Commission on Persons with Disabilities - Regular Meeting

Are live.

Great. Welcome to the 02/26/2026 Social Service Human Relation Board meeting. This meeting is being recorded. The chat function has been turned off. If members of the public would like to comment on an item, there are multiple options to do so.

If attending via Zoom, digitally raise your hand and Secretary Mana Aeon will announce when it is your turn. You will then have the option to unmute yourself and proceed with your public comment. E mail your public comment to Secretary Manahayon at g m a n n a h a y o n alameda ca dot gov before or during the meeting with your name, the agenda item number you're referencing and your comment. Comments submitted during the meeting before the conclusion of the public comment section will be read into the record. Her e mail address is also on the meeting's agenda.

If you're calling in by phone, please e mail Ms. Bennehan as we cannot see you raise your hand. You can also dial 9 to raise your hand and we will call on you. To provide a public comment in person, please complete a public comment slip with your name and the agenda item sorry, item number you will be speaking on. You will be called up when it is your turn.

Public comments will be limited to three minutes. The public has two opportunities for public comments. First, under agenda item two, public comments. Comments from the audience may concern matters not on the agenda but must deal with matters subject to the jurisdiction of the Social Service Human Relations Board. Second, under each agenda item, there will be an opportunity for public comment on that specific item.

Each item follows a format similar to city council meetings. First, a presentation will be at well, first, after a presentation, we will ask if there are any clarifying questions from SHRUB members or staff. Then we will ask if there are any public comments on this agenda item. And after public comment, we will open the item for board discussion and a vote if recommended. We will now call this meeting to order at 07:04PM.

Oh, and then we'll do roll call. Robbie Crites. Is it is it Kreets or Crites? Crites. Crites. Okay. Robbie Crites? Present. Shantel Carter.

Present.

Bernie Wolfe. He's not here. Gerald Bryant. Here. Michelle Buckholz, and she will be absent tonight. Samantha Green. And Scott Meads here. And from the housing and human services division, we have Graciana Eyal, program manager. Raul Cedeno, engagement specialist supervisor, and Shelby Neal, administrative specialist. And we may also have Simone join us virtually.

Let's move on to item two, which is the non agenda public comments. The city welcomes speakers providing public comment, but please be advised this is a limited public forum. Comments from the audience may concern matters either on or not on the agenda, but must deal with matters subject to the jurisdiction of the Social Service and Human Relations Board. Comments will be limited to three minutes. Comments concerning matters on this evening's agenda will be heard when that item is called. If speakers fail to follow these rules, they will be warned. And if they continue to disregard the rules, their opportunity to speak will end. Do we have any speakers for comments?

There is no public comment.

Okay. Thank you. Oh, and there's Simone too. Alright. Well, then let us go to our third item on the agenda, which is our minutes.

Hopefully, people had time to view the minutes. And reminder, only people who are at the meeting can actually vote on it, and we will actually do a a voice vote on this since everyone is in the room. So Okay. We'll table minutes for now. Worst case scenario is if you approve at the next meeting with all your people.

Yeah. Alright. Let's look at let's move to item number four then. And we have a very full agenda tonight. Foray is a presentation on mental health and outreach by Raul Segenio the third, and the housing and human services engagement specialist supervisor.

The engagement specialist team, also commonly referred to as the outreach team, provides engagement services across the island supporting residents who are homeless and at risk of becoming homeless. Raul will discuss the importance of mental health for both clients and outreach workers. Would like to take it off? Hello,

everybody. It's a pleasure to present this to you.

So we're gonna talk about

the significance of mental health with unmedical housing? What goes up?

Crime goes up. It's very unfortunate,

and that's what a lot of people are doing dealing with right now. It's just that it worsened with mental health, obviously, and instability affects kids. It affects their education. It affects their futures. It affects And how does that work, Steph?

How does that how does that affect Steph? How does it affect you? Well, we avoid emotional strain without, you know, support. We have to be careful. It doesn't happen to us.

Be careful. Doesn't happen to any of you. We hear other people's trauma. So now on.

So I have

some amazing tips for all of us. Mhmm. This is why we're here. One of the things I love to do, stretch breaks, lunch walks, and team support. I think we should never be afraid to ask for team support. I think it's okay to speak to coworkers, students we trust, and that's

Can I add a little bit of I just wanted to give some context

Yeah, thank you? So do you have any clarifying questions for the board? Sure. I got

a question. So you work predominantly in the mental health sphere. Do you also do services? You mentioned earlier that there were resources and services that you provide as well.

Yes.

Some of those services, you were saying things like paying electric bill. Another question on the same line. So you said they provide services such like, I don't know, you said helping pay rent.

So there are there are some, like, there are some organizations that will help someone. For example, it's they're back a month from rent, but they're just in a bad situation, but they can prove that they're gonna be able to keep paying

I'm just gonna keep going unless you guys have something I wanna add. So let's say, hypothetically, I was in need of help with my rent. Right. And I needed to get my rent paid. Right. And I was a month behind, and I needed to get those services. And I came to you. What would be required?

Well, I would say, are you gonna be able to maintain? Are you gonna be able to keep living? Once I help you, that's one. Because we don't wanna set you up for a driver.

Let's say I'd say I don't have a job, and I'm still looking for work. But in the meantime, I have a good relationship with my landlords, and I would be interested in trying to do the services. I would I would assist you. I would

help you on finding as many

Sure. But, again, think about me as being somebody who's lived in Alameda for twenty five years. Right. I lose my job. My landlord is nice. They're willing to work with me for a month or two. But I don't wanna put them in arrears for a month or two. So I come and I look for these services Is the only recourse to move into a shelter?

That wouldn't be the only recourse. You can always negotiate with the landlord. Oh, I

I I'm my question was, you said something about them paying rent.

There are. So there are organizations

I I guess I'm I'm trying to ask these questions because these are pertinent questions. Yeah. In this day and age when layoffs are quite prominent and people go months and even years without employment, the idea that they would spend all of their cash and then still have to pay rent afterwards, in other words, they still had to do it. What can you say about the providers for the rent? Again, I'm I'm trying to be hyper specific about this because I have some personal dealings with this. Right. And I'd like to see how things have changed.

I don't how to find and see which where the patient's gonna do that.

I would like to know, and if I could ask, would you come back and please give us that information, or at least give us that information at some point? Because it's important. It's really important.

If I could interject, I think it's hard to do that at a hypothetical because every case can be so specific, and it depends, like, do you have family that can help you? A lot of times, they'll reach out to their family. Do you have savings? Is there, like,

want to entrust people with the rent. It's that it's not dealing with

the truth of problem because this has happened again and again, or they will expend a limited resource. And they'll help you in this moment in a crisis, and then they can't help you the next month with anything at all.

So Again, I'm I'm only offering it as a hypothetical because I don't want to get too specific about a situation of that type. And I'm using myself as the example because once again, I don't want to get too specific about the example. But it's a real question that has come up in the past and I've made such gestures and offered such services and found that they were lacking. And I'm a little concerned when people say we can help you out. And then they say, oh, we have to do something like negotiate with your landlord to not charge you for extra fees or we have to negotiate with your landlord to not make you pay late fees so that we can pay your rent for you.

I when I got that story, I was surprised because I was under the impression that these were services that

were available.

And I really, really was surprised at the final outcome on it. Nonetheless, I I really want to get more information about this because when you talk about people here in Alameda right now who are a month away from homelessness, you can't say, oh well, there's a warming shelter over here, you can take your kids and go. It's not the answer. And so I'm looking for those answers. As somebody who's lived in some really interesting neighborhoods and I can tell you that's important.

And if you ask me to go talk to somebody who's a month away from homelessness now, I don't confidently have that ability to say those things. So I would like for

you to help me on

that because your program is awesome.

I think we should do again, I'm sorry to interrupt. And you said no one also has a comment. Would you you give me a comment?

I've just again, I was saying until somebody else has a question, I'm gonna continue to go down the

Hello, Simone.

Hello. Can you hear me?

We can. Happy Thursday.

There's an echo.

We don't hear it. You have to echo. Yeah. You're up there listed twice as guests, so maybe you have two sessions running.

Oh,

There you

go. Remove it. Alright. How's that?

I don't know. I guess there's oh, wait. Maybe it's better. Can you hear me?

Yep.

Okay. Great. Sorry I can't be there with you all. I have had an unexpected eventful day today, but I did want to try to better understand the conversation, and it sounds like a couple of things. One, I think maybe it would be beneficial to have an offline conversation about the specifics that you're talking about, Gerald, so we can understand the very specific situation and and dive a little deeper because I I know you don't wanna get into all the details on the public call, but I think that would be helpful to have a separate conversation.

I also want to level set that we have. We've started a new prevention program, and it's very limited in funding. So we have to really dive deep into solutions outside of funds before we are able to apply funds to as the solution, if that makes sense. We have about $25,000 for a year, which if you know, you know, folks that are struggling, that doesn't go very far. So we're really looking at problem solving and helping and talking and understanding situations so that we can troubleshoot.

And then as a very last resort, we're looking at the funding. We would love to expand the funding, and as fund rate funding opportunities come available, we're interested in applying to increase the funding. But this is a new program, the prevention, which it's a little fuzzy, so, hopefully, I'm talking on the right topic because this is what it sounded like you were talking about. But it's a little hard to hear on Zoom. So if I'm off base, let me know.

But it's it's a new program with limited funding, and so we're really looking at our engagement specialists to work with p with with our program participants and find ways to troubleshoot, such as working with the landlords and trying to get the landlords to cancel late fees and extra expenses so that maybe instead of owing 5,000, maybe you owe 3,500. Or instead of owing 3,500, maybe you owe 1,500. You know, things like that help us to be able to support folks with maintaining their housing. But we're definitely always open to hearing suggestions and ideas, and we're also really focused. I think most smaller jurisdictions, most nonprofits are focused on leveraging county resources.

So the county has a coordinated entry system, which includes housing problem solving. And housing problem solving is very similar to prevention services where it includes funding to homelessness. So we're really wanting to leverage all of our resources because the city of Alameda is a small city's you know, we don't have the type of investment that we would like starting off for prevention services. So we're, you know, we're doing what we're able to do to support people, and we have supported multiple people with maintaining their housing by paying past due fees often by supporting with other types of services outside of just financial because that's just unfortunately, right now, that's not the strongest piece of the program. The strongest piece of the program is having folks that understand the system and can help people navigate the system.

Hopeful I'm hoping that's helpful a bit. It's probably not the best answer that you want to hear, but I'm hopeful that it's helpful in understanding where we are.

I will only say we can take it offline at some point. Unless you guys have other questions, I'd like to continue on another point of mental health since we're working through the different things?

Sure. Just have a Raul, I appreciate your presentation. So specifically as a woman of color, I did lose my job earlier this year. And as you know, throughout the country, a lot of women of color in executive and leadership positions suffered from job loss. So, and I recently had just bought a condo in Alameda. And so to your point, like that was the first thing, right? Like, what do I have? What family members can I reach out Moving money around, right? Now does this does this pertain just to rental properties, or does this also pertain to mortgage?

So I'll do the first question, then she does the houses act.

Okay.

So that's a really interesting question. I don't think that we have a specific rule as to whether it has to be rent or mortgage because the criteria is that you are in a place of crisis You're

in a

place of risk.

Of being

we almost never get homeowners. Okay. So it's always renters.

Okay. That's good to know. And I would say that in my particular situation, and luckily I landed on my feed, but because I was a relatively new homeowner nine months after purchasing. Right? So I didn't have equity in my home yet. So just something to think about, right, as we expand the program.

And I would say to that point that in that type of situation, we would most likely refer to you refer you to VACS, which has a keep keep folks housed program, and that includes a program for both rental and homeowner households. But we are yeah. I I just think that context needs to land that we are very in our entry level stages and very limited in the funding. So our focus is really on folks that are going to be homeless tomorrow if we don't do something today.

Okay. Thank you, Simone.

Okay. I'll

continue. I I know I hate to put you on the hot seat, but I'm I'm asking relevant questions for relevant reasons. Absolutely. So over the last few months, we've had a young lady who comes in here and sits in on our meetings and has clearly been a person with mental health issues.

Right.

She's a part of the community, she's a known entity, and the last few times we've had to have the police show up for her. When you have somebody in that situation, how will you help them? How can you help them if they're in that situation? Because again, this woman shows up and we all know, even one of us who's been here, we all know what she's here for. She's got some hateful grudges against several of the programs here in Alameda. She believes that some of them are stealing from the government and stealing from the city and the people of the city. So what would you say to a person like her? How would you work with her in her situation?

I'm sorry. I can't speak specifically to the case or the details of this person Mhmm. But she is not. And I don't think that that's a good example because it's it's years of a case of details that I'm not going

to share on a public forum.

Agreed. And we would

be happy to talk to you about it offline. But it is something that has been a lot of attention on our team. But if your question is maybe if I could rephrase this, maybe you can let me know if it's not the right way. Are you asking, like, how do we reach people that are hard to reach?

I thought that was what I was alluding to. Okay.

Yes. So we continue to empathize and continue to build a relationship. Like I said earlier, it's sometimes it's to build

a relationship in the

beginning. Sometimes it's not. We gotta continue to build that trust with individuals, especially over time. In my experience, doing this almost four years,

I could keep going, but I don't want to steal

Oh, no. I just have a quick question about kind of just to think about your team and how you're addressing kind of how it's working, right, how your team is working. I I wondered if you guys have like a limit on like the number of cases that you're able to address as an individual or is it do you guys ever reach that just to think about like we're here to help support staffing for the city and think about those needs. And so I'm just kind of curious like, mental health is definitely important to make sure that we retain you guys that are here at Noida City and know all the resources. And so I just kind of want to make sure that you guys feel supported and case load, it doesn't seem like too much for the folks that are doing this outreach work because outreach is amazing.

Thank you.

And then I just had another question. I know your department is, like, relatively new, bringing outreach services into the city. And so I'm wondering kind of how that feels for you guys. I know you're, like, very new to your position, but if that feels like that's, like, running really smoothly, or are there still kind of kinks that are being worked out with it not being a separate provider? Does it feel like the community is collaborating and seeing this as, like, a great is it smoothing out the process for getting services?

Really glad to see that you guys are growing.

It's great. It's great.

How do you feel that information systems are working in terms of following individuals? So you're documenting and monitoring the trajectory of someone. You know, someone may, you know, come into the Bay Area. They started off with an RV, which eventually broke down, they lost that and ended up going to other, you know, systems. Right.

Are we following that very well? Or when someone are you able to to track what's happened to someone when they come into you comes to you? Of course. Absolutely. So Okay.

That's great. That's better than interagency health care communication is, by the way. So There

has been a lot of infrastructure

We can certainly have more comments and questions and stuff, but we do wanna check-in to see if there's anyone who is in public who has anything that Or you

just need if there's public

comment. Yeah. One comment. Yeah. Sorry.

There there is no public comment.

Yes. I should say the words.

Okay. Thank you. Then we can keep going back to comments or questions.

Well, I for one would say thank you for giving the answers you gave. And I'm glad to see that you're in the position. I'm looking forward to seeing more of the work that you do because, as I said, I don't mean to use a lot of what you're offering. And $25,000 doesn't seem like nearly enough to do what you need to do. Right. And if the questions I ask are specific, they're only because I'm looking to get ideas of how you can get more help. If there are other part of what we do here is to find other organizations and bring them together to help with, Christ, you fit, you're dealing with. So if it's something to do with that, how can we get those kinds of organizations to work with you? Understood. Okay.

Appreciate that. Thank you for your questions. Thank you, Ronald. I appreciate it, man. Appreciate you. Yeah.

I think one of the things you said, just maybe something when you were saying that how many of you know somebody who's had mental health health issue. If we're gonna be really be honest with each other, I bet every one of us has actually looked in the mirror at some point in our lives and seen someone with a mental health problem. Right? We all go through trauma

and issues in our lives.

And so that's something we can all hold in common. It brings us closer in some way. It's a point of empathy, I think. You know, it's also something just, you know, it's not like an illness where, like like, you can't take it as an antibiotic. You can't take an antibiotic for seven days and be healed. Right? I mean, that's so that's the thing too. It's it's persistent. Right? And we always have to check-in on each other.

And I'm just I'm bringing all this up because later on, you'll probably be gone by then. But later on, I'm gonna talk a little bit about this project I'm working on with UC Berkeley students here. It actually has to do with the social determinants of health, volunteerism, and getting people who are generationally out of their homes in the community. So we get this could be for the senior project. When you get done with it, we'll share it with you because a big part of human human services and health is actually connecting with people. Just your basic, know, connection as a people on a daily basis. So we wanna support that in any way we can. So and thank you for the work you're doing here. Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

No other questions? Alright. Well, we can move on then. We are now on item four b, presentation on the final report on the Road Home, a five year plan for event and respond to homelessness in Alameda. On 01/06/2026, City Council accepted the final report for the Road Home strategic plan. Schrab has invited Housing and Human Services division manager Simone Falls to present the report to the board as an update. A little tricky

about that.

So it's a You you can

go ahead. I'll I'll be

ready. Yes. I'm ready. Are you all ready for me to start? Okay. Great. I just wanted to, I know Raul just snuck out there, but once give him a shout out, thank him for presenting today and, you know, having his first presentation at Shrub in his role as supervisor of the engagement specialist team. That is one of our great accomplishments out of this road home plan. So we had a five year plan, twenty one to 2025, which was focused on how we would prevent and respond to homelessness in Alameda. I don't think I can move the slides.

So next slide, plea We a needs assessment was conducted, with the community and with stakeholders. Out of that needs assessment, we identified causes of homelessness and housing instability, and we saw that there was a lack of affordable housing that, including high cost of living, discriminatory policies, and barriers for vulnerable populations. There were seven primary needs identified to prevent and end homelessness that included increasing affordable housing, providing flexible financial resources, utilizing low barrier shelter, enhancing supportive services, expanding data collection, ensuring sustainable funding, and improving collaboration and coordination. The stakeholder engagement session informed the plan and identified key drivers of homelessness and also solutions to preventing homelessness. You can do the next slide.

So the Road Home Plan created a road map to prevent and reduce first time homelessness, reduce chronic homelessness, and shorten the time spent homeless. And this included implementing low barrier housing focused shelter and services, which you'll see that, there were four shelters open, three full time, one seasonal. Chronic homelessness is a challenge and a focus of the overall system in Alameda County to prioritize people who are chronically homeless and get them into supportive services quickly so that they can transition into permanent housing and in that cycle of homelessness. And the prevent and reduce first time homelessness really focused on adding prevention services and collaborating with partner jurisdictions to address first time or folks that who are at risk of becoming homeless. Next slide.

The two additional points were to decrease returns to homelessness, so really focusing on preventing recidivism so that folks are who do enter homelessness are homeless one time and for a short period of time, and addressing disparities for individuals experiencing homelessness. And we see, clearly in our data that there are disparities amongst what populations are homeless, not only in the city of Alameda, but throughout, the county and the state, and identifying ways to address those disparities. Next slide. So there are three goals identified. Goal one was to secure a housing future for all Alamedans.

The city adopted the general plan going from 2023 to 2031, which was the housing element, which is state required, document for all jurisdictions. And that you can find online on our city website, but it outlines the plan for affordable housing, to provide shelter, and permanent housing for low income households, which is a big part of the plan to address homelessness. If you look at addressing homelessness, there's home there's a continuum where there's the street outreach, emergency shelter, long term shelter. At the end of that, there has to be affordable housing, and that's, something that the housing element addresses. There are 82 low to moderate income homes for sale, and 182 rental units between 2021 and 2025.

We expect to produce over 800 additional affordable housing units over the next few years through 2029. Goal two, increase access to homeless emergency response services. So like I said, we open four shelters, three year year round and one seasonal. We have our emergency shelter pro our emergency supportive services program, and that is four houses that were renovated to act as shelter homes. So two of the houses are for single adults, six adults per house, and two of the houses are for families, and it's one family per house.

We also have our day center overnight shelter safe parking program. It's kind of a three in one program. That has 18 shelter beds for single adults. It has 25 safe parking spaces for adult only households. And then there's the day center program where people are able to come in and out throughout the day, speak to case managers, have a meal, watch TV, get on the computer, etcetera.

Then we have our Dignity Village program, and that is a state funded and city funded program that has individual household units with their private restrooms and sleeping area. There's on-site kitchen facilities, on-site laundry facilities, and case management services. Those three programs all also have therapy services through Alameda Family Services. The seasonal program is our winter warming shelter, primarily serviced through Christ Episcopal Church and Episcopal Community Services. It also rotates to two other churches throughout the season.

It's a five month program. As you just heard from Raul, we have initiated our internal engagement team, which provides outreach services and light touch case management. We also provide showers through WeHope and the church three times a week. Once we have so I wanna add that we're opening a new day center. So the current day center will transition to a slightly larger site from 18 beds to 30 beds in the 2026.

Once that happens, there will be showers seven days a week. Right now, we have showers three days a week. Goal three, mobilize citywide response to homelessness. We hold collaborative meetings, which we call COT, the collaborative outreach team, and that is between different service providers within the city Of Alameda, different nonprofits, and government agencies that work together, including Alameda County, Building Futures, operation. Several agencies, we meet together to discuss clients by name, which helps us to best serve our clients collaboratively.

We

also work in close collaboration with partner departments. So we work with public works around cleaning up spaces. We work with ARPD to support folks who may be going into parks for a safe place to sleep. We work with APD to also address encampments. We work with Alameda fire department to support folks with mental health challenges through their cares team, and we collaborate very closely with the library, providing on-site case management and mental health services at the library.

Next slide. So over the last five years, we've increased shelter capacity by adding the shelter sites I just went over. We've expanded flexible funding. So the prevention program that we talked about earlier is new. It is $25,000 a year.

We also have a homeless flex fund program that's $50,000. So we have a combined $75,000 a year that goes towards flexible funding to support the unhoused population and at risk of becoming unhoused population. There used to be a cap on those grants, but we are becoming more flexible because we know cost of living is expensive. We have to be very strategic in how we use the funds since we're so limited right now, but we are more flexible where before, it was about $7.50 that, folks could use. We have used 1,500 to 2,500 for one household to support, them with maintaining their housing.

We also leverage other sources like Alameda County's funding programs. And, depending on where folks are from, where they're moving to, there's other jurisdictions where we may partner with them to support folks maintaining their housing. We've also a a big highlight is our data. So we have increased our data capacity. There used to be challenges with outreach data, but we now have an outreach program in the housing homeless management information system known as HMIS, which allows us to track our outreach data.

So since we've had an outreach team internally, we've been tracking our data through that system. So it will help us to better understand who we're serving and how we're serving, which will allow us to learn how to better serve the folks that we're coming in contact with. Next slide. So affordable housing, we have 82 low to moderate income homes that were for sale, A 182 affordable rental units available. We have, below market rate units available currently through two complexes.

One is called the Launch, and the other is called Star Harbor. Star Harbor is for moderate income households. The Launch serves low to moderate income households. So people can look at go to those websites and talk to those sites to see if they qualify or will be interested in those opportunities. We have permanent supportive housing that we provide through funding support in different jurisdictions.

An example of that is we provided funding for subsidies at Lannett Corner. We also provided funding for Estuary 1 And 2, which are two housing authority affordable housing properties. Next slide. So we have what's called a below market rate program, which is the same as the inclusionary housing program. This program requires developers to set aside a certain amount of units that are considered affordable, And we have affordable housing agreements with each developer that lays out how many units per income level will be provided.

So, for example, if we look at number of ownership BMR units by income level, we can see that 50% of the an so AMI is annual medium income. 50 folks that are at 50% AMI or lower, there were 22 units provided. For folks 80% or under, there were 22 units provided. So 50% is very low income, 80% is low income, and 100 per and 20% is medium moderate income. So there were 38 units provided at 120% or lower AMI.

And so that is a requirement for every new development currently. We don't currently have an in lieu fee. So, currently, if a developer creates a property that has 10 plus units, they are required to provide below market rate units in their portfolio. Next slide. We manage several different funding sources.

So we have federal funding, state funding, county funding, and we have our local funding. So we manage a lot of different funding streams. Federal funding has been interesting this year. There have been some changes that have come about, but we have CDBG community development block grant and home funding. For state, we have different funding sources such as we have PLHA, which is a funding source that is associated with housing fees.

We have PIP, which is a funding source that is awarded for being an affordable housing friendly community. We have HAP funding, which is homeless specific funding. So different types of state funding sources. We have county grants. So the county gets some direct funding from the state or federal government, and then they issue that funding out to different jurisdictions.

So we get some of that funding from the county. And then we have our general fund, and, also, we have some revenue funding sources from our affordable housing units, so develop developers who have fees that they pay us annually. And we're always looking for more funding opportunities as well, you know, looking to increase our funding, especially to us further support the community members that we are here to help and also to minimize the expenses that we have attribute contribute minimize what we're pulling from the general fund. So that's always a goal is is finding alternative funding sources. Next slide.

This is an outline of who we've served over the last five years. So you can see the day center served almost 700 people. Over 700 people out of all the shelters were identified as chronically homeless, which means, they've most likely been homeless for two years or more. Most folks it doesn't show it here, but most folks are

in the

mid age range, so 25 to 55. We do have a good amount of seniors, 332 folks identified as seniors. Midway Shelter is our women's and children's shelter. They serve 232 people. Oh, these numbers, I believe, show a clear example that there is a continued need for services in Alameda.

These are people who have been identified as being on the street and entering into emergency shelter programs. This doesn't even get to the folks that are, you know, challenged and struggling with maintaining their everyday housing or at risk of becoming homeless. Next slide. Dignity Village, again, that's our home key project that has individual units for each household. You can see that there has been an increase.

So in after 2023, we identified a new provider. So Operation Dignity joined Dignity Village in late twenty twenty four, and they hit the road running. They immediately started supporting people with becoming permanently housed. And you can see where there was a big change from five people becoming permanently housed in 2023 Too shortly after Dignity Village came Operation Dignity came on board, there were 20 people housed. And in 2025, there were 23 people housed.

So this data was pulled in. It was either October or November, but the final data was 23 people for 2025. Next slide. So we have concluded our plan. The plan ended with the fiscal year twenty four-twenty five.

We are now working on our new plan. So this is an introduction for you all to hear a bit about what has happened over the last five years. You will hear more about what we are planning to do in the next five years, and we would love to get your input on what you would like to see happen in the next five years, what you have seen that has worked well, what you have seen that has not worked well. We also have a survey that is out right now, and so we would love for folks who live in Alameda and work in Alameda to complete that survey. I believe it's due, I wanna say, March 11.

Yes. Seventeenth.

So we would love for you all to fill that out and share it with your neighbors, your colleagues so they can also fill it out, and we can really use that data to inform our next five year plan. The goal is to have that plan presented to counsel at the end of this fiscal year to have it ready to launch in the twenty sixth, twenty seventh fiscal year. And that is it. I am here for any questions you may have. This was, from the point in time count, which is now over, But this presentation was from counsel before the point in time count.

So we had a point in time count in January, which will also inform HUD, which is the federal department which funds homeless services. It will inform how they fund individual jurisdictions, and it also helps us to understand what is happening in our city around homeless services. People living in cars, RVs, on the street, in shelters. It helps us to understand a little bit more about what is happening around homelessness in Alameda.

Thank you. Thanks, Simone.

Great. Yeah. Thank you for the presentation. Do we have any I'm sorry. Do do we have any questions

from the board? I do. You said there was a survey. Where can I find the survey?

So we did email it to the board. And then it went out. So I emailed it to you directly. Okay. I believe it was last week. And then the last one out today again. But today came from the general study that helped me make email, so that may have just gone through your junk. But I'm happy to resend it to you. It's also on our web page.

That was what I was

trying to

find out. Where are

So on our web page, Housing and Human Services, it's the top tile. And I will also be announcing it and sharing a QR code during my staff announcements.

Thank you. That was my only question if you want to send it to other people. I

just had questions from the report about through the housing placements from Dignity Village. Awesome. Do we have data on where those folks are finding that permanent housing? Like, what are those exits? What do they look like? Is it where they're headed to? Is that, like, permanent supportive housing? Is it into affordable housing? Do we know how that's splitting out and how that's working?

That's an interesting question because I have asked the same thing. So we're exploring how to get that very specific data. I know that h m I HMIS asked where you were last housed on that level, but it's a little more secure on where you are then placed. So I am trying to get a little more specifics on, is it permanent supportive housing? Is it independent rentals?

But it should we should be able to get that. I'm just I've asked that exact same question to get that level of data. And so I guess to be determined soon is my answer.

And then I'm, like, wondering, for those folks that are newly housed under permanent housing, do we have programs that are supporting them once they're placed in that permanent housing? And do we have, like like, I know there's some programs that will call six months, eighteen months, right, to just ensure to ensure there's not recidivism back into the system.

I wonder

if that's what

I see.

Dignity Village has a six month aftercare program. So people who have moved out do receive monthly case management check ins. So if there are challenges, the case manager can help address those challenges.

I remember a while back, there was a big push to get people enrolled in health care, especially Alameda Alliance was doing a lot of that. Is there a good mechanism now? Has that been maintained? Are most people enrolled in Medi Cal at this point?

Yes. So Alameda Alliance now goes to Dignity Village once a week. So they're connecting with resident or participants at those programs regularly. They have their health van that goes there once a week. They also go to the day center once a week.

Excellent. Thank you. Do we have any other questions? We just have any comments. Let's go to public comment and then see if we

There is no public comment.

No public comment. Okay. So are there any additional comments about runoff?

We have a work group on homelessness. What is going to be the function of that work group going forward?

That's a good question.

Reviewing? I mean, I'm not sure. Because we have changed our roles.

Yeah. I think we've talked about and we've talked about this kind of in our last meeting was that there's a lot of things that are still needed in terms of connecting people to the services and expanding the capacity for people to understand how and where to connect to those services. So while the city's taken over the provision of the services and that kind of stuff, there's still the need for the board to really help kind of make sure that there's like communications, right, city communications. And so thinking about how we can kind of reframe our work so that it's more about kind of ensuring that people know what services are actually out there in the communities and ensuring that people know about when we need to advocate for additional services, when things are going to be out in the community, there will be a board for approval, that kind of stuff, that we can be a voice to kind of bolster that. And then to just kind of so Scott and I are still participating in the meetings for the next five year plan.

So we've been attending the community events, and we actually have a report out for you for our SR, like, work group report.

Great.

But I think, yeah, it's definitely something that we've been talking about. It's just kind of what does that role look like if we're not overseeing the road home anymore And if we're not overseeing the community needs assessment anymore. And we are gonna

have work planning probably starting next month. So we can really dig into the form.

Yeah. And I do think there is a place for, shrub in this. I mean, not think there definitely is a place for shrub, through this process. The knee the needs assessment and strategic plan differ this round in the in the fact that the road home was intended to really focus on homeless services. The plan that we're working on this year for the next five years is really focused on the division's full role, which extends beyond homelessness.

It includes affordable housing. It includes social services. And so that's where there is a big difference, but we did find it important to present this to you all today with the intention of then bringing back our draft plan and no. Having you participate throughout the process, like Sam said, Sam and Scott are both participating throughout the process, and then bringing the draft plan for your feedback and input. So we really want you all to be able to understand what the division does entirely and not just around homeless services so that you all can give your input and guidance as well as experts that have worked in these fields that impact human services.

So you have a face with the face of the

And ears.

And ears. Okay.

The eyes and ears.

Eyes and ears. Okay.

So as, like, we grow and we have more structures and we're more robust, and we, you know, we're so it just I think it shifts, but still equally as important. Yeah.

And I think there's there's, like, been pieces that have been the role of SHRUB previously through prior to us. Right? So the SHRUB has continuously been in charge of doing the community needs assessment as a way to support the students. Always do it wrong. Say the club instead of the funny. And so I think that has been a big change for us is to kind of think about if these reports are being produced by the department, what other data sources will we need to think about as a board to ensure that we have the information that we need that's separate from the department, if there's any additional information that we may need and how to acquire it.

And that's an interesting point that we should probably start that we should discuss during our work line because I believe that you all have Andre is not here, so I may he's our CDBG guy. You still have to have, like, a letter written. Right.

Do you have any more comments or questions? No? Well, thank you very much for your presentation, Simone. Thanks, Simone.

Thank you. And sorry again that I wasn't there in person tonight.

Okay. Thank Safe travels. Mhmm.

Thank you.

Alright. Let's move to item four c, review of the each friendly city survey draft. Social service and relations board efforts to improve social services in Alameda community. The The Road Home Work Group has created a survey to disseminate into the community. The survey is designated designed, sorry, to collect data related to creating a livable community for people of all ages, especially seniors 55 and older, which will inform the road homework group's future work.

This survey asked questions about social activities, daily living awareness, and services more. And then, yes, the eight domains of age friendly cities. I just give a little bit more background on this. So I I worked extensively, you know, in Oakland on on this, you know, for for like it's been ten years now. And in in my role as a with the East Bay Foundation of Aging, we actually funded their last survey.

I helped them develop it. So and when it was done, they first graciously let us use it as a model. So the formatting was was kind of set, and then I might work on changing the questions based on input from people I got in the meetings and some other differences. For example, transportation is a bigger issue for seniors in Oakland than than than the type of housing questions that were asked in Oakland. Let's put it that way. So things were prioritized a little different, that kind of thing. And then after I got it all put together, it was still really long. It was short. And then Sam got ahold of it and and really made some major formatting changes. So a lot of what we're looking at is content even though I'm just kinda lead off my first question here.

Is one thing we did that's a little different is the very beginning, there's actually two questions that you would write and fill in rather than starting right off with checkbox answers.

Good. I'm sorry to

And and then we had a little bit of debate whether that was a good idea or not. I would like to get feedback on that. Thank

you. Mhmm. Much appreciated.

So so you see there's, like, there's two questions that are, you know, fill in handwritten kind questions. But debate is whether or not you should start a survey with that or whether we start just with with check boxes. They're easy to fill out. So think about that. There's can you actually so there's there's checkbox. Can we just go to the next? Are we missing something here? They're the ones that have the

They're further down.

Oh, they're down further. Right. Right. So also one thing that makes it a little bit longer, these are a couple of formatting questions that really big questions about. This actually helps clarify for people what we're talking about. I don't know if you if you think this is needed or not. Do you see there's the part in bold, which is

Is that the category?

Yeah. So you can say, well, no. For caregiver support services for people who are caring for a loved one who needs assistance. We could just ask that, but then it provides examples. See in parentheses there? Do you think that's that makes it quite a bit longer? But we thought it was necessary to have so people wouldn't be guessing what we're talking about. So I'm I'm just trying to share these rationales that people have different views on it because these are still things we're questioning ourselves.

I would defer to people that know how to do polls. I don't know how to do them. So

But you fill them out. Right? Like, for me, personally, I'm like, if the survey is over, like, three pages long, I'm like Yeah. People needed to shorten this. Right? I get grumpy. So just want to

see what I mean. Jump this onto

two pages. Let me go forward and

It's still

eight pages long.

It is two.

It's eight pages long, so

So, like, I I mean, I think one of the things is, like, you know, we

all do fill out surveys, and they're it's important to have, like, that. These are supposedly right, these have been tested. These questions have been tested. These questions have been tested.

It's actually less than half the length of AARP one.

Yeah, So they're originally intended, like, they're originally written from AARP.

Oh, I see.

And then they were used. Right? And this is, like, kind of what they suggest.

And we're bearing it down because they ask membership stuff, People who are more affluent in things and questions. And we just took that kind of stuff out.

And that's their suggested survey for their age

groups. Yes.

And it's been conducted in multiple locations, right, for multiple years.

And they do it once every five years actually too. So it's not like done regularly.

I I think you're saying that like three pages are like, But maybe those open ended ones in the beginning, putting those at the end because you really want people to answer and check boxes and they're like, okay, I'm done, but at least you got information. Just, it's kind of like, alright, keep going. There's still more boxes, you don't have to type or write or anything.

I don't

know, just like a semantics thing.

Yeah, I understand. That's good, yeah. The number of questions aren't ridiculous because each one is like, you know, there's like maybe six or seven on one page because of all the extra qualifying information. I'm sorry.

You were

gonna say something. I was

just gonna ask, is this gonna be a digital type of thing, or is this going to be a handwritten? Because I see you've got handwritten space. So I'm just wondering which side of both. Are you gonna do it as a PDF document or something?

Well, like like SurveyMonkey, you can actually fill in fields. Yeah. Okay. I'm just making sure I

understand how the format would work because then you might be able to ask questions in a different way. If you're using it as a long sheet page, that's

a thing. But if you're

doing it as one set of questions and then you give each question one at a time, they don't feel that same pressure of having eight pages. You're showing them what you want them to see at that time, asking them that question, getting the answers. And then the next little line goes over there and then the next little line goes over there. That way you're not overwhelming people with eight pages of stuff. You're just saying, here are some questions I'd like you to fill out. Here, the first section is done. Second section. No. Third section. And then people will feel a little less shocked by the length.

Not that not that there's anything wrong, but I just you made a question of and she asked it the same way. The last part would be the one where you have people actually type something in or write something in. I don't know. If it's on paper though, that's a different story.

That's why I wanted to make

sure I caught up with it.

Right. So know in advance. Also, there's there's actually two pages of demographic questions. Yeah. Do you think those are too heavy handed?

I always go with US census demographics just so that we have comparable data to compare to the general population of the city.

That should be your starting point right there, and then do the rest of the Lichen scale stuff in there, and then do the last thing where you You have people fill in stuff because by the time they get to the end, they're pretty burned out already. Yeah. Just saying that somebody So we have

our age and the

Yeah. You

know, we have questions like like, you know, living with grandchildren and stuff. So we don't, you know, we're trying to find that information. Languages. It's yeah. I mean, there might be a way of crunching that stuff together. But then it's a good time to read. Yeah.

Not like labor intensive.

No, that's what I was saying. As long as you have

it ordered properly, people are easily or much more likely to finish or get close to it.

I think one of the things that for me, I'm curious about, like the board's insights is just content wise, is this team the questions are of interest to us and things that would be actionable for us, right? So if we're thinking about promoting age friendly cities and developing or helping the community develop programming to support older adults, is this going to get us the information that we need to make that actual?

That right there is huge. And I love having the descriptors after the pregnancy event. Those look that that helped me. So I'm like I'm like, having that explanation makes it very clear. And having the categories, like, the headers, I think that makes it. It's very

user friendly.

And survey making makes it easy.

It's And always user friendly.

A lot of these things we actually fund too, like the legal assistance for seniors and, you know, get these agencies get CDBG money.

It. It's like an overexplanation.

Well, that's what I was saying. The the extra text that's in the parentheses is are there are are any of them too difficult to understand with just the part that's involved?

Think you're saying is, would you know what they were if they didn't have the emphasis made on them? If you said, do you know about any transportation accessible services if you didn't mention any of them, that is kind of what you said, at least as far as I can.

Oh, I see.

Yeah. Because if the answer is, oh, yeah, I'm real familiar with it, so then I can just check four. But if you give me the answers and say select one of the above, then you may not get it. And if if you you want more honest answers, you might not get it because you're feeding them variations.

Right. And that's why I'm just yeah. That's what that's why I'm asking the the authority. Are we leading people to the answer too much? But then, again, would it be clear if you just read the bold part when I'm asking or we're asking?

Yes.

I would think the bold would be understandable. Yeah. Whether or not they Just

the bold.

Yeah. Yeah.

I also think that so much text can be overwhelming, and you can give them. So I'm not gonna read it. Yeah. Well,

if it doesn't have all that stuff, you can probably shorten it. That alone will shorten the survey by

By half.

By a page or two. There you go. So we're down to six pages. Really low. Only three pieces of paper. And only two pieces of paper are half of the real survey. The last one is just demographics.

And only people who are gonna get a paper form and fill in a paper form are gonna look at how long it is.

That's true. Yes. Yeah. So

that too, all three of those have.

Okay. Well, I'll do a new a new a next version. I'll retitle it, stamp this, and then so you can see it too. And then so we'll know. So we'll keep the old version

so you can see the difference.

And and we'll edit it without that text in there. We'll move those questions at the beginning after. I wonder. I wonder if we don't know what happened.

Would you get different results if you answered them with one set and different than the other? In other words, if you did the one where you had the information, they could go, Oh, you mean that? Yes, I know about that. Versus, I don't know. Which could, you know, that could influence it in both directions. So it would be interesting to see. I don't know, maybe you want to do one of each.

I'm just offering a few.

Do the troll group. They'll be testing. We need another university group

now. Sorry. Been around that. Yeah. Been around that.

But but originally, there was five different answers there. Mhmm. And there was a whole separate section just about not being familiar with things. And that was thank you. I and I was like, this I was a little bit lost. And you really helped with that. We got another two pages just by that.

Yeah. Yeah. Sorry.

Yeah. It was too long.

It was too long. Right? It's

really long.

Yeah. Yeah. So okay.

Great. And and she'll be she graciously altered, but multiple, altered.

Kinda that does, like, my

personal form. She'll be creating the

virtual version. And

and this is all this

is through ARP and also the World Health Organization. Just so you know, and that little symbol there next to the Alameda Center, that's World Health Organization. Some people say, why do you have a snake up there? Well, that's the symbol.

I was going to ask you about that. What part of it is from

What do you mean well, the model for Age Friendly Communities is World Health Organization.

That's why you put that there.

Yeah. And ARP is the from

the survey.

Yeah. And ARP is just the liaison for The United States. Yeah. But yeah.

We did executive decision add service providers as another group to the survey just because we thought it would be important for the service providers to be able to address what services they know are not being addressed within the community. Yeah. So that was not part of the original AARP. I should disclose all the things that were not part of the original AARP. That being a major one, that we would have a separate population that would complete the survey. Okay.

All right. I hope we were able to do some of it.

No. No. It is. It's good. Yeah. I because I the questions I I really feel solid about, but delivery is the problem. And and I saw and Oakland's version was, like, 16 pages long. So it's like, we're gonna

Give us a we're gonna make

it more concise and tighter. Yeah. We're banishing bureaucracy. That's what we're doing here. There you go. Alright. Thank you so much for your time on this. I know the hour is getting late, so we're gonna move to work group reports as item 40. This item is for board discussion only. There's no staff presentation. Go directly to public comment.

There

are no public comments.

Great. So now that our items are open for discussion, do we have anyone who wants to take we also need to I don't know if this Minutes? Yeah.

You wanna do it after work groups

and see. Let's do yeah. We'll do minutes after work group reports. But part of our reports is actually talking about the work groups. Right? We we need to have a discussion about distributing people into the work groups. But let's do let's touch on the work we've done in the last month. And do you wanna start off, Brian?

Yeah. So I'm a big believer in not making presentations at meetings. So I asked Shelby to attach notes of the domestic violence task force that we had. It was very successful. And thank you, Shelby and Grecia, for organizing it.

As you read it, it's the most successful one we've ever had. I'm very optimistic about it. The mayor attended, the assistant city manager Amy Willhouse attended, three people from the police department attended. And it's all there in the minutes and the notes. And that is the focus, what I think for me is the most important thing that I can do as a member of the work group, as the only member.

And we've had speakers. We're to have another meeting pretty soon and trying to bring in some more people. And it's become a very good forum for communication among the various providers in a way of moving certain projects forward. So I'm really happy about it. So I don't know if anybody has any questions about the report.

That's what I've done.

So Alameda is united against hate. I think that's straightforward. We have recently been working with the Season of Nonviolence program, we being me now. Used to be a two man, two person ops of analysis. It's a one by myself. We've been working on the Season of Nonviolence program, which is something that occurs every year in The States. We basically talk about the two things that go on. Right now, our biggest event is going to be the open mic night that we're going to have for our season of nonviolence. It's going to be over at the Healing Gardens. Beautiful place.

It's right over in on Webster And Taylor. It's outdoor. We originally had, been doing a poetry slam for the United Against Hate Week and we were doing a speech contest for the season of non violence. The speech contest would occur here at City Hall. We would get the students in and the students from high school and high school would come in to various speeches and programs, and they would get awards and prizes. This time we were able to engage the actual students themselves to have them do

the work. It makes a fire.

That's that's a perfect example of they are more engaged. And and it was funny, I had asked some of the students at our last United Against Hate Week, if they were doing it, how would they do it? And I don't know whether that was what got the whole thing started or not, but they started on this part of it and they decided to do this. And so this month, March 25, I will be I'm judging. Right? Yes. I'll be judging this year for the men. I invite any of you to come judge with me. We need some extra judges up there if we have availability. Please

Or participate. Or participate. All ages. All ages.

Oh, so they answered that question. So it was all ages. Initially, I asked it whether we're gonna That's right. Adjust the kids or whether we're gonna have all ages. So if you wanna come up and do something, you're welcome to come up and do something as well. I I'm really excited to see the turnout from the youth and the adults. The youth usually lead in these types of things, and the adults kind of find out by looking and seeing and go, oh. So this is one of the things where we're trying to do outreach in the community. The goal for the social services and human relations board is to be the face that people see. One of the former board members told us in his last time here, he said, you should be out there in the community with the people where they need to see you.

So this is another example of our opportunity to take advantage of. And I encourage everybody to come out. That's all I have for now. Excellent.

It looks Simone, do you wanna go ahead, Simone?

It's a separate it's separate from this committee, so I can go after. Okay. Or should I go now?

Which committee is it related to?

It's just a city announcement.

Oh, yeah. We'll do the the staff announcements. Our staff communications are next.

Okay.

Thank you. I'm available to do anything you you need before I've done that evening. Okay?

I'd love to have you as a judge or you can come up there and play your new instrument if you'd like.

That'd be fun. So we're going to Samantha and are gonna talk about the stakeholder meeting that that occurred earlier this month. Which one? I'm sorry.

You meant telephone.

Oh, sorry. The the it was it was Road Home. Right? It was that's what it was called. Yeah. Was a stakeholder meeting. And it happened at City Hall West, and it had groups providers from all over, you know, Alameda came came there and congregated there. And Simone and there's rest of the staff led this session. And we have some of the the things we report on it.

So it's good. The idea

is that it's an opportunity

to collect information about what the service needs in the community to present in the next cohort and to build out the plan.

And to provide a historical context too. Yeah.

Right. So there was a presentation by Camille and Simone that talked about where we are within the city in terms of the data and what's available to us and some of the things that are some of the greatest needs that have been identified and then the previous report information. And then we broke out into kind of smaller groups that where people could talk about their experience as service providers and the needs that they were seeing within the community.

And, yeah, some of the major themes are, of course, the need for more affordable housing in the area. And to work around the homelessness services, if shelter and continue to expand shelters and options for housing. And then, of course, just the administrative barriers, you know, dealing with the different agencies, waiting for funding and all that type of thing that happens. But it I felt like it was a very engaged group. You know, the interest is really high. We also had I thought it was great that they had some people with real life experiences who were able to talk.

Of folks that really talked about kind of their experience within trying to access the system in Alameda and kind of the process and their experience and what they've been able to achieve with the support of the programs, which I think

was helpful for folks that didn't have that kind of experience.

Just never sounds the same when you not that anyone in the field or working in it, but it never sounds the same when a professional or a person who's working in it is talking about it as when someone who's gone through it. It just has a different tone to the whole thing, you know. And it makes it makes people feel a little uncomfortable, I think, but in a good way because it makes it so real for them. So that's great that you guys add add in there is really meaningful, I think. So that's good. Yeah.

Do you wanna talk about kind of where you guys are headed with

right now, we're prepping the agenda for our session that's going to be in March. So we're gonna have a smaller stakeholder session, and we're going to implementation and compliance folks? Are we doing are we expanding that infrastructure? And then we have social services, which is, like, completely unclear. So some of those things that we want to get more perspective or refinement, just a bit more of, like, a just just a get it more more refined.

Refined. So that is what we're thinking for the next session. Yeah. Do you have anything to add, Simone?

No. I think you covered it well.

And I also will be pulling so the survey is quantitative.

I always get that wrong.

Qualitative. Qualitative data. And then quantitative data is also going to be pulled in terms of, like, two eleven phone calls, trying to get data specific data on voucher holders in the city, evictions, information from the program. So that's all going to inform our next session. And then by the third session, which will be our final session, we're hoping to have a draft to present to folks that can answer our feedback from our partners. Yeah.

And I think as for us as the board, we're kind of in this interesting place as we participate in the process and then see this plan moving forward because our role isn't just in overseeing your department, it's in overseeing the services that are available within the city to all residents, right? So like as a board, our purview is beyond the department. And so I think that's one of the places that we'll even have to think about as we think about like what our committee does, if that makes any sense. Right? Because these reports and these things are gonna be held at the department level, but the work that we do is really supposed to be citywide and have the perspective of all of the different departments and the different organizations, right, like the housing and board meeting, all that kind of stuff.

So how is that all how is

that all working and where are there still needs? Because if things may not be the purview of the department that we still need to address with

the city council or whatever, if that makes sense. I think we actually do need a lot of clarity. Council

Sorry? Okay. Okay.

I was going ask you, so I don't have I'm not a committee

person. That's what Do

I sign up? Do I put my name on the line?

That was going be our next conversation. Now we're going open that up to the floor. You both are new. And discuss what committee attracts you and

Well, I guess I'm really interested in the domestic violence. That sounds a very hard sentence to say. No. I'm really interested in the work that your committee does in my, like, or the subcommittee. Subcommittee. Because I do a lot of that work at work every day, and I'm like, I wanna challenge myself in something that I don't.

Oh, there's a huge I'm like, serious. I'm sure there's

a screening process and everything.

Yes. It's nine months, I think. So There we go. No. There's there's no process. We we we can just decide as a or we just Sure. Decide as a board. We just wanna make sure there's, you know, a decent balance. So we can always adjust people from their current.

So there's a lot of options.

Also, I have to make a decision?

Yeah, you don't to make a decision. I'm sorry. You want to find out more information to

Yeah. No, I

think so. Since I just found out that

we can be on two, I would love to be on domestic violence. I think given my background working in law enforcement in the District Of Columbia, working specifically with domestic violence survivors, I think that work group really speaks to me. And then also, I think United Against Tate would be also a working group I would

love to sit on.

Sheet, now you're at three. You're building

I your really wish for her. Domestic houses typically have community events as the domestic task force meetings, which are quarterly. And there's the monthly committee meetings that every committee meets monthly for about a half hour. And then AUAH has, like, unique monthly, and then there's community events where, like, a couple weeks we're, like, really busy, and then it's, like, a whole there's, a couple weeks we're really busy. So you can also give it some thought in case, you know, you want to make short Work

balance. Work life balance.

Half to half.

Alright. Sounds good.

I'll follow-up offline with Michelle in terms of what she's thinking in terms of moving into the future, especially considering the road home community has actually changed quite a bit. So in general, we do something different. It might be a good good time for

her. Great.

Okay. I think we got everything within the work groups, which means that we can move into item five staff communications. And Simone, I believe, has something she wants

to talk to us about.

Do wanna go first, Simone, or should I read mine? Mine's kinda long. You

can go first, and then if I have anything to add, I'll

add. Okay. Do you do you want to tee me in? Or was that gonna tee it?

Oh, yes.

Okay. Great.

Okay. Sorry.

No worries. Okay. Good evening, everyone. My name is Edesian. I am a program manager with Housing and Human Services, I'm here to present the status report on the City Of Alameda's Housing and Human Services. So every six months, I actually am supposed to give you all a much longer six month report. I actually top it off most of all this time. So she gave you the presentation of, like, what we've been doing over the last five years. So we thought I would be a little too repetitive if I also did it to stick to my regular updates. So for my first update, we already mentioned the open mic night.

Update, so I will skip that. Also mentioned is our community survey. So the Housing and Human Services Division is conducting a community needs assessment survey. Our goal is to better understand the needs and priorities of our community as it pertains to human, social, and housing services so we can improve service deliveries. Your responses are anonymous and will help us shape programs and resources that support residents.

You can find the link to the survey on the City of Alameda Housing and Human Services website under the Community Needs Assessment survey section, or you can snap a picture of this QR code to get there. Moving on, our an update around our below market rate rental housing. So we have actually updated our BMR rental housing guidelines as of this month, February 2026. Our guidelines were updated to increase clarity around what happens if resident has income changes going up or down and to reflect lessons learned over the last year as we build out the program's infrastructure. So the guidelines were actually very they're very short.

So they're only maybe, like, 10 to 15 pages. And if you look at maybe, like, San Francisco, it's, like, hundreds of pages. So as we, like, are really getting into the program and we come into different scenarios, we're building it out and getting more specific. Okay. On January 20, Housing and Human Services released the fiscal year twenty six-twenty seven Community Development Block Grant notice of funding availability and request for proposals for the economic development and public service activities.

The application was open for one month. We did receive a couple received three applications, actually. The next steps will consist of evaluating the applications, deciding on which project to fund, which projects to fund, and taking the recommendations to City Council for approval in May 2026. A reminder that this application round was for economic development and capital improvement activities, and the existing CDBG funded social service providers did not need to reapply for next year's funding and will likely be funded for a second consecutive year. Our Pig Count was held on the morning of January 22.

We had 41 volunteers participate in the count, and I'd like to read a thank you from Camille Rodriguez, another program manager in our division who loved the count for the city. A sincere thank you to those who volunteered with the city of Alameda for the twenty twenty six point in time count. It was a very early day, and your time, energy, compassion, and commitment during the count are vital to helping us locate and identify as many unsheltered people as possible. With this information, you can better coordinate funding as well as programming. Each conversation held, survey completed, and care package shared was a reminder that homelessness is not an abstract issue.

It is about people, stories, and community. Your collective efforts strengthen our ability to advocate for resources, design effective solutions, and move from awareness to action. During the count, each team team received care packages that went out to folks who were encouraged during who were encountered during the count. We want to formally thank pastor Mike Yoshi's Buenavista United Methodist Church basketball team, as well as Girl Scout Troops number thirty two seven six three and 31003 for their assistance with assembling these care packages. And can I just say that they said the Girl Scouts were the fastest assemblers they've ever seen? I just sent them about fifteen minutes, and that next thing we're giving

them work. They are first graders and junior high kids, so I just wanna say they were awesome, and they created an assembly line. And, yeah, they were so into it. Sorry for this.

And also a thank you to everyone who donated supplies for the care packages. The State of Alway is grateful for your partnership, and we remain hopeful that together through continued cooperation, compassion, and accountability, we can build a future where homelessness is rare and re re brief and ultimately ended. And that concludes my status report. My status report.

Thank you. Thank

you. I just wanted to add that we do have new service providers for our programs. So as of this late this week, we have Restorative Pathways that is overseeing our emergency supportive housing program, which is a more of a transitional housing type program. Folks have their own private room, and they have a longer term stay and on-site services and the ability to, you know, operate as if this is their own home, like, buy their own groceries and cook their own food, ex things of that nature. We also have a new provider, Urban Alchemy, at our day center safe parking emergency shelter program, and that program is more for low barrier immediate services for people who are on the street really needing immediate shelter and connection to case management to get into either longer programming or permanent housing.

And that's it. We'll have an introduction to them in a couple of weeks. We'll have some festivities to welcome them to town in a couple of weeks.

Awesome.

Yeah. Great. Thank you.

Oh, the minutes.

Yep. Yep. We're gonna do minutes before we do this file thing. We're gonna go back to item number what is it? Three? And we now have a quorum here. So I would like to put forth a motion to approve the minutes for 01/15/2026. Do I

have a second?

Second. Do you have a second? All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? None. I think two recues. We got it done. Thank you. So before we conclude this meeting, we do have number item six, board communications, not agenda items. I know the hour's getting late, I'm just gonna quickly go for this, and then other people can have theirs. So I just wanna explain this. University UC Berkeley has a health and human services graduate program. They reach out to organizations at the Bay Area to ask for projects they can work on. I applied.

I'm yeah. For Almeda, they accepted it. So I've I've met with them a couple of times. I I really thought they were gonna really like this data program that I had this this database program and communications thing. I thought they were gonna love because it's all dealing with, like, computers and all that stuff. And they were like, heck no. The volunteer list, a volunteer program, we wanna

do that.

So what do you what do you know? Like, Gen Zs Gen Zs surprise you. Right? So they they really wanted I really pitched age friendly as a concept of a continuum and that you wanna make sure that the the next generation you prepare for the next generation continually. Right? And that that requires impressive feedback. So we really got excited. They wanna do an intergenerational program design for volunteer Alameda that would incorporate, you know, some coordination. And there's do you remember there was that grant? It it comes every few years. That was for INA. It's it's part time. There's no matching. It's just part time positions. Usually, people hire seniors into them.

That kind of position, which could be paid for by the county, could coordinate the program. So the we're gonna design a program that will duplicate in some ways the loss of the federal senior companion program. That program's lost because the Trump administration canceled it. Try to scan that up without federal funding using a different delivery model. So really excited. I'm really excited these four bright minds are getting their masters of public health that I can, you know, work with them and then send them off, you know, out into the world.

So

just wanted to really just share that.

Very nice. Yeah. That's actually a wonderful idea. Finding a new way to do it without the federal funding is is really what we're gonna have to start doing a lot more of.

Could've been. Yep. So you just we can't pay stipends.

Yep. Wow.

But we do have a transport a a paratransit funded paratransit program that's out of MasTec that could help with the trans transportation aspect of it because they do have funds that they can allocate in different ways. So there's there's there's systems in there that we can use. The Marriott. Right? Yeah.

Any other announcements? I got two. I'm gonna make them quick. I don't know how many of you are familiar with the McKay Avenue program. I've talked about this in the past right over here by the Crab Cove. They're building a respite center and senior housing. This is just a quick report for you. We finished construction I'm sorry. I'm on the board for that program right there. We finished construction and inspection of the upstairs and are currently carrying out final inspections to the downstairs.

We've already built that first building in there, and we're getting ready for the next part. We plan on, requesting a temporary certificate of occupancy at the February. So at this point, the process will take about two to three weeks. During March, we'll finish with the landscaping and installation of the furniture, artwork and supplies. The lifelong staff, lifelong is the organization that will be handling the facility. Lifelong staff should be moving in in April, and we're working on setting a date for the grand opening in the April. So you will see the work that we spent years trying to get finally show up.

And that's just

the first part. Next part gets even better. Once we get that done, we'll start the grant work for that one, as a matter of fact. We're beginning we're inching closer to beginning the construction work on the CU housing project. We'll be applying for the permits next month. Then we'll be submitting our application for the final funding in April. We hope to be under construction in the fall, which means about next year or sometime in the year, we should actually have the senior housing element taken care of. Wow. So that's a really great one that I was really thrilled

to be able to do. And

the second one is about the Rise Up Alameda program. I'm also on the board for the Rise Up Alameda program. Rise Up Alameda program is a guaranteed basic income study that we did with the grant and the research that we have, finished the program at this point. They were scheduled to do some more work. We're now at the point where we're starting to get the stories of the people who are participating in the program and putting them together for a video visual presentation because it's important to get the faces of the people that you actually supported.

For two years, people got a thousand dollars a month, no strings attached. That's an amazing feat. And the idea that we can now ask them how they used it, not just the data that you get here, but to see the faces. That's the kind of thing that resonates. So really looking forward to getting started on that part of the project. We're going to be doing that over the next period of two months. So really, really thrilled to be able to do such great announcements. Important things that we need here. The only other third point that I was going say would be there was a movie that I did not get to go to this Monday. The Apology?

Yes. The Apology. I I have not gotten a chance to see it, but I've already said I'm going to buy it so I can watch it. Because if you've been to the Oakland Museum and you've seen the black spaces reclaiming remain, you know the story of Rusty.

And that's until March 1, right? Yes. They have that yet.

Please go before it goes.

Oh, yeah.

I'm It's $20 It's the best $20 you'll spend in the area. Area. And that was all I had to say. Thank you.

Alright. I'm gonna get on your calendar and talk to you about EBI. Yes. Definitely. Wanna talk about that one. Definitely. Yeah. Okay. Oh, any other announcements? No. Okay. Then we can adjourn this meeting at 09:04PM.

I thought for sure we're gonna hit the

It did. I just I was waiting, like, five seconds. So