council was to organize this RFP sort of based on your approach so that there wouldn't be a dramatic shift funding so there was RFPs and small grant sizes medium large and then the new change was this one targeted impact of seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars and there's a moment there to work with your council as we get towards the recommended awards there's discussion in your community programs committee and council about maybe augmenting it backing that and there's opportunity to address that in June and then of course equity is kind of front and center looking at some of these precious general fund dollars where does two legislative bodies want to try to operationalize they make a difference to balance the playing field with some of the populations trying to support so woven throughout this is not just birds but real intent at least build an equity process and we'll keep talking about that especially when we get into the process. So next slide. This is just to go back to what I said at the beginning the community driven process we heard a lot and again me as a new set of eyes those have been tracking this probably know this I was really struck by how much part of the community was history of this is certain community based organization were locked in and guaranteed funding and if new or you hadn't been in the club if you will you couldn't get in and so we spent a lot of time trying to make sure the playing field was level so that all community based organizations wanted apply I had a fair opportunity so this just is a summary of what has happened since the November present public presentations to date. There were 64 training and technical assistance opportunities in all kinds of formats to help any community organization get some feedback and T.A. to help their application and the numbers at the bottom or tell you there was you know 52 unduplicated people but 298 participants that participated in the process on the way and the quotes on the right are just surveys to kind of hear if we're hitting the mark and heard some nice things including it had and some community organizations think like a little differently about how to put them an opportunity so we appreciate that we think we are still partnering with well-based. The next slide this is an update on kind of timeline adjustments as of the COVID surge in the agreement to delay the application deadline and again the right column is still process difference of county and city and certainly again happy to ask any questions if you have any. So the deadline for applications were early February we got approval to extend them to early March was last Friday that has pushed us a little bit from what was planned to come back to your council and our board in May to early June I do want to recognize that just to have created an administrative wrinkle for your council I don't think had an existing published date but we had no way of getting the process done before the 7th so we're trying to line up our recommended award date on the 7th to go to the board in the morning your council and we can talk staff to staff and if you have questions about that and that is because we want to we actually really need to get back to the two legislative bodies by the end of June or we missed the fiscal year cycle which very very complicated and at least board process we are already beyond the two one-year delays of the permit cycle so it could get complicated so this is what sort of backed us up into these dates and then that leads to the appeal process. Board of supervisors did to approve it that is the county board permit policy gives people who want to appeal recommended awards five days to file an appeal we pulled it back to three and then county staff had ten days to respond to the appeal and we pulled it back five. We took the bigger hit stick within the timeline the update for your council is and I don't know if it's in the printed materials I think it is but I want you to know this is that we've worked with your staff or in Tiffany and we the county will handle the appeal process as every grant award has at least some county money in it but we will coordinate the along the way if there's any appeals but the actual technical process this adjustment is the county first level appeal and then very important is this last bullet all of that is sort of moved a little bit in terms of the role of elected officials at the city because you get to ultimate final decision what you want to do with your budget depending on what happens and what you recommended the next slide okay so this is the peak we knew this was coming we did not have this information until after five o'clock but as a reminder we had went to the board and your council and we had agreed to have these sort of weird dollar amounts and the funding that was approved as a structure was what's in the middle column 598 small all the way up actually no over on the right is what we had 605,000 small all the way up to 795 that targeted and the dollars are in the middle what you see is how many applications are received for each of those tiers and the most important point is the middle column much to our surprise we got little bit under number of request than the funding available in the small tiers so we had asked the board this morning for some discretion to work as county staff and partnership with city staff to consider after the rating panels meet to come back to both the bodies with some possible adjustments of dollar amounts and small to apply them to the medium and large given you can see there is three times the amount requested than available funds in large and then also somewhat interesting is there is a lot of interest in the concept of a targeted impact but we only received two applications so I don't know we anticipated a little bit more so I'd recommend we go to the next slide and please ask any questions about this that's our preview of what's in front of us so the panel process that's coming up big push by the based organizations and concept both legislative bodies asked us to try to panel members that were mostly local we want to let you know we have our panel members assembled and it turns out 85% of them are local the 15% are not as we did reach out to colleagues contiguous Bay Area counties that do this sort of work and have been participated in these sort of public procurements for these sort of programs this sort of objective set of eyes we're pleased to say that it's only 15% also want to let you know we created a conflict of interest policy and partnership with our city staff to make this a very small community as those of you know who live for me as a new set of eyes everybody knows everybody so we had to be very intentional in making sure we ruled out anybody being a panel member that had a conflict closely involved with an actual applicant we spend an awful lot of time and Tiffany has been your point person every step of the way working with us a group of people developing sort of a scoring rubric that would help view the panels and rank them and give scores so that staff could then turn around and recommend it towards and further to make sure there is as much integrity as possible in the application of that every single panel member is mandated to go through training we have a whole training process in place support all the panel members to make sure you buy the scores fairly and evenly the next slide so here's where this funding partner updates are so as I told the board this morning partnership with you all so first is we agree with your staff and us that because we've made a conceptual agreement on the second two bullets which is this round of core unlike the first round where your city dedicated a hundred percent some of your dollars on priorities to you that did not have any money money this rfp every contract is anticipated to have a share of county money and your money and then some of them will have only given the dollar amounts so based on that concept we've agreed in concept right now to have the county hold all the contracts just makes it easier for the CBO so they don't have to have two contracts one with you and one with us for the same scope but we understand that needs to be done through an MOU that your legal council and you as elected officials are comfortable with that you feel like can't just be based on handshakes and good feelings it has to be really locked in and then also the comment about the appeals process for there be appeal we don't this the intent of simplifying the appeal process was make sure that we keep within the time frame not to take away any ability of the city through the process to weigh in so we want to put all of that in MOU and then come back to both board and the city council so you can prove that MOU and that would help cover the end of the process and how we would over contract during the cycle so then the two partner update the community foundation was actually a very interesting process because I was with Susan Tru along the way you had mentioned it at your town's meeting where I was present November that we wanted to try to find some type of way to take advantage of them having open funding opportunity and some of the CBO's apply for their funds as they apply for the CBO's and so we had a conceptual agreement to sit down and report back and develop a plan to maybe grade some funding well it turns out the community foundation made a choice to apply to so community foundation is an applicant a consortium of CBO's for the CORE so in conversation with Susan Tru I was given permission to share that we conceptually agreed we needed the optics were very difficult to imagine if just not legally appropriate for them to be both an applicant and behind the curtain with us looking at applications figuring out where to grade funding so that's the update that we've agreed to kind of pause and separate any alignment process of ours and then the last one is the area agency on aging you may be aware just quick 30 seconds of context congress passed the older Americans act in the 1960's California it was codified through the California department of aging there is federal and state dollars that target older adult programs the absolute largest grant is meals on wheels a $500,000 contract so it's a meaningful amount of $4 and for the first time ever in Santa Cruz County AAA is going there required public permit process at the exact same time we are at CORE so this morning at the board the board issued additional direction to us make sure that we aligned our practices we received instruction this morning pull out all senior nutrition applications for because they are concurrently an application to the AAA and the AAA is going to make their awards in April so we were directed this morning to pull out money and wait and see what the AAA awards and then make sure that we align the core money with the AAA select that's part of the C of collective impact versus ending up with different programs that were one so that was a direction we got this morning I can talk to your staff about what that means of course I'm going to answer any questions the next slide this is just a quick summary of next steps and then it's open for questions after today the rating panels that have been assembled and organized as I described earlier six weeks or so are going to be going through comprehensive training and rating process we will be working with Tiffany and Laura every step of the way and then this will lead to our current proposed timeline of coming back to the county board and your council on June 7th with recommended awards I think that's the moment when we will have potentially the biggest set of questions if TBOs think they should have won and they appeal and I think that's going to be the bigger moment then we come back to the board and your council your council and your final budget deliberations and again that is the moment your council reserve is all right your general fund and our county's general fund you have no federal state or local restrictions to make changes we are bringing forward the recommended awards to what I've heard avoid having public hearings be the place where you make budget decisions but have this pyramid process in the middle but you still reserve the right at your budget hearings then we have to work on the contract then we have to make sure that your council agrees and get the MOU in place will be a county process but you'll be aware of them and MOU will govern how you're aware of outcomes or data to your staff and then we do want to make sure we initiate a lessons learned process after we get the contracts done because this is like serious business having six million dollars of general fund money and we want to make sure to engage your council and our board and the TBOs and sort of talk about it now when we do this again because this is at the complete discretion of your council and our board how to use the fund so we are prepared to administer some sort of lessons learned process all done which we'll talk about again and the next slide is just the close out slides and you're welcome to remove the screens and I'm here to answer any questions if you have any. Thank you so much for that information and presentation to council members have any questions for any more needs to leave council member Kellan Terry Johnson. Thank you so much for that great presentation all the work I know it's a tremendous amount of work I have a few just a few questions the applicants who will I mean clearly we won't be able to fund everybody unfortunately since we have just a certain amount of money but the applicants who are we are not awarding how will we communicate with them and will we kind of give them an explanation of why their application aren't accepted and what they can do next time around or with other funders. So I track that as thank you for the compliment to Tiffany shout out to her this has been a lot of work and I think you know some member Collin Terry Johnson on the other end this applicant this is a lot of work to help minimize legislative bodies having to make complicated budget decisions during a budget hearing hours of public comment which I know you are nose so any yes it's a lot of staff time to sort of make that buffer the first part is a little simpler everybody will there's a couple steps first step is if there was a disqualification process the second step you are awarded or not which triggers the bills process your last part I'd recommend we come back to you in June when we have a process fully baked which is how to make sure to give feedback so we have a process in place and we're doing some staff work now and when we bring recommended rewards how to communicate their way with everybody so they can take their own lessons but lost as you know you have to be careful with that during a deal process. Okay that's great and then on the other side I heard you say we'll have a lessons learned opportunity which is great I've already gotten phone calls texts and emails from colleagues who are grant writers who have given me feedback so I would be interested learning more about what that process will be and how we as a council and city can support that lessons process. And can I just be really clear and direct we would value welcome appreciate directions feedback participation from your council and from our board because this is unlike anything else the county human service department deals with federal and state college. This is your money so we are the administrators and staff we want this to be something that makes sense to you for money and something that makes sense to the community based organization so we have some ideas but we would greatly appreciate keeping a list of everything and then when we will come back and we would like to engage in a conversation about how best we can create a lessons learned process because in the end we want to bring it back to you and you feel good and right about how the next process is out. Wonderful that's great and I think we will have the opportunity in our core committee and work with the Nichols and that's really great to hear. That's just my other question is once we have selected the applicants and then given the awards what level of engagement will the county as administrators have with the awardees? What's the expectation for sort of reporting on progress on milestones or outcomes and how will that be with the city and county and then beyond that how will we just engage the awardees to just to ensure that they're successful in their implementation and that we're true partners. Here's the money go do your thing but that we're really in this together. That's kind of a big question. I think I tracked, let me try. The first part in terms of city role I don't want to speak for Tiffany or Laura but I think I'm accurate. We want to make sure that MOU locked in place and then behind the curtain is your legal counsel and our counsel. We want to make sure we can answer that question by you as the because again this is your general fund money. We have ample time now in the finalization of the MOU between staff and counsel legal counsel for you to have that answered in the MOU. I think that bumps up to the second which is probably something that makes great sense to you all. This is your general fund. We have our general fund and we have limited staff so in an ideal world we would all have more staff and I believe this is a lot of contract. So in an ideal world given core COR as far as results we would like to have a collaborative partnership providers and where and if things are slipping that we have the time to work with the providers collaborative not unitive but I just want to be candid that's also staff intent. So we are actually not to get ahead of my budget process from my board but we are looking at whether or not of course to be able to on a county side be a little bit more engaged than we were in the first round in grants in the last two years. So I hope that's responsive to your question but I think if we are true to the purpose of core R is about results we want to have that get collaborative. That's great. That's great. Thank you. Thank you so much for your work. It's exciting to see. Thank you talentary council member talentary Johnson. Are there any other council members that have questions? Mandy Morris council member Brown. I don't have a question but I just wanted to say thank you here and other staff often really really proactive approach. Thank you council member Brown. Thank you so much for laying this framework out before us and running through the details thus far and this process it was very helpful and very helpful. I think there were some good points in there so thank you so much. Appreciate your presentation and your. Are you closing out because I don't think this is a vote and if so may I make one final comment? Yes. Okay well thank you and appreciate the recommendations. I have heard what this was like in front of the elected bodies where I got here very committed to not having that happen to our board again by our process and I do want to say because Mr. Huffaker just logged in I was scheduled if your schedule held to sort of be a partner to Matt and Larry and Lee on your next item with one of the most confounding issues. I just want to take the opportunity because I have to jump off to say Rosemary before Matt because the relationship has been so unbelievable that in the last year I've been here two years and there is not a more vexing public policy issue that I've ever seen about trying to figure out how to deal with filtered but I just wanted to make sure the spirit of what happened with 14 million work we did together and just the whole effort underway is an unbelievable turnaround staff to staff so I just wanted to share that as a baton passes I have to log out very confident that my worries that federal and state would not best in county and city of Santa Cruz applications because we didn't get along that's done we've got a good pathway ahead that doesn't mean the issues are going to be solved tomorrow but I wanted to share that as at his leadership and Larry and to Lee and great partners as Tiffany has been in course so that was okay to jump over to the next item but I have to run to my next meeting that I'm late to so thank you thank you so much see you in June thank you Randy I will be going out to public comment at this time I'll hold in case you have a public comment I'm curious so let's see if there are any members of the public if you're interested in commenting on core investments, art and updates application process review panels and scoring award funding decisions process and amended appeal process please raise your hand by dialing star nine on your phone or selecting raise hands your time to speak will hear an announcement that you've been unmuted and the timer will then be set in it okay let's go to attendees we have Reggie Meister go ahead and unmute yourself welcome Reggie can you hear me? yes thank you I'm a little confused about what is happening with change it feels like city money is being sent to the county and then the county can decide what to do with it am I correct in that because it feels like there was a city deliberator that's being cut out and then the county staff is the one who gets to choose city set aside funds am I correct in that or am I misunderstanding that like we did respond to the structural the process so this is part of the three minutes of the public comment and I just want to give the opportunity to Reggie to continue and finish out any other public comment yeah I guess if I'm wrong about that which I see a lot of like shaking of heads then I think it would be good to have clarification on that because I think it's very concerning the idea that we would send up sort of social service funding to the county and then we would have to kind of like hope that we advocated for our own general fund money correctly at the county level so maybe I'm just misunderstood thanks thank you for your public comment does anyone else any member of the public have any further comment on item number 16 I do have Serge Cagno go ahead and press star unmute hey this is Serge Cagno quick comment to Randy thank you for you and your team and all the amazing amount of support given the non-profits all of the many class of webinars from the Leslie's and the support and the one-on-one TA time it's been an amazingly easier process for this grant application than others that the non-profit world deals with so thank you thank you Serge for that public comment are there any other attendees that would like to speak to this item okay I will bring it back to Council and I will ask Randy at this point and or Matt manager to answer the question that one of the scholars had regarding social service funding and clarification I think it's probably appropriate since I'm the one who presented that led to that public comment I need to clarify what I meant is that agreeable Matt yeah so the short answer is city has no way shape or form and that was my bad wait or what so ever how it the RFP was both the Board of Supervisors and the city agreed to the process that was at RFP in terms of where any control or say is that's not county staff or really city staff that's panel members to the question of who has controllers we are creating an MOU which the city council has full say on this legal council has full say on to make sure that the way this money is spent is fully based on what the council your elected has a way to make sure that money is spent in purpose the way you want it the city council has an opportunity at recommended awards and final budget final decision about where the money goes then finally to how the contracts are actually managed it was in response to the community based organizations that said it's really hard to have one contract that I have to then have one with the one of the county do things it was really to ease the work of a community organization to get money from both city and county to have it be one contract to have most money all the contracts will have some county money for us to administer it but then again that no way shape or form takes away the city's ability to make sure how that money is spent is based on what you want and how you want it monitored and that will be governed in it so if I wasn't that clear I was maybe guilty of rushing quick to get through this but the council has many opportunities for money's purpose the decisions and also the life of the contract thank you for that okay we will now return to council for deliberation and action on this item any further comments from council we have a council member no I just want to thank for joining us today and providing that update on this item and presentation and I'll go ahead and just move the staff recommendation with the acceptance of the report the collective of results and evidence based investment requests for proposals amended timelines review panel process coordination funders and then direct staff return in June 2022 as described I'll second that sorry council member golder second alright we have a motion by council member Cummings and a second by boulder are there any further comments we'll go to a roll call vote Bonnie Bush we have a roll call vote council member is voluntary Johnson coming that motion passes unanimously thank you so much okay looking I'm going to take a minute just to look at our time here for our next item we've gone through our break we have oral communication scheduled for 6.30 I'm certain now 3.30 talking out loud as I assess our next agenda items okay so our next agenda item is item number 17 homelessness response quarterly update and I would like to ask the council how anyone needs a lunch break we've been going strong since 10.30 brief 20 minute lunch break or just you powering council member Cummings and I've been hoping to have a break I see another thumbs up I know we have waiting for comment on this item and I want to find full of that but I also want to be you're headed and nourished order to often work through this next agenda item so how about we do a 15 minute lunch break get some nourishment and we will return at 45 thank you it's 3.45 and we're returning from a lunch break so much and as other council members then please put on your cameras welcome back we're everyone ready to go staff is back great I will continue then with our agenda today we're at agenda number 7 homelessness response quarterly update for members of the public for spending this meeting if this is an item you want to comment on now is the time to call in on your screen please note the public comment created for the below will be for both items 17.1 17.2 public comment will be limited to no more than a total of 2 minutes for we'll have 2 minutes the order will be a presentation of items 17.1 and 17.2 by staff followed by questions from the council we will then take public comment and then return to the council for deliberation and action on items but this time I would like to turn it over to our staff almost as response manager math university manager and we'll let you start thank you mayor or is going to bring up the presentation here real brief for this one moment alright mayor and council I'm pleased to introduce and kick off what is our first homeless response quarterly report including a proposed homeless response action plan well as a funding framework 14 million state funding and an update on major response initiatives and work that are currently underway so we have a full discussion for the council and the community this afternoon collectively these actions proposed investments are intended shift our overall response approach from reactive temporary fixes more proactive permanent and sustainable solutions approach you will see that this work aims to balance individual needs managing community impacts the action plan was developed with a sense of urgency acknowledging the growing public health crisis for us and was informed by our regional housing for a healthy Santa Cruz strategic plan as well as employees all of our city departments involved in our day to day response it also responds to council direction campaign services and standards ordinance well as the oversized vehicle ordinance it addresses diverse and albeit sometimes conflicting community feedback that staff and council have received ad hoc and through community surveys that we've conducted over the last several months we will not be doing this work alone that you heard earlier from Randy Morris with county services well as Robert Ratner we've been working with very closely with the county and I would argue that we were working more closely with our county partners than ever before with huge commitment to work together on developing meaningful solutions challenges that we're facing but to be clear all these are important steps in the right direction challenges are complex and decades of making and will not be solved overnight the first step to approach will require continuous evaluation and improvement as we move forward it's also important to emphasize that the work can't be successful without community support to advance these actions as through this journey from establishing additional shelter locations supporting affordable housing development and additional resources to really sustain these services over the long term as we all know long term systemic change and economic response across the entire community and our region with that said we're looking forward to today's conversation and hearing from the community and the council on today's proposals Larry and Walling and our homeless response team are going to be running us through the presentation and then we look forward to receiving questions and input as we move through today's update so with that we'll end it all Larry. Thank you Matt. Good afternoon Mayor Brunner and council members it's to be here this afternoon to share with you this quarterly update on homeless response team we have three component elements of our update for you today first is just providing updates and progress reports on activity and action that's taken place since December 14th council meeting with our last report second item as Matt referenced is the homelessness response action plan that in development third element is the regional update on the regional collaboration on homelessness with our county partners hmm so the first section some updates first set of updates is related to the safe sleeping sheltering and the camping services and standards as you recall from December we've been working with the Salvation Army to establish a program at the Armory building that's a 75 bed program 65 of which the ongoing intent will be an emergency on demand we are in the process and anticipate getting that set up with next few weeks it has been in an administrative process with Salvation Army and executing the contract we've been in touch with them on an ongoing basis and we believe we are close to getting approval at the regional level locally staff from a program is in place to be able to transition over and concurrently we've been working recently at infrastructure up at the Armory building to be able to get the program established and running as quickly as possible so that should be happening in the next few weeks also we set up the first transitional community camp that was part of the plan represented in December that called for two transitional community camps the first one at 12 20 river that was opened in early January so right about two months we reached full capacity of that camp rather rapidly that was the result of a lot of intentional focused outreach with prospective program participants the bench lands from the cemetery and other locations there was a real vetting process for that program trying to engage folks who are ready to really focus on making change and working towards permanent housing it's only been a few weeks but I had a number of notable successes already with this program again it's not just an encampment but it's coupling it with intentional case management and individualized service plans there's been a number of folks who staff has worked with to complete the acquisition of their vital documents driver's license issues like that that will allow them to be able to connect with other benefits for instance so that's been a success we've had placements and exits to better housing situations we've brought a family that was initially in the 12 20 camp connected with a family shelter and housing matters we've had a lot of participants who've been able to get referred and get into drug treatment programs so short time but outcomes also just the last week of February our staff was able to access to housing vouchers housing authority and on a very quick turnaround which also included getting some of those vital documents I've been able to connect a number of participants of the 12 20 river program to get acquired housing vouchers so that's success at this point the second transition to community camp we're still in the planning process and really is looking and learning from what's being successful at 12 20 river and after this short pilot then look at establishing the second one and all likelihood we're looking at the second one being focused around specific subpopulation whether it be a transitional camp or disabled persons or all women sober living environment so that's still under consideration but we're looking at doing the second transition to community camp with that kind of specific targeted focus in mind the other update related to safe sleeping and sheltering is we're exploring a shelter expansion and housing matters we've reached out to them who see how we can expand their capacity for about 30 participants at this program this would be 24 7 program using pilot shelters or similar kind of shelters it would also come with 24 7 ongoing program with case management housing navigation of that full complement of wraparound services that housing matters provides so we're exploring expansion of the city's shelter capacity program there as well next slide please on the safe parking and OVO ordinance had direction to set up with tiered safe parking program so far we have tier one that is operational of the police department spaces also on February 28 we open tier two now operational operating at lots four and five initially we've activated six spaces three at each lot there is potential for expansion at those sites to up to six spaces each and as that program gets off the ground expansion will look at adding spaces there but we're starting small testing the program out and then looking to expand for tier three which is a 24 7 ongoing program we received responses in response to our open RFQ those responses are being reviewed presently and we anticipate the next quarterly updates not a little bit sooner to have a contract to move forward for consideration by Canalsold for a tier three operator alongside the state standing up the state parking programs there's been a process for coastal development and design permit, coastal commission the most recent updates on this front that cities develop and design permit was approved at the planning commission on March 3rd last Thursday so after that approval there is now an appeal period that is underway that not appeal can go either directly to the city council or it can be appealed to the coastal commission so those windows are open again enforcement of the midnight to 5 a.m. the parking restriction that is part of the OVO can only take effect after the permit process is complete on the encampment management front there's been a number of developments since December fall in response to rising waters and potential flooding along the San Lorenzo river the low-lying areas of both Benchlands and up by cemetery the decision that those areas need to be evacuated and we stood up a temporary evacuation camp first at the riverfront garage which had easy access from the lower Benchlands that moved over to Deep Park that encampment was open from December 14th through January 19th and it was intended to be a temporary evacuation shelter and as soon as the risk of additional flooding subsided of closed that camp the individuals there were assisted in relocation back to the Benchlands area also in January 27 where there was an encampment on the lot and around the lot that needed to be closed due to construction for a water project so that took place in January following that temporary camp necessitated by environmental cleanup that work that happened on January 26 the environmental cleanup took about two weeks to complete and at that time 95 tons of refuse and debris was removed from that location and is now cleaned up free of ongoing encampment so in each of those instances it can important to note that in the closure process had coordinated consistent outreach to folks in those encampments to offer additional relocation our outreach staff Chris, Jeremy, they contact with folks in those locations were available on the Benchlands where we had additional space to assist get them set up for relocation there in advance of these closures while a number of folks did move into the Benchlands a number moved up to the Riverwalk and Levy areas that have been impacted associated with some of those closures we are currently in the process working to help relocate folks in those areas as well the Benchlands is an alternative and we've continued the same kind of process of outreach and noticing with folks in advance of those efforts I think just this week Chris and Jeremy worked with about five people to move them into open spots and then the San Lorenzo Park Benchlands itself there's been direction to work towards a closure of that encampments and then when the expanded safe sleeping and shelter capacity in the city will allow us to do that conducting the summer of this year when those additional programs come online we'll have capacity to begin to work towards closing the Benchlands and restoring it to its use for the entire community as a park in addition to the additional shelter capacity there's a couple of other grant funded programs that have been initiated that are working at that location to do outreach, case management and rehousing efforts I believe I've talked about those of previous updates but again the county applied for an encampment resolution grant back in December to support the city council provided a resolution to support that grant to report that that grant application was successful $2.3 million award that will support that outreach and rehousing efforts it's specifically targeted for encampments along the San Lorenzo River target number is to assist 65 people to be able to get connected to housing this competitive process has had an innovation the innovative aspect of that program is really providing housing scholarships as part of their case plan so really providing flexible funding as part of that outreach and case planning to support whatever barriers individuals have that will circumventing them to be able to connect them to housing so that is going to be able to resource that provide support to make people able to make progress towards the San Lorenzo similarly through behavioral health in the streets program is starting it was augmented as well from the county through mental health service act funding so they've made a five year commitment of approximately $8 million of the next five years again with a doing case management behavioral health focus and working with folks connecting them to services and creating greater stability so those are other efforts that are targeting that location so those are the updates related to our ongoing homelessness response efforts so now I want to turn and provide an overview of our homelessness response through your action plan that's been in development the action plan was informed by best practices that are set forth in statewide, regional and local homelessness response work it also reflects input from our community all the departments it also includes employees that are on the ground assisting us with this work every day first of our homelessness response team and then in an effort to jump start this work called two half day workshops with department heads and the homelessness response team to reflect on what's working well isn't working and then ultimately develop a set of action shift approach to more proactive solutions and so here you can see the various inputs into our planning process it was a very assertive timeline when we kick this off to our presentation here today we started with planning and homework reading those background documents those state and regional local plans dance of a February second initial workshop that was gathering ideas and brainstorming then we had the homelessness response team did some refinement with that initial brainstorming organized it then we came back collectively again on the following week on March 9th the second half day meeting and planning session to come up with the draft proposal and so we've been working on organizing it planning it and it's ready to share this evening on March 8th so the contents of the plan so as part of this process we developed statements around our homelessness response work which is that in Santa Cruz our homeless responsible balance individual needs and community impacts and prevention to exit and this work too is grounded in our values specifically our city's response to homelessness centers on values related to health safety collaboration transparency economic vitality fiscal responsibility practicality and resource steward as we engage in this process to process or an element of the process is really envisioning what was successful like you know what are the results as a result of our plan and so as we thought about this conclusion the first year what might we expect the outcomes we'd look towards would be things like more sheltering leading to for large encampments and the ability to enforce the CSSO that will have safe parking programs that lead to fewer oversized vehicles overnight on city streets to enforce the oversized vehicle ordinance that San Lorenzo Park will be operating as a park free from encampments and that there will be a safe environment for all supported by more community service officers now and as we thought about future years we can envision more people in housing and people living on city streets more treatment and support services available for those struggling with mental health substance abuse disorders and just overall a greater sense of both safety wide so these are still broad goals and objectives and in the coming months we'll be working towards some more specific metrics as focus on our specific strategies for tackling homelessness so coming out of that work as trying to organize and refine it it really it got shaped into five possible response action areas the first being building capacity and partnerships permanent affordable and support housing basic support services include things like hygiene, sheltering and storage and community safety so I'll go into each of those in a little bit more detail and also give a few examples of kinds of strategies and activities under each of those action areas so for the first category building capacity and partnerships this really looks at taking a holistic and integrated approach to expand capacity effectiveness and our homeless response work so part of that is increasing our response capacity this means building out our team to be able to provide these services effectively involves re-engineering how we do these services and that's more integrated and holistic to having specific staff members and specific roles it is identifying partners who can play a role in supporting this work involves other specific vendors to help on issues such as ongoing refuse removal and cleaning open spaces involves building a task force of business partners engaged in this work then part of this too is engaging in advocacy for policy form and bringing funding to jurisdictions like Santa Cruz that are confronted with disproportionate impacts with this the second area is affordable and supportive housing this really acknowledges that housing affordability and availability are a significant driver in our region's homelessness crisis so our goals in this area are too among the goals in this area is to meet or exceed arena requirements for low and very low categories as well as executing a master plan for the Coral Street campus and this would include development of a navigation center which would include permanent supportive housing the third area basic support services specific to effective care and support services that need to be placed to help break the cycle of homelessness to support our unhoused population so among activities in this area addressing all levels of sheltering from emergency to transitional to permanent it involves establishing parking programs as well as creating infrastructure and programming for RV waste disposal the next category current stewardship builds off the basic supports and it speaks to our joint responsibility to support our homeless residents but also our responsibility for protection and restoration of our natural environment so within this action area the activities objectives include optimizing our response to mental health substance disorders services creating and partnering to create transitional employment programs to support employment and income generation for our unhoused residents it involves closing the bench lands as I've mentioned and restoring it to its use as a part and it also includes enforcing other environmental protection regulations particularly looking at our sensitive watershed areas and then the final action area reflects community safety and this is about partnering to keep Santa Cruz a safe environment for all so here this includes equitably enforcing behavior operationalizing our OVO and CSSO ordinances as well as partnering with downtown businesses on a community safety strategy so those are the overall in the broad areas and so there's additional activities under each of these action areas and what we begin to do is map these on to timelines for implementation for the plan I won't go into every detail here but you can see is the different the different color coding reflects action areas and each box is a set of a specific activity and we're beginning to look at the timing of when it starts and when it's ongoing in each of these areas and what you can see quite quickly just by the first page which covers the first three action areas is that this plan is really front-loaded in terms of our timeline some of this work is already underway in terms of just the development of this action plan, developing a spending plan for $14 million spoke to getting safe parking programs for tier one and tier two up and running already but most of these activities are really starting in this year and it's a front-loaded timeline it's time to get to work so those are the first three categories and again these are the other two parent stewardship and safety so we're continuing to work on those and build those out we'll be adjusting those timelines based off of reality and learning in the field as Matt mentioned this action plan is going to be dynamic and evolving that's responsive to emerging needs and what we're learning on the ground so continuous evaluation is part of this process and that will inform our timelines and our sequencing in this work so one of the elements that I want to dive in a little deeper on is related to first action area but we talked about building out the city's homelessness response and work involves every single department through the action planning process there was articulated a need for some additional positions to build out the city's capacity to be able to do this work as you can see here we've come to summarize it involves new positions or changes to positions in the city manager's office but also positions for parks and properties and works so color coding here really flex back to those different action areas and roles that different departments have but we'll see within our homelessness response we have a couple of positions that are related to strategy and oversight that work strategy oversight and then program and operations but part of the changes we'll see and Lisa Murphy from Human Resources will speak specifically in a little bit to positions but we'll have a deputy city manager role that is going to be overseeing homelessness as well as other programs there's the homelessness response manager that stays the same we are reclassifying a homeless management analyst to a homeless response services homeless services service coordinator sorry as well as we have our outreach shelter specialists are currently temporary positions and we're looking to institutionalize those and have three part-time people who are working at two full-time equivalent positions we are also looking to add a community relations specialist half-time position to support community engagement outreach locations and that's with all those positions are within the city manager's office parks and rec looking to establish two full-time positions that are dedicated to resource and land management those responsibilities include a response and the treatment of illegal encampments preservation of public spaces and environmentally sensitive areas and restoration of those impacted areas they'll also re-envision them interacting with our outreach team able to be conduit for connecting unhoused residents to services we're also and it calls for hiring and expanding the service officers by two full-time positions and then we're also looking to add a half-time position with the job title building maintenance worker that will be responsible for obtain and repair any of the city shelter or safe sleep parking programs any of the infrastructure needs to those locations so that's an overview and then I will turn it over to you so your action today is that adding 1.0 planning and development you can add recommendation three positions for the homelessness shelter and specialist 1-2 and a 1-2 means it's alternate staff higher lower level of the 1 or the more advanced staff the add one full-time homeless coordinator add two community services deleting a 0.65 position management analyst that one is directly related to services coordinator those two were swapping those two felt that it really needed a general management analyst that we used about the city to be more specified in the duties of the homeless world and also deleting a 1.0 effort for the city manager and for your informational only and not for action today is the existing deputy city manager the city manager it's a 1-2 again meaning it's alternately staff and it's currently staffed at the 2 level because it was combined with the development now that will be reduced to a 1 and that's a salary but there is no action necessary but I did want to call it to what was next slide and then for your future reference as Larry went through it's not for your action this evening I believe it is the 0.5 building maintenance worker the 2.0 resource and land management positions and the half time community relations especially but again that is not on your agenda this evening it is that first slide that I presented and that's specifically under that that's it on the staffing piece I'm not sure Larry thanks Lisa I will speak to regional collaboration on homelessness I believe out there I'm deputy city manager and director of planning community development services and you can go on to the next slide thank you so regional collaboration is really essential for any long-term success in homelessness and I want to start by thanking many people in the city and in the county and nonprofits and those members of the general public that have contributed to our homelessness response efforts and to our knowledge base both with this current action plan as well as previous have fed into this as well as those who are offering services directly out in the community and I'm going to focus on our regional collaboration with the county on various homelessness related issues we have been working really closely with the county on a wide range of these issues we meet with them on a regular basis both staff staff as well as with the two by two which includes the mayor and vice mayor and two members of the board as well as meeting regularly with the county and nonprofit like housing matters and then of course we meet with the county as part of the continuum of care so formally the homeless action partnership and now the housing health policy board and we've built a strong relationship with the county in part based on the mutual understanding that neither of us have the full breadth of resources necessary to tackle the homelessness issue and we've worked towards understanding each other's perspective and part through better defining our mutual roles responsibilities and we're using those common understandings to ground our discussion in how to allocate our limited resources so that we're collectively working towards achieving our goals one of those common goals is better data and we've had successes recently with 1220 river street sample our city staff were recently granted access into the homeless management information system HMIS so that we can track information on the same system that county is encouraging many of its nonprofit partners and our nonprofit partners to track data on and they're retooling that as well in terms of how that costing is being covered by the new continuum of care rather than by the nonprofit encourage more participation and we recently last week even went out and I know that there were at least six staff members from the city and at least four members of the council and probably more that I don't know about across the city who participated in the point in time count last week and that's going to contribute to our collective data resources and we've been supportive of the county in their effort to get additional funding through the HAP to do that point in time count on an annual basis rather than a bi-annual basis so that we can improve the data and just one other point Larry mentioned the encampment management you'll recall that the council supported that encampment management grant back in December and so we another example of a collaborative effort in something that we're excited to get moving on with the county and next slide there Laura so we've of course been collaborating very closely with the county on how to spend the $14 million that the state is providing to the city as part of the current fiscal year budget and the proposed plan includes approximately $7 million infrastructure and about $7 million in programmatic support focused on preventing and addressing individual and community impacts related to homelessness and this was the point where I was going to invite up Randy Morris from our county human services department the director there and as you heard from him earlier he had a conflict due to our timing and I don't think that he is back on but you heard the gist of his comments which essentially acknowledge that we are working really closely together with on a regular basis and do have a really strong relationship and have worked to formulate this proposal together for so I'm going to jump right into that the expansion of coral street campus sheltering that includes some really significant costs related to hygiene repairs to provide a shower and bathroom facilities in an existing building there at campus as well as property conditions on coral street that collectively comes to nearly $5 million we also are embarking on something that I'm excited about from a planning perspective to bring a consultant on board and do a design charrette will help us prepare a coral street master plan and that master plan will then guide future phasing of investments in the coral street area and help inform what land use changes we might pursue in order to facilitate the overall facilitate realization of the overall vision for the coral street area and then we've set aside some really significant funds $600,000 towards environmental remediation efforts and towards pre-development funding for a navigation center out in the coral street area and so that money will go towards things like preparing plans and setting us up to be competitive when it comes to grant and that's something that we really and moving on to the second bullet here with the pre-development funding pool that's something that we're also looking to do throughout the county and so we've got a significant amount of money $500,000 set aside for pre-development costs associated with projects not just within the city limits but throughout the county and that will align us to really leverage that investment to hopefully achieve additional grant monies through things like project home key so we've talked through eligibility criteria with the county and we're really looking at targeting projects that need that initial injection of funds so that they can prepare the plans so that they can then put in a competitive application for grant and that's going to expand our long-term capacity in shelters, in transitional housing and in permanent supportive housing and then finally we've got structural investments to expand operational capacity for proactive response and this includes things like expanding the capacity that Larry was talking about in the sheltering facilities the transitional community camp but it also includes case management services and the staffing necessary for those additional services so that we can help connect individuals with county services and ultimately with permanent housing so that's the 14 million in a nutshell there's additional details in your packet in the attachment with the spreadsheet and I'll turn it back over to Larry great thank you Larry and I just wanted to close again this is the same slide you saw earlier about success really to link this regional collaboration around homelessness with the county and the importance of that alignment that we spoke to that we're working towards the same outcomes and success the same so this work is intention and with that that's our presentation the recommendations that we're bringing forth to you all this evening are two full first we're asking to adopt the homelessness response action plan by motion acknowledging the associated funding requirements including use of 14 million dollars from the state and secondly we're seeking a resolution amending the classification and compensation plans by administratively implementing staffing to support the city's new homelessness response action and that we're happy to answer your questions thank you so much Larry and Lee for that presentation and running through those slides I will now at this time bring it to council for council questions and I will start with council member Cummings and then council member Mike thank you mayor thank you city manager and the staff that have been working on this just thinking back to when we started reopening the conversations around homelessness last year one of the things I was very much advocating for was having us come up with some kind of plan because just having to have one forever and you know trying to pack this piecemeal not a good approach and so I just want to really think that as our new city manager the approaches you've taken with making this priority we've brought off the bat getting this plan to the council and although it's a first step I think it's really comprehensive look at how we can try to address homelessness as a city and I really also appreciate the work of some of the information that's been brought forward in previous reports because so much work has been gone into doing community outreach getting input and I think one of the things that I had heard from community members was just we spent so much money creating these reports and then they just go and sit on the shelf so the fact that we're actually taking what's been some of the input that we received from the community from these reports and now operationalizing I think is really a great step forward. I do have a few questions I'll try to keep it brief but I think that with this being the first step of this kind of plan coming forward there's a number of questions that have come up and so I guess I'll just go ahead and get started one of the things that was mentioned in the report was that at peak COVID about 1,008 beds in the county as a whole the one thing that we've been hearing is that a lot of these coming offline and so I'm just curious if you all have the data on how many beds come offline from the county and then also with that what have happened to those people some of them obviously there's an effort to put people in housing but I guess the question and concern is that we are already at capacity because we have going on at the Benchlands we have what we see in our community and if people are in these programs and now those programs are being closed by the county the sense is that a lot of those people are just going to end up on the streets again so I'm just curious if you can speak to that yes council member Cummings I can speak to some of the detail on that I'm not sure I have all the information on the current status of the county but I'm happy to update you all on what I do know in terms of the county programs you know the capacity is certainly down with the closure of some of those programs particularly around the Armory though the county has been working towards you know increasing it's rehousing they're also looking at how they can find other shelter for folks that they are transitioning from their programs exploring options around master leasing so I don't know the details of where they stand in that my latest understanding is for the programs they closed at the Armory specifically we're looking at close at the Armory they've got alternative placements for all but five individuals we've been in conversations that as soon as we can open up our shelter our shelter program at Armory that would position folks there and there may be a bridge if there's a short time in between so I know the county is actively working with the change in closure of those programs to really final alternative shelter space for folks on the longer term pandemic specific funding really allowed expansion of that shelter capacity the levels that it has not been in and the pandemic has taken a toll and an undamaged homelessness so trying to find the right level of shelter for this community on an ongoing basis there's a target number in the county housing for homelessness plan really set 600 shelter beds as kind of that target number of the county and presently my understanding is we're somewhere around 450 something of my recollections correct from the last update I saw thanks I know you mentioned earlier that there were a number of people who got vouchers I think it's 1220 river street I'm just curious with those people who got vouchers how many of them are actually getting housing because I think one of the big issues is that people get those vouchers and then they can't find them right and then those vouchers expire and then there's that kind of stuck in the same place they were before I was wondering kind of like how many of those people are getting housing and what efforts the city making towards ensuring that the people who get vouchers yes that's a good question so it is too early to tell yet as I mentioned was just the last week February where those vouchers city staff had access to be able to attain those vouchers they were able to get vouchers I believe for four folks up at 1220 so that's in process that's been about a week because you're exactly right it's a laborious process sometimes to be able to find a place to take the vouchers so we will certainly update on the results of how many people are of those four that are placed my next question I'm just curious if you can touch on kind of the how we're defining transitional encampments because there's a number of different definitions that people have used in our community and 1220 river sounds like it's a location that has a lot of support versus the Benchlands which I didn't really realize the city that was going to be in a sanctioned encampment but if that's I just want to make sure that people aren't getting confused with when we say we're going to for example stand up transitional encampment in their neighborhood I really want to make sure that we have and people can imagine what that is and kind of know that there are like well I guess the question is are these safe managed locations provided with staffing or these encampments that are just kind of run where we're just putting people in we're providing them with toilets and yes the transitional community camps is we're setting them up and establishing them they just articulate what they are so they are smaller by design trying to create an intentional community of them so the cap is really around 30 and we have our first one that's what we're doing here we will learn how that works so far it looks good promising with vaults but the model there is creating a smaller encampment where you can build community and it's meant to be self-managed on a regular basis so again as I mentioned for 1220 as an example it was real intentional outreach and selection process for our participants for that particular encampment folks who are ready to then engage and work in a case plan towards getting connected to services and supports and getting on that pipeline towards housing so that's a requirement of that process so that's where city staff are doing the case management with the folks at that encampment city staff are on site at 1220 river every day making contact with the participants and residents there they meet with each person once a week to discuss their case plan make those service connections check in so there's city staff on site every day but they're not there 24-7 a lot of the it really is a self-managed community there are volunteer requirements there's a code of conduct the participants in that program are responsible for maintaining the camp in good order there's agreements on who takes care of what tasks but that's kind of a whole there's a real whole community that's built around that and it is supported it provides as I mentioned that case management so it's not just a matter of creating an encampment and not having those kinds of supports that's member Cummings if I could tell on Larry's comments I agree with all the points he made it's an important question I think from the community here transitional encampment or transitional shelter what they envision right now are the current circumstances that are kind of effective shelter when encampments grow to that size we're not able to provide standard of care service really helps to get those individuals on a path but I want to be very clear for the community as we talk about establishing a shelter we're wanting to get out of the business of the current environment we have at the Benchlands and move to a more meaningful, higher standard of shelter for those other locations and the sweet spot as Larry had mentioned is around 30 individuals where we can provide more hands-on case management services to help those individuals really move on to a healthier path for housing and also you'll see this in the action plan identifies a goal of identifying 20 of those sites throughout the county just in the city of Santa Cruz which allows us to collectively as a region try to meet that goal of with again a higher standard of service provided to schools to really break the cycle of homelessness if folks on a more health path had a legal question around the 10 bed emergency bed allowing for enforcement and I was kind of curious because it sounds like we have 150 beds is not going to reach the need in terms of the number of beds we need to house and I know for years now there's been a lot of discussion about that but it would seem as if those 10 beds build pretty quickly and then as a result we're kind of in the same situation where we don't have any beds available therefore can we or can we not move homelessness I'm wondering if there can be any discussion about that or how those beds are going to operate I don't know Larry really if you want to crack at it thanks this is a good question you know I think the city's goal is to please my understanding is to establish a level of shelter capacity where we can say that there is frequently or always some level of availability so to get to that kind of sweet spot where not availability people can have the option to come in and avail themselves of either shelter or one of these managed camp situations and they sort of always have that and so that's sort of what the goal is to get to that number knowing that not everybody always wants to be in a shelter or wants to be in a managed camp situation but that option is available so hope that answers your question in terms of the number we're seeking to help with the number I think my question is in terms of if all of our if all of the shelter capacity is full because I imagine we don't have we're not going to have full capacity for the number of people with homelessness and then my understanding is that the reason for the emergency beds as was outlined in some of the ordinances were proposed was so that you could enforce some of the these ordinances that are on books my question is if there's not capacity where does that place us as in terms of risk of being sued I think the idea is to develop that capacity plus the 10 emergency beds just to very sure okay I'll wrap up my comment questions I'll wrap up my questions and I'll have some comments for later I guess I'm just curious as well when we talk about case management I'm wondering if you can speak to kind of what that entails because obviously and this is I guess I can make for a question but you know what does that case management look like and how are we how are we targeting different populations experiencing homelessness so the idea here is that we have people who are have substance abuse and mental health issues you have people who are you know maybe they're they're formally incarcerated and have issues with connecting to either family or kind of getting established then you also have people in our community are working homeless and they just can't afford to live in the housing that's available so and those people for example they just need an affordable place to live so I'm just wondering kind of what case management looks like and how we're targeting those different populations yes I can I can speak to that and I think with where we're doing case management 1220 river is is a city our first focused efforts where we're intentionally doing that city staff Chris and Jeremy who've been doing a lot of the outreach work prior to 1220 in Benchlands we're responsible trying to make those connections to other services that may also include case management but we're doing it directly for city role but so 1220 and those participants were the first cases where we're doing that work and what it involves really is case planning is is individualized so there's an individual service with each person so their goals are based off their situation right so it's not and with a one size fits all this is this is what we do for every participant it's really based off what their experiences what their issues are and what's required for them to be able to get support to be able to be in a position to get more stable and permanent housing and that looks like something different person but that's where the goals are set in conversation and interview with each individual it's articulating those goals and then the case manager is playing that role of facilitating and connecting to those support services that are identified in the plan and doing tracking and follow up on on those efforts so if it involves getting them connected to a particular service the weekly meeting would follow up and saying so were you able to make that connection do I have to help facilitate a phone call or help you get to that appointment whatever it may be so that's an ongoing process and it's very individualized particularly with this group that is a little more diverse as we process what we found out of the same but as we spoke to as we think about doing additional transitional community camps there may be a more dramatic focus that might allow us to have a more targeted kind of set interventions with a particular focus like we said for instance abuse or it's around disabilities et cetera it can be a little targeted in the strategies because there might be some commonalities among the population but 1220 river wasn't selected based off of that I could just add to that coming so I would also just share that the goal the idea of that team is really based on the local experience we have had and the best we've had both Jeremy and Chris who were currently doing that work they can tell you today how many veterans are currently housed in the veterans as an example and a hilarious point on an individual basis how best to protect individuals with the services they need and where they are so the goal is to really scale that model realize what's working for us locally and scale that all shelters that are being built to really provide that meaningful pathway again the goal that we all share to permanent housing that's the the spirit behind adding those what we're hoping to I'll hold the rest of my questions but thank you for allowing me the opportunities thank you council member coming okay next question council member Meyers and then council member Calentari thank you um out of the gate all my discussions with members almost off of the list and especially want to appreciate all the work work really come right away in terms of operation on that I just have a couple of questions working with over the last 10 and I just want to recognize the hundreds of letters in but also asked for I think that there's a lot of hope that I want to recognize the county just now but decades of really non-success were really just not understanding the issue for us to feel like all the added higher cost housing did drug and alcohol issues tribal you know what maybe feel like manageable problem problem in problem and so I really really nice help and again I wanted to ask a couple one was I think sometimes when we use birds like and we sort of talked about how we that as a verify we think about that Jeremy and Chris know the individuals a lot of the individuals they know they're facing they know they need to basically make that a different type of service you know a case manager that maybe out of the county with those individuals for example on trauma-based or medical so we say we're not going to be the work of the specialized folks our folks imagine we just want to make so I've seen Jeremy and Chris at work and I've seen these are really are the people that try to act this level that support service structure though remains health and human services that's for the medical the mental health behavioral health other type of service and hopefully get access to us having a physically a person there help folks that's kind of that's correct yes I mean that's and that speaks to part of our conversation with the county as well about clarifying roles and responsibilities that's exactly right but I think as well the action plan even though the city won't be directly providing those services I think within the action plan is a city role working with the county to try to augment and expand those services where they're needed but not directly provide services and talking local and state regional experts on this this is that having someone that goes up every day but regular people feel safe able to that person I think it's really what this role in relation my next question is what's the vision for who may run the navigation also a what does that look like to hear that of the a couple of years ago and who do we look at I would say council member Myers we're open that you have engaged in some preliminary conversations with housing matters that's very encouraging they are a willing bigger partner on this work you'll see in the action plan we're already in discussions around an interim expansion of shelter capacity at the site and have had some great conversations Bill Kramer the executive director for housing matters so we think there's a lot of possibilities there as kind of a follow up to your last question related to the navigations there part of the work is that we're striving towards is also handing the capacity of our community based organizations take on some of this work as well organizations like housing matters compass come to mind so that we can also expand our capacity in ways that's not necessarily just falling on the shoulders of the city or even the county for that matter that's part of our collective work as well and housing matters is a great example I think whatever the whatever the program looks like a navigation center it'll likely be supported by many by guests and as we move through that process that'll be part of the work so would you imagine that that would might even what the model is you know some kind of operation model that may actually look at kind of a native way of going without burdening one but having those kinds of models yeah there are a lot of successful best practices out there that we would pull from we may have more to add on it but absolutely there are a number of ways we would be pulling that from where similar structures have been successful in other courses my last two other questions one other question and then I just have one comment on kind of I'll make a plug I guess Larry and Matt also you know we got several many of letters that said look you know but all this 14 million on the ground boom in one year I wonder how realistic that is and then rather you as you're working through all these various you know basically in the early update where you would you know I looked at your flowchart there Larry and it's like those bars may be shifting I would imagine and so quarterly updates are not only meant to look at the numbers and how people how response pattern is going up that's for at least finding but also scaling out any expenditures get those sliding scales get that kind of where we would push the when you early update the adjustments schedule for example with the yeah I think that's right Donna and with all complex plans had been closed we moved through you all will see a detailed budget as you would for any department or divisions we're moving to the department the budget development process and I think there will be there will be opportunities to explore more detail there when it comes to all the expenses being in year one Larry pointed out in the flowchart all the work being in year one part of that is there's a sense of urgency of wanting to take advantage of the home key funds we can get ourselves into a place where we have a navigation center that's close to shovel ready we've had some good conversations with the county and are optimistic that this project could be very competitive and there's only a window of time that we have certainty around funding being available so we're trying to hit the ground running take advantage of the official funding sources that are available but there's a good chance you know some of that work is going to flow into year two and year three as we move great yeah I appreciate comment in knowing what shovel ready looks like it's not a common term to a lot of the public how these large things really provide that time in those I think I'll end it there I have a couple of comments and and I guess the last thing is to really create potential for looking at different delta models or different delta availability for special populations exactly right ability facing disability not have a dedicated always very that women are living in especially all of you all of you setting the potential in there way too long way too much environmental damage to a part kids or really really ability I'll leave it there and my colleague thank you council member players I'd like to call on council member call entourage also and then council member Brown thank you mayor and I'll also echo my thank to everyone who's worked on this it's been a long year and then some addressing this and I actually also want to acknowledge and thank all of my co-colleagues for engaging in this very difficult conversation this plan that we have for us today didn't emerge out of nowhere years of the 2017 homelessness plan and the patch recommendations and then ultimately the policy directions that we've provided as a over the last year so we've landed here and I think I want to thank everybody for the work that's gone into it a lot of my questions have been asked by council member Myers you know I too talk to a number of community members over the weekend who are appreciative to see everything in one place but those same concerns of needing a little more specificity there's a lot of specificity in the agenda report but not reflected in the plan that we see the plans a little bit more of a step back view so I think council member Myers on that but to see that the next time around and then I also had questions about the navigation center and glad to hear that we are thinking about CBOs and other partners in the community not just for the navigation center but for the service provision of many of these programs that we are helping stand up like I see the city as the entry point the touch point that sets up the infrastructure and then the CBOs and county who have the expertise more capacity everybody's out of capacity and it doesn't have enough resources but the expertise to really provide the services I'm happy to hear that I do have one question that wasn't asked that is that there was a pretty big number in the agenda report and what we have been or are currently spending in response to the challenges that we see around homeless I can't remember the number right now I try to look back at it on my agenda report but that how is that being taken into account as we think about the budget because right if we hopefully the intention is that we're not in crisis mode and we're not spending our resources and time and energy and funds in that way we have this we have this approach that is that we thought through and planned out and so however millions of dollars we're spending right now in the way that we are going to be spending that so has that how is that being entered into the bigger scope of budget that was my question makes sense yes thanks for the question so the goal is to as we move into a more proactive the active response to relieve some of the burden on all of our operating department that are somewhat of an ad hoc all upon this with our homeless response remember that you're referring to the largest pie of that wage really just find staff support but staff that are being pulled away from their other day to day work in an effort to help with this Herculean task of responding to the challenges that are in front of us because we really had no other but as we move into this mode and we make these investments we can eliminate that but our hope is to lessen the impact on the department and over time look at other ways and allow our employees that never signed on part of the homeless response team to go back for other work and have a more focused for efficient team that's dedicated to that work and you'll see that reflected in the budget back going back to your question and and over time reduce the amount currently spending on that okay that that makes sense and that's huge I mean this not only impacts those who are on house community members who are house but our city employees I think that's a really, really point that you're making it is about quality of life for everyone involved so those again my questions were asked that was the wrong question and I have other comments that I'll save for um thank you councilmember calentari councilmember brown and then councilmember watt thank you mayor and thanks to everyone add my thank you to all of the work that's gone into this who have been I know working really hard to try to be more proactive place get organized you know invest some resources and I do very much support for the most part the direction that we're heading in here um I have a couple of questions the first one is a follow up I just want to clarify and make sure I understand this correctly this is the follow up councilmember I have a question about the holding back and bots in a given shelter or encampment setting it sounded like I heard you say that the goal with that is to do that so that the city can assert it's right of course the camping van because we can't do that if there isn't available shelter space according to art and verse I know it's much more complicated than that but that's kind of the so I think that's what I heard you say so my question is will keeping the number of people who are able to access shelter below the actual availability simply to demonstrate that capacity efficient for the purposes of not having exposure to a similar challenge I'm still not convinced of that so I just like to hear more about that and then related to this piece of it another question which is probably for someone else perhaps Descalante but whoever from the team has been working on this it feels best to answer how will how would that work practice how will the know which beds are available I've asked this question before we've been through this several rounds where we didn't really get very far and I will in this case so I'll just ask it again how will will that work practice these know where there's a spot before they issue a citation or move someone along would the person be supported with their belongings on the spot would they have to go somewhere advance which wouldn't necessarily make sense because they wouldn't know that they needed to do that or they hadn't had the contact with law enforcement so I just like to hear more about that so those are two and then I have questions on the budget so I can take the first part and versus Boise's couch in very broad language in holding but it's also narrowed significantly by other language and one of the narrowing aspects of it is that the court said that an ordinance that prohibits camping can be enforced against someone who has access to free available shelter but just chooses not to avail themselves of and so we've heard arguments that cannot enforce our camping ordinance until we have enough shelter space to accommodate all of the homeless people in the city that's a very expansive reading of the Martin case and so far the courts don't seem to be reading it that way as we found when city council vacated the upper portion of San Lorenzo Park last year so to follow up I recognize that but I'm not suggesting it's all or nothing or all or ten I mean I guess I'm trying to put your opinion that maintaining those 10 spots sufficient not an up potential challenge I understand that the courts have not said you have to have one to one ratio for every unhoused person that's not possible and it's always a move to target I'm not asking that question I'm asking is that a side of ten sufficient it sounds like it is in your opinion but I guess I'm not so I'd like to understand for the specific polls not I'm not disputing your reading legal landscape around ways at large that's from a Brown maybe I can add to Tony's comment might kick me under the table but I would just add I think the point is making I think setting aside the ten beds broadly our goal is to get to sufficient capacity as a whole into a point where those that want shelter and Cassie's point earlier not everybody will that those that want shelter we have a bed available that's what we're striving for I know the ordinances have specific language and I know the council has had discussions about having specifically ten beds always available I think more broadly speaking than that I want to get to the point where we have that's in place as a as a region and Larry has kind of mentioned generally speaking that number right now is around for beds give or take have some clothes of course but we're trying to get to that that is the goal that we are striving for to get to that place and you know the plan that you have in front of us I think will get us there for time I guess I would just follow up with that by saying ten beds is is that the fact that ten beds are being set aside is that going to make the ordinance defensible from a legal perspective I look at it a little bit differently which is as the ordinance is implemented are we able to offer shelter to a person on a given day when they're in the field of prior to writing a citation and if we are I believe that the ordinance can be enforced in that situation typically what we've seen is that legal challenges to these types of ordinances are not brought generally to challenge the ordinance on its face they're brought as the ordinance is implemented on behalf of individuals who have been cited and contend that the citation violates their eighth amendment quick thank you for that and I appreciate the the lens which are looking at it I like that lens I just want to I just want to make sure that you're doing this in that so I that but so as follow up then I'll just return to the question about how that would work in practice how would somebody potentially be cited then practice that that on the floor I'm resisting terminology of beds because you know they're not generally beds they're mats on the floor so how will that work or from I know that's something that's probably potentially still in process but just based on what you've talked about so far I can take a crack at that council member round but I think maybe somebody like Larry who's probably in frequent conversations with the county as the city manager mentioned these these programs and locations for shelters are going to be regional so we do have to work with the county and I don't think it's been established maybe with some conversations that Larry's working on is how will that work and how does what does that look like you're right we don't have a mechanism and we haven't had a mechanism to determine if there's any availability in our city and so now that it's going to be more of a regional approach definitely something that we have to work on on how we not only but all law enforcement agencies in the county that will be utilizing I believe those shelters as a housing option and so as far as today I don't think there's a mechanism to answer your question but it is definitely something that we'll have to be touched on and worked on with the county thanks and I didn't mean to put you on the spot I just thinking about it like trying to visualize and envision what will happen in this no it's a great question it's a valid question because often times I always add that to well this is okay at 3 in the afternoon but what is it like at 3 in the morning right so it's a very important question thank you and then my other question is related to and I first I want to sit back and say I wanted to just appreciate the staff at the time to walk through some of this with council members prior to the meeting and so I feel like a lot of my questions answered there and then also with the city manager on Friday but I hadn't read the budget prior to those conversations so I just have a couple of questions there related to some of these line items and you know I think overall it demonstrates that we are serious we're talking about making a real commitment and some of the things that I heard council member Meyers say sort of clarify what we mean when we're talking about you know case management or the people on the ground in the field who are going to be interacting and supporting people in encampments and in shelters I really appreciate seeing this I'm glad to see it and I wonder about some of the costs here in particular and if you may not be surprised that I'm wondering about the non-frontline additions and so with respect to program administration I see here I think I was going to ask about planning and request for proposal specialists but that looked like a short term and I don't understand what that's about but with respect to for example legislative or advocacy an external vendor at 432,000 well half of that because of half time external vendor ongoing what is that about I mean that's a lot of money that's more money than a whole as far as I can tell for outreach and shelter specialists we're going to spend more on legislative advocacy ongoing but that I'd like to hear more about that and then a community relations specialist as well I recognize that there will be a need and I've advocated for a long time that we should get out in front of these kind of things as they come up we should get out in front of it and talk with people in neighborhoods before we do something that may have an impact but is that that what we're talking about here and is that something that's going to be a half time position at that level that seems like an awful lot of money so those are too but I'd just like to hear more about I can speak to the first one Council Member Brown and Mary and the latter the first the idea around that discussion that I've been having all of you around wanting to build a statewide coalition to have a stronger voice in Sacramento on some of the legislative changes particularly those struggling with mental health substance disorders kind of the leg of the school that I feel is on a statewide basis although there have been some emerging developments just in the last week out of the Governor's office that work is time intensive and the idea there would be bringing on a firm advocates firm that has specific experience in that area because it does require special expertise to assist us with building that statewide coalition as well as direct advocates to work with our legislators so that's the proposal there and we may not ultimately end up being that full amount that was kind of an initial flag that we obviously those details will come forward when we're in the budget but just broadly speak the idea behind it the communication piece Larry can chime in on this as well and your point Council Member Brown Elizabeth Smith our communication outreach manager now is just trading water she has a lot of responsibilities thrown at her right now really at her max and so this idea would be around building capacity that extra level of engagement but I know the Council is often asking for on this work and it also helps us adaptive to feedback on the plan that we're rolling out want to know what's working with her and directly to be hearing directly from those we serve that's the idea around that position those dollar amounts probably will prove a bit but that's the idea I'll go back to you well I guess I'll just say my preference would be not and I understand that approving this isn't going to lock us in but I would hate to see us get locked in spending just under half a million dollars a year on the community relations and when there's a lot of need in the field I guess it seems like a lot I'll leave it there thanks Thank you Council Member Brown Vice Mayor Watkins Thank you and I guess I'll just start by saying thank you to the staff who is I think in a really short period of time and you know having been on the council now for five years I remember when we first when I first started there was a subcommittee of the council members working on a plan and recommendations for the council and since then there's been the cash there's also the alignment with a lot of other plans and then there's COVID a whole bunch of other things that happened and then most recently the policy direction given by the council to really think about how to kind of provide those guys moving forward and seeing this in a form of operationalizing guidance and policy and being iterative and looking at how I see it but you have to start somewhere or else you're sort of stuck in a position of inertia and unable to really see a lot of these these great intended plans materialize so I realized that we might not get it right and I realized that we will likely get some things wrong but at the end of the day we're attempting to really address this complex issue in a holistic manner to be able to move forward with seeing people finding more success and more independence so I guess those are sort of my brief comment I think a lot of my questions can be answered but the one question I guess I'd like to reinforce one just the closing of San Lorenzo Benchlands and really providing more access to families I talk to parents on a regular basis at the school that my daughter goes live down there that just don't feel safe accessing that part with their kids and they're expecting kids so I think having that restored is really essential for our community and I'm happy to set in the plan also looking at the subpopulations for the veterans up in the valley area looking at other subpopulations and how to address those I know that was also brought up by my colleagues in regards to really targeted interventions for unique populations although sometimes the housing isn't perfect or the transitional space isn't ideal but it's better than not being out on the street and out of a shelter of some sort so I'm really supportive of looking at how we can continue to prioritize more sheltering. I think there is recognition and really there's recognition from the governor at this point in regards to a certain population that does need to look at conservatorship and does need to look at how do you work with those individuals who are unable or are refusing or mentally not there or in a different state because of whatever substance is how are we able to serve those individuals and I think that will be forthcoming in terms of a kind of a state direction but I guess my question is essentially in regards to really establishing a number of these housing locations or these sheltering locations part of what is in the title is transition so I think how are we working on really ensuring that no matter what that this is not sort of a landing place I think individuals but looking at how I guess it speaks to some of the case management but maybe a little bit further but how are we creating that flow as well of really trying to move people to the more stable and independent living if able and then allowing more space for those that need to transition and I don't know if Larry would want to say that or whoever the title is Yes councilmember Watkins I'm happy to speak to that and you're exactly right the mechanism of the transitional the transition and transitional community camp really is making transition towards permanent housing case management really is the mechanism to work with those individuals on those plans to make those connections get them to supportive services get them into that pipeline to services get more stable housing so that really is the mechanism it is our goal in all the city sponsored programs be intentional from the beginning that that's the methodology in the nature of our work to create those connections and move to permanent housing having that capacity for the next individual to work process so we're looking at initially we're setting four month timeline I think that's a metric very similar to some of the county programs that are looking at success in making a transition to permanent stable housing so that is certainly something we'll be measuring looking at to this process Thank you and I guess my only other comment slash suggestion is you know in regards least ability and contributing to our community as members as fellow residents is how work on work development and ways to build their capacity and their competencies so that they can find success and also belonging in a meaningful way that we all I think benefit from as a community so I know you're partnering with county but you know sort of really factoring in the kind of the career technical I think also be with mayor Watkins I guess I had a couple questions that first I'd like to say thank you as well this has been a huge undertaking and I just want to speak at my understanding in my brief time with the city in this role that this is pretty outstanding the first time really get this comprehensive and take this ownership of investment into services and that are needed to address all the levels and aspects of this issue and our residents that are right and I so much that has gone into this and so I appreciate all the questions that have been answered prior to this meeting but I know that some questions have been from the community and one of the questions I think is that the funding many community members are having a hard time with the large numbers of dollar amount of funding that's not really itemized fine items but more a general not necessarily a plan even though it's all the plan and so if you can speak to those plots of money and I know they've been mentioned before the environmental remediation navigation center and things like that to what point those line items more details will come to surface and how you came to those numbers that you're asking for approval at this point in time from us thank you mayor I'll speak specifically to that line item of the 600,000 and the navigation center and how we got that that was a communication that we had with our economic development director Bonnie and coordinating with her to understand the upfront costs that we could anticipate as you know the city is going through a number of development projects with the metro south and the metro north that are nearing construction phases and so and we also have some phase one and phase two environmental site assessments done which look at the the hazardous material contamination at particular sites and so understanding the type of work that's needed to clean up the sites there are standards that need to be met in order for residential occupancy understanding the level of contamination at the sites understanding the needed to clean up to raise that to residential suitability shelter suitability in this instance and then the costs associated with putting together a whole series of plans not just the conceptual but then looking at some of the more specifics back to plumbing, electrical, structural, mechanical really aligning us to be competitive for and have enough money so that we can get good cost estimates in place for the overall construction and be competitive for getting the right amount of dollars and requesting the right amount of dollars when we go in with project home key so that's how that particular line item came to fruition was understanding here's the cost that we've incurred in other projects that have had similar types of upfront costs and here's what we know about this site and putting those together here's a good estimate for what we might anticipate ending in that phase project thank you and the navigation center acquisition purchase what was that number again or that was a million? that's a three million dollar so that's three million I mentioned five million because there's also a one point nine million which is the hygiene bay which the council looked at the big documents for that in early February so that's an anticipated cost based on an engineering estimate there that's the one point nine million for the hygiene bay and how we came to that for the three million that is a negotiation that is still in the works for property acquisition in the area and our economic development director again Bonnie Lipscomb is leading those efforts and that's what we anticipate being the cost of this there was also a question around received several emails about funding mental health and not giving that money to police and so I just wanted to clarify my understanding was the mental health liaisons for the county behavioral health and they're not they work alongside a police officer can you speak a little more to that role sir that that's correct and I invite to speak to their specific role but you're absolutely correct their employees up the county work with that thanks Lee mayor for the question yes not only do they work for the county but they also as we have to now that work with our staff they actually operate out of their own vehicle and often times respond to calls when it's appropriate on their own without law enforcement or any uniform personnel with them obviously if there's a safety issue we do respond with them to provide safety but the other part is sometimes they will handle calls proactively over the phone with an individual and get them to the right services get them connected based off of the needs at that time so although we have to now and obviously use more they do work for the county they work with us and often times they handle calls proactively on their own and we're not even involved and they're not writing with our option any longer actually due to COVID but I think it's been a really good change and they monitor our radio they have a radio with them often times jump in either assist or take over a call from an officer briefly just talk about the types of calls they respond to and their wool versus Pyramids and crests or other types of services they're more of a crisis mode type of call or yeah I mean that's kind of a tough question I mean a lot of different calls that they will assist on but I think that's the best way of putting it is more of a crisis mode where somebody based off the call obviously is probably in some sort of mental health crisis and so you know or just based off the behavior that's described by a reporting party sometimes they come to the assumption that there might be some mental health issues on so you know there's a wide variety it's hard to kind of give you to narrow it down but yeah they're always monitoring the radio calls and what comes out often they can pick up on certain key words probably that hang on their radar and I also want to add that actually I do hear often where officers respond to a call and maybe there's been a crime committed but the officers identify a mental health issue going on and they will ask the mental health liaison to respond to handle that part of it once we've established if there was a crime committed or not and what are the other resources this individual may need thank you so funding for more mental health reasons in any plan we move forward with is is is a county behavioral health county yes Larry okay that's correct okay the other question was the one one citizen wrote that summary of reporting the transitional camp doesn't include where they were located and at what point in any of this would community involve at all across that what I would respond to the question Amir Burner ties back to the conversation we were having earlier around that of having someone on staff with that outreach work as locations are identified right now the majority on the sites that Larry included as part of his presentation the 1220 river the river the expansion that we have planned at the house of matters grocery campus those are the initial areas of focus but of course one of the largest hurdles to advancing this work is often finding locations that are acceptable to the community that's going to be an important part of this work as we move forward and again emphasizing that I think this more distributed approach also helps to mitigate potential impacts on the surrounding areas where those locations are identified and more conversations but you know identifying locations is always an ongoing work thank you okay that was it a lot of my other questions have been asked I will hand it over to council member and then council member Mayer thank you mayor thank you staff I do want to applaud everybody that had their hand on this a comprehensive well organized more of an outline than a plan I think to be more of a plan I think we're going to have to look at more measurable objectives and some specific language around accountability and things like that moving forward but the fact that we're here to me says a lot of people everybody that worked on it it's really amazing to see something that council member Cummings said earlier just is ways that we can encourage people that have extra rooms or places that they're renting out as landlords or as they reach out to the university with their housing programs reach out to some sort of the navigation center where they could also be taking in people who are ready to become house and just ways for to facilitate that so they won't have to be on Craigslist competing against everybody a couple of things that came up as questions for me during the discussion was when thinking about those project home key opportunities is there any opportunity for the city to purchase properties that are not necessarily located in the city like if they're in the county or something like that but they would be city owned or would they have within the city the short answer is that's a possibility the challenge often comes down to council member Golder of how to resource it in a cost efficient way there's a lot of things to consider with each site whether or not utilize it but in short that is an option and then another question that came up that I was thinking when we talked about this a little bit in our public safety meeting a while back was about the off hours when there is no mental health liaison as part of this to develop so there could be 24 hour availability where someone could be maybe on call or something like that and then when they're not that's one part of the question the second follow up is that when they're not monitoring the radio when they're not responding to calls what does the job look like for those folks and do they ever go out to calls where there's a potential victim that need some crisis counseling if that makes sense so sorry if that's way too many questions in one but that's it I don't know who I think so but I'm not sure if there's not a mental health liaison available what is that is that what you're asking well and like what is the resource available how can we move to have that available 24 hours a day and it seems like it could be a valuable resource on calls where the person if they're not available and if they're not busy with other folks that need them at that moment be available to show up to calls where there's a victim that might need some crisis counseling or some mental health if that makes sense right like I'll answer your second the second part of your question first we are the only agency in the county that actually has a victim it works in our facility and that is her role really so if there is not a mental health component to it we have utilized our victim advocate to either come out to the scene or we bring a victim back to the office and that victim advocate also helps throughout the court process and all of that so that would be more of a role for our victim advocate if it's just victim services and guiding them through that and there is not mental health conditions that we pick up on and then the other question as far as 24-hour service I think that's a great question is the valid question for our entire county to start considering it and the timely question I've had some conversations with our regional 911 center and I know that there's other examples of this across the country where we can implement some sort of mental health crisis support the 911 center which would be the 24-hour care and really it comes down to resources and funding for that but I think that as a community we're moving in that direction but oftentimes after hours the officers have to deal with them if they need to at that given moment they are provided training and are very successful in providing care and getting to the resources that they need after hours as well the only other part that I still didn't quite get was that when they're monitoring the radio and they're not out on a call when they're working what are they working on like are they doing any kind of prevention or other kind of things or are they so busy that they're constantly just driving around I think oftentimes I will see them working on and maybe back to the office and ensuring that certain folks are getting connected to these services and doing the outreach to the folks that are ultimately connecting with some of with some of the the client so there's a lot of work going on behind the scenes to ensure that folks are getting the care that they need and sometimes it's working directly with telecare or other resources that are maybe even outside the county so they stay plenty busy and there's a lot of kind of extra work behind the scenes that they follow up thank you that's good to know because it's hard to visualize what it would look like from their day to day perspective but I think that's wonderful if they're building relationships and then continuing that care like outside of the actual phone call time that's great thank you that concludes your questions thank you member Golder council member Myers and then council member Kellan Terry Johnson questions Holly first I believe so I guess Barry or Pat can you clarify how they work with our neighborhoods and our colleagues those properties that are well away from the hoods or maybe I also recall that I thought that there was also hopefully but actually instead of having 600 people in each camp where in my opinion what crash 5000 pounds in an unmanaged camp can you explain to me a little bit more or comment a little bit more first idea where Larry I think I heard you explain you know we're focusing on trying to get smaller that of accountability and ways by which rather than having the several living in a ultimately suitable for having that abilities and will those first community outreach development and not just showing up in a neighborhood because oh yeah these are going to be a neighborhood and are they going to be in the county and is the idea that these how many keep saying they're going to take on more shelter but again are always short unresolved and long on still seem to me that we've actually been able to have the what is that particular outline you know I'll take a stab at starting so all the elements of your question council member Myers you know the transitional community camps are our initial plan looking at standing up to this is a new model and a new approach for us and so we'll continue to evaluate the 1220 being our first but conceptually these really are designed to be much smaller environments where you can build community and you can also work with people effective which as you pointed out you can't do in an environment with a large in camp so it's really designed with that kind of outcomes focus in terms of constructing the size support services related to that work in a way that's going to generate those positive outcomes and be more likely to be successful and so that's the intent I think as we move forward as Matt mentioned you know looking at locations whether it be transitional community camps how establish other kinds of sheltering location is one of those issues we have to grapple with and certainly doing that kind of outreach is essential to making that successful and we did that as well engage the neighborhood around the river as an example we've done previous iterations with a different model at that location so it's not as new but and we made that concerted effort to let neighbors know what the plan was there and met with some neighbors before we started that new camp new camp at 1220 river so you would that same model at also and are we asking did our neighbor a lot of misinformation about the statements made that we're going to be allowed to be sidewalked I just want to make sure that very care that process site will be first over time that these are people they have to sign a paper that says here's how I will live the situation also is that there is the time limit with the idea that people are able to have any part in for stable environments getting back home to their family whatever it is they need touch of finding out who the person is but again I just very important that our public knows we're not going to create a bunch of small chaos all over we have that already and what I can tell is very unsuccessful in helping so I just want to make sure and maybe a little more clear what that all looks like yes thank you I mean to answer a couple of your follow-ups that I didn't include initially absolutely just there is a participant agreement that is part of this if individuals can adhere to that then they will be asked to leave the program as well as there is through this model in the case management there is an initial again we'll be able to modulate it based off of what we're learning but initially a 1220 river as we're moving forward with this there's an initial 6 month period to work-based management and there's the expectation to making progress those goals and working towards exiting to a more stable housing situation that being said we've built the prospect extension based off of if somebody's making progress towards their work plan and towards that but there's some structural barrier that's you know limiting kind of that transition there is a mechanism to extend that there is good progress but certainly this is time to look at that transition and movement and somebody who's dedicated this plan to make that change I would just add Councilor Myers I agree with all Larry's points I mean it just really is a paradigm shift the way that we approach in shelter and I know the concerns that the City has and some of the concerns you're hearing residents related to what they've experienced over the years and what they've seen in terms of what's defined as shelter we're really trying to redefine how we approach that work going forward based on what's working. Thank you Councilmember Callentari-Johnson Thank you I just wanted to comment that I have a lot of comments around mental health and behavioral health response but I will hold that for there was just some questions that came up and Councilor Golder had some questions I've got some quick around that. Thank you. I think good questions for now Betty then take it out for public comment I know we are really behind on public comment so thank you to everyone who has been waiting patiently to speak to this item we did have four groups that reached out and were approved for extra time Santa Cruz Here's Reggie Meisler Warming Center Program and Fridge Services Brent Adams Stepping up Santa Cruz Serge Pagno and Santa Cruz's other plan if you are interested in commenting on homelessness response quarterly update item number 17 on today's agenda please raise your hand now by dialing star 9 on your phone or selecting the raise hand during the webinar calls on your computer when it is your time to speak you will hear an announcement that you have been unmuted the timer will then be set to two minutes as a reminder public comment will be limited to two minutes we will begin public comment period with the groups approved for extra time attendees and looking for my group they're all there I will start with Santa Cruz Here's Reggie Meisler go ahead and unmute yourself I'm not Reggie but I am calling in from Santa Cruz Care's can I just ask a question Reggie Meisler's hand is up which one of you is for the group for the extra time can you hear me it will be me let's restart the timer then I apologize I just wanted to clarify so if our city clerk can restart the timer we will begin thank you so much sorry for the interruption no problem thanks so much for sorting it out I'm calling from Santa Cruz Care's with concerns about the plan use of the 14 million in funding barely half of the funding is being spent on actual infrastructure investment which is what the funding was originally allocated for and what Santa Cruz Care's was directly told it would be used for by council members Watkins, Calentari Johnson, Brunner and Golder this is a reduction plan document which provides us with these cost estimates and line items the unfunded notation is said to suggest that funding will need to come from general fund, new revenue sources or reductions to other services there's an enormous amount of spending on line items which are noted as unfunded after only the year of operation this is because these line items are not infrastructure investments but operating expenses taking a closer look at these operating positions that have already had an existing city department with its own staffing budget we want to specifically bring your attention to the spending on two community service officers the vehicle abatement officer and the two mental health liaison these positions are likely to be put under the umbrella of the Santa Cruz police department which already consumes a whopping 30 plus percent of our general fund having a fund helping fund few new positions for SCPD for just one year which will then have to be funded via the SCPD's budget and general funds in the years to follow anyways is a transparently inappropriate use of this homeless infrastructure funding the vehicle abatement officer and community service officers in particular are members of law enforcement as we repeatedly point out to this council there's a substantial body of research proving that law enforcement responses to homelessness are ineffective, expensive and actively entrenched people with the potential to increase the cost of homelessness based on the city's own estimates the cost of these four positions alone could be reallocated to increase our pre-development budget for permanent supporting housing by over 50 percent we are very supportive of the work being done with regard to permanent supportive housing in this plan and are encouraged that the city is moving forward more support of project home key please reject the city manager's plan and its current state and request modifications that will homeless infrastructure project funding we'd also like to add that after reading the agenda packet it is extremely disingenuous to count the Benchlands camp as included in the 150 emergency shelter beds the Benchlands is located in a flood zone as we saw in December 2021 campers were flooded out without any assistance from the city they were left there to fend for themselves only after tents were completely underwater did the city offer to move people to adjacent parking lot in congruent that the city has a goal of closing the Benchlands camp while also standing it up as work the city has done to give quote unquote shelter the city is woefully behind of fulfilling those 150 emergency shelter beds the city proposes to close the Benchlands in summer 2022 and the numbers listed in this agenda packet do not make up enough spots for people to make up the difference people will simply not disappear because of their camp it's literally just moving people around we'd love to see the city identify more sites outside of the armory 1220 river street in the Benchlands and to use this one time funding for that instead of giving the Santa Cruz police more money thank you for listening thank you so much for your public comment let's see our next her is Frank Adam team for warming center program and footbridge go ahead and unmute yourself hello can you hear me yes welcome hi council or what appears to be 5 out of 7 council members Brent Adams of warming center so good to see you all great presentation this is our 8th year host warming center which used to be a backup purely winter shelter yet now there's not a single emergency shelter bed in Santa Cruz so we're the backup to not hundreds of people orient to us as their only stop gap against hypothermia we activate based on temperature forecast and when we're not open we become the hypothermia geared distribution center offering more than a thousand literally tons of warm clothing and warmers, rain ponchos, tarps as many people as need them but I don't want you to worry about all this material entering the waste we do laundry each month we're doing our 7000 load of laundry and offering our 5000 power this month why do people prefer our showers that put the service center to those that housing matters because rather than 7 minutes of lukewarm water we offer 50 minutes of hot shower, we clean them in between each shower service oriented and instead of fences and security guards we offer the much needed basic including q-tips deodorant, razors, underwear and hundreds of other basic items we believe it matters that our showers are cleaned after each we also host the shower trailer San Lorenzo Park every Friday without incident and without closing a single day during the pandemic we host a secure storage for more than 1000 people with inspiration from the subcommittee on homeless in 2017 we've defined what it means to offer transformative services ever since isn't it remarkable people get clothing embedding from us, door materials and other personal belongings on our property twice daily act we see a free laundry service can you believe we've already been doing this successfully for years and without county support forming center program and I have advocate for transitional commitments for the past 10 years and even pointing the term after 4 years of touring northwest cities researching best practices successful non-profit hosted camp community we kind of wrote the book on it last year city staff promised non-profit would have an opportunity to help share shoulder the load we offered an RF but now the city that's my phone ring I hope you don't have to hear that we offered an RF but now after the city is running its own camp at 1220 rivers let's be clear a city run camp isn't a transition camp it's missing the ingredients of community empowerment, sequence of personal healing it lacks the humanitarian mission we're eager to operate program and demonstrate our vision of what's possible over the years we've seen city parks repeatedly host as many as 300 people in unsafe conditions they have the ability to camp near dealers and use illegal substance day and night privacy in ways they'd never be able to in a residential situation homelessness has become no longer a homelessness problem but a substance disorder problem in a far larger city city last winter we established an agreement in a far corner of harvey west park this community was successfully in place without a single 9-1-1 call six months later moved to a fence area south of where they remained again without incident for another seven months still flooding in december most of those are now in 12 they were primed to begin community we've reached out a number of occasions to city staff help recontextualize the bench to something more like separated agreement camp zone no reply as you deliberate this homelessness plan I'd like to consider that organization such as ours best fully serving our community for years have earned the opportunity to help to a greater degree