Seattle City Council Civil Rights, Utilities, Economic Development & Arts Committee 62519

Good morning and welcome to the June 25th meeting of the Civil Rights, Utilities, Economic Development, and Arts Committee.

My name is Lisa Herbold.

I'm the Chair of the Committee and Councilmember representing West Seattle and South Park District 1. I'm joined by Councilmembers Sawant and O'Brien.

and it is 9.39 a.m.

On our agenda today, we will start with public comment and then move into the two items of business on the agenda.

Appointment, a reappointment to the LGBTQ Commission and a briefing from the Human Services Department on the Navigation Team Second Quarter Proviso Report.

No objections, I will move adoption of the agenda.

Second.

All in favor, aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

The agenda is approved.

So yes, we can start with public comment.

No public comments lined up for today.

All right, great.

So then first item of business.

Then item one is appointment 01376, appointment of Byron Simpson as member, Seattle LGBTQ Commission for a term to April 30, 2021. Great.

Thank you.

Join us at the table, please.

Welcome, let's start with some quick introductions.

I'm Erica Pablo from the Seattle Office for Civil Rights.

I'm Dimitri Gross, Legislative Aid for Councilmember Lisa Herbold.

Thank you.

Erica, if you might start with just a quick overview of the commission, what it does for our viewing public.

Great.

So yeah, I staff the Seattle LGBTQ Commission.

And their job is to advise city council, the mayor, and city departments on issues pertaining to the LGBTQ community.

This week is the last week of Pride.

And so the commission and the city contingent will be participating in the Pride parade on Sunday.

Trans Pride is on Friday.

So the commission will be tabling there.

and trying to encourage folks to apply for the commission.

Fantastic.

And Byram is a council reappointment.

So, Dimitri, you want to say a few words?

Correct.

Byram, unfortunately, cannot be here to accept this reappointment, but up until now, Byram has served a two-year term on behalf of council commission.

They are currently working at youth care, and their interests span from therapeutic provision for youth and young adults experiencing homelessness, And they would like to continue to serve in the capacity of the LGBTQ commission, particularly focusing on housing and affordability that impacts queer and transgender people and people of color.

And that's why they're excited for this appointment.

All right, great.

Thank you.

And Byram is actually a reappointment.

The agenda and the clerk file does not reflect that.

So I will move to amend appointment 1376, the appointment title itself, by removing the word appointment and replacing it with the word reappointment.

All those in favor of the amendment, aye.

Aye.

None opposed.

None abstaining.

And if there are no objections, I will move appointment 13 to 76. All those in favor, vote aye.

Aye.

None opposed.

None abstaining.

And we can let Byram know that their reappointment will move on to full council on Monday.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Agenda item two is navigation team's second quarter proviso report.

I'll do a short little intro.

Thanks.

We're playing musical chairs.

That's all right.

Everybody get their comfortable seats in their orders.

We'll do a quick round of introductions and then Jeff Sims with Central Staff will do an introduction to the issue.

Jeff Sims, Council of Central Staff.

Tiffany Washington, Human Services Department.

Polly Peters, Human Services Department.

Will Lemke, Human Services Department.

Thank you.

The report we're going to be discussing today is the second response that HSD has sent in response to green sheet 1495A4.

That was the green sheet that provided funding for the navigation team.

There is proviso in that calling for a set of data to be reported quarterly as well as some follow ups on the report prepared by the city auditor.

For further context on that, the city auditor's report was first prepared in November of 2017. It outlined a series of checkpoints, as they referred to them, or areas to obtain further information regarding the navigation team.

There have been a series of responses from HSD and also further reports analyzing those responses or expounding on them.

that the city auditor's office has also completed, that continued over last year.

And then this latest quarterly report in response to the green sheet, as well as the one that was provided in January, continue to ask HSD for certain metrics or certain checkpoints to be responded to.

In general, just to cover the data that was submitted, HSD will go into the details of it to set a little historical context.

Across the majority of domains, you see a decrease in outcomes or measurements, and that includes removals, which are down 35 percent, referrals to shelter, which are approximately half the number from this comparable time last year, and also the number of contacts made, which are approximately half.

That likely has stems not only from policy changes or approaches, but also because during the winter snowstorm, which was during the period that we're covering, all removals were suspended and the navigation team was focusing on activities on making connections with individuals to bring them into shelter from the weather.

Thank you.

And so this report will cover about about a dozen different data points.

You can see them on page three of HSD's report, ranging from total number of contacts made quarterly to updates on new shelter resources that have come online.

And then further, we'll hear a little bit about as Jeff mentioned, the checkpoints that the city auditor has identified along with HSD and their progress to addressing some of those recommendations.

And with that, I'll let you kick it off.

Great, thanks.

So I just want to emphasize that the 2019 proviso is a combination of new reporting on performance metrics and revisits the auditor's 2017 observations of the team.

FAS, where the program used to reside in HSD, have been responding to the auditor's recommendations for two years now.

In that time frame, a lot of things have changed, which makes reporting challenging.

And there are a dozen of checkpoints, as the council member described, that we could discuss during the presentation, but we're just going to focus on key data points and proviso checkpoints.

So, there we go.

The Q1 data in the Q2 report is what we'll be talking about today.

We submitted this report on May 16, and just want to call out that consistent quarterly reporting is new for the NAV team.

So we were reporting in the past, but it wasn't consistently in every quarter.

So jumping into the performance metrics for January through March of 2019, what we see is the individuals engaged, the 731 individuals engaged, are unique people that the team talked to and interacted with.

The contacts are the number of conversations that have occurred.

It's individual people who can be contacted multiple times or just once.

So the difference between, One and two is one is unique, and two could be duplicate.

And then the referrals to shelter are unique individuals that accepted a referral.

Those are referrals.

Go ahead.

The referrals number is the number of referrals, so it could be multiple referrals to one person.

The actual number of referrals is 208?

203. 203 is the actual number of people that got referred.

So 18 or so of those received multiple referrals.

Thank you.

Referrals come from the police officers on the NAV team or from the REACH team?

Correct.

And do we have a breakdown on that or do we know?

We do not have that breakdown right now.

That is something we're currently trying to integrate into the tracking system.

And one of the things that we talked about during the budget process was figuring out what we can do to learn more about the outcome of those referrals.

You can only know what is able to be reported by or what is reported by the shelter receiving the referral, but have we done anything to try to ascertain the numbers of people that we're referring that actually accept the shelter referral that they've been given.

Yeah, with the added capacity with the data analysts, we're able to now use a little HMIS data to see those that were referred, if they actually kind of enrolled in a shelter and how long that is.

It's a little more complex because those that often don't consent, it's hard to tell if they go into.

So we are in the middle of doing that and going through 2019 and looking and trying to get all of that, basically the code to match those.

So we are in the process and hope to have that later this year.

But if someone doesn't consent, of course.

Correct.

And we're trying to figure out what that percentage would be so we can have a larger picture for you.

But I'm assuming that if we are counting it as a referral, at least at that level, they are consenting.

They are consenting to accept the referral.

Correct.

What happens between receiving the referral and the shelter itself is a whole other ballgame.

But still, it's important for us to know of the referrals that you give, how many people actually end up in a better place than where they were staying previous to the encampment removal.

Yes.

So this next slide is a gender breakdown, and it's up here just to show that we're capturing the data, but it's too early to analyze any trends here.

Same with the race metrics.

It's too early to define trends and analyze many of the demographic data sets, but what we can see is what is in most data is there's disproportionality.

And then we also want to note that the race and ethnicity categories are set by HUD.

And so when you say it's too early to analyze this data to come to any conclusions, can you just talk a little bit more about what you mean?

Like is it sample size that makes it more able to be analyzed?

And if so, what is that number?

I think what we're wanting to see is the continuation of those that are engaged and seeing some equity around there.

And then, of course, those that actually receive the referrals and then, as you mentioned, actually stay in a shelter.

So part of this is that longer-term analysis we're doing for this year of seeing who actually stays at a shelter and if there's disproportionality possibly in getting folks to shelter.

And these numbers...

Do these numbers reflect contacts or do they reflect referrals?

Probably contacts.

Contacts.

Okay.

Yes.

And not engage, not people engaged, but contacts.

Correct.

Okay.

Correct.

And one milestone we did make that will change this demographic data a little bit from the previous years.

is that we've changed the practice to now not marking perceived race or gender, gender identity, which was happening before.

And so you'll see there's a little bit more data not collected, and that's intentional, that it's not folks that are identifying other folks as a particular race or ethnicity.

So we're really truly trying to have them identify themselves and not have any perceptions.

Okay, so what you see on this slide is that enhanced shelters and tiny house villages remain the most attractive shelter resources for people living unsheltered.

I think we all know that.

It's not shocking.

What we are finding, though, is that tiny house villages are generally full on a daily basis.

So there's often more enhanced shelters available than tiny homes.

The 28% referral rate is for unique individuals, not all referrals made.

So when you refer to people who eventually accept a referral to shelter, how are you quantifying that term, eventually?

It just means that they could have been contacted, engaged 50 times before accepting shelter.

Because the contact category is duplicative.

So is there a number, like an average number of times?

Was it 8 to 10 or something like that?

Yeah, that's older data.

We don't have that specifically boiled down to how many direct contacts there are, but formally we did report on that, but moving into the HSD reporting format, that isn't the metric that we're reporting out on, but we could make a calculation.

But it's reasonable to assume that of this 28% that eventually accepted a referral to shelter, some of them accepted a referral the day that it was offered.

So it would help to know what range that eventually is and maybe get a sense of what percentage are accepting shelter when it's offered.

how, you know, what the average number of engagements is that is necessary in order to get people into shelter.

Council Member Sawant.

Thank you, Chair Herbold.

On your, on the performance metrics, I mean, all of this is your presentation on performance metrics.

I'm not sure, especially on your slide where you first talk about performance metrics, I'm not sure if you can pull that up.

I mean, I have separate questions about the race and social justice analysis, but just overall, and again, this is not a new thing.

But it's troubling to me that it continues to be this way that we're in comparison to virtually every other service that the city contracts with who are required to have actual metrics in terms of transitions to permanent housing.

How is it that the navigation team always presents stuff like this where individual people engaged, contacts made?

I mean, honestly, it doesn't tell me anything.

What does it mean?

Like, what happened?

Was it a contact experience where the homeless person actually, whether the services that were offered to them were something that they were able to accept or not, that's a different question, but was it a friendly experience in the first place?

We have no idea.

I mean, this is very, very opaque, and I appreciate you making an effort to address the proviso requirements, but I just don't think this is enough.

It has to go much, much deeper.

I mean, in addition to the points that Chair Herbold already made, I think you have to explain what does it mean, individual people engaged, contacts made.

I mean, these are just words in my view.

And then the other thing that I'm concerned about is When you say, I understand how you explain the difference between the individual people engaged and contacts made in that the individual people engaged metric is like unique people, individuals, but it's only unique as to a given sweep, right?

It's not, you can't tell me that it's unique in the sense that some of the same encampments are swept over and over and over again.

So in that sense, this number is not capturing unique in the sense that probably they have been those individuals have been swept before.

And I would request you to say that that's not true because I know it's true.

In my own committee, I've had homeless individuals who have told us that, have told the council that they are same in camp and is swept over and over again.

So they would show up again and again and again.

So I'm not even sure, even if this first metric was in any way useful to me, which it is not, I still don't think it is unique in that sense.

And I think that continuum needs to be analyzed because if the same person is being swept over and over again without ever any solution being provided to them, then what are we achieving by spending money over and over again on the sweeps?

Do you know what I mean?

So I think you also have to have metrics on How many times the same people have been swept?

Like, keep a record of that.

Keep a record of the same encampment.

For example, the Ravenna encampment.

How many times has the, I know it has been swept at least five or six times because that's, I'm saying five or six because this was a year ago when we had them in our committee.

They've probably been swept again.

And also, I think we have to have a rigorous, requirement to trace transitions to permanent housing because otherwise it's skewed.

You know, you're having, you're asking other services to provide that metric, but you're not using that metric for your own service.

I don't think that provides us, it's like, you know, scientifically speaking, we don't want to compare apples to oranges.

We want to have the same metrics across the board.

And I'm fine that you're including these metrics, but you also have to include the metrics by which other services are having to comply with.

And then one other question I had.

before the racial and social justice stuff is, can you explain what has happened with REACH?

My understanding is, actually, why don't, is it okay if we have Jeff just quickly explain what we believe has happened, and then, sure.

So can I answer the first question, and then I want Ali to answer the second, and then we'll go to REACH.

So you bring up a really good point in terms of the continuum, which is why we actually don't prefer to take a program out of the continuum and do a presentation just on the program, because it doesn't make sense.

So there's a homeless continuum and outreach is a piece of the homelessness continuum.

And so we have how many agencies contracted for outreach?

Urban League, Youth Care, Chief Seattle Club, we have 15 outreach agencies.

None of them are paid or measured on exits to permanent housing.

They're paid on the same thing that the NAV team outreach is paid for, which is number of contacts and number of referrals to shelter.

So you think of it as a baton.

So then they pass the baton to the shelter and They get the people in the door.

Once they're in the door, then that shelter is responsible to get that person into permanent housing along with case management.

And so when you present the NAV team outreach separate from all of the data that you had referred to when you said you saw the whole continuum, it is very confusing because it shouldn't be.

I agree with what you said, but the continuum I was referring to was the sweeps themselves, like how many times is the same person swept over and over again?

That's totally different from a service like Chief Seattle Club actually offering shelter.

So Chief Seattle Club is an outreach provider, so they go out and...

On page 8 of the report, it does say,

that all HSD-funded outreach contracts require tracking and reporting on the same performance commitment stamps, and it includes exits of households that enter permanent housing.

So it is a reporting criteria, but then you go on to say that, well, that's what it says in the HSD response.

It just might be a context.

So sometimes we have outreach agencies that are also shelters.

And so they report.

It does say that no outreach provider has the ability to track data on outright service refusals, but it clearly says that a percentage of households that enter permanent housing is a data point.

And it's my understanding from some advocacy that I did a couple months ago that it, with REACH and with CCS, that it is actually a data point.

And we can send you a contract, Jeff, an outreach contract.

You won't find exits to permanent housing in that.

Actually, the attachment to the HSD RFP that competed for outreach agencies, that's correct.

It does not list exits to permanent housing.

It focuses on referrals and outreach contracts made just for the outreach providers.

There might have been an error here.

I think it's an error.

There was a cut and paste or something, but other contracts are actually provided to do that.

And I can follow up with the attachment to the RFP, which is what all grantees that received contracts, pretty much all of our contracts are.

I just want to be clear that this is what all outreach captures.

It doesn't tell a full picture.

I think what I hear you saying and what Allie was trying to say is we have to figure out a way when we have a non-consent law, as we should, how to then tie who went to permanent housing how someone went through the whole continuum from start to finish.

And it's just something that's nuanced, but I think that's what I'm hearing is like, what's the story of a person?

Did one of these people end up in permanent housing?

Are they better off because of what happened at the beginning?

And so do you want to talk about duplicates in, I think your question council member was, it doesn't tell you how many people were removed over and over from an encampment.

Was that your?

Or from an encampment, because my understanding is that the returns to the same location.

But even otherwise, it would be even better if we track the individuals by name, so that even if they ended up going to a different encampment in the future, then you have a track record of that as well.

And that is one of the things we are starting to do in 2019 is we've kind of always had identifiers for those that we see on a regular basis.

So we are able to unduplicate those.

In the instance where they're not willing to give names or we don't have a clear identifier of who they are, they may get counted a couple times.

But in our system as it is, when they have a meaningful contact with someone and get information, then that person is in our system by a name.

And then the next time they see them, they will attach that, the next engagement contact with them to that record.

So we are able to dig down into actually unduplicating and seeing how many times, which is I wrote down, how many times people are contacted at various places.

We can add that to our analysis and start looking.

Yeah, I think that's very important.

And then reach.

Sure.

Previously, I would say to this time last year, REACH was contracted to provide outreach services for the navigation team, and they had approximately eight case managers that would go both when there was a 72-hour notice provided for an encampment to be removed and on the days that an encampment would actually be removed.

And then the change that has happened over the last few weeks, I would say, is that REACH no longer has outreach staff that come on the day that a sweep is actually taking place.

They would only come to an encampment when a 72-hour notice is provided.

Increasingly, if you do comparisons this year to last year, more encampments are not receiving that 72-hour notice, which means that REACH is not engaging with those encampments.

Instead, as was shared a few weeks ago, Rather than taking the funds provided in the budget to expand REACH's contract and have even more outreach staff, HSD has hired two people directly that they describe as system navigators, and those navigators come on the day that an actual encampment removal takes place and are performing the type of outreach services that ETS REACH would have provided previously.

So it's honoring REACH's request, which I think is reasonable having been an outreach worker, which is they don't want to be associated on the day of.

because their credibility of an outreach worker is key.

And so they want to do all of the pre-outreach, but on the day of the clean, they've requested continuously to not be present.

And so we've hired two people to be present so that they don't have to be.

So but what that effectively means, since there are very few 72-hour cleans happening anymore, that REACH isn't doing that body of work.

So REACH is both a part of outreach specifically for the NAV team and outreach generally.

No, I know they're still doing outreach.

I'm saying as it relates to the NAV team's work, since there are very few 72-hour cleans being done, reach is very engaged in a very small way with NAB team's work at this point.

It doesn't, so I understand what you're trying to ask.

It doesn't work that way.

There's a population of unsheltered individuals, right, that all outreach is responsible to engage with regularly.

So we can't make a hypothesis of how much reach is talking to somebody that a NAB team member is eventually going to ask to move.

I wasn't suggesting that Reach is not engaging with individuals separate from the navigation team's work.

I'm saying that they're not engaged in the nav team because the nav team isn't doing very many 72-hour sweeps any longer.

So yes, in the course of the outreach work that they do, they will come into contact and engage with people that the NAB team determines on a separate track is an encampment that is slated for removal.

I'm not questioning that.

Yeah, no, I hear you.

I feel like it's a fine line, and it could possibly set up a narrative that's confusing.

So it's not that clean.

If I could add, so REACH still is meeting with the NAV team on a daily and weekly basis.

They are still working with the NAV team to do advanced outreach to sites, sites that either are going to be prioritized for removal or sites that they are just visiting a part of their continuum work.

So they're very much still making contacts.

Those contacts are still going to be reflected in these data sets.

They're just not going to be there on the day of a 72-hour clean.

So for instance, let's just take an example.

the troll knoll, which I think it got a lot of publicity.

They would still be, in this hypothesis, they would still be responsible for doing the outreach beforehand.

So in the weeks leading up to it, they would still be doing those visits.

And then in the 72-hour window, they'd still be doing visits.

The day of, the system navigator should be there in case individuals want to take up an offer of shelter or service.

I'm just simply saying that the majority of the navigation team removals are not the types of removals that you're describing.

They're not ones where there's multiple days of outreach.

They're removals that people are given 30 minutes notice, and there is no advance notice from REACH.

So you're talking about two different things.

So the first thing is, you're saying that there's not, there are less 72-hour cleans, which I heard you say, than there were at this time last year.

I don't know if that's true.

I can have Ali check that.

That's correct.

Yeah, about 95%.

have a direct bearing on outreach or not outreach.

So I'm trying to...

you're making two points and you're combining them together and they're not necessarily combined together.

So I'm trying to understand...

I don't understand.

could just rephrase a little bit kind of what Tiffany is saying, and is that Reach's concept is that they want to cover the region.

So when an accessibility or right-of-way does come in, because there's less time, that Reach has already been there.

Correct.

So I think that, yes, they do have a focus for the 72 hours.

There are less.

And so the expansion of what we're asking them to cover is larger now.

It's not focused on just 72-hour planning.

It's like, we know that These five areas often have people that come stay there.

We are asking you to go there because if accessibility or right-of-way, you know, clean happens, then they would have had outreach all along.

So, while I agree they're not, there's less 72-hour cleans, we are asking them now to cover a larger base so when something does happen, they have had outreach.

And they have had multiple outreach, and they wanted that opportunity to have meaningful engagements over time, and not just, you know, 72 hours right before it happens, because that's not a really great outreach strategy.

So agreed that the work on 72 hours is less, but we're asking them to do a larger coverage and get everyone possible in areas to ensure that people do get multiple because of the other strategies happening.

I'm trying to understand the specific role of the navigation team.

So REACH does a lot of stuff for the city, the broader outreach.

They work with LEAD in the case of where there is 72-hour notice there.

And so really appreciate the amazing work REACH does.

And when they have the opportunity to do it, they're working with you know, some really challenging conditions, and I think they do do some amazing work.

Will, you said that, you said they'd meet with the navigation team, you said daily, weekly.

All right.

Which one is it?

Wednesdays, there's a dispatch meeting, which I know that they attend, because I attend those meetings as well.

Formally, I believe it was daily, I just can't

I was just at dispatch this morning, and there is reach.

There is always a reach person there.

Got it.

So they're part of that team in the communication.

Every day, because they know the people.

On the planning side, and so folks can ask the questions.

Okay, that's helpful to know.

My understanding of some of the theories of change around, and maybe I'm using the term theory of change incorrectly here, but of how the navigation team was working historically was a couple things that were going on.

One is that there was, and we're going back a few years here, but they would identify specific places for whatever reason that really decided people shouldn't be here.

For a while, it was right along the side of freeways that were saying, we cannot have people here.

And there was a commitment that we need to have really good shelter options for people when we do that.

Now, when you're in a moment and a new tiny house village opens up, and a new low barrier shelter opens up, and there's a new permanent supportive housing open up, you have a range of options.

You walk into a site like that.

you give the notice, reaches there, people have a variety of housing options and hopefully there's lots of good fits there and people, you know, when that works, that works really well, is my sense.

Not perfectly, there's still people that will refuse and aren't ready, there's a variety of reasons.

But the moments when we have multiple good shelter options are pretty rare, at least for a large population.

And so it feels like the navigation team I'm not exactly sure what's driving it.

It's shifted from this kind of targeted model to much more where we're just...

I feel like we're back on our heels a bit, and we're constantly going back and sweeping places, mostly that we're declaring as emergencies.

I can't quite tell if the definition has shifted over the last year or two, or if it's just that there's a certain area, you know, the sidewalk in front of wherever, it just keeps getting repopulated, and we come back every three days, and just, you know, it's a game we're playing of cat and mouse.

But, and I get what Reach says, you know, we can't engage productively in that thing, and you guys are making your decisions on what you're doing.

But it does feel like the resources we're spending on these issues, it doesn't feel like it's working.

And I'm wondering, when we look at the system, is it like, no, this actually is working, and here's the theory.

And what we find is the seventh time you see people sidewalk, they don't come back, and here's how we manage that.

Or is there something else going on?

Do you want to add, Council Member Sawant, do you want me to answer?

No, please go ahead.

I see the NAV team still the same way that you described it from before.

The NAV team can only go out and do 72-hour cleans if there's viable shelter options open.

And so, yes, the number of shelter beds that people want to go to dictate whether or not they can go out, how many 72-hour cleans they can do.

Got it.

So we've got an average of 17 shelter beds available on a daily basis.

And we know that we've invested in building more shelter capacity, but yet we're underperforming on successful shelter referrals.

Is there a lesson to be learned?

about balancing investments in new shelter beds, and specifically enhanced shelter, because as we've seen before, the acceptance of shelter is much greater when there is availability in enhanced shelter, as well as, I believe, tiny house villages.

The acceptance rate is higher if there are tiny house villages and enhanced shelter.

Say that again?

The acceptance rate is higher if there's tiny house villages and enhanced shelter.

So are we using that knowledge to come up with a plan to continue investment in more enhanced shelter in tiny villages?

Yeah.

So there's another.

We're in conversations with the executive office right now about the ability to switch any basic shelter to enhanced, which is we did a lot with the path to 500 and we stretched people, service providers to their limit.

And so we're doing another look through to see is there five beds, two beds, one like what could we do to transition basic shelter to enhanced shelter?

Some of them, building restrictions are a barrier.

It's just not possible.

Other ones, scattered sites, like Sharon, like church shelters can't be, so that I think the stock of basic shelter has dropped tremendously.

So that's on the converting existing basic shelter, what about, yeah.

I don't have any information on building new enhanced shelter at this time.

Have you guys heard anything?

Couple thousand shelter beds slash Tiny house village slots slash even tenant cam and slots to it with the population the universe there So I just want to provide a point of clarity here The 17 figure is just the 17 beds safer spaces figure that's only for navigation team set aside So those are only for places that the navigation team refers to exclusively.

So that's like First Presbyterian Navigation Center your tiny house villages that does not reflect the entire And I'm not prepared to speak about the vacancy rates there.

I didn't come prepared with that.

But the 17 figure is basically what the navigation team has at their fingertips on a daily basis.

I believe you're asking what's our total capacity of enhanced basic shelters and tiny house villages together, all those beds on a given night.

I want to say that it's in the 2,000s.

It's somewhere like mid or low 2,000.

Yeah, that's consistent with.

And so I appreciate, Will, the clarification of this number 17. The point I wanted to make was trying to get a sense of how much vacancy do we have in that system.

And my sense is that vacancy is incredibly low.

17 is only the navigation team.

There are probably other vacancies outside of it.

So my math is going to be not correct.

But 17 out of 2,000 is less than 1%.

Less than 1% vacancy and, you know, trying to, you know.

a hotel professionally managed with online booking systems and credit cards can't manage to less than 1%.

Effectively, it's at capacity.

Again, although if you want to tell me there's a couple hundred beds outside of the system that are available.

And I can only imagine that it's, yeah.

There aren't a lot of resources on the back end, which makes it hard for the navigation team to go out and do the 72-hour encampment sweeps and offer people good solutions when we can't bring them on.

And so, you know, I know a big effort with those shelter systems is throughput and to get people into housing.

And so then as soon as we do that, there's a bed open.

The room is ready to turn.

The bed is ready to turn.

It gets back in the system, and it fills up probably right away.

But you make a good point.

I did work at a hotel.

I worked at Embassy Suites.

when I was in college.

Even the most sophisticated system, they mess up.

People show up and they've overbooked, right, because they're banking on a percentage, and they have two, three databases doing that for them.

And so your statement earlier about the navigation team's work being dependent on there being available shelter beds to refer people to, is that only for the 72-hour removals, or is that also for the obstruction removals?

Both have referrals, but I think when you have instructions in right away, it's about the stuff, not the person.

So the person doesn't have to leave, but they can't have an entire sidewalk blocked so that people, pedestrians, have to step into the street, as I did when I was coming from the train, to get somewhere.

So there doesn't have to be any available shelter beds.

in those instances, but you're not making the person leave, you're only making the stuff go away.

We follow the MDARs and the system navigators and the field coordinators and the outreach workers try to make sure that they offer everybody, no matter what, whether it's 72 hour or obstructions, offer them a place to go.

I'm saying in those instances that there are, that these 17 average shelter beds that are earmarked for, that they're not available, that there's no, that the vacancy is zero.

you still will go and do those obstruction removals.

We will do obstruction removals, but to Will's point, there's never a situation I haven't encountered in two years where there is not a bed to refer people to.

And that's also one of the reasons why the system navigators were brought on, to be there for an obstruction removal in the event that someone says, hey, I want to go inside.

Hey, I want to get connected to my case manager.

That system navigator is there to make that connection.

And to Tiffany's point right now, I can't recall a time where there was not a single space for someone to go.

City Hall shelter expanded to the second floor.

There's basic shelter beds there.

There is a spot for someone to go.

We will make it happen.

But when it comes to following the MDAR, you are correct where it, you know, the 72-hour removals do have that component where we do need to have the bed set asides.

And I think the way that this body of work is sort of sort of grown is that your larger encampments, which present a whole host of complexities on the people side and logistic sides, those are going to be approached with the 72-hour rules, and then your smaller ones, such as, you know, blocking sidewalks on 4th and Yesler or down on 2nd Avenue, Extension South, that's where you're going to see more of this structural work.

And to Tiffany's point, it's about the stuff.

It's about the stuff blocking.

Okay.

Thank you.

So I would, one thing I just want to mention before we move on is that Jeff mentioned this, but the winter storm data is not reflected in the data sets.

It was an emergency situation and it was about making sure that people were safe inside.

So, this slide is about the auditor recommended that we should track reasons for refusals of service.

Councilmember, I think you mentioned that a couple slides ago.

Most of the data here reflects unknown or other I think not wanting shelter was the most response, that was the most responses that we got for someone declining is not wanting shelter.

So there was 186 total refusals.

We don't know why someone doesn't want shelter other than we don't want shelter or I don't want shelter.

Some other responses we saw was folks don't want to live in a communal space.

They want a specific type of shelter, enhanced most of the time, tiny villages, or they've had a negative experience with shelter and just don't want to go back into the shelter system.

So, is there like a list of reasons that they check when they're trying to get this information?

That is something we've instituted in 2019. So, it took first quarter to kind of get all the database set up and the options and training all the officers and reach staff.

So, we are now collecting more specific data on why.

So, we'll be able to see more as the quarters progress.

Correct.

So just on the question of reasons for refusals of services, obviously as you yourself are noticing through the data, the rate of acceptance for enhanced shelters or tiny home villages is greater than other types of shelters for obvious reasons.

shouldn't the, I think the department should and the mayor's office should be first looking to expand those options before continuing to do this sort of as a matter of routine, doing the sweeps as a matter of routine.

Because I call them sweeps because they are inhumane and ineffective when you don't have somewhere viable to go to.

And viable cannot be defined by the department or the city viable is, what's viable for you as a human being, you know, where can you go with your pet, with your belongings and so on.

And repeatedly homeless community members have told us, as I'm sure you all know already that They don't accept other shelter options because they are temporary.

Often they, you know, sometimes, not often, but at least sometimes we've heard that their belongings are stolen because they have to put them in storage and then there's no, sometimes their livelihoods are, you know, contained in the belongings that they have.

And so if they have a secure place to go to where they can have all their belongings, their family members with them, and if it's a place that actually transitions them into housing and jobs, then it's viable.

So I just want to know, I mean, I know you've said that you're working with the executive, but what exactly, like what's the progress, what's the timeline we should expect this year in terms of expanding those tiny home or enhanced shelter options so that these are no longer sweeps, but actually humane shelter options for people to use and then transition to better conditions.

So I don't have a timeline, but Ali and her team are working on some cost modeling, just looking at how much it would cost for multiple enhanced shelter options.

It's very expensive, but I think we agree with you that it's worth it because people will go inside if they feel like they have some sense of dignity, respect, privacy.

Absolutely, but I would I would urge you to convey to the mayor's office also that you know in terms of expense I mean look at how many millions have been spent on the sweeps and that has not in the absence of actual options for people to transition to it's wasted money.

And so if we're talking about expense, then let's actually put the money where it gives us results rather than doing something that has proven over and over again to not work because it doesn't work for human beings.

So I think I would urge you to use that approach.

And I just want to go back to something around effectiveness.

I do believe that the NAV team is effective for the simple fact that if we're going to ask people to move on to have some sort of humane arm there or staff there to be there for them when asking them to move on and providing services, case management, and shelter options.

It is effective.

I think that what you just brought up in terms of I think we all agree, the executive agrees and I agree, we need more places that people want to go to, but when I drive up and I see Reach out on the street, I see Jackie out there, I see August out there, they're out there sitting down talking to people, and they may not even be able to help them at that moment, as Will had said earlier, but they're always out there talking to people, whether there's going to be a clean or not.

But I do, I don't want to confuse between the the kind of outreach that REACH and other organizations do in terms of just talking to homeless community members, and we do that too.

I mean, I don't have any services to offer, but I will talk to them as human beings.

I don't want to confuse that with the sweeps.

I mean, I would urge you to keep that separate.

And I'm not talking about REACH as a waste of resource.

I'm talking about the sweeps as a waste of resource.

And also, to me, it's a strong indicator that, as you yourself said, Tiffany, that REACH does not want to participate on the day off.

because their credibility is on the line.

What does that tell us?

That tells us that homeless community members are unhappy about the sweeps for obvious reasons and reach which has a good reputation with the homeless community members because they have provide a humane approach whether they have services to offer or not.

It's a humane sort of They approach the homeless people from a humane standpoint.

They don't want their own credibility put in question, and so they have dissociated from the day off.

So that, to me, that should be an indication.

I mean, how is it that you're missing all these indications?

And when I say you, really it is directed at the mayor's office.

Obviously, you're working under her directive, so.

I think reach, so Dr. Marshall, who does gang violence prevention in California, has a training called Alive and Free, and it talks about the disease of violence.

And so for those of us who grew up with the disease of violence, which he believes can both be predicted and treated, have traumatic experiences in our past as it pertains to police.

So growing up, I didn't like police.

I didn't know why I didn't like police.

It was because of the disease of violence.

And that was an incorrect...

That was an incorrect characteristic on my part because I needed to be, I needed to heal the trauma so that I can engage with the police officers in a way that was healthy, not negating the fact of things that are going on in society.

REACH doesn't wanna be there on the day of clean, nor do any outreach workers, when I was an outreach worker, because they are very aware that people that live unsheltered, people that are underserved, oftentimes, have trauma as it relates to police.

And so their credibility isn't about we don't want to be around cleans.

The credibility is if clients so-and-so sees that I have a relationship with the police, that might impact their ability to want to talk to me because they think that I may give their name to a police officer or I may do that.

And so I think I just want to be clear about REACH's practice not to be present on the day of clean.

isn't specific to the NAV team or casting judgment on what happens on the day of clean.

It's more about what we are taught as outreach workers pertaining to making sure that we get the trust of those populations that are underserved.

And so it's just...

that I just want to make, they've never said to me, I don't want to be present because I don't believe in cleans.

They're saying, I don't want to be present because I want to reserve my relationship with clients who have had less than positive experiences with the police officer, whether individually or they've experienced it through their families.

I appreciate you giving me that, giving us that information.

That's very helpful.

I do think though that I mean, look, I want to, and I'm sure others want to go by statistical evidence, but I have to say it is stunning to me that anecdotally we have never met anyone who said that, hey, that time when the NAF team came, That was what helped me.

Obviously, I agree with you that it is not straightforward.

We have to follow the person through the continuum, as you said.

I agree with all of that.

But it is troubling to me, given the millions that we're spending on the sweeps, that not one, anecdotally, one person has not happened.

And on the flip side, I've heard countless people talking about the traumatizing experiences they've had.

trauma from childhood or anything like that.

It is ongoing incidences.

So I would urge that we understand that it is not past experiences that are making them feel anxious about it.

It is their ongoing experience.

I'll just leave it at that.

Sorry.

That's okay.

Did you have something that you wanted to add?

I just wanted to add that I think that, you know, it was brought up earlier that we are doing less cleans, the 72 hours.

And some of that is that we are seeing that balance.

So I think that we are recognizing and hearing what you're saying about the people and those that are getting chosen for 72-hour cleans do have purpose.

We had a child going into a site.

We're seeing the numbers decline because we're trying to be more intentional about having places people want to go, and then instead now you're seeing the other right-of-way kind of sidewalks being cleaned because those are now providing dangers for community people walking to work.

And so we're seeing some of that shift.

And I agree that we do need to have a viable place.

And it is a larger systemic thing about all the way up to permanent supportive housing.

So I just want to say I hear you.

And I think that you are seeing the numbers shift some in last 72-hour claims.

And, you know, I think it's interesting to observe the shift in practices and to focus on those true obstructions and hazards.

and reflect back on a piece of legislation that Councilmember O'Brien proposed a couple years ago, which also had a sort of zero-tolerance policy for those types of obstructions.

We had a differentiated I think there's a different definition for parks than what you're using.

I think Councilmember O'Brien, your proposed ordinance focused on active uses of parks where you're not making that distinction, but the enforcement approach as far as where the city could be expected to be doing immediate removals is awfully similar to what we were talking about then.

reaction that people have to the presence of police in this work.

And so I just want to highlight once again our ongoing conversation that we had yesterday in my office as well as at this table back in February on undertaking the staffing assessment including looking at the inclusion of uniform patrol police officers as part of the navigation team.

And I look forward to continuing to work with you on completing that data point that was due in August of last year.

It is really important, I think, to us to, as it relates specifically to the cost of the navigation team and analyzing, again, the dollars spent, as well as how that staffing configuration impacts the theory of change.

And if you could, could you just talk a little bit about how the theory of change has changed from when we started doing this work?

There's some added language to how we evaluate this as a successful intervention or not.

Yeah, I can speak to that.

I spent a few months with the team and the different components, so outreach, SPD, and the field coordination group together, and kind of jumping off from the original 2017 Theory of Change, kind of revisited it, and we did it in the results-based accountability framework, which is a little bit different than the logic model that was originally presented.

And so what we did is we did it, you start by who is it you're trying to impact and make a difference for, which kind of helps you narrow kind of your strategy and your focus.

So we started with that, and, you know, not only is it the community, you know, the house community, it was also those living in.

in the unsanctioned encampments that are living homeless.

So from there, you want to say, you know, what is the desired result?

What is it you want to change for these folks?

And really, there were, there was a discussion about, really, it's around the people at the sites to be cleaned, to be focused, because some of that started going larger and larger, right?

When, you know, the individual person on a corner, We're starting to be included in the impact on here.

And while we do want to impact that, that again is a larger outreach in the continuum that Tiffany was kind of talking about.

So it kind of helps us target kind of who we're talking about.

And then from there you decide what other strategies that you're taking.

that we would take to get where we want.

So we're really starting with the end in mind, whereas a logic model often you say, we have this many police officers, we have this many field coordinators, what can we get out of it?

And instead we start with what is the change we want and then how do we get there?

So multiple conversations around that and then the activities itself then vary.

And from what we wanted to do was be accountable, hold each entity, and I call it kind of SPD and entity and outreach, et cetera, accountable for their part specifically and what we wanted them to impact and where they crossed over.

But before it was, everyone was expected to do, have outreach goals.

Well, the field coordinators, their main goal is to kind of ensure that the hazards get cleaned and kind of remaintain the site and storage.

And so it was really hard to tell when you're trying to evaluate a team, try to tell kind of what can be improved and what can't.

So by holding the accountability with the activities with the various groups, and some of them may be, so officers and, both have outreach accountability, you know, and kind of contacts and referrals.

But yeah, the storage and making sure you're on site to mitigate any hazards and address that is field coordinators.

So, the activities themselves kind of got into some color coding there for where we're going to hold accountability.

So, because if it all doesn't work well together, then it is not going to work.

So then it kind of gets to your point in the back where the results-based accountability has three ways to measure its effectiveness and its impact.

One is the quantity, how much did you do?

Quality, how well did you do it?

And impact, who's better off and how are they better off?

So we really try to dig down into each one of the entities work and find some accountability measures so we can actually evaluate and see how things are going.

And this was done end of last year as kind of a revamp of kind of how we think about the work and how we're addressing and how we're evaluating it.

And a lot of this also The high level is now why there's more metrics in the quarterly provisor report is we then realized that we needed a stronger data collection protocol around that and a better way to analyze it.

So, with the added capacity of the data analysts that you all help provide, we're able to now institute a lot of that in this first quarter of 2019 and the second quarter to start giving you better metrics on evaluating kind of the impact.

How long has your team been working the data portion with the NAB team since they moved over?

So, I personally started working as the navigation team moved over as kind of an expanded role in my position.

The actual funding for the data analyst didn't come until January 2019. So, I feel like we've come a really long way since then.

And, you know, you will see hopefully more fruitful of our efforts after later this year.

Before we talk more about the theory of change and how you're analyzing the data that you're collecting, I'm just reminded on the diversion piece.

This was another city auditor checkpoint that called for the utilization of diversion services.

And I understand in March, all members of the NAB team were trained on diversion approaches.

And a centralized diversion fund was created in 2018. But this report doesn't provide any information indicating that the navigation team has accessed that fund.

Can you talk a little bit about how and if they are accessing diversion funds?

Yeah, they were trained and REACH itself has always had access to diversion and the ability to do that.

And the centralized fund came on at the very end of the year, so we are now working with, and the system navigators came online, so we're trying to work through logistics of them being able to provide diversion services through that, because Reach already has it, and many of the other outreach providers that we may work with has access to the centralized fund.

The data itself for the entire continuum changed the way it was collecting the data and tracking it within the system.

So we just have not been able to really get down into the fine details of where the NAV team did diversion yet.

As the entire system, the continuum is still working with trying to capture the diversion outcomes.

Building changes and some gifted funds were for district.

Right.

We're a part of people who can access it.

Correct.

And then we do fund some agencies directly for diversion.

So there's multiple arms right now.

But the day of a system navigator seeing like, oh, you have a safe place to go in Montana, that right now, that logistic is being figured out right now how they do that through the funds that are available.

So I'm hearing two different things.

One, I'm hearing that the navigation team does have access to the diversion fund, but We're not able to report on their use of it.

And then I thought I just heard you say the opposite of that, which is we haven't figured out how to give them access to the diversion fund.

Well, so REACH themselves have always had access to diversion.

Yeah, I guess I'm talking about the system navigators because this is about the NAV team.

Correct, correct.

The system navigators just came online two months ago.

So they themselves got getting trained and getting access to that.

So REACH is considered part of the navigation team as the outreach providers for that.

So I guess that's where I was talking about.

There are two tracks of diversion happening.

And the reason in the database, correct me if I'm wrong, that it's hard to report is because in previous, the system was calling diversion a program to enroll in.

Now it is, what's the change?

A service.

A service that all programs have access to.

So you don't have to refer someone to a very specific place to get diversion.

Diversion continuum wide is now being available to every possible provider that we're able to.

And I'm sorry if you already answered this.

I think this question did come up maybe in a different way, but do we have any numbers to show what is, in how many, let me ask it this way.

Are we able to quantify in how many cases the diversion approach, let's say, whether it was counted as program service, whatever, it doesn't matter.

Can we quantify in how many cases the diversion approach actually eliminated the homelessness situation of a person, whether it was somebody moving to Montana because they had family there and they just needed the money to get there.

Do we have any numbers?

In continuum wide, we are working with King County's evaluation team to look at the entire system of those that utilize diversion and whether they come back into the system or not.

So are you looking for navigation team specific or?

Just in general.

But I guess I'm just wondering in general because it's a question of what's actually working and what's not working and it's not just limited to the navigation team.

In general, how much does that help?

The reason I'm asking is this.

I mean, we want to make sure that every possible avenue is presented to people because clearly people face different situations.

Yes.

I want to know the numbers though.

regardless because I don't want us to lull ourselves into feeling that, okay, we're providing diversion, we're providing diversion.

I mean, I'm not quoting you.

It's come up a lot in general.

And I feel like, well, without any numbers, I don't want to go around touting one thing over another, especially in light of the overwhelming statistics on the other side, which is the rising rents is also causing rising homelessness.

So I'm not sure how much of that can be dealt with in that way.

But it would be useful to have some numbers of some kind to have some handle on it.

I'm happy to send your office the 2018 numbers and the outcomes for diversion.

And again, it is definitely just one strategy that works for some folks.

Certainly, and we want to try all of them.

So I'm happy to send that.

Thank you.

So I think just the last slide, and then if you have any other questions.

Yeah, before we get to the next slide, though, I just want to be clear.

Is the underlying language on the sheet?

at sites to be cleaned, is that the change in the theory of change?

It's always at sites to be cleaned, it's always, we never, we didn't call it out specifically enough before.

Correct, it wasn't, it didn't say at sites to be cleaned, it was just navigation team work, and so we tried to make it very specific.

I'm just trying to drill down on what's different.

The words.

Yeah, those words very specifically have not been in other kind of of what the goal of the navigation team was.

All right.

Thank you.

Any other questions on there?

So just the last slide, the Q2 proviso report had nine checkpoints encompassing a 23-page report with supporting documents.

So we just pulled out highlights of work reported in the Q2 proviso.

And so that's what you see on this last slide.

So I guess I'll pause and see if there are questions about that.

I would just love it if you also sort of touched upon, because the other part of this report is we've agreed to combine the audit checkpoint reporting with the proviso, the data reporting.

Can we go through some of the highlights there as well?

Because I think there's some good news.

Do you have a specific one you want to?

I think highlighting the ones where you've made some significant progress I think is a good place to start.

I think one of the things I wanted to highlight is the auditor definitely kind of talked about the data collection processes and the storage of the data and the analysis of it and the support of the analysts that were provided.

We are making some pretty big improvements to the navigation app, which is our data storage tool.

Various collections were able to implement right away.

examples are not using perceived race and gender, gender identity, but instead making sure that we only collect that's what told us, collecting reasons for shelter refusals.

So all of that has been definitely things that the auditor had wanted to see, and that is fully kind of moving along now, having better data around shelter vacancies and availability of the day of, that is gonna be implemented into the navigation app too.

So we've made some big strides with the added capacity in our data.

And I just want to add, and I say this every time I sit at the table just because of my previous work in criminal justice, I want to just say how good it is to see that there are the group of police officers who put themselves willingly through trauma-informed care, undoing institutional racism, who care about folks that are unsheltered as much as the outreach workers that are out there.

And so I think that that's a tremendous That's a tremendous highlight.

And you have made, or it says, will make trauma-informed care assessments and or trainings mandatory for all NAB team outreach workers, field coordinators, and their supervisors.

Does that include the police?

Yes.

And that was actually scheduled in June.

Unfortunately, the trainer had a death in the family.

So we are looking for July or August now at this point.

But it was actually scheduled in every one.

But it is mandatory.

Yes.

And then one of the other items that we've talked about that I'm looking forward to ongoing conversations is how we can implement some of the principles that are part of a sort of an emergency type response to to the work that you do.

And I'm trying to remember what ICS stands for.

And we're all drawing a blank.

Incident Command System.

Yes, thank you.

And that there are particular operational protocols that are used.

And we're going to continue having a conversation about how not to move your work over to the EOC, but how to integrate those principles into the work that you do.

And then finally, in addition to the staffing assessment, we're talking with the executive about the resources that are available on the part of And then lastly, I just want to make mention pretty long-standing at this point request from April as it relates to the purple bag pilot and the purple bag pilot.

I've asked several times whether or not that pilot could be from from HSD's perspective operationally, not from a funding perspective and SPU's capacity.

But I would like to know whether or not there are barriers limiting the nav team's ability to deliver the purple bags in those locations that are not necessarily scheduled for immediate removals because there are obstructions, but in those locations that you're going into that have large accumulations of garbage and that that's the reason why it's rising to the top.

I think I can work with SPU on the operational side of expanding the pilot and the funding necessary, but what I want to know is, are there any internal barriers to the NAV team acting as sort of the deliverer of those bags?

Into that.

All right, thank you.

I have no further questions.

Really appreciate the tough work that you guys are doing out in the field and the work that you're doing responding to our inquiries on an ongoing basis.

Thanks for your continued patience.

Absolutely.

We good?

Thank you.

With that, we will adjourn.

It is 1052 a.m.

All right.