we do this, how we amend a Form B. But my understanding is that with my ask of $58,000, Council Member Herboldt asked of $56,000 to include diapers, which would bring us to about $114,000.

So I would be accepting Council Member Herboldt's substitute to a 9B1.

Is that correct?

Is that how we do it?

That would usually be a form C, so you'll have the chair.

It's up to the chair.

Can I just ask you a question?

Council Member Juarez, of course I'm with you on this.

Do we know that the $52,000 for diapers is whether diapers are needed in that number at every shelter, because so many of these shelters don't have children, or the children, if they're allowed, they're coming by exception.

So I just, I want to support this.

I just want to get a reasonable number that we know will address the issues.

And I'm glad you asked that, because I have Councilmember Herbold's notes that she asked me to read.

So the original base is $58,000.

Councilmember Herbold is asking for an additional $56,000.

So this proposal adds $66,400 to Councilmember Juarez's proposal and would fund a diaper distribution pilot program for families in need with the goal of providing diapers for all children in enhanced shelters, basic shelters, and tiny home villages.

There are an estimated 1,167 children under the age of five residing in these programs, and this action would be a pilot program and asks HSD to report on the distribution, usage, and unmet need for diapers at all shelters, tiny home villages to determine the success of the pilots in meeting the need, I'm sorry, I lost my sight, in meeting the need for diapers at those locations and the ongoing funding necessary to provide diapers to all children in shelters and tiny home villages.

This report would be due by June 1st, 2020. And I should add that I will probably help amend this a little bit more because right now at two of our food banks, North Helpline and Bitter Lake, one of the number one things that goes quickly besides formula is baby diapers.

And so I would probably be adding food banks to this as well, which, you know, whatever this number is, I think would is probably would probably meet the need.

Okay, so I'm going to recommend that we move forward with the item 28 as you initially proposed it, and then we'll work on form C's.

Could I clarify the content of the potential substitution?

So there are some, we've been working with HSD to develop an estimate here, Because this would be a pilot program not something that we've done before there are some ways you could look at the rote number of people that are under Children that are under age 5 utilizing diapers guessing at how many they would need that does not necessarily align with the number that Organizations like West Seattle baby would or Westside baby experience as they provide diapers and so This was intentionally written to have the goal of expanding to all locations, but also recognizing that estimates at this time might not have allowed us to develop an accurate assessment of that, and so instructing HSD to serve as many locations as possible.

Thank you.

Thank you for that clarification.

Okay.

Would we get a report back under your proposal under what you just said Jeff would we get?

Because we've set a date like in June of next year to report back.

How would that work?

What's your what's your vision on this?

So I want to be clear that we're talking about what would be a substitute to what Councilmember Juarez has already put forward that would include diapers then.

That would request a report back from HSD detailing how many individuals had been served and how many locations had been served and an estimated cost to further expand if it turns out that the funds provided were not sufficient to truly reach all of our enhanced basic and tiny home villages.

And what one would hope is that individuals are not stuck in some location where they need to access diapers, but that we're helping them move on to with the other services that they need.

So I don't know exactly how we measure this, but let's move forward with the concept and then we can talk about what Form C looks like.

So you have the option, you could do a tier one, tier two, if you'd like to, with tier one being supporting the co-sponsoring as written and tier two would be indicating support as proposed to be amended with a form C.

Okay.

Any other thoughts?

I was just going to say, instead of doing tier one, tier two, I suspect that you're going to see a lot of hands going up on both of them.

So I think the way that you've couched it, Council Member Bagshaw, is perfectly fine.

Let's let's just move forward with the option and then we'll be working it because I know that there's going to be a lot of more information that we need and we'll come back with form C.

Thank you for moving us forward.

Council Member Juarez, any other comments?

All right.

Those who would like to add your name as a co-sponsor to item 28, raise your hand.

Thank you.

Could I just clarify that that is that is co-sponsoring as amended?

Yes, with includes diapers.

And we'll move forward with figuring out how do we expand and the report and all that.

Totally.

Thank you.

Good.

Thank you so much.

29. I think this is Council Member Juarez again.

Is this Jeff?

Yes, it is Councilmember Juarez's proposal.

It's HOM 10A1.

It adds a little bit more than 1.2 million dollars to HSD to expand homeless services for American Indian and Alaska Native homeless individuals.

For example, by services that are provided by the Chief Seattle Club.

This includes rapid rehousing services, homeless prevention services, a day center, as well as diversion is envisioned in this.

You can also see there's a similar ad proposed as HOM 18A1 that we'll get to shortly that would be limited to just the rapid rehousing services, not the full array of services discussed here.

And as I mentioned, this is presented by Council Member Juarez.

Very good.

Thank you.

Council Member Warras.

Thank you.

As many of you know, including you, Council Member Bagshaw, we have worked closely with the Chief Seattle Club and Colleen Echo Hawk.

And so I think this city should give itself a pat on the back.

We have two successes this year.

Number one, we were the first city to pass Missing Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls and have money attached to it.

And now we've become the model city in legislation.

Well done, team.

And second, first time in this city's history ever Chief, Seattle Club has had an 86% success rate in moving homeless households into permanent housing compared to 77% for all other providers in King County, with a 2.5% relapsing back into homelessness compared to 6%.

American Indian, American, I'm sorry, Alaska Natives, American Indians remain disproportionately negatively affected by homelessness.

10% of the region's homeless community are American Indian, Alaska Natives, although our population community represents less than 1% of the overall population.

The Chief Seattle Club has demonstrated a consistent track record in serving the needs of American Indian and Alaska Native people by providing resources to Native-led agencies, Last year, the entire city of Seattle doubled the numbers of homeless American Indian Alaska Natives moving into permanent housing.

I want to say that again, that for the entire city of Seattle, we doubled the numbers of homelessness moving into permanent housing.

Chief Seattle is fully staffed, and the demand for affordable housing outpaces the current general fund award budget to reduce homelessness and housing instability for American Indian and Alaska Natives There's a budget request of $1.2 million and some change that will go towards rapid rehousing, which I believe Councilmember Gonzalez has teed up for us, which is number 37, which is $374,000.

The day center, which is $724,000.

Diversion, which is $58,000.

And then the homelessness prevention, which is around $72,000.

So what I would like to say is this this amount that we're asking is all-inclusive For these four programs where we want to continue to see the trend line going up with an 86% success rate I can't stress enough how proud I am of the City Council and and my colleagues for moving the ball forward to addressing this marginalized, often overlooked population that, as I say, makes up 10% of the region's homeless community.

I think we've done well.

Thank you.

Any other comments?

All right.

Well, all I can say is...

Councilmember Pacheco.

All right.

Let me just saying thank you for bringing this forward.

Colleen Echo Hawk is an amazing woman who has done so much through her organization and I never cease to be amazed because I think was she executive director just has been for just the last five years and it's just it's incredible how much she's been able to do and I look forward to supporting you in this.

Councilmember Pacheco.

Well, I just want to thank Council Member Horace for bringing this forward.

I can express my support, my strong support for this effort to continue addressing the disproportional impact of homelessness on the American Indian and Alaska Native community.

As I've stated before in other areas, our American Indian and Alaska Native community unfortunately suffers from some of the largest disproportional impacts of many of the systemic challenges that we have in our society.

So, I will express my strong support and I appreciate Council Member Juarez for bringing this forward.

Very good.

Thank you.

Those who would like to add your name as a co-sponsor on item number 29, raise your hand.

Good.

Thank you.

Item 30 is Homeless Youth Services.

Item 30 is HOM 11A1.

It adds $100,000 to HSD for legal services for homeless youth, and it also imposes a proviso.

This envisions an organization such as Legal Counsel for Youth and Children to provide legal services to a variety of young adult populations that are at risk for or are currently experiencing homelessness, including those exiting certain systems of care or having other interactions with various systems.

The proviso would limit the use of these funds for these types of services, though HSD has noted that in order to better align with some of the likely outcomes that would be related specifically to this type of an investment, it might be better not to call this a homelessness investment as much as a legal services investment that focuses on a certain population of youth.

This was put forward by Council Member Gonzalez.

Yes, thank you.

And you've been very articulate about this particular issue.

Would you like to continue?

Well, thank you, Jeff, for that outline of the proposal.

Legal counsel for youth and children improves the well-being of young people by advancing their legal rights through direct legal representation.

strong community partnerships, and systemic advocacy.

They act as a critical resource to other youth service providers, like Youth Care, who call on LCYC when presented with a young person in need of legal services.

In 2018, LCYC served roughly 250 young people from ages 12 to 24 by providing them legal advice or in-court advocacy and or mediating and negotiating on their behalf.

They help youth in a range of civil legal issues, including but not limited to child protective services, emancipation, gender marker and name changes, identity theft, landlord-tenant issues, public benefits, consumer and medical debt, family law, warrants, immigration, and orders of protection, and would appreciate folks' support on this one.

Thank you.

Any other comments?

Those who'd like to add their name as a co-sponsor on item 30, raise your hand.

Thank you.

Next item is Jeff, you take it.

Sure, item 31 is CBA HOM 12A1.

It adds $175,000 in general fund, one-time funding to HSD for a smart wallet program for donations to individuals experiencing homelessness.

such as the Samaritan Program.

Samaritan Program is a smart wallet program and also a technology platform that supports it that was funded for two years as a startup and has worked with a range of, I believe, around 10 nonprofit providers.

They've issued 500 beacons so far, and this program would continue the platform as well as the beacons and expand that by another 250 beacons.

This was put forward by Council President Harreld.

Thank you very much.

So this is an investment that Human Services would be interested in should the council secure funding for it.

They've been doing some incredible work without city funding and they've had a pilot where basically I think many of you are familiar with the technology.

We had them present to the committee and had several people that were living in this building as homeless or living on the streets as experiencing homelessness, who have been recipients of basically funds that are given by private citizens, private residents, anyone who would like to give, people that are here and that would like to help people experiencing homelessness.

And they basically transfer funds to many of our favorite partners here, such as the Salvation Army or Lehigh or Mary's Place or Harborview for treatment and services.

And so I think again they did a full demonstration of the technology that is on the streets and sort of working now to give you some examples of the initial 500, and we call these either beacons or medallions or life connectors.

It's an actual piece of technology that are given to the people experiencing homelessness such that they can be the recipient again of both not only funds for essential goods and services, but also they go into these different places like Mary's Place and the Salvation Army for mentoring and counseling and assistance and navigation work.

So what we do know is that 500 people have used these life connectors or these medallions.

There's been over $100,000 of private money transferred to these organizations.

And from that, over half of these people have reported receiving a major financial or social need and have enrolled in services.

Many have moved into housing and treatment.

The pilot has pretty much focused on the downtown core.

And about 10,000 people in the city have actually downloaded the app and sort of used this.

We asked questions about privacy and about what the safeguards are to make sure that someone's not, for example, if there's sex trafficking involved or people that have been in that kind of lifestyle, whether they can be tracked.

And all of the privacy safeguards are in place.

It doesn't allow a person to track a person other than when they're right there, and they could sort of identify the person right when they're there, but they can't do a tracking beyond 10 feet.

The other piece I would say is that I think that this kind of technology, if we were to expand this pilot, and again, they've just been working through philanthropic organizations, that the city, we do not provide direct services as we well know.

But I think one of our roles, and this is why I'd really be excited as this is an investment, is to make sure we are facilitating both people that still want to help.

One of the problems I've experienced is people are still saying, we understand the city council, you're doing the best job you can, and you're using best practices to help people experiencing homelessness.

But what can I do?

What can I do?

I want to help you.

And this is one of many tools that they can do to help get money through these people experiencing homelessness to organizations like Mary's Place and Salvation Army.

So a modest investment of $175,000 should continue the pilot, and I think it'd be an investment well served.

Thank you.

And Jonathan Kumar, thank you for being here.

I appreciate all the work that you've done to get this going.

And I wanted to also thank, there were many people that came to the committee, testified, told their personal stories about experiencing homelessness and how these life connectors, these medallions, if the will, got them into housing and got them the treatment.

and the case management that they thought was critical, and I know for some of them, that was very, it might have been tough for them to do, but they shared their story, and that was, at least that was very impactful for me, so thank you.

Thank you.

Other comments?

Council Member Pacheco.

I just want to express my support for it.

You know, I've stated before, just, you know, being a city of innovation, in District 4, the University of Washington has a space, a program called Co-Motion.

And Co-Motion takes a lot of student ideas to market.

A lot of the research and innovation happens at the university to market.

A number of the students that I had the opportunity to work with developed these technologies and wanted to leverage their skills, their talents to make a better world.

And I think this is a perfect example of just being able to take your talents to connect, to be a facilitator and connect it to making a difference in the world.

So I just want to express my support and my appreciation.

Thank you.

Other comments?

Those in favor of adding your name as a co-sponsor to item 31, raise your hand.

Okay, thank you.

All right, item 32.

Item 32 is HOM 13A1.

It adds $746,757 in one-time funding to HSD to create a rental assistance pilot and imposes a proviso on those funds.

The gist of this program is creating a rental assistance pilot that would be targeted at a population that first is age 50 or over, receiving either SSI or SSDI, which are the two federal benefit programs for individuals with disabilities.

and also these individuals would need to be at risk or currently experiencing homelessness.

Initially, the funds would first call on HSD to put together a stakeholder group to design the level of subsidy that would be provided, though I understand that a shallow subsidy is envisioned here, and it clarifies also that funds would not be provided for more than one year as the rental assistance.

This is put forward by Council Member Gonzalez.

Council Member Gonzalez.

Thank you, Chair Begshaw, and thank you, Jeff, for that outline.

I'm really excited about being able to advance this particular item in this budget process.

I'm doing this in conjunction with Councilmember Lisa Herbold.

and really do believe fundamentally that this rental assistance program could provide a fix to what we know is a real system failure.

Folks who are relying on temporary state benefits in order to access or maintain housing are at a grave risk of losing their housing and becoming homeless once they've qualified for federal disability benefits.

This shallow rental subsidy program could help cover the gap between insufficient federal disability benefits and the high cost of housing in Seattle, even for our affordable housing units that are currently available.

I'm hopeful that this pilot program can be a bridge for the individuals facing this benefit cliff and help keep them in housing or help them access much-needed housing.

In the end, we know that the state needs to help us solve this problem, and I'm eager to put this on the city's lobbying agenda.

And I'm also eager to work with Representative Nicole Macri and others to find a long-term solution at the state level that is a statewide solution that will really fundamentally to address this issue.

But I think in the short term and the near future, we have an opportunity to meet the needs of this population in the interim.

And so I'm requesting that we add $750,000 to the budget in order to meet those interim needs in the hopes that we will be able to see some progress at the state level on some more significant statewide fixes that are necessary to address this gap.

Very good.

Other comments?

Council Member O'Brien.

Just thank you for your leadership on this.

This is a, now that we're aware of this gap, I feel like we need to figure out how to close it.

And obviously, you know, getting some legislation that fixes the underlying problem.

But in the interim, if we ignore this, it's just going to be devastating to individuals and adds to the problem we already have.

So thank you for that.

Thank you.

Those who would like to add your name as a co-sponsor to this item number 32, raise your hand.

Thank you.

Next item is 33, and it's Council Member Sawant.

Item number 33, HOM 14A1.

This is cutting $8.395 million across multiple departments to discontinue the navigation team and abrogate 30 FTE.

This is put forward by Council Member Sawant.

I would note that there are 30 individuals that have been identified by the executive in previous presentations, officers in the Seattle Police Department or direct employees of the Human Services Department.

This overall cuts the budgets across multiple departments that are associated with the navigation team, which could then have corollary effects on some of the FAS or parks investments if they're FTE that are supported exclusively through these funds.

But this is set up to be a reduction of those funds and also implementing some of the technical changes due to the contract, The the agreement with the the police officers guild The way that it cut to the to the navigate the navigation team officers would require some technicalities that we'd hash out Okay

I just wanted to start by first of all noting that the right-wing media and unfortunately even conservative Seattle Times editorial team has misconstrued many of these intentionally, not misconstrued is not the word, I think distorted, deliberately distorted many of the points that have come from not only my office but an entire community of homeless advocates, homeless neighbors, house neighbors, everybody who has recognized that the sweeps, and I don't call it the navigation team because it is euphemistic to call it the navigation team, they're not navigating them to anywhere, they're navigating them by denying their humanity, by saying you can't be here, you can't be here, you can't be here, and you can't be here, without really giving them a place to go to where that would be acceptable to them.

And these are human beings we're talking about.

And it's really not surprising, but deeply unfortunate and problematic that the corporate media has seized on this in this way.

I don't know how many of you saw but our friendly neighborhood Jason Rance reported on this and then he went on Tucker Carlson to talk about this.

It's absolute nonsense.

Let's make it clear, sweeps are ineffective and inhumane.

And what we are proposing is to use the money that is wasted on sweeps, which is millions of dollars.

I think it was 8 point something.

Nearly 8.4 million dollars.

Nearly 8.4 million dollars because there is zero data to show that it's actually working.

There's not one single homeless person I've heard from and I've talked to many of them who said being swept helped me to find housing or helped me in my life.

Such a thing has never happened.

And so instead we should use this significant part of money to expand the services that we do have.

And just to clarify, you know, if there was a realistic proposal, and I would be happy to work on this with anybody who wants to work on it, if there was a realistic proposal to make the navigation team do what the mayor's office claim it does, which is actually provide the services.

So if there was a realistic proposal to do a real overhaul and restructuring of this team to make sure that it is not a law enforcement type of initiative that is not led by the demonizing of homeless people by many of the business leaders who have sent us letter after letter saying that they want to expand this program, If it was led by teams like the reach team which has dissociated itself from the sweeps and said we're going to use all these resources, all these millions of dollars to make sure that we have, we lead them to tiny house villages or any other service that they need, you know, depending on what they need.

One size does not fit all.

If we can do a complete overhaul and restructuring of the team, then I would strongly support it.

But as of now, that's not what's happening.

What's happening right now is literally sweeping homeless people from here to there.

And of course, I understand that in the cases where there is an emergent dangerous situation that needs to be done.

But in my view, from what I have seen, that kind of sort of over there's danger has been expanded too widely and in reality innocent homeless neighbors have been caught up in this.

And so I would really urge that we, you know, it's high time that we look for something different.

And just to quickly quote from the Reach letter, which I have done before, is the reason they dissociated from it is that they have been told, Reach staff were told to prioritize shelter offers even when they were rarely accepted rather than developing longer-term alternative housing plans.

And if you talk to Lehigh, they will tell you that on the rare occasions when the referrals have been made to tiny house villages, it actually works because that's where people want to go because they know it works.

They know that they will get case management They know that they will get community.

So if you allow people to go to a place that actually works for them, then it will work.

But right now, that's not what's happening.

Council Member, anybody?

Council Member Pacheco?

Early, I'm trying to think of how I want to approach this.

Earlier in my term, you know, I genuinely came from a sincere place of wanting to collaborate with your office, Council Member Sawant, and I really wish we would have had a better chance.

I opened up a district office in District 4, and the issue of the navigation team to me is very complex.

for a variety of reasons.

The NAV team in itself, what I've heard from district floor residents is that they want just an improvement of coordination of services, and they wanna help the people in crisis, people who are experiencing homelessness.

I mean, the issue of homelessness, the solution is in the name, more homes.

And I think in order for us to really, really make the whole system work better for everybody, It's going to require massive, I mean, massive investment in public, massive public investment in housing.

It's going to require some zoning changes, additional zoning changes for capacity because we're a growing region.

And it's going to require us to improve that facilitation of those services.

The NAF team is part of, fits a very niche part of our response.

It's not perfect by any means, but it's, the people who are doing the work, the more we demonize the work that they do, the further it gets us from a solution.

In this city, I don't know if it's in the coffee, the water or what, but the Pacific Northwest is a very special place.

And the people who not just are here in City Hall, but the people who do the work, I think, quite frankly, are just trying to say, how do we do this better for everybody?

And so I personally just don't.

I think continuing to demonize the work that they do is going to get us any closer.

This is ridiculous, saying that we're demonizing the workers.

The workers themselves are saying this is not working.

That is why the REACH team, for example, dissociated from it.

You should choose your words carefully, Council Member Pacheco.

And also, you know, if you are so interested in working, then rather than nursing a grudge, why didn't you show up to the many meetings that my committee did where we heard By now, I think over 100 testimonials from people who will tell you who have said that the sweeps are not working for them.

We need an expansion of tiny house villages.

And yesterday, I brought forward a proposal to expand affordable housing greatly.

You didn't vote for it.

So this is, you know, just these are all empty words.

All right.

Let's move on because we'll have many more opportunities to talk about Navigation Team.

Those who would like to add their name as a co-sponsor to Council Member Sawant's item number 33, raise your hand.

Okay, let's move on to item 34. This is Lisa Herbold's imposing a proviso on navigation team appropriations.

I've got some other items.

Is anybody speaking to this or shall I pinch it for Councilmember Herbold?

I can provide some details on it as we go through.

I was not asked to do that by the council member though.

Okay, go ahead.

So this is HOM 15A1, impose a proviso on the navigation team appropriations in HSD.

There are no financial transactions associated with this budget action.

This builds on, or I should say continues, a proviso that was first added to navigation team funding in the adopted 2019 budget by Council Action, or at the time, Green Sheet 1495A4, that requires quarterly reports on the navigation team's activities.

There's a range of metrics that are the first section, or section A, of the schedules and subjects that are, that are part of the every single quarterly report, things such as the number of individuals that were referred to shelter.

That list is basically continued with some additions such as there is now data on how many individuals actually arrive at that shelter within 48 hours.

So that data point is added to the list.

And then the remaining items were specific to each quarter and they varied according to responses that had been requested generally as a result analysis done by the Office of the City Auditor.

The quarterly reports in this budget action are updated to reflect the status of current conversations, things such as completion of the racial equity toolkit that is currently underway, or in light of the information on the number of individuals that arrive at shelter, steps that are being taken to increase that number, and other types of reporting, so it's updating.

Great.

Thank you.

Can I just ask a follow-up question on that?

My understanding is that this proviso does not stop actions or stop the effort to restructure the team and refocus on what we're trying to do to get more people into shelter.

She's not stopping or asking to stop in January the work that the NAV team is doing.

rather, that at the end of the March there will be a report that will continue, or do I misunderstand?

No, I'd say you're correct.

The requirement just asks, this proviso just imposes reporting requirements, mostly on data.

In some cases, qualitative or quantitative steps that are being taken to work on the navigation team and perhaps respond to recommendations that have been made about it.

There's not, assuming that a report is successfully filed, as it has been during this year, There would not be directives on what type of staffing to do that is still a function that would be under the control of the executive, and there would not be a reduction in funding.

Each submission of a report does not require council action.

Instead, submitting it as a clerk file would release the funding for the subsequent quarter.

That's the structure that was done in the 19 adopted budget with 1495A4.

Thank you, Council Member O'Brien, did you have?

Just to confirm, this is basically continuing what we've been doing this year?

Yes.

And it's, from my perspective, I think it's been working great, so I'm fully supportive of this.

Council Member Gonzalez?

I was gonna ask a similar question, is that this entire past year, 2019, a similar, if not the same exact proviso has been in place, is that correct?

I'd characterize it as similar because I have updated, but yes.

It's been updated in terms of additional categories of information?

Exactly.

There were some pieces of auditor actions that had been requested by a certain date that a full year ago had not arrived.

They've now arrived, and so different items are now the focus of further action.

But in terms of the mechanism and the impact of this proviso, it is exactly the same as the proviso that currently exists now.

Yes, that's correct.

Okay.

So really this is just an effort to continue to ensure that that reporting is being done to the City Council in a transparent and publicly available way.

Yes.

Okay.

So I think, you know, I think this proviso has been gravely mischaracterized in the media and the public narrative.

And really what I think is important for folks to understand is that setting aside some of the ongoing questions that I and other council members on this dais have about what the intended goal I think this is an important mechanism to continue to get that data to be able to allow us as the oversight body, as the legislative department to really be able to evaluate the data from a perspective of understanding and being able to critically evaluate whether the purported and stated goals of the navigation team are being fulfilled.

And so I think it's an important accountability mechanism.

It's an important oversight mechanism.

But for the requirement that currently exists to have this information and data provided to us, we would really be in the dark.

as it relates to, and the public consequently would be in the dark as it relates to what the activities of the navigation team are or are not.

So I think this is a measured approach.

I don't think it answers the ultimate questions that have been posed by some of us who've been critical of the navigation team, but I do think that it's at a minimum an accountability mechanism that is really important to me to be able to continue to move forward on these efforts.

Thank you for that.

I have a question that I want to ask sort of broadly and generally, but let's vote on this and then I'll come back to it.

Those that want to add your name as a co-sponsor to item 34, raise your hand.

Okay, very good.

Here's my question before we move on to item 35. And first I want to acknowledge and say thanks to a number of our friends who include Lisa Dugard leading the way here with GSBA and some of the BIAs including Soto and Ballard and Chinatown International District.

And DSA and our alliance for Pioneer Square, who have come together and sent us a letter.

I just received this.

Apparently you've got it.

And one of the things that they acknowledge is that there is really a need to come together both to reassess what the NAV team is doing and at the same time supporting LEAD.

The first entire page is supporting LEAD and all of the work that they're doing.

And you mentioned something yesterday, Council Member Gonzalez, because I had raised the issue about calling the roundtable to help get these people at, you know, together and talk to us about what they wanted to see.

And you said something that it was already underway or you were concerned about duplication.

Did I misunderstand?

Oh, yeah, no, I've, yeah, so the part of the slide that we pulled together last year to really work on realignment of the criminal justice system also called for a plan on revamping and creating a new functional criminal justice coordinating committee.

And so I was flagging my personal need to get more information from you about what you were envisioning as it relates to pulling together a roundtable that has some intersection in that space to make sure that we weren't duplicating efforts or creating two different entities that were going to result in some siloing.

There's an effort to create efficiency and sort of a one-stop shop for those things, then I think that would be an ideal and very efficient scenario as opposed to having this roundtable focusing on these niche projects and having a different roundtable that might have the same membership working on bigger, broader issues.

And we've done that.

A bajillion times and it never works.

Right, exactly.

And so I concur with you.

We don't want to duplicate, I don't want to silo, but I do want to acknowledge something that I really appreciate and that's with this cross-section of people that signed this letter willing to come and talk with us about, first of all, supporting LEAD and acknowledging that having more housing is important to them as well.

And then as Councilmember Sawant had said, with the idea of really focusing on what is working in the NAV team and what is not, us being able to bring the community together and say, all right, what we need to do is really have a whole lot more housing to have the support that we are of LEAD to make sure that the individuals are getting the person-centered treatment that they need.

So I love it that the community is coming together and supporting the direction we're going.

emphasize that I'm thankful for that, thankful for your leadership around the criminal justice reform needs that we have and move forward with this.

And just acknowledge once again the work that Don Blakeney on DSA and Lisa Dugard with our public defenders and the lead work is doing.

Those are really the leaders in my world then and are bringing the other community members along and I appreciate that.

Okay.

Next item, we have, starting on item number 35, and I know Council President Harrell has an airplane to catch, so I'm hopeful that we can get through at least to the end of 38. And so we can move forward.

Madam Chair, if I may propose and as long as there's no objection from the council members for want, item 35 HOM 16A1 and item 36 HOM 17A1, the gist of those two items is basically exactly the same.

They both add approximately just a little bit less than 1.3 million dollars in general fund which includes $558,000 in one-time funding to HSD to develop mobile bathroom facilities.

The only difference is that some rounding was used in one of the proposals, whereas it was not in the other.

Both of these proposals would purchase and then provide operating costs to staff five mobile restroom units, and these restroom units would have both two toilets, as well as a needle exchange, facilities to dispose of pet waste, and these would be mobile units, and as I said, they'd be staffed.

The first was proposed by Councilmember Sawant, the second by Councilmember Herbold.

Great, and I support this, and I want you to explain to the public what the pile of poo behind your head is.

Now we're being so happy to have a pile of poo next to us.

What are you saying?

It's not you, Council Member Warren.

No, no, no, no, no, this, this, no, no, we're good, we're good.

You're talking about me, I mean, I'll be good.

And that end of the dais.

Stop, so flustered.

Back to the point here, Council Member Sawant, you're in the lead.

I know.

So, yeah, Jeff, actually, I was going to suggest myself that maybe we should just vote together on this because there's really no difference other than the rounding difference.

And this is something that we should thank Real Change and other organizations who are advocating for it, so many community members who are also here today.

And we are accompanied by our pool balloons and also Baby Vera, who's really excited about mobile pit stops.

And the idea is for this program to be run publicly by the city.

The city will buy the trucks, the specialized bathrooms on trucks, and the city will drive and service them, so that it will also mean some public sector unionized jobs.

And I think just one other point I'll add, which we have all acknowledged on the dais before, is that obviously the most emergent need is for homeless individuals who have no other access to bathroom ever in the city for them to have this.

But I think everybody can sympathize it because is there any human being who didn't need to go to the bathroom and didn't have the bathroom you know, access.

Everybody's been through that.

So, I support it.

Yeah.

Good.

Thank you.

And Council Member Sawant and Council Member Herbold in absentia here.

And all of our Real Change friends, thank you so much.

I think we got started on this years ago and it hasn't gone anywhere until you got these silly balloons out.

Seriously, when I was in San Francisco, I think it's been three years now, and seeing what they've done with their mobile pit stops as well as the ones that they have.

I think they've got 14 or 15 of them now that are actually in place.

water department, which is an equivalent of our Seattle Public Utilities, went around and said, where are we spending the most time cleaning up?

And they identified sites, and then they actually built places that are managed by individuals.

And the people who are managing them are generally people who have come back from prison, they're reentry jobs, but they get something on their resume and they are able to have experience that they can then have something to say, you know, nobody wants to do this probably for much longer.

than a few months, but they've got something that they can then call and say, I've done this, and I showed up on time, and I did my work.

And these particular ones in San Francisco also have places to drop their needle drops.

They can get pet bags.

There are waste baskets for people to put what they need to put on the outside, and hand washing facilities on the inside.

Huge public health, everything that you're talking about.

So, I'm going to recommend we move forward with this.

Any other comments anybody wants to make?

All right.

Those who would like to add your name to items 35 and 36 as a co-sponsor, raise your hand.

Great.

Good.

Yeah.

Thank you so much.

And after we get to the end of session two, council members, I'm going to ask if we could pull the balloon down because I can't see council member.

We will take the balloon.

We will take the balloon and return it to the wheelchair folks.

Excellent.

To baby Vera.

She wants her balloon back.

Item number 37 is HOM 18A1.

It adds $374,517 general fund to HSD for rapid rehousing services for Native individuals, Alaskan Natives and Native Americans and imposes a proviso.

As I mentioned at the time when we discussed HOM 10A1, the gist of these two council budget actions is the same.

with a focus on a certain population.

However, this council budget action would focus, would provide funding only for rapid rehousing services, whereas the earlier action that was discussed provided an array of other services as well.

Good.

Council Member Gonzalez, do you want to explain?

Explain yourself.

I don't have anything further to add.

I think we're all familiar with this project.

We're familiar with the folks who do this work.

And I trust that the chair will be able to reconcile how to thread the needle here to be able to meet the needs of this, the critical needs of this population.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Council Member Wallace, you want to add?

I just want to thank Councilmember Gonzalez for always being so calm and level-headed and our discussions about this community and how we move forward and how we shelter them.

Obviously, I would not be supporting this amendment because it's one piece of a bigger piece, which I previously discussed back in number 29 or whatever.

So, like as Councilmember Gonzalez said, I think we all know the issue in front of us.

Thank you.

So, would this be subsumed by the one that we've already voted on?

I think so.

Okay.

So we have a couple of different ways to approach here and I would defer to the process gurus over there.

We can either just take a pass on this one and have it pulled knowing that it's been subsumed in Councilmember Juarez's proposal or we can to call for a note of sponsorship.

Call for a vote.

What did you say earlier about nobody turns down free money?

I'm not going to say no to money.

Okay.

So I'd like to just, Madam Chair, if I may just weigh in.

I like Council Member Gonzalez's idea if we can just take a pass on this since we all agree that this is all assumed in 29. Is that okay?

It's all right by me.

I don't have an introduction to that.

I think, Jeff, my reading is accurate that this is subsumed in item number 29, right?

That's correct.

Yeah.

Okay, good.

I was just trying to create options for you, Chair Bagshaw, in the event that you didn't want to give Council Member Juarez everything she asked for.

Thank you, that's really nice.

No, Council Member Juarez gets everything she asked for, the rest of us don't.

Okay, the item number 38.

Item 38 is HOM 50A1, it adds $115,000 from the general fund to SPU.

Okay, so this is Council Member Herbold's item?

Yes, I can explain this item.

Brian, good night, Council Central staff.

So this budget action would add $115,000 to Seattle Public Utilities, or SPU, to expand the encampment trash program through partnership with a non-profit provider.

As a reminder, the 2020 proposed budget maintains the 2019 service level for this program, which allows services at up to 10 sites at any given time for a total cost of approximately $250,000.

Partnering with a nonprofit provider is intended to create a more efficient expansion than would be possible with city staffing alone.

And for this effort, the partner should be able to identify feasible sites for the program, explain the gist of the program and how it works, distribute the purple bags used by the program, monitor participating sites, and also communicate effectively with SPU staff.

And as you mentioned, this proposal is sponsored by Council Member Herbold.

Okay.

In her absence, does anybody want to add anything?

Seeing no comments, I'm going to ask those of you who would like to add your name as a co-sponsor to this, raise your hand.

Well done.

Okay, we have just come to the end of session one at 12.13.

Thank you all for hanging in here.

We're going to be at recess.

Those who are here for public comment, we will take public comment at the end of the day.

We will reconvene at 2 o'clock.

Thanks everybody for coming and colleagues again for your attention to this.

Thank you.