Speaker 1: Agenda Item one Capital 119 781 relating to the city's response to the 2020 COVID 19 crisis 26,000, which is the 2020 budget appropriations to various departments and budget control levels and from various funds in the budget. Declaring an emergency and establishing an effective date for the City Council.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Madam Park. I moved to pass Council Bill 119791. Is there a second? Second? It's been moved and seconded to pass the bill. Councilmember Mosqueda, you are the sponsor of the bill and we'll hand it over to you to address this particular bill. Thank you, Council President. Thank you. Council colleagues. As you have heard from me over the last week or so, we have worked to put some language together in Council Bill 119783 as a follow up to the legislation that we passed. I'm sorry. As a follow up to legislation. We passed on May 4th, which was Constable 119783. The bill in front of us counts about 119791. Make sure that we move forward on accepting and appropriating federal and state funding related to COVID 19 pandemic crisis in response, including CARES Act funding. This allows for us to allocate the remaining $1.4 million of CDBG funds through this substitute. This allows for us to make sure that the CDBG funds are being spent, ideally on policies that help with densification and redistribution of individuals who are currently in our shelter system. Among a number of other strategies to help make sure that people have appropriate housing and shelter to respond to the COVID crisis. We know that $1.4 million is not a ton of money. Our hope is that this is a down payment on the densification and redistribution efforts to initiate future policy discussions and funding to come from future conversations with the department and the mayor's office so that we can all work towards reducing even further congregate, shelter setting numbers. We know that the congregate shelters are not really considered a safe space, especially given the high risk of individuals in those shelters due to underlying health conditions and their age, which we know is critical for people to have the appropriate public health response. While the 1.4 that we're allocating today to date, that's vacation and redistribution doesn't specifically talk about individual rooms or hotels, I think that this will be a nice complement to future conversations and future investments that we hope to see over the next week or two when we look at additional federal dollars. Again, our hope is that this of 1.4 million, in combination with future dollars from the executive and the CBO that they're evaluating right now, will help us identify additional funds that can be used for frontline homeless service providers. We've talked a lot about mounting costs to support COVID related response, including the need for additional pay for staff, PPE, cleaning food services and other services as we try to serve this very vulnerable population. The good news is that in addition to the funding that we already approved in the last bill, we have learned that $130 million from the Corona Relief Fund can also be used for a comprehensive strategy to meet both the needs for densification and can be used for rental assistance. So it's really important for us to look at the holistic picture as these dollars come forward over the next week and make sure that we're doing both and both rental assistance to prevent folks from falling into homelessness and also to respond to the public health crisis and to move towards additional densification and redistribution strategies. To date, we are aware that there's conversations happening between homeless service providers and departments and the mayor and the mayor's office. So we appreciate that. We look forward to future conversations about the additional staff cleaning food services and housing options. And today, again, while this is not a ton of money, the $1.4 million, I think, does signal our interest in adding additional support to the densification redistribution. Even if we're not directing it towards individual rooms, we have, I think, a joint interest and expressed a shared a shared interest in moving forward on that public health strategy and hoping to have future conversations about this with the next round of funding. Very happy to have learned that the 130 million from the CRF walk run relief fund can also be used for rental assistance. So colleagues, I know that was a question earlier and we will have more opportunities to allocate additional funding as well as efforts around identification and redistribution in our future funds. Thank you all for hopefully your support as we get 1.4 million out the door to quickly deploys as much funding as we possibly can for this critical population. It's not a ton of money, as we talked about, but it will make an important downpayment and signal our interest in future conversations. Thank you so much. I thank you, Councilmember Mesquita, for those remarks. Are there any other comments on the bill? Councilmember Herbold, the floor is yours. You're right. I did. You recognize me? I did. I did recognize you. You broke up this time for me. Sorry. Sorry. I'm your friend. Well, I appreciate it. Thank you so much. I just want to, again, as I did this morning, flag my concern. I'm going to vote in favor of this legislation, although to be very honest, I'm not sure I understand it. We originally signaled by amending the previous bill and taking this money out of of the rent assistance, its use as a way to try to leverage some discussions with the mayor's office to ensure that they would embrace a different model of the intensification of shelters, a model that does not rely on a congregate care model, but instead moves to individual rooms. These are the safest settings for both staff and clients. This legislation does not make that distinction, and I understand why. It's because the executive hasn't embraced this as a priority to support for its specific dis intensification goals. Nevertheless, if without having accomplished that, I'm not sure why we are moving this money away from rental assistance to to address the increased cost of shelter providers for providing service and for their staffing needs. I recognize that there are those increased costs. We have future pieces of legislation that can help fund the increased costs associated with shelter, as well as the increased needs of of rent assistance. Though and I appreciate that Budget Director Noble has proposed a path forward where we can swap some funds in a future piece of legislation. But it just it seems very unnecessary to to do that, given the fact that we could have just. Voted to put the money where it was originally proposed to be put and then subsequently fund the needs associated with the intensification of of shelter and their increased costs. I want to recognize that just in general, I have concerns about putting off rental assistance relief. There were 9000 applications received by United Way of King County over a period of 48 hours, and only 2000 households received assistance. And it's really important.
Speaker 1: To note that at.
Speaker 0: United Way of King County is able to provide rental assistance regardless of documentation of immigration status. So it's a very rare source of support for this population. I do recognize that we are going to hopefully be able to make what were the proposed efforts to to fully fund the rental assistance needs in the previous legislation, that there is a commitment to make those whole in a subsequent piece of legislation. But just am puzzled as to why we why we are taking this action, given the fact that there is there is more flexible funds available in in the next week or two to address the shelter needs. So I'm going to provide a customer mosquito sponsor of the bill an opportunity to respond. So councilmember mosquito handed over to you. Thank you. Council President and I want to underscore I share Councilmember Herbold frustration that we have not received confirmation that densification will include individual rooms. Obviously, this is a policy difference of opinion that we have with the executive right now. I will say this, the reason that I think it's important that we are putting forward the legislation and held back the 1.4 is that some leverage has already been accomplished. We know that there has been conversations over the last week and a half that have led to us having some that have led to the executive and the departments having conversations directly with homeless service providers prior to when this bill was originally sent down. There were new conversations that have been reported to us. We had heard from a number of homeless service providers that they had serious concerns about the policies being advanced without sort of checking in to see what the lay of the land was on the ground. Those conversations have happened. You're correct that there is still a policy difference of opinion on individual realms, which I think you and I and the CDC would argue is a good public health strategy. However, I think that when we look at the language in front of us, it does not preclude individual rooms. It offers it as part of the solution. And we know that in conversations with the CBO and others, they are considering an array of ways to do that. I wish that it was all going into individual rooms, but here's I think the reality that we're faced with. We know that there's 130 million from the Corona Relief Fund that we have now identified can also be used for rental assistance, because that wasn't the case when the bill was introduced and there was a real fear that there wouldn't be those flexible dollars to be used for rental assistance in the future. We had a lot of pressure to get all the money out the door for rental assistance. We held back the $1.4 million, though, with the desire for a leverage, but B, to make sure that the folks who are currently in shelters do see some form of de densification or de intensification that could include hotel rooms, but it could also include a number of other strategies that they say that they're working on right now. We know there's about 500 people who are currently in congregate shelters who need densification strategies. I think by putting forward this piece of legislation and continuing to work to amplify our call for individual rooms, and I definitely want to underscore my support for that as a long time proponent of that strategy. Part of the reason that we had gone down this path is to try to urge the 1.4 million to be used for hotel rooms. That is still not a ton of money, but I think putting it forward does signal our interest in that policy discussion, and it also doesn't necessarily hold back the funds that could be used for helping the 500 people that are currently in shelters who need some level of identification. Also, I'll say about the rental assistance and small businesses piece were included in the initial policy that passed. So there was funding that went out. We understand that there's going to be additional funding from the dollars that do come from the executive office here soon. And we'll have the opportunity to ask whether or not that's enough rental assistance or whether it's enough assistance for folks to get out of congregate shelter services in the future. But I think the answer to the why now is we have 1.4 million. We also know that that's a drop in the bucket of what's needed for both rental assistance and for what is needed for the intensification. Since we already put money forward in this last bill for rental assistance and we know now that there's more money coming from the broader relief fund that we can use for rental assistance. My hope was to put the 1.4 million forward to allocate it for an array of D intensification services to really signal our interest to councils, interest in seeing those funds go into place now to help with whomever we can with the 500 individuals who need assistance immediately and that we complement those funds with future dollars. I don't think the you know, the leverage has obviously been a release. I think it's definitely initiated conversations that hadn't happened prior. And I appreciate, I think, our joint interest in both the intensification and rental assistance. This effort, I think, allows for both those policies to move forward in a complementary way. Add to that. Any other comments on the bill, colleagues? Okay. Seen no other comments on the bill. I'm going to go ahead and ask that the clerk please call the roll on the passage of the bill. Herbold, I.
Speaker 1: Juarez. I. Is I? Morale is high. Let's get her. I. Peterson.
Speaker 2: I.
Speaker 1: So i. I.
Speaker 3: Drought high.
Speaker 1: President Gonzales.
Speaker 0: I.
Speaker 1: Not in favor, not opposed.
Speaker 0: Thank you so much. The bill passes and the chair will sign it and I the to fix my signature to the legislation on my behalf. We're not going to move to agenda items two and three, and I'd ask that the clerk please read both items two and three into the record.
AN ORDINANCE related to the City’s response to the 2020 COVID-19 crisis; amending Ordinance 126000, which adopted the 2020 Budget; changing appropriations to various departments and budget control levels, and from various funds in the Budget; declaring an emergency; and establishing an immediate effective date, all by a 3/4 vote of the City Council.