Community Development Citizens' Committee - Regular Meeting

I am calling to order the 03/11/2025 meeting of the Community Development Citizens Committee at 06:34PM. We will start with roll call, and I'll turn that over to staff.

Chair Bly?

Present.

Vice chair Hanzo is absent. Committee member Jose Rinidad Castaneda?

Here.

And chairmember Doug Cox?

Here.

Okay. Moving on to public comments. Public comments will be heard on matters not appearing on tonight's agenda. Speakers will be limited to three minutes. And I open the floor for public comments.

Good evening, chair and committee members. My name is Curtis Gamble, activist for the homeless, the veterans, the OCT bus drivers, Cal State folks and students, the seniors, and the low income community. These are just some of my recommendations, and it has to do with funding. So I'm just gonna share it with you. I'm just gonna go down the numbers that I've written down. Number one. Okay. It says the USS Missouri. I don't know why I'm telling you if I'm not sure. The USS Missouri b b 63 was a battleship in the United States Navy.

I served on there. OCTA bus bus drivers oh, I was a OCTA bus driver from 1988 to 02/2003. That was about fourteen years of service. That was around twenty years ago. The reason I'm sharing with you some of the OCTA things also is because of community transportation.

So number two, OCTA bus drivers should be allowed to pick up and drop off the homeless at the Fullerton Navigation Center. Three, the Fullerton navigation center has around a 150 people staying there. Many are senior citizens. Four, the Fullerton municipal code chapter 15.04 emergency shelters for homeless is limited to occupancies of six months or less and where a shelter is provided on a first come, first served basis. D, length of stay.

The length of stay of an individual client shall not exceed six months within a twelve month period. Days of stay may not be consecutive. Five, OCTA bus drivers pass by the Fullerton Navigation Center almost every day, about 60 times a day. They should be included in our community and and let them share some of the responsibilities that they are paid to do and they want to do. Number six, OCT bus drivers should be allowed to pick up and drop off shelter clients, the homeless directly in front of the Fullerton navigation center.

Seven, OCTA bus drivers should be allowed to stop while en route to go in and use a safe, clean restroom. OCTA bus drivers should be oh oh, yeah. I'll just say it that way. Number nine, the HOPE Center. The the OCTA bus drivers should be allowed to pick up and drop off the homeless at the Fullerton Low Barrier Navigation Center twenty four hours, seven days a week.

The Hope Center, it does that already with the homeless, but it only does it during the weekdays, which is Monday through Friday from 08:00 in the morning to around five. They don't work weekends. The OCTA bus drivers remember, I'm a former OCTA bus driver. We work almost seven days a week, twenty four hours a day, three hundred sixty five days a year. This service could be the OCTA bus driver service could be providing an additional in addition to the HOPE Center, more opportunity for the people, for the community also.

A lot of these people are my age. I'm 64. I'll be 65 in June. This is the time of their life to enjoy their life. They should be able to get from the navigation center, get on the OCTA bus, and go different places, to the beaches, to the malls, and enjoy their life. We are criminalizing the homeless, elderly, old people because they're old. I want them to be able to ride my bus, the service that we give them. You got them riding in little bitty vans and stuff like that. And, you know, so we want them to be able to

go to places like the Hunt Library because there's a bus stop just right down the street from the shelter that could stop right there at the Hunt Library on Commonwealth And Brookhurst and let these people go and enjoy the outdoors. So I just want

to share that with you guys because this is a part of the community. Some parts of the funding, you know, we'd like to see that all work together. But thank you guys for your time, and I look forward to hearing you guys tonight. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Gamble.

We have one caller. I'm gonna go ahead and unmute you.

Good evening, Chair, everyone. Glad to see another meeting coming up. My thing is I have been watching these meetings for several years now, and every Maureen?

Yes. One moment.

Oh, thanks, love.

Go ahead, Maureen.

Thank you. Anyway, Maureen Milton, independent advocate for the disabled, handicapped, little people, and the mobilely challenged. My thing is with all the meetings that I have watched, not one charity.

Okay. Maureen, can you pause for a second? We can't hear you.

Oh, you can you hear me now?

No. One moment, Maureen.

Okay. Thanks. Effort.

Maureen, go ahead.

Okay. Thank you. Anyway, how far did I get? Did I get to into my presentation?

It's not

So not working. One moment, ma'am. Thing okay. Thanks. Wonder what the problem is.

We're having technical difficulty with the Zoom call in, and please bear with us. Thank you.

Thanks a lot.

Maureen, can you go ahead and speak?

Thank you. How far did I get? Can you tell me?

Okay.

Okay. Miss Milton, we did you hear?

We we ask that you start over. We didn't hear any of it, miss Milton. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you, dear. Appreciate it. Anyway, good evening, everyone. Maureen Milton, independent advocate for the handicapped, the disabled, little people, and the Mowgli challenge.

I have watched and gone to many meetings regarding this wonderful committee. And so often, you sitting on the committee ask these people who wish to have grants, how are you getting to the people to let you know to to let them know that that you exist? And they said this, and they said that, and they said this, and not one of them not one of them mentioned the information media. And the information media is still there, and there are a lot of us that don't have access to the personal access to the Internet. So when why do they discriminate against newspapers and channel three and channel ninety nine, because, there are a lot of people that need to know the information, and there are a lot of wonderful, charities that come up, but nobody ever says that they're going to promote on the inform the information media.

So could you ask these people if if they are going to, and why they and if they're not, why aren't they going to promote themselves on the information media? I certainly thank you, and I appreciate your time. And I hope it helps helps, the segment of the population that doesn't have access to the info the social media. I thank you so much. Bye.

Thank you, miss Milton. Are there any more callers?

No. That is it.

If there are no more speakers, I am closing the public comment. There are no there are no consent calendar items tonight, so we will move we will move forward to regular business. Next, we will hear presentations from the five nonprofit agencies and one for profit agency requesting CDBG funds for the 2025 program year. Presentations will be limited to five minutes with a five minute question and answer session by the committee.

I'm sorry.

Sorry. We will start with OC United has withdrawn their application, so we were we are gonna start tonight with Pathways of Hope.

Good evening, folks. How are doing? Do we have our presentation? Sorry. I see the clock's already ticking, so I wanted to yeah. Cool. Thanks. Appreciate that. Okay. So, yeah, we can go ahead and start. It doesn't need to be in slideshow format necessarily unless you guys want it. But okay. Cool. Yeah. So, yeah, so I'm David Galanders.

I'm the executive director of Pathways of Hope. I'm here with James Kennedy, our housing programs manager, who many of you probably know, and Lisa McFerrin, our develop our director of development organizational advancement development. Yeah. So the hub of hope is the project we're seeking to get funding for. For the last eight years, it's CDBG funding has done a lot to really support what the work that we do at the hub.

We just a little background on us. We've been around since 1975, headquartered here in Fullerton for the entire time. We serve the North Orange County spa, so the northern 13 Orange County cities. So you see 51% of the people served by our programs at the Hub of Hope, which is our walk in center in Richmond Park at 610 South Ford beyond Richmond Elementary. The other 49% are all other North Orange County residents by and large. Some folks do crossover from LA County a little bit, but a lot of it is Anaheim and Buena Park, but 51% of the residents are from Fullerton. Can we do next slide? Cool. So we've got a few different things we do at the Hub of Hope. So the hub is certainly a walk in access point centralized area where we focus on two main things, and those two things are housing and food.

That's what Pathways of Hope does. That's what we're known for in the community, and that's what we're experts in. So with those two things that we do at the hub, we serve on the food side. I think it was eight thou almost 8,000 households last year received food from Pathways of Hope, and some of them were repeat customers, so that was unique households that came through. And then we've also managed to work through quite a few I mean, in hundreds of thousands of dollars of rental assistance.

And a lot of those rental assistance contacts start at the hub because people walk in, they make an appointment for food. We do 70 appointments a day for food on a system that works very well. It's very smooth. James helped institute that system and make it make it come to reality. And a lot of those folks with the questions we're asking them are about their housing situation, how they're doing with that.

And we have folks who come to us in all kinds of different situations, some people who are stably housed, some people who are on the verge of losing their housing potentially because of eviction and things like that, which which is a very vulnerable population that we have to try to preserve their housing for so they don't end up homeless. And we have quite a few folks that are homeless that come in for food as well. So as you can see there, we do a lot between coordinated entry system to try to get people into into the list for housing intervention. So Pathways of Hope, as an aside, operates the county's only family permanent supportive housing program, decentralized. And as an example, we have a coordinated entry list where those families would come from.

If a family qualified for that kind of intervention and showed up at the hub and talked to our service navigator that's there, they could do an assessment and enrollment and get on that list so that their names could be called once a housing intervention became available. So all of that is happening aside from just the food that we're distributing, but food is really a loss leader. That really is the entry point for a lot of people to then have conversations about their housing situation, which is where the support from CDBG is really, really important for that project. Next slide. Thank you.

So here's some numbers. So you can just tell the the the amount of work we do on a volume basis is really, really impressive. We do a whole lot to get people connected to housing services, and, obviously, we do a lot on the food side. The thing that's important to note that's not talked about here necessarily, it's not just about volume for us. It's also about quality. In fact, it's mostly about quality. In 2023, we actually won the we for a system that we're in called Pulse for Good, which is a customer service and feedback mechanism we use for people that visit us on a kiosk that people take surveys. We finished first in the nation, not locally, but the nation in customer service. In 2024, we finished second. A rescue mission in Denver beat us out.

I mean, you know, what are you gonna do? Right? You can't win them all. But I think that's pretty impressive, and I think the fact that people are coming to us and having a dignified experience that they're talking about and they're willing to share their experiences about. But, also, it's not all perfect. We get feedback as well so that we can do a better job with our services. So if there's things we're missing, gaps we need to fill, anything that we need to do to make someone's experience better with us, we try to address that as well. So it's not just about volume and the amount of people we help. We know that's impressive, but it's also very much about doing the citizens of this area and the 51% of the people that come to us from the city of Fullerton, doing a good job by them and making sure they have a good experience working with us. Hit the next slide.

So, yeah, so our total request, 67,874. To be quite frank, these programs, we run a pretty lean efficient model. I think we get tremendous bang for our buck. It's in these slides. You can see how many people we're helping for the kind of funding and resources it requires. This really helps our housing programs manager and our community programs housing navigator. That community programs housing navigator works at the hub full time. So everyone that walks through the door, that person has some kind of contact with. If someone's coming just for food and they don't wanna talk about anything else, they just wanna get their food, this person may not interface with them. But if you say anything about your housing situation or anything, this person's gonna jump in.

They're also gonna jump in and help a lot with different things in terms of helping with the logistics of operating the the hub. So I can talk about it for hours because there's a lot to talk about, but my time's up.

So So

if you need to wrap it up, then

go ahead. Oh, no. We're fine. Yeah. Yeah. It's all good.

Alright. Thank you, mister Galanders.

Yeah. For sure. Questions?

I

have James with me too. He can answer any questions where I can. Yeah.

Just, some friendly comments. So welcome, and, good to see Pathways of Hope return, to the CDBG, CDCC commission, whatever. I just wanna say that I am very familiar with the value that Pathways of Hope has provided for the community. I think from all the way back in, I don't even know, 2016, 2015, until today, I've seen that consistency in the delivery of high quality homeless services and, high quality, like, basic needs, being, met to you know, served to actual force and residents. So I know that your application is in a good faith effort to really serve our community, and I wanna thank you for that.

And I also wanna, just to enlighten those who are just members of the audience and the public, that for these funds, this is really what applications, are eligible for. The hub of hope, just seeing how it's the CDBG CDBG funds are translated from the city distributing it to your organization over the past several years, and seeing how that is has impacted homeless families, from here and and beyond, it makes me feel like there is hope left, that there is still hope. And I don't mean that in a facetious way. I just mean that in a I've seen how Pathways of Hope has kept homeless families together and met their needs even when they're out of the city. Yeah.

So you do a tremendous job, and I wanna commend you all for that. So thank you.

Thank you. And and not just families, individuals. I mean, anyone that comes through the door for sure. And I think that that's that's an important thing. Sometimes we get tagged with being a family oriented organization, but we have lots of permanent supportive housing. We do most of our rental assistance that we've done in a in a big project over the last year. Was about a half million dollars of rental assistance. I think 83% of the households were singles too. So there's a lot of people that just come to the hub of hope, especially in these difficult times and and need us.

So And then just just to that point, I think this this what differentiates you from other, permanent supportive housing providers is that the neighbors and community members around

Yeah.

Are very supportive.

Yeah.

And that was not my experience in Buena Park next to a Jamboree, you know, facility for at home. Right? So we're lucky. We're lucky here in Fullerton that we have that differentiation with you all. Thank you.

Thank you.

I have a quick question. Thank you. So my my question was just last year, you wanted $20,000, and that was, I would I would guess, for administrative salaries. And now you're going up to 67,000. So are you are there more people put on? Or

Yeah. It's couple of more FTEs? It's a couple things. So I would be lying if I said there wasn't a long strategy session to

Oh, you want July. I want the truth. Yeah. I know. Don't. So I I always say whatever you're telling me. I'm taking it as truth.

So Awesome. You know, there's lot of strategy and thought put behind our application. So a lot of it is what do we think is possible for us, and we had kind of a trending sort of period of time where, quite frankly, we weren't sure where Pathways of Hope fit into the city dynamics the council's dynamics, this this group's dynamics previously in terms of how much support we should get. So we are probably a little less ambitious in the past for a while. We also had for one of the positions, we had some other funding that has since gone away. But I think given the amount of of effort that person puts in really specifically to Fullerton, it made sense to come back to this and to try again and be a little bit ambitious with our ask. But, you know, hopefully, like I said, the bang for the buck is is really clear, I hope. So

So it was it increase in FTEs for that individual, or is

that a It was

another position?

No. No. It was it was a decrease in the funding that was available for that FTE. We needed to find another way to make it up, and so our strategy shifted to we think CDBG could be

friendly for this. Thank you very much. That's all I

had. Absolutely. Great.

Thank you, mister Glanders.

Cool. Thank you, guys. Appreciate it.

Next, we'll hear from Recovery Road.

Hello. My name is Angelo Barsotti. I am the executive administrator of Recovery Road. Behind me is Robin Rush, our CEO and founder, and then Sean Vilarjes is our program develop yes. I'm sorry

about

that. Okay. In program development. So we wrote last year. This is going to be our second year for writing. I'm not sure if we were approved or not because there was a missed email, but we've been our stories, we've been around for five years. Can you slide that up a little bit for me? There we go. I'm sorry. So we've been in existence for five years.

We started off making sandwiches to go to under the riverbeds to try to do outreach for people to bring them basic necessities, clothing, hygiene, stuff like that. As we developed, we became a nonprofit. And then from the nonprofit part, we opened our doors in a really small place that was in Anaheim, and we found that the need was bigger than Anaheim. So our outreaches continued to go outward. What makes us unique is is that we're open five days a week for ten hours a day, and we do half hour appointments.

We try to teach sustainability to people. Lots of people have low to moderate income issues. So between paying a bill or being able to pick up food, we try to give them a complimentary service so they can come. They can make their appointment. They have to follow-up and then show up to make that appointment, and then they can schedule again for the next month.

Our turnover ratio is about 48 to 52, so it's not a consistent thing for people. They use it, and then they move on to the next part, which is what we're trying to help pro promote is self sustainability. One of the neat things about us is that we also partner with the outreach and engagement, specifically in the city of Fullerton, the Hope Center. So we help provide the resources that the outreach and engagement teams use in the that need food, that need clothing, that need blankets without any of the red tape. They can come into us at any time. We have bags made up for outreach and engagement. They come in. They pick up the bag for the size of the person. They ask for an emergency pool for food. They can pick up for as many as they need.

We don't really have we specify certain days that we just set up for providers, but then we also will allow them to come in for emergency pulls because sometimes they just need to get pair of shoes or whatever it is that they need to help somebody that's on their outreach team. Due to our partnership with the police department and the Hope Centers, the way that they all work together and us functioning with them as a resource center, the from at least from what officer Heinz told me was that 25% of calls that went to 911 have been converted to outreach and engagement rather than hospital and police departments or jail. So it's working. It's definitely showing results. So our household's feds, what we we started off kinda small.

This last year, we did over 63,000 people that we fed through the year. Our volunteers were 99% volunteer rent. We have one person that's an FTE, and that would be our founder and CEO. We have a couple of people that work through programs through the county that come in, that put in hours, but the rest of our services are all done via volunteerism. Part of our structure is our volunteer program is about creating self esteem, helping people because we work with people in recovery that have been previously incarcerated, that have been homeless, that come from broken situations, and we try to help them get better.

We also have our diaper program, and we give away wipes and formula and stuff like that. We have meetings that we have that we may have available. Can you move up to the next slide for me, please, Naomi? Thank you. So our food assistance, as I was saying, we did 63,000, but specifically for the constituents of Fullerton, we did 274 seniors in Rancho La Paz. We deliver every week for 40 houses, and we deliver food there. We also did 2,943 individuals in the city of Fullerton. When people come in, they sign in, and they list what city that they live in with our sign in sheets. Almost everybody we have is, like, low income or low to moderate. Diapers, of course, same thing.

It's the sign in and then the Hope Center part. Our housing navigation system, we have a volunteer who works through the SIR program, and she comes in three days a week. She has twenty five years experience with HUD. And so we're not directly in the HMIS system, but we do support them in helping them with the application process, connecting them to CalAm, and we helped successfully house a 155 people last year. So we also do Narcan outreach.

We work with Orange County Health Care Agency as well as CalOptima to distribute as much Narcan education or naloxone education as we can. We do it with city councils, PTAs, everywhere that we can. We wanna the more educated people are, the better off they are. And so with us, our reduction in numbers is the only county in the region since we started this outreach with AOCHCA that we've shown a decrease in overdoses rather than an increase. So the outreach is actually working, and we're a big part of that. We're very proud to be part of that. So the support of CDBG will help us continue what we're doing in the in the city and in the Northern Orange County area.

Thank you. Okay.

I hope we did that right.

Do you have any questions?

I

I have no questions.

Oh, cool.

Just, again, just the commendations and positive, feedback for for what it's worth. I've already heard about Recovery Road's starling the sterling reputation. Just working with our hospital providers or, just serving on a council where there was, at the time, no awareness amongst electeds that this was a priority issue. This is about saving lives. Absolutely.

And so I can tell that the value of the CDBG funding is really important to keep the work going and to sustain that. But I also know that you're going beyond you're you're focused on Fullerton, and you're going beyond. Yes. I ride my bike on Coyote Creek and, San Gabriel River Valley, no. San Gabriel River, Bikeway Trail, every Sunday. And, I know that the population is growing. So when the the moment that I heard that you're focused on this population, you're really serving the truly underserved. And so I really commend you for that, And just, you know, god bless you, seriously. Thank you.

I have a question on behalf of vice chair Hanzo, who's not here. I'll just read what her questions are, and she will be watching back later to hear.

Okay.

The first question, will CDBG funds be used for rent?

Yes. We were going to use it as as part of our rent to cover the administrative costs, what we would normally provide for ourselves, and that will allow us to add a little bit more to our capacity and what we're doing to give more service to providers because we're limited. We only have so much work that we can do in a day, and our place is packed. We've got, like, small room to maneuver. But helping offset some of the cost for us will allow us to provide more services because we'll be able to pay somebody to come in, and we'll be able to purchase more things like the bags that we have to get.

So each bag comes, like, with a set of clothing, hygiene, everything in it, and it's stapled. And and we have a volunteer that comes in that preps these bags for the outreach and engagement teams that come in. We have bags that we have to buy in order to get specific types of food. So it has to be edible food for people on the street. They can't, you know, have something that you gotta microwave or cook. It has to be something that they can eat there, but we wanna give them nutritious food. So do chili and chicken and stuff like that. And we have different snacks that we put in there, which are portable for them because we understand that the situation and that in turns creates trust for the outreach and engagement teams because we're trying to consider their needs as we move forward.

I I do have a question when when you're done, ma'am.

Okay. So her next question is and I'm just gonna read what she has here. Application question number 11 states this food pantry project will provide food, clothing, and hygiene products.

Yes, ma'am.

Can CDBG funds be used to pay for all of these three types of items or only food?

Oh, no. It can be utilized for any of it. So part of the reason why we're asking for it to go towards rent is because it will free up some of the other stuff that we can do as we need. Part of our one of the things that's great for us is that when they come in and ask us for resources, we don't have the same red tape. We give whatever we can. If we don't have it available and they're saying it's a need, we do our best to provide it in whatever form that we need to, whether it's through our sponsors, our physical donors. We try to provide the services of what the people need. This will just free up some additional funding for us to have some flexibility in order to continue to serve as we're doing.

Okay. Thank you.

You're welcome. Oh, yeah. So we would we would definitely be utilizing the so on the offset from the rent and for the part time employee, because that's what I allocated this for, the offset money that we would have utilized for those parts will be directed into that. So that's exactly what it's benefiting.

One last question. Gotcha. Thank you. So I also wanna extend an invitation to have you all submit your expertise and just the lived experience gathered throughout your years to the Orange County Health Care Agency's behavioral health behavioral health plan act behavioral health act plan. I'm I'm blanking on the name of it, but it's a long name. The ten year plan? The right. So the ten year plan that's replacing the MHSA. Right? So, Behavioral Health Services Act.

Thank you. Okay. Brain. So, some of the stuff that you're providing for us to determine and evaluate the CDBG funding allocation is really important to also include in that committee as well. So I yeah. Because it will determine future funding opportunities and formulas for both the services that you're talking about as well as the the hopefully, that goes along with that. That's followed you know, just the follow-up from prop one. And yeah. So I just wanted to extend the invitation and just keep that on your radar.

Absolutely. Thank you very,

very much.

And one thing we didn't mention is that I Recovery Road is subcontracted already with Orange County Health Care Agency. I've had a contract with them for three years to educate, help organizations, and and churches to apply for their naloxone application. So I educate. I have taught, I think, about 10 elementary and middle school PTAs in your city in the last six months, and they are they are loving it, the education for the naloxone. So, we will definitely look forward to that. We love OCHCA. Got my little

my little cat.

That's a great day. Good.

I'm sorry. I missed a a line from hers. Number 12 states that 10 k for salaries and 15 k for overhead, such as rent, postage utilities.

Right.

Or does that need to change to only a food budget line item is what she asked?

Okay. So the line item, I I tried to make it very simple. I I just did 10,000 for the part time employee to become Robin's assistant because she's the only paid employee we have there. She needs help. She's doing all of the things we do. She needs So we're requesting that, and then the 15 would go to offset our rent so that it would open up some funds for us to be able to do more allocations of services. Because our budget like, our last year's budget was 2,200,000.0. All of it's in kind donation. We get services, and we give them right back out with one paid employee. So when you're asking about our line items, just know that anything we get in goes back out to the people.

It's never about making a profit for our company or retaining anything for administrative costs. It's all about our our access to helping people. This yeah. This will just help us help more people. That's really our objective.

My question was rolled up into that administrative costs and then rent. What was going on there? Because I see the line item. It's got listed a lot of different items for that. So you're saying unequivocally, you're gonna be using $15,000 for rent, not postage, not utilities, etcetera, strictly for rent.

Strictly for rent. And it'll offset our 68,000, and it'll it'll free up that 15,000 to allow I

get the reasoning and the logic behind it. I just wanna make sure because

Thank you.

When we see those other items attached, it can be if this is what we passed, this is what it could be used for. So we will have to amend that in here when we do this if we decide to give you I can't say what we're gonna do. But these are the things that can get hung up, and so we wanna make sure that that's going to exactly what you're saying here. Thank you very not worth seeing in writing. So, anyway, thank you very much. Love what you guys do with the with the the Narcans. We used to call it back in the day. But I I know one of the areas in which it's not going into is restaurants. We have a lot of restaurants, and so employees sometimes come in the morning, and you'll find people out back.

Oh, yeah.

You know, horizontal. And so and so I've I've mentioned that to a couple times to the the county and our fourth district supervisor just they got they got kicked off. So but, hey. I'm just mentioning to you guys. It's something you guys can do. You don't have to. I'm just saying it's another opportunity.

That's what I'm here for. No. I am you could anybody, any owner, anybody on the street, any household can come over to recover.

They're not gonna they're not gonna go looking for you. They're they're you're

gonna have

to reach out

to them.

If you have a list, if you want me to go to restaurants in Fullerton, we can do that.

I'm just saying it's it's could be I'm not I I've got six kids. I got a lot on my plate. You know? I do a lot of different things behind the scenes, so I'm just mentioning if that's what you wanna do. Your choices. Alright? K. Thank you.

I have no less than two pallets of of eight milligram and four milligram always available over there.

We can always do an outreach thing.

Do that. Yes. Thank

you. Thank you, mister Barthardi and friends.

Thank you.

Next, we will hear from a representative for Stand Up To Kids Road Map To Success Youth Mentoring.

Hi. Good evening. Is this good? Can you guys hear me? I'm a little too short.

Like that? Yeah. Okay. Is this good? Yeah. Okay. It's for kids. Hi. I believe I was here last year. We didn't get any funding, but I don't give up. So if we don't get funding this year, you'll see me next year. My name is Denise Romano. I'm the director of housing and mentoring programs for Stand Up For Kids. Next slide. The next slide just goes about the organization background.

We've been around for a little over thirty years as a national nonprofit. There's 16 chapters across the nation. We in Orange County, we've been around for a little over twenty years. Our mission is is simple to say, but difficult to accomplish, especially nowadays, is, try to end the cycle of homelessness in youth. We do that focusing on one youth at a time.

We focus on, providing services to youth ages 12 to 24 who are experiencing homelessness or at risk of homelessness in the county in the Orange County. Next slide. I'm here to talk a little bit about RMTS, the road map to success, which stands for our it's RMPS program. This program was developed about seven, eight years ago, pre COVID and really took off during COVID and post COVID. And what it does, it focus on five stages of mentoring, to provide support for youth who are classified as McKinney Vento or and unaccompanied youth, youth ages 16 to 18 or nine 19 depending on their the age they are to graduate.

Youth, need to be experiencing unfortunately, need to be experiencing homelessness or at some risk of, facing eviction or, getting affiliation. What do we do in this program? We support youth with mentorship tutor tour tutoring. We provide basic needs, linkage to mental health services. It's a holistic approach.

Our main focus is for the youth to graduate high school. Next. The qualifications and the success. These are a little outdated, but our numbers for 2024 were and I'm more than happy to email that to you guys. We just received the new numbers.

We serve a little over 1,700 youth in 2024. Over 2,000, youth were shelter either through emergency housing, transitional housing, or stable housing, and we provide over 3,000 basic needs and groceries to families and individuals. For our RMTS success, it has been very stable as far as numbers. No less than 98% of our youth in the road map to success program graduate. We are always in the 100 or 98 percentage of graduation.

The program has been adopted countywide, which means we're in different schools. Some of the school districts that we are we have partnerships are Huntington Beach, Costa Mesa, Santa Ana, Garden Grove, and we also work with the Department of Education. Thank you. The purpose of the request. We are requesting 40,000 to have a full time case manager work with youth in the RMTS program, and we are committed to serve a minimum of 25 youth, but we're more than happy to serve as many as possible.

We just wanna get our feet, in the Fullerton area and just start really helping more because what we have been doing in the Fullerton area is a street outreach. That's been our niche and our focus, but we've seen an increase in a lot of prevention work, and we wanna prevent youth from getting to that crisis intervention, stage. So the case manager will be responsible on completing intakes, enrollments, monitor clients' progress, coordinating with the community support for the clients, really making sure that she's tracking progress for each client, and she will be working closely with volunteers and insurance. Next slide. Just a little bit more about the purpose of the request.

Some numbers, statistics, at least five point nine percent of students k to 12 are at homelands in Orange County, and that number just continues to increase. Ali, next slide. And then, some of the tools that we use to track progress for our clients are pre and post service, stages, the five stages, database, case notes, monthly and quarterly reports. And that's it.

So 40,000, is that to fund that one full time exempt position for the case manager for the full year that it's budgeted for?

Correct. Okay. Stand up for kids will provide everything else for the students. All the basic needs, tutoring, mentorship, including any other services that they need.

And then the case manager, is that that can't be the full salary for the

No. That's it includes it includes administrative work as well. So it's the case manager. There's a supervisor that works closely with the case manager to ensure that there's that they're doing their good diligence. So there it's an entire team. So, yeah, it's not entirely for them.

I mean, so I just, to that point, is there any other displaced funding, or is there other sources of funding that are able to offset, for, the funding that you're requesting here? And my worry is that the Department of Education at the federal level is just very, there's there's some there's news. So, so the uncertainty around that makes me, want to know just the, in the background, there are flexibility and other strategic plays that can help with the service that you're providing? Because I think this is an important, job, an important work Yeah. That you're doing.

I'll pause for just your response, and then I'll go finish up.

Yeah. We're very frugal, and we're very conservative as every nonprofit needs to be to do. We do a lot of we have private donors. We do a lot of funding through the raise funding through the year, which helps our revenue. And so we are able to use utilize that as a safety net in case things that unfortunately, we're all seeing things like that, happen and become a reality. We just wanna make sure that we don't just drop what we're doing and and not continue our commitment. So regardless of we always have a safety net.

Yeah. I just, again, you know, thank God for the work that you do, and, I just commend you and, your entire organization because I've seen it. I live right next to a motel that live you know, there is homeless families and, youth walking from their their rooms to, with their backpacks on, and, it's it's different. It's just different. I'm not gonna get into the details now, but I've just seen it firsthand.

And to know that 96% of the individuals that you're serving are from the Hispanic Latino community, and we're seeing the flux of, the asylum seeker and refugee children from Latin American countries that are destabilized and coming here, alone, makes me know all the more that this the money that you're requesting is going to great causes, great work, and, just desperately needed services. Thank you.

And and we have a with the city of Santa Ana, and a 100% of the students are Hispanic, and, 75% of them are only Spanish speaking and recently have, immigrated from Latin America, specifically Venezuela and Colombia.

I mean, the more I hear, the more I'm out in the community. Like, the Orange Wood Foundation, I went to their, their annual fundraiser, and it was just, it's moving to know that there were their keynote speaker was a Fullerton, foster youth, a woman, a Latina, who had just gone through so much. And, her story is not unique, and that's why it's so sad and why this funding is so needed. So thank you.

Thank you. Other questions?

I do have questions on behalf of vice chair Hansel who is absent, and she will be watching this back Mhmm. To hear. And I'll reread it as as she has it here. Which school sites exactly allow you to conduct meetings on-site in Fullerton? Next, is there an existing memorandum of understanding or MOU with the school site, and can you list schools? It says number 11 states two times a week meetings at client school.

Yes. So, we have an amazing, director of operations, and her job is to identify schools with the highest, percentage of, numbers that are showing that youth have been identifying as McKinney Vento or HUD. And so our job, it's to identify schools that need our services and create MOUs with either the schools or the district. We aim for the districts so that it's easier for us to serve different schools. We always say at least two schools, but, we're not limited to serve more like, only two.

As far as the meetings, it's whatever we don't like to impose. We understand that schools have different things going on and might be limited in their space. Just to give you an example, sometimes we go during lunchtime, and we use, lunch as incentive. We bring food for the youth or, gift cards and things like that every month just for attendance, and just be with them during lunchtime, before school, after school. But what really becomes really popular during COVID was the virtual meetings.

And so they've had become very interactive and allow youth to not, miss any classes or be late or have to catch the bus or whatever. And so we incorporate the, virtual concept with the in person concept, so it becomes hybrid. But we are extremely flexible. We we literally meet youth where they are. And, yeah, we would be we'll be identifying schools with a high high percentage of McKinney Vento Hut students.

She was asking exactly which school sites allow you in Oh, okay. Alright. Okay. Alright. Okay. Thank you. Alright.

So my question is, do you have any MOUs with schools

in Fullerton? In Fullerton, not yet.

No. Because that was the question.

So No.

That that's what I wanted to hear to

make sure.

No. So you don't have any? Okay. Thank you.

Okay. We do have with the, Department of Education, though.

Verifying. Go ahead. So just under the McKinney Vento, the just the law. There's very strict limits on what school districts are able to provide in terms of information to the public about these students and their families. And so we're just limited on that.

In addition, I just just knowing the school district, and then the trustees there, they may not be aware that they can enter into an MOU, with with providers like Stand Up For Kids. So it's more about education and getting up that getting the district up to speed. I know that in Winter Park School District, there was just, there was already a direct person, a full time person that coordinated with organizations to provide provide services for foster youth and for for homeless families or students with experiencing homelessness. And we have a number of providers in Orange County, but I know that there is a there's a deaf there's definitely a huge need for, the foster youth here in Fullerton specifically. So, just go to a coin laundry.

Go to a coin laundry in, anywhere, you know, the late night, 10:00, and you will meet people. And, you will listen to their stories if you're so intrigued, but I know that for the purposes of the question, they're they're requesting the funding to get into Fullerton. So Mhmm. Just to clarify that.

Yeah. And we have, we're all background check, FBI background check. Santa Ana Unified School District has been by far the hardest, and we were able to pass all their requirements, with having, insurance in the millions just because of, the history of what has happened in in in that specific school district. So we are not, strangers to all of that. We know all the policies and procedures.

I'm gonna ask her next question. Yes. Is the program case management and referrals to clients, or do you also train them on employment preparation? She also asked, how will you train 12 to 14 year olds on this topic?

So employment preparation for the, students? Is that what she's asking?

I'm just gonna read it how she has it, and then you just answer what you can.

Okay? Okay.

Is the program case manager and referrals to clients, or do you also train them on employment preparation? So And then she asked, how will you train 12 to 14 year olds on this topic?

Okay. So from what I'm getting is, we do we are going to be accepting referrals from the schools that we're working in, but we're also there, to build relationship with school with the schools, with the principals, liaisons, counselors to ensure that they know the reason why we're there, and we have a clear flow of referrals because we wanna make sure that we're targeting McKinney Vento and HUD students. And so that's how we are gonna get the referrals. As far as the employment, we, for youth ages 16 to 18 or 19, depending on the age, that's when we start focusing on employment piece. We have, at least two paid internship programs.

The and one of them, applies for all Orange County. And so if we help our youth many times get employed through our site to help them get that first time experience. And so, employment, it's a huge piece of, the road map to success, and then they transfer into the second program that we have, which is the journey to self sufficiency. I hope that answers. Alright. Thank you. Yes. Is there any more questions?

Alright. I'll know. Okay. Thank you, miss Romano. Denise. Oh, Oh, Thank you. That's good. Bye. Next, we will hear from a representative of YMCAFOC, Maple Neighborhood YMCA Youth Achievers.

Hello. Good evening. I have a slideshow. My name is Elvia Villes. I've been with the YMCA for close to twenty years. I've been at the Maple Center for this will be our third, or it's been our school third school year. Yeah. She has does she have the selection?

Oh,

There it is. Next slide. So we're the we're the Maple neighborhood YMC after school care program. We serve after school care hours. So from we go next door to Maple Elementary, and we pick up the children directly at school.

We walk them over safely through the campus, and then we walk them over to the community center. This is from Dia de los Muertos. We were able to do a performance for the school. We collaborate a lot with the school, with their PTA, so, our kids did a little performance there. Next slide.

So the YMCA's mission statement is to put Christian principles into practice through programs that build healthy spirit, mind, and body for all. We do that by certain the foundations of the community. Every day, we work side by side with our neighbors to make sure that every regardless of age, income, or background has the opportunity to learn and grow and thrive. Next slide. So, a big part of our program is to show our kids, our core values.

So we put everything that we do with the kids, redirecting them. In any case. We do that through showing them our values, caring, honesty, respect, and responsibility. Next slide. So we serve 20 at risk youth every day from low to moderate income, three hours of program, homework assistance, daily enrichment activities, promote healthy living, and then provide physical activities.

And we provide a safe, lunch every day, and we do special events and field trips. K. This is a little bit of our daily schedule. So within that day of the three hours, we have to include outdoor time, snack time, enrichment, healthy mind time, and many other, like, clubs and stuff like that with the kids. So this is our some of the pictures, a daily lunch for the kids, outdoor time, a little bit more homework time and Richmond time, healthy snacks.

We also, collaborate with, Saint Jude's to give lessons to our kids on the monthly lessons. And then we also collaborate with the Cal State nursing department as well, and they're providing lessons for our kids and our parents. So just a little bit other highlights of our program. Yeah, the clubs, STEAM activities, engineering, technology with the kids, And then our Friday white clubs, which different clubs, Lego club, crochet club, cooking, and photography. And, yeah, this is our YMT kids and our kick program.

Service learning, we try to do service learning about park cleanups, different activities with our kids. So this is them cleaning up the park. We do special giveaways and stuff like that also with our kids. So they receive, Christmas presents from our members and stuff like that. And next. And each year, they get a free backpack. We do field trips and and fun things like that. We do provide us with safety day with our at our Fullerton YMCA. And then, hopefully, this year, in two months, we'll be taking them to Disneyland again this year. So thank you.

Questions?

You know, thank you so much for your presentation. I just I'm not sure if my colleagues are they have some tough questions for all of our applicants. So, and I just have positive glowing comments. So maybe I'll switch it up for me. But but, for questions. So the program I'm sorry. Which program are you funding specifically for

For the youth achievers. Yeah. The youth achievers Yeah.

So why the Maple youth achievers program?

So we've been serving that community for three years now, and we're asking funding for staffing.

For staffing? Okay. Mhmm. Other are there other are there other Fullerton based youth achievers program, coordinators and everything?

The only Fullerton program that we have is there at Maple.

Okay.

Yeah. Let's see here.

I'll I'll pause for for for

a moment.

Okay. Yeah.

I still wanna give glowing positive comments, though.

I'll throw a couple glowing comments out there.

Sure.

Yeah. As a as a combat vet coming back all jacked up and having surgeries on me in the VA, I was taking over a lot for what the army had to do, and I was based here right here in Fullerton out of my house. And getting to the VA in LA was or Long Beach was difficult. And so they shipped me over to the YMCA. And so I was able to get in the pool, do a lot of physio rehab. So it's more than I mean, you guys reach out to a lot of different people, and I know that.

Yeah.

So I I I, you know, I commend you for all that stuff. And, yeah, I I have some tough tough questions. They're not that tough. I mean, it just kinda gets after you've been doing this for about fifteen, twenty years, and there's another committee you kinda wanna focus and get to the details of things. But, you know, I see what you guys do on a daily basis and and the outreach and helping the youths youths, so to speak.

And so I'm I'm you know, I see what you're doing. I I don't know what funds we'll have available because I can't always say, you know, everybody, yes. One of the things I'm probably gonna be looking at staff later is to say, out of all the applicants we had last year, what is the total budget if they if just only those got the same amount, the exact amount they got last year, what would we have left? And so you see where I'm going because a lot this is administrative increases by, like, 5,000. You guys aren't the only ones. So Mhmm. That's kind of a a trend that always happens every year as I recall back in the day. So this well, just some something for staff to kinda be aware of what I'm gonna be looking for later. Anyway, thank you very much, ma'am.

Yeah.

Last question and then the positive glowing commendations. So, this may be a question for staff. Do you know historically for this neighborhood, have we funded, other organizations, or has it just been YMCA that's applied? I I'm thinking of Kahoya Scholars. I think of other nonprofits that have tried to serve the Mabel community as well.

So No. It's just the, I'm sorry, Linda Cordova, consultant. Oh. And it's just the YMCA in that area. Boys and Girls Club is over here on Commonwealth and some of the other areas.

Right. So this is, I mean, this is, one of our communities in the disadvantaged community, CDBG census track.

Yeah. We were previously at, we were previously at Richmond

Yeah.

Sharing the building, with Cal State, and then we were actually very thankful that we now have we're at Maple, and we've been serving that new community, which, you know, at first, had, you know, had to get in there, put our feet in. We I had been at that other community for many years, so, it's been nothing but better, I think, just to see the park get better, see the community be able to come out to the community center. It was that center was closed for a few years. So to actually get feedback just from people, me walking out there, like, you know what? The park looks better.

We're actually able to bring our kids to the park and and just working close to close to with hope the Hope Center, to call out anything that's going out in the park and being in the building and seeing new community, seeing these new kids, and providing these services for this community has been really good.

Oh, I I can only imagine. Yeah. I guess. So thank you for the work that you do, and I'll pass it back to madam Sharon.

Thank you, missus Aviles.

Okay.

Thank you. Have a good night.

Thank you. Thank you. Last, we will hear from Upwards Inc. Boost.

Hi. Good evening. I do have a presentation. Sure. Good evening.

Can I get thanks? Good evening, committee members. My name is Melanie For. I'm the community manager at Upwards. Before joining Upwards, I was actually a grateful client. Both my boys attended Upwards partner daycares in LA, and their teachers are part of the reason that inspired me to join the team. So as the nation's largest child care network, we represent over a 150,000 female run minority owned child care providers, including 31 here in Fullerton. A few reasons we sorry. Next slide, please. A few reasons we focus on in home child care providers.

Not only do they tend to offer the more accessible and affordable options for working families, but they also offer much more flexible hours for the workforce who works beyond Monday through Friday, nine to five, nurses, hospitality workers, the fourth, and they're also much more likely to accept subsidy. Despite their importance to our community and the local economy, child care providers in Fullerton average less than $18 an hour, qualifying many as low to moderate income. Meanwhile sorry. Next slide, please. There's a massive capacity gap in Fullerton where over seventy five percent of all children under six are unable to access licensed care, which leaves thousands of families, especially mothers and single parents struggling to fully participate in the workforce.

This is a conservative estimate because, as you just heard, you know, these providers also offer before and after school care as well. So, really next slide, please. The goal of our Boost program is to equip these low to moderate income microenterprise childcare providers with personalized business coaching and digital tools to optimize their operations and revenue. This allows them to manage and expand their small business, create local teaching assistant jobs, and most importantly, improve the quality and inclusivity of care. So to reach these goals, we take a three pronged approach.

Each childcare provider is paired with a dedicated care specialist. This is essentially a business coach who works with them to create their own custom business strategy. Our bilingual care specialists have over fifteen years experience in early childhood education, and some have their own lived experience of running their own successful day cares. They guide the specialists will guide our providers through our online child care management software system that's designed to streamline all the operational side of running an in home child care facility, boost their revenue, and increase and improve the quality of care. This is I can get more into sorry.

Next slide, please. So there's the face of the team. And next slide, please. I can get more into the details of how our software does this. Finally, the providers the third prong is that the providers will work the through a tailored boost curriculum.

So this is essentially tried and true best practices of running a successful sustainable day care long term. So, really, sustainability is at the core of the program where we abide by the philosophy of teaching a woman a fish so that their they have the skills and resources they need to thrive on their own well after the program year, including free access to the childcare management system. So with our proposal, we with a 104,000 in CDBG funding plus upwards matching contribution, we propose to bolster 13 of the in home childcare facilities who are at highest risk of closing and help create at least four new teaching assistant positions, which would expand access to affordable quality care for hundreds of working families in the community. I want to note that Boost qualifies as an economic development program and does not fall under the public service cap. The good news when, you know, looking at that capacity gap is that the vast majority of childcare providers in Fullerton are not operating at a full capacity.

So with support, they can increase from a small license capacity to a large license capacity. And part of what we our care specialists will do is help those who are interested and able to recruit but an onboard a teaching assistant. Sorry. Next slide, please. And Upwards will also offer outside of CDBG funding a teacher assistant subsidy to help the providers over that initial hurdle of expanding their businesses. Sorry. This is just a cool automatic translation feature that I forgot to mention, and I can get into more of that in the q and a if you're interested. Sorry. Next slide, please. You can just keep going because I think I skipped over a lot.

But, really, with our projected outcomes, I'll say that, you know, we're increasing revenue, increasing capacity, and making helping these providers be sustainable long term. We have case studies I can send over from neighboring Garden Grove, which is our long longest partnership to date, three years, and they're gonna expand next year. And then San Jose, which would be our largest partnership to date with supporting 200 providers next year. I kinda jumped out of order in the interest of time, but I did just wanna speak to Maureen's question earlier about equitable access. So we're already connected to all of the licensed day cares in the city.

If you want, I can wait till the q and a part, but I did wanna I heard her question earlier and wanted to assure her that we also do printed mail campaigns and use local ads as well as, you know, community outreach.

Thank you for answering her question. I appreciate it.

Thank you. I love that, your answer to miss Milton's question here. So, when I saw this application, I just I had to reread it multiple times over because I got so excited. I just it's it's different in that this is a for profit application, but the model that you're presenting is really sound and not unsimilar to maybe, like, the other tech kind of companies. So I see that potential for growth is very, you know, very, very rapid.

I'm just gonna state a couple of things, and, hopefully, it doesn't, you know, doesn't doesn't confuse anyone. Back in 2017 2016 to 2017, I volunteered with the Woodcrest, community, the Woodcrest, Leaders Neighbors Association, and we identified that childcare was the biggest need or even greater than housing, amongst all the survey respondents in the Woodcrest community. In 2019, I volunteered with the OC United and their voices of Valencia, the mothers of Valencia, just their their community. And they identified that of their top three goals, that childcare was the number one thing, you know, of the it was in the top three. We still have those packets.

Then when I got elected to Buena Park City Council, childcare was, right there up with every single one of the, constituents and voters', needs. So childcare is so desperately needed, and I wanna thank you you for submitting an application for the CDBG funds. I think whoever was the mind behind going after CDBG funds is brilliant over at your your company. So I'm glad that the funding is eligible or your program is eligible for this. I I just wanna say the one last thing.

No questions. Because I really, really understood that this was a very in-depth application. This was down to the nitty gritty, and it makes me very reassured that the funding is gonna go to the best possible use and optimize and maximize made most efficient, towards providing services and value to the city. And so I I don't have any further questions. It's just very clear. Thank you for your application.

Thank you so much. I

do have questions on behalf of vice chair Hanzo who is absent today, but she will be listening, and I'll read it exactly how she has it. Since the company uses digital tools and software products, are CDBG clients required to purchase your software, app, or digital tools? Can they still get trained and coached for twelve months on business operations, finances, safety compliance, and professional development without buying your products? Number 11 states upward to provide microenterprise technical assistance. First paragraph.

Those are great questions. So the first part, the the well, first of all, you'll see in the budget, Upwards also contributes the nonpersonnel, you know, necessities to run the program, including equipment should a provider not have a smartphone or a tablet already. There's certainly benefits to the platform that help save them twenty hours a week, help them increase revenue, increase enrollment. That platform, just to be clear, is completely free for the providers, not just during the program year, but after the year. It's also free for the parents, and I can speak to that side if anybody's interested.

But I wanna say that there's a you know, that's I outlaw that the three prong approach because, really, the digital tools is just one of those three prongs. I think that, you know, the CDBG funding is not going at all towards the platform. Upwards is contributing that to the program to to make it happen. What the funding's going towards and what makes this program so special is the boots on the ground, the Boost team, who would be creating the custom business strategy for those providers. So to answer your question along a roundabout way, yes, they would stand to benefit greatly from the program even if they were not to be as, you know, interested in the the technical component because of that one to one guidance and support and the and the second prong or third prong rather being the boost curriculum that they could still really gratefully greatly learn from regardless of the platform.

That said, we really do while most of the services are offered remotely, there is an initial, you know, in person visit to help them work through any technical difficulties or hesitations as well so that can maximize, you know, the full impact of the program. And while we run this program nationwide, I have to say, you know, most of the Boost team happens to be very live very close by to yours. So does that answer the question? I know there were a few parts. Oh, I guess the final point, microenterprise technical assistance, that's the CDBG HUD activity that we're most closely aligned with. But, certainly, I think I explained not the totality of the program.

And then I'm I'm gonna read all the questions she

has here.

She's asking how much does it cost the caregiver when they buy your digital tools and software.

It doesn't cost the provider anything. I'm so sorry.

I thought so. I just wanted to make it make sure that I

thought I mean, in just, you know, I work on the government side of of Upwards. Our model our model is really to try to make it as low cost as possible for both families and providers, no cost. We work with federal, you know, state, and local levels and also private employees to offer childcare benefits. So answer the unspoken questions now.

Alright. Miss Melanie, thank you. I'm sorry. What was your last name?

Four. Like, the number four.

Thank you, miss Four.

Thank you so much. So

that was the last presentation for tonight. We'll we'll hear it. Next, we will move on to item number two. We the review of the twenty twenty five, twenty twenty six city department application, and staff will be presenting the city applications.

Linda Cordova, housing consultant again. We do have four city applications that'll be handed out to you right now. On the top of those applications is a new spreadsheet showing all the request. So you can destroy the old one or just keep it for for, yeah, to to compare it. But you have the new one.

You do have two nonprofit agencies who withdrew. You have a counseling program, High Hopes, and OC United. Okay. So the new city request, the first one is for housing administration. As you know, CDBG, has a requirement that no more than 20% of the annual allocation can be used for housing administration.

That is a total of $261,416 dollars. Of course, if our CDBG funds are reduced, this number will have to be reduced. We will keep this number even if the in we see an increase. This number won't change for this current year. The funds will cover administration of federally funded programs, including CDBG, HOME, CDBG CV, and HOME ARP, and any other, funding sources that they want to pass on to us.

All aspects of administration will be covered, including monitoring of funding, nonprofit obligations, city programs, and all required reporting, which include the consolidated plan, the annual action plan, the CAPER, which is the year end plan. The maximum allowed for administration, as I said, is 20%, and this is based on the twenty twenty four twenty five allocation. The second application that you have is for housing rehabilitation. We're asking for $563 $563,795 dollars, which includes a 150,000 in carryover funds from the revolving account. The actual new request is 413,765.

This covers not only administration of the program, but funding going directly to the residents to make home repairs. Funds are used for administration and project costs. Several rehab programs are available, including single family and mobile home programs and will be funded through loans and grants. Your third application, you have this special code enforcement officer asking for a $130,000. Funds will be used for the salary and operations of one code enforcement officer that will be assigned to the 12 designated areas that were, approved by city council.

And the last city application you have is from the engineering department public works for street improvements asking for $350,000. Street improvement project will cover Pacific, Louise, Wanda, and Walnut area. Improvements include rehabilitation of existing pavement, construction of access ramps, curb and gutter repair, sidewalk repair, traffic control, alley and driveway approaches, and other related work. Those are all of them.

Thank you, Linda. We're gonna move on to item number three, city of Fullerton presentations. Normally, we hear all city presentations at the upcoming meeting, but because of a scheduling conflict, the committee will hear from code enforcement today. I will give the community the committee a few minutes to review the special code enforcement application, and we will hear from staff.

Thank you.

So we will now hear from, special code enforcement. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you for your patience. Good evening, chairperson Blay and members of the committee. My name is Guillermina Torrico, code enforcement manager, and I'm presenting a request for funding for the CDBG special code enforcement program. Tonight, I'll share background on the services provided by code enforcement, information specific to this position, present our request for 2526 fiscal year funding, and finally, expand on what the funding will provide.

What so what we do is code enforcement response to residents and business complaints reporting such things as property maintenance issues, unpermitted work, habitability issues, etcetera. The citywide code enforcement program is complaint driven. So what that means is every complaint that we get is creates a case, and it's submitted by someone that's being impacted by violation. To provide some background on this program, initially, it was a council request. Staff identified 12 areas based on the income levels and neighborhood conditions and presented back to council who then approved 12 designated areas as deteriorated declining.

Recruitment was conducted and literature was created to educate the residents on the program. And as of December 2024, six out of these 12 tracks have been inspected. Since COVID, neighborhood, meetings paused, but we do have intent on resuming in '25. And, also, as of December, mailings to all six tracks have also been completed. To provide you a visual of those 12 areas, here's a map, and the tracks are in purple.

If beginning from the west side, the Airport Pritchard area, right beneath it is the Franklin community, Iris Court and Roberta beneath that. And then in the center of town, we have the Woodcrest area, the Baker area, the Palm Gardens Apartment complex, and the Treslow Patterson Tract with the curved railroad boundary. And then on the east side, you have the gems area. One of the communication pieces created to inform residents is this letter. It's in Spanish and English.

It basically announces the program and details what they can expect from our inspections. This is included to all of the mailings with tenant occupied homes, and it informs tenants whose landlords are not making repairs that they can mail them back to us postage paid so that we can assist them. A block improvement grant flyer is also include included in all the mailings, and it explains the grant that's available for roof fence, exterior paint, and garage door repairs. And this is a tool that we just think helps encourage pride and motivation in the community. It's basically a thank you.

Great job letter. And so it's sent out as the property owners or tenants correct the violations, or if upon the first inspection, we find that they're doing an excellent job at maintaining their property. Some of the challenges that this position runs into is that housing is, it's high in Fullerton, so we find that a lot of the properties that would qualify for the grant are sometimes housed with extended family. So it may affect their qualification for income guidelines for the grant. Also, tenants are reluctant to submit the postcards even though some of the landlords are not being responsive to their repairs.

And finally, last fiscal year, not the one we're currently in, we had vacancies, and it takes HR sometimes to recruit. So we've lost institutional knowledge and have to start over with the, learning curve for new staff. And for this reason, in, 2526, it is our, goal to initiate cross training so all of the officers understand, the position. Our request before you tonight is to continue to fund one full time CDBG code enforcement officer for 130,000. 117 would go in salary and administration and 13,000 support and overhead.

This funding would provide one full time officer to complete the city council directive, work exclusively in the 12 designated areas, market the housing rehab programs when violations are found, and continue to provide resources to help residents improve their own community. Funding will enable us to revitalize Fullerton communities. Funding for this position will also provide relief to the citywide code enforcement program, and incrementally improve the level of service to residents provided citywide by the general fund, officers. In summary, funding will enhance the quality and level of service

Okay.

For residents citywide, but particularly for those residents living in communities which are in most need so all Fullerton residents can have access to decent, safe, and sanitary housing. This map just shows the distribution of the complaints. And with that, I thank you for your time and for your consideration to fund the project. And I have pictures if I have permits, if you guys want me to share

the picture. Question.

Okay. Go ahead.

Thank you. I'm glad we gave you more time.

Oh, good. I know.

I know it would happen, and city manager would be all over us. Don't so one of my questions was, obviously, the nexus between homes that are rented out, so you have landlords that aren't making repairs. So you had mentioned that there's money available for, or for repairs for the tenant to then fill out that little report card, send it back, and you guys can how was that was I hearing that correctly? Or

I they're they're two different things. So the block improvement grant Okay. Is available to owner occupied homes.

Okay.

The postcard is we found it's it's a challenge getting tenants to report whether they think their rent is gonna go up. They fear eviction. So there's a myriad of different concerns that they have and why they won't come forward.

Oh, absolutely.

I mean, they So by providing a postage paid card, we we hope we make it easier for them. And I'm really sorry. I I forgot to introduce Cecilia Vasquez. She will assist supervising this position if it gets could be Correct.

Correct. Yeah. I was just I've seen a a conflagration between or a conflating between the two, and I'm like, well, wait a minute here. What what did I miss? And so that's a separate grant fund program for that because I'm like, if someone's renting out their home and they're not making repairs, it's the home it's the the owner's problem and giving them grant money or any money to no. We we go after them. So okay. I I'm I'm tracking this correctly then.

I I believe there are other programs that they may be able to qualify for, whether it be, deferred loans if they're income qualified.

Okay. If I could clarify. At the next meeting, you'll be hearing about the housing rehab program. One of the grant programs under that is the block improvement grant that is talking about.

Have this fundamental issue with someone who owns a home, and they're renting it out. They're rent and they own another home. And they're

rented out, it won't be it's not covered. They have to be owner occupied. Mhmm.

That's what I wanted to hear. So thank you.

Okay. Alright. No

problem. That's all I have, chair.

Just on the yes. So so I'm seeing for the special code enforcement program, there's a lot of similarities with proactive code enforcement programs in other cities. Is it the same, and we're just calling it different? You're just calling it special?

I think well, I think that name was given it to it to the program at its inception, but, yes, it it does allow because our our main program is complaint driven, we do have in our policy where there are exceptions when we can go proactive. If we're addressing x violation here, same block, we can proactively address it if we primarily, it's complaint driven. When this program got started, yes, counsel did say you are able to go to these areas. Just notify the community, explain the process, explain the expectations, and you can proactively, from the public right away, look for, any conditions that are creating blight or, any sort of, deficiencies or deteriorating the community.

Okay. So the council would need to give authority and approval to our code enforcement officers to go to people's front doors, essentially, because that just looking from the right away, is that the limit for Fullerton?

Well, no. No. That's not that's not the limit. I was just in general Okay. The that's what the officer can do. But, of course, if we have the rights as code enforcement officers to go to the front door, we call it curtilage, technical term. But, if they observe anything in the front yard, we have a right to go to the front door and knock or anywhere as far as the mailman can go to make it more general.

Okay. Yeah. No. I know how important this program is. I helped expand it in Buena Park for a two year proactive code enforcement program, and we hired a new person or two people, I think. So one full time, one part time. And the lot I can't even imagine the loss of institutional law knowledge when people leave these positions. We need people that are here for their careers. And, honestly, if we don't fund this, I saw that in the application or in the department's application, there was a a line that said this would not be funded anymore if we just if we, if the city doesn't submit, for this program to be funded under CDBG. Is that right?

That that's accurate.

The,

the current general fund budget, if we're if we're at full staff as as is approved. I know we're in budget cycle now, but, this would not be funded That through general fund.

That would not be acceptable for anyone who understands just how important I had, like, 33 code enforcement complaints against my last apartment, and just there's landlords that do not want to comply. I like I mean, just just the amount of legal liability that they incur, is just beyond me. I I wouldn't wanna incur that. So, you know, shout out to all the landlords that do the right job. You know, they maintain their properties or do their their due diligence, but, we do have a lot of landlords that and property owners that just do not want to comply with, like, the basic minimums, that state law requires.

So, not having this program, the special code code enforcement, is is just not acceptable. We we have too large a rental population for that to go away.

I have one question on behalf of vice chair Hanzo who is absent tonight, but she will be watching back to here. In the current fiscal year 2024 to 2025, what percentage of the awarded $130,000 was actually spent on CDBG special court enforcement position?

So I I didn't do the percentage calculation, but I can give you the amount.

Dollar amount is fine.

So we're really fortunate to be able to promote a a staff person from the public works division, and he's been great. He for the work he's done from July 1 to December, we've expended 55,205, which makes sense because that's six months, if we're looking at the fully burdened rate for his position. I actually asked if we could carry some of the balance over, but I don't know if we could do that.

Thank you, miss Trico.

Thank you. You.

It is time for committee communications. Do any of the committee members have anything that they may want to share at this time?

Thank you, chair Blay. With all the uncertainty, generated by, our federal level government, I just wanna put out there into the universe and for the public that here in Fullerton, we do our due diligence, and we do the best that we can. And it does also the best quality that can be provided. So I just wanna say for anyone who believes that government can be the solution that whose mission you know, who and the and the mission of government is to provide the effective and efficient delivery of services, to thrive, not just to survive. That is what we try to achieve here, at least.

I can speak for myself, hopefully, you know, for our commissioners, and hopefully for the city that we are not going to be falling through the cracks here in Fullerton. We have so many safety mechanisms and safety nets at play just for the city, then I just wanna make sure that, you know, people don't lose their heads in the uncertainty because, you know, it could be very, very frustrating to see what's happening at the federal level and then feel that that's happening at the local level. So just putting it out there. Alright. Thank you.

I will now close the communication for staff communication. The next meeting of the CDCC will be on 03/25/2025 at 06:30 here in the council chambers when we continue to hear CDBG request presentations and hold a public meeting regarding the 2025 through twenty twenty nine five year consolidated plan. If there is nothing else, I will adjourn the meeting at 08:13PM. Thank you for coming.

Good job. Alright.

Wait a second.

Okay. No. I'm gonna I'm just gonna say goodnight to my friend. Okay.

Yeah.