Commission on Aging - Regular Meeting

My title is not CSC executive director, but board chair.

Perfect. We'll note that in the minutes that for Aaron Strapper Owens, the title should reflect COC board chair, not COC executive director. Thank you.

And it needs to also reflect with, Renita Sands and Doctor. Palmer as your past COC chair. K.

So the minutes for Renita Sims will show COC past chair, and Doctor. Palmer has past chair as well. K. Let the minutes reflect those changes in the side, though, those pieces that were mentioned. Are there any other adjustments to the minutes?

If not, then we'll entertain a motion to adopt. Motion was made by commissioner Cash in the second by commissioner Foster. Any discussion on the motion? All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Any against? The ayes have it, and we have our minutes. Thank you all so much. Wanna acknowledge chairman of Austin being here with us, one of our tribe chairs, as well as mayor Vaughn being with us, one of our tribe chairs. We appreciate you all being being with our governor. We know that you got all the money out of. Tried on this. All the issues. So If if if if not, your target is an excuse. No.

We're we're we're gonna jump into our strategic planning update. For that, I have to pass it back to our assistant county manager, Victor Hissler, for a review of shared strategic interest areas and review of our twenty day action items. Alright.

Again, thank you, mayors and the task force for the time, this afternoon. Definitely wanna spend some time to this task force sharing with you, your perspectives that you created during the year and share our experience and you've also took the time to identify your two different areas. And so as we go through this presentation, definitely, I hope that

you can see that we

were building, towards directions and action. And so it guides you when the conversation you have is in your packet. And it says, your county homeys task force update fatigue in 06/25. Alright. So let's get started. As stated, during my last task force meeting, we were able to hear from corporations supportive housing and Maya Satsu. She is on virtually. We just wanna go to the bridge as well as to meeting in person. However, recognition that when you heard the share out, it was comprehensive. However, we were able to feel from you as it relates to your interest areas as we went through six areas of the study.

Based on that, I do wanna share where we have trending consensus, and then I wanna talk with you about the next action steps as it relates to taking this information to NC five zero four, which is our CDC sounding, and then also after the community for a line report. So another thing that I wanna note is is that, this is a requirement of, leadership in a collaborative way. And what we recognize is is that there are multiple government government units that are associated, with this work when we start talking about the one house. First and foremost, the federal government, who has designated NC five zero four, the COC, as the lead entity, for on on hire services. As we go through the slide deck, please note that the interest area that you selected, if you see a single asterisk beside beside it, that means that NC 504, our CLC and Delaware County, runs to leave a point on that based on policies and procedures from the federal government, as it relates to process.

As you see asterisk where there are two indicators, that means that there are ways for us to collaborate. And then if you don't see any, definitely what that means is is that there's opportunity for all of them. So what you've recognized on the culture communications that there is a need for a countywide strategic plan, I am pleased to announce that as we move forward, we're talking about strategic interest areas in this conversation today, that on the March 6, there is gonna be a share out with the NC five zero four COC for membership to then get their feedback around their interest areas as well. Conversation with our COC chair as it relates to, hopefully, within the next ninety days post March 6, there will be a strategic plan that will be developed, in that will be built upon this study as well as other information like the gaps analysis. And so the COC wants to take about ninety days to develop their strategic plan, incorporate perspective and information from this space, and then hopefully we can have consensus and and a true move forward.

Also, resonated was a need for collaborative leadership and a framework with that, which is what we're building today. Ideally, what we wanna see ninety days from today is a plan that both municipality, the county, and NC 504, can share, can be proud of, and also invest in. Also, making sure that individual So

if do we expect our city our city councils, county commissioners to vote to accept the claim?

So we have to talk about voting as a elections task force because there is a subcommittee of the public county. And so, ideally, this task force, which has representation, should should be aligned with the with the PSC five zero four, COC around. And so as that claim is is finalized from the COC, it it is my interest in recommendation that they bring it back for this task for this review, which has representation across all jurisdictions.

However, open and open and can

make a perspective on how it moves. Recognizing also that there may be some legal share out within the the jurisdictions or municipalities municipalities back to back to the houses and also our commission. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. And so those with lived experience as leaders, and so how do we make sure that there is space for those, in that category to to be represented as it relates to leadership.

MOUs and MOAs were key stakeholders. Of course, you see an asterisk here. What that means is is that n c five zero four should be moving in a space to where there's an MOU or potentially an MOA with our with our local hospitals. So when we think about Atrium Health, Novant, as well as Cone, there's an opportunity to frame out MOAs to support the work, particularly when we start talking about medical risks that you're gonna hear more about next today. But imagine MOUs in key areas, particularly as it relates to those discharging from the ED, that you need to continue to support.

Definitely, we're gonna lean into our community based organization that is doing medical respite, but how do we have formal MOAs for our key touch points across the community? Education could be an opportunity as well, within our school system. How do we engage those, that are civic minded and also our our foundations, our within the community, our volunteers, leaning deeply again with our COC, making sure that there is a process for all our volunteers across the county so we we be engaged. The other piece is policy and data directed practice. Dashboarding, is important, and then performance based contracts and funding alignment.

I did put two asterisks beside this space here because what we heard from previous task force members is we look at our municipalities and different funding to support that unhoused, that's separate from NC five zero four. There is a recognition around how can we get alignment and also have same measures of success as well as expectations. We heard it loud and clear early on. And so there's two asterisks beside that because I think we have to explore, and Mayor Bond, you in my opinion, particularly as it relates to, how how a contractor would be developed to have the same measures and specification, and and reporting, processes. And so that's in the section across sector partnerships.

The other piece is funding. You expressed the need to have a rate of funding plan, and when you look at the federal and state dollars, as it sits today with the e z five zero four, it's supposed to 3,000,000. We recognize in order to do this, will is gonna require profit and also public dollars. And so how do we work across all jurisdictions, local government units, as well as our foundations and also private donors to really drill a rated funding plan around some of our service problem rates. That that is a mutual, alignment where we have to partner to do that.

Cross jurisdictional priorities and funding. Again, we heard loud and clear at the beginning of this, and we wanna make sure that we don't duplicate services and that, we are not necessarily putting money to fund two things, but making sure that there are multiple opportunities to stretch our dollars as much as possible. And so there is a conversation around the multiple pots particularly with our cities and then also with our COC, funding plan for, NOFO as as well as ESG to make sure we don't duplicate. So there's some some deep housekeeping work that has to take place there. Implement land trust and housing trust to promote affordability.

Definitely thinking about housing development, going further upstream. This task force has been extremely clear that when we look at community development, that we really wanna know that people can move from the price of service all the way to being housed and how are we developing that that pipeline later. Housing inventory. You have consensus around supportive housing, and so we share with that around the strategies to to do that as a best practice from the COC, but then also, looking at your government units, how do we make sure that we are, supporting that that service line, which is extremely critical to move people from the emergency status. Full implementation of housing first principles.

That's standard in practice, again, led by, our COC. Exploration and implementation of alternative housing, was a a a interest area of this task force. Reduced plans for lots in dilapidated buildings, leveraged new mark market tax credit, and then going further upstream as it relates to housing, and then rent reasonableness and also landlord engagement. We do have some work that the county has funded already on the ARPA funds to support landlord engagement. However, how do we continue to do that county wise, the same that once our all are

going to phase out? But allow me

to ask a question here.

What are

the reason for this? How do we even begin to navigate that?

So there's a conversation around landlord engagement. Right? And so how do you explore landlords that have a particular interest in market share for those that are are below living wage or heavy? And so how do they make investments with that? What we have learned so far with our work, with our industry mitigation and also the member engagement coordinator is that a lot of it is about reducing stigma, but also building that network health that are all putting newness to those that fit in the social economic status. And so it is about building that network. Sherry, I know that you have a lot of conversations, with our language engagement specialists who you like to to share with.

Yes. So I think a lot of

it also, not just well that we don't always reach.

K. So to be clear, we're not talking about. And

so

But you could talk about, as a community, how we can offer offer incentives so that we can have, like, boards to be a worker and function. That's really the big what we found in a huge thing is that we need to do some incentives to work with some of the agencies that are around in our community now have been executing some on this front, and I know that we can talk about it as well. But how great that has been to be able to work with. Think those are pieces that we've covered.

Mhmm. Yeah. You on this particular topic, you may wanna engage the Bowling Institute to get the research. Think most people we have seen in that talk about the the for the the need for How You know, what most of us have seen, and I've been in the room with a few of you when we've done a presentation or presentation But we engaged them earlier this week, and there's several different levels that they went into. I think what today, this kind of surface of what they did.

Mhmm. So we talked about the very topic of some of getting the stock of our affordable units. Mhmm. Some of the wait list, and we expect the the challenges that we face. So some of that that data may be as accessible to, but not.

So we actually had a conversation with Caroline. Well, they have

a presentation for it now. Okay. Mister, Mike, I had also a good news. I'm saying we do need probably need to have a thousand of our that are not going around this state. It's also in Greensboro around this state.

They have thousands of vouchers that they can't use, and we thought they don't have any place to file the the incentive. So those are that's one of the way we might be able to get in getting landlords whether or not they will start taking section eight vouchers for some of their housing, 10% of their housing, whatever it might be, and what incentive that might be, we might need to explore that. Because that's money and opportunities that sit in there. Let's not be. They get to clean their income and their rent.

And that's what I said to make our balance sheet will do. And they're not home every day. They're not in trouble. They're confused about paying up and playing better. That's the stigma. That's the patch. But that's not the case in 7987. And

so I just wanna bring to the task force, one of just further awareness that, ideally, as we move forward in action as a community, that if housing inventory serves as a growth stream, that the depth of the conversation that just took that just took place has to be flushed out by by Falls County to to really talk about, well, what does rank reasonable in this new in your county? Also, a level of understanding as it relates to supportive housing, where are opportunities as it relates to land or either community based organization that might be more in a space. And so this is a good time to talk about the value of a subcommittee or a work stream as it relates to having a a a a chair or a subcommittee chair, to make sure that there is a team that is flushing out further tactics associated with these three buckets that you see associated with. And so, please note that as the COC brings back very important points from the study that we do need to have a deep conversation around how do we convene groups to then help us move forward in flushing out tactics that will go below these strategies that it technically would be the the call to action.

And you can't figure out how to face community because they're looking about

Talk about reuse plans. Are there lots where we can have a conversation with our local housing authorities that can help offset costs as it relates to their projected development expenses? And, technically, those those sites can be developed in partnership with the housing authority. And so when we start talking about the reuse of of existing parks and planes, there's an opportunity there. We can also negotiate and bring you to the table. Yes. Happy to present to help what you're. Regarding

if we could make a mark there, I do know that, you know, as we engage some of the builders and developers, you know, trying to meet that that threshold or trying to meet the percentage mark to make this work out so that the builders can be a bit comfortable. That may be something that we can have to pass. I know in some of our discussion with the legislators, it was potentially moving that percentage into place that could help us achieve it. But, I mean, ultimately, we would have to get we didn't feel we had to build out that stock out just so we can accomplish, you know, this portion of this this strategy. So there may be some point that we can make within that discussion also research from the legal side to to talk to how

to combat that. That's a great point. Monday was a good opportunity for them to hire our government adviser to speak with our local different county delegation, and I

would imagine having them not have been interested in some specific fact that the

college can almost sense or something. Thank you. So,

you know, begin to think about, and we'll follow-up, but to understand who from the communities to serve on the various teams, associated with these forest streams. Programs. What we heard from you is there's consensus that we need to replace our services for the youth. So making sure that, there is availability, particularly in the emergency services space. And so how do we evaluate what needs to be expanded in partnership with the COC, as you see, at Ashford Fair.

Also, coordinated entry with crisis services, increased programs for families. You heard earlier as it relates to capacity, appreciate the YWCA and work that you're doing, but, we know that we need more beds for families. Housing stability and diversion on services. A lot of conversation has taken place post COVID around what is diversion. Is it cashing in to being offset rent?

Is it utility assistance in your move? Is it funds to support your move? How do we further frame that out for the for for our community? And then last but not least, under programs, and you heard this as well in the mission moment, real time shelter availability using data analytics to do that and then also being really clear on prioritization. And so right now, we we do know there's somewhat of a fragmented experience as it relates to understanding what things are going on and how can we move to to a dashboarding perspective and aspect.

The last component of the of the workstream, framework is systems performance. Wanna do some data dive around culture and also, performance in regards to dashboards. So working with the community and the COC on that. Robust, homeless management information system capabilities, utilization, and data sharing. So we wanna make sure that we can support our c s COC in truly maximizing the h HMIS system, which also dovetails to the last box to your right, which is funding for smaller organizations for licenses to be within the HMIS system.

And so we have to recognize that some of our organizations are extremely grassroots, and that, funding is needed to to help them get plugged in and and to play well and to share data. And then also working with the CDC around data quality standards and supporting it. And so, this is where you have the Task Force. I'm based on the feedback and live exercise that took place. As we move forward, and I guess I'll pause for a minute to say, what aligns? What we go what what what is missing in in this conversation and presentation around your your express future circumstances?

Thank you for that. I believe we're being asked based on what we've seen here in the presentation. We also have a packet here to to presume that stands out, something perhaps as a gap or something you've been missing or

a concern or question

you didn't ask for staff at this time?

I would never out and say it's a lot. Mhmm. Mhmm.

It's absolutely a lot. And and when we did the exercise last week,

it was tough trying to

pick and prioritize because there

were some good things that's on the list.

So I I I'll be interested, I guess, because I I know I hear what you said. COC is bringing back some very interesting points that they're going through here with this. I've been very curious. Also, just to to our COC folks, I can't recall. Did did y'all participate

in this exercise with us, Aaron? Did

I'm sure I'm getting ahead of myself here, but just based on what what you see, does it feel like there's gonna be some alignment with what COCC this file is?

I I can't I mean, the whole process is huge. We had options. I think that we're on the right track, but I am I'm the only person who work. So I am anxious to see what this. Yes,

ma'am. So, you know, this is an awful lot to to consider, and I would probably need to digest it. You know, it really does come back to housing and the lack of inventory that we have. And, you know, when we talk about increasing the capacity from the support of housing, I know that's something that we've worked on for a while that hasn't this hasn't happened. And then full implementation of the housing first principle, I know that's something that the city 100% agrees with.

I know it's HUD's best strategy. Problem is you have to have a house and a part of something to put you on there. And we just we're we're just just struggling with that at this point, that there just are not those entry level units. And maybe what we need to do is have our you know, we we had our nonprofit in the table. Now maybe we need to bring our builders to the table and say, you know, we can assist some ways maybe with infrastructure or with subsidies, but without people putting units online, we really there's not a whole lot we can do.

We we do have a bigger volume in anticipation from my perspective with SADA. We will continue to to build out the strategies in alignment with the CEO system, but also recognize that we will have to identify a those things first framework and then figure out because the scale is so broad, how do we move forward with a a multi year plan? And so as we hear from the COC, we might get back. We were gonna have to get deeper into some work around what is it that we do first that then, as you say, that I'm hearing you, not aligned with going bad. Where do we make that initial investment that then creates an opportunity for work?

There are ways to offer comes

Yeah. I I know you've got this next part here, which is gonna kinda talk a bit about COC. I I wanna up your stuff in just knowing the section that talks about funding, which has quite a bit about braided funding, cross jurisdictional priorities, and alignment. Those are those are it sounds like key pieces. Right?

Each governing body and figuring out how we pool resources together to work towards a very collaborative competency aims. Part of what was sort of swirling in my mind here is at some point, we'll we'll need to begin to sequence how we're going after each of these priorities, and there's some things that's low hanging fruit. There's some things that are bigger. There's also some things that everything else will be contingent on. In some ways, it feels like a lot of which might have been here is contingent on if we as governing bodies can't figure out a way to to pull resources together. So I imagine at some point, there'll be some conversations amongst that. If there's something that gets pitched back to the governing board to figure that part out, how how would that be in

the c o c c

o c's group and talk Okay. You wanna transition to what's next? Hoping to any other feedback around

I'm not sure we'll. Yes, please. Okay. I just wanted to offer to you. I know you also have got new units, but, also, was some of the people that were talking about things.

Right? So that was happening when issues were happening with our and it would be put on their house or whatever happened, but they can't afford it anymore. So she she got her moving right. That is a she she's, how we can move forward. And I think communities that have made this work is because the jurisdictions did get together.

They decided to get this and to be able to have housing that was gonna be, like you said, reasonable for people because I think you talked about, like, being affordable. You know, lots and lots of working class folks that are happening to homelessness because they're being displaced by these. I mean, I even talk about a homeowner who's getting in situation where her rent is in just in the last year went up $400. Well, everybody doesn't have an extra support system to be able to take the.

That that is a good point. We totally wanna say thank you. And there, it's always. We also appreciate the chair of Martin's and. So thank you so much. I I just wanna double check here. We got some folks online, and I know we're not using microphones, but in case folks online are having any issues with hearing or have anything you need us to repeat, just let us know. I I believe the CSH team is online, and we appreciate you you all being with us. So just chime in at any point you need to.

Yes, ma'am.

One of the things that I wanted to just point out is under the programs, I would have liked no seed prevention on there.

I think it is the most cost effective by the drug's to prevent people from becoming unhealthy in the first place. So that's something I think we need to talk about as a community. You have a tool for a good job with that.

Yeah. That's that's a great point. Is is any of that implied? Because I'm seeing increased services from youth, increased programs, families. Is is prevention implied in in either one

of those? Right. So yesterday. So there was only so many words that you can involved and go go visual aid. However, you do have your in-depth peers that are outside the details of your strategy. And so and you are absolutely for a preventionist in your use the words severely, but but I gotta hear more.

And and just just remind us, Shanna Reese from service med Service Center Medical Respite. Did I say that right?

Sir, yes. The clinic service center. Shanna Reese. Yes.

Sorry. Medical Respite doing way off. I'll be talking I'll be talking about this. Service center. Okay. Sorry. I I will take you, ma'am. Pleasure to meet you, buddy.

Good to meet you. Yep.

Any any other thoughts from our task force here or anyone at the of room? Any other thoughts before we transition?

And Jennifer also spoke about talking about the. One of them was talking about their situation Yep. And how they last time. Just not. Talked about it.

That's a we need to have a house authority. Can be a gap. They might be in a health fund instead of them paying $800 month. They're take care of all of the rent for that. Already paying 500. The landlord goes up to 800. Now can we ask the household or if they give a voucher for another 300? If it's possible. I don't know. But that stuff, that gap, and that's keep that family in that house and not being big. K?

Well, they're so upset to your phone. Afterward, you're okay. Too busy that I can do is what you're saying.

That's what I'm

saying if it's possible.

But what what I would like to say is that there are some things they can do that they don't do or won't do that could prevent some of these things from happening because they have their own internal rules and regulations, let's say, that they're they're strictly enforced. So a matter of five minutes can determine whether the family remains housed or not housed based on when the sheriff's notes are gonna be. Right. So we have been have seen situations where we have cobbled together the funding to help keep that family in that home. And because they didn't get an email at a specified time, the family ended up where you think, which makes no sense.

So there are some things with the housing authority that we can have conversations about as we're working in the community trying to clean people house. The other thing that I would say is that the wheels of what we do move very slowly. In the meantime, and in between times, people are being evicted every day. Or they're moving every day because they can no longer afford it or because something has happened with that family dynamic that forces them not to be. And so I would say that as we look at this, I mean, we've been talking about playing this, refusing playing, and all this stuff for three or four years now as we move in a duration, not doing any casting any dispersion to the ground process.

But the process to me is constructive. And so if we don't get a move on, if we don't start moving quickly, we are very good at putting up signs and doing things like that in the road where we say where people can't ask for money. But we're slow about saying how we're gonna help them and invent their plans for money. And so I would just say that as we move through this process, let's not belabor all of this. Because we're not learning anything new in any process that we are not even.

We're we're painfully aware of all of this. And so I just we're causing us to not shed our feet on this because winter's here and summer's coming, but we have a dynamic going on at the federal level that's gonna impact a whole lot of them if we don't move. So I I I think this is great work. I I think that the way that we've divided it up with programming and all of that is good. There's some of us already working in those spaces, but there needs to be more.

And at this point, as an organization, we have not totally come together to determine how we can leverage our dollars with each other, much less adding new components into what it is. So I know that you guys very busy, and I appreciate that. So what I would like to see you do is use it. Use that receipt. If it comes down to where you talk to landlords and we we do some very courageous things around rent control or some courageous things around a new person buys a property, and then the rent goes up 500, 600, $700.

That's not good for the community. So, you know, that's one of the conversations I think we need to be having. We can't do this all with new money. It doesn't work. Because the more money you put in it, the more money you're gonna have to put in it because the more reliant folks become on the system to help solve the problem. And that's not feasible in our in our mind. So I would just say, you know, let's not hesitate under this. Let's move forward with all due speed. Whatever we're gonna do, we're either gonna do it, or we're gonna say it's not something we can take out take on at this particular meeting. So I I know

the city of Greensboro, I think Gilbert County both invested considerable resources in our last budget for eviction conversion. It would be good to get a report out to see what's happened with that money and how many people wanna be able to keep house because the best way to avoid homelessness is to keep people in their homes, which is why we push the addiction diversion program and. Sure. And the city of Greensboro is the right of right now working with the county on a possible collaborative, which I think would be an exciting announcement for some permanent supportive housing and that there is some interest from the private sector to help fund it. We can't fund it all.

Maybe between the three of us, we can get this project done, but, you know, we have been approached by private individuals with significant resources. So we are trying to work on it as a collective.

And let me say also, Gerald, that's why we wanna have a monthly meeting that we report out where we have some action items instead of waiting three or four months before we report out and we're gonna come back and get some more information on our own. But every month, we should have action items that we want to report out at the next meeting of what we've done based on what we said we're gonna do at this meeting. That's why we wanted to see dual ministry. What are you all doing? What are some of the plans that you all doing? Service center. Okay. What are you all doing? You're building up the building on roadblocks. When would that be open?

What else do you need us to do? Bees Chapel Road, let's report out. When would that be available? Okay? What else do we need to do in order to speed it up if possible? So we wanna report out every month, and then we wanna be able to take on another challenge. Like I said, bringing in the housing authority and seeing how we might be able to collaborate with some of those, sexual day vouchers to stop people from being evicted if it's possible. K? So you you all got on board. Good words, hard words, let us say them truth

Yes. To power. Well, chairman, thank you. I I wanna go

ahead and transition now y'all. There's a few more pieces here to talk about our essential action items for the next hundred and twenty days. Mister Islay, if if you'll give us the high level view of those so we can get you to our next pieces. Also, just note that I think there's a big piece here on this last page that talks about funding gap. So let's so

we should get through

the eye level these first couple

of things and then get to that. Okay. Alright. So over the days, I'm gonna continue those conversations there gave the space. CSH, I'm the consultant, will work on building membership to share information, but then also with the COC membership, 50 person members will also take the time to identify their interest as well so we can have alignment.

So that's so that's number one. And just for recognition, that is extremely critical because the shared study with those of your subject matter experts, and we also have information around our gaps analysis that rest with the unit, and there's a lot of similar similarities. And so we wanna allow the ninety days to work with CSH to come back and present a plan where we can do predictably wrap up the rules around investing. The next piece is if we can go that one slide. This is this is a big component of the work as it relates to working with the COC to modify our existing collaborative applicant, MOU, to also have it to be the collaborative applicant as well as lead.

HUD has told us that they go together. If the county is gonna continue as collaborative applicant, then also it is the lead agency. What does lead agency mean? What that means is big picture, the strategies, collaborative work, the policy adherence awareness that takes place with that lead agency. And so we desire to get a lab, MOU acknowledging that by the March 31.

That then, would be reviewed by staff. We would have recommendations. Some, there's a preview we will share to have commissioners, to move forward. We're gonna get their their their pleasure on pause, but a recognition is that by the thirty first, we do wanna draft MOU, from from NC 504 to then do the things that you see that are highlighted and circled in red here. Sherry and her team are doing a good job with funding and monitoring, but we're talking about rated funding across jurisdictions and, like, specific measures, contract management, and monitoring will require a lot of work.

Strategic planning and continuous quality improvement, data management work, and we're thinking about the six work streams in this reference. Having well plus partners for each work stream committee provided this task force feedback as it relates to text and recommendations, that's a lot of facilitators work. And so we want to acknowledge that the existing staffing status does not rest in in in their ability to to perform in the. I would hope that we can also serve you. We've been living clearly several years around that gap analysis how we should move forward, how do we have a ease to help us to execute.

It goes along with, miss Pernida, as you stated, the heart and the passion and the call to action. There there needs to be some things that's being to succeed in this process. And so with that being said, if we can go to the next slide, we do need, some alignment from the task force and some conversation as it relates to if this task force as well as this the COC can find alignment, what does it look like in the region? And what does this governing body do as it relates to the order that needs further flushing down? As we move forward in in closure, we want to acknowledge an initial proposal as it relates to staff.

At this point in time, what we recognize is is that to do this well, to do the collaborative applicant function and lead agency role, which means an annual NOFO ESG funding plan, monitoring those funding responsibilities, as well as looking at facilitating the strategies, across the new county based on what we're looking at today. There is a request for three additional positions, a director level position you see at the top, and then also two continual care specialists to help facilitate the various programs. With that being said, we do receive, federal funding of a 177,000. If you get out of, FY '26 where we have some remaining ARPA dollars, we're looking at a need of $602,000 since the same mistake. It it would be rather new for with the facilitative process.

That total cost of conditions, is it at the top of the grade? So where is it in that?

That is that is mid grade. That's the mid. Mhmm. To to allow a space to to say to someone they're gonna get qualified. Mhmm. I mean, we're able to slot them before the next.

Yeah. This this right here in terms of being a proposal, as you said, I mean, it's it's showing the funding. I guess there's a conversation we have to have about how the local partners contribute towards that. In terms of next steps on that piece there, is there some conversation happening that staff level to at least think about what that looks like before that gets proposed to the governing bodies. Or or, I guess, the staff asking, is there any interest from the governing bodies to get on top of that?

Okay. And so the conversation is is really starting in here. If we recognize that the work stream that I just referenced to you and the strategic interest benefits everyone across across the county, then is there some some cost sharing in this between, the county as well as the opportunity. Yeah. And and so it's it's for awareness, at this moment. Yeah. Still needs to receive a revised Exactly. From from the COC. Yep. However, I I don't think that this would be too far off to to staff recommendation on how to to respond to the lead agency responsibility based on the need to to.

Thank thank you. And so so I appreciate you mentioning that. Sounds like it's probably premature for us to talk about that right here. As you said, there's some COC work to look and maybe some more staffing specialists. What what I throw in there before we transition from this is and and I know we're we're all trying to figure it out right now.

It's probably hard to put our finger on exactly what the federal government's gonna do that in a given time. But I it's it's not lost on me that we had a good doctor who presented to us back in September or whatever from I saying. Yes. Doctor Savage, fantastic presentation. He was very blunt when I asked him, you know, should this transition what what does that mean in terms of, you know, we're doing this work to align the strategy that before would have voted well in terms of getting federal support.

Now we're bringing government in place. I'm very curious if we pressure tested what this strategic plan you know, would would it pass muster at the federal level and, dare I say, even at the state level at this point because there's some movement there that pursuing that that's that's pretty pretty interesting. I I don't you know, we can't answer that here. Mhmm. But I think if COC is having some conversations, staff having some conversations, I think those factors have to be played into this because the sustainability of it all really matters.

Okay. Perfect. We're we're gonna transition as a transition, guess, it's not lost on me that there are so many folks volunteering in these spaces to help us move these conversations along. I didn't realize, Aaron, that they were asking me to be a part of those meetings. I feel like I should buy you a sandwich. Or something. But it's a public meeting, so I can't I can't offer you a beer. I I can't offer you something because I feel so bad for you. But we thank you for your volunteerism. You and everyone else from

the part of the COC, it means a ton to us. So thank you.

We we have on our agenda supposed to have a community foundation with Greg Greensboro. And we we've been looking around the room, and I don't think we see them right or around the room, anyone from the foundation. So, hopefully, we'll look forward to having them at some point in our future discussion. Nonetheless, we do have three organizations that will be here to have have some discussions with us. A lot of our time, we're gonna ask each of them to to maybe take about twelve minutes in total for us to to hear you present and have some q and a for it as well. It's somewhere between twelve and fifteen minutes probably, I'd say. It shows that we'll be able to get out of it on time. So with that, we'll pass the ball first to Brian Ross, executive director. I hope you

have any questions. Thank you, mayor Jefferson. Stand up and play. So you do. So I'm I'm the executive director of Opendoor. And first off, let me thank all of you for all the work that you have put into this. We do this on a daily basis, and it's it's a it's a lot to take on. So the fact that you're volunteering outside of your jobs and and civic duties that you're already doing, I really appreciate that. It's evident that you put a lot of work into it. The open door, what we're trying to do is, build a new facility right now.

We are at 400 North Centennial, and we've been there for thirty years. And the need has outgrown what we can do. When that building was built, we it was built to house, 12 to 15 people and feed 50 meals a day. Last year, we served a 130,000 meals through our soup kitchen, the father's statement, and we house over 450. The dean is just exploding.

And when you were talking earlier, there were so many things that came up that it just resonates with with me and RL. He's our operations director because we had a staff member this morning come to us and ask for a raise because her rent went from $700 a month to $1,100 a month in January. And she's like, well, I'm making now. I'm getting ready to get a. So I've got actual staff members that can lose their house because they're just not making it up to make up attendance.

So it is a a very difficult situation throughout Howard County and and really the country in general. What open doors is new facility would be, it's kind of got pigeonholed into we're we're calling it a day center, and it's actually far more than a day center. It is the shelter where we pick up everything off of Centennial and move it to an entire new facility. Initially, we've got Peter Freeman to help me do some drawings, and it would be 60,000 square feet. And it would be where people could come in, and we talked a lot about prices.

This is Garcia was talking about. Know, they would try and get help. When people are in those crisis situations, it's hard to make those good decisions, and and it's hard to take those next steps. So what we wanna do is be able to bring people in, collaborate with other organizations right now where we've already talked to 20 other funding and service organizations. We hope to partner with and have a turnkey facility where people can come in.

And if it's as simple as getting a haircut, washing your clothes, and charging yourself, It's a proven fact that you can give people clean and healthy, the chances of doing any of homeless drops about seventy five percent. So what we're going to do is have those services, which technically are based in our services. But I'm looking at a a three phased approach. I've spoken with commissioner and about it, with mister Ferguson. And we've we've had many discussions about, what can we do to help the most people in the quickest way possible.

What we're wanting to do is have a campus approach and have the the open door facility be in Cornerstone where people can get those services built, have the anything you need. I mean, we've talked to Adrian Health, Bethany Medical to have health fees. We've talked to police department about potentially having an office there, not a not a substation, but just a office where there could be police officers there, so it is safe, secure, and other collaborative services for that. And it would be the cornerstone and have the food pantry because most of the places we're looking in in this that I passed out, feel free to look through it. I was gonna go through it line by line, but just due to time and a lot of the things I won't touch on is a little broader.

But what we could do is if we can get that facility going, and then I wanna do smaller transitional houses where we can set people back and go, okay. We we either got you off the street or you're in a situation where you need you just need that help up for temporary assistance. Have smaller temporary houses that are transitional houses, maybe three to six months where people would pay a very minimal amount, even $50, a $100, just so they've got some skin in the game. They get used to paying bills. They're getting back on their feet.

And then I would like to have enough property to build some affordable housing on the on the same property. So that way, Opendoor is kind of the key the the keystone there where people can come get those services they need on a daily basis and then have, affordable housing that could be up to twenty four to thirty six months to help people get on their feet and then make for long term sustainability. It's a very big vision. I've been around the country to 11 different day centers. I've worked into Texas, have a the way they have been approaching homelessness has been outstanding.

I know some of you are aware of what they've done. They've got homelessness about 53% in the state. What we would like to do is in a simpler model. And then as far as 10 cities, there's a lot of and this is hard for me to understand, and I and I work at it every day, so I'm sure a lot of you really don't understand it either, is there the 10 cities, there's a lot of people that just don't wanna live in houses. And it's hard for me to rent my rent. Why would you not want to at least have some kind of housing? But they like living that way. It's and some people are we've had second and third generation people that live in tents. And so that's just how they it's their comfort zone. I understand.

I was in city government for sixteen years. I was the city manager. I'm an accounting manager. So I I understand a lot of the roles that you you play called. Just from the government perspective, you don't really want tent cities all around just because there's a there's a health and safety issue with that as well as on the business side, it it hurts the business.

What I would like to do is get a that we could mark off, you know, three, four acres and make our own tent area. And that has been successful around the country as well in a couple of different places where you can have you you you allow the tent city there. They still got the resource to go somewhere like open door. They would have the medical resources where we work with others. We would have safety, security there. The food would be there. Everything that we can do to provide the help that the people need, if they still live the way they want to. And it's not out of the community, and it's not spreading. It's not creating eyesore. We can give it clean.

And that was something that we're we would really like to look into. So it's really a a three three pronged approach, three phases that I really like to do. The this overall facility, if you flip through just some of if you go to page four, Guilford County has the seventh highest eviction rate in the in the state, and the the housing is a problem. A homeless shelter is a Band Aid fix. I I do it every day.

I would love to say that, you know, that is, you know, the the solution. It's not because if you come to open door, if you stay thirty days, sixty days, if we put you back out on the street, you're and you can go back to being homeless. All we've got is gonna rip out your head thirty or sixty days. So we're looking at a holistic way to try to keep people from ever entering homelessness, which is through we talked to, Gilford Tech and Davis Community about doing job readiness training. So I I've reached out for a lot of people, lots of entities.

Everyone wants to be involved. The location right now is our biggest our biggest issue because people are like, well, until we know where it's gonna be, we can't really commit to anything. We won't partner, but we just wanna know where it is. The services that will be provided is on page eight. Also, you once we start looking at the crime statistics, a lot of the crime that we have, we feel like that in in most communities, a facility like Opendoor, if we do have that police presence that will be there as well as people feeling like it is a safe, secure environment, we will cut back on crime.

We will also go into those areas that have a food desert. I think we have a significant food desert. There's probably Guilford County that are pretty significant that we would be able to address a the needs in a very holistic approach. You go through our our theory of change about how we're going to go about all of this. There has been a lot of time, effort, and manpower put into into this vision, and it is going to make Guilford County as a a whole a basically, a beacon of how to approach homelessness in a in a manner that we can make the country a a significantly better place.

Right now, I'm gonna wrap up. And if you got any questions, I'll be around afterwards or however we do question and answer. Right now, we have raised $8,000,000. I talked to a couple of funders that I'm thinking right now we're around about a million to $11,000,000 mark if we if we had tapped in and we knew where the location was before we start funding. We can get to 20,000,000, and that gives us five, three to five years of operating cost as well for long term sustainability because, again, we're not looking at this to just be a one year, two year thing.

We're looking forty years down the road to make sure we can make this successful and make a true impact on Gilbert County as a whole.

Mister Roth, thank you so much. Any any questions?

It does.

So, yeah, the that includes city money, county money, federal money, some additional funds, then we have commitments from other other areas.

And we we we didn't miss that part. And any other comments or questions from the task force?

Is this strictly a male facility? So no.

We are building right now with the the so any services would be for anyone. The shelter itself, and we're looking at a 150 beds right now, would be four men, but we have designed it. If you look on the back page of the design, on page fifteen, sixteen, the way we have drawn it out is we have the capability of taking women and families if we get to the point we because right now, Western Ministries does a fantastic job, but they only have twenty minutes. There's far more than 20 homeless students. So we have designed the building.

And if you look at it, we've got it so we can wall it off and make sure that we can take women, children, families if we need to. And and we will need to, obviously. We're we're doing d two, but I'm prefacing that because I don't want step on codes of organizations that currently are doing. Yeah. We we are.

But but In I hear we're on 21 acres. It's for the facility itself, just the and you just said we're the open door, the shelter, food pantry, those things, we need about five. To put a 60,000 square foot building and do that. To do my long term vision of, say, the transitional housing, the affordable housing that we would work with the city and the county on, do the the, know, the tent area, those kind of things, it we're gonna be significant about that. I mean, it would be ten, fifteen, 20 acres to do that.

And that's that's where it does get complicated. I have spoken to some builders about building. I know we did that thing up earlier about talking to builders about building affordable housing. There is interest there if they could partner with with Opendoor and the city and the county to that and which Fairmont, Greensboro and. That's not just I'm not looking at this Yeah. As a facility. This is Lake County.

Let's take two more questions so so we can respect everyone's time here. Also, if you don't mind speaking up so our folks online can hear it. Who who else had a question?

You answer some of that. I just wanna clarify. So the day center services, will that be advertised that not just being income, that women? Yes. So that will not and then your transitional services here is tiny house thing. Will that really I mean, I know you traditionally would like to stand up there and show us for that. So it'll be open to ten minutes. So that

We're we're looking at that as we're looking at this, obviously, long term. We are traditionally been a men sheltered. And, initially, it would just be men as of right now. Now depending on how this builds out over the next couple of years, it would we couldn't change that into women and families, but we're building with the vision that that needs to be out there, and we're going to approach it. The right now, the only thing and I think a lot of people don't realize this.

The only thing that Opendoor does that is only men is the shelter. Every other service we offer is for men, women, families, anybody that comes. Our purpose is for the food pantry, soup kitchen, any of those kind of things are all for anyone in

the community. Final question. I saw another hand go up. Anyone else? Okay. Feel free to see Ryan Hoff afterwards. He has nowhere else to go tonight.

Thank you all. I appreciate that. Ryan, thank you.

We we're gonna adjust just a tad bit. Forgive me. We we found out someone's got a time constraint here. We're gonna go ahead and hear from Abby Gossling, who's a Durham County special projects manager on Lee Stafford and Gibson Park Recovery Services update. Abby?

Yes. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and provide some updates on these projects. If I can get the slides up or if I need to share them myself. Loading for me. Okay. Great. So, yes, I'm Abby Gosling, manager of special projects in the county manager's office, and I'm gonna provide you an update with two projects today. So next slide. We have two big residential recovery projects going on in the county right now.

That is the adult residential recovery services project. You may have heard that referred to as the Lee's Chapel project, And then the pregnant and parenting women's residential recovery project, and that you may have referred to as the Gibson Park project. So there is some overlap between these projects as the adult residential services currently being provided at the Gibson Park facility that will be moved to Lee's Chapel, and then the pregnant and parenting women service will come into that facility. So that can get a little confusing between the two, but I'm gonna talk about both today. So let's start by talking about the adult residential recovery services, that Lee's Chapel project.

So zooming back to a high level on this project, next slide please, yeah. So the project purpose, really what we're looking at this project is a holistic view as part of our behavioral health strategy in the county to improve the continuum of care for behavioral health services, and in this specifically residential recovery services. And that includes providing low barrier access, short term and long term beds, and in connection with wraparound services as part of that service delivery. And so one of the key pieces of that they wanna highlight too is that long term bed. This is a current services, but that long term bed piece is an expansion that's part of this project.

So I'll talk about that a little bit more, but high level project purpose what we're looking at. And then if we go to the next slide, we are looking to address that purpose with three big goals on this project, and that breaks down into two activities. So our goals are to provide 40 beds for men and women in need short term residential care, and that's up to ninety days of service. And then 14 beds for men and women in long term residential care. So that's up to eighteen months of service, and that's for some people with some more moderate to higher residential service needs so they can stay in that facility for a longer period of time.

And then that final goal is to provide that low barrier piece, so is a big part of that is Medicaid assisted treatment, which we know is an evidence based practice and making sure that that is a part of this residential services as well. So as we look at those two activities, I did mention Daymark is our current service provider for adult residential services in the Gibson Park facility currently. And so one of these activities is expanding their current service offering to include that Medicaid assisted treatment and to bring online those long term beds. And then the second activity on this project is the Lee's Chapel site renovation to bring that facility up to code and up to licensure requirements to move those services over to that new facility. So let me talk about where we are on those activities.

So just yes.

One step. Before we

transition, So two task forces relative to our participants today. Just wanna frame a clarification. When we start talking about residential recovery, the long standing Gibson work program, we took the time to really sample and survey the participants. Some things that we recognize as it relates to the correlation between being on house is that people that came in first would say that I would have came in sooner if it was a local barrier due to me being unhoused if we had an MBT program. And so when we start thinking about street outreach work and and why is it relevant today, there is a need to make sure that when we meet individuals at their most vulnerable state, being unhoused and then also, needing and exploring recovery, that we can also have humanities.

So there was an expansion in this based on the initial conversation around how do we support our full system. The other thing is the original ninety day program. We took the time to evaluate participants as it relates to where they were transitioning to, and a great number expressed that they do not have a housing plan, which is also designed from from the direction of the board to create that eighteen month program. And so a recognition that why is it relevant to this space is because of the correlation between recovery and also security and making sure that we have a really comprehensive system, particularly for for our next. Not saying that all of an announced we need recovery, but a recognition that when we have this gap, it is a it is extremely impactful and challenging for us all.

And I wanted to add that in that information, we also find that folks that were going into recovery,

Perfect. Thank you all. Abby, we'll pass it back to you.

Sounds good. Thank you, Victor and Troy, for that additional context. That's really important. So let's move to the next slide. So addressing that first activity on the project, that MAT expansion and those long term beds that Victor just talked about, the Guilford Board of Commissioners did authorize funding in both f y twenty four partially and then fully in f y twenty five to allow Daymark to utilize MAT in their program, to have the funding for that, and to bring those 16 beds in the facility online.

And so those get two big green check marks. That's an activity that we've been able to make some quick moves on in this project. And so then we move to the next part of the project, that facility upfit, and this is sort of the longer term piece of this project. So next slide, please. As we look at that Lee's Chapel facility, renovation to get that up to co compliance and licensure requirement, that scope of work involves things like a kitchen expansion, increasing some flex space for group therapy, intake and exam rooms, nurses' station, and some basic core functions of the facility like ADA bathrooms, the sprinkler system needed some work, fire alarm, roof replacement, things like that to really make sure this is a a good facility and we're providing quality spaces for this service.

So that is about a 5,400,000.0 renovation budget for that project, and that's the scope of work we're looking at. So next slide, please. Where are we in that process? The county purchased the facility in September 2023 and immediately kicked off some community engagement work with the neighborhoods and the school and other communities around that facility, and also went through a rezoning process. That community engagement is really important.

We made a commitment as the county to be a good neighbor in that new space from the get go. We then entered into an RFQ for design build team and ultimately selected Bloom for the project. That was in late March. And Bloom went through with their design subcontractor through the design process, and that works hand in hand with state licensure on the construction section through various submittals to make sure that the plans and facility are up to the licensure standards. Then Bloom was able to, in November, go out to bid for subcontractors on the project and ultimately develop a guaranteed max price, which was approved by the county board of commissioners in early February.

So that was a big step, and now we are moving into the construction phase of the facility. So that's where we've come from, and I'll talk just a little bit more about next steps. So next slide, please. Like I said, we are now entering into construction phase, so that's a really exciting milestone. We have gone through this design process to see what's needed and through that licensure conversations, and we get boots on the ground.

So Bloom is actually mobilizing on-site this week, so it's a great time to be having this update. Demolition begins next week, and the construction process will take us until early September. We expect the building to be ready for those final inspections and licensure's approvals in early September. Once those approvals come through, all inspections are complete. The building will then be made move in ready with furniture and all the pieces that need to go in there, and the target for that is the September.

And that will allow us then do a building grand opening and start day mark services at the new facility. So that's the update for the Lee's Chapel, the adult residential services. I can pause here if there's any questions about that program specifically. Otherwise, I'll jump into the pregnant and parenting project.

Why don't you go ahead and jump straight in just so we can make sure you have enough time.

Sounds great. Okay. So the Pregnant and Parenting Women's Project, this is the new service for the county that will be moving into that Gibson Park facility when the adult services move out. And so again, scaling back, looking at the broader purpose of this, we identified that there was a gap in the Guilford County community specifically for residential services for pregnant and parenting women. So women seeking these services were needing to go out of their community, away from their support systems, and away from their children's support systems to receive services, and it's really impacting access and outcomes of services.

So really filling that gap in our community, again, like this other project, improving that continuum of care of these services in our community, and then looking to hopefully improve some community metrics around substance recovery outcomes, birth outcomes, children in foster care, a lot of these intersecting things that get tied in with pregnant and parenting women in recovery. So let's then go a level down and look at the goals and activities on this project. So again, three main goals. This is focused around approximately 28 beds for that pregnant, teen, and parenting population. We also wanna make sure this service is low barrier, so including things like that MAT, induction and maintenance, and then making sure that there really is the ability for women to bring their dependent children to enter residential treatment with their children and for both the moms and the children to receive the appropriate care and wraparound supports.

So the two core activities here are program development and facility preparation. And program development is because this is a new service, there is a more work than on the adult residential service done to be able to figure out what this program looks like for our community. And so a big part of that is a our Guilford County Commissioners have developed a board subcommittee specifically for thinking about how this program can look and run-in our community. They have done extensive work engaging community stakeholders. We are looking to do more work engaging people with lived experience and also being able to bring a program service provider on board to make sure we're closely tailoring those services.

So I'll talk a little bit more about that in a minute, but that other core activity is facility preparation. So again, a new facility, new services means new needs in that facility, so how do we upfit that space to make sure it's closely tailored to this specific service line? So like I said, let me jump in a little more detail on each of those two activities and what work has been done. So next slide. On the program development piece, like I said, it's the all looking back all the way to 2022, this need and gap in the community was identified, and the board acknowledged that through allocation of some of their ARPA funds to the creation of this service line in the community.

Staff and county leadership were able to spend a lot of time exploring other services like this in the state and see how they're doing it and also explore what facility options were available in our community. I mentioned that board subcommittee, so I'll just highlight them again that Guilford County Commissioners created that board subcommittee chaired by commissioner Cashin to really lead this effort from a board level, and that subcommittee was able to select Gibson Park to be the location for these services. They then also put a lot of work into creating a community stakeholder group and convened kicked off the convening of that stakeholder group in March 2024. We also knew from our adult residential program that it was really important for us to have a service provider on board early in the process to help guide this process of program development and facility development and bring that subject matter expertise. So we went out bid for a service provider and ultimately selected Volunteers of America of the Carolinas to be our service provider.

And over the past several months, they have been working on recruiting two director positions that will be our local program leaders who are excited that those positions were both onboarded in the past month and then doing a lot of work to prepare for additional community engagement around program design. So next slide, please. On the facility process, this has started a little more recently, but, like, couple of those two key pieces, the selection of the Gibson Park facility and then the selection of the service provider. Those two pieces needed to get put in place before we're able to initiate sort of the facility upfit needs. But over the past several months, we have initiated those conversations with county leadership and with our service team to begin developing that scope of work, finalizing those needs and wants for the facility to implement their program model, and drafting some initial lines.

Just within the past month, we've been reviewing those drafted schematic designs with county leadership, with the subcommittee, and with some of our representatives from the state around licensure questions. And so that takes us up to where we are today on the facility. And so the last slide here is just what's next. So three core on the next slide, three big activities coming up on this project. Like I said, that board subcommittee continues to be really engaged in the development of this project and that stakeholder group.

So there is another subcommittee and stakeholder meeting in March. That community engagement process, like I said, diving a little deeper on engaging people with lived experience and really hearing the experiences and voices of the stakeholders and people in our community to closely tailor that program. So that work is kicking off and is ongoing. And then finalizing that scope of work on the facility upfit, getting all those last bits and pieces nailed down so that we can go out to bid for design services and begin walking through the construction licensure, submittals, and design process on that space. So those are sort of the big some of the big next steps.

And that is my last slide on this project, so I'm happy to take any questions that you have about the two projects. But if not, I really appreciate the time to give this update on these projects.

Thank you so much, Abby. Seeing our time here, we'll see if there's maybe two questions that might come from our group. Anyone have any questions? Okay. No questions. Abby, thank you so much for the presentation. Now at this time, we'll transition to Servant Center where we have Shannon Reese, executive director. Shannon?

Good evening.

Good evening.

First of

all, thank you for the invitation. I appreciate being here. Just two seconds on the Servant Center. We're a nonprofit in Greensboro. We've been around for over thirty years. We operate 21 bed transitional housing program for disabled veterans experiencing homelessness. We have 17 permanent supportive housing apartments. We operate a large rapid rehousing program. In last calendar year, we housed a 157 people. And we also do disability work for un- and underinsured folks, including those with that are experiencing homelessness. Okay.

Thank you. So

for those of you who have heard about this project, we've really had three goals for this project. One is to relocate our servant house program with the 21 veterans to give them their own bedrooms and bathrooms. One is to find space for our staff, who are working in doing disability claims and working with those experiencing homelessness. And then the third main goal was to use the 11 additional rooms to add 22 medical respite beds for the county, first ever medical respite program. And that will serve those folks that are experiencing homelessness that are in the hospitals that need a safe place to recover.

As we hear stories all the time, people in the hospital, they have nowhere to go, or those people who are living outside who need tests and other things done that they the doctors won't do it if they don't have a safe place

to recover once the test is complete.

Building update, we're about 40% complete. As of right now, the completion date's looking at the April, May. Potential threat is that there's a elevated part on back order. So waiting on that. Not sure when that's gonna get here. It's been on order for quite some time now. And then this afternoon, I ended up having a meeting with some environmental folks, and we have some mold issues, and that's the lead we're gonna have to deal with that we just discovered. So we're trying to figure out what that's gonna look like, how much all that's gonna cost. When the contractor got in the building started taking out drywall, we noticed there's some issues,

so we had a company come in

and do some testing. And as soon as I know more, I will certainly let you all know as well. The current budget or the budget, the original budget was $1,500,000 for renovation. We know that some drywall, of course, is gonna cost us more because we removed everything we saw that's a bolt on it. We need to replace some of the cast iron pipes, and we had to replace a three ton kitchen unit that we were hoping we didn't have too and some additional PTAC units.

Like I said, we had some extensive testing done. We don't have the final report yet, but we should have that in the next day or so. Some of the things we're gonna do to offset some of those costs is continue to fundraise. We got a gift of 25,000 from the Racor League. We're gonna use some of the equipment that's in our current servant house facility so we don't have to buy no equipment.

We think we have a donor for most of the paint. We're going to scale down the amount of flooring that we replaced. So we're doing what we can to kind of scale down some of the expenses to match whatever increases that we're gonna see as we continue to renovate. The committee work has gone fantastic. We recently added Karen Gammets from Atrium Health to the committee.

We have County on there, the Cone Health on there, a representative from the state of North Carolina, DHHS, city of Greensboro, and we're meeting every single month to put the program together. This is not the service center program. This is a community program. It's designed to meet community needs. It's designed to help the hospitals out as well. So we meet every single month. We have successfully come up with a set of goals that we're gonna be tracking, both health goals, housing goals, income goals that we'll be tracking as part of this project. Medical respite is really a medical program. The service center is really a housing agency, so we're gonna marry the two. We're gonna make sure housing is part of it.

We're committed to that. We've also developed a referral form, and everybody's kinda come to agreement about who's eligible and who would not be eligible for the program. And then right now, we're working through the National Institute of Medical Respite has a set of standards. You meet these standards, you can become accredited. And we want to be accredited because we wanna be the best.

So, right now, we're working through these standards so that we could put together a resident handbook and standard operating procedures to make sure we are complying with all the expectations of the National Institute. I'm rushing because I know what you're worried about. So as you all probably know, December, the federal government approved North Carolina's request for the waiver eleven fifteen. Big win for our state. Mhmm.

So now the ball is in the state, Stan. The state has to push this out to the community to identify regional leads. And once a regional lead is designed developed or chosen, they will have to push it down to the nonprofits and service providers that will be able to provide the services that have been approved. Medical respite is among those services that were approved to be provided. Again, a threat to this is the Medicaid funding.

I mean, we know that it's at risk right now. We don't know what's gonna happen, so we're keeping an eye on that. That is the sustainability plan for the medical respite. So we're nervous about it, but we're keeping on it. We're we're hopeful that everything will work out the way it's supposed to. I did reach out to the Piedmont Triad Council of Governments who I think will end up being the regional lead. I'm not sure, but about their next steps. So I'm hoping to know more about the timeline soon.

Any questions? Any any questions for Shana?

We've we've got some time here. So in case we don't have any thoughts or questions, feel free to share.

Shana, to clarify that the medical respite was not just anyone.

No. Medical respite is for male, female, anybody who's experiencing homelessness that has a medical issue that the MCOs would approve as a medical condition needing to have a short term stay at a facility, yeah, to recover.

And, Shanna, what what did you identify as being

the short term stay? What length of time are you talking about?

We don't identify that. The MCO will the medical the care agency, the care organization will identify that. So the doctor will recommend it. The MCO will approve the amount of time they think they need to recover. Our goal is to make sure before they leave, they have a housing plan in place, And we will continue to with them if they go back to shelter or the street or wherever they go until they get into housing. Yeah. We're committed to that.

Can I just say really quick? They do a great job, and what they do is very needed because Opendoor gets a lot of people out of the hospital, and they they have nowhere to go. And we just are not equipped to to deal with people that are are coming out of surgery or or some kind of serious accident. What they're doing is very needed. And so what everybody should appreciate what they do because the homeless people that that we deal with, we can't help them. It really doesn't do me any good if there's just been a shelter in the bed. So I appreciate what you

Well, there's a call that comes to the in within the system. Then, of course, obviously, I think everyone thinks that you called adult age agents and adult services, but they don't meet those criteria, so you have to meet certain criteria. And so being able to connect them in a place where they need to be supported because, again, Ryan's explained, but most shelters cannot the folks that have long over long term medical issues that need to be taken care of because often they have to leech. So having a medical resident will help support that need that we already have identified that were years ago, but I'm glad that we're pushing it for that

community. Nice.

I was just will this

be just for a dream girl, or, you know, you can come from Oh, no. This was yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. We've engaged, like I said, Adrian, and and is involved in the committee as well.

We wanna make sure we're covering the whole county.

Sure. And then I do have one quick announcement. Have have you all heard about the movie No Address? It is a movie about homelessness by Robert Craig. It's a national movie, and the Servant Center was selected as an agency that will be able to premiere that movie before its release, and that's tomorrow night at 06:30. You can go to the service center's website, get a free ticket. We have a sponsor and come preview that movie before it is out to the public. It's all about homelessness. It has stars in it. It is gonna be a way to sell the story nationally that I think could benefit every nonprofit doing this work, every government agency involved in this work.

It's it's very powerful. I've seen with. So I hope you all, if you can't come tomorrow night, come sometime and watch that movie when it when it's out.

Do you have free concessions?

Y'all. You've got any

answering tantalian around. That's what I'm Oh,

this is what I'm saying. There's time for you to get one. Yeah.

Y'all, we a couple of things. There there were some some thoughts that I wrote down. I wanna say, again, thank you to miss Garcia and miss Smith for you all speaking so so openly and really so pointedly in a way that I think a lot of us could understand it, and it resonated with us. Your comments about same resources being provided across the county as well as your experience with various agencies. I I I think most pieces landed.

We appreciate you doing that. Certainly heard the point here about incorporating the housing authority. I also heard the mayor's point about bringing builders to the table. Appreciate it. I know about blowing presentation on the housing supply. Actually, I'm gonna ask our team if that's something that we've set up for council. I think that would be really helpful. Eviction diversion, that actually is an ongoing discussion for us right now. It the the proposal came to us

to begin to look at it.

So thank you for that. Looking forward to the COC, bringing back from you all's discussion. Also, Marison, we heard you. The machinery is moving slowly, but people are being convicted every day. And I wrote that down as as the exact point that you said. So it's it's being heard as being landed, and I I think we're doing our best to move the needle here y'all. I wanna say a major thank you to everyone. To keep the work going, we do need to go ahead and set a new date. The tribe chairs have all checked our calendars. Wednesday, April 2.

If everyone will go ahead and just check what you've got. If you've got your calendar available, check now. While we know we can't always get 100%, we still need to get corn. So leave folks to check Wednesday, April 2 at 4PM. It'll be in Greensboro.

And let's check the Water Resources Conference Room.

I I just need to see around in the room or if there's anyone anything red flag needs to

be admired for over that date.

K. We'll ask miss Keller's team. By the way, you all do such an awesome job. It doesn't even say So so so April 2, if we can lock that in, if y'all mind giving us calendar invites, getting us set up, then we appreciate the city of Greensboro hosting us. Commissioner Cash, you you have a comment?

Yes. I do have a comment.

I did not comment earlier because I wanna be sure to give this a shout out for the time, but we just sort of

Liz

Shappel initiative, which commissioner Austin has been working on to. He may wanna say something because he knows if I get started on mine, it'll go on better. But So I'll I'll I'll I'm going to go to. But the Gibson Park services that we are working on in ten years is new. It will be a new service for pregnant women and women with children.

Well, they're responsible for who are ready housing that will be supportive of that. So you saw some of the benefits, but let's talk about side of that. And the part is between Greensboro and High Point, and, actually, that is, mister Mayo, High Point address.

Is is it in Goethe County?

It's in Goethe County. Okay. It's wrong. It's right in the center.

Yeah. And and commissioner Cashion, hearing hearing your points here, Abby told us the next steps are the board subcommittee meeting on March 25. This community engagement process that goes through May and then finalize the facility upfit scope of work. I think somewhere in there would be great for us to get another update here on how that's going. Maybe maybe after you all have finished the community engagement process, you think, that goes through May.

Then then then after that, maybe it'll be around that time, you get ready to release the RFQ for design services. Great. About. Yeah. Now I appreciate that. Look forward to those updates. And, also, note note that that that there is urgency. It is 05:59, and and you you you got thirty seconds. I'm sorry. Go ahead.

Can't wait till. You noticed the amazing work that's happening directly in the CSC. So much of our funding comes through that, and the funding right now is can be a big question mark.

Oh, absolutely.

So this group, our municipalities, our county should be ready to shift to put our thinking maps about what that's gonna work like.

Sorry. Just tell me. Was there any interest for the next meeting to be clear on current federal funding after

So Yeah. So that was brought up earlier when y'all were talking about us talking about funding. I I said we need to figure out what's happening at the federal level. So, yes, I I agree. Alright, team. It's it's right at 06:00. We're gonna go ahead and adjourn. Looking forward to seeing you on Wednesday, April 2, 4PM. Thank y'all so much.