Speaker 2: Perfect. Thank you. Sure. Thank you, President Park.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilmember Gilmore. All right. That concludes the questions on this one. Madam Secretary, if you please, put the next item on our screens. And Councilmember CdeBaca, if you want to go ahead with your questions on 44.
Speaker 5: Thank you, Mr. President. Is there anybody here to answer questions on this contract? Can you introduce yourself?
Speaker 3: Good evening. I'm John Looper with Department of Housing Stability.
Speaker 5: Awesome. Thank you so much for coming up tonight. Very excited about these dollars for motel vouchers have had some challenges when recommending this option to constituents because we're not really sure who to direct them to and how to know when we've spent down our vouchers. And so I'm wondering if in the coming year if there's any new infrastructure electronically that's being built to track our our vouchers in real time? Or how do we as city council representatives know what's left in our voucher bank when we're trying to connect constituents to these emergency services?
Speaker 3: So for as far as like an electronic way of tracking or a voucher bank, we don't really have that set up yet. That's something we could look into in the future. This specific contract is really for the family motel, which is for 30 rooms. That's that's kind of it's. It's managed between the Volunteers of America, our office, Department of Housing, Stability, and then Department of Human Services. So Human Services has different outreach workers that write the vouchers to this program. And then Volunteers of America also has a an evening voucher rider that. All right. Vouchers to this program also and they work out of Samaritan House every evening.
Speaker 5: So how do we know what our usage is throughout the year?
Speaker 3: So for this this specific contract, it's pretty much 100% use. I think the the occupancy is in the high nineties and they serve about just over a thousand families within a year. There are a couple of other contracted motels and that's kind of as an add need basis as the this family motel fills and they have to overflow into other motels that are contract motels.
Speaker 5: So when you say 100% utilized, what does that mean? Does that mean that they're 100% full right now and we have a waiting list or what is that?
Speaker 3: They're in the high nineties for their utilization. So at some nights they're at 100%. And we're we're sending families to contracted motels. The other motels other nights they might be 90% full. And so it just kind of varies night to night. Average stay is about ten days. So families there, though, some of them may stay for just a night. Some of them may stay for 2 to 3 weeks, depending on the needs of that family.
Speaker 5: And so is there with this specific one, are there preconditions of.
Speaker 2: Service.
Speaker 1: Or.
Speaker 5: How do you how do you qualify to get into.
Speaker 1: This?
Speaker 3: So really, if if a family is homeless in Denver, there could be. A man or woman. As long as they have children and they're homeless in Denver, they just need to connect with the Department of Human Services with their general assistance program Monday through Friday through from, I believe it's eight four. And then if they aren't at Denver, Human Services between that timeframe, they would utilize Samaritan House with the voucher riders that are there in the evenings and they'll they'll ask questions. Usually if people are residents of Denver or they're homeless in Denver, they can get multiple nights and then they can meet with a staff member to look at some kind of future planning for them if they're from out of state. They're usually always given one night. And then there we figure out what the next steps would be for that family.
Speaker 5: So before we send somebody to the Samaritan House.
Speaker 2: Or Denver Human Services.
Speaker 5: How do we know if we're at the 90% or 100%? Because it's hard to send someone who has very little resources to a Denver Human Services spot during the day knowing that that night there are not going to be any vouchers. Who do we contact?
Speaker 3: So that would be during the day. It'd be it would be human services, general assistance. And I don't have that number handy, but just through Human Services, the General Assistance Department, they'll be able to answer that question. It's hard to contact Volunteers of America in the evening to find that out because they're they're seeing people as they're coming in. We don't. I think what you're getting at is we don't really have like a like a system that's showing the actual users. They keep track of that on hand as people are coming in. So that's something that could be improved.
Speaker 5: Is there a plan for that?
Speaker 3: I'm not sure. So there's a are the Department of Housing Stability, they're going through a strategic planning process. And part of that's going to be the shelter strategy planning. And so that may be part of that.
Speaker 5: Some it's as simple as Google forms. If the providers could all get on the same page, it would be really helpful for the rest of us trying to be that broker for services. So thank you.
Speaker 3: Okay. You're welcome.
A resolution approving a proposed Second Amendatory Agreement between the City and County of Denver and Volunteers of America Colorado Branch for to provide emergency short-term shelter.
Amends a contract with Volunteers of America Colorado Branch (VOA) by adding $547,500 for a new total of $1,553,700 and one year for a new end date of 12-31-20 to provide emergency short-term shelter for individuals and families through the City’s motel voucher program (SOCSV-2018-39578-02; SOCSV-201952821-02). The last regularly scheduled Council meeting within the 30-day review period is on 2-18-20. The Committee approved filing this item at its meeting on 1-15-20.