Human Services Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everyone. This meeting is call to order at 06:01. Live captioning is available this evening. To access this, select the show caption button in the meeting toolbar and select your preferred language. Staff and commissioners are participating both remotely and in person. Members of public are welcome to provide public comment and listen to the meeting in person or on a Zoom. I will now call the role commissioner. Please say here after I call your name. White chair White. Is she remote?

Okay. Commissioner Hayes? Here. Commissioner Fan?

Here.

Commissioner Gonzales? Here. Commissioner Rashid? Absent. Okay. Commissioner Pearlman?

Here.

There's one set of minutes to approve this evening. Please take a moment to review November 3 minutes in front of you. Any discussion about November 3 minutes? Is there a motion to approve November 3 minutes?

So moved.

Yeah. And a second?

Second.

All those in favor, say aye.

Aye. Aye.

All those opposed, say nay. November 3 minutes are approved. At this time, we'll be taking the oral communication Staff will call the names of the people in order they have signed up either online or in person. Members of public may speak during one of two nights oral communications for up to three minutes per person or a agency program. After everyone who has signed up to speak has been called, staff will ask if there is anyone else who would like to speak. Staff, can you please call speakers for oral communication?

Thank you, Chair. Our first speaker for oral communications is going to be online. It's, please, Phonika Sheng. Give me one moment. Hi. Are you online, Fonika? Can you hear

us?

I am. Can, can you all hear me okay?

Yes.

Awesome. Great. Well, good evening, commission members. Thank you so much for taking some time for comment tonight. My name is Phineka Zhang, and I am the policy specialist at an organization called Solid Ground.

We are a nonprofit multiservice provider that supports, folks who are living on low incomes across King County, and that's, you know, with everything from affordable housing to housing stabilization services that help people prevent homelessness, to food security work, as well as transportation services. And our housing stability program has partnered with the city of Bellevue through the combined cities grant to help families avoid homelessness by providing emergency rental assistance and other types of financial assistance. So that's things like covering for move in costs, helping folks with their security deposits or application costs. And second to the city of Seattle, our program serves the most families in Bellevue. Our program has a really robust and effective finance and administration infrastructure, so, that was definitely pressure tested during COVID when we became one of the county's main distributors of emergency rental assistance.

And so we're able to quickly and effectively get funds to people who need it most so that they can keep their housing. And we do this by either directly serving households. For example, in 2024, we supported 32 households in Bellevue. But we also do this by sharing our capacity to help eight other providers across the whole county distribute rental assistance funds to their own communities. And we are commenting tonight because throughout all of this work, especially in the last year or so, we've been seeing that families are increasingly struggling to keep up with increasing rent costs.

We're seeing folks have, a backlog of rental arrears or rental debt, and we're seeing compounding limits to people's financial situation. So, you know, we have families who have lost SNAP, access to WIC, and other lifeline benefits, And it's becoming increasingly expensive to live in the city, while funding for rental assistance and financial assistance that organizations like us can access don't haven't increased over time. And so we are hoping that the commission can kinda take the realities that we're seeing into account and put forward recommendations that really maximize the allocation for the financial assistance bucket in the next cycle of the funding for combined cities. Yeah. Thank you so much for allowing us to share a little bit more about what we're seeing, and we're very happy to connect and discuss more, offline.

I think, I can follow-up in an email with our comments and would, yeah, welcome any conversation or questions people have. Thanks so much for, yeah, listening to our comment.

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

Oops. Green is better. It's much better. Good. No camera for faces. Only an accent. Yeah. Let's go for many shifts. Oops.

Oops.

Oh, my name, Alex Zimmerman. Guys, I don't come talking to you because you look to me like a very primitive Nazi Gestapo animal. Yeah. I don't want talking to you. I talk to my people who listen to me. So may Robinson for last two year trespass me in every meeting, in every meeting for two year because I competition for her election. They prosecute me. Case number 3551, but it's go for two year, 300 pages. A misdemeanor case. This don't have a knowledge, not only in state Washington, never in United State.

In Bellevue College last week, this superior court, and I publicly come and talk about this. Guys, when you only Nazis, okay. Call me a Nazi, not stupid. But what has happened here, can do in only freaking idiot. Yes. It's exactly what's happened. Look what they did with my statement for election. 200 word, they come only to one word. Is this word show who I am? Yeah. Make Bellevue greet again. USA. It's one word from Tijuana.

First warning, you can't talk about your campaign. Campaign's finished.

Election gone. Bye bye. You know this?

You don't need to talk about that. I

can speak about everything after election. It's my law. Guys, situation's simple right now. I don't understand why the same consul and exactly leader, Omar Robinson, acting like a Nazi pig, support Iranian people, acting like antisemite. She's hate hate America. She hates you. It's very simple. It says go for last many years. These rules, what is they established about this in council. It's my rules. You know? They did this for me in 2012. About 10 people in 30. This is in public in camera. You can see this only for one man.

Only one man in Bellevue history who have trespasses. One. For forty year, what is I leave this and speak approximate in consul chamber more than thirty years. One. Totally, I have approximately sixty sixty trespasses. 60. What's happened? A Nazi government acting like a idiot. Were Trump. We were new American revolution. Stand up. Slaving happy cows. This is a nightmare. They show how degree of fascism go. It's not fascism.

This idiotism. After two hundred fifty year of constitution, what is we have, you will sick My president talk about you. Willed stupid animal. It's exactly who you are. Bye, my friend. Do that.

I'll call the next one.

Thank you. Our next speaker for oral communications is Philip Peters, and it looks like Meredith from Renewal Food Bank.

Hello. Thank you for having us. I'm Philip Peters, executive director at Renewal Food Bank.

And I'm Meredith Meyer. I'm a resident services manager at Imagine Housing. Imagine Housing currently operates a 146 units of affordable or deeply affordable housing in the city of Bellevue. There are 293 residents housed. Of those a 146 units, half, almost half, are families exiting from homelessness.

In our latest resident survey, 46% of all of our residents experienced some level of food insecurity, and over 60% of our residents have had asked for more food aid. Nearly 40% of the 293 residents served are non English speakers, speaking Chinese, Farsi, Spanish, as many as 18 other languages. On average, Imagine Housing residents make less than $30,000 annually. The current uncertainty surrounding SNAP benefits has impacted our most vulnerable residents even more. While Imagine Housing has traditionally provided community meals and food during the holidays, this year, we are hearing that the need is greater than even than ever for daily household meals.

We have partnered with Renewal Food Bank in Bellevue to form a pilot program to meet those needs. Renewal Food Bank has done a delivery pilot program before, partnering with our neighbors to provide groceries to refugee families from Afghanistan. These families were placed in short term housing before transition to their longer term homes. And during that interim period, Renewal developed culturally relevant groceries once per week to their homes. They'd found this model to be workable and efficient, but without resources to support food purchasing and staff time, it was difficult to maintain and grow the program.

In order to support the residents living in Imagine Housing complexes in Bellevue, we're seeking to launch a pilot delivery box program with a goal of expanding to a mobile market model in partnership with Imagine Housing. We would like to start with one or two of the Imagine communities that are located here in Bellevue serving about 50 households per week. We're able to offer a full food box that provides basic shelf stable items like canned protein, vegetables, fruit, rice, pasta, and oats, along with a choice of a frozen protein, meat, or vegan, four to five fresh items of produce, bread, and eggs. Renewal will also be able to add diapers and pet food as needed to ensure that everyone in each household has their needs met. This will require the addition of staff for both organizations, Imagine Housing needing a part time staff position to oversee packing and facilitating transportation, and Renewal bringing in a contractor to help source, load, and unload and organize purchased food for distribution to residents at Imagine Housing locations.

Over time, both organizations would like to go beyond mere customization and offer boxes that best suit dietary and cultural needs for the household served. Renewal and Imagine are jointly here asking the city of Bellevue for $110,000 to help launch this pilot box delivery program for a four month period with boxes of food for up to 50 of our households here in the city. This funding will also cover the cost of additional staff time at both organizations along with transportation costs. It will help nest address the immediate needs of our neighbors experiencing food insecurity due to the loss or reduction of SNAP benefits over the holidays. And I got one more paragraph we don't have time for, but

it's great to be here. Thank you so much.

Thank you

all for having us here.

And I do have a little, flyers for you if you wanna take one and pass it down. Thank you all. Appreciate it. Y'all.

Okay. That's all the individuals we have signed up for oral communication. If there's anyone in the room or online, please raise your hand. Okay. You can continue, chair.

Mayor Inman, do you have anything to share?

Good evening. I have just a couple of things. For the last several years, the Bellevue Police Department has participated in a drive through holiday lights event. It's in Renton. And if you've never been, it's called the battle of the badges. And many agencies from around the area decorate different there's a theme every year, and then they decorate different things. There some of them bring live horses and go completely out, but it's a completely drive through holiday lights event, which is really fun. So it's on December 6, so I wanna encourage anyone who hasn't gone to go because it's a great time for family. You can also get out and walk through. You don't have to stay in your vehicle.

And the Renton Parks, they offer cookies and snacks and different things for family. So I really enjoy it. We usually have about 30 people from our police department, if not more, volunteers, student officers, many commissioned officers, and our professional staff who dress up and participate with our theme. So hopefully, you can make it and come by and say hi to us. Additionally, I just want to add that every year, we do a campaign called Stop A Lift to try to address retail theft, which is one of the main things that plague our city throughout the year in terms of crime.

And while crime is down overall this year as it has been on trend for the last couple years, we also think that the reason it's down is because we do these different initiatives like like this one. So every so we'll have extra officers at the different malls, and we'll be putting out something in the media. And we partner with different Crossroads, Factoria, Downtown Bellevue with all the different retailers to try to encourage people to call if they see something suspicious and to try to really intervene on people who might think about shoplifting and to help the re support the retailers and trying to discourage people from engaging in that kind of behavior. And you will also put out a reminder that this is the season where people start shopping, and then they leave items in their vehicles as they're running errands and doing different things. So please remember to not do that so we could try to help you keep safe and keep your property safe.

But if anyone has any questions about any of the different promotions that we're doing or campaigns, feel free and reach out to I'll me. Be happy to give you more information. Thank you.

Thank you. Do we have any commissioners report? Any staff reports?

I'll start with the so the Essentials For All Drive, which collected food and hygiene items, was put on by the city, and it ran from October 1 to November 15. It just ended on Saturday, and we I mean, we're it was a pilot, so we learned a lot for sure, but we were able to collect quite a bit of food. The first, like, two to three weeks were slow, but it's picked up a lot in these last two weeks with bins full at every location. We had eight locations, and we added two more just because staff reached out and said they wanted to help some more. And we had some an apartment community even that saw the flyers and got everyone to donate.

So it's been pretty successful in my opinion. And, yeah, and with its end, I'll hand it over to Ruth because she has an update on what we're gonna do for those 21 agencies that we helped.

Thank you. So the all 21 agencies that participated in the food and hygiene drive have had locations where they've gone to pick up the items that have been collected. But also at the as the food drive is ending, each of those agencies is going to get about $4,000 in grocery cards for Safeway that they can give to their Bellevue the clients that they have that are Bellevue residents that are experiencing food insecurity. So we're working out the logistics of that and hoping to get those distributed in the next week or so, hopefully, before Thanksgiving. As we get the whole drive wrapped up, Giselle

and

I will be working to sort of estimate how much was collected. The agencies either sent us a photo or described how much was collected each week so we have some rough rough estimates. Also wanted to let you know you've got a schedule in front of you of the meetings for 2026. Our last meeting is on December 1, our last meeting for the year. We have a panel scheduled for the December 1, And we're also going to have a practice vote for chair and vice chair so that we can be ready for our to elect officers at the January.

So that's what's coming at the December, and then here's our schedule for next year. Let me know if you have any questions.

On December 8, we have meeting.

Yep. December 8 is the Parliamentary procedure. Parliamentary. Yeah. The training. So, yes, that's on the eighth.

Anything else?

And then sure. Yeah.

So in addition to Ruth's report on the food drive and gift cards, a couple other efforts by the city to address some the rapidly emerging need in the community. About two weeks ago, our city manager announced that she would be distributing a $150,000 of operational funds to address food insecurity. So those funds will be spread evenly across our contracted providers, so the providers you all recommended to be contracted with for food provision. And then last week at the city council meeting on Wednesday, there was a discussion amongst the council if they would like to allocate funding right now towards emerging human services needs. And so, specifically, the council has something called a council contingency that is built into the budget every year.

It is a a line item that they reserve for when something comes up after the budget has already been adopted that the council might feel the need to respond respond to. To. So they were discussing how much of their council contingency to allocate. You might remember that they their council contingency is a million dollars per year. And in the budget process in 2024, to approve for 2526, they already dedicated their first $1,000,000 towards human services.

So they did that, as the budget was adopted. So now their conversation was about their $1,000,000 for 2026. There's quite a long conversation at the council meeting if you would like to watch it, but part of what they were trying to, consider was both the economic forecast being highly uncertain, and wanting to make sure as a council they had some funds left to respond to any other economic uncertainties that may play themselves out all the way through 2026 while also acknowledging that there's need right now. So of that million dollars, they chose to allocate 600,000 of those dollars. They chose to invest it across three different areas evenly, dollars 200,000 towards immigrant and refugee legal assistance, 200,000 towards food, and $200,000 towards financial assistance.

So Ruth and her team are in the process right now of reaching out again to all of the contracted agencies that you all identified through the contracting process to talk with them both about that $150,000 allocation from the city manager and then this $600,000 allocation to make sure agencies are in a position to receive that. They are being inundated, and so making sure they are in a position to receive that. If they are in a position to receive that, they could choose as an agency to begin spending immediately while recognizing we don't yet have a contract amendment in place, but staff will also be working on the contract amendment. And as always, our agencies in any one of our contracts do have the choice if they would like to subcontract, meaning that we would maybe talk to the agency we're contracted with, and they might explore if partnering with others would help expand their reach, and they can do that. Happy to take any questions.

Just a quick question. Are these dollars only available for direct services, as in can it go to staffing needs as well of the organization or directly to the clients only?

It would probably depend on the service area. So in all of our contracts, it's adopted policy now that they can set aside 20% for their cost of overhead. Food, the rest would likely go towards food. And financial assistance, the rest would likely go towards financial assistance. Ruth and her team work out those logistics, not me. For legal assistance, the direct service is staff cost.

Right.

And so it's highly likely that that one will be staff cost driven.

Unless it's applications, and there's some cost with applications that sometimes come with us.

But Yep.

Got it.

Mhmm.

Great. Thank you. Exciting news for the community.

And then our last announcement, I'm gonna introduce Doug Rayford, who is Bellevue's for the parks and community services department. He's our DEI program administrator. So he's gonna have a few minutes to introduce himself. And as we head into 2026, our we always have a training for staff on the topic of equity. And so Doug's gonna pick your brains and talk a little bit about how what that might look like next year.

Thank you. Thank you. Can you guys hear me alright? First off, I wanna say I've been to one of the in person meetings, and I've gone to one of the virtual meetings. And you all I really appreciate the active listening, the note taking, people really paying attention and really having good questions about the work and taking it seriously.

So I really appreciate all the work that y'all have been doing, and I am excited to see what y'all do in the future. As for me, as Ruth mentioned, I am the new parks and community service DEI program administrator. I believe that's the whole title. I I originally am from Miami, so I'm been here about ten years now, still getting acclimated to the weather, especially now. You know, my I have a family full of social workers.

So I grew up doing nonprofit work, working in nonprofit, and then transitioned working for the state department with their international visitor leadership program. So I worked with international counterparts from other countries, and then transitioning into higher ed and doing international advising and recruitment at community colleges. While I was there, I got voluntold by a supervisor that I would be participating in some equity and inclusion groups and realized that that was really my passion and sort of transitioned out of international recruitment into DEI work. Before I was hired here, I was the d DEI I don't even remember what my title was now, but I was equity inclusion justice adviser, I believe, was the title. It all these different titles for the city of Lynnwood.

In that role, I did both internal and external work, working with a lot of our community based organizations externally and connecting them with staff and different departments, being a navigator, and then internally working with staff to do more equity work in terms of creating a workforce culture that was inclusive as well as being the staff liaison on our DEI commission. And I will say y'all y'all need to take you know, really be appreciative of what what you what what what y'all have been given here because this has not happened at every city. This ability where the city has really appreciative of of your lived experience and expertise and puts their money where their mouth is and says, let you make these decisions. A lot of cities don't do that. So y'all have y'all been get given some real real power to to to make change in the city, and so I'm it's amazing to me.

So but yeah. So I I I did that at the city of Lynnwood. And then in September, I got hired on here as a DEI program administrator specifically for parks and community service. So the city of Bellevue has a department called DAT, diversity advantage team, and they do all the citywide diversity and inclusion work. I was hired specifically for the parks and community service to do the work that same work, but with a focus on parks and community service.

And so my role now is to, facilitate and assist, parks as they continue doing the great, equity inclusion work that they have already been doing. I am just here to maximize what they have already been doing because they've all I mean, y'all know they've already been doing really great work here. So that's my role. In terms of human service commission, As Ruth mentioned, you know, you guys do some sort of trainings each year, and I was very interested in in hearing and being a part of it as possible. I'm also interested to step away and find someone who has an expertise in the area that maybe y'all want that I don't have an expertise in.

But for right now, I just wanted to come in, introduce myself, and then hear from y'all in terms of what you think would be beneficial to you as as this group moves forward in the work that you're doing with the Human Service Commission. Did I get all of that? Was that right? Okay. And you're you're and and we have someone trans like, scribing all of this too?

I know this is so they describe anything that I say? So I wap ba ba loo bop or wap bamboo, that goes on the official transcripts? Sorry. I digress. But so with that said, I would love to sort of just go around the room and hear from each of the commissioners about what what brought them here and what they would like out of a training this year that they think would be beneficial to the work that they're doing. K. We can go.

Can I start?

Andrew? No.

You you can do it you can do it

in French if you want. Am

I am learning French,

but

but it's not great

right here.

Welcome. Thanks for that intro. It's nice to see you here. I think what brought me here is just being a strong advocate for our community based organizations and just the great work that the that they all do for our community. Mhmm.

And just realize the privilege that I have sitting here or with everybody here. I'm trying to do my best. I love absolute, absolutely love the implicit bias training. I'm gonna talk about it all the time because I think it's really, really important because you can go around thinking that you don't have biases, but we all do. And I think, like, the training highlights what you don't realize even if it's just with the language that we use.

So I would I would recommend doing that. We did that, like, my first time on the it wasn't great, though, because it I think it was it was online. I think that's why. But we did that, like, my first time time around on the on the commission. The other thing too is I don't know what this would be under just, like, equity, but language changes and just being up to date on just, like, just knowing, like, what what to say, what not to say, what's in, what's out.

Because I think even we've had conversations about, like, culturally and linguistically specific or preferred or and so I don't know what that looks like, but I think that's important just information for us to continually have. I think that would be it for me.

So Chris is here. Thank you, for being here. This is very exciting to hear that we do training like this. I think it's so important for the work we do at every meeting. So thank you for that.

I'm here for few reasons. I'm obviously disabled, and so I grew up in Bellevue. I faced the failures and challenges as a person with a disability within this city. So I feel like I have a unique perspective on some of the barriers of, you know, the disabled community, which I'm excited to bring to the table. Uh-huh.

I'm also here just to kind of support our nonprofit, to support our cities and youth in however way I can. And in terms of training, what you said is excellent. That's a tough one to follow. Okay. But, you know, I always think it's important to kind of know how certain pit barriers affect the navigation of resources, and not just physical barriers for the disabled community, but, just different types of barriers of accessing, resources.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi. Hi.

So good to know that we live in such a lucky city. I always tell my kids that you are in the bubble because where I came from, I have seen the worst of the worst. And I came to this country for equality. I feel blessed here, and I'm very thankful to city of Bellevue. I've never lived in any other city more than twenty years, and this city has given me a lot.

So I stayed eighteen years on H 1 B just waiting for my green card. It's eighteen years a big thing just waiting for one stick to the one job And this immigration system, I have gone through the toughest one. So gone through that, I have learned a lot of things to appreciate, stay to the ground, and being involved in city. My kids going to the school just to be thankful and give back to the city and do some selfless service. That's why I joined the human services.

I was pretty much involved with the neighborhood association. Being said that, I would like to have the numbers, like, how because I have been working in the IT sector, and we have all kind of people. And again, as you answer that, I haven't lived any other city in US. Mhmm. I've worked in Bellevue and Redmond. Mhmm. And I have seen the globe here. I have seen all the kind of people working here. So Mhmm. I'm feel I'm thankful for what I have have.

Mhmm. But any data you can bring out, I will appreciate that. That any real examples what's happening here that we can improve and in future give example that this is the city, these challenges we have faced here.

Can you can you tell me more about, like, when you say data, like, what kinda

Like, an example, this is what is, like, a this is a particular community in this city or where we're living. This is what is happening in the school or how we can get involved. The parents can get involved in the city. We can get involved and participate. Like, any examples real time examples and anything well, the city has been facing challenges that we can improve in any sector.

Okay. Yes.

Thank you.

Oh, go ahead.

Thank you for being here. So what I bring me here today not today. The time I applied for this position is because I love to volunteer. I haven't volunteered in many nonprofit organizations, so I like to advocate for my community. But I like to have more training, like, to know how much I can advocate for the Latino community, especially now.

So I really love to have more training about that because sometimes I I feel like I can't say too much. Even if came from my heart, I have to know what I can say and what I cannot. Also, like to see how the com the Latino community have access to these all resources the city have because they don't know, and they are many. I mean, we are so blessed. The city of Bellevue has so many resources, but the Latino community doesn't have access for the resource. So I think this is it. Mhmm. Thank you so much.

When you say they don't have access, are

talking Because they don't know the the

Just just the knowledge of of of what's what's available

to them.

And sometimes they are so afraid. You know, like, right now, they don't know if it is, like, a public charge in the future, or they use it. They will that is so sad.

Mhmm.

So I really like to advocate, but I wanna know what I can do and what I can't.

Okay.

Thank

you. Thank you.

I have nothing to add. Oh, great.

Well, what exactly that people have already said spoke to you mostly?

Well, I think it I love that it ranged from internal training on how we could communicate and better understand both our community and each other and what's appropriate and that's what not appropriate to more of the what I heard is, like, give us data, give us ex more external information as well on how to get be better. So I think that kind of sums it up.

Okay. And then did you what did you wanna start? Tell me, sort of what brought you here.

Being involved in a community and keep learning about the city of Bellevue.

Thank you. And then we have Oh, okay.

Yes. We have commissioner Rashid online if you would like to go ahead and speak. Commissioner Rashid, can you hear us? You're muted.

Yeah. Are you hearing me?

Yes.

Perfect. Yes. We can.

Hi. Hi. Good evening to everyone.

Hi.

Hi. My name is. Thank you so much to join us first. I don't know. I see you maybe one day because I'm with Zoom today. Always, I come to the office, but today, I had, like, a family something. So just I joined with the Zoom.

Mhmm.

So I joined for the seat of the seat of Bellevue because I volunteer for the Zanzibar community. So we have our community here in the city of Bellevue, so that's why I joined to help my family. No. My community to be better, maybe. And, you know, the most people from the from Tanzania or from Zanzibar, they don't know English or the other people, they need something.

So at least we can help them. So welcome.

So just to make sure I got that correctly, and so similar in terms of sort of advocacy for for your community?

Yeah. Yeah. The community, Zanzibar community.

Mhmm. Mhmm.

Yeah. Okay. What do you do you have any anything specifically that you you think the that that the Xanvir community would would benefit from? Any any barriers that you know of?

For now, no. But if anything happen, then I like to.

Mhmm.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you.

Alright. Thank you. I do have one last thing.

Yeah.

I think it would be worth touching on structural biases or structural barriers Mhmm. For certain communities in our society that kind of get in the way of them finding new resources or, you know, achieving success and thrival. Does that make sense?

Yeah. Like like, towards, like, sort of, like, systemic and institutional.

Yeah. Exactly. Okay.

The best starts for kids for King County

Mhmm.

They do when you sit on an RFP panel, they give you an online training, but it is basically, the systemic inequalities and racism that plays out when you're looking at at at grants. Mhmm. And I liked it. It was a good one. It was quick, but it was something that could touch upon, like, what organizations and communities, like, further from justice come up against, especially when they're applying for grants. I don't know what it's called, though. But

I can I can do some research?

It's their standard one, so I I'm sure you'll be able to the anyone probably who's part of the veterans and seniors in human services levy could give you an answer on what it what that training is called. That is good. It's it's quick, but I think it really covers the basics. What we should be looking at when we're looking at our grants, for sure.

So did we have any crossroads two years ago or last year we have a training similar?

Okay.

We have a similar training.

You did a similar training two years ago? I'll talk to Ruth about that later and get some more information on that particular training. And so does I mean, so from what everyone has sort of said or what y'all have heard, is there anything that really stands out that you're like, you know what? That's the one. That's what we need to focus on right now. Like and it doesn't need to be, like, one and done. Like, you know, we can look at multiple trainings throughout the year, but, like, is there anything that you wanna start with that's like, let's start here and then focus on other stuff?

When would this take place? Because I think it's important to know if this will be before our funding

Mhmm.

Decisions or after. Mhmm. Yeah.

We always have a training before you all start looking at applications.

Okay.

So it'll be March, April, May there.

For for me, I think the barriers the systemic barriers for organizations Mhmm. And community members is high high on my list.

Anyone else have anything or feel strongly about any of the suggestions made?

I think it's more of a question. Yeah. Maybe clarify Yeah. What what would you be able to actually provide to us versus what we have asked for? Because I think we asked for Yeah. Down to what we should be really be thinking about.

Yeah. And, actually, I'm gonna just put a time check on this for now. Okay. I think we can compile these ideas and maybe figure out next steps coming back and checking in with you all, or maybe Doug will have a proposal of some kind. But I just wanna be mindful of the time. Sorry.

Thank

you. Yeah. Not sure how to answer that. So it's a wide range.

K. Thank you all. I really appreciate it.

Last question. So have have you seen our application which we provide to the nonprofits? What all we ask to take more?

Yes. Yeah. Okay.

Yes. Anything that you think is missing there we can add?

Well, let me let let's let's I'll I'll put that on my list of things, and then I'll look it again. And then next time I come through, I'll I'll let let you all know. Okay. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

So our first item of business is reviewing the draft twenty twenty seven, twenty twenty eight funding con contingency. In the front of you is a copy of the revised draft contingency plan. It includes new language about aligning with the culturally and linguistically specific and youth targets. The new language is highlighted in yellow. Let's take a few minutes to review.

Oh, you have that.

But the only thing you added is in yellow. Is that right?

Yes. Okay.

We'll move to vote, or do you want a discussion first?

Are you okay with the wording? Okay. Let's move on the yeah. I think we should. Can we get water? So so oh, I I know. I get it. I have here. Okay.

Okay.

I'm good with the voting if we wanna move to voting on

us as Any question, commissioner Hayes? You have a question?

No. I'm good to vote. Thank you.

Okay. Is there a motion to approve the twenty twenty seven twenty twenty eight funding contingency?

So moved.

And a second?

Second.

All those in favor, aye.

Aye. Aye.

Thank you. Okay. All those opposed in a. The funding contingency is approved, and the funding, percentage recommendation are scheduled to go before the council, January 27. Good work, commissioners. Thank you. Next, we have a panel presentation on shelter services. I will hand it over to human services planner, Andrew, to introduce the topic.

Thank you, Chelsea. Before I give a chance I mean, I give a chance to our panelists to introduce themselves, I'm going to go through a few definitions that are commonly used around homelessness, homelessness services, and shelter services. Then I'll introduce the the panelists introduce themselves. As Giselle is putting those slides up, I'd like to appreciate our panelists for accepting our invitation and coming to have a conversation around the trends and challenges with shelter services. Thank you, Giselle.

We have one of the panelists online, Troy, and he'll also introduce himself here in a minute. So there are a few definitions that are commonly used that we may not all understand, but I just wanted to make sure that they are up there so people can understand them. But there are a few more things that our panelists would share with us. So according to King County Regional Homelessness Authority, Kesarache, they define emergency shelters as places that primarily focus their purpose to provide a temporary shelter for people experiencing homelessness, and this does not require those people to sign a lease. Next.

So there are congregate and also noncongregate shelters. Congregate shelters is defined as a communal space, like a big room with several courts or mats, while noncongregate shelters is where each person has a space that is separate from the other, like a room with walls or tiny house village. Next. Another commonly used word is the low barrier. So the definition of low barrier means a service program or system that removes or minimizes minimizes obstacles to in to entry and participation in a program and makes it more accessible as as accessible as possible.

This means it might minimize things to do with paperwork, waiting lists, eligibility requirements that can stand in a way of clients getting access to services such as meals, shelter, showers, clothing, and it's the essential basic needs. Next. Last slide. So so a low barrier shelter is the shelter is an emergency shelter that does not require for a client to go through credit checks, you know, provide income verification, or have to have, you know, program things that I ask for program participation, criminal background, sobriety, or have to identify themselves to be eligible to access those services. So those are some of the common terms that I wanted to share before I give a chance, of course, to our experts who are actually in the providing those services to our community members.

So I'll start with Troy. If you can go ahead and introduce yourself.

Thank you.

The reason I I wanna apologize for not being there in person. Our board meeting was this evening, and it just ended. And, otherwise, I would be there in person with my colleagues. I am the executive director of Porchlight. We're formally called congregations for the homeless.

Thank you, Troy. Turn it to Veronica.

Here we go. So hello. My name is Veronica Rojas Valdez. I'm, one of the division directors for the Archdiocese Housing Authority. Specifically, I'm here to discuss our New Bethlehem Family Shelter, which is located within the Kirkland community. We are a family shelter, a low barrier, trauma informed family shelter that also has a hotel shelter and day center.

Good evening, and, thank you for having me here. My name is Paul Luali. I serve as the president CEO of Friends of Youth, and, also thank you for all the work you've done to support this work over the years. Friends of Youth is a youth serving organization that supports youth and young adults, by primarily providing them resources, relationships, and skills they need to attain personal growth and success. We've been doing this work for about seventy five years here in the community, and most of most people know us for the work we do in foster care, homelessness, and behavioral health. And, also, we are the only youth and young adult shelter on the East Side. Thank you.

Hi. I'm Ditra Clayton, the executive director of the Sofia Oui. I've been with the organization eight years. The organization's been around fifteen. We started, really by the community needing us. So we started as eight mats on the ground throughout COVID and some other things happening, really recognizing that services need to be twenty four seven. So we quickly grew to two twenty four seven locations, one in Kirkland, that is more of an emergency service type style, and then one in Bellevue that has a longer term, so they can stay up to six months. All of our shelters are low barrier. The other thing is we have permanent housing with supportive services, which is different than permanent supportive housing. Just gonna call that out.

It's slightly different. So we have that. We have rental assistance, vehicle outreach, as well as we do a lot of catch all. So anyone that's been housed with us calls us back, for instance, if they have rears of rent or foodie foodie food insecurity or anything like that. So our whole goal is to make sure that even if they've been through our services and need that restabilization, we provide that. So last year, I think it was 270 something thousand that went directly to clients. That's not covered through anything, so I just wanna throw that out there. But that's us, and thank you for having me. And everything that Paul said, high five. I really appreciate the support and knowing that the city deeply cares about our community members that are overlooked and often, targeted in unhealthy and not great ways.

Thank you all. And, Ditra, you've already touched on actually what the the next question, which is to provide a brief overview of your agency and the types of services you provide. But if you want to shed more light or more insight I mean, more

at this point, I'm just giving you a fun fact about myself. I feel like I did a great job. I think, to Paul's point, we're looking at everything from physical health to mental health to financial. So we have the other thing I would maybe mention is we do have a day center deemed a resource center because that's how we were able to get the funding to be able to do that where anybody can drop in and get case management services. So I would just plug that too that if you do see someone that you might think needs some services, they don't have to be all the way enrolled in our program. They could stop by the day center and, begin that way. So, again, the from top to bottom of experiencing homelessness from the first time you're experiencing it, we do that to you're housed, and we're keeping you housed.

Paul, do you wanna add to what you do? Yes.

You can add a little bit, if you insist. So, homelessness and especially youth homelessness, there's there's many things that are going on. There's many different, we look at our work as supporting young people who are, for one reason or another, cannot be in their natural home environment. So it's really about supporting them, and that could be through a series of activities. So the shelter is just one set of activities.

So people come into the shelter, and you are providing them pretty much with an emergency solution to that immediate problem of having a bed for the night. But thereafter, there's still there's still have needs or there's still things going on. And so we look at ourselves and and everyone here that's on the panel, we look at ourselves at how do you move, how do you help support that person as they move from not just coming into the emergency shelter to whether it's a transition living program or as Ditra talked about permanent supportive housing. And but, eventually, you know, you're hoping that there is a level of independence that they can attain should they if that's what they're looking for, reunification with a family. So between that slew of that continuum, there's there's so many different services that range from whether it's a case management or providing clinical clinical services, therapy services.

There is there's a whole lot of things that go on in between. So we can talk about that forever, and it's not just limited to young people who are, you know, at least in our case, not young people who do not have, you know, have the things that they need. There's also young people who are experiencing the child welfare system, which most of you would probably call foster care, people struggling with with that, and a whole slew. So from seven to 24 is is kind of our sweet spot as far as friends of youth is concerned. But just for all of us who are on the panel, there is there is a whole suite of services and supports that, we we we duplicate or we replicate related to the age groups that we are trying to serve, and there's others that we may not.

So I'll let Veronica add anything to that.

Similar to the other two sides within the shelter, we our goal is to move individuals, to move the families towards housing, permanent housing, sustainable housing, helping them with budgets so that they can see how all their money goes, whether it's towards food, whether it's towards savings for their new home, and so on, are for items for the family. As far as as a family too, the children, we assist utilizing the services of McKinney Vento to ensure that the children are in school, doing well within school, if we need to assist with ensuring that they have an individual education plan resources like transportation to get to school on a daily basis, clothing so that they can be dressed and just feel like they fit in within their community too. We have a visiting nurse who comes to our location to assist not only the adults but the children within shelter and in our day center. We partner well with our community to make certain that everyone knows that they have something to contribute to our shelter. Right now, we are trying to gather more services towards legal and immigration to assist our families that, are seeking to go through a green card process.

Just began, their paperwork to see how they can stay within the country and began working, not having to work a day labor job.

Thank you. Troy?

Yes. Thank you. Porchlight's mission is to partner with men in the community to create a path from homelessness to stable living, and we do this by providing basic needs, shelter, and housing services to men and those who identify as men. And as the other three panelists said, we also consider ourselves a conduit out of homelessness. So while we provide up to a 150 shelter beds every night to men on the East Side, We also provide housing for up to 95 men at any given time in a small apartment complex, a fourplex, and a series of leased and owned five and six bedroom houses.

We also have a day center like the others where we provide three meals a day for up to a 150 men each day. They can pop in even if they're not staying at the shelter and get a meal. They can use our shower and laundry facilities. They can talk to our housing and employment navigator, access benefit entitlements. We also have behavioral health staff on-site Monday through Friday. And we advocate for more affordable housing and supportive housing for people with disabilities on the East Side.

Thank you, Troy. You can also start us off with the next question, which is sharing the most significant human services needs and barriers currently impacting access to shelters and delivery of services at the shelter.

Thank you, Andrew. The most significant barriers for the men we serve are economic. While some do have addiction and mental health issues, most are there simply because they cannot afford housing in King County. Many work, some full time, and still need shelter, albeit for briefer periods of time than those with disabilities, but just to save up money to get into an apartment. The current economic and federal administrations are making this economic situation significantly worse, whether it's fear of losing snap benefits, Medicaid, housing vouchers, etcetera.

People are teetering on the edge of homelessness, and it seems more clear every day that this is gonna tip more people into homelessness than we see today. Any one of these issues can cause that for literally hundreds of households on the East Side. And those are, I would say, the biggest barriers historically. And when I say historically, I mean, really, until about three years ago, there was pretty much no permanent supportive housing other than or housing with supports other than what the shelters were providing. Fortunately, the health through housing initiative and a couple of stamp new construction projects by Plymouth Housing are finally building up a cadre of apartments for people with disabilities and people with long term homelessness who really are never likely to compete for living wage jobs on in King County because of the significant cost of housing.

For ours, it would be the limited family shelters, family opportunities that there are within the East Side community. Right now, we have a number of long term stairs within our shelter and hotel space where they have been with us going on a year because we cannot find the next step for them, which is affordable housing.

Alright. I'm gonna go a little bit broader since I think I know Troy very well. I know Ditra very well, and we talk about these things. We we talk a lot about these things. I think so given the platform, I would say for for anyone who's in the in the homeless youth space as a provider, the truth of the matter is 50% of all our problems are because of structural issues. Okay? So there's structural issues, and I mean big things. It's it's it's it's, a lot of isms and a lot of things that, we shy away from talking when we are in the public spaces or people shy away from talking. And when I say big things, structural things, it is racism. It is classism.

It is these things. Troy alluded to that to say, hey. You know, affordability to stay somewhere in King County, it's just these are just the things. It's ageism, and you can keep on going on. It's it's these things that are the main reason why people are homeless. That those are just the facts, that, we'd like to put out there. And then there is other things. There is there is gaps in the system, and I think that's what we speak to most of the time when we are in front of of folks like you is to say these are some of the gaps in the system. Addressing homelessness as a regional issue, understanding the the lack of access to mental health, emergent immediate and emergency mental health, access points. Those are the most significant things.

Now other when you exasperate the system, when there are funding shortages, when there are people who have philosophical differences or look at homeless young people or anyone homeless in a different way. Those just make compound everything. But these are the issues. So a lot of people try to focus on the, individual behaviors. That is only about maybe 15% of the problem.

And quite frankly, that we know what to do with because we've had decades of being successful in in doing that work. So that that is really the big significant ones. Now I can talk to you, but I'm pretty sure Dietrich's gonna talk to you about affordable housing and severe shortage of beds and on and on. But I just wanted to use this platform to say it is it is still going to be structural factors, the quicker we are to say this is what it is, that's the way we actually get to dealing with a with a problem. Thank you.

So I'm gonna obviously go on and on. You know, it's it's every yes to everything that everyone has said. Right? Yes to, the inequalities that are happening, yes to needing more housing, yes to, the structural things. Would I also say right now, there's a lot of fear, and that's even impacting our staff.

And I think that that's something that that I wanna also kind of elevate. Like, not only are our staff living paycheck to paycheck, not because of that's something that we intentionally want to do, but they're in the same lines. And so I what I am seeing is a fatigue on that trauma informed approach because you're so close to, needing the same exact services. So so I'm not gonna go on and on, because I do think that this that you all have heard exactly what's happening. You know what that the world is really effed up right now, and it's putting a lot of stress on everyone.

I would say the other thing that just in the background I'm thinking about is all of the emergency housing vouchers and what's going to be happening with that. And so our organization is trying to not operate in a sense of fear, but operate that we know that some of these things, regardless of suing or not, are going to be happening. And so that's definitely impacting us. Right? So for instance, at Sofia Way, we have the day center, but now we need to have a pantry as well.

So tapping on our volunteers and community to do that while they provide all of our meals. So for us, it's not even just the fact that there's no housing. I will also tell you that over 40% of our women make less than $50,000, And over 40% also identify with having some sort of disability that's exacerbated by experiencing homelessness. You can imagine if you have a bad day and you go home, you're there, you're able to kind of maybe snap at this person or that, do this. Our women don't have that. Right? And so some of the things that they're experiencing in the community, are more based on the fact that they don't have that safe space. So I will not go on and on. Yes to it. There isn't housing that is, that we actually need.

It's permanent supportive housing or housing with supportive services. Either way you wanna flip it, that's what the really big need is. And I think that what's really frustrating, I'll just be honest, is that we know that that continues to be the need, and we're not continuing to push that infrastructure forward to to actually do that. Right? So the you know, saying about the one year stay or this or that, our people have to basically stay within the the terms, and then they exit for a couple days, go to a different shelter, and come back because there isn't the housing that they need. Not on and on.

Alright. Thank you.

You're welcome. Yeah.

Ditra and the other panelists, of course, as you know, even with the challenges, we see some success stories. We see things working in the organizations. Could you would you mind sharing a success story or an example of what is working for you in your organization right now?

I'll I'll share two success stories or three, actually. One, the partnership between the organizations. We were able to do homeless remembrance day, and it was a really big deal. It was actually held down at Bellevue, the Bellevue Downtown Park. Now it was a terrible day as far as, like, weather, but the fact that we all as an org or all of our organizations came together and did that to me was a really big success in highlighting that we are not only gonna meet the community need, but elevate our staffing clients.

So that was really amazing, especially with everything else that's happening. Along similar lines, we did a black hair care drive. I will tell you that at most shelters we talk about, there there is a we have a large black population. But as far as, like, the actual culturally appropriate, like, lotions and things for their hair, most often, that's something that you're having to try to dip into your budget for, and that's really it's hard to keep on track or whatever. So we were able to do that, and that was really amazing.

Lastly, just we were able to do this year called community brunches, And if you've never been, I encourage you to go. It's where we have clients that have already been housed, clients that are currently in the program in the community. And how the community participates is they give the clients or take them on a shopping experience where they get everything they need. So we do it twice a year around new shoes, usually new shoes, things like that, and then tents and what I don't want say that out loud, but different things that people may need, backpacks, this and that. But it's a really great event because it's highlighting the resilience of our community and our organization and the women that are housed that have been housed for eight years are coming back and talking to women that are still in the in the program.

Right? And so that's a really great event that I feel like highlights the work that we're doing within the community and also uplifts the women. So those are some highlights of success, which is right after a terribleness. But yes. You have 10. On it.

So I'm gonna go on and on from that. So I I will say that, the biggest highlight related to the work we do is, we're still standing. You know, our organizations are still standing. We keep doing the work. Again, you know, for us, seventy five years.

And and and so in seventy five years, it doesn't matter who what the administration is or what's going on, is that you you find ways to to do the work, and that's that's the resilience related to the work we do. And that's really quite quite frankly the biggest highlight is that's all the young people, at least in our case, or all the people who are homeless are just asking us to do a part for them so that they can actually go on with their lives or try to do the the best they can. For Friends of Youth, in particular, I would say, you know, there's there's probably a the last two, three years have been very interesting. First of all, we we opened up a new shelter. So we had been in the business of finding whatever space you could find and trying to make that as welcoming as possible as far as a shelter, whether it was putting mattresses on the ground and turning that space in the morning into the same space that you do day services or provide counseling.

And you can only imagine what goes on there. That's the same place you sleep. That's the same place you you do counseling. That's the same place you hang out because the only places where young people can go or homeless people can go, public areas, as you may know, is the library, the parks, and so and they're constantly being kicked out of there. So we had to we had to listen, and that's the big highlight to to to what our clients, as we call them, were saying to us as far as what their needs are.

This is what we need. And it's the simple things that sometimes we we take for granted. We need showers because imagine having a shelter where you only have two showers and there's 20 people trying to take a shower at 08:00 in the morning because you're gonna kick them out or you're turning the space into something else. We need just somewhere to do our laundry. Those are some of the things.

We need just a meal that's not a sandwich or a pizza and a salad. Those are the things that they've been telling us for years. So making the leap of faith and really saying if we are centered around young people, then we would listen to them. That resulted in a 35 bed shelter. So I know confidently even as we are speaking here today and having a great conversation, there's always a young person trying to find a bed in King County every single night.

But I do feel better that, you know, we do have a space. If you can get there or if we can get you there, that you will have the things that we just talked about, that you're going to have a meal that's not a sandwich or a pizza or a salad, that you're going to have adequate showers for yourself. Just because you're homeless doesn't mean you don't have to have clean clothes in King County, and I don't believe you should. And those are the things we work hard to do, and that's what we have now in the new shelter we have. So those are some highlights we have.

But beyond just the shelter, like we said, it's the continuum, is we do have an affordable housing space. I think Troy and Ditra spoke to it, is where, you know, people who are from this community who want to live here but can't afford it. So, you know, the last two years, we also opened up the first youth and young adult, affordable housing in Kirkland. So that is there, and there's it's full, and there is a waiting list. But that is, that is addressing what the young people are saying to you and being centered related to that.

And, you know, last just last week, the governor was opening up a new place at at Friends of Youth, called Bridgepoint, and this is for folks who are coming out of inpatient because a lot of times people come out of inpatient, and they go back to their communities. And sometimes that is a challenge because most of them, after a short period of time, are back to, you know, some of the old habits that they had. So we opened up a space where it's voluntary. You can come in, and you can stay there until you're ready to go to the next thing. So the as much as there's so much going on, the resilience of the service providers, not just friends of youth, it's everyone who's in this space.

We just keep grinding it out, and I think that's the biggest highlight. And we're not doing it for some glorification or monument to ourselves. It's, more so we understand that everyone deserves to be housed or every you know, that we can actually work towards reducing, homelessness if we just, focus on what are our clients telling us and what are their needs, and do we have a gumption and desire to to to work towards that. Thank you.

So I'll start with sharing that we have 19 families this year who have we have placed into permanent housing. We provide them aftercare services, letting them know, even if you're stopping by, to go and go into the pantry. Look for a few of the base items that you need just to keep you going for another couple of weeks. Also, too, don't be shy. Come in.

Do laundry here because you're saving yourself $40 a week, whether it's, like, 2 or $3, you know, washer, dryer, so on. Come in and utilize the services. You are still part of us. Reaching into my Rolodex from the years, trying to go ahead and connect with our funders, volunteers, donors, just inviting them back into our space, letting them see what we look like right now, even if it's just been a couple of months, but inviting them into our space so they can walk through. They can see where their active donations are going, or where we can use their help, whether to help support our pantry, our refrigerator, come in and tutor our youth, our work with the families.

We have a volunteer, yes, who's volunteered to assist the youth with their homework. But when she doesn't have the kiddos, who wanna, you know, come home from school and do homework, she'll work with the parents, doing mock interviews, working on their resumes with them, just coaching them up, and just really making them feel like they're visible. Also too, partnering with our local community. I'm really trying this year to get get a lot of people into our space, not letting them forget about us. Partnering kindering and friends of youth on the I believe it's the twenty fifth.

They'll be coming in and doing a joint activity for our toddlers and our infants. So exciting times.

Yeah. Go ahead, Troy.

Thank you. Yeah. We have loads of success stories as well. In 2024, we helped a 130 men move into permanent housing, a 116 secure jobs. And we know that every one of those men has a story that's worth telling.

I'll share one here today. It's about our client who I'll call Glenn. He moved to Seattle with a job and a secure place to live, and then three things happened to him in succession. The home he was renting was sold, and he had to move. He then moved into his car maintaining his job.

Every night, he parked in a parking area in an an area parking ride to sleep. Then his engine stopped working in his car, and he lost his job. He found his way to Porchlight because of an outreach worker that, we send to the Park and Ride regularly because we know that's where some people make their way. And he was able to convince him to come to the shelter where he received medical attention for a shoulder injury, was allowed to rest and recuperate. His case manager helped him get the services he needed, set up his unemployment.

He began giving back almost immediately in our kitchen and acting as a translator for other Latino clients. Within nine months, he was navigated to housing, and shortly afterward, was able to get his car back. And he is a great example of how Porchlight supports men from the first contact in outreach all the way to permanent housing.

Thank you.

Thank you all for sharing. So now I'll turn it to commissioners. I'm going to invite commissioners to make some comments or ask questions, and I'd like to go around. If I can start with you, commissioner Finn. Yes.

Thank you all for being here. I think I'm just gonna be pretty blunt in saying, like, I understand the economic challenges, the structural challenges. So if there's something that you could ask for, if it's money, how much money would it be? If it's just just that thing that could get you all to be like, okay. Now we're in a spot where we can do this.

I jumped at that question because we to be transparent, I we okay. So to be transparent in looking at our budget, I had to make over 650 k cuts to get to 29,000 deficit. That being said, we approved a deficit budget last year. One of the things that was a struggle for us is that the staff wages. So when I came on the organization, the staff wages was 17, basically 17 something and $20 for case management.

As you know, that is not, even close to it. So we're currently I got our wages currently up to $23.50, which also is not in line with the other agencies who are above 25. I was even with doing that, that meant that I approved I got a 140 k deficit approved, right, which means now they're coming out to the end of the year. That 140 k because of multiple misses now is at 300 something. Right?

And it all goes back. When you're looking at our budget, it's very lean. The only thing that we're doing is services, is the overhead. To have the development director is $1.20 to $1.50. Not having the development director, I'm still I'm going to be still kind of, you know, whatever.

So it it definitely is the the money to just keep the basics going. Right? Like and also to the client assistance. We, as an organization, we're just absorbing that, which is part of the reason that we were you know, we have that deficit is because if we find you housing, but there's no resource for you to actually move in unless we pay it, we're gonna pay the $2,500. And there's a lot of people right now too that have been in arrears, that that stabilization is $5,000 per person.

So definitely dollars is a thing. And I think that when we're when when you guys are going to make your decisions, part of the care that we need is also staff being paid enough to care if that and I know that sounds fucked up, sorry, but that is the truth, right? There's a tremendous amount of trauma that they are experiencing, vicarious and secondary trauma. And when you're doing that and then having to go to the same line that your clients are and having to kind of implement some things, it's very difficult. So that funding is especially with how fast Sofia Way grew to meet the need, that is definitely an area where we are really nervous, and really wondering like, to to to Paul's point, we just kinda keep on doing it.

Right? We just we know the needs there, so we just keep on doing it. However, the nonprofit business models are not one of stabilization. And so you can imagine the amount of stress of the we already know that it's not set up to be stabilized. We're not building in reserves in these things because it's not a sexy thing.

But we also are facing these economic challenges of everything's really expensive too. So yes to the dollars, and I am so sorry that I jumped at that, but 600 of 600 k worth of cuts is, I know, a drop in the bucket and I feel for some of the other organizations that have had to lay people off and do that. And we are very blessed that we haven't, but we are teetering on how do we keep going. How do we do that, knowing that there's nowhere else to cut in our budget? It's it's lean.

Cutting a videographer, which you need that to make people, you know? So that's definitely dollars and advocacy that you guys are already doing. That's a non a non a nonstarter. And I I love the DI DI, work that you guys are gonna be doing too. I think that plays a part into how we're moving some of the funds. So, yes, dollars, please.

I'll go ahead and jump in. I I I second everything that, that Ditra just said and and what Paul said earlier about how we literally just have to keep going, focusing as as much as we can on the central mission and try, you know, try not to have to lay off staff. You know, a big one I I would say, you know, if you're we started our well, we started our budget deficit this year at, a little bit lower than the Sofia Way. It was about 550,000. And, right now, we have it down to about 25,000, but that's eliminating positions by attrition.

And the, you know, the workload just goes up for everyone else. We lost in federal funding in 2025 about a half $1,000,000, and that included, a 100% of the funding for housing navigation. And, you know, if if shelters exist and all they do is provide shelter, they fill up. And for the most part, those same people will stay there. We really do have to navigate people, into permanent housing in order to free up those beds.

Otherwise, we just keep expanding and expanding shelter, and that's not the the the goal that any of us have. For all of us, it's for people to have the dignity to live in their own space. And, the I would say, you know, a big one for us would be about a $100,000 for a housing navigator and and their benefits. And, you know, we have that that task being absorbed by other staff, but we also know they already have full time jobs and other duties, and they're not gonna be able to they're not gonna be able to to sustain all of the work they were doing and do housing navigation justice. And so, you know, we know that we're gonna see some losses even if we're able to stay alive and not close and, not close any programs.

But that's this year. And, you know, based upon what we're seeing, for funding from government, the federal government especially, and even King County Regional Homelessness Authority. I mean, they they're facing some of the same challenges as well. They just announced a series of layoffs. And so we know that if you put all that together, we're unlikely to see anything new pop up in the very near future, that's gonna come and save us. So we we have to figure out how to do this. And if there are local government dollars available that can fill some of that gap, that is huge. So thank you for hearing me out.

Thank you, Troy. Thank you, Ditra. So I'll I'll probably take it to another level. I would say you asked the direct question of what can we do. I would say we need to wake up from a a corporate culture of how we look at things, and, that's, that's an indictment to all of us, including myself. How do we how do we prioritize these things? Because everyone says to us all the time, we also have a limited budget, and we have all these things to to do. Homelessness has been the biggest social issue in King County for as long as I've been in King County. So if that's the biggest issue and we're still having conversations that, well, we're gonna have to reduce the amounts that we provide to you. We're gonna have to make some other choices.

That just says something about what is our commitments towards reducing or ending it. Here's a reality. This is the reality, and this is just being as true as true as I can be. Because without truth, you can't get to the trust, and the trust is what we need to to deal with some of these these situations. So we are currently in a situation in King County, all of us. So it's all of us, that there is going to be $36,000,000 related to the work we do that's going away just like that. Okay? Because the federal government has chosen through HUD not to give us 36,000,000,000. Okay? So they have made that decision.

We're all going to have to react to that decision. So there's $36,000,000,000 that used to go towards homelessness that is just going to be gone. Alright? That's our reality. Okay? So it's not just a 100,000 that maybe Troy is saying or what 600 that Ditra is saying. We're also going to be dealing with this immediately. Okay? So what is the prioritization we're going to make is the curiosity that I have. And I think what I can urge everyone is just to say, this is the work that this is what this work is.

This is just the reality of what it is. For for for somebody who's in the youth and young adult shelter space, what what this means is, you don't have additional beds for people who are 18 or under. K? So when they come to you, you don't have these services. You can't rapidly house anyone. K? Some of the permanent supportive housing that we know is going to be just gone away with. You know? And here's the thing. Unsheltered youth and young adults are the most susceptible to, guess what, being trafficked and sexually exploited.

So this thing just layers itself over and over and over. So it is it is very hard for us who are always never fully funded to try and figure out how do we tell this story, what do we say, because we know that we're going to get this from every different whether it's a city, whether it's a county, whether it's a state. State, but we still have to keep going on. That's the reality of the work we do. And I would just say if you're if I had a magic wand, I would say everybody would just wake up to the reality of this is what we're facing and would say, we're gonna do something about it today.

We're not just gonna leave it to the service providers or a certain advocacy group. We're all gonna jump in because every day, we hear and we continue to hear that, you know, we have to navigate cities or the county tying support, especially financial support, only to where people last permanently were housed. K? So if you were last permanently housed in Sammamish, they only wanna support that even though homelessness is a regional issue. So homelessness does not have an address, but these are some of the priorities that cities are making and have no idea what the impact is on the general homelessness population.

But that's where I'd say we're going to have to wake up and get away from the corporate way of doing things and realize this is just the truth.

Thank you.

We need funds. Right now, our hotel shelter, we're we're doing our very best to state it so that this way we can serve the same amount of families of, you know, 10 families at the shelter, 10 families at the hotel to maintain that we serve 20 families consistently. We need that funding. In addition, not just to our shelter families, but to our day center that are coming to us, spending the days with us, letting us know, I I'm not quite homeless right now. I'm just trying to hold on to the location that I'm at right now, to my apartment, to my housing.

How can you help me? You know? And and that's the hardest thing right now. It's like, okay. Not only are we seeking housing for the families in our shelter, but trying to help our day center folks to maintain their housing so they don't go into homelessness. Some of them will come to us and let us know. We don't have a car, so where do we go? They'll try camping outside of our dorms. Like, that that isn't you know, let's try to find you somewhere else to go even if we have to give them a cap right to get there. Another thing, and I was just recollecting on this.

Last year, I was here saying the same thing. We are bare bones with our staff. Right now, I have a wonderful service manager that just finished 11:00. She'll be getting she got out at 06:00. She'll go home and she'll take a nap, and she'll do our overnight. And so we we need talented individuals who care, who, wants to work with us to assist families in obtaining housing. And right now, all of my staff, just like they did last year, are stepping up. If they need to work overtime, I'm borrowing, staff from other sites too, even letting them know I will go pick you up. I will get you something to eat. Just just please come stay with our families.

Thank you.

Oh, thank you so much for being here and illuminating

a lot

of these issues within the community. We have a lot of work to do to address homelessness and unsheltered within our region. I I I I'm sorry to see the dark days kind of storming in the clouds, and that's so unfortunate because we have came a long way. That being said, I have two questions. But for time's sake, I will just ask that one.

So I see each of you serve a a a specific community. And my question is, is there communities out there being underserved, and which communities are they, and and why are they being underserved, and how can we come and support efforts to better serve those communities?

I love that you asked that. One which it's a really interesting time, and I'm just gonna say that. But they're the community that I that we see often too is the LGBTQ community and not having a true safe space. Yes. We can say we're a safe space, but we also have 90 year old women that are saying whatever. Right? So, like, even creating that peer spaces there. And the other piece to that is, couples. That's really hard. On the East Side, we have people that identify as single adult women.

We have people that identify as single adult men, which is really great because they identify part. Right? So there's a inclusivity there. However, again, you can't control everything and having special training, understanding and all of that, I think we're doing a disservice to some of our people. The other thing is if you're looking at violence, it's predominantly to trans women, and not having a safe space that's called out on the East Side, I think, is something that we're we should probably think about.

So those are the two. And the reason I got excited about that is pre Donald Trump, I'd actually floated some ideas within the other shelter providers on what are we doing around that space. And then we know that that there there's a data gap because of the way that we ask information. It's really intrusive, and I won't get into it. And then we also know that there's an actual service gap. So the data to to support that we need the service is lack lackluster because of DEI on top of the fact that we actually know that there are people that are needing the service. So that for me is something that I would love at some point. Obviously, right now with the attack on trans, that's it's it the the the conversation's kinda shifted. And also to Paul's point, I'm just trying to get keep our organization alive. I'm just trying to serve the women that we're serving now.

But that is a really big gap, and I yeah. I can go on and on and on about it. But yeah.

Alright.

On and on. I'll be quick. I'll just say this. Great question, Chris. For because I work in the youth and young adults side, I would say minors with a child is always something that is overlooked. And then quite frankly, because we don't have shelters for minors with a child, that's just one of the the the things that, that is overlooked. And then also, shelter shelter beds for 18. So we are the only ones who do it. We have 10 beds for the entire East Side, and that's seven cities for just, people who are, you know, 18. You know, why are these things there?

I think I started off by giving this broad thing as for there's just gaps in the system. And Ditra just pointed out there's data gap. There is a service gap. I'll throw out two other things, and then I'll pass it on to Veronica, and she'll add probably some more. I think there's a funding gap. We've talked about that. And then there's just, quite frankly, a prioritization.

Mhmm.

So what do you prioritize? Yeah.

Having information available, readily available within different languages. I feel like a lot of time, if I'm asking well, either I'm doing or asking my staff to help me translate, whether it's in Tagrinha, whether it's Portuguese, Spanish, just translating the information, making sure that it makes sense, making sure that we're able to spend the time that a family who is English as a second language or is just learning English can have the information that they need, feel confident that they're filling out the information, correctly, and that it's not gonna be sent back to us as incomplete. Also too, the second one would be, my family's where it is a father as a head of household and getting services and resources, for those families.

I'll second what Ditra said about LGBTQ people trying to come to a shelter. If you can imagine being a trans woman and coming to a men's shelter with 99 other people, and we can't control what all of them will do or say at any given moment. We do everything we can to accommodate and to prioritize trans men to make sure that they know that they can come and feel safe. And we'll even provide them a private room rather than being in the congregate part of the shelter, but it isn't enough. Ditra and I have had multiple conversations about what could what is possible if we actually did have a shelter that was specifically for LGBTQ plus people.

And people will choose to be outside or to be in really, really sketchy situations over risking coming in and being tormented in a shelter. And I think it's probably it's probably the worst in a men's shelter just because men are more brutal in general. And while I certainly don't wanna generalize and suggest it's everyone because it isn't, but it, you know, it we can't protect people from that. And it's it's as someone who's part of that community, it breaks my heart that we don't have better options for them.

Thank you.

First of all, thank you for coming here. Thank you, Troy. And just as you said, that's have we are sitting in the corporate jungle here, right here. And being a human being, we are all the commissioners. We are here for the taxpayer money, and we have to look at the budget.

Said that. And with as you said that your employees get a lot of trauma while listening your stories as we volunteers, we get lot of effectors. I was today, I was about to cry with all the story you are telling us. Yeah. But for last twenty years I'm living here, I have seen that certain things for last fifteen years is going graph is going up up.

I was here I joined the commission to help to dissolve the problem. So make a sustainable way where we can put the money in the right spot. That's where my focus all the time is. I appreciate my commissioners always giving a feedback. I'm here to serve so that our taxpayer money goes to the right people.

And I really appreciate you coming here and telling us and sharing the stories. That impacts us a lot. And sometime, when I go home and I see I guess, if it's my personal money, I would have helped you all. And when it comes to your your your budget, certain budget, we have to focus, and we have to ask for city council. And staff has to work hard between the agencies. So we are here to help, and we appreciate you guys coming here. And thank you, Troy, for showing us the shelter and sharing the stories there.

My pleasure.

I have a question. I mean, first of all, thank you, everybody, for being here tonight. I don't know if I only hear from Veronica. Did you guys have the legal service in everyone of the organization? I just heard, did you say that you guys offer legal service? But I didn't know. Well, I didn't hear. I'm sorry. I missed the part.

So, yes, so Friends of Youth has always had, legal service for clients, especially the ones in child welfare. So we also do a lot of child welfare and especially, child welfare related to, what you'd call unaccompanied minors and immigrants. You know? So that has been one of the things that we've done for probably over thirty years working with different attorneys, to help young people, undocumented young people as their case is being adjudicated, and especially minors related to that. Unfortunately, and this is the reality of what Ditra is speaking to and all of us have spoken to is, this year, you know, we had to rescind considerable dollars from the federal government because because of the executive orders and what they were asking us to do.

So those legal services are now nonexistent, based on just the realities of the work that we have to do. And so there's there's not that anymore.

Can you guys do, like, a partnership with Gilab or any other leader?

So, yeah, thank you for for that question. We partner with everybody and their uncle. All four of us partner with anyone who says, hey. Here is here is here's what we can do. The reality is to to and thank you, Jimmy, for for saying that. There's reality, and there's budget, and there's prioritization. And what do you do? And and that's when I say we all need to wake up at some point in time and and accept that this is a situation that we we are is, yes, we have partnerships. These things are not and, you know, the the issues we face in homelessness are not short term issues. Okay?

These are these are long term issues. So you can solve today, but there is going to be tomorrow and next week and the next month and next year. And I think that's why I said to you half of the problem is not even the individual or is not even these gases system. System. It's these structural things that if you took care of these structural things, trust me, we would not have this problem. If you just took care if you had more housing, we would not have some of these problems. If you took care of classism, you would not have all these these problems and racism and ageism and ableism and on and on and on. We would not be having these conversations, but that's just the reality that is hard for a lot of people to accept.

Maybe you're fine. Everything. High five to that. For us, we do we do partner with Elap. And then also too, we forged a little bit of a relationship with the Department of Justice just because a lot of the crimes or or or things that are happening are related to poverty. Right? So stealing or things in your you know, trespassing because you're sleeping in your car or this or that. Right? And so what we've tried to do because we know that there are limited resources with ELAP, etcetera, what are the other ways that we can uplevel our relationship? So I just don't I talk too much about it, but whatever.

So working with the Department of Justice on what is trauma informed, what are some of the the things that our our clients are experiencing, also teaching and asking them to look into a curriculum of mental health, like, even the basic mental health one zero one. But so that was a really, exciting conversation. I will say that we because there we have these different partnerships throughout. Like, you know, I know to connect certain people to Muslim re the Muslim MCRC. Right?

Like, to connect them to their or to connect them to Elap. So to his point, everybody and their uncle. But for us, it's more so, like, we know on the systemic level that a lot of it is the petty crime or this or that. And so what are the ways that we can uplevel some of our advocacy for our women in that in that way? And the other thing I will say, this is just anecdotal, a lot of our case managers are really savvy in even knowing how to help someone get divorced. That is it seems like a silly thing, but you imagine having to go through that where you're experiencing homelessness and some of that, affecting the benefits that you can get or this or that. So, sadly, a lot of our staff are also learning how to navigate the legal system in itself. Not that's not something I would want them to fully be able to do, but that is something that they have to be able to do when you're working with an individual.

Within our organization, we have, legal and immigration department. So we first turn to them. Their bandwidth is sometimes they can't get back to us, even though it's internal, and we'd go out and we partner with other organizations. We will find, just whoever's within King County, essentially, de la Raza, or just you know, we will reach out and and assist our our families with those legal services that they need. Thank you.

Thank you. Commissioner receipt. Oh, Troy, did you wanna add?

I'll I'll just make it very brief. It's very similar to what everyone else is saying. We we we have to partner because we can't afford to have our own legal navigation team, especially these days. I'll just leave it at that.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, commissioner Gonzales. Commissioner Rashid, do you have a comment or a question you want to ask our panelists?

No. I don't have any question. Just to say thank you for the presentation. Don't have any comments for now. Thank you.

Quickly, if I may, since we have a couple of minutes. All of you talked about tiered how housing. My other question is which housing group do we need more of? I know we need more of everything, but which housing tier do we really need more of in order to fill the gap from transitional to permanent?

I guess I'd like to jump in. The biggest is the permanent housing with supportive services. Is the gap. That's why people are staying in shelters so long. That's why they're essentially living there for the two years and the next. Transitional housing is really great, but also part of the reason it lost that funding is that stop gap of not having the actual housing of permanent housing with supportive services or the other way around. It's late, so we'll just forgive me for that. But that is that is the big gap, and that's why I think you hear all of us saying, advocating about housing, housing, housing, because that's where if you are on Social Security disability, you can you can function. And a majority of our people, as I said, are 50,000 and identify as having a disability. So I that that and that's a big lift.

Right? Like, we all have these there's some systemic reasons that that that that certain housing is created. That is a big lift, but that is what we continually say, and that number continues to grow, because of the fact the economy is so jacked up.

Thank you.

You're welcome. Thank you.

Would second that. Our length if if there was more permanent supportive housing, the length of stay in our shelter would be significantly briefer, and we would not have to have a waiting list. And, you know, I would say this the second is probably affordable housing. I think there's, you know I I can't speak to market rate, but definitely permanent supportive and affordable.

So I'll I'll be quick too, and I'll say it's like the say second the same thing. Affordable housing, permanent supportive housing. And these are things that actually have been accomplished successfully in different communities. So Houston put moved 25,000 people out of, homelessness into their permanent homes. Built for zero is an effort initiative that we're we're trying in King County that has been successful in other places in Denver and other places. These are things that when when we say that we can actually deal with them, we can, and there are several examples of of people who've successfully done that. But it is those two things. You have to have more housing than we have. We need a lot more housing. Thank you.

Thank you.

Permanent supportive supportive housing for sure, along with the case management or engagement specialist resources that are available after 03:00.

Thank you all again. Thanks to our panelists. Thank you so much for coming to have this conversation with us. I'll turn it back to Cesino.

Okay. Thank you to the panelists for sharing your work with the commission. Thank you.

Have a

good night, everyone.

Joy. In trouble for not As

a reminder, our last meeting of the year will be on Monday, December 1. This concludes our meeting. We are adjourning at 07:57.