We're going, sorry. Good morning, everyone. For those that are just joining us, welcome. Thank you for coming. We'll now be holding our official news conference on the findings of a study conducted by Help Seeker Technologies. Speaking at this news conference will be Chief Adam Palmer, as well as Dr. Elina Turner, who's the co-president and co-founder of Help Seeker Technologies. Joining us virtually to help assist with any Q&A at the end is Jesse Donaldson, Executive Vice President of Help Seeker Technologies, and Camilo S. Camila, Research and Policy Analysis from Help Seeker Technologies. I'll now welcome Chief Palmer to the podium. Thank you, Chan. And good morning, everybody. Happy to be here today with Dr. Elina Turner from Help Seekers and Deputy Chief Howard Chow. I know that the media has just gone through a two-hour technical briefing before this press conference, so I think a lot of questions on the data. I've just been following the news on this the last couple of days, and I know there was a lot of questions about that, and I know that Dr. Turner did answer a lot of those questions that were rising in the media. Poverty, mental health, homelessness, substance use, and crime are complex issues that impact the safety and security of everybody in Vancouver. As these challenges have grown in recent years, so too have the demands on the Vancouver Police Department as we watch this unfold. But despite more money than ever, more time, more resources, and more energy in the overarching system, it's clear that something isn't working. Last year alone, there were 527 overdose deaths in Vancouver. That's more overdose deaths per capita than Chicago, New York City, and Los Angeles. This year in British Columbia, we are on track for over 2,000 overdose deaths in our province. Compared to the average BC resident, a person in the downtown East Side is now one-third more likely to live with depression and seven times more likely to live with schizophrenia or another delusional disorder. People in Vancouver with mental health issues are 15 times more likely to be the victim of crime and 23 times more likely to be the victim of a violent crime. People who are homeless in Vancouver are 19 times more likely to be the victim of a violent crime. This isn't the first time that people have spoken about this or reports have been released. In fact, if you look at the paper trail over the years and listen to what people have been saying, flags have been previously raised. I'm gonna take you back to as many years ago as 2008 when VPD put out the report Lost in Transition about a lack of capacity in the mental health system failing Vancouver's mentally ill. We did another report on that, Lost in Transition 2 called Beyond Lost in Transition in 2010. We did another update report on that very issue in 2013. In 2009, we issued Project Lockstep, that was 13 years ago. Last year we put out another report called Revisiting Lockstep in 2021, talking about the lack of coordination, the silos and nobody being in charge from a systems approach into the issues in the downtown East side. You look at reports from other agencies, Vancouver Coastal Health, downtown East side, second generation strategy, an excellent report that talked all about these issues. VPD put out a report in 2017 talking about the opioid crisis and the need for treatment on demand. In 2019, we put out another report on the opioid crisis talking about a journey to hope. Last year with the special committee reforming the police act, VPD did three presentations to that multi-party committee and we did a written submission as well, talking about a lot of these issues and talking about Project Lockstep and the lack of coordination. We have been consistent on these issues for the last 13 years. The Mayor's Task Force on Mental Health and Addictions dating back to the previous Mayor Gregor Robertson talked about these issues. The recent report from Doug LaPard and Amanda Butler on BC's Prolific Offenders talked about coordination and different changes that have to be made in the system. Recently, you saw an article on the Vancouver Sun from Dr. Bill McEwan who's one of the most renowned psychiatrists in Vancouver with significant experience in the downtown East Side specifically and he talked about a lot of the issues that we're seeing in the downtown East Side and with downtown community court. And recently, BC's Chief Coroner, Lisa LaPoint, while talking about the opioid crisis and the number of overdose deaths, talked about the need for more coordination and accountability in the system. So we're not the first people saying it and it's not the first time we've said it. This has been something that has been talked about many times but there are some differences this time that we will highlight. But aside from all that, aside from the reports, aside from the talking heads, all you need to do is just take a walk. After you leave here, take your cameras and take a walk through the downtown East Side. Look at some of the other neighborhoods in Vancouver that we're seeing a deterioration and the quality of life in recent years. Chinatown, Yaltown, the Gravel Entertainment District. These are neighborhoods that you have all reported on. You all have footage from those neighborhoods and you know exactly what I'm talking about. And if you talk to the residents, to the business owners, to people on the street, to different community partners like we do every day, you will hear a similar message on the deterioration in certain neighborhoods in Vancouver. This help seekers analysis suggests that there is already lots of money in the system and by their analysis, $14 million a day is spent just to fund Vancouver Social Safety Net. But there's also an increasing body of evidence that suggests this money isn't being used in a way that best serves the people who need it the most. Despite more talk than ever and more money than ever in the system, it is now bleaker than ever for a growing number of people in places like the downtown East Side but it does impact other neighborhoods in Vancouver as well and significant concerns in those neighborhoods I've previously mentioned. Which is why today I'm releasing the preliminary findings of Vancouver Social Safety Net Rebuilding the Broken, a report by the Vancouver Police Department in partnership with help seekers piggybacking on their report that examines the city's Social Safety Net and its relationship to public safety. This report is being released earlier than expected and there is work still being done on it. We have confidentially consulted with approximately 30 different organizations who have signed nondisclosure agreements, NDAs and we've been listening to them getting their perspectives on the draft report that we were floating around with our partners. But the reason that we're releasing it today is due to a media leak so we have up the release date from when we anticipated doing this. For the past 14 months, we've collaborated with researchers, experts, community leaders and other stakeholders to study how money is being spent in support of our community's most vulnerable. Here's some of the preliminary findings. More than $5 billion a year is directed towards Vancouver Social Safety Net. As explained in the two-hour technical briefing that you just received, this is a conservative underestimate of the total amount spent. It's comparable to the entire operating budget of the National Hockey League. Of that, nearly $1.5 billion is directed towards registered charities and nonprofit associations with a direct mandate to support social issues such as homelessness and poverty. And despite $1 million plus a day going to community and social issues in the downtown East Side, there remains a gap with assistance for addiction recovery programs, offender rehabilitation services and proactive programs to help victims of crime. We have seen some improvements and positive steps in the right direction. However, despite all the money being spent, our research has found a lack of transparency, lack of coordination between agencies and a lack of accountability from various levels of government to make sure the money is spent on the people who need it the most. We see silos and a piecemeal approach to a system-wide issue. This mirrors in many ways previous research conducted by others over the years that sometimes sits on a shelf and collects dust. And all of this is combined to exacerbate the crisis in the downtown East Side and other parts of Vancouver. There is no single solution to these complex issues but we have identified a path forward. This path includes, number one, establishment of a steering committee made up of community partners and various levels of government to guide next steps and implement meaningful change. Number two, creation of a single centralized entity to oversee and coordinate services in the downtown East Side. Number three, the identification and development of proven, effective and evidence-based community partnerships. Number four, establishment of a consultative process with community partners to align and evaluate service delivery with key performance indicators and effective outcomes. These calls to action are similar to recommendations we first made 13 years ago when we released the findings of Project Lockstep and more recently in 2021 and our recommendations to the Special Committee on Reforming the Police Act. They're consistent with similar calls for coordination made by the BC Coroner Service, the Labard Butler Report recently made to the provincial government and other bodies of work. We've long understood that our public safety mission can only be accomplished by fully leveraging strategic partnerships with other organizations and groups. Over the years we have established productive partnerships with numerous agencies and have yielded positive results in critical public safety areas. That's one of the reasons why in August of 2021, while facing an increasingly complex set of circumstances that were impacting the health and safety of all Vancouverites, we engaged help seeker technologies to audit Vancouver's social safety net and examine our place in it. What's different about this kind of analysis from what we've seen differently is that we wanted to start attaching some financial figures to what we were seeing in our day-to-day work. Since that time, the challenges have only grown worse. While today marks the opportunity for an important public conversation, one I hope finally brings about some meaningful change, I also know there's a long road ahead and we cannot do this alone. Public safety is our number one priority and we are committed to seeing this work through to the end and working with the community to address issues that impact the health and safety of everybody. I'd now like to turn it over to Dr. Alina Turner for comments. Thank you, Chief. Just searching for my speaking notes. Thank you. Awesome. Good morning everyone and thank you for providing me today with an opportunity to share some remarks with you. I'm honored to be on this land and respectfully acknowledge the traditional and unceded Coast Salish territory, including Masqueam, Squamish, and Slewa-tooth nations. My name's Alina Turner and I'm the co-founder of HelpSeeker Technologies, a social impact technology B Corp. We build solutions that empower leaders on the front lines of solving the world's most complex social challenges through data, software and insights. You can find out more about us and our work across Canada at helpseeker.org. I've been involved in the social sector my entire life as a client, as a frontline worker, as a researcher, and as a funder before starting HelpSeeker to bring about something different and bring that to this table. We're here to help communities bring about the change needed now more than ever to transform approaches to complex social challenges. What we've learned working across the country and you may have personally experienced is the increasing urgency and complexity of need accelerated by the pandemic. Police agencies alongside service providers and all levels of government are rightly being asked to do more to address the harm experienced by individuals, families and communities facing adverse social outcomes. Community well-being and safety are no longer the domain of a single sector if they ever were. But to have a productive conversation about what needs to be different including coordination and partnerships, we first need to understand what we have to work with today and this includes the financial investments that exist in the social safety net. There's no perfect definition of such social safety net in Canada. It's composed of a range of social supports for people experiencing hardship and can be delivered by everyone from local, provincial, territorial, federal and indigenous governments, public and non-profit organizations and even private sector entities. We use the social impact audit methodology to understand the assets that exist in a community today to support well-being and safety. The idea being if we can understand what we have and compare it to what we need, we can better coordinate together to deliver the right mix of supports more quickly and effectively. The purpose of this initial step is to look at the system as a whole and use publicly available data to do so. What's presented in our report doesn't comment on any one entity. It's efficacy or its capacity nor does it comment on the experiences of people that come into contact with the social safety net or the expertise from those delivering frontline supports. We agree those are essential inputs. This report is the first of an ideally two-phase project. In our report, we called for a second phase that entails a community-wide process with new data from this report to gain further understanding of the strengths, challenges and opportunities possible through cooperation and alignment of service design, delivery and reporting. In total, we were able to find an estimated $5 billion per year as analyzed from 2018 and 2019 data allocated to social safety net-related investments in Vancouver, and that included benefits that went directly to individuals followed by charities and foundations. There are just about 2,600 charities in Vancouver registering a total of about $14 billion that year. Of these, about $1.4 billion was allocated to charities supporting work to alleviate social needs, including the relief of poverty, the provision of community resources, youth programs, housing, home support and addiction services. It's up to you as a community to decide whether you're getting the outcomes you want for the efforts and investments that are being made, not me. At the same time, I'm aware of the community-wide sadness and anger over the preventable loss of human life through the opioid pandemic. My brother included is one of those deaths in Vancouver two years ago. And as well as the rising fear and tensions over safety, the public reports. If you find you're getting the right value for this investment, then you can figure out how to move forward together to right-size what you have now with what is needed moving forward and what data coordination and partnerships you need to do so. The analysis we provide here and the work that comes before us is just the beginning, it's just the first step. Thank you and I look forward to your questions. Thank you, Chief. Thank you, Dr. Turner. I will open up the question period to those in the room first. So if you can just state who your question is for, well then once the question period is done from the room, we'll move to the phone lines. Does anybody have any questions? Yeah, I'll start with Chief Palmer. One of the things that a lot of people are having trouble understanding is why this is coming from you and the VPD, why you commissioned this report, why it wasn't done in partnership with the province, why it wasn't done in partnership with the city and what benefit it provides to the department. That's a great question. So you have to remember that in policing, we're in a very unique driver's seat and perspective on the world. And as members of the Vancouver Police Department, we know every street, every back lane in the city, we know all the problem buildings, we know all the service providers, we talk to people in crisis hundreds of times every day in the city. We're out there 24-7, 365 when nobody else is. You do have fire and ambulance out there, but we're dealing with if you took all the calls for fire and ambulance and combined them and then doubled them, we would still be out there for more calls for service and all the other service providers combined. So we have a unique picture on the roller coaster of life on what goes on in this city and deal with crisis situations all the time. And we deal with all the different elements of the system that help people in crisis and help people in need. And we see the gaps with the front seat, driver's seat view to that. And a lot of people always tell me, they'll drive down East Hastings Street and they've driven by there a thousand times, but they've never actually gone into a back alley. They've never actually gone into an SRO. They've never walked down a hallway at two o'clock in the morning and some of the most dangerous and poverty-stricken buildings in our city. So we've got a unique view of the city that nobody else does, very unique. And it's also consistent with history and that we have put out reports like this in the past and I outlined them. So project lockstep, lost in transition, multiple renditions of that, opioid crisis reports, and people had said to us at that time, well, why are you looking at mental health and why are you looking at the opioid crisis and why are you looking at the downtown East Side and the lack of coordination and all the systems? The reason is because we've got the best view of it of anybody and we talk to people on the street every single day. So we've got a really interesting perspective on it. It's consistent with what we've done for the last 13 years. It's consistent with what we said to the special committee reforming the police act. It's consistent with what we've said publicly and quite frankly, the other advantage we have as police is that we're not political entities. I don't report to any politicians. I don't report to the city of Vancouver. I don't report to the province of British Columbia or the federal government. And what's interesting about our consultations with about 30 different entities is that many of those other groups that we'll talk to, our government ministries are from civic entities, are people in community that are funded by government sometimes and they are agreeing with our findings and the things that we're unearthing. But they can't speak up publicly because they're connected to political entities. To me, it doesn't matter who the government of the day is. I'll just call it how it is and be quite frank about it. And that's what I'm doing. Two billion dollars in federal government pensions, child tax benefits, all these things that impact everybody, given that it includes the entire Vancouver Police Department budget and Vancouver Fire and Rescue Services. How concerned are you that this is actually offering a conflated inaccurate number that will only further stigmatize a community that's already stigmatized? Well, it's actually not inflated. It's actually an underestimate. And I'm gonna ask Dr. Alina Turner to talk about that because this methodology has been used in over 30 cities across Canada and it's well-established. So we do stand by the numbers and I'll let the expert talk about it. Awesome. So just reiterating what we talked about in the technical briefing that the point of this is to look at the social safety net of Canada as a whole. So we don't make the distinction whether this is only for the downtown, a particular neighborhood or anything like that. So we look at the social safety net as a whole. We also look at it from a comparative lens with other countries as well. So what's included in other countries when they compare themselves to Canada's social safety net and direct benefits are hallmark of social welfare states. So it would be erroneous for us to exclude that from the analysis. What we're saying though is that there's actually way more to the social safety net than just those direct to end user benefits. We need to look at the services because that's another component to it and we need to actually dig into the flows of funds. So how many levels does the funding flow before it gets to the end user? So that's why we took a look at that. When you mentioned the under-reporting, I did make this point in the technical briefing that we unfortunately could not get data on all the non-profit entities. And so if you heard me talk about charities, it's a special registration with the federal government and we relied on CRA data, Canada Revenue Agency public data to get a lot of those numbers. But that data set does not include all non-profits. So there's lots probably missed and that's why the next phase of community engagement to see what we missed, to see if the categorization makes sense. Sometimes what you categorize yourself with, Canada Revenue Agency such as relief of poverty. What does that really mean in practice? What are the services you deliver on the ground? And what is the client's experience of those services? That's really, really important for us to dig into as we hopefully continue this conversation in Vancouver. Thanks. Chief, people are going to think that this is misleading. I mean, the first page of the VPD report states $5 billion and in that you're capturing things like CPP and OAS for everyone in Vancouver, for people that are not struggling with the issues that you just talked about that are challenges to the department, homelessness, the opioid crisis, mental health. So the public is going to look at this. We know some people in government have looked at it, not profits have looked at it and see that you're misleading the public by throwing out this inflated huge $5 billion number. Great. So in fact, we're not misleading the public. We're actually telling the public the truth and on the specifics of the data questions again, I'm going to turn to Dr. Alina Turner who's the expert on that. Hi, hi again. So, I mean, I can't speak to the VPD report. I can speak to our report. And again, we try to quantify as much as we can find about the social safety net. And as I mentioned before, what percentage of that $5 billion actually makes it to the most complex and most vulnerable versus at-risk populations, versus just general community and community well-being, things that we all deserve as citizens of a country that invests in a social safety net. So unemployment, right? You fall into a hardship, you need access to that. That's a good thing. Nobody's talking about taking that away, but that is part of the social safety net. That would be inaccurate to say the unemployment insurance is not part of Canada's social safety net. In fact, that's kind of what makes Canada awesome is we have these investments. Now, your question is getting at, well, why if we talk about the $5 billion and we associate that with complex needs only, then we might be missing the nuances that not all of this funding actually goes into that really, really complex needs group. And that's really important point because you actually need to mine that data and actually figure out which end users are tapping into these resources at a time. And do we have the right match between the resources that are available and what those end users need? I mean, clearly there's a mismatch. You take a walk downtown, you can see there's a mismatch, but what is that mismatch, right? So do we know if we have enough of the right type of supply to figure out if we can recalibrate that $5 billion? If these are the collective resources we have to work with, do we need some of that recalibration so that we can serve under-met needs currently? Is there opportunities to move funding around to solve some of these gaps? Or is there a net new investment needed altogether, right? So that's the conversation that we need to be having as a community. Is the calibration need to shift because we're not happy how the pie is divided currently? Do we need to do that? I mean, people do that all the time in their day-to-day lives, right? With, you know, you have this much income to work with. How much are we gonna spend on housing? How much we're gonna spend on food? Is something out of whack? Do I need to get a job to add income to my household because I can't make ends meet? It's very similar like that. We gotta look at the pot of money we have to work with as a society and do the same kind of analysis. I think the challenge that Chief has highlighted is that level of analysis isn't necessarily happening on an ongoing basis in our communities. And so when we have these imbalances, it's unfortunately becomes this pointing fingers instead of saying, hey, what do we got? What do we need? How are we gonna pay for it? And getting on with that work. The other thing I just want to add to that, though, is it's a good question. So I just want to lose sight of the big picture here. Number one, like we weren't planning on releasing it right away. We were still refining it doing consultations, but one of BC's top reporters got the copy of the report and we have to come out earlier. So looking at you specifically. But no, let me finish. So the other thing though, the big picture to remember about this is that you can go into the report and you can look at line 16 on some data table and say, what about this? And I get that and there's no problem and we'll have the doctor address that. But I don't want to lose sight of the big picture here is that the lack of coordination and the piecemeal approach that we've taken to dealing with social services in this city and in other places as well. You look at Victoria, it's like a microcosm of Vancouver and you're seeing a lot of the same issues happening over in Victoria on a much smaller scale that we do see here in Vancouver. Those two cities really stand out probably the most in this province to me. But I think the big issue is that you've got, half a dozen government ministries, you've got a bunch of different departments up at the city, you've got all these nonprofits, everybody's running around doing all these different things. There's some coordination, don't get me wrong. There's some really good programs out there and happy to talk about a couple of them but some really marquee programs I think that are sort of stellar examples of ways that we should do business. But a lot of people are running off in disparate silos and not coordinated. And if you had an overarching view of it, a big picture enterprise view of how to deal with the social issues in Vancouver, the social safety net, but all the issues, like it's clearly not working when you go down to East Hastings Street in our city. It's not working at all in other neighborhoods as well. And we need to have better coordination on that. And who's in charge? So if I said to you, who is in charge of the downtown East side? So yeah, sure, me, the police, we've got the public safety piece on crime and other calls for service we get down there. But we've got health, we've got education, we've got youth, we've got poverty reduction, we've got community services from the city, we've got engineering, like you've got all these different departments, everybody is working in different groups, mental health and addictions, but who's there overseeing the whole thing? And one thing that we've asked for and I think would be super helpful is if we had, when you got one person to go to, if you're going to go to Adam Palmer, you're going to go to Sheila Jones or whoever and say, you're in charge of it, fine, then I'll take ownership of it and I'm in charge, but it shouldn't be the police. The cops should not be in charge of the social safety net. We're going to shed light on it. We want to work with all the different partner agencies, but somebody probably from government, probably at the provincial level, needs to be in charge of this place and say, this is how we're going to coordinate all these disparate silos and provide the best outcomes for people on our streets and the best outcomes for community. And I actually think that there's a really good opportunity here because we're in a situation where we've got a new mayor in the city of Vancouver, we've got a new premier who will be coming in next week and I think there's a lot of opportunity here and I don't think it's about finger pointing, I think it's about opportunity that we do have these issues and I think all of us, if we were to look in the mirror, would say, yeah, something's not working well in Vancouver and needs to be changed and we need to be better coordinated and there's a great opportunity with the new premier and the new mayor to sit down, go through this in more detail and work together better because there's gaps there. But Chief, it is prudent to ask, what's the motivation now? You just cited off a whole list of reports that the BPD has done. That's right. So what's the motivation of this report? How is it any different telling us anything that we didn't already know about what is happening, the challenges that are being faced? Is the motivation to get more money in the police budget? What's the motivation here? Well, if you look at the report, there's nothing in here about the police budget. Like, there's nothing in here about, you know, Adam Palmer asking for more resources for VPD. That's not even anything that's covered off in that report and that is not even relevant to what we're talking about here. I'll be going through a separate process with the new mayor and council and our police board like we do every year on the budget. But this report doesn't make the argument that you need more police or less police in Vancouver. It's just talking about the overall system of everybody, everything that's going on and everybody's different responsibilities. It's not about getting more money for the police. There were certain, you know, political promises that were made and that's a whole different lane that's got nothing to do with this report. As far as why we're doing it, we started doing it actually last year because of the special committee reforming the police act, which was really hot and heavy like about a year ago when we were all giving evidence, VPD gave testimony I think three times and that I did twice myself. It's all online, you can see it. That's one of the things I talked about and it's in our submission to the special committee but at that time we realized that we had the technology now in previous iterations where we were just going on observations and things that we would see on the street like in Project Lockstep. Now we have the technology working with a company like Helpseekers to actually start putting some dollars to it and we were still refining those numbers. So the part that is interesting about this is if this would have come up before the election then we would have been accused of trying to doctor the election and politicizing it. So I'm glad it didn't and we didn't want it to come up before the election but it was inevitable at any time at some point it was going to come out and we were prepared that it may come out and it just happened to come out now so we're happy to talk about it but it is not in the final stages. There's still more consultation that we have to do but we think it's an important conversation and we really want to keep this alive and we don't want this to gather dust and we're happy to work through line 16 on the spreadsheet and give people more comfort with that but it's the bigger picture issues in our city that we really need to be sitting down and talking about and working together better. All right, I'd like to hear your thoughts. Some of the commentary we're hearing already just in the last 24 hours including from political figures. They're saying this $5 billion number shows that a lot of money's being wasted or spent inappropriately by social service agencies. There's too much going to the social safety net and more should go to law and order and public safety like the police. Some people are saying even worse than waste it's misappropriation or people personally benefiting or enriching themselves by keeping people impoverished, keeping people poor. Are those reasonable assumptions or conclusions to draw from this report or would you caution against any people from making those kinds of characterizations or do you think it's fair? Well, for starters, we're not pointing fingers at anybody specifically. We're talking about a systems failure that needs to be improved. Some of the people that you're talking about that provided commentary and I did listen to some of that commentary. There were people that prefaced it by saying they hadn't read the report or seen the report. So it's people just off the cuff kind of talking without any knowledge base of even what was in the report. So I take those comments with a grain of salt. I do and as far as like this public safety policing versus social safety net, it's not an either or proposition. And I've said that many times and you've heard me talk at city council, you need both in a society to keep people safe and provide social benefits for people that need it and give people a leg up on life and get them on a better path. And we all have compassion and we want to work with community to make this place better. But you need the right number of police and you need the right number of psych nurses and social workers and everybody else, addiction counselors, you got to have the right mix in there. It's not about one or the other. You need all of those pieces to make it a good system. But who's in charge of that system? You know who's in charge of the VPD? Who's in charge of the big system? But chief, I think it's almost like we're having two different conversations here because Dr. Turner acknowledged there's huge gaps and limitations in this data. You're relying on it with really specific numbers. I keep hearing we want to have a conversation about this. When the foundation of this conversation is numbers that is missing big chunks, it's over-inflating other big chunks. What kind of a foundation is that for a conversation about really serious issues? I think it's a really good foundation because it's the first time like we've been talking about these issues for many years and your news outlet and all the other outlets in here have reported on this. It's been top news stories and papers and global and everywhere else like over the years talking about the issues we're seeing in our communities, downtown East Side, all the other neighborhoods I mentioned. And this is the first kick at the can to try and put some sort of financial numbers to it. They're not perfect, nobody's saying that, but it's a good basis and it's based on good methodology from a leading research company in Canada that is full of people, professional researchers with PhDs that have done this in many other cities. This is not the first place. There's a whole laundry list of cities across Canada that have done this and gone through this research. So that's why when we took it, we were then in the process of going through it and trying to refine it and look at it to make sure that it really reflected what we were seeing in Vancouver. So yeah, I get it. There's gonna be more refining done of the numbers, but the overall methodology is solid and we stand behind it. So you talk about no one being in charge from the downtown East Side. Who should be in charge? What does that look like? What that looks like is when you take all those different provincial ministries and you take different city departments that are involved in it, we need a big table steering committee, whatever you wanna call it with somebody that's in charge and whether they're a commissioner or whatever you wanna call it, but I would like to see some sort of a, probably the provincial government would make the most sense because they're in charge of most of the ministries that have the biggest impact like mental health and addiction, healthcare, housing.  The city has a big piece of it, but let's be frank, the feds have a piece of it too, but it's really the province that's got the biggest piece of the pie here and biggest area of responsibility. And we work well with the province, but in individual silos, like I'll just say, so for example, on the health side, Vancouver Coastal Health, two thumbs up, amazing partner, top notch, couldn't be better, but some other ministries, just the lack of coordination between those ministries and health, if it seems like it's hard to believe that you're talking about the same government when you've got people in different ministries giving you different messaging and different strategic sort of approaches to things. So I'd like to see whether it's a minister, deputy minister, somebody that is in charge of the downtown East side, because let's be frank, you've all traveled around the country. Where do you see a neighborhood like the downtown East side anywhere else in Canada? There's nowhere, you can go to Toronto and you won't even find anything close.  It's very unique what's happened in this city.  They'll get police chiefs and deputy chiefs coming up, even recently, as recently as last week, from big cities in the US and they go to the downtown East side and they're gobsmacked. They can't believe what they're seeing. And we almost become normal to it or desensitized to it because we are in Vancouver and we're so used to it. But I've lived here my whole life. I've been policing here for 35 years in Vancouver, chief for the last seven and a half years. And that neighborhood has gotten worse over time. It's always been kind of a rough part of town, lots of social issues and every city has that. But the way it is right now, it's not sustainable and it's not helping people. Like the people that are down there living intense on a sidewalk, with the bad weather and everything coming, that's no way to live and we need to do better. So that neighborhood in particular is unique to this city and this country. Support. I understand what you're saying about the issues in that area, but the report specifically says caution should be taken when interpreting a neighborhood-based financial analysis. So I don't see really a connection with the report and what your folks are seeing on the ground. Like why are you making such a strong connection? When the researcher is saying, we gotta be very careful. And she says she cautioned your folks on that. Well, of course we have to be careful. Like we are relying on numbers from the researcher, but what we're saying is this is the first time that we're like, this is the part that we, we're really interested in doing this research is because you are taking like the observations and what we're seeing every day down there and other people in community. And those list of other reports from Coastal Health, LePard Butler, Bill McEwen, you should go talk to some people like that that actually have a lot of experience on the health side. Interview Bill McEwen, the Vancouver Sun just did it and did a great job and talked to him about what he's seeing and the deterioration down there over time. But now we do have the ability to put some financial analysis to it and that's what we're trying to do. But it wasn't a final report. So the report you've actually got is where we're at at this point in time, but we were looking to refine it more and get it to where we wanted it. But we do think there's an intrinsic link between the two of them because all those services that are being provided, there's also a financial cost to them as well. A lot of money going into the city. Just a question and I know it kind of goes back to what we're talking about here, but the numbers, you're building a case about the situation in the downtown East side, not being where it should be, a lack of accountability, everyone operating in silos, a decentralized approach to all of this. And then you're looking at the numbers, this report to back up this point, but the numbers in the report are admittedly imprecise based on the other things that have been thrown in there, whether it's pensions, whether it's childcare, et cetera. Some of those groups that were included provide services provincially rather than just the city. You're trying to build this case, but is there any concern you have at all that this report, the way it's structured in terms of the data? And to be fair to the researchers, it seems that some of these provincial organizations are so opaque with the data that they are willing to provide to us, to the public more generally. But are you worried that a report like this, where the data is so imprecise, actually hurts the case you're trying to build? Well, I don't think the data is so imprecise as you're trying to position it. I think there's actually a lot of accuracy in the data. There's different things that we do need to work on to make sure that we're refining it, getting it as accurate as possible. But we're dealing with a really complex issue here when you think about all the data we're pulling in from all these disparate sources, and we're trying to make the best estimate of what we've got going on in the city, and this is a really good step forward, I think, and it's happened in 30 plus cities across Canada, so we're not the first ones. This has been happening all over this country, and it's about time that we start shedding light on things like this. I think Jesse wants to have a... Who's on the app to help you, okay? Sure. I just want to make sure there's no app reading. Acknowledging the limitations of the methodology doesn't mean we don't scan by the data that is in there, and so I look forward to that responding when people have the opportunity to read and scroll. I think our point is, are you getting the value for the money that you're spending as their finite resources? Where do you want that to go? But we do scan on the data with the data in the methodology, but still is any good research acknowledging the limitations. Okay, thank you. We'll now head to the phone lines. So for those that are on the phone, if you could press star one to get in the queue. Once we get you in the queue and you're available to answer the question, we'd like you to state your name, what agency you're from, and which speaker you would like to address your question to. Hi there, could you state your name and what agency you're from, please? Hi, this is Ashley, this is me, Fred. I'm just in looking to clarify that I'll see the question mentioned and all the people in the Secretary's Commission is having an agency that would allow community organizations to respond to this report and to refine the number because the current methodology that we've looked at sets the goal of it. I'm hoping, yes, confirmation when it was made to will actually be happening and whether that report, that would be the final assigned number that will look to the agency. So I'll take parts of this, it's Alina Turner here. So that's phase two component has always been part of the process and the way we take that on is to take the insights and organizational lists that we can generate and actually go through and connect with them to get us deeper and deeper information and that's actually been a really, really productive process but that process requires the community's buy-in, right? So we don't like to over, kind of over promise and under deliver on that because we know that not every community is at that phase where they want to dig deeper. Sometimes this report is kind of as far as as we can take it in the community might not be ready for that next phase of work. So we wanna see how this shakes out and to what interest does the community have in getting deeper numbers on this? Is the community wanting to have a deeper dialogue? If so, we have some tools and can provide some expertise on how we have done that in other communities but of course it's gonna be with the invitation of the community because it requires everybody's participation to do that well. And maybe I'll get passed back. Thank you Ashley. No more questions? Any last questions from the room here? Thank you again for everybody for coming and again thank you to Dr. Alina Turner and Chief as well.


I don't know if you've noticed, but my notepad has shrunk. But ironically, I have more to say. Anyway, I don't know, cold opens. Tough. All right, here we go. Henry Schlinger, Jr. I don't know if Brad's trying to mess with me here, folks, but he's doing some awful interesting bad reviews by the camera. Play with your lilacs, Brad.  That was a rule, folks. And this article is about rule following. Sorry, rule govern, rule behave, whatever, though. I'm like, I don't even know what time it is, all I know is I'm food deprived. And because my business partner says you can't eat past midnight, it's kind of like a surgery thing. And he says you'll find out in the morning. He says, read this article. I said, okay, I'll read the article. And why I'm doing all that under rules, I don't know. So anyway, here we go. If you gather the fact that maybe this article is about rules, maybe. Is there a reason you have brussels? You're trying to get me to engage in behavior. You deprived me. Folks, it's not really a joke, okay? Because I'm salivating more than what I normally would at the present.  Beside the point, would you stop? Can I get at least into the article before you start to give us the example? All right. So, Schlinger, 93, Hank, Henry, whatever you want to say. Junior. So, this is a great article, as they all are, because published. Separating discriminative and function-altering effects of verbal stimuli.  Let's see, this wasn't the behavior analyst, so it's gotta be great. Because anything by behavior analyst is better than anything else, because we all know this. All right, anyway, so rules. So, this article is long, and wrap or difficult. But it's good. And I like it. And if I didn't like it, I wouldn't be presenting it to you because I picked it. Food. All right, here we go. So, rule.  And what is a rule? Ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba. And it's really the only part of verbal behavior I actually really like. Most threats to verbal behavior, including all the Skinner stuff, it happened, like, whatever. Like, not my thing. So, Brad's really good with it, so that's why when you see verbal behavior, you usually see videos from him, because he understands it, and I don't. You know, we can go through this whole article, but it's a pretty in-depth. So, let's just look at some of the core pieces here. All right, so you do, if you've got your Skinner text, if you've read verbal behavior, it is useful to have read that and understand it in order to understand what's going on in this article. Okay, he does refer back to some of his pieces in there that are useful. So, rule. The first off the question that we're really gonna work at here is, is there a discrimination effect, or is there a function-altering effect? And by function-altering, I literally don't mean changing the function of a behavior. I mean changing the function of stimuli, all right? So, for example, the moment that you reinforce someone, the moment that a reinforcer becomes a reinforcer, that stimulus has changed. It now has reinforcing properties, the value of it, the function of that stimulus is now different. The moment you use classical conditioning, so you take a neutral stimulus, Pareto conditions, what they can do with a non-conditioned stimulus, that neutral stimulus changes its function, all right? So, when he's talking about function changes, versus discrimination, this is what he's getting at. Is the stimulus changing, is the function changing of those words when they basically become a rule? Or is a rule simply a discrimination? So, don't go near there, which is a reference to one of my favorite movies. So, because the movie was recorded in the 80s, I can't say the rest of the movie because it would be drastically offensive to everyone else out there. But the next line is brilliant, thank you, Robin Williams. So, is a rule just a verbal discriminative stimulus? Fair question. And this article basically argues that that's the way everybody treats it, including maybe Skinner, maybe? So, anyway, beside the point. So, if a rule is just a verbal discriminative stimulus, then what the heck's the point in coming up with the term rule? Because you already have a term for it. Discriminative stimulus, like you don't need the extra word. And not only do you not need the extra word, you don't even need special research. Because why? We already know about SDs. And we're gonna go into a little bit about SDs with the Jack Michael article in another time. So, we talked about functional altering operations instead of thinking of these as discriminative stimuli. And this article is presenting kind of that bigger picture, right? Of Lixon, this probably isn't just SDs. There may be some situations where verbal behaviors are SDs. And I don't really wanna get into all that, but, because that's not the surprise. The surprise is that the functional altering operation of this stuff. So, Skinner identifies in verbal behavior that rules are really also about contingency specifying stimuli. So, CSSs. I guess, getting a style of sheets. Why? Like, acronyms, wow. Like, people that are like into, yeah, anyway. I get sometimes I have troubles with all the acronyms. So, contingency specifying stimuli are rules. Those rules are function altering stimuli, okay? So, if we think about it that way, it makes more sense. So, it's challenging to distinguish between CSSs and SDs when we're talking about verbal behavior. It's very challenging. And there's no really clean way to know which one's which. And in order to really get into that, you really gotta get into what the definition of an SD is. And to get into the definition of an SD, we gotta go into some other research because with the way we all talk about SDs, even in a professional pseudo colloquial sense, we probably all talk about them wrong. And just to give you a little bit, we're talking a lot about Jack Michael on SDs and he died yesterday. So, this is kind of the little, the irony of these planned videos was that we're talking about Jack Michael the day after his death and that's really sad because the field is like, man, he was awesome. So, anyway, some of the stuff that Jack Michael was talking when I keep looking over at the article because I wanna grab it, but talked about how do you actually identify what is a descriptive stimulus and some of the things. It's not as easy as just it comes before behavior reliably, that's not enough. So, when we're talking about verbal behavior, we're gonna run into the same problem. Is it actually a discriminative stimulus? Or do these words have a contingency specifying stimuli within them? And a contingency specifying stimuli would be like, Ryan, don't eat that, I'm just looking for a battery. Ryan, don't eat the phone, you'll get sick, right? So, eat, there's the behavior. And the consequence of eating the phone, getting sick, right? So, if I eat the phone, I'm gonna get sick. So, contingency specifying stimuli.  People are gonna do it anyway. Let's see, there's a whole bunch of things, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. One of the things that we get into here is the implications of failing to identify this stuff properly gets you to focus on the wrong piece. And one of the pieces that you focus on is rule-government behavior, right? Which leads only to the SD-type effects of rule-government behavior. Because you're thinking what the rule governs it. So, it governs it, it comes first, blah, blah, blah, and that's just hooey, right? The note that I made here about this is that we should not give verbal behavior special status simply because they're verbal. They're verbal stimuli, sorry. So, verbal stimuli are just stimuli, folks. It's just stimuli, right? That they happen to form words and have some other things associated within this realm of what verbal behavior is all about. But anyway, we were also run into a big reification potential here, where you're creating something that isn't necessarily there out of the rule, right? And that you're specifically following some hypothetical constant called rule. Anyway, it's one of the problems. Methodological problems, how do you ask questions about rule following or rule-government behavior? If you're focusing on the discriminative function of a rule versus the function-altering effect of the rule, then your research questions are gonna be drastically different, right? So, in the literature, according to Schlinger, we always talk, it's almost always referred to as a discriminative effect. But oftentimes, it might actually be a function-altering effect, right? So, anyway, developmental course, oh, that seems to have a developmental issue with it. So, the younger you are, the younger you are, the more likely it is you're just talking about Estes, or that the rules are more associated with Estes if you're describing your environment. And as you get older, you'd be more likely to do CSSes. So, I kind of wanted to get in, oh, that's Michael A. too, small. All right, so let me give you an example of a function-altering example using this, I can give you an example of a function-altering example. Here we go. So, I've been food deprived, we already talked about that. It was by accident and not at the same time. So, I am food seeking behavior, and literally my mouth is watering at the moment, because Brad is messing with a thing of pretzels. These are virile pretzels, they're actually pretty good. Glutino, gluten-free, big pretzels, okay.  I caught it, very good. All without a rule. Nope, maybe there was one, or just SD. No, it was a motivation. He's messing with motivation. So, oh, I bit hard. Yeah, I think those are poisoned. There's still a little bit left. It's slightly unprofessional, but hopefully it makes the point. Ooh, leftovers. So, the point being that, oh, that was really good. Actually, those are surprisingly good pretzels, folks, and this is not an advert for whatever pretzels were. They're surprisingly good for being gluten-free. Anyway, what was I getting at? I am so damn hungry, food deprived. Okay, so, food deprived, right? It's kind of a motivating operation. It's gonna give me a search for food. Like, I'm gonna be more likely to search out for food and eat it. But did you notice that with one single word, a rule was created and followed. The word was poison. Thank you. So, and I don't mean the band. As he was going to say it, ain't it, ain't it. Every rose has its thorn. So, anyway. So, the, It's like you wore that girl's poison. What?  Is that boys to men? No. That girl's poison. Yeah. Back to the video? Yeah. Talk about music for a while. Yeah. You can sing, I can. He sings. Evocative effect, so, wow, sorry. So the poison, one word is all it took, right? Instead, he didn't describe all of the contingencies that were at play, right?  Which is. No, no, no, no. Right. Thank you. You're welcome. BBD. Take a brief moment for 90s music. Remembering how awesome it was. All right, there we go. So, let's get back into poison.  All right, so evocative effect of the food deprivation is gone. What's cool about the function-altering effect of rules. We have rules and quotes because I hate them. But anyway, this word, this particular stimulus, changed the value, or changed the stimulus itself, to the point to where even though I'm food deprived and motivation is all established, I spread the food out. Now, obviously we're joking, but you get the point. So that example of poison is taken from the article and it uses that as a point to show you that the particular word poison is definitely not a discriminative stimulus in that particular example, but it has a major impact on behavior. And also because it doesn't have all of the components of a CSS, the question then becomes how in the world is it actually working? So this is a great little article, not little, but I do want you to remember there's a couple of things about it that it's, we don't know, at least at the time of this article, right? We just don't understand all this stuff. And I think this is where relational frame theory is going and starting to get into more complex analyses of verbal behaviors, whatever you wanna say. But the thing that I don't like about rule-governed behavior is that there's not this hypothetical construct of a rule floating around actually governing your behavior. I like to think of it as rule-following behavior. Now, Slinger argues that maybe that's not the best way to go because it implies the organism has, it implies some sort of cognitive experience in the organism. And I'm like, no, it doesn't. You can be reinforced for following rules or you cannot be reinforced for following rules. Like I might follow Brad's rules, but not the dog's rules. You know what I mean? I mean, from my perspective- We both take the principle. What's that? We both take the principle. We all take the pretzel, actually, before the, you know, little bit of pretzel.  I'm wrapping up. So rule-following behavior to me is the thing. This article gets into more about the differences between discriminative effects and functional-altering effects of words that would be used as rules. So, there you go.


Once we start to wake up and realize on a deeper, more conscious level of the despair and the hardships of the world, it can be very shocking. And what happens is, is because the majority of people at this time and for so long have been under this veil, have been kept in the dark. People that haven't gone through a spiritual awakening is the norm. And so what happens is, we start to think that we're crazy or people think that we're crazy or out of touch with reality when in fact it's quite the opposite.


What is going on guys? Welcome to QuickPix. My name is Austin Swain with three of my favorite college football bets this weekend. We got some fun ranked conference battles on tap. And that starts in the SEC. I'm looking at the game between the Kentucky Wildcats here and the Ole Miss Rebels in Oxford. Give me the Rebels minus six and a half points here. To me, they're one of the most unheralded teams in the country. They're currently top 15, both in ESPN, SP Plus' analytical rankings in offense and defense. But to me, it's the offense that steals the show here. Jackson Dart, USC transfer quarterback has come in. They have not missed a beat without Matt Corral. Zach Evans and Quinchon Judkins as well out of the backfield have been dynamic. Scoring touchdowns and bunches, they beat their only Power Five opponent, Georgia Tech by 42 points. They have bludgeoned people so far. And I think this game has plenty of points. And I'm just not sure Kentucky can keep up. Will Leviss is a good quarterback here, but Chris Rodriguez is coming back out of the backfield. He will be limited. This is his first game all year in the wide receiver room. Not exactly settled there with Wildcats. They're 59th in ESPN, SP Plus offensive rankings at 63rd in yards per play. That is not what you get out of Ole Miss. So I'm okay laying six and a half points in a game that will have plenty of them. Give me the Rebels to win comfortably at home and really announce their stake to a college football playoff spot. From there, we transition to the ACC. And that is the Wake Forest team in Deakins who we saw last week against Clemson. They're traveling to Tallahassee to face the Florida State Seminoles. Give me the Knowles minus six and a half here. And I really respect this team after they just clobbered Boston College last week about Boston College. Had a chance to cover the spread there with their offensive pieces. Florida State shut them down. And I know Florida State's gonna put points on the board because Jordan Travis has really come in and saved this program. Last year they started 0-4. Travis came in, they finished the year five and three and he has started four and oh this year, including that big win over LSU back in New Orleans. And this program is entirely different now. And unfortunately for Wake Forest, what we saw last week is their defense reported back to last year's version. They are under now in ESPN's SP Plus defensive rankings. They did not play well in that game. They let DJ Uliago lay hang 51 points on them. And a Clemson offense that was mostly struggling to that point. Wake Forest's defense isn't playing very well. Jordan Travis can make plays as a quarterback. Trayshon Ward out of the backfield is dynamic as well and Ontario Wilson outside can beat you deep. This Florida State team is deep. I think they are back and I think Florida State announces it by winning by at least a touchdown over Wake Forest and their poor defense. I'm gonna stand the same conference and I'm looking at Clemson's and NC State. That game is in Death Valley. Clemson the host here. But I like under 42 and a half points as the best bet in this contest. Now you look Clemson minus six and a half at home. I could have taken a third straight home favorite but I'm not going to. I think the bet here is on just fewer points than expected. When I look at these two offenses against the defenses NC State of course helped Clemson to just 111 passing yards last year. Uliago lay really struggled in that game. Now of course they were upset and their season was effectively ended there with a second loss. So bit of a revenge spot. NC State still has a top 10 defense in those same SP Plus rankings. But Clemson we know their defense is excellent and NC State is not moving the ball well on offense. Just 81st in yards per play behind Devon Leary. I think this one's ugly. It is a grind. You look at these two defenses. It will be a physical battle if you love physical football but there won't be a ton of points on the board. Under 42 and a half points for me here. I would lean on the Wolf Pack to cover a six and a half point spread. But I think I'm just gonna bet on not very much scoring when I look at this contest.


Hi, my name is Felicia Glicksman. I'm a pediatric neurologist at Hack and Sack University Medical Center. My goal is to work with your school or athletic director to help formulate the best protocol to return you to school and or sport under the safest conditions. Patients may be referred from our outside community, whether it be the emergency department, athletic directors, trauma service, primary care physicians, or neurosurgeons, and after they're evaluated based on their symptomatology and their evaluation, I then may decide if they may benefit from an evaluation at our physical medicine and rehab department. We have physical therapists who are specially trained in concussion and vestibular therapy. If there are some other issues going on, we may recommend neuropsychological testing and, if necessary, as well, cognitive rehabilitation. The Neuroscience Institute has all the necessary specialists that are needed for your care. By having an interdisciplinary team approach, we are able to provide the best care around. Some of the other healthcare professionals who are involved in my team are our physical therapists, our psychiatrists, our neuropsychologists, our physical medicine and rehab department, as well as, if necessary, our headache specialist after Regina Krell. Because most of my patients here at the Neuroscience Institute are concussion patients, they have their drive to get back to their sports that they were playing. Being able to see the smile on their face and me giving them the go and the clearance to return to play, that means a lot to me.


Hello, everyone. We're with the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Hawaii. Today, I'm going to be your host, Barbara DeLuca, President and Marisol, our Vice President. So just me and you today, Marisol. Hello. So we want to start out by sending our love and aloha to our brothers and sisters on Maui. As an Indigenous people, we feel the plight of the Kanaka Maui, the Kapuna and the Keiki, that call Lahaina their home. Our thoughts go out to the local residents that call Maui their home too. We're saddened by the tragedy. And we want to share how our communities are affected and how we're contributing where we can. So with that, we're going to be discussing who's been reaching out to us behind the scenes and what we're doing on our part. So I'm going to start by just discussing my conversation with the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce President and CEO, Romero Cavazos. He reached out to us last week to offer his condolences and he offered to share our 501c3 fundraising campaign with his 60,000 business members and 260 chambers nationwide. So 100% of our proceeds will be donated to the relief efforts on Maui. Through our Hawaii Disaster, through our Hawaii Disaster Business Relief Fund. To find it, you can go to our website, hcchawaii.org. Today, Almy Vermejo, she's our regional administrator with the Small Business Association, sorry, Small Business Administration. She's a regional administrator, so she contacted us to offer resources. And I shared with her that there's a lot of Spanish speaking, foreign nationals visiting and that they're in shelters. They've lost their passports and their visas. I also shared with her that the Consulate General of Mexico, San Francisco, was on Maui on the 13th and 14th, and the Philippine Consulate General of Honolulu was on Maui on the 15th and 16th. Our Treasurer of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Hawaii, Dr. Ruben Fuarez, he's coordinating efforts with our HCCH member and immigration attorney, Kevin Block. He's also a resident of Maui on relief efforts. So Kevin is able to share with us what resources are necessary and how we can help out on the ground. Kevin Block is also providing pro bono assistance. For anybody who lost their green card, our DACA cards that were destroyed. So we got boots on ground with Kevin Block and our PR director of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Hawaii, she is also a Red Cross PR communications director. Her name is Ziomara Guevara, and she has, she's at the War Memorial last week, the shelter, speaking with the immigrant population. There's a lot of Spanish speaking community there. So she was able to talk to them and, you know, our people are working in the tourism industry, cooks, hotels, hotel workers. So, you know, we're doing what we can in Maui. We also have a board member on the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Dr. Lisa Sanchez Johnson. She's also on the board of directors for the Hawaii Psychological Association, and she's talking to the Hispanic population at Enlase Hispano Programming. Hope I said that right. She also visited the War Memorial Shelter to provide psychological support for things that, you know, they may be going through like anxiety or depression. So we, we're doing our part and we feel your pain and we want to contribute and give back in any way we can. Marisol, yes. That our board members and the communities coming together in times like this, but there's also not necessarily just our board members, but members, right? So can you share a little bit about what Madan is doing as well from straight out of husk, right? I would love to. So, Madan and Sam, her husband, they flew to Maui. They make tamales, so she used all of her food. Tamale has masa everything to prepare tamales and flew over to Maui like the day after it happened and they were driving around Maui and found people that were just displaced and didn't have shelter. So they went out and bought tents and blankets and just gave it to them so they could have somewhere to sleep for the night. And some of the Maui, they have friends there that that help them, you know, provide a place for them to stay so they were able to go travel and do that. Rip Fitness. The valve and hip Rivera. Yep, hip was on a show last week. They put together a fundraising drive at their gym, which is a warehouse in my Pahu and they were able to collect donations to send to Maui and the owners of Mercado de la Raza. Alex, you know, and Megan Chan also had a fundraising efforts. So they were collecting items at the store and also at Walmart, I believe, to send to Maui. So, yes, thank you for making that point that we, you know, the chambers doing their part members of our chamber are doing their part. I love the fact that, you know, through this all. We're showing Aloha and and it's not what you do. It's how you do it. It's a way of life and it's good to see our community, you know, getting together and contributing where they can. Right. And we'll continue to send text messages, emails, put on our HCCH website, our Facebook or Instagram personal accounts business accounts will be putting out there where they can click on the link to donate to the relief fund for sure. So today's show that we had planned before this tragedy occurred was to discuss our Latino business expo. So that is happening Saturday, October 7 and it's during Hispanic Heritage Month. So we're very excited about this signature event and it's just going to get bigger and better every year. We have planned a panel discussion to talk to our Latino business leaders. The ones that we just discussed some of them will be on the panel, including Alex Villarino and Megan Chun, owners of Mercado de la Raza. There's their cute little boy. And hip Rivera and Val, his wife from RIP Fitness will also be on the panel. I believe it's just going to be hip though. Hector Garcia Gomez, owner of the taqueria El Ranchero, there's why he was and couple a locations will be on our panel and Dominic ask him, the owner of H and la ex of the barber shop with two locations on Pearl Ridge and what Kelly so we have some, you know, leaders in our community out there doing different things and representing different businesses and we have a grocery store, a gym, a restaurant and a barber shop. So it's going to be a great discussion, moderated by Maria Arieta. Hi, we also have SBA the small business administration. Hazel Beck is the deputy district director she'll be doing a presentation boots to business for our military. So it's a basically an exit strategy conversation, you know how you can start a small business after exiting the military. Let's talk a little bit about why our first Latino business expo is so special. Right. We're known for parties and having a good time and showing up, you know, with good music and good food and we'll have all of those things for sure. It is so much more than that right. For those of us that, you know, are thought about starting a business or maybe you already have, you know, a business in the works or you don't know what you want to do but you have these amazing ideas. You know, this is a space to come and gather because there's going to be entrepreneurs people that have been in business for over 25 years. Starting those that have ideas we have the small business administration they're right to give us hands on information on starting a business right so you're going to get the entertainment. All of your favorite vendors from around the island are going to be there so you're going to get the food and have music they'll be dancing. But above all things this is our very first Latino business expo we're so excited because we're planning on expanding and growing and each year adding more and more vendors right because what we want to do is showcase them right we want to celebrate them we want to highlight them and promote each other's businesses right and the only way we can do that is by providing this space for them. And this what is a Latino business expo and we're excited because this is just the beginning so we really appreciate it we want to come out support one another because that's really what we're here to do is is highlight and support one. Yeah, great point you know the Latino business expose for Latinos and those who love us and like I said who doesn't love our food and our culture and our dance and our music we're going to have a great time at on October 7. At Aloha Tower marketplace outdoors will have the stage and the peer available with all our great food vendors. If you want to find out more information, visit our website and click on signature events. So, once you click on that you'll see our flyer. And I'm going to scroll down. So, some of our business partners that have already committed to participate is Eva La Salsa she makes wonderful salsa and guacamole. They are going to be making these wonderful jalapeno popper cheese popper tamales. And oysters Hawaii. You guys got to check them out and other amazing sisters and a partner right and they were Miss Latina and Miss USA so they have a great network and even better oysters and they walk around and get the party started with oysters. Cook to their waist. And we have a food truck El Gallo. This is Peruvian and straight out of husk, they are going to be making four different tamales for us and some more chata right East or the as he makes handmade or the as very good. They're amazing those ideas are so delicious. Right. They make sweet dessert treats by cookies. And we also have tacos mean which I see that she'll be making barrier tacos so we have a good mix of different food. Please join us if you want to be a vendor you can also go to the same link and join up. We also have some other participants soldier to soldier. Actually, it's commissioned with the mission with soldier to soldier will be present eight and h and lax and one more. Let's see. We have dynamic stretch therapy. So some great vendors there and promoting our event is for entertainment. And, and what else so so sorry guys, Bell a political would be there for entertainment they're coming out from Phoenix, Arizona to dance. So you don't want to miss that they're going to be on stage from 12 to one so try to get there before 12 it starts at 11. And we also want to give a thank you to patino designs for creating this wonderful flyer and marketing campaign. Mario patino is awesome thank you. We have a lot of work with the Hawaiian community. So come on out and check out the Latino Business Expo like we said the Latinos and those who love us we're also going to have a VIP on the lawn. Yes, there's tickets available for that you want to talk about that money so Yeah, it's just really exciting gives people an opportunity you can purchase a VIP ticket to for those of us that are you know pretty serious about leveling up and taking maybe your existing business to the next level or just meeting people on a one on one basis really to talk about your business. What did you do, you know how did you raise funds how'd you get alone. Just bounce off ideas from one another it's really important to really surround yourself with like minded people so this is an opportunity for those to really get in a space with many entrepreneurs and business owners and talk about talk about business and and take it take it to that next level which is really exciting. It's gonna be a wonderful event. And you know those of you that are thinking or you might know somebody that's like hey come out promote your business it's not it's not just food guys like Barbara said it's services. Right, maybe you have marketing or we have we found one right. That does a daycare right Spanish speaking daycare. Yeah, yeah, I like a key. I think that's what I like a key huh. Okay, we're going to reach out to her like so there's, there's a lot of Latino and businesses out there that we'd love to to promote and just get everyone to connect with one another. Yes, I contacted 15 yesterday, Mike and I contacted 15 different. There's over 170 so we have a lot more work to do but we're going to get as many people out there as we can get the community united lift the Latino business owner voice provide a platform, foster connections, it's going to be a great event.  Yeah. So we have to share a culture all of it right body. Yeah, absolutely. Yes, we do. And then did you talk about the by left for political. It's going to be out there dancing, showing their beautiful dresses. I'm not entirely sure how long are they performing for Barbara from 12 to one. Yeah, that's amazing. Right. So that's going to be, that's going to be beautiful thing to watch. So I'm really excited about that. Oh, guess what else we have giveaways. Oh, yes. Yes, let's talk about a tent so Hispanic Chamber of Commerce we're going to have Hawaii will have our own tent there with Miss Latina team. She'll be doing a meet and greet and we'll be doing random giveaways from time to time so far we've already gotten gift cards from Alejandro's and Sita and Waipahu. And there's more to come on the burrito kids going to give us some gift card to so if they can't participate, because maybe they're short staffed or they have a restaurant to run on the Saturday which is understandable. Then we have our business partners also offering gift cards to give away to help promote and elevate their business. So Marisol. Today I talked to Dr. Rudy Guevara. He is a professor. He lives in Phoenix where I'm from. So I told him we're basically going to meet in person when I fly home in September I'm so excited to meet him. He is an author of a book and the name of it is Hola Compadre, and it's about the Aloha Compadre. Yes, Aloha. Aloha Compadre. And it's similar to our show Hola y Aloha. How do you say you're Hispanic in Hawaii? So the name of his book is Aloha Compadre. Why don't you tell us what Compadre means?  Now over 20 years he's been putting together stories and they're all in this book about the Hispanic experience in Hawaii. So there's some people that live here that I knew that told me about the book and they're actually, you know, part of the stories that are in his book. So he's going to be our guest September 13th. It's going to be such a great conversation. Oh, that's exciting. Yeah, he'll be pretty fascinating and I'm excited about that. So Marisol, we, since it's Hispanic Heritage Month, and we have our Latino Business Expo on October 7, we also have a Hispanic Heritage Festival that we want to discuss. And that is produced by Alma Latina Entertainment. And that is going to be, it's the 31st Hispanic Heritage Festival and fair. And it's out at the Veterans Center. I'm sorry, I have to look at this October 14 and 15. So it's a two-day event.  I believe it's $10 a day or $15 for both days. And if you have children under a certain age, they're free. We're looking at having a booth out there. And some of the wonderful guests that'll be there for two days, one of them is Theta Puente Jr. Oh, that's fun. Isn't that awesome? So you want to share the great news? He's fabulous. And he's an amazing musician. And we are very fortunate enough to have him on as a future guest of our talk show, Olaya Loja. So stay tuned for that because we're really excited to let him talk about himself with us. I have so many questions. Yeah, absolutely. But yeah, that's Nancy's event at the Hispanic Heritage Festival. Super excited to support. Again, we're here to help each other, promote each other, collaborate. And there are, what other events are coming up, Barbara? Well, you and I are going to be traveling to Florida in September because the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce has a conference, their annual conference. And this year it's in Orlando in September, the 23rd through the 27th, I believe. So Marisol and I get to travel up there on behalf of our local chamber here in Hawaii. And when we are, you know, everybody just loves anybody from Hawaii, right? We're going to bring ladies for everybody. Well, and not everybody, but you know. And work on those networking skills and getting the conference out here eventually. Right, that's our goal. Yeah, that's definitely one of our bucket lists is to get the national conference out here in Hawaii, which again, will help us help our industry. We're working on getting the conference here. So we will be submitting a RFP for that for 2026, I believe. So we have a lot of work to do and grow a lot of growth. So if you're interested in joining and participating and volunteering in any way, please contact us at hgcpawaii.org. And two weeks later, no, not two weeks later, I will be there for a week. So right after the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, the conference is the 24th through the 27th in Orlando. After that, Marisol and I will be flying to Miami the 27th through the 30th. So that's going to be another great conference that is latitude. And it's also in connection with the NAWRAP, which stands for National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals. So my trade, I'm a broker with soldier to soldier. Marisol is a lender with Edge Home Finance broker with Edge Home Finance. Wow, thanks Barbara. She's our secret lender. Just kidding. That's, that's her awesome hashtag. We love it. So we'll be there representing the real estate community here in Hawaii at the Hispanic Association of Real Estate Professionals. So that's going to be great. And latitude is actually a Latino conference on the industries for sports, entertainment, you know, acting where there's going to be a lot of star-studded events. So we'll be happy to bring you back a lot of material and facts, right? Absolutely, yes. We'll be sharing on social media about our trips. So follow us on Instagram and Facebook and LinkedIn. We're all over the place. If you go to a website, we'll find our social media links. And don't forget it's for, it's not just for Latinos. It's for Latinos and those who love us. Well, thank you, Marisol, for joining today. It was, you and I, it was a great conversation and lots of information to share. And thank you to our viewers. Thank you for watching our show. Hola, Yaloja, on Think Tech. Again, I'm Barbara DeLuca, president and co-founder with my lovely co-host, Marisol Ruiz, co-founder as well, vice president. So adios, Yaloja, everybody. Thank you. Adios.