Commission on Aging - Regular Meeting

Alright. And we're gonna go ahead with our, agenda. Vicky, do wanna take a look?

So I know Robin is

not here. We we have adopted minutes. Well, if not a chance, it's gonna be viewed a minute. Why don't we just take a couple of minutes to review the minutes, see whether or there's anything we might need to add or take away? Robin is on her way in good hands.

And I assume that your folks on very good and then email there a copy of the minutes. Yes. Online. On virtual, also have all other stuff. Probably have met before.

Yeah.

Because we we spent the time with CSH to work through the study, and so we we took a vote that I can confirm today. But I I do believe I'll ask the. Alright.

It is what it is. Now the right one to talk to Doctor. Minutes? So moved. Second. We would probably sign a discussion.

Good afternoon again to everyone. After a great deal of anticipation and participation across the community, we are prepared to lean into updating the task force in regards to the study from the corporation from supportive housing as it relates to our homeless services system here in Guilford County. With that being said, as we review the agenda, please note that Erin Stratford Bowes will provide a mission moment for us. We will also move into some federal updates in regards to strategic planning. We will also have a conversation around other business as it relates to shared interest.

Please note that upon the wall, have strategies that will that you will hear about today during the study. There's also an an ask that we have of you as it relates to identifying your interest areas. Our goal as you go through the study today is when you hear from the corporation for supportive housing, there are six areas of the study. We ask that as you listen to our consultants around the study that you then, at the end of every session, identify your interests. And so we'll take about, a three minute break for you to do that.

And, also, when there's a strategy that you have further questions on, we'll be able to, answer those questions out loud, but we will like for the task force members to share their interest. This is not a vote. This is strictly about your interest so we can look at frequency the consensus. And what will happen is we will take this information and work with the consultant. And as we go through community conversations, we'll be able to move the process forward around where is it aligned with the task force, with our COC membership, and also the greater community.

And so, your interest as we go through each of the sections of the study is extremely important, and we will take a break to allow you to identify that. Noah, raise your hand. So Noah is our intern, in the manager's office. He's from App State, and, he assisted and designed this study, in this process for you to make your selections as we go through. The other thing to note is is that we will then talk about some winter shelter and white flag updates from our municipal partners as well as the COC, and we will hopefully also leave out with a discussion around next steps in regards to executing on the strategic plan and how we move forward.

And so with that being said, I want to go into some perspective building in regards to how we got here. We recognize that from a wicked problem framework, we have done an excellent job in regards to listening, consulting, convening, coordinating at a high level and also a million dollar around funding. What we recognize is we came together to really explore this challenge based on housing instability post COVID nineteen, also looking at our COC members and partners and workforce limitations, learning how to work across two municipalities, and then also recognizing that there were some undefined access pathways in regards to services. And so we came together and pleased to announce that over the past two years, if we go to the next slide, you will see that that since 2022, we have made incremental investments based on the feedback from this task force. $8,000,000 were allocated.

We recognized that we were able to issue out a million dollar in COC funding support, which was onetime dollars. We also were able to make an investment understanding that there's a great deal of connectivity between those in residential recovery and housing instability, and our lease chapel project is on under its way. We also made an investment with medical respite, which we heard was a concern. And then, also, we made an investment with understanding, some twenty four seven support with the IRC. And here we are present day recognizing that on the January 29, that we're prepared to look at the strategies that could best meet the needs of the community.

And so with that being said, as we move forward, please note that we listen and we learn from various communities over the past year and a half, and there were some key considerations that came up. One, that the unhoused needs and the system will change over time. We have to be adaptable. The other thing is is that we learned from other partners across the nation that we need to make concurrent enhancements, particularly in emergency services, permanent supportive and transitional housing, and workforce and affordable housing. And so how do we make sure that we invest across the entire bucket?

And when you look at the study, you will see alignment as it relates to strategies strategies and recommendations in that space. Data matters. Looking at this from a disparity lens, particularly as it relates to, you will see in the study around our veterans, but then also family composition and race. And the question around who was leading, we learned from every community that there is a thought leader. And then last but not least, how do we leverage, public and private dollars to move forward?

So what should you expect today? You should expect today to hear from the corporation for supportive housing around six interest areas. Those areas are culture communication, cross sector partnership, funding, understanding that we now have a data dashboard. Excited to share that shortly, that helps you understand public and private and federal dollars, our housing inventory, programs, and also systems of, performance. Again, how do we identify that in this massive system as well as massive strategies that we identify and hone in on certain areas over time?

And we need your help in identifying some interest areas and then recognizing that how do we move forward with a shared commitment, and and how do we carry the load. Take some time to think because we will revisit this, at the pleasure of the task force. Collaborative governance. To execute a strategy or a project this large with this level of magnitude? How do we operate the six work streams that was that are referenced in the study, that are referenced earlier?

How do we have a thought leadership or have thought leadership who leads this process? How do we leverage continuous quality improvement, making sure that investments that are made, we also understand their performance, and then also funding and and resources, who oversees a braided funding approach as we move forward. And so I will pause there to then lean into Erin for our mission moment, and then, we will go into the consultant's, briefing on the study findings. Any current questions?

Alright. Thank you, Victor. On the heels of our most recent executive orders, from Washington, my comments are decidedly local. This is about us in this room and this community. Thank you all for being here today.

As we gather today for this meeting, this evening, hundreds of volunteers are prepared to spread across across Guilford County for our annual point in time count, going under bridges, into encampments, and to shelters to count and connect with our neighbors experiencing homelessness. This convergence of this meeting with point in time count is deeply meaningful. Each person we survey tonight is a person with hopes, dreams, potential, a veteran who served our country, a senior who worked hard all their life, a young person aging out of foster care, or family facing impossible choices between rent and basic needs. On every data point is the story of someone who belongs in our community and deserves the dignity of a safe, stable home. The work we do together through the COC and through this task force isn't just about managing homelessness but about ending it.

When we collaborate across agencies, when we break down silos, when we put aside personal priorities priorities to focus on solutions, we create real change. We've seen it happen when we've housed chronically homeless individuals who've been who've been on our streets for years. We've seen it when families move from shelters into permanent housing and their children's grades improve. We've seen it when someone gets the support that they need to maintain housing and rebuild their life. Today, as we listen to CSH's report and learn about our opportunities to grow, let's hold close the faces and stories of our neighbors who are counting on us to get this right.

Let's be bold in our vision, creative in our solutions, and unwavering in our commitment to ensure everyone in Guilford County has a place to call home. I have faith in us. The point in time count reminds us both of the scope of our challenge and the urgency of our mission. Together, we can and will make homelessness rare, brief, and non reoccurring in Guilford County. Thank you for your dedication to embracing and implementing permanent solutions to homelessness in our community.

We'll keep moving with our agenda. We also have virtually doctor Joe Savage, senior regional adviser from the US Interagency Council on Homelessness, to give us an update. I wanna say thank you to the tri chairs Yeah. Their awareness, doing the briefing to make sure that things will be timely for us to understand the federal landscape of of serving the unhoused. And so, Doctor. Savage, the floor is yours. Operator, if you can unmute.

Oh, good afternoon. Can you hear me?

Yes.

Okay. I was just saying it's good to be with you all again. I'm a little under the weather today. That's why I look bundled up. I'm in the house with the heat on, but I am freezing.

So, I'll get through this, the best that I can. As mentioned earlier, there have been a number of, executive orders that this administration has issued. And the most recent memo that was sent out by OMB regarding federal funding, we just found out that the administration has rescinded that memo regarding freezing all federal funding. So we'll just continue to monitor that to understand if anything else comes out of the pipeline. In terms of any other federal updates, as you all know, HUD recently awarded, COCs their, funding for f y, '24 and '25.

What that means under the new administration, we're not clear. As many of you may know, such things as diversity, equity, and inclusion have been removed from federal agencies and even those who receive federal funding. And then in addition to that, this administration's focus when it comes to homeless programs and services is really going to be a services oriented approach, meaning individuals must agree to participate in services. They will be a requirement in order to, receive, housing. And so it's really a treatment first orientation.

Now even though the COC awards, have been, given out to communities, it's unclear whether or not the administration would have to wait until the next COC funding around to change the priorities because that funding under those priorities has already been allocated to communities. And once the funding is allocated to communities, it's law. So we're still trying to see what type of impact that may have. If you listened to the most recent hearing of HUD secretary, HUD's focus is going to be on building housing, and so we're still waiting to see what that's going to mean for homeless assistance programs. This has kind of been in the wind under previous, administrations as well, being that HUD's focus should be on, building housing and less on, a services, component.

So we're still trying to see and understand, what that means. As far as what we're doing at the federal level at USICH, we currently do not have, an executive director. Our executive director is a political appointee. So with every new administration, we get a new executive director. What you can anticipate probably in the next few months or so, the current federal strategic plan, will be taken down, and a new federal strategic plan will be, developed at some point.

So how does this all impact the work that you are doing? You know, I advise communities continue to do what you are doing to serve, the most vulnerable people. Continue to do what you're doing to serve those who are living, unsheltered, and continue to do what you're doing to prevent those, from entering, the homelessness system. In terms of any strategic plans that you all may be developing, continue to move forward, with those plans. Because as I mentioned, we're not sure how anything that comes out of this administration will impact what you all are doing locally even with a new federal strategic plan.

And so continue to do the work that you're doing until you hear otherwise from HUD. I'm pretty sure Sherry and folks on her team are signed up for HUD's listserv. So if there's any guidance for COCs in relation to any executive orders or anything else that comes out of the administration, wait until you hear, something from HUD. That's it for me. Any

questions for doctor Savage? Doctor. Savage, this is

Mary Jefferson from High Point. I just wanna say thank you, again. You you spoke to in our tri chair briefing, I think, a few months ago, and really good discussion back then, follow the priorities were. And appreciate it. Great candid response when I asked about, should there be a change in administration, what that might mean for priorities.

So, your your analysis at that time was spot on and foretelling of where we are now, and it seems that that we're living in real time, what it looks like to get that figured out. But your encouragement for us to continue to follow-up or resonates with me. And perhaps what I wanna uplift the most and emphasize from what you said is that there are people who are marginalized and historically, looked over.

And they

are depending on us to try to get this right and for us to not, simply do the easy thing and that we must, stand up for them in some ways because as we know it, literally, there are groups under attack. So thank you for that.

Alright. If we don't have any other questions, we'll transition to Corporation for Supportive Housing to, share with us the study and its findings.

Thank you everyone for being here. We're we're happy to be in community with you all, with our team. Usually, it's Maya and us, so we we came in numbers today because this is really important, and glad to be here in community and have that feel of community. So we won't forego. I'll swing it to, Liam to open us up with the land acknowledgment, and we'll get started.

Thank you, Chelsea, and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for having us today. As Chelsea said, I would like to have a brief land acknowledgment before we get started. Guilford County is located on the ancestral and unceded lands of the Kowadi and Suwah, also known as Sheraw tribes. We honor with gratitude the land itself and the various tribes who have been stewards of this land. This acknowledgment does not take the place of authentic relationships or the retributions owed to indigenous communities, but serves as a reminder to critically interrogate systems that have historically oppressed indigenous people so that we may repair harm and so that we may honor, protect, and sustain this land. Thank you.

You, everyone.

Good afternoon. We will briefly go over our agenda for today, and then we are going to dive right in. We are going to go through introductions. Like, Charles, you said, we came in numbers today. I want you all to

get familiar with our team.

We will talk a little bit about the project work that we've done to date, as well as where we're at right now. We will dive deep into the plot o analysis and report with some breaks in between, or some interest and opportunity to express interest. We'll talk a little bit about next steps, have some opportunity for questions and discussion. And then our colleague, Naomi, will go over some updates to the resource map and the funding survey to wrap us up.

Alright. So we'll start with the meet the team, and we'll just go in the order of which

we are on the screen. So, Maya. Everyone, Maya Saxena, she, her pronouns. Work for the national consulting team at CSH based in Atlanta, Georgia. Always lovely to be here.

Alright. My name is Charlsie Ness. My pronouns are she, her. I am based on the southeast team, where we service Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, The Virgin Islands, and I'm located in Boca Raton, Florida.

Hi. My name is Naomi Duyan. Pronouns sheher. I am on our strategy and external affairs team. I am a data analyst. I work nationally, but I am physically located in Maryland.

Good afternoon again, everybody. My name is Liam. Is it not on? No. You didn't turn oh, I did. Yeah. Red light muted. Can you all hear me?

Yeah. Yeah. We got you.

Okay. No. You're okay. You're okay. My name is Leah Hudson. My pronouns are he, him. I am a member of the Mid Atlantic team. So we we serve Delaware down through Virginia, and I'm based in California.

My name is Latoya Smith. I am a resident of Guilford County. I have lived experience in homelessness.

My name is Jennifer Garcia. I'm a

person with lived experience, and I'm a resident of.

Okay. And just acknowledging that we do have some team members not here today. So we have Hillary who's our administrative support and Garrett who's our comms team. So thank you, Garrett. He's the one that made the report all pretty that you have seen. So, yeah, that's our team. And so a little just a little bit about CSH. Most of you know by now, but we are, a nonprofit organization that really works in community. We work across The United States with communities such as yourself in different, systems work, supportive housing pipeline. Right?

So understanding and raising awareness to the importance of housing and services and what that means to create vibrant communities. And our mission, CSH works to advance affordable housing along with services as an approach to help people thrive. So, again, we're moving from that, sustainable you know, I remember it was what was it? Self sufficient terminology where we're using way back then. Right?

We it's not just enough to be making it. It's it's really important for communities to thrive and feel like they are thriving in the place they're staying. So we do this in a number of ways. We advocate for funding. We advocate for policy changes, equitably investing in communities, and strengthening supportive housing overall in the A

A little bit about this body of work. I'm just recalling coming in November 2023 when we first met most of you all and where we started then and where we are today. The goals that we have are still the same. Right? The first goal is to build on support and strengthen across municipality coordination and collaboration.

We want to and have utilized qualitative and quantitative data to promote systems level recommendations that improve housing outcomes and the decrease disparities, why we're here today to talk about the report. And then lastly, we want to facilitate or support the facilitation, of a strong strategic plan and to guide across municipality task force towards CQI or continuous quality improvement. And so where we've been? Right? We've been here for a while, and we've been in a lot of places.

We have, taken part of an environmental scan. You'll see some updates of that on that piece a little bit later. We have done a funding survey. We have gone through and talked to many community providers and folks who would experience to generate this SWAT report. We are here facilitating or supporting the facilitation of this presentation and these meetings.

In the future, we hope to support the facilitation of specific work groups, and we hope to create and implement a strategic plan and key metrics and outcomes with which which we can measure our community progress by. So we're here to talk about the SWAT report. There are a couple of pieces of framing we want to do, theories or frameworks to keep in mind before we get into the nitty gritty of what the report says and our findings. The first of those frameworks is called person, role, system and really encourages us, everybody in this room, everyone who's joining us virtually, to take a moment to understand our positionality within our role and within the larger systems that we work in. So when we're thinking about us as an individual, us as a person, thinking about the things that influence our experiences, our perspectives, our viewpoints, and influence how we embody our goals, how we bring the work.

Thinking about our role of getting a little bit more formal, what are the constraints and the abilities that we have within the goals that we have within the system? And larger thinking about the systems, what systems do we work in or maybe not work in, and what are the constraints or what enables us to do the work within those systems?

And so digging just a little

bit deeper with some questions that I hope we can keep top of mind as we go into this report today. Thinking about on the personal level, what influences me as a person and what are my values? Within my role, what power do I have? What decisions can I make independently? What decisions do I need to run up the chain? What is my positionality? And what decision making abilities are within or beyond my role? And then when we're thinking about system, what are the constraints of the systems that I or that we work in? How can I leverage those systems to improve collaboration and outcomes? So encourage as we're moving forward as we're going through the different sections of the SWAT report to be mindful of your role as a person, within your role as your title, and then that role within the partner system.

Thank you, Maya. And as you continue to evaluate yourself and your role in the system that you are part of, we also ask that you take a moment to examine your multiple identities, how they show up to this room, how they interact with the environment around you, and understand that everybody in this room based on our multiple and intersecting identities has different proximities to power. So, right, I, as a white person, seemingly able-bodied, may have different powers than other folks who come from different backgrounds. And so everybody has the ability to lead and to sway, in some ways, and everybody may have the potential of experiencing, different setbacks or different harm or may not have as much social leverage. And so as we engage in these conversations, it's really important for us to understand ourselves, our own biases, the way that they're gonna show up in this room, the way that they're gonna show up in these conversations, and also make sure that we're, you know, reining in our unchecked power and that we come to this space with a collaborative mindset and want to really serve the community we're in.

Yeah. And I think to wrap, thank you, Liam and Maya, for the framing. I think to round this out, we'll talk a little bit about this later, but we're gonna just talk a little bit about first, you you know, you're recognizing this. You're understanding your power that you hold. You're you're sticking with this. The theory of alignment, right, and aligned contributions. And this was adapted from Jolie Pillsbury's theory of aligned contributions. And, really, what it looks at is the extent of which strategy, structure, and culture create an environment that really facilitates the achievement or organization or body. Like, this is a body of work. Right?

Body of work goal. And so we'll revisit it visit this after we go through the SWAT, but just wanted to think a little bit about when you're thinking about your person as a person, the role you have, what power you have, where does that alignment sit for you? What does that alignment mean for the larger group than for this work that we're embarking on?

Right. So, as Victor mentioned, we created the SWATO, which consists of six priority areas. And before we get into what the where we got those priority areas from, you're probably wondering what is a SWOT o. Right? So, initially, we always see SWOT, our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

And CSH wanted to go a bit further because we understand there's always growth in the analysis and the feedback and the constructive, and the criticism. But we wanted to go a step further and give it make it constructive feedback. So not to just say these are weaknesses, these are threats, but to say, how can we get ahead of those and make those threats and those weaknesses opportunities and strengths? So that's where the o comes from in our SWOT o. K.

So the SWOT analysis consists of six priority areas of focus, and these priority areas of focus were determined by a pain point activity that was done with the Go Forter task force probably about, like, a year ago or so. And the pain point ex exercise, the point of it was to understand where in the homeless, response system, where is it not functioning to its potential, and then where are there areas of improvement. So once again, as Victor mentioned, those six sections are culture and communication, cross sector partnerships, funding, housing inventory, programs, and system performance, and we'll go through each one of those. So the SWATO was designed it was designed to highlight the strengths, bring bring, transparency as well as opportunities to the community. It was created using several different resources.

We had surveys, focus groups that we could use, day internal data as well as, reports that were done. And then we've also had some wonderful, thoughtful conversations with, different agencies in the health care sector, child welfare and family use services, homeless response, veteran services, education, immigration and a refugee justice, the municipal partners, as well as our collaborators. So starting off first with culture and communication. So one of the strengths is that there is a common consensus that there's a need for a cultural shift within the task force and that this cultural shift should allow for more equity building and cross sector partnerships. So we are learning that we have to relinquish some of the power and share it for a common good.

Another strength is that a majority of the people agree that we do need to build capacity amongst the stakeholders in Guilford County. Especially as homelessness and housing is on a rise, Guilford County is looking to invest in the community, which means that we're gonna see higher prices of housing. So how can we make sure that the people that are living here are safe? So there is it's great that everyone agrees that we do need to tackle housing instability and homelessness within the county. Some of the weaknesses that we came upon is that there are some conflicting priorities in deciding who what population should we prioritize first and how do we go about getting them resources?

So one of the opportunities for this weakness is to have a common goal of housing stability and then come together to take to understand what it takes to get there. And one of the great ways we can do that is utilizing data because data should be telling us a story of the need, the what's already there, and then how we're gonna get to our, our common goal. So we wanna we want with the data, we wanna decide who is the vulnerable community in the who's a vulnerable population within this community. That's not looking at who's a vulnerable population in Michigan or who's a vulnerable population even in Charlotte, but right here in Guilford County. And only your internal data can tell you that.

And your internal data is more than numbers. It's also stories. So there's also an opportunity here for us to educate all stakeholders, and that is stakeholders within the homeless and housing sector, but also cross sector because we understand that homelessness and housing, there's a root cause to it. And the root cause deals with all systems, our housing system, our mental health, our education system. So to come up with that solution, everybody needs to really take a seat at that table and understand what everybody has, what what part everyone has within dealing with the solution.

Another one of the weaknesses is that there's a lack of transparency throughout the homeless system. And ways that we can do that is just having open communication and open accountability processes, whether that is checks and balances. But having that transparency, which we can also see through the dashboard, it really highlights what's happening on the grounds. Some opportunities that we have within culture and communication is getting people's lived experience to the table, and that they should be at the table when you are deciding what point when you're planning. What data should we collect?

What are we trying to find out? What is our goal? They need to be at the table when you're looking at all those data and you're making those decisions. And then once again, they need to be at the table when we are letting the community know about what we found and what's happening in the community. People with lived experience have an expertise that no matter what government official you are, no matter how much schooling you went through, you will not necessarily understand the intricacies of the homeless and housing system.

How hard is it to access something when you're going through crisis? How hard is it when you called someone and they told you to go here, here, and there when on paper, it looks easy. Right? It's just just go here and figure it out, but that's just not how it's actually translating in real life. So they have such a wonderful place to help us, further the goal of ending homelessness and housing instability.

So, another one that we're gonna look at are some threats. So, some threats is that there are significant racial disparities within the homeless and housing system. So once again, we know that we can create initiatives and policies to help curb those gaps. But how do we know what initiatives and policies to in place, or how do we know what those disparities are or where they are in the system? Are they in the shelters? Are they in affordable housing? Where are people not getting that access that they need? And once again, coming back to it as a data person, the data will tell us. Right? We have our wonderful LSAs. We have our wonderful pig counts.

Okay.

So our LSA is due at the end of, the year or the beginning starting at the end of the year, due in the beginning of the year, and it pulls together the all of the data in the county. And HUD through the HUD exchange, when you put the data through that, it tell you it will say that you have a 100 people entering your homeless system. And of the 100 people, 50 people of them are getting into shelters. Who are those 50 people? Why did they access the shelters? What do those 50 people look like? Then it will tell us, oh, we've got 200 people in the shelter. Only five people left. Why did only five people leave? Who were those five people, and how did they get chosen to leave?

And why is it that you've got 200 black peep I'm just making up numbers. But you have 200 black people in the county, but only two of them got housed, whereas there might be 50 white people and 50 people got housed. So this is where we find out the disparities through, our data, and that's why it's so important for us to have quality data. Because we can't go asking every single program, every single person, every single time. I should be able to look into the system and know right there.

This program right here, they're not as strong as we need them to be. Or I can see that we need more shelters because we have such an influx of people coming in. And we know through your data that there's a bottleneck in your shelter system, and people are not leaving. We need more affordable housing. And I was only able to know that from one day of looking at your data.

So imagine if we had quality data, like, the efficient work that you can make. Yeah. So and then, the last, threat that there is is that there is an unequal distribute, distribution of power, and that's between community leaders, service providers, and the community. And once again, one ways that we overcome that, and you guys are doing great at that, is having, subject matter experts come to the team. Finding those people that you did it great.

We wanna learn from you. Having the people of lived experience come to the team, like, what are we doing wrong? What are some innovative things that you've seen in other places? Or what are those issues that we just have that we just really need to take care of that we need to prioritize? So, you know, even though those are threats, we do see that you guys really are coming along together that even having the homeless task force, having CSH at the table, having people who live experience table, once again, your strength is realizing that we have a problem, and we need a solution.

So to the task force members, this is where we take a pause. You heard a lot as it relates to culture communication. And the goal is to take this information, whether it's quantitative or qualitative, and turn it into perspective around interest so then, therefore, we can move collectively in action with local government units, DOC and its membership, but then also our public profit partners, and then also our community, volunteers and then the community at large. And so if you could, can you take about three minutes, use the the dots, and based on what you've heard with culture communication, what are the three of the eight strategies that are in the report that really resonate with you as a priority? We'll take three minutes.

We will, when the time is up, we'll collect those, and then we'll start transferring some of those interests to to the greater car that's up here as it relates to culture communication. You don't want us to get up to put it ourselves. Preferably, if if you wanna stay seated trying to provide good customer service.

You wanna stay awake.

You're trying

to stay awake. So

if you

if if the we can pivot. If the group wants to get up and put their dots for culture communication on the three their three top strategies, that's great. If you wanna stay seated, we will walk around and pick up your card. So it's totally up to you. Thank you. Alright. So let's take three minutes. You you have your seat. You have your stickers. This is a great

activity by the

That's fine. That's nice.

I think I think if you still have that

Yeah. Which we don't have that. Yeah. I

was looking at that part. Then you just find it.

So it should be She's helping me do that.

You know that?

I'm just talking. Not talking.

Really? Yeah. And

we've got this stuff. Okay. It's your provider. Some of these sound very similar. So so I so I did both those. Some of these sound so similar.

Alright. Thank you, task force members. We're gonna, keep keep moving to best honor time. Take about ten seconds to transition. Thank you so much.

Speaking.

Alright. Thank you, everybody. Welcome back. For the next little bit, I just wanna talk about some of our findings and cross sector partnerships. Throughout this experience, I personally got to engage with a lot of your service providers and providers in the region. And I just wanna start with saying they showed up, and they really care about their community. So I think that's a strength that's not recognized on here. Also, just wanted to shout out Naomi for her awesome data. She did a lot of work to pull, that together and make a really comprehensive story for everyone and also showed up today here on her birthday. So Yay.

Happy birthday. Birthday.

'22. Yeah.

As I stated, you know, one of the strengths I said was that your community really showed up and your partners really showed up. They also, similar to the culture to me at Gates, described, recognize that there is a need for change. There is a need for growth, and we need to overcome some ways. They also acknowledged a great need to build capacity. We saw across the board, across the different sectors, that all of our partners are really struggling with hiring, onboarding, maintaining good staff, maintaining decent salaries to keep good staff, training that's associated with folks' positions.

I think really just capacity in general, it was a huge burden, for a lot of the providers we spoke with. In terms of some of the weaknesses or really the main weakness we were able to identify within the cross sector partnerships is there's a lack of understanding for each sector. And to kinda bring that home and help you all understand, I wanna share a story that I heard from the veteran sector, of a veteran who was successfully housed and had a child in the youth juvenile system, who was experiencing homelessness because the two systems didn't understand that the gentlemen were related. And so, you know, I think that was a really clear indication of how sometimes just a conversation can be the difference between someone having safe, sustainable housing and someone potentially spending years of their lives in their most formative years, you know, fighting for basic needs and basic shelter. And so, you know, that brings me more to the opportunities.

So some of the things that we recommend are, streamlining the cadence and the purpose of your provider meeting. So this looks like making sure there are clear goals that are collectively agreed upon, making sure, first and foremost, that your community is understanding your data and is under the narrative that that data tells and can also communicate the things that they're seeing and experiencing in the field in real time and that you all can establish collective goals around those. We also recommend that you repurpose or modify the existing meetings, to allow for more collaboration, so that you can make sure you're also doing outreach and engaging new partners. So we see a lot of, you know, a lot of the service providers we work talk to, have have really been in this game for a long time. And and, you know, I think inviting new folks to the table will only help ensure that you are being more inclusive, that your systems are more diverse, and that you're actually representative of the communities you're working in.

We also highly, highly recommend, that there are transparent forums for providers to submit feedback and to engage with the funders. Something we heard throughout, and we'll get to a little bit more in the funding section, is that providers feel like funders don't understand the communities that they're working in and the needs of those communities. Providers feel like funders don't understand the timeline that it takes between when the funding hits their account and when that funding goes towards housing somebody. And so that's also something that's really difficult for them to translate to the folks they're serving. Right?

Folks that they're serving don't understand, like, hey. I signed this paper thirty days ago. Why don't I have a unit yet? And so making sure that not only is there transparency in the communications between the systems and funders and service providers, but that also needs to be able to translate well into the communities that you're serving. Sorry. I lost my out of my tangent. Lost my note. There you go. And then we also recommend we think you have an opportunity to increase your partnerships with businesses and townships. Businesses have expertise.

They're seeing folks in your community every single day, and and they're engaging with folks in your community in a different way than seeing a service provider or a health care provider. They can be valuable to gaining community buy in, to advertising events and opportunities, to helping you all get the messaging of the programs and services you have available out there. Businesses also, you know, a lot of them have have deep pockets. They are well connected. They know folks in the community, so they can sometimes be really helpful in getting new funding streams developed or bringing money into existing funding streams.

And, also, I think improves, improved relationships with your local businesses and understanding their relationships with your community is really gonna help to decrease some of that stigma of the population of folks who may not who may be experiencing homelessness in your area. A lot of times, you know, I see, I think, something as simple as the gentleman who owns the local convenience store maybe sees 500 of your community members a day and probably knows each and every one of them by name. You know? And so pulling in those partners is absolutely valuable to understanding how your community is actually operating. And then in terms of your threats, you know, like I said, your your providers are working in silos.

They're not talking. They don't understand how each other's funding works. They don't understand how, each other they don't understand the acceptance criteria for each other's programs. And so, you know, I think even from a understanding what's available, there's a gap, but definitely understanding how to refer folks into different programs and other and other resources, is a major threat to the system. We do think that there are opportunities to create greater infrastructure that allows these agencies to be welcomed into a shared space.

We think that providing opportunities for informal and formal networking could really help folks know each other a little bit better, making sure that you are driving, coordinated and collaborative sector engagement and that you should make sure that this infrastructure any infrastructure you implement, is aligned with your existing, provider meetings because you don't what you don't wanna do is add folks who are already in 31 meetings every month, another meeting. Right? And so making sure that you're understanding their cadence and their schedule so that you can accommodate them as well. And then the last threat in the cross sector partnership section is your poor interlocal coordination. So we heard several times, that folks in Greensboro don't necessarily know what the folks in High Point are doing or if folks are getting some services in one area, but maybe move to the different service that there's almost a drop, in the information that that person has.

And so sometimes providers are having to go back and do the same work twice, get all of the same documentation all over again, and it really is just clogging the system. Some opportunities that we think could be helpful are to update required documents and policies so that COE compliance, is is standard, making sure that your written standards apply to the whole system and not just to one area of the system and that all of your system access partners are adhering to those written standards. And so, you know, that's also an increased oversight and monitoring thing. And then, ultimately, I think just improving the cross sector communication is gonna be a really key way to change the system and make sure that these intersector, we'll make sure that folks are communicating both in a space where they it doesn't matter where they are. They're not siloed, and, also, it doesn't matter which sector they're a part of, that they have access to the resources in all of Gilbert County.

Right? And so I'll leave that. I know that was a lot to kinda throw at y'all, but I'll leave that there for you. And so y'all can, yeah, Victor, turn it back over to you.

Any questions as it relates to cross sector? Just some highlights in the three areas. I see Are you ready to go? Ready now. Ready now? Yep. Alright. Any any questions about the a strategies on the interest card? So let's take about three minutes before you select your top three strategies.

Okay.

Absolutely.

Alrighty, y'all. For the sake of time, moving right along. The next thing we would like to discuss with you all is your funding. So, again, I had the privilege of engaging with folks across the system, just around their ideas and needs in terms of the funding needed to get the work done. Some strengths we saw on your system were was that you have existing funding at a county level.

And I think that's a that's a big win that may feel simple, but it's not everywhere. Right? And so knowing that you are already dedicated, you're already showing up is the first step, and I think that's a big, big move. You already have money allocated towards economic crisis, also not something we see in every community. So I think it really shows your positionality and where you stand and making sure that you want all of your community members to have the same access to stability.

And then, also, we see that the agencies have a really strong relationship with the funders. For the most part, I think pretty much every agency that I interacted with, could identify the point of contact for every funding source. They noted that they had regular meetings or meetings as necessary, and they could get questions answered as they needed. I also think, you know, they mostly for at least the ones that I spoke to, felt like the funders recognized them and were able to engage with them on a deeper level than just, solely grant or, application review. So some weaknesses that we identified were the funding alignment and priorities.

As I mentioned in the cross sector partnerships, section, a lot of the providers feel like the funding that's available is not representative of the communities that they're serving. There were some sentiments shared that providers felt like sometimes they had to, tailor the services to the funding and not to the population. And so I think that can feel pretty defeating for folks who are trying to get folks housed as quickly as possible and are trying to get the folks in their actual community, housed as quickly as possible. We also saw that there was a competitive culture for funding opportunities. And so, you know, this created a lot of, kind of resource.

I won't say wording, but the providers were really, really nervous to tell other providers what their funding sources were and where they were going to get access to resources. They were nervous to share any sort of grant, or RFA kind of guidance, with other providers because, again, these resources are competitive. And so the providers feel like they are kind of bidding against each other, to all get accomplished the same goal. We saw that there was a lack of sustainable funding. So this is something we saw quite a bit, where the where that, you know, grant cycles came out and were maybe one to five years.

And then after the five year period, that funding was no longer in existence or, you know, particularly, I think a lot of the folks I spoke to mentioned the COVID funding, which I understand is not a specifically local issue. But I think that was a prime example of an influx of funding that was able to help a lot of people and then was taken away rather quickly. And so, you know, I think that's something that providers have continued to struggle with, for for, quite some time, it seemed. And then, specifically, they called out the lack of funding for unit repair and upkeep. I will also add a note to that.

And they in addition to the lack of funding, there was a lack of timely response in requesting upkeep. So, a lot of providers felt like if they had a unit that was maintained by another entity, then it would sometimes be two to three months before maintenance personnel would set foot into that unit unit and, you know, things all point all kinds of things could go awry at that point. Excuse me real quick. So, you know, I know those were a lot of weaknesses that I just kinda threw at you, but I do think you have some opportunities within those weaknesses to really address these. And some of this, you know, could be done in a relatively quick time frame.

One of which is, I think, just, you know, coordinating your continuum of care and your lead agency and the emergency solutions grant awardees, to make sure that you are understanding ESG, and make sure that the funding streams are not, and that your programs are working together. So, again, this is gonna really rely on having a strong set of written standards and strong compliance with your written standards. You wanna make sure that you're increasing countywide, capacity and provider agencies that are interested in rapid rehousing and permanent support housing. And finally, increased countywide capacity of provider agencies interested in delivery, funds. So case management, housing navigation, and employment services.

You know, to assist with some of the competitive nature of your culture, we suggest that you improve your transparency around available funding sources, encourage partnership opportunities, recognizing that sometimes funds are limited, and that is that's the way the cookie comes, so to speak. And so making sure that you are helpful in aligning partners and resources that can work together and more closely tailor those funding sources. For a lack of public buy in and to help sustain funding, we recommend that you hold informational sessions or town halls so that you can actually gather feedback from the community and that you develop targeted marketing campaigns to increase the awareness of the need for sustained homelessness funding service. In addition to those, steps you could take, I think some of the opportunities you have, again, expand your local dollars, for folks that are typically denied. So, you know, look at your data.

Look at what all of these these system reports are telling you of who is not able to access your system and then do a deep dive into why are they why are they not able to access the systems and align your funding around removing those barriers. Again, encourage, agency feedback on your funding needs. We heard over and over again that the funding is not aligned with what the community is experiencing and the populations that are experiencing homelessness. And so making sure that you have opportunities for folks to come in and speak to you and tell you on a re in real time, this is what we're experiencing, and this is what we need. And then, also, we recommend establishing land trusts.

That can be a simple way to get land protected, to keep it deeply affordable for years and years and years to come, and it it it's relatively easy to do. Some threats that we see within your system are the funds are not being utilized to their full capacity. I believe that this is strongly because, the funds don't represent the populations experiencing homelessness. There's also, low funding capacity, and it's creating system barriers. So, again, your providers are all competing.

They're trying to all do the work, but they, you know, are experiencing capacity and funding issues, so they can't funnel it down to the people who need the resources. So, you know, we wanna make sure that we are allowing folks to apply on a rolling basis for applications as needed. We wanna make sure that we have funds available to support the onboarding of additional staff and not just onboarding additional staff, but seeing it through making sure these staff are well trained, making sure that they understand the communities that they're working in, and making sure that our practices are trauma informed and based on a harm reduction model. And finally, I'll just say that we wanna make sure that we are encouraging people with lived experience to participate in all parts of this planning process and any sort of funding allocation, or decision making moving forward. Thank you.

Thanks,

ma'am. With that, we are going to take a brief pause and pull up the latest dashboard and concerns with the survey on fund, the section on funding here. And they always come along to that. So give us just a sec.

And so as the dashboard is pulled over to the task force, there was a request to understand across the entire county where we were with your private dollars, state, local, as well as federal dollars. And so, CSH has delivered on that with a funding dashboard. And, of course, we appreciate our COC membership and partners for participating in this. A recognition that if we continue this level of dashboarding as it relates to funding, that there are some ongoing maintenance in keeping that up and getting that information. But most importantly, this helps us be more data directed in regards to leveraging dollars and directing those those, out to the community for stated services.

And so back to CSH.

Alright. So we created so we created a financial dashboard to identify understand the array of services and the related funding that's being dispersed within the, within the homeless within the county. It wasn't just the homeless sector. So it was spearheaded by Deirdre, and she had this wonderful idea of really to get the get some gain some insight to what are the overlapping funds and the services that are being brought into the community. Once again, we met we mentioned that this is a to solve homelessness, it is a cross sector job.

We need everyone at the table. And everyone is getting different funding and everyone is providing different services, but we're not talking to understand what are you providing? What are you providing? What are you providing? And we know that homelessness, with the AAR report, we understand homelessness has doubled.

And we know that it is expected to increase even more within the year. So we have to understand where's the money? Who where are the services? Where are we putting money out for people to do the same thing, but they're not effective at it? So this is the idea of the, the financial survey is to really understand where we can create those partnerships and be the most efficient and effective with limited resources.

So what happened was we initially sent out a cross sector survey. And as Liam mentioned with one of the weaknesses is that there really is low trust in the community to give out their financial resources. They don't wanna respond with how much money they're getting or where they're getting it from. And we found that out especially when we did the cross sector. So we pulled it back because a lot of the responses we were getting, were not useful.

People did not wanna relinquish that information. And it's understandable because, you know, we're reaching out to the health sectors, behavioral health, and they don't even understand the homeless system. And they're not even partners with the COC for us to be asking them very intimate information, and it's gruesome and burdensome to get all financial data. So we pulled it back, and we did survey within the homeless and housing sector to understand where are the local dollars going, where what services are people putting out. And it goes hand in hand with the resource dashboard as well, but these are two separate dashboards that we did.

So on this first tab here, this is information that was given to us with the county and then both Greensboro and High Point. And what this is looking at, it's looking at where we where are the ESG funds going? Where are the ARP, ARP money, HOPWA, HUD? And you can see that as from the beginning that CSH steps here, we understand that there's a disparity between resources in High Point versus resources in, Greensboro. And here shows it.

Greensboro does get a good amount of the resources, and the grant grant money. And it could be that it's that they have the population, but we you know, that's something that using data, we can determine where those dollars should be going. So at the bottom, you can see the agencies that are getting the funding and how much funding those agencies are getting. I just wanna make let you know that this information that we got here, we did not get back in the surveys as well. So people that were answering the surveys weren't giving us these dollars.

They weren't, willing to relinquish that. So this was I just brought this together to really kind of fill the gaps to see where is Guilford County, where is High Point, and where is, Greensboro? Who are they giving their money to? And what are the people doing with the money? And when we get back into the SWOT analysis, we'll understand how to hold people accountable for if you're getting grant money.

If you're getting taxpayers dollars, I expect that you do the hard work. And so with this analysis, we wanna see how many emergency shelter how much money is going into emergency shelters versus how much money is going in to preventative care? How much money is going into SOAR, which links people to benefits? And does it make sense for your community? Does it make sense that your shelter program, gets less than operations? Does it make sense, sorry. I'm a day older now, so my eyes

immediately can't see anything.

So, so that's one of the things we can do here. And as we get more efficient with the data and we start getting more data in and understanding the partners at the table when we share data, it can do great things. Because if this was all the data and I understood that that operations was making making that much money and that we have a housing hotline that's also making a good amount of money, but then also understanding what do those services do? What outcomes is the housing hotline giving you guys? What positive outcomes?

What effective? What progressive? And so you look at those things and you determine, wow. That's a lot of money. And they we gave them a million dollars, and they saved us two. So you can make data, data decisions that way. And then we can also see the grant totals towards the right here, and we can see where are we getting where are you guys getting most of the money from. And a lot of that is also dependent on your data, your LSAs. LSAs. What are you what are you saying we have the need for?

And we did get a beautiful little snapshot of it, and we know that with the data quality issues that, it does not depict what's happening on the grounds. It's not depicting the need. And so, hopefully, with adjusting those, we'll make sure that, you know, HUD you guys get the appropriate funding, to make sure. And that's what it comes down to. If the data doesn't if the data is showing that you guys solved homelessness, then you don't you don't need much money. You know? You guys are great. Did it. But if the data is showing that, you know, with a million dollars and an increase of a population that we're not able to meet that bottom line, then you get in more funding.

Can you tell the task force where the the deficit is as it relates to funding allocations? And then where where are we as a community duplicating or overfunding?

So because with the if we continue It's the right survey no. If we go to the survey tab alright. So when we look at this more, we can kind of look at the survey is done at a program level. That's how HMIS works. That's because an agency can get a bunch of different fundings for a different program.

So it's at a program level. And so here, we can see the services from the surveys that are being provided. And so we can see the populations that are mostly being served, and we can also see the services. So we know that there's an influx of families coming in, and so there should be an increase of programs servicing family populations. Here, we can see that a majority of them are adult men, male veterans, and male veterans with substance abuse disorder.

And then when we look at families with children, we can see six. So once again, we come back to the data. And we understanding that this is not an exhaustive list of every single program that's in the community, but what this tells me just from looking at that when the data is saying that most of our homeless and, people are increasing our families, but the programs out there are not supporting that. Where are families going? Where are they getting services?

You know? So you have to really question that. Like, if the numbers are telling me there's not that many, then what are they doing? Like, how are they making it? And then we can see here the services that are being provided. We see housing is a great is, we have a lot of housing. We have case management, which which should be going hand in hand with the housing. But, also, where are safety nets? Our family services only two. You know?

When we're looking at eviction prevention, only two. Where are the where is the prevention when we're trying to work upstream? Like, I don't even want you to fall into homelessness. I don't want you to I don't wanna see you in my sis in the homeless system at all. So how can I even stop you from calling that hotline center or saying, like, having to sleep on the streets with your family? It's getting those upstream and preventative services, and we can see here that we need more of them. SOAR benefits. There's two programs that do SOAR benefits. Has anyone ever done a Social Security application? It's absolutely ridiculous.

And then the expectation is that you're gonna get denied on your first go around so that you're gonna have to link to legal, and there's only one. You're gonna have to link to legal to get you through that entire legal process, and you're gonna need a partnership with the medical to get those services. So this is kind of showing us, like, where are those gaps? And does it make sense with the data that we're getting in with the influx of families? And that's not even talking about, like, the immigration population, influx of people coming in and unaccompanied youth.

And kids are expected to age out of the foster system. So when we're looking at our funding survey and we look at our pit count, we look at our LSAs, does it make sense? You know, are you putting the money in the right programs? And then once again, like, as we do talk about system and performance in the swap, we'll talk about, like, are the programs are they doing what they need to be doing? Are we monitoring and evaluating them? Are we holding them accountable? Because I know taxpayers wanna know, you got a million dollars. Do you know what I could do with a million dollars? I could probably I feel like I could solve homelessness with a million dollars of my own. Not really, but I

could try.

But just saying, like, we are accountable to the taxpayer dollars who in my in my paycheck, in everything I do, taxes are getting taken out. And all I'm seeing is homelessness increasing. And then I'm worrying that housing is increasing. My pay hasn't increased because the minimum wage here is $7.25. So when the average house is about, I think, 1,400 for a one bedroom here, what is $7.25 gonna get you?

What is $7.25 gonna get you with three children in a safe neighborhood with transportation next to a great school and a wonderful medical system and great job opportunities? So it's just really kind of pulling all of the data together, and that's kind of what we had to try and do with this is figure out, like, where is all the data at? Because it's not being held in one space. Everyone's holding their own data, and we just need to share it because I don't want you know, Sherry's got a wonderful story of all of the data that's happening in the county. But then, you know, this agency has has this different information, and this agency has a different information.

So now I've got 20 different stories. So this is just our attempt to really try to bring it together to understand based on the low the low, response for the surveys, but then also thanks to the county and the cities for giving us that financial data. This is what it's really looking like. And then at the bottom, you can also see the agencies specifically. Is there, these are the ones that responded, and you can see, some agent agencies have multiple different, programs.

But when we look at that, like, I'm so thankful for the people that did take the time out. So you guys should give those people kudos for thank you for relinquishing your data. Thank you for letting us in and understanding. But when we look at the agencies too, we wanna see are after a while, like, are we giving certain agencies more money? Is another agency doing better at something than someone is and not getting as much money? Who has more capacity? Who has more subject matter expert? Because at this point, we definitely wanna give everyone a little bit of money because we you say, I I believe in you. I want you to try. We need more community people.

But with limited resources, you just have to be a little bit more efficient with it. Who's doing the best job? Who has the best capacity? And who has the data to back it up? And so, hopefully, with this financial survey, it's a way to kind of, just see the, difference between the agencies that are getting money, where the money is coming from, and where the money is going.

Thank you for that. And so we did not have this a year and a half ago. And so what this means is we think about what is the move forward plan, if there is a funding committee or work stream that we will be able to work across the county with our two municipalities and private funders to further analyze this and come down with recommendations on where are the gaps. And then, also, I think they heard loud and clear performance based contract and levels of of of accountability reporting, but and also, exploring what does it look like for incentives. And so thanks to CSH for getting us started on this. Great information to get us more data directly.

Yes.

Well, it's a link. It's not a it's a link to a dashboard, so we can provide the, it's a link you'll have to use because this is done through Tableau. Right? Yeah. Yeah. So it'll be a link. And it's not public.

I just wanna make sure everyone knows this is very sensitive information. This is not

a public facing dashboard. We

will have access to the information. We'll work through legal to figure out the best approach to get it out to the test. Good information. Great. You.

Can I get your name

again? Naomi. Naomi.

I just wanted to just clarify for Naomi. The birthday lady. Naomi, quick question.

Did the data that you collected, dear, does that include the students that that are defined under the Guinea Jays level? Those families? Okay. I just wanted to make sure that we were clear about that as well. So Yeah.

And that's such an important distinguishing, our McKinney Vento homelessness versus our house homelessness.

Thank

you, Mr. Chairman. Now, yeah, that was terrific. It really was terrific. And we know that if we don't have the right data, we can't make the right decisions. Did I hear you just surmise Families. That's that's the segment that's in most needy, and it's not being served as well.

Well, based on the data right

I know you were across the board, but I picked up on that because well, go ahead. Ask.

Families are our number one increased pop increasing population nationwide, and those numbers have doubled. So what and we want to know in order for us to really understand what's happening in Guilford, we need those oh, sorry. For us to really understand what's happening in Guilford, we understand that the numbers we got were not accurate. They weren't up to date. So we really wanna understand.

And and like she mentioned, McKinney Vento, those are the that's partnering with our schools to understand the families that are doubled up. Because not all families are in shelters. Some are in cars. Some have you know, can have eight people in one bedroom, which is not a housing standard that we would we like to aim for. So the McKinney Vento is going to raise that number even higher.

And so, really, we should be looking at increasing family services. But once again, your data is gonna also let us know, like, how many individual men, how many people are coming out of the, are returning citizens. With obviously, nobody knows what to do with the immigration population now, but we also understand that there are influx of influx of immigration population even, unaccompanied minors. We know that the way that the system is going now with our families, being in the system, we're gonna have more foster youth. So what are we gonna do for our foster youth?

So you can use your data to say this is what's happening now. It's our point in time. It's just a snapshot of today, but also a trajectory of if this is what's happening today, what are we gonna expect that's happening tomorrow, and let's

just get ahead of it. So will you continue to update this and we'll get feedbacks like on this? I mean, I see this sort of a sampling of what's happening now. Yeah. I didn't hear a reference to the aging population. We've noted in the last few years they've been priced out rental or ownership. So did you?

So there was I think there was, like, one program that responded that gave senior services. We also did do we speak to senior?

We had one.

Yeah. And I think Like, there

wasn't that many Yeah. Senior even in creating the resource dashboard in our senior, there wasn't that many senior senior resources. But then also another wonderful place that we didn't get to dive much is what is the medical field doing for that senior population? Because we know a lot of funding for that is tied to Medicare and, like, some Medicaid sources. So where are where are the senior population going? Because according to the data, we're not really seeing that much senior services in the community.

There has been, to your point, there is an increase with our our seniors that are unhoused and how they where they're residing, what's happening. And so, I think that's to your point, Commissioner Keshe, it's a larger discussion as well. Seniors and our, our when we talk about our youth and our families are probably those. You see you're seeing those increases. I I remember, I think, about a year ago, was having a conversation with you all about how we were getting even contacted where people were 70 years old that were living in their home because they needed to tell, you know, they had down price and no other choice.

And you, of course, we remember when people were just losing their housing because of the influx of the rent prices and people were just trying to figure it out. That issue hasn't been resolved. I just think this looks a little different in that population, but we definitely see have seen an increase with seniors being unhoused or being displaced in our community.

And I was just gonna say, like, I my Uber driver was a 72 year old gentleman, and he was saying he's like, they have so much nice housing coming up. And I was like, I know. Looks great. And he said, well, they're supposed to be affordable. And I was like, oh, yeah. I was like, what's affordable to you? And he's like, not the same for them. And I was like, well, what's affordable to you? And he said, well, right now, I'm paying $800 to rent from a private landlord. And he's like, and that's the most I can do.

I was like, $800? I was like, well, we've got some work to do because on average, you know, a one bedroom apartment here does not cost $800. So if that's affordable to you, then what does affordable housing look like in Guilford County? And that's a senior, person. But it's always sometimes sad when you see like, I mean, '72 is really not it's not that old.

But you just want them like, in those times, like, you shouldn't be worrying about housing security. I shouldn't have to see you working morning, night in an Uber to make ends meet, and it's sad. You know? So you question, like, I hope you're gonna be okay in a few months, you know, because things are changing. And affordable housing to some people that make decisions is not affordable housing to the people that have to live here.

That's perfect. So just

wanna say thank you to CSH for that funding dashboard. Commissioner Cashion, to hear you loud and clear what the correlation of funding for families and how does that show up. As we go throughout the section for programs, there is a strategy that bubbled up as it relates to programs for families, So just FYI, that's that is with later discussion. So there is a correlation. If we could, if the chairs are okay, we'll just take a ten minute break. We're happy to improve. And if you could, identify your top three strategies for funding and while while we're at this point. Greatly appreciate it. Good.

Simon, now.

Starting to get

You got you got your flow now.

Will be great. So so we What I love about CSH is it's taught me that we are all very different.

You know, she's