Commission on Persons with Disabilities - Regular Meeting

Welcome to the June 25th, 2026 Social Service Human Relations 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 Manna Aon will announce when it is your turn. You will then have the option to unmute yourself and proceed with your public comment. Email your public comment to Secretary Manna Aon at G-M-A-N-N-A-H-A-Y-O-N at AlamedaCA.gov. before or during the meeting with your name, the agenda item number, and your referencing and your comment. Comments submitted during the meeting before the conclusion of the public comment section will be read into the record. Her email address is also on the meeting's agenda. If you are calling in by phone, please email Ms. Ben-Ayan as we cannot see you raise your hand. You can also dial star nine 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 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 address matters not in 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 meeting. First, after a presentation, we will ask if there are any clarifying questions from shrub members for staff. Second, we will ask if there are any public comments on this agenda item. And then third, after public comments, we will open the item up for board discussion and a vote if recommended. I'd like to remind everyone that we are conducting business for the city of Alameda this evening. We agree as a community to listen respectfully when other people are speaking. Public speaking can be very stressful for all of us, and we do not want anyone to feel intimidated. Shrug meetings will always be a safe space for people to share their views. I also want to remind everyone that disrupting a public meeting is a California penal code violation that could result in actions up to and including police intervention. None of us want that. As a reminder, the exits are located right here. So we will now call this meeting to order at 7.05 p.m. All right, we will do roll call. Chantelle Carter, she's currently absent, but she'll be here in 15 minutes. Yeah. Bernie Wolf. Here. Gerald Bryant. Here. Michelle Buchholz.

Here.

Samantha Green.

Here.

And Scott Means here. And from the Housing and Human Services Division, we have Simone Falls, Division Manager, Gracia Manayon, Program Manager, and Shelby Neal, Administrative Specialist. Let's move to 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 failed to follow these rules, they would be warned. And if they continue to disregard the rules, their opportunity to speak will end. Are there any speakers?

We currently have no public comment. Just a friendly reminder for those joining virtually, if you are currently an attendee, your hand must be raised to be able to give public comment.

Thank you. This brings us to item three a to review and approve the minutes. Do we have any comments to approve? We have a motion from Samantha, we have a second.

I'll second.

All right, Gerald second. Oh, since we're all in the room, all those in favor. Aye. Unanimously passes. We have eight minutes. Okay. So this four, item four, I do want to point out this will be a fairly quick meeting. We do not have a lot of items tonight. So makes up for last week or last month. 4A is to vote on the social service human relations board fiscal year, 2026, 27 scope of work. this item is a continuation from the april and may shrub meetings where the social service relations board has been discussing and editing a proposed scope of work further changes were requested and have since been incorporated into a fourth draft of the sow created by vice president samantha green who will present thank you samantha you're welcome so uh just as a reminder um

Bernie Wolf and Gerald Bryant and I met to discuss the well, through email. We looked at changes to the scope of work. And so I just wanted to bring your attention to the changes that were made in the hopes that we can get through and pass our scope of work this month. So the first part that we see is on page one, instead of primary role, we substituted one of Shrub's many roles is to provide. On page one of the scope of work, there's We substituted some pieces around collaboration so shrub collaborates with city council city manager human services division and numerous other government and non government entities providing services within the city of Alameda. Among other matters through its existing work groups shrub addresses specific ongoing concerns regarding homelessness intolerance and hatred and domestic violence. SHRUB also addresses numerous issues concerning human relations that are not presently the specific subject of existing work groups, but may become work groups which the board may choose to create in the future. In addition, the board provides recommendations on the following matters. And then those continue from our previous draft. On page three, we've changed the work groups and subcommittees. And we've included under section A, the existing work groups. So it now says Shrub currently has three work groups, the Road Home Work Group, which is dedicated to addressing homelessness in Alameda, Alamedans United Against Hate, which is tasked with promoting mutual understanding, inclusion, and respect while combating... bias motivated incidents and domestic violence work group, which focuses on assessing local safety needs, raising awareness about domestic violence resources and advising city officials on supportive policies and preventative measures. Section B says the following additional tasks will fall within the scope of SHREB's work among other matters may become the subject of such work groups, subcommittees or committees as the board may choose to establish on an ad hoc plenary or separately created basis. The last section, we changed the evaluation section to include a section about review and that the city would be reviewing with the SHREB members the work of the previous year. And those are the primary changes that were done to the scope of work. And here it sits in version four.

Excellent. I like it. Thank you, Sam. Do we have any clarifying questions from the board? No question. We can still have a conversation. But before we get into that, do we want to see if there's any comments on this item?

There are no public comments.

Thank you, Gracia. All right, we can go into open discussion from board members. I just want to start things off by really thanking you, Sam, for doing this and putting this together. And I didn't feel really great about the last meeting and leaving here. I was hoping we'd find our way back to each other, and it seems like we have. I personally am going to be letting you know I'm going to be voting yes tonight. And I think I've talked to some of you, and I think we've satisfied people's concerns. So I just want to basically say that. And I don't know if there's any other comments.

I just want to echo it. Thank you for your level-headedness, your organization, and your obvious intelligence. Thank you so much.

I think both of you guys for, I mean, especially Bernie, I really appreciate your thoughtful comments. It was really helpful. And I appreciate you guys helping to move this forward. So hopefully we can all be on the same page.

Again, I just say, thank you. I saw it when I read it, I went, thanks. That was all I needed to see. Yep, very much so.

Can you just go over what the working groups are? Did we delineate what the various working groups would be?

No. So as it stands right now, it just identifies what the groups have been or as they exist. And I think the process is that in our next meeting, as we go through our retreat, we'll be able to kind of revisit what those working groups look like, as well as the other responsibilities that are laid out in the scope of work so that we can kind of identify what needs to remain, what needs to go by the wayside. And if there are things that can be done outside of a work group setting. Okay. as opposed to within a work group setting. Does that answer the question?

Do we have any other comments?

I have a motion to vote.

OK, we have a motion. Do we have a second?

I'll second it. Sure.

Okay, we have a second. We're going to do another consensus vote. All those in favor, say aye. Aye.

Aye.

Is anyone opposed?

Use our same abstain since I came in late.

Oh, okay. We're just this is just the work plans. What we're discussing.

Okay. Okay. Just the work plans.

Yes, it's just for this is just for the work plan.

Scope of work. the existing version for part of the notes.

If you still feel like you need to abstain, that's fine. I just wanted to let you know that's what it is.

If you all wanted to move to updates, you could come back.

Okay.

Or, yeah, I think that's fine.

Okay. We're going to come back to item three and look at agenda item four, which is the... Wait a minute. Sorry. I'm sorry. It's really short, so I actually thought we couldn't be there. Actually, item 4B, right? Yeah. This is the work group reports. Shrub continues to sponsor community events and engagement initiatives to raise awareness and strategies to bring community members together. These efforts are led by several subcommittees referred to as work groups. This month, each work group is to share strengths, barriers of improvement, and future opportunities. Next month. Oh, let's see. Sorry, this is like me reading off a cue card and not using my own brain enough. It's actually next month. Next month, each work group is to share strengths, areas of improvement, and future opportunities. Okay. I apologize for that. Currently, Shrub has three work groups. The Road Home, People Experiencing Homelessness, Human Relations, Alameda's Against Hate, and Domestic Violence Task Force. This item that we are going to discuss is for, this is for board discussion only. There's no staff presentation. So we will go directly into public comments. Oh, I see how this is. I'm sorry, this is a little different than usual. I'm sorry, I'm stumbling on this. Do we have public comments?

We do not want, sorry.

Yes, it is. I apologize, Garcia.

We do not have public comment. I did want to mention, however, I believe you all did want to include some like highlights and opportunities this month, in addition to your updates but I know we're kind of jumping around so it's getting a little jumbled. So yeah, and we're also moving at lightning speed. So you all could do it a couple ways. You could do your updates and then come back and do your highlights or not do the highlights.

That sounds good. What would everyone like to do?

Do you want to do highlights?

Yeah, yeah, okay. All right, so there's no public comment, right?

There is no public comment. I always pause just to make sure in case someone jumps in last second.

That's good. Great. So now we can open it for discussion. Does anyone want to take a lead on this?

Again, The board is moving in the right direction. The longer we deliberate on these things, the better we are going to be in making good choices. So happy and looking forward to the opportunity to have the retreat. It was really informative and helpful for us when we did it the last time, and I expect it will be so again.

Was the question what we thought the highlights of our working group was? Was that?

Yeah, that too, yes.

Oh.

Yeah, we're talking about the working groups. Yeah, yeah.

I would say for the road home, I've been really pleased about how we disseminated the information about the city's homeless policy and metrics that they met. I thought the report was really comprehensive. Yeah. incorporating point in time count, as well as getting very like qualitative work of narratives from folks experiencing homelessness. And I think we had a couple initiatives that were very positive, including the Alameda Volunteers Award. And then additionally, the overdose treatment response has been very well attended and well received as we address opioid use disorders and substance use disorders. So I think those were all really exciting. And I think just creating, I'm really pleased about our group at the road home that we are just increasing the narrative and, and informing people about root causes of homelessness and how to think about how our city is attempting to address this very large problem.

Yeah, I, uh, as part of the road home, I think I would just echo the overdose response train, I think was great. I can't like, it was just, um, attending those meetings, I think, and the interest level from city staff and then from other community members has been really overwhelming. I think, um, identifying an issue that people like resonates with the community, I think is awesome. Um, I would also just point out the presentation to PTAC. Um, and I think. What is PTAC for that? I'm sorry. the PTA presidents, so from all of the different schools in the city of Alameda, they meet together regularly and we attended one of their meetings. And I think we discussed kind of what the city does and what services are available to folks that may be experiencing homelessness or having families that are having a hard time and need additional resources. There's always areas for improvement, but I think that that was a great opportunity for us to kind of reach to a different community that may not be as aware of the services that are available and provided us with a great opportunity to hear from them the challenges that they were seeing within their own school districts or within their own schools.

Oh, and then the age-friendly within that group, also the age-friendly movement. I think, Scott, do you wanna touch about in that group?

Yeah, well, it was really satisfying to see the survey go out. I think, actually, I was going to ask a question about that. After we close it, can we not get data for a little bit in case I want to reopen it temporarily for certain target groups? in terms of demographics. Like what I'd like to say, ideally what I was thinking was, you know, it closes on, doesn't close like this Friday or something, I think the 27th, is to look at the demographics and then specifically go out and try to get demographics that are missing on the survey is what I would try to do. So like it would be something where it was closed, but can it be reopened again once it's closed, I guess is what I'm asking. Oh, okay. Is it difficult to do? Oh, okay. Did you understand what I'm talking about? Yeah. And I don't know. I mean, I've done this before in other surveys where like we knew we did a senior survey in Oakland and there was like no homeless input at all. And so we actually went out and did focus groups and stuff and got that data and tendered it in. So I think based on what our initial data is, I think that's one of the, just one of the shortfalls. Yeah. Yeah. And I wish I could have put more time into this. I did do the QR code. And whose idea was that? Someone's idea that wasn't mine. Someone here, Samantha, was it yours? Garcia, one of you? had the great idea of doing this. And so I did put this around and around Malamita. So I don't know how many people have answered at this point, but those have been sitting around like on Park Street and some of the businesses and on Webster Street, you know, two business districts. So in places I know where seniors go. So hopefully we got a few more. How about your, you want to talk to your group?

Also want to still talk about opportunities and challenges or wait until the retreat next month?

I will say opportunities. I feel like we can, there's always opportunities for growth of how do we support our service providers, identify gaps, as rising inflation rates and rising housing costs, think about how we can prevent homelessness and really have a greater oversight and support given our backgrounds to our service providers and the grant fund, I think that there's clearly programs can always be improved. And I think that is an opportunity for us to look at how we can improve in our role and in our capacity to support programs with a different perspective.

Yeah, I think opportunities for me, I think recognizing how many folks are unaware of the programs that are currently in existence and how to access them. I think we all know that that's always an issue, but I think that as regular streams of funding become more limited, it's a great opportunity for us to outreach to folks to let them know what opportunities are currently available. And I think that As an individual that's where I get a lot of questions from folks is just like what what services are available, and I think if we could have kind of broader outreach to other Community groups that we're not normally outreaching to that would be a great opportunity for us as an organization.

Um, yeah, actually just, this is not technically a work group, but, um, I also see some opportunities with this CDBG, um, and actually it, um, interfacing with all the work groups potentially in terms of, you know, really looking at our work and more comprehensive vision on how this grant funding is going out in Alameda and how it supports the social service work. So I think that's an opportunity actually. Yeah.

Bernie? So I looked at our work plan. Sorry. I looked at our work plan last year. Last year, Cindy Pyle was the other shrub member on the domestic violence work group. And we had some ideas, some of which didn't materialize, some of which did. But during the last year, I put continuous efforts into building up the task force with Grecia's help. The task force is now meeting four times a year. Grecia always arranges a very interesting speaker on a topic that's of importance that doesn't necessarily fall within the penumbra of skills that those of the task force bring together. But now it contains members of city government, city staff, service providers, both in the government and privately, and other individuals who have found that this is a very useful vehicle to disseminate ideas and also to kind of support the community with respect to dealing with domestic violence. So I thought about and of what the work plan should be like this year. And if I had my preference, the work plan would involve work, collaborating with the task force and having as many activities as possible come from them with SHRUB being a support, you know, to enable the activities that the work group decides are important, you know, to be effectuated. There are perhaps some other things that the work group could do, but I think it's important to build a community of people that have an investment in dealing with this ongoing and terrible and often hidden problem. So that's kind of the way I thought about it.

Do you have any other comments?

I basically have started work on our group work plan. It's really a nice work plan. We've got a lot of things that I believe are part of the human relations portion of what we're really doing here. And they would promote opportunities for people to actually get value from what we're doing. It's not like we have to stand out there holding signs, be happy to just put a refrigerator in the healing gardens and let people be able to get food in and out, but that's just me. So we're trying to put things in that will make things better for the people who need the most support. And this is an opportunity for us to show where we actually stand for the people who actually need the support. So I'm happy to get here and talk about what we've got for the program. Again, I've already kind of spoken with Samantha as part of the work group on the things that we would like to address. And again, we've got a lot of work to do. So I'd like to get it going as soon as we can.

Yeah, I was going to say, so I think for Alameda's Together Against Hate, I think one of the things that we identified is kind of as we were all discussing what the plans were as building kind of stronger relationships with other community organizations to identify kind of what interests they had and to see if we had alignment on the different activities that we were thinking of bringing to the community. That way there are less shrub events and more kind of directed by those other community groups. Building broader partnerships, because not only will it help with strengthening the events or the activities, but it'll also help to strengthen the community if it's not just us doing that work.

Agreed. Agreed.

Yeah, that's a good point. I'm hearing a lot more about collaboration, which is great.

Yeah.

Or we can open things. We can open things back up for public comment.

Sure, why don't we?

We're always taking a moment pause here. Well, I'm going to let her come up. Why don't you come up and yes.

Do you want to reopen public comments, Scott?

Do I have to vote on it to reopen it or can we just do it?

I don't think so. You can just call it back.

Okay, we're going to reopen public comment. Welcome. Please state your name for the record.

Hello, my name is Alfina Shofa. I'm local in Alameda. It's a short comment, so I don't know how official it needs to be, but yeah, I'm loving what I'm hearing about the program and kind of like a comment around the... awareness of it. My first kind of like exposure to it was the board outside by the bus stop because I was waiting for the bus earlier this morning and I was like reading into it and then that's why I was interested in joining and there was like information there but I guess also input maybe more on social media I think would be great because I know that we have a city Instagram account and I was just quickly browsing and the information wasn't there so. Just a quick input in case helpful. Thank you. Thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

The city and city Instagram is great. We've been using this now they've put on the events. The person that runs it is great. She goes to all the events.

interesting i'll be reaching out well yeah what i said now you know yeah now we know that's great um so do we have anything else for the work groups do we do we cover is there something we didn't cover with work groups that we're missing um gerald do you want to talk about any highlights from the past year from your work group

We're in the midst of still building up. We had our last meeting for our work group meeting earlier this month. We sat and discussed the different objectives, the possible things that we could do working as part of our community and the different programs. Some of them were rehashed from our original work that we had put in a couple of years back with Diane. And some of them were new ideas that we had gotten from various other organizations that we thought would be helpful. It's a longer list than it was before. We may have to prune it down. But again, with lots of choices, we have lots of opportunities. I think having Sam on the team is really important. I'm glad that we have her working with us because it was hard being a team of one. Input allows us to have A lot of conversations that are necessary and a lot of the people that need to be talked to can be done so from either one side or the other. And the more the merrier, like I said. So that's the basic report I have. And I'll leave everything else I had for comment at the end. Thank you, Joe.

Thank you. Well, if we've completed our comments, We can go back to item 4A where we already have a motion on the floor. And I just wanted to, Chantel, if you still want to abstain, you can. I just want to give you an opportunity if you wanted to look at it to vote.

Yeah, no, I looked at it earlier. So I just wanted to make sure when I walked in that was there anything that I missed, any caveats that was discussed? Okay. Yeah.

No, so we just went over just the changes that were there and just the discussion of how Bernie and Gerald and I kind of went through and included our comments as a group to the new draft. What you see is kind of all we've discussed so far.

Okay, sounds great.

So we have a motion and a second, so we will do a vote. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Abstain? It's unanimous. Yay. Really, thank you again, everyone. for getting this together.

We thought it was going to be a really long discussion, which is why the agenda is so light, right?

Yes, we did actually think this was going to be a much longer discussion. So this brings us all the way to item 5, and it's only 735. Item 5, staff communications. I think our next meeting is going to be much longer, though. 5A, status report on Alameda Housing and Human Services.

Great, so my colleague Shelby will be giving the update.

Oh, Shelby, just come in here, okay.

Okay, so on June 11th, we had another overdose response training in partnership with the HIV Education and Prevention Project of Alameda County. This time we opened the training up to external partners in addition to city staff, and it was wonderful. The final session will be on July 29th. In May, this is just a reminder for you all. I know I announced it last month, but in May, HHS released a request for proposals for a residential rehabilitation program administrator to provide for the rehabilitation of affordable rental units. Staff will seek city council's approval of a final selection on July 7th. On the staffing side, we are excited to announce that HHS administrative specialist Yasmin Obeidi has been promoted to administrative technician, effective June 1st. And we have brought on an additional part-time administrative specialist, Thais Ribeiro, whom we are excited to have on board. HHS is currently hiring two part-time engagement specialists to join the engagement team to deliver direct support to constituents experiencing or at risk of experiencing homelessness. The application will be open until June 26th at 5 p.m. tomorrow. Rise Housing, on behalf of the City of Alameda, is now accepting pre-applications for three below-market-rate waitlist lotteries. The lottery will be held for three income categories. Very low income, which is 50% of the area median income. Low income, which is 80% AMI. And moderate income, which is 120% AMI. For more information, please visit the City of Alameda's Housing and Human Services website under the tab Pre-Applications. home ownership programs. And that concludes the staff updates.

Thank you. Thank you

If I could just add, we are hiring for two engagement specialists because two moved on, but it was for like brighter and bigger opportunities. So we were very happy for them. We have a strong team and it's great to see them. One of them is actually still within the city. She's actually going to be working with the city attorney's office. So we're very proud of her.

Glad to see you.

Thank you. This brings us to item six, board communications, not agenda. I would like to recommend something. The Vision Zero came out with their report on March 17th of this year, so it's still fresh. Highly recommend reading through it. It has some really interesting information. Just one of them we were talking about earlier has to do with e-bikes and how they've been involved in the majority of the bad crashes here. And there's also a really great map that shows where all the work is being done across the city and areas that are like hotspots for bad traffic situations. So not just the board, but anyone in the general public listening to this, I think it's really useful to see what Alameda is doing for traffic and safety. To remind you, Vision Zero is about zero traffic fatalities. That's what we're trying to get to. Any other?

I do. So last meeting, we had Dr. Cindy Acker come up and speak in public comment. And I just want to read a couple of words here. Dr. Acker is an award-winning educator, playwright, and consultant who has served as the founder and principal of the Child Unique Montessori School, elementary school in Alameda for over 30 years. And She's widely recognized for her play Words That Made the Difference, Brown versus Board of Education, which highlights her commitments to social justice and educational reform. Now, I say all that to say she came up last meeting and said that because of the issues with the Oakland Diocese, they would be closing the Child Unique Montessori School, and she was looking for support from us as the board. I spoke to her earlier today, and right now she's in the midst of packing up one of the classrooms over there, and there is no support. All the different avenues, all the people who were supposed to be doing something have passed the potato along. And so right now she's not having any real support from our community, and I think it's a shame because she's been a longstanding community supporter here in Alameda. And I'll put it out again. I think we should be looking to do more to help her with her issues. I believe that the school is a value to the neighborhood and a value to Alameda and her and her presence here in Alameda is important. So I would say, once again, I will encourage, if anybody has any other people that they can reach out, any solutions, if you know somebody, if somebody who's watching now is able to find some support for her, I think we owe her that for all the hard work that she's done in our community over the last few years. And I, for one, I'm going to miss her as a neighbor if she leaves our neighborhood. So...

So she said that referral, I don't know if she talked about that referral, it did not pan out. It did not pan out.

Can we talk afterwards? I'm happy to talk, but I wish that we could get her involved in our conversations and have us as a board talk with her and the people that she's spoken to. Because she's spoken to a lot of different ecumenical places here in the city who actually probably do have the space, but have decided not to because of claims of doing things with other organizations. Now, I don't really... I don't know, I'm not here to say I know, but I know that if we let this one go, we're missing out. We're losing an opportunity with somebody who's valuable in our neighborhood and deserves to be here. And the work that she does is beyond what you see from most of the Alamedans in this city. And I'm just being biased because I look at her record and the work that she's done. I've seen her plays. I understand what she stands for. And I can't imagine that this city can't come up with a place for her to bring her kids for her Montessori school. That's an award winning kind of a school. She's worked in multiple places with this, and I think it's something we should be paying close attention to as a board. My personal opinion on this. Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you for the update on that. Given the earliness of the hour, I would ask the board if it's okay if we, I think there's one more public comment. Do you mind hearing from one more public comment at this point? Of course. Okay. Let's open for public comment one last time.

Okay. We have a public comment from Craig.

I'm not beating a dead horse. I do have, as I say, one place where I can sometimes safely park on private property with permission. I'm trying to find other possible locations to be able to do this. I'm not just worrying out one situation. The other thing is, if I did have some kind of a permanent location, I'd like to have something that's more of a live workspace or a shop space or a studio space or something like that. And I've told a few people, my former landlady, my last actual permanent address was Ricky Lou Owens, whose father used to own Alameda Lock and Glass, and that property is now sort of a blighted thing. So I'm trying to find a way I could gain access so that that's practical. I'm also trying to talk to some other people that might be interested, because I know somebody that's looking for, with mobility problems, that's looking for housing that's a single, the office building is actually a single level house. And so, and then also someone from the All Rights Alameda group was looking for like a place where they have their own regular meeting place. So they're not just in the veterans building or this or that or the other. So yeah, there's a Sloan Bruin is her name, I think. So I'm trying to like do homework on it. I'm trying to not be too impulsive. I'd rather, you know, be able to, PB John Gerstle, kind of work that out in a way that you're not just going out here, this is my dream type of thing and there's a little more intelligence to it there's some homework to so but anyway losers like my two main points least regards my situation.

PB John Gerstle, Thank you for your comment thanks Craig. PB John Gerstle, Do we have any other board communications my agenda. All right, well, seeing none, we can adjourn this meeting at 744 p.m.