Human Services Commission - Regular Meeting

Come to provide public comments and listen to the meeting in person or on Zoom. I am now going to call roll. Commissioners, please say here after I call your name. Vice chair Hayes? Here. Commissioner Singh? Here. Commissioner Perelman? Here. Commissioner Rashid?

No. Not here. And Commissioner Gonzales? There is one set of minutes to approve this evening. Please take a moment to review the February 2 minutes in front of you.

Which will be?

Jared, do you wanna mark that we're here also? Is that part of the roll call or not? Okay.

Great to see you. Thanks. Any discussion on the February 2 minutes? Is there a motion to approve?

So moved.

I second.

All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Let's say nay. You're aye and a nay. Okay.

February 2 minutes are approved. Okay. At this time, we are taking oral communication. Staff will call the names of people in the order they have signed up either online or in person. Members of the public may speak during one of tonight's oral communications for up to three minutes per person or agency program. After everyone who has signed up to speak has been called, staff will ask if there is anyone else that would like to speak. Staff, can you please call speakers for oral communication?

Thank you, chair. Our first speaker for oral communications is Katie Childers from Northwest Education Access.

Hi, everybody. This is very exciting. This is the first time I've done this. So, my name is Katie Childers, and I work with Northwest Education Access. This past round, we were the first time grantee from Bellevue.

And, so I wanted to tell you a little bit about our organization because reading it is one thing and hearing it is another thing. I also sent in some pretty colorful handouts because it's gonna be much more interesting to read some of those and have me walk through what a chart looks like. So we're an organization. We were founded in 2002. Our founder was working was volunteering with young people who were experiencing homelessness in the university district in Seattle and, helping them get their GEDs and found that they were really smart, really interesting, like, had all these qualities that were really valuable in in, higher education and was telling them that they should go to college.

And they were like, what are you talking about, lady? And she was like, no. No. I'm sure there's an organization out there, and there wasn't. So most college access organizations, and this is across the country, work with students who are in traditional high schools and help them go directly to postsecondary.

If you didn't finish high school or you have a gap, you can't go back to high school to receive those services. So we're one of few organizations in the country that serve those students. And when I say postsecondary, talking the whole gamut. So, like, technical degrees, we have students who get their PhDs, everything between apprenticeships, all of the things. So, we serve about 1,200 students a year throughout King Pierce County, and South Snohomish County, and we work with young people for a very long period of time from when they're starting to think about going to school all the way until they finish.

So really have a long term relationship with them. So we work with 16 to 29, nontraditional education pathway. A lot of them have been unhoused or parenting immigrants, refugees, first and second generation. So this is a very short amount of time. So you can see on the diagram all of the types of things that we're trying to hit to make sure that they have all the supports that they need.

Here in Bellevue, where where where when we serve students who are based in Bellevue, live in Bellevue, it's usually we're getting referrals from Bellevue College, Lake Washington Tech, and those are in, like, GED programs, those types of things. And then we also get students who are self refer through our website. We have an education advocate who works only on the East Side. Her name is Daphne. She's awesome. And she was a former student herself.

And we do really good work.

So thank

you all very much. I appreciate your time.

Thank you.

K. Our next speaker for oral communications is Alex Zimmerman.

I don't come speak. I don't my name Alex Zimmerman. I come to Council Chamber in Belvieu. Speak more than thirty years. I don't come speak to because to me, like a Nazi fascist buster. You know what this mean? I come speak because I need what these people listen. What is you doing? How your fascism government operate? Because I only one man who have seven arrested for barrication case.

Yeah. The last January, seven or January, and under new Iranian men's Iranian men. Yeah. So situation right now, very simple. For many year, I told you before, we need to show people faces. Faces. I spoke from Tacoma to over at more than 5,000 time. Every week speak approximately five, ten times. You only one who don't show people faces. And I talking about this complaint to everybody, to mayor for many year, to manager for many year, to you for many year.

You look exactly what as I told you. You're Nazi, fascist. Bastard is exactly who you are. This another problem what is we have. Twelve year ago, it is exactly what is I want, what is people see this. Twelve year ago, council cut us a constitutional right freedom of speech. Yeah. We make this new rules that has come from nowhere, from Tori Menete, 10 people. They did it only for one particular reason because don't want what is in every council meeting guy come and speak. You know what this mean?

Guy, you need to understand. This is a total violation of constitution. And Trump make a public order, you know, what executive order about freedom of speech. You have freedom of speech for two hundred fifty year for my understanding. Yeah. I'm so sorry. Yeah. Two fifty. So why are you acting like a Nazi? You stop a fascist. I'm bastard. Can you explain to me? Who did these rules? Why? Because Alex Zimmerman come for the last three year, where Robinson cut me. Like, for three year cannot go and speak. Who trespasses? Yeah. In another point, what is I want delivery to? In January 7, I was arrested by Bellevue police.

It's my seventh arrest, seven trespass. Yeah. Officially, I spent in jail couple times before. You know, these cases before. Dismiss. This case will be dismissed too. But for me, very interesting. Why Bellevue Police acting like a Gestapo? Why? A Gestapo and Kajabi more honest than Bellevue Police. Why? Because Gestapo and Kajabi official government agency and value police not. We were Trump. We were new American revolution. Stand up, slave, and happy cow. Thank you very much. Guy, you need to stop, and this looks so good.

Okay. That's all we have signed up for oral communications. Is there anyone in the room or online that would like to speak? If so, please raise your hand. Okay, Cherry. You can continue.

Okay. And just wanna recognize I see Delfina online. Yeah?

Okay.

Now we're doing communication from city council, boards, commissions. Council member Robinson, thank you for being here tonight. Do you have anything to share with us?

I do. Thank you. I have a few things to share with you. But first of all, I just wanna start with a big thank you and tell you all that you did a really good job of conveying your message to the council. And thank you for your patience with me as I apparently struggled to learn a few things.

And, it was a good process, and the council really supported your intent. And, it was I got emails from people that mentioned it was good to see us learning without being canceled. And I think that was really a good example to show, the community because we all have things to learn. And, I did not realize that we are trying to address emerging needs of a particular population. And and so my only ask would be to make that more clear to me, maybe, because, not you, but staff, because we had questioned this a long time ago, and and it wasn't obvious.

So, anyway, I might just be really thick headed, but, it was nice to have the process turn out the way it did. And one thing that the council really has focused on is being nimble and being responsive to emerging needs. And so that's good that we could do that. We had a retreat last weekend with our new council, and I just wanna tell you I'm feeling very positive about the council. It's a very strong council.

We will be doing budget next at the end of at the well, this year is all about preparing for next year's biennial budget. And I'm really hoping that we have more revenue than we anticipated going into this year. I know we have a large building that's gone up for sale that we didn't anticipate, and that brings a lot of real estate excise tax to the city. So that's good. But, also, I know we people are taking advantage of the missing middle housing opportunities, and there's been a lot more permits than we anticipated.

So that brings in revenue as well. So I'm glad that you did a contingency plan in case there is more money. That's good. So we're all set up for that. And then we have talked about or I've heard you talk about helping small business in Bellevue, especially businesses that are kind of new to the to the business world, and maybe they speak different languages, and maybe they don't have the support that they need.

So we have been focusing on our small business program and making sure that they are also helping nonprofits and not just for profits. And there was an announcement today of StartUp four two five's first bilingual program in partnership with Central Cultural Mexicano, and that's exciting. So that's going to help support small businesses, and it will also pertain to nonprofits. So if you, in your interview process, run into somebody who could use small business support, make sure you direct them to start up four two five, not just Spanish speaking, all small business and nonprofit. I think that's all I had to say.

Start up four twenty five is here for a few years now.

Oh, it's been longer than that. Yeah. Yeah. It's a small business program.

Yeah. I have attended. Okay.

Yeah. So it's been going on for, I will guess, eight years, and they're ever evolving. And last year, there was they two years ago, they actually hired a company to help them with Wimby. And now it seems like they're partnering with organizations to continue that work.

Mostly the IT folks come there at that event, so I have done it.

Yeah. But I've also met people With who use IT, but their focus is on something different. And so that's why I'm kinda putting a emphasis on nonprofit because that's a business as well, and they're completely welcome to attend and network and gain small business support.

Thank you.

Any other questions from commissioners? No? K. Thank you very much, councilmember Robinson. Oh, Tony Esparza, who is not here right now, I'm very bummed about that, is stepping down from her position at the city of Bellevue and is moving to a new role in another jurisdiction. In addition, major Inman has accepted a new role within Bellevue Police and will no longer be the ex officio member of the commission. Since we have new members replacing them, let's go around with introductions for the new members and staff joining us tonight. So I'm gonna look at Cameron.

Good evening. Yeah. Happy to be here. I I just I won't promise to fill Tony's shoes. So however, several decades ago, I did I started when I started in the city of Bellevue, I started in the human services division.

So I've I've been at this table for many years, but it has been a while. So but eager to be back and support the work of the commission while we go through this time period with a vacancy in our assistant director role. I currently am serving as an assistant director. The groups that I support right now until Tony let us know what her new plans were, involve the groups that do all of our long term planning, design, and construction of the of the parks system, what my old team and services manager would call the grass, trees, and flowers side of parks and community services. And now during this interim period, I'll be helping support the human services division as well as our equity and inclusion program.

So happy to be here.

Thank you. Anna, over here. Hello?

Yes. Thank you. My name is, major Dave Santabria. I'm the new, investigations, division major. Major is transferring over to our special operations. We newly we newly reorganized our department, and we have a now a special operations division. So she moved down to kind of lead that new division and chief Shirley moved me over to the investigations division. So the investigations major serves as the ex board ex officio, yeah, board member, for the Human Services Commission. So I had a great conversation with Ruth last week. So I don't have anything specific to report today, but I'm just looking forward to learning more. So thank you.

Welcome. Do we have any commissioner reports? Any reports? Jimmy, what have you been up to? Busy? Okay. Any staff reports? Ruth?

Thank you, chair Fan. A couple of things to report. I think I reported last time I was here that we did a pre taught some classes for the big picture school of the Bellevue School District for them to learn about human services funding. And they have prepared some testimony based on the research they've done around the information and our needs update. And they will be coming a week from today on March 9 in the morning to present their opinions, and all of the commissioners are welcome to, listen to them.

If we have more than four commissioners present, then we will document it as a special meeting. But I in just a quick headcount last time, I don't think that will be the case. But they will start testifying right around 10:15 in the morning, a week from today, and they'll be in the two rooms on the other side of the hall. And people are absolutely welcome to come and listen.

Sure. Do you think that they could, summarize their results in a three minute testimony for public comment at the council on a Tuesday night?

Like, invite them to come back to council meeting. When I was there teaching the class, I encouraged all of them to come and testify so I can do that again on Monday. But I told all of them they would be welcome to come to a council meeting and speak.

They only get three minutes, so they'll have to kind of tee it up for that.

Yep. And they're paired off. They've worked in pairs on this work that they're doing, but I will remind them again.

Great. Yeah. They could contact Charmaine if they're interested, and she could help them know when to show up and how to sign up.

Okay.

Great.

Starting at our next meeting, we're going to be adopting an agenda, and our city attorney will be here speaking shortly to remind us of that. But just that we learned from our last meeting that that needs to be a new practice that we're going to add to our agenda. So we're going to be adopting that into our bylaws. And that is my only other announcement.

Yeah. So in front of everybody, you there's a packet

of applications. It's

our first round. So we Ruth had talked previously. We released two RFPs, one for after school teen after school support and then one for convening. So we're starting with the teen after school support. In front of you, there is the supplemental.

So kind of what the expectations are of the funding, what the amount is. It is $86,000 in funding, and there were three applications. The request varied. As commissioners, you can choose for I think I think that commissioner Hayes is the only one that hasn't went through the funding process so far. So you can choose as you're reviewing applications to recommend to fund all of the money to one organization.

You can give some to all three, but this is really your kind of your first chance to look at applications and kind of get us all geared up for the 150 to 200 applications we're gonna be getting in the big application process. And, so you'll see the supplemental is the first thing, and then there are three staff report or three, applications. The first page is a very simple rubric that just says, basically, they're eligible. So I have reviewed all of the supporting documents they submitted and made sure that all of the agencies are eligible for funding based on what we put in our RFP. And on April 6, you will be reviewing these applications and discussing funding recommendations.

This is parks and community services funding, so this is, goes to parks and community services leadership for approval. It doesn't go to council. Did you have a question? Oh, no.

Oh, okay. Thanks, Christy. And I handed out an overview of what the meetings look like for the next few months where our next meeting on March 6 sixteenth will be a special meeting. We'll meet across the hall. It's the equity and funding training that we do every two years.

Then on the sixth, you're going to be looking at those applications and making recommendations, and we'll be bringing in the applications for the convening RFP that we had. Then on the twentieth, you'll be making recommendations about those. And on starting on April around April 20, you'll be getting your first batch of applications and assignments for which areas of need you'll be focused on first. And then if you look at the meetings through the next few months, we're gonna be having some special meetings across the hall to do deliberations as a group. And then we'll be doing we'll have a public hearing on May 4, and we'll do public deliberations in July.

So that's the tentative schedule. The application opened today, and here we go.

Any questions from commissioners? No? Okay. Thank you, Christy. Oh. Oh, yeah.

I will be not available on April 6. Thank you. Traveling to India for ten years. Nice.

So if you do have any recommendations you'd like to us to consider and make sure that that their commissioner is over, feel free to email any staff or just sell directly what your recommendations for funding will be, and then we can present that at the meeting. Okay.

Help me understand why we're doing these ones off cycle. Maybe I wasn't at the meeting when you talked about that.

So there is we have two fundings or two, yeah, two RFPs that are not part of the human services fund and housing stability fund. They're parks and community services funding. And so, this is our second cycle of having this extra funding. And the reason that we made sure that we released the RFPs and had them completed before the application process is we wanted to make sure they were aware of this pot of money before the other funding cycle came up so that it wasn't they were applying for the other funding and then, like, oh, actually, convening or after school would have met our needs better. And so, that that is the reason why.

But it is a different funding cycle. It is a different funding process since it doesn't go to council. And it's also a great practice round so we can figure out, like, what the voices look like in the room.

I know. I was like, Christy can do it. Can we get Christy can do a little a little bit longer explanation. Okay. I think that's it. Do you have any questions, Chris, Delfina? No?

Oh, we Oh, Jimmy?

How many I see three organizations. That's all. Okay.

Okay. So now we're on new business item number one. For our first order of business, city attorney Karen Fu is here to present proposed update to the commission's bylaws. Hey. Welcome, Karen.

Good evening. I'm not your city attorney. I'm an assistant city attorney just as a point of clarification. But the city attorney's office provides, legal support for all the various functions of the city, and I have the privilege of being the legal adviser for the Human Services Commission and to support all of the important work that you all do. I'm here tonight to request direction to bring back updated bylaws for final action to vote on at your next regular meeting.

Council appointed boards and commissions, including Human Services Commission, are required to adopt bylaws that conform to city ordinances. And recently, the city council passed two ordinances which impact your bylaws. And I'm here to present proposed updates to bring your bylaws up to conformance. So first, through ordinance sixty eight sixty four, the city council updated the rules of decorum for public comment. It's kind of a minor update, but now under the new ordinance, somebody who engages in conduct that results in their being excluded from your meetings can be excluded for a period of up to one hundred and eighty days.

Under the prior rules, the exclusion period could only be up to sixty days. This change helps provide greater flexibility for boards and commissions to regulate conduct at their meetings. It's also consistent with practices of other local government agencies. The ordinance also clarified the appeal process for somebody contesting such an exclusion, and these changes are reflected in page eight, article seven, section D, paragraph six of your bylaws. Hopefully, you have the red line copies.

The second ordinance is ordinance sixty eight sixty five, where council updated the rules of membership on the commission. This ordinance limits service to two consecutive terms on any Bellevue advisory board or commission. For purposes of term limits, this includes appointments that result in a service period of more than two years. So that means two consecutive years of service on any of the boards and commissions. So like two on this commission and then one term on this commission, and then if you have another term on another border commission, like the Parks Board, for example, that would count towards the two term limit.

This is to help increase opportunities for members of the public to engage in public service and to participate in boards and commissions. Under this new ordinance, after a two year, we can call it a cooling off period, after you've reached your term limits, you'd be eligible to reapply to serve on another Boarding Commission. And these changes are reflected on page two, article three, section A, paragraphs five and six. In addition, there are other minor non substantive updates to the bylaws to correct for things such as dates, the order of business, to add approval of the minutes onto the agenda, to take out the use of gendered pronouns that were not necessary to be included and other little updates to conform to best practices. In order to update your bylaws, a two step process is required.

So first, there must be notice of such changes included in the agenda of a meeting, which we are completing tonight. And then the second step will occur at your next regular meeting. You'll need to take a vote to adopt the new bylaws, and two thirds of the members must vote in favor in order for them to take effect. This means that assuming you provide direction tonight to bring this back for a vote, you'll take action, final action on the bylaws at your next regular meeting. Any questions?

What happens if they don't get approved? What's the next step, just in case?

Technically, you'd be out of conformance, but the city code and ordinances that have been adopted still apply. So you'd be out of sync.

K.

Was that your question? No.

Oh, do you have one? Do you have?

Any questions over here?

No? Alright.

Thank you.

Thank you for your time.

Alright. Next up, Andrew and our panel presentation on services to immigrants and refugees. The panelists will also discuss current needs, service gaps, and emerging challenges and complexities for service providers. Go ahead.

Thank you, Chef Anne. Let me invite our panelists to come forward. We have two panelists, in person and one, panelist online. I'll give them a chance to introduce themselves. Please come forward.

Giselle, you can post the PDF for for me. Yep. As we wait for Giselle to, post the PDF and, have just seen not cheer fun and seen back. So today, we are discussing the evolving trade, trends and pressing challenges facing immigrant and refugee communities. As we all know, recent, federal policy shifts have significantly impacted immigrant and refugee populations nationwide.

These changes have affected not only livelihoods at the national level, but also families and systems right here in our neighborhoods. Today, we are privileged, and a big thank you to our panelists. We are privileged to hear from, frontline leaders and practitioners who work directly with these communities day to day. So their insights is critical to understanding both the immediate impacts, face, the immediate impacts and the long term, implications, of these shifts. And later, the commissioners will also have the opportunity to ask questions and engage our panelists.

I'll first ask our panelists to introduce themselves. Next slide. I'll ask our panelists to introduce themselves and also provide a brief overview of what your of your agency and the types of services you provide. I'll start with Mohammed online. Go ahead.

Hi. Good evening. So my name is Mohammed Ugas, and I'll be joined by audio this evening, but I wanted to let you guys know I'm I'm observing Ramadan. So I'll just have my audio tonight. I wish I could be there in person, but I'll be fully engaged and happy to respond to any questions with East African Community Services.

And I serve as the programs director as East African Community Services. And we support immigrant and refugee families, primarily East African, across multiple areas, youth mentorship and leadership development, education support and STEM enrichment, sports and wellness programs, early learning and parent engagement, family stability support and resource navigation, as well as cultural programming that strengthens identity and intergenerational connections. And as CBOs, our role is not just delivering programs. We act as a bridge between immigrant families and kind of larger systems, including the schools, housing, workforce, health services, etcetera. And and we see families across all life stages.

That kinda gives us a full picture of, you know, what's really happening on the ground, especially, you know, when economic or policy shifts affect the community. And I'm glad to be a part of this panel. Thank you.

Thank you, Mohammad. Go ahead, Monique.

Hello. Sorry about that.

I'm Monique Martinez, executive director of For Tomorrow. We're an East King County based organization, by and for organization, and we provide culturally responsive support targeted towards our Latino and youth communities, but we are open to all, and we help anyone who comes with us with whatever we have and the resources that we have. Our main languages are English, Spanish, and Portuguese, although we do have some other languages as well like Vietnamese and Tagalog. Some of our core services are to meet the high demand in our community, mental health support. We have therapists and coordinators on staff that help families and individuals navigate mental health crisis or just mental health challenges.

We also have support groups and specific support groups to help specific subgroups and groups within those communities. We have housing stability support and case management that goes along with that because we know that sometimes providing a month of rental assistance doesn't cover the entire need, and some of our communities need some navigation and some budgeting and some support beyond that. We have a small micro enterprise program where we do help and lift up Latino owned businesses, whether to launch new businesses or maintain their existing businesses. We have some teen services out of the Kirkland Teen Union Building, including art and music, homelessness support, including our hotel motel program, and most notably, really, right down the street, our safe parking program. We also provide crisis response and stabilization, food access, and basic needs as a as a comprehensive support to our community.

All of it is trauma informed and culturally grounded that centers dignity, trust, and relationship building. We also have some community powered programs. One of those new ones are are tamale making parties. So volunteers are getting together with their friends, making tamales, then we're delivering them to our community members who have been impacted by recent enforcement. And then on that topic as well, there's a lot of enforcement and a lot of fear in our communities, so we have specialized programs for our immigrant and refugee communities who might need some legal aid and some navigation and just information and education on what's going on, what their rights are, and how to navigate this really complicated landscape. Thank you.

Thank you, Monique. Sara?

You did this so well, Monique. I'll see if I can try. Good evening, everyone. It's great to be here. Thank you so much for inviting me.

My name is Sarah Peterson, and I serve as the director, for the Washington Office of Refugee and Immigrant Assistance. We're part Department of Social and Health Services. We are the state agency designated to help coordinate and administer services for refugees and immigrants that help people achieve, economic stability and social integration while meeting their basic needs. Our office has a long history. We were founded in the early '80s to serve as our state refugee program to help welcome refugees from Southeast Asia.

And we've been concentrating our efforts over the past forty years to really make sure that all of our communities are welcomed. We believe that welcoming refugees and immigrants takes a collective effort, so our approach is to invest federal and state funding into local community organizations like For Tomorrow, although we don't fund For Tomorrow, but organizations like For Tomorrow, who can provide culturally responsive and linguistically appropriate care. In 2025, we invested over a $100,000,000 into more than a 100 different organizations across the state. We our programs have a broad array of services, so we have programs that focus on helping people to get jobs, learn English, reenter their career pathways. We invest and partner with, health clinics to help people get refugee medical screenings, access to mental health services.

We have programs that focus on immigration related legal services and helping people become citizens. And we also have a whole plethora that focus on the whole family. So early learning programs, refugee school impact programs, where we partner with school districts who also partner with, community based organizations that help provide things like after school programming and tutoring, homework help, maybe bringing, you know, push in services actually within the schools. We have a youth mentoring program, services for older refugees. In 2025, our programs and services reached over 24,000 people who are eligible for our federal programs and services, And in 2024, we launched a new state funded program called the Washington Migrant and Asylum Seeker Support Project, and this was an effort that came out of an intergovernmental task force to respond to the growing number of migrants and asylum seekers that were arriving in Tequila, King County, that were experiencing difficulties in finding housing and navigating the complex immigration system.

So our office partnered with the Seattle Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs to create a task force. And out of that, we were fortunate that the legislature invested funding. So we continue to have about $25,000,000 for, for fiscal year twenty five, fiscal year twenty six. And, we're watching carefully what the legislature does, and, hopefully, it will be included as well. And we are using these services to really make sure that, our newcomers are getting connected to rental assistance, legal services, and case management because that is very important.

And I'm really here tonight because we think that the way to really support all of our communities who are experiencing unprecedented levels of change, immigration enforcement, significant federal policy impacts, we need to collectively come together to work together. So I'm here to learn and to see how we can support each other.

Thank you. Thank you, Sarah, and thank you all for that great introduction. Next slide. So while you still have the mic, Sarah, I'd like to hear about the most significant barriers and challenges immigrants and refugees are facing, but also shed light on what barriers the providers that are serving these services are facing because we've had a lot of we've had a lot from the agencies that we fund or we partner with about all these systemic constraints, the funding gaps, service delivery, and also actually providers, being also part of the targeted, folks, making it hard to deliver those services. Could you please shed that light on that?

This is a great question for for particularly for our office because, our office doesn't provide direct services. We consider our primary stakeholder to be community organizations, both those that we fund as well as those that we partner with. And we know the challenges that our providers are facing are with the unprecedented levels of changes, especially in relation to immigration status, where community members are unclear as to what the change means, where prior to January 2025, people might have understood that they were here and followed a legal pathway, you know, and then the federal policy changed, and all of a sudden, couldn't apply to renew their work authorization, or they couldn't get access to help, or things have just shifted so dramatically that people don't know where to go. And with increased immigration enforcement, people are concerned to go and leave their house. And so our providers, are very adaptable and really human centered, they're trying to find ways to be able to meet the needs of the community and to go and so it means going to home visits, providing services that they haven't provided in the past, as well as making sure that people's health is being met.

And so, like, the the undue stress that and fear that people are experiencing may prevent people from going and seeking, physical or mental health services or coming into DSHS to get their food or cash assistance. So I think that another significant barrier is knowing what to do when there when there is nothing that people can do, and just being there for your community. Because as professionals, and I'm a professional social worker, we don't always have the answers. And so sometimes knowing how to be able to say that we don't have the answers, but maybe we can work to support you. And one thing that we're really focused on doing is how to support our community our helpers, right, because people like Monique and Mohammad, they are the people who are champions in our communities.

And so be making sure that, as a state, we're bringing resources that can offer mental health services or trainings on mental health first aid or how to have difficult conversations. And so really, really working on what we can do to provide technical assistance to our providers.

Thank you.

Thank you, Sarah. Monica Kangenis.

Yeah. Sarah, the burnout is real. And so that is definitely one thing that we're consistently facing and consistently you know, reevaluating the way that we provide services in our community, what we were providing maybe two years ago. It's completely different now, completely different landscape. And so having to be innovative and creative in crisis solutions is very challenging and limited budget and resources.

And yeah, just getting creative in a trauma brain or crisis situation is really challenging. I'll speak a little bit more to the community and what they're experiencing as well. And I'll do that through kind of an example that maybe, some of you may be aware of. There was a video that, was posted online of a detainment on 148th where there was a minivan that was blocked in, and the window was broken out, and he was being yanked out by immigration enforcement. That was a previous safe parking client who got into stable housing, and that was really hard to watch.

Very traumatizing for our entire community. But for that person, their vehicle right now, the protocol whenever there's an abandoned vehicle is to tow it. Right? Because it's in the middle of the roadway. It's blocking traffic. It's a safety issue. So that vehicle was towed, and he's the only one on the title. And when entertainment, he can't can't get it out. And so he's basically effectively lost his vehicle, which is detrimental for someone who was living in their vehicle before and uses it to get to work and to provide for his family. Not only that, when he was detained, you know, he was sent to Tacoma, and we know the conditions are really bad in there.

But if you can believe it, in other states, it's even worse. And so we were able to find him some legal representation to file a petition for habeas, a habeas petition, because the arrest was unlawful and, the attorneys, definitely agreed with that, so they filed the petition. And as soon as we filed that petition, he was transferred to Texas and then to Arizona. And we were finally able to get him back to Tacoma to fight his case here. But by that point, he hadn't slept for four days. He had barely eaten. And

in

the detention centers you have to buy everything. You don't even get toilet paper, you don't get a toothbrush, toothpaste, shampoo, conditioner, anything. And the food is, I've heard a state representative say they found, rat poop in the food, and so it's really hard to come by nutritional food in there as well. So they have to buy all these things from the commissary. They have to pay for their calls by the minute, and so staying connected with their community, with their children is really challenging.

And so all of that for something that shouldn't have happened, there was no removal order, there was no criminal history, there was no reason for the stop. It it's detrimental, it costs a lot of money for these communities and community members who are already experiencing poverty and instability, and it can it's just really trickling through our community right now. If that could happen to one, that could happen to anyone. And there's a lot of mistrust in the system and in institutions. It's hard for people to even trust our local police enforcement even though we're saying it's safe to call 911, and it's safe.

If you feel dangerous, you should be calling 911. And so there's just a lot of mistrust in the community, and it's a a challenging thing to navigate.

Thank you, Monique. Mohammed?

Yeah. It's definitely, a a challenging time for our community now, and, there's a lot of fear. We've built, you know, many years, EACS, you know, short for East African Community Services. You know, I served the community for, about twenty five years. It was founded in, 2001.

And throughout the years, you know, we've had, you know, various programs and kind of shift them with the times and providing whatever the community needs. But, you know, and and the current climate that we're in, there there's a lot of fear, and the community relies on us to to be able to address the needs that they have. And what we've seen is, like, you know, a lot of the times our staff are overburdened. You know, we're underfunded, and and and and underfunded for the level of work, right, that that's required. If it's business as usual and, you know, we're only supporting, you know, with the programs that, you know, we're funded for, then in an ideal world, that's fine.

And we're able to, you know, even though there's challenges with that support and maybe have those ethical programs, have those mentorship programs, have our home visiting early learning programs, sports, and such. But, when the community experiences economic shifts, you know, such as, for example, the the recent, snap reductions, you know, and the rent increases, you know, or job instability, it shifts immediately towards rental assistance, you know, food support, crisis response. And those are things that maybe we're not we might not be funded for at the moment, and we can't really turn the community away, and we have to try to help and support in any capacity that we can. So, I mean, that's that's kinda one of the challenges, to be honest, is, you know, also work of burnout. I know that, I believe, Sarah and Monique both mentioned is the, the workforce.

They're they're really burnt out because for us, there's no clocking out. Even even when you're off the clock, you run into community members, you know, at the grocery store. You run into them at the mosque, the school, community gatherings. You know? And, you know, they'll they'll be approached for help. And, I mean, this reflects trust, of course, I mean, which is a strength. Right? That's something that we've built, but it also creates this emotional, you know, and mental strain. And that that's kinda some of the challenges that we're facing as, community based organizations. And, also, some of the challenges is, support from lower level governments, honestly, because the communication and the community engagement could be better.

We might hear of changes and might hear of things that, you know, are gonna be impacting our communities. It'll be too late. And instead of, you know, for us to be working together, you know, you know, having more collaboration, we're just kinda scrambling and trying to respond instead of being proactive. So I would love to see more engagement, you know, in that sense. And another challenge that I I think honestly speak, especially especially with the latest, you know, with the with the recent climate is our reporting has been a little more difficult because participants are not willing to really provide the information that they would normally be able to provide because as much as we try to build that trust and let them know that information is safe with us, they've seen what's going on at the federal level, and they're afraid to share their information.

However, we still have that responsibility to our funders, you know, when we do have those programs to provide, you know, the information and the data, right, to show the impact of of of the work. So yeah. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Mohammed. Maybe related to that question, we had from several cases that service providers themselves feel targeted, and how are you able to navigate, not say protecting them, but making sure that the services are provided, but also the staff members felt feel like they should they can do their work? Basically, impact how does it impact operations and maybe staff morale?

Yeah. Definitely, discrimination is on the rise. We've experienced as an organization some discrimination over the last few weeks, months, you know, half a year that we never thought we would because we're just helping people. And so that's really challenging both professionally and personally to kinda see neighbors and community members other, each other. Right?

And so the more we can kinda spread that message of, you know, we're just neighbors helping neighbors, community helping community, just that that love message for each other, the better. And so I I keep thinking back to, like, Bellevue back when we did the hate has no home here and how maybe we need to restart that.

Thank you, Monique. Anyone else wants to, share about that? Okay. Next is, we've had, you know, all of you talk about, the need for cultural and linguistically relevant services. And from our human services needs update 2025, we had clear feedback about the need for more linguistically and culturally responsive services. And I'd like to would like to hear about what does meaningful language access and culturally responsive service delivery look like to these communities, immigrants and refugees? Mohammed, you can start us off for this one.

Absolutely. Yeah. For for for for this question, honestly, I think direct language capacity is really important. And I know that, you know, the cities and the schools might may might rely on interpreters a lot. But I think really funding coordinator roles is is really essential and really important because they would have the expertise to be able to serve the community as well as have that language skill.

And, you know, have an interpretation, I think, just adds another layer to to that love the the service. So the direct language capacity, I really think, is important. And flexible programming is something that we've also kinda employed where we have programs on the weekends so we can meet the community, you know, where they're at. We understand that, you know, that most of our communities, immigrant refugee communities have larger families. And although they might wanna come to programming, attend it, and and and bring their, you know, children, it can be difficult because they have other children at home.

So and they have school responsibilities, pickups, and and and things of that sort and drop offs. So kind of meeting the community where they're at, I think, is really important, having that flexible program designed, and also having that locations that, you know, work for the community. That's why we've been trying to we have two offices, one in New Holly, in the Holly Park, neighborhood, which is where I grew up. You know? So shout out to New Holly.

I feel I feel great being able to serve the communities I grew up in. And the other one we have is in CTEC. So having programs in the neighborhoods and eliminating even things such as transportation barriers, I think that's really important and understanding the limitations of our community and being able to, you know, meet them where they're at. I think one other thing also is intergenerational and cultural affirming programs. We have, at the end of every month, this program called and that's where we bring together all the mothers and fathers along with their children and have, you know, culturally appropriate food and dances and celebration.

And it's a space where, you know, the kids and the parents are able to connect because there's not much opportunity for them to do so. And we kinda make an intentional connection where they feel proud of their identity and are able to celebrate their culture and see their kids in a different light, and the kids also see their parents in a different light and see them in a in a joyous mood. So I I really think that's also one of the most important things. And mental support is really important as well. I know it was mentioned earlier, but counselors that are dedicated to immigrant and refugee populations, you know, that that are trauma informed.

A lot of these communities, you know, have been through a lot. I myself, you know, grew up here in Seattle, and I, you know, left Somalia with when the civil war was going on, and I was directly impacted by by that war. And I have even the wounds to show it. You know, I was there if I'm if I was there in person, I might have, you know, shared it with you all. You know? It's not something huge. You know? But I I still have those scars and still have some of that trauma. So to be able to address that, I really think is is important as well. Thank you.

Thank you, Mohammed Mohammed. Sarah?

Yeah. Thank you so much, Mohammed, for that great description of it. And one of the things that we really value at our office is partnering with organizations that either are ethnic community based organizations, like East African Community Services or many other organizations, similar to For Tomorrow, or organizations that prioritize hiring people from the the community. We even make it a priority on when we hire folks to make sure that people either have lived experience or have, you know, experience working with the community. And there's lots of different reasons, right, I think why having people who are working in a community can can do that and can help with that.

And one of the things that I think many governments struggle with is translation and interpretation services are not always sufficient. So are there enough interpreters that speak Farsi or Dari or Pashto? In 2021, when we started working more increasingly with Afghans coming through after the fall of or after the United States government withdrew from Afghanistan, we saw that there wasn't enough interpreters across the whole country to meet the needs. And this we see in many cases. How do we respond to interpretation services for some of the indigenous communities coming from Latin America.

And those are challenging to make sure that people may not speak Spanish. They might speak or. And so it's harder to meet those needs. And like all of us, we have a variety. We're all humans, so we have a variety of different needs.

We have our cultural values. We have differences in religions. And so it's important that we partner with organizations that are culturally sensitive, trauma informed, and are also accountable. And so this is where one of the things that we're really looking forward and looking towards is how do we provide technical assistance to small ethnic community based organizations? How do we invest government funding in organizations that give them the capacity to be strong reporters?

Because as I heard earlier, running a nonprofit is a business. And many times, people who run nonprofits do so because they want to help their community. Right? But there's a lot of technical skills needed in order to manage finances and and manage a nonprofit. So it's a difficult thing to balance between making sure that we're all meeting everybody's needs. Thank you.

Thank you, Saf.

Yeah. I agree with everything that's been said so far. All very, very important. I'll just I'll add a little bit about resilience and resilience building. And really going back to that strength based, Every person has their own culture.

Every group has their own culture, and really pulling on that strength based approach of there is a lot of negativity. There's a lot of challenges, but we do have what we need in order to get through those. And so really building up our resilience as a community is really important with tools, trauma informed definitely, and trust based engagement is really important. Another thing is the community informed design. Right?

We're not just creating programs and saying, take it or leave it. We're creating programs with the community, and there's a constant feedback loop. So, like, our support groups, our community at the end of, you know, 2024 wow. Time flies. The end of twenty twenty four, we're like, there's a lot of fear.

What's going on? How do we even begin to understand, let alone address it, right? And so we started up our first support groups and and, we just asked them and brought them all to the table, how do we do this? How do we do this together? And then those groups turned into informing our legal aid navigation and our, you know, rapid response programs and and all of those things.

And so without that work, without that, trust with the community, it would be really hard to build, responsive programs to the evolving needs because the challenges are evolving, the laws are changing, and community based organizations also, we have to evolve our programs to meet those needs. Yeah. There's there's a lot going on there.

Yeah. There's indeed a lot. Thank you. Before I turn it on to, the commissioners, I'd like to ask one last question to, Sarah to share with us if you know any of the trends or what you're hearing about enforcement activity on the statewide level.

Thank you. That's a really complicated question. I think the whole country and everyone that works in that works in serving refugees and immigrants really paid attention to what we were watching in in Minnesota and in Minneapolis. Minneapolis. And I think we were impressed by their community and their resilience and their strength.

And, also, many groups have really come together to take note of best practices. And so, you know, under governor Ferguson's leadership, we, at the state of Washington, are taking a number of different actions to help make sure our communities are prepared. So in September, governor Ferguson's executive order twenty five zero nine announced the immigration subcabinet, which help is really helping to coordinate the state effort around how to make sure state agencies are are available and and responsive to community needs. Just this in January, governor Ferguson has invited me to attend the executive cabinet meetings, to help make sure that we were connecting the dots between what we're seeing, what we're doing on the ground, and what is happening kind of at the higher policy level. With that said, I think that there's some connective tissue that we're needing to bring together, to help support the work that we're seeing on the ground that is critical, which is that mutual aid support where organizations like For Tomorrow or East African Community Services are best prepared and are most trusted to respond to people's needs, and also coming together as state and local governments to bring the supports that we can.

And I think that that's where communications like this, where we can make introductions, we can start having conversations, we can think about how do we coordinate services. So I've been meeting with King County and the city of Seattle. They've they're investing funding in services for refugees and immigrants. And so we're talking about how do we make sure we're not duplicating efforts? How do we make sure that we're collaborating?

And critical for our nonprofit partners, how do we make sure that we're asking questions and administrative requirements so they can fulfill and they can meet? The other big challenge is around data. And, at the state, we collect a lot of data. And so how do we make sure that the data we're collecting is protected and it's we're we're collecting it for good reason? And and I think that making sure that we still have the trust of the community. I hope that answers your question.

Yes. It does. I hope it answers the question to all people that are here. But now I'll turn it on to our commissioners. And before they ask the questions, I'd like to ask a question to them asking what they learned today about the needs and, realities currently facing immigrants and refugee communities. I'll start with Palmer. Commissioner Parliament, you wanna share?

I think it just makes me realize it's always hard to be in human services. Like, it every year, like, gosh, I've been around this for a long time, and every time, it's the same conversation. Being in the direct service is really hard. What today was insightful is that how it's evolving to being harder, like, to be specific that I I appreciated those examples.

Thank you. Commissioner Hassan?

So first of all, thank you for all you do, and thank you, Mohammad. And being immigrant myself, there's a I have gone through all experiences. I've waited for my immigration for fourteen years, and I can connect with all the service that you guys are doing. But as you said, we need accountability. And the immigrants which can't come to this country, great country, need to learn a lot.

And myself, being in working in the network side, I personally took a while. Kids born here, they adapt. They go to school. They learn the culture. But where we are raised, now we went to college, but the civic sense, the concept of the fraud is not there.

Even where do the people get the information? They ask the other immigrant from the same community, and they will ask, okay. Go ahead and fill this form. You will get these services without knowing even they don't go go in the depth how this country, how the owner based, how the system works here, filling up form can be giving the wrong information and getting the services in the long run can damage the immigration case and can be bad for the whole community. So these are the concerns, but being we should be helping more people, I agree with you guys and, linguistic.

Yeah. That was the when I joined the human services, I myself learned a lot of things, and I learned how important is to what all we do here. The organization just like you working in the area, that should be known. So it's that's important to teach immigrants what services they have in the city of Bellevue. I myself learned a lot, and we should be working on how to use the funds sensibly because as our state and our city, we have limited number of funds.

And that's the taxpayers' money. I'm sitting here to we all are sitting here to give away the test taxpayer money, and and it's our responsibility, and we all should send it wisely. Thank you.

Thank you, commissioner. Commissioner Gonzales?

I just wanna say thank you for everyone for doing this this job. I know as a volunteer in the community, the hard times that our community is having right now. So thanks for everyone for the hard work they are doing, and I know money is never enough, especially when we are talking about legal service. But thank you for doing the best of you guys. Thank you.

Thank you, commissioner Hayes.

Yeah. Thank you for being here, and it was so illuminating for us to hear your talk. You know, what struck out to me was the downstream effects that the federal policies have within our communities. And it was so powerful when you talked about that story on January, what it means to lose the car, what it means when a family can't get the car back. And I think we get really focused on the individual and and then the detainment of the individual, which is terrible, and there needs to be, something done about that.

But I think we we don't heal as much about how that affects the family, the kids, going to school, sustaining food on the table. So that was very powerful to me. So thank you to bring that story here today.

Thank you, commissioner Hayes. Chair Fan can re respond, and then I'll hand you back to Mike to facilitate questions from commissioners to our panelists. Thank you.

Yes. Thank you very much. I didn't learn anything really new as I've been sitting in these conversations for quite some time. But one of the greatest things that I've witnessed over the past few years is the organizations that I've continually shown up are open to collaboration, and that's different. That's different from the very first time I sat on a on the human service commission and listening to organizations just doing what they're doing for community.

And it's been very it's it's been eye opening to see. I come from a collaborative space, so seeing more community organizations coming and saying we're working with, like, five other different organizations to ensure that we're not duplicating efforts that we're actually strengthening efforts is pretty awesome. So it was great to hear that. Yeah. And so now we're gonna just open it up to any questions that anyone has. I'll start with Olga.

I have a couple questions, and I think so one of them is really probably more for Monique, for you, and for Mohammed, and then I have one for you, Sarah. So the one at for the direct service providers, one of you mentioned, like, Snap and other, like, vouchers being not as available. And, obviously, that turns into direct financial aid that needs to be coming to people. Like, how much are you seeing of that? Like, if I have to ask you to, like, quantify based on your last year experience versus, like, right now, what what is the shift?

So that's the question for the direct providers. And, Sarah, for you, is that am I understanding you almost, like, wearing two hats? One is with the federal dollars and criteria, and then the rest of the dollars that you are managing. Is that kind of a right thing to say?

Yeah. I'll go ahead and answer. So, yes, we have a very unique model here in Washington state where I am the state refugee coordinator. And every year, we submit a state plan to the US Office of Refugee Resettlement, which historically has been a nonpartisan program that has worked on helping bring people who were persecuted in their home countries and needing to be resettled in The United States. And so we submit this state plan, and then we get federal funding.

And then we partner with resettlement agencies and community organizations who serve those communities. And over the past few years, Ukrainians have dominated. We've seen more Afghans as well as people from East Africa. On the other side, we also serve the state communities, particularly those that are low income. Since the late '90s, we've had state funding to help people on public assistance, assistance, like cash assistance, food assistance, who need help navigating becoming a US citizen or getting a job.

And so we have state funding to do that. And then only recently in 'twenty well, in the pandemic, we had a program called the Immigrant Relief Fund, where we had funding to get cash as direct assistance to undocumented and now with our migrant and asylum seekers project. So our our role has definitely expanded since I've started in since 2014. So

Would you so my quick follow-up, I promise very quick. Would you say what is the status of your federal funding? So

it's a funny story. Hopefully,

it ends well.

It does. It does, actually. Between 2021 and 2025, our population of people that we serve that were eligible for federal programs grew by about 400 to 500%, and our funding grew by about 700%. And so we we are currently in a cycle where we have about a year and a half worth of funding left, and so we are still we are solidly funded by the federal government through federal fiscal year 2027. The funding we receive in 2026 will be used to fund federal fiscal year 2028.

And so we're currently the the budget just passed with the congress, and so and the federal government was funded at level funding. And so we're just waiting to see what proportion of funding we'll get in 2026 to to support 2028. But so we are currently stable, and we're just waiting to kind of see what happens as we wind down our service population. And to give you a sense, I think at the beginning, I said we served over 24,000 people. In 2021, we served 7,000 people.

And so it's, like, huge numbers that we're still serving. And the community can access services for up to five years after after they come to United States.

I don't know the exact numbers right off the top of my head, but I if I had to guess, it'd be, like, four or five times greater of requests than what we've seen in the past. Past. So much so that this this year, at the beginning of this year, we had to redo our intake process because there were so many people reaching out, and we had to we've always had some prioritization scales, but we had to really rethink some of those questions and get a little bit more information to be able to make better decisions in equitable funding and and access, and really prioritizing those cases who are at the at the highest need, and also trying to provide some support to those who maybe aren't gonna get the funding. But can we provide you with a session where we are sitting down listening to your to your concerns, your questions, and helping give some information and education around that, because the funding is just it's never gonna be enough, and that's a reality in this world.

And if I could just add an indicator for us, you know, are the attendance numbers. And, you know, we pay attention to those and, you know, in situations like the ones that we are in today, when we see families that are hesitant to come to programming and they're afraid of what might happen if they, you know, leave their homes or come to community centers so that they can take advantage of the resources that they truly need and their children need, That's really one of the indicators, but I, myself, you know, can't really put a number on it, but probably three, four times more than we did in in the past.

Is that all your questions? Are you we have time. Okay. Dolphina, do you have any questions?

No. Not really. I know. I'm very familiar with the providers today, so I know the great job they are doing up there. Yes. That thank you.

Okay. Chris?

Yeah. Thank you. There was a lot of talk about collaboration and into governmental collaboration, by level of state within communities, and nonprofits. So my question is on the state level, how can we, as a city, kind of help collaborate and what policies can we consider to kind of help make that easier? And then, on the nonprofit side, same question.

How can we lower barriers, and what kind of policies can we put in place to help that communication?

You wanna go first?

Yeah. Sure.

Yes. Collaboration is very important. I'm a part of a group called Safe Haven, and we created East King Rise, and it's a rapid response effort. And that's, you know, everyone dumping what's happening on the table, what we're all experiencing, what our communities are experiencing, what we're hearing, and moving together in unison and and creating solutions that, work for everyone. And then word-of-mouth is really important.

Right? And so I think one thing when I think about, what government can do is there's so many people who want to support, and maybe there's different levels of that support that they can provide. But pointing them in the right directions. Right? If it's, hey. I have some extra food I wanna provide to some community, but I don't know where to take it. Pointing them to those organizations that you can connect them to. If people wanna get even more involved or have very specialized skills, like legal some legal knowledge, even if it is not immigration knowledge, connecting them with the organizations and the places that are doing that work is really, really helpful and would be really appreciated.

That's a really great question, Commissioner Hayes. So I think, when I think of local government, there are so many things that you can offer. One is, I think, supporting your community organizations here in your in your town, and it was great to hear your grant process. We do this a lot, and so I'm really always really interested in it. And so I I do think that there's so much value in in that funding, and the stability of it.

So I think continuing to do that. I, I'm not aware of, Bellevue's specific policies, but I'm sure you're aware of Washington's keep Washington's working act and all of those engagements. And so, like, just, you know, I think awareness is also critical. And then I think building connections so that we can know at the state level what the needs are here on the East Side Of King County and what we can do, you know, to make sure that we're one of our greatest challenges is how do we spread the funding evenly so that we are reaching all of those connections. And similarly, how do we how do we do the same thing?

How do we say, okay. Here's all of the challenges that we're experiencing, and and this is what we do together collectively? Because I think as as government, like, I always ask myself, what is the role of the state in this problem? What can we do? And so mapping out the power dynamics, because sometimes people come to us and say, can't the state just issue work permits?

And it's like, well, we could, but I don't know that they would be legal because that's a federal, you know, government issue. And even if we wanted to, maybe we should push the button. But that's obviously an attorney's problem, right, and the legislature's problem. And so what can we do as a state commission or as city commissions commissions and city councils, and what authority do we have, and where are our boundaries, but how do we connect, and then really the role of communities whose role is to collectively come together in a voice and practice democracy. And so I think that that's the beauty of the work that we get to do together as state and local governments.

And I think that this is a beautiful thing that's happening here tonight.

I just wanted to add, communication is really key, honestly, and having that dialogue and and and making sure that, you know, we're in space together and having these conversations so that, you know, one, you know, you're able to see the work that's happening in the community. You're able to see the different services that are being provided. And then also, you know, be able to recognize the opportunities for collaboration, and and leveraging the strength of, you know, community based organizations, which is community engagement and bringing people out to the programs, you know, to the events, highlighting the diversity, you know, of the city. I think that's really, one of the important things.

One more follow-up question. Thank you, sir. One more question, and thank you for that. That was very illuminating and insightful. One more question.

We talked a lot about community feel and safety and the community don't feel safe dropping kids off, going to work, going to community centers. I know some cities are considering some policies of, like, banning federal enforcement on their property. I guess my question would be what kind of policy would, you know, the state like the city to consider to kind of help mitigate that fear?

That's a that's a really great question, and I I don't know that I'm actually qualified to speak to that. I think that that might be a conversation to have with your state legislators or or or state representatives. But I think what I what I would say is something that Mohammed said, which is listening to the community. And I think often, we try to solve problems that are not clearly defined. And so really going back to the community and saying, what can we do?

What do you need us to do? Helpful. And then you could determine think the Washington State Legislature is currently trying to figure this out as well. What laws can we pass to strengthen the protections in Washington state? You know, what can we do? And I think one of the things that I really appreciate is just the the balance between, like, how how we do that as a state. So I hope that answers your question.

Thank you so much.

Can I add a little bit too? Yeah. In 2019, in that same safe haven group, we were doing some advocacy with the school districts and the cities, talking about, like, sensitive locations, and safe zones. I don't know if back then there just wasn't as much enforcement. It wasn't as scary, but that was something that we were pushing for because that's what our community was saying would be helpful too.

And that's, something that at the state level was being explored. There was a bill being explored for protected locations and safe, zones. I'm not sure if that made it off the floor. But cities and and school districts and private property owners also have the authority and autonomy to declare those. And so that is something that we are all for, especially for those super sensitive locations.

And the other thing is enforcement of some of the things at the state level like the mask ban. Starting to have dialogue around like how is that going to be enforced? What do we do when we see someone who is violating that new law? And what what does that mean? And so those are all just questions that, yeah, the community is having, and and I hope that, cities and organizations are also having them.

I think I just have one question for Sarah. How does the

grant process look for that, for organizations? Great question. We, over the past several year so Washington State has procurement laws, and, there are some, things that we are required to procure. Fortunately, client services are is not one that is required. However, we believe that it is a best practice to have that type of transparency and a competitive process.

So recently, we've started, in the past several years doing open requests for applications or, like, an a simple process, and really looking to expand into our communities. So for example, in 2021 and 2022 and '20, '23, we were really struggling to increase capacity to meet the growing numbers of Afghan and Ukrainian arrivals. And so we did an open application that was specific for ethnic community based organizations. As we move into state fiscal year 'twenty seven, which begins in July, and federal fiscal year, which begins in October, We're beginning to kinda do different processes, so we'll be doing a continuing application process for organizations that are already working with us. And so, like, asking for their for their budgets, do they wanna continue?

And then we are hoping to do a new request for applications and specifically looking for organizations that may be able to offer additional navigation services around legal services, health care, maybe emergency response services. We're hoping to look at ways that we can meet the current need. And so we will be doing an open application, at some point in the spring, I wanna say in March or April. Well, April or May.

So I had a question around that exact thing. So how do we get on the distribution list so we're aware when funding does come available? And my other question is, is there anybody any providers in East King County that are currently receiving funding from you?

I should have looked that up that question.

I I believe the answer is yes. There are organizations that we fund in East King County. I will have to look and double check and make sure, and I can send that to to you. In order to get on our distribution list, if you go to our website, we have a a form that you can complete. It's a Smartsheet tool, and you can just click on all of the different things, and it'll it'll help you. Then then we'll you'll you'll just be part of our list, and we can definitely add you. So I can send that as well.

And any other questions?

No?

Mohammed, thank you so much for joining us online. Sarah, Monique, thank you so much. And Andrew, you're a rock star. Thanks.

Thank thank you all. Appreciate it.

K.

Thank you. Okay. As a reminder, every two years, we have an equity and funding training in preparation for the funding cycle. Our next meeting will be a special meeting in Room 1 E 120 on Monday, March 16. There will be no remote option. That's also a day before my birthday. So let's have fun. Okay. And then this is any questions? Anything good for the group now? Alright. I'm adjourning this meeting at 07:40.

Woo hoo.